Heartfelt Creations Alumni Design Team Blog Hop

Good morning, dear friends, new friends and old!  I hope you are having a wonderful week so far, even though it's only Tuesday, and we have a ways to go...  Welcome to the February 2012 Heartfelt Creations Alumni Design Team Blog Hop! 


There is a $25 gift certificate from Heartfelt Creations up for grabs, so definitely leave some love for each of the talented designers participating in this blog hop!  The hop will remain open for comments on each designer's blog through midnight Friday night,
March 2.  The winner will be posted here and on the member's blogs who are able to post, by noon on Saturday, March 3.

You should have arrived here from Marsha's most excellent blog where she has posted her beautiful project.  Next in line after me is Linda, and she has a gorgeous creation to share with you.  Here is the order of the hop:

Olga Jewell  http://craftieodamae.blogspot.com
Selma Stevenson http://selmasstampingcorner.blogspot.com
Carla Suto  http://carlasstampingspot.blogspot.com
Marsha Sanderlin  http://stampingdownsouth.blogspot.com
Clare Curcio  http://clarespaperworks.blogspot.com  YOU ARE HERE!  :)
Linda Payne  http://paynehollercards.blogspot.com

Easter is right around the corner, and I love these two colors together for a elegant and soft-looking layout.  I used each of the cross dies in the Spellbinders Cross Collection dieset, and layered them on top of the Heartfelt Creations HCD 719 Cross & Lilies Diecut set.  The white image stamped and heat embossed in white on the blue is from the HCPC 3365 Decorative Vintage Cross Precut Set.  The very background is the HCPC 3367 Vintage Life Background Precut Set embossed in a white and blue embossing powder mixture that I made to match the cardstock. 

Linda's blog is next and you can travel there by clicking HERE!


Here is a complete list of products used in my card.


Heartfelt Creations -
HCPC 3367 Vintage Life Background Precut Set
HCPC 3365 Decorative Vintage Cross Precut Set
HCD 719 Cross & Lilies Diecut Set


Other -
Wrights Designer Classic 3/8" white ribbon - Flower Dobby
Martha Stewart Border Punch - Vintage Lace
Zva Pearls
Prima Roses
Light Blue embossing powder
Stampin' Up - cardstock, Whisper White & Cool Caribbean
                     Craft inkpad in white
Spellbinders - Classic Petal Borderabilities
                     Grand Labels Twenty-three
                     Nested Oval Medallion Labels
                     Cross Collection


Thank you for visiting, and good luck in the drawing!  Please feel free to leave a comment below!  I love hearing from you!

Poppy Get Well

 

Hello, dear friends!  This card was sooo fun to make!  I took a Copic class in Knoxville, TN, last year, and I love 'em!  I pick up one or two a month with my Hobby Lobby coupons.  I love doing the shading!    I love the simpleness of the poppy stamp on the front from Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps, and the one inside from Gina K Designs.  From the same set, I used the "Praying for you" sentiment, and the larger verse on the inside is called May God Meet You from Stampabilities.

I stamped the poppy image in Versamark ink and used black embossing powder then heated.  It is so neat the way the color doesn't bleed into other areas past the embossing if you don't hold the marker there too long.  These remind me of the poppy fields in the movie, The Wizard of Oz.  I'm getting sleepy, sleepy...  The black patterned cardstock is from a DCWV 'The Black Currant Stack', and all other solid colors are from Stampin' Up.  The edge punch is called "Lace Border" from Fiskars.  I used trimmings from the border punch for all of the borders - positive and negative. 

The inside of the card

The black marker is from Stampin' Up.  The Copic markers I used on the poppies are G82 Spring Dim Green, G28 Ocean Green, C1 Cool Gray No. 1, BG72 Ice Ocean, R29 Lipstick Red, R39 Garnet, R59 Cardinal and R35 Coral.

Condolences - RRR42

Hello, friends!  So many of us have lost a loved one, and remember the grief we felt, and still feel at times.  It's strange that we cannot remember physical pain that we may have experienced but emotional pain can come upon us like a shower of rain. And sometimes, feels like it's just as strong!  I don't remember the pain that I felt in child-birth, right after shoulder surgery, "moon time" cramps, etc.  I don't like feeling grief, but it's a necessary part of life, in order to remember the love we felt, too!  Do you ever wonder how God  made us to "feel" emotions so strongly in our hearts, literally in our chests, that can ache so very much, when our emotions come from our minds?  He is so deep, mysterious and great that we cannot fathom some of what God does or has done!  That's what makes us completely "human", and because of that limitation, some will never be able to comprehend all that Jesus has done for us!  Why is it so hard to get our minds wrapped around His gift of salvation, love and grace?  Is it because we are so "human", endowed with limitations?  I know I don't deserve it, and there's nothing I can do to earn it.  I believe that we will see the whole picture when God reveals it to us, like opening a curtain on our lives, with the brightness of the sun illuminating everything, and our questions will be answered in the blink of an eye, when we finally reach our home in heaven!  Anyway, that's what I hope for, and without hope, this world we live in wouldn't be livable!  He is preparing a room for us, and I hope mine has a huge picture window on one wall!

"No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what

God has prepared for those who love Him"-

1 Cor 2:9

I used a rose stamp from the Justrite Stampers set In Sympathy, and another fantastic die cut that my friend, Donna, sent me.  The background paper is from DCWV - I've always liked pink and black, but this pink and brown are beautiful together.  I used Copics to color the main image and touch up the butterflies on the background.  The striped paper is from Memory Box.  I'll be glad to give you a complete list of products used if you'll just email me at muttpuddles@comcast.net.
 

The pearls were white and from Zva.  I used my Copics to shade them pink.  The butterfly was cut from a sheet of printed butterflies that I purchased, and they are all done to make a 3-D flutterby.

The inside of the card.

I hope you are staying safe, warm and happy!  I'm still waiting for snow!  Frost has come and tried to claim the lives of my daffodils, but they are still hanging in there, although they are looking at the ground!  Still beautiful!

I pray that God will hold you in His arms, with comfort, compassion and love.  May He do it through another person even.  May you and your family be safe, healthy and prosperous.  I pray that Jesus will guide you through the dark forests of life and bring you out through the other side to sunny days!  Don't give up and turn back!  Keep putting one foot in front of the other, and you'll get through the forest! 

"Do not let your hearts be troubled.  Trust in God, trust also in me.

2 In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have

told you.  I am going there to prepare a place for you.  3 And if I go

and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be

with me that you may also know where I am.  4 You know

the way to the place where I am going."

John 14:1-4

Thanks so much for taking the time to visit!  I appreciate each of you, and I hope you'll take a moment to comment on what you feel or think about anything you'd like!  I'd love to get to know you better, and I won't share with anyone else if you'd like to email me.

May God bless you all!

Run!

Run for your life!  Have you ever stood outside, and a bee comes along, and flies around you, or tries to land on you, and won't go away?  I've had that happen in the summer when I was wearing a certain cologne from Avon, and it smelled just like roses.  I've been stung a few times, but never by a bumblebee or wasp, just honey bees.  I've never been chased by a swarm either, knock on wood!  I'd like to hear your story of any relationship you've had with a bee, ant, wasp or anything else that bites.  I've been bitten by ants and a horsefly and I don't know which is worse!  If your experience was a terrible one, then I apologize for bringing it back to mind! 

I love this digi-image from Nicecrane Designs!  These sweet little cherubs are bringing flowers to someone, and are needing to run from the swarm!  This image was a lot of fun to color using my Copic markers and glitter!  I'm using glitter more and more and like it!  I think I usually wear more than I apply to paper, but truth be told, Mike likes me sparkly!  lol

The bee stamps are from Judith, and they are two separate "Stubbies", one large, one small.  Since stamping them normally would have had them flying in the opposite direction, I had to figure out how to flip the images.  I used a black marker, and colored only the bee's body without the wings, and stamped the image upside down.  I had to hand-draw the wings on.  If I had stamped them normally, the bee's would have been flying upside down in order to chase the "girls".  That's something I would like to see more of in stamps - the ability to order a stamp's mirror image, unless you have an idea or suggestion on how we can do it easily without a separate stamp.  I'd love to hear your suggestions on this!

The background cardstock was embossed using my Cuttlebug and a Cuttlebug embossing folder called Floral Fantasy.  I used a sanding block to take some of the top layer of the cs off to show the white core.  Cardstock is from a DCWV stack.  The sentiment stamp is from the Justrite set 'With Sympathy', and the border punch is Martha Stewart's.  The sentiment was cut out using a Spellbinders Labels Twenty die, and colored in with a sponge dauber and SU's Daffodil Delight classic inkpad.  The white cs is from SU.

Thank you for visiting, and I love to hear from you, so please leave a little note!  Before you leave, I wanted to share with you a photo of my backyard flower box!  Way too early, but beautiful!  The first one actually bloomed on January 29!  We have had such a mild winter - no snow and mild temperatures!