Stampin' Sisters in Christ challenge 107...Wings

Happy Sunday stampers! It is time for another challenge from Stampin' Sisters in Christ, where our stamping challenges are based on scripture. This week's hostess is the uber-talented Chris, who selected this verse from Isaiah 40:31 "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles." Her challenge this week is for you to use something with wings and a biblical verse on your creation.

Our sponsor this week is Our Daily Bread Designs and one randomly selected winner will receive a $15 gift certificate to their store, so we're hoping you find a chance to play along!

Isaiah is a wonderful book in the bible and there are so many nuggets of wisdom hidden in its pages. I know Chris is going to have some great thoughts to share in her devotional on the home page at Stampin' Sisters in Christ.

Waiting . . . that's something we do a lot in this life, isn't it? Especially when the economy slows down. We wait to see if we're going to get a job in response to that resume we sent out. We wait to see if any customers will buy our products if we own our own business. We wait for a paycheck to be able to pay those bills that are themselves, waiting on the desk.

We wait for test results, wait for the light to change, wait for the rain to stop, wait for the phone to ring with that special call that is going to change our lives . . . when what we're really waiting for is God. We pray and wait for Him to answer. Then we get impatient when that answer doesn't seem to come quickly enough. Then, in our impatience, we act--and when it isn't in God's timing, that action is often premature. When we act or move on our own, we're depending on our wisdom, our strength, our timing and our plan. I have done this often enough to know that God's plan is so much better than my plan, because when I get impatient--and that happens often--it doesn't work out so well.

This verse promises that when we wait on the Lord, we will renew our strength . . .why? Is it because during that time of waiting we've had a nice rest or perhaps a glass of lemonade? No, it is because we are relying on God's strength, not our own. God's strength and wisdom is inexhaustible and immeasurable. If we wait upon the Lord, He will give us the strength we need to meet the next day, conquer the challenges that face us. And in the meantime while waiting for an answer, do what is right in front of you. Clean house, bake bread, write a friend, play with the kids, weed the garden, tend sheep--do whatever it is that lies in front of you--waiting doesn't mean life stops, it just means we don't run ahead of the Shepherd.

What seems to take a lot longer than nine months is waiting for a baby. I made two baby cards for this challenge because I have two nieces who both had babies this summer, born one month apart . I changed up the design on the second card because my husband liked it better, which do you like better? Sorry the photo is a bit washed out.

We look forward to seeing your creations with wings and a bible verse in our gallery this week. Thanks for looking, hope you can play along.

Stamps: Crafty Secrets, Our Daily Bread Designs, Waltzingmouse

Paper: white and random DP

Ink: black, versamark, pink kaleidacolor pad

Other: silver gel pen, edge punch, nestabilities, prismacolor pencils, glitter, ribbon, prima roses, PTI impression folder

Stampin' Sisters in Christ challenge 30 - Peaceful Sleeping Baby

Happy Sunday stampers! This week's challenge hostess at Stampin' Sisters in Christ is Helen P (for peace!), who also seems to like to change her name depending on the week. :) This week's inspiration verse is Psalm 29:11 "The Lord will give strength unto his people; the Lord will bless his people with peace." Helen's challenge is to make a card/lo/project using a peaceful image or a verse about peace. You can check out the rest of the amazing creations by the Design Team here. Whiff of Joy is our sponsor this week, one randomly chosen lucky winner will receive the stamp shown on our home page, I believe it is Willow reading a story. A very peaceful image.

I chose an image I've used before from Mo's Digital, that just seems so peaceful to me, you look at it and feel rested.
I made this baby card for a wonderfully talented woman who blesses us occasionally with her singing at our church, when she isn't traveling to perform. Recently she and her husband had a little baby boy, so although I do not know her personally, I am going to send this to the family to thank her for sharing her talents with us on Sundays. I was listening to one of her CDs while I worked. :)

She is from Trinidad-Tobago but her husband is not, so I tried my best to make a good color representation of their lovely baby. I need more practice at working darker skin tones, if anyone has any good tips for prisma colors that will help, I sure would appreciate it. I used a combination of three colors, with the darkest shade dark umber, although I need to have gone a few shades darker, just didn't know how.

A baby in its mother's arms (unless its hungry!) is at peace . . . and when we rest in our Father's arms we can experience that peace too, the type that 'passes all understanding." We have such a good God who wants only the best for us, including peace instead of worry, restful instead of restless minds. Pray and cast your cares upon Him so you can feel that peace and joy this week.

I just learned how to make a tent card this past week, isn't it a fun format? The little row of ducks and the corner stamp are from a Crafty Secrets set. Papers are Paper Studio I bought at Hobby Lobby layered on Spring Rain and Soft Stone from PTI, little strip of white velvet ribbon along the side and Martha Stewart lace border punch. Thanks for looking.

On the Waterfront . . . Virtual Stamp Night on SCS

Did you know it is Virtual Stamp Night weekend on Splitcoast Stampers? Check out the main thread here. There are challenges issued every hour. There were a few last night and there is a stellar lineup of challenges today, all focused on themes taken from the Winter Olympics. Maybe we couldn't go to Vancouver, but we can ink up our stamps and honor the Olympics and have some fun at the same time, while we make projects or cards!

The idea behind VSN is to complete a stamping challenge in 45 minutes, that is part of the fun. But as the challenge hostess for the 1:00 P.M. EST timeslot I got a bit carried away with my sample and please note, as one poster asked, I DID NOT make this in 45 minutes, not at all! But as the challenge hostess I get that privilege. I intend to use this card for my oldest daughter's birthday in April. She loved mermaids when she was small. I even made her and her younger sister mermaid tails out of fabric that they could wear in the bathtub so they could pretend to be mermaids. When I saw this new set being released by Crafty Secrets this January, I had to have it. And then I had to try to dress up my card as much as possible.

First I followed a technique I found in BadSherry's gallery on SCS to use Tim Holtz Ranger Distress inks to make a watercolor sort of background. Taking the ink pads, I swiped them across a sheet of wax paper, spritzed them with microsprayer to get the ink to bead up, then taking a piece of plain white cardstock, you lay it down on the wax paper on top of the colors. Lift it up, dry it off with a heat gun and then turning the paper, reink it on the wax paper again. If you use complementary colors they run and pool together nicely. I've used this technique before and thought it would make a wonderful background for the detailed mermaid stamp. I think I used peeled paint, two blues and a purple ink. Then taking an aquapainter, I used the green ink pad (peeled paint) to enhance the mermaid's tail a bit. I also overlaid a bit of watercolor wonder crayon in blush on the mermaid's arms and face.

The chiffon flowers I pulled from a tutorial several months ago on Priscilla Styles blog for Midnight Madness. I used three different ink color to brush on the chiffon so that the flowers would have a bit of a mottled look. When else do you get to play with fabric and fire on the same day? I edged the flowers with waterfall stickles. They take for-evah to dry.


Used a Martha Stewart branch punch to help enhance the flowers and buttons, coating them with Dazzling Diamonds glitter. Used a Sakura gelly roll silver pen for some detail enhancement on the main panel . . . and the rest is pretty self explanatory. Thanks for looking. Hope you get a chance to play along with VSN this weekend.

Abandon all taste ye who enter here . . .

Okay, maybe its not quite that bad, but the word that strikes me when I look at this card I made is . . . garish.

I think I need to lay off the gold glitter embossing powder for a while. Amazing how glitter works either for you or against you . . . I have a card in mind using these stamps in softer tones and I'll try that when I have time. The last card that I made using glitter in the post before this one turned out with a subtle shimmer which was what I wanted. (please look at that card, I like that one!) Perhaps it is the reflective DP . . . hmmmm. Anyway, I was anxious to enter a cool sketch challenge on the KL blog here. She is giving away a nice prize! And I wasn't sure I'd have time to stamp again before tomorrow, so here is my entry. Thanks for looking. You can take off your shades now.

Stamps: Crafty Secrets, Rubber Stamp Tapestry (sentiment)

Martha Stewart punch, randomly assorted and ill-begotten DP, pearls and buttons which would have been happier on another project.

Hopping for Heroes

Welcome to this stop on the Operation Write Home blog hop. You should have arrived here from Celeste's blog here. If you didn't start at the beginning of the hop, or you need an explanation of the purpose and goals of Operation Write Home, please click on the Own Home Front link. They welcome handmade cards of all types for our nation's heroes serving in our country's military and your cards are welcome too. For today's hop I have two cards for Any Hero, to thank them for their service to our country and a Valentine's Day card for a service member to use to send home to their favorite sweetheart. From my blog, you will travel to see Karen's creations, her link is at the bottom of this post.

For the top two cards, I made a sheet of polished stone, using gold craft, Brilliant Blue and Riding Hood Red dye ink. You can use just pieces of a polished stone sheet to accent a card.

The card on top uses Papertrey Ink's Quilter's Sampler. I like a versatile set that suits almost any occasion, depending on the colors and layout you choose. I alternated a white shimmery paper with the polished stone, punched out some stars using a cuttlebug die. The sentiment is from PTI's button bits set.

For the second card I traced a star and used it as a template to cut them out of the polished stone paper, mounted them on gold moire and pierced around them. The white swirly paper was just a fancy sheet I bought once at Archiver's and finally used.

The third card is for Valentine's Day. If you would like to make Valentine's Day cards for the service members to use to write home to loved ones, the deadline for receipt of these cards is January 8th. For that card I used a Crafty Secrets set called 'Cherish,' embossed in gold. Then I used some of the newer SU shimmer paint in champagne but mixed in a droplet of Pretty in Pink reinker to get a slightly pink tone, painted on vanilla cardstock. I embossed the Manhattan Die on vanilla, mounted the pieces on Pink Pirouette and paired it up with prima roses dipped in champagne shimmer paint, some PTI buttons and blush ribbon.

I don't know anyone personally that is serving in the military, however I am a first generation immigrant and heard enough stories from my dad about living in a repressive society to really appreciate the freedoms we have in this country. Freedom doesn't come without sacrifice, and a handmade card is such a small way to show our appreciation. Many thanks to all who serve and to their families.

Thanks for looking, enjoy hopping and Operation Write Home looks forward to receiving your cards for heroes.

For the next stop on this blog hop you will want to visit Karen's blog here. She has such a pretty smile and a fine stamping talent, check out her skills with Tombow markers.

Ladybug Rescue at the Tea Party!!!

The weather is warm on this estate in New York, but at least not as warm as Africa was last week! Whew!

The ladybugs are performing their own rescue from the Bug Thug as you can see, they have a net ready to spring on him as he is getting ready for our tea par-teee! As though anyone would invite a bug! They just bust into any outdoor gathering, you know how pushy they are.

Actually this is a very nice bug as you can see from his smile in the mirror and he probably is a good conversationalist too, so once the ladybugs realize their error and apologize and let him go, I think I'll chat with him as we sip our tea and eat our gluten free cookies.

I was pretty excited when I saw Mothermark's teapot challenge and Priscilla Styles' Midnight Madness sketch for this week because the idea for this card popped into my head right away. The layout for the sketch was perfect for the rescuing ladybugs!

The individual ladybugs are from an SU wheel, I rolled the wheel and then cut them individually. I wanted the ladybugs to look like buttons, so I colored them with copics and then added Crystal Effects glaze four times, drying inbetween, to give them a lot of dimension. The central image and the required side pieces for the sketch are both images from a Crafty Secrets set. I just love the images, they remind me of drawings from old books my mother had when she was a girl, or the illustrations from the original copies of the Wizard of Oz books. The other bugs I painted with reinkers, I have no idea whose paper I used and the rest is . . . there. :)

Also, if you click on the link for the Midnight Madness sketch challenge, you'll see my name there, I won some goodies from Seven Kids College Fund from last week's sketch. Thank you so much! I appreciate it greatly. Random draw, anyone can win who plays the sketch, so think about it!

Thanks for looking.