A Little Oriental Boy & Flower Tutorial

Hello!

I love the little Oriental Girl stamps and so I was very excited to find this new little Oriental Boy stamp! He is so cute! I used SU Black and Whisper White CS and Raspberry Tart DP to make the card.

To make the flowers, I first punched a large 5-petal flower and then with a pencil I marked each petal with a center mark about a 1/4 inch from the edge.



Then using the SU 1/4 " punch I made a half circle punch at the end of each of the petals.




Using SU watercolor pencils, I colored around the edges of each petal and then blended with a blender pen.

Then added dots with a SU Black marker.

Pressed each petal over a pencil to make it rounded.

Punched out, colored and blended a small 5-petal flower and using a glue dot I added it to the center of the large flower.

Thank you for stopping by! E-mail me if you have any questions.

Wishing you a nice Monday!

Barbara Diane

Jim's Moon

Hello!

My oldest son Jim lives in a group home. He loves and collects stuffed animals. When I made the Odessa doll, he liked the moon so much that I made one for him to hang on his wall that could hold his small stuffed animals on display.

Here are some of the photos of "Mr. Moon" sharing the spotlight with some of Jim's collection of small stuffed animals. :<)

Thank you for stopping by today!

Barbara Diane

Doodle Dots

Hello!

Lots of doodle dots on today's card!



Wishing you a great Saturday!

Barbara Diane

A Fall Card

Hello Again!

Having just received my order from SU with the new fall and holiday DP I had to make a card using one of them!

This card was made using the Autumn Traditions DP.

Thank you for stopping by! Wishing you a good day today!

Barbara Diane

Information Requested

The dragon and castle stamps are by Inkadinkado and I purchased them at Michael's.


Thank youi for asking! If you have a problem finding them, let me know.

Barbara Diane

A Couple of Butterflies

Hello!

A couple of butterflies today. The little turtle keeping his eye on them is a creation of my friend Maureen Carlson. Does he want to make friends or does he have something more devious in mind? Nahh, he is to sweet - look at that face! :<)

You can visit Maureen's website at http://www.weefolk.com/

Thank you for stopping by today! It is a very rainy and dark morning here in WI today - Fall is on it's way and school will be starting nex week already! Wishing you a good one!

Barbara Diane

A Dragon and A Castle - 20 Years

Hello!

My son Troy's birthday is soon and I wanted to make him a special birthday card.

Troy had made this wonderful cross-stitch for me some years ago, which I love, and it has always hung on my bedroom wall. The actual stitching itself is quite large - measuring 12 x 15 - and he worked on this project for many months. The workmanship is excellent - it is beautifully done. I know that to part with this and give it to me was an act of love, as was the making of it. It is very special to me.

When I saw this great dragon stamp - AND a castle stamp - both on the same day and in the same store - I knew this was to be the card!

I purchased the stamps without a glance at the price and hurried home to begin working on the card. Before I began, I wanted to take a photo of Troy's original artwork to have at my work table to use as my guide. After taking the photo I saw that Troy had stitched the date by his initials. I have poor eyesight now in my old age, so I could not tell by just looking at it what it said. So I put on my glasses, took it off the wall and under a bright light and - 1989! Troy had made this 20 years ago! I was in shock! But here is the proof!

After recovering from my shock and accepting that time does indeed march on - needless of what we would like - I started to work on the card. Here is the result. I was pleased with the results and hope that he likes it.

When attaching the dragon and the castle to the card, I did not use dimensionals as it would have raised them too high and I was afraid they would be damaged. I did not want to glue it flat either, as the detail would be lost. I used Snail on the main body of the dragon and the castle and let the edges free. The tail is completely unattached as I wanted it to curl around the castle.

This little guy is a monk that I made around the same time period and he has a special meaning in my connection to my son Troy during that time period, as we shared the love of cross-stitch and working with the polymer clay, as well as our love of the fantasy world.

Troy lives in NH - a very long way from WI - so I will be mailing the card to him today. I hope that he likes it.

Happy Birthday Troy!

Thank you for stopping by today!

Barbara Diane

Eighty - That's 80 - Butterflies!

Hello!

I love butterflies! Many of my stamp sets have butterflies and it is a guarantee that I will want(purchase) a set if it has them! :<} The SU set Flight of the Butterflies is one of my favorites and it includes an outline butterfly and a dotted filler stamp for the butterfly.

Some time ago, I found myself in a stamping butterfly marathon using these two stamps. I had seen a magazine cover on the Internet that was like a cloudburst of multi-colored butterflies swirling up into the sky and I was immediately captured by the beauty of all that color and wanted to create that image in a card.

So I set about to make my own butterflies to use for this card. Little did I know when I began that it would turn into another of my marathons and occupy days - with the end result being 80 competed and glittering butterflies! Eighty butterflies - 40 of the outline butterfly and 40 of the outline butterfly filled with dots - all waiting to be created into "a card".

You understand how this can happen, right? Well, maybe not.

The beginning. I chose the colored cardstock to make the rainbow colors I wanted and started to stamp some outline butterflies and some with the dot filler.

Added some glue and glitter. First the outline butterflies . . . . . .

and then the dotted butterflies.

Stack them all neatly in rows of color so I can see just what I have. Wow! That's quite a few butterflies, now that I look at them all lined up like that!

I thought I better put them on "a card" to see how they looked together. (As you can see I also made the small butterflies from this set but they were later discarded.)

Wow! (again) I guess there are too many butterlies for "a card" (no kidding!) How many do I have anyway? Eighty - I have 80 butterflies! Wow!

The end result. It took four 'holding' cards - 20 on a card - to hold all the butterflies until I could decide what to do with them.

And here they still sit today - on my bulletin board. Four 'holding' cards that have been 'holding' my 80 butterflies for months now. I guess the time has come to create some cards. I have no idea what these will look like, but stay tuned as they say! :<}

Thank you for stopping by today! I hope that you have a good one!

Barbara Diane

Tea Party Paper Request

Hello!

I received a request from my friend Victoria for photos of cards I had made using the SU Tea Party DP. This is one of my favorite SU papers and I spent many hours cutting out the lovely designs from this paper to create some very detailed cards.

Here are the cards created from that 3-day marathon. :<) I hope you enjoy making cards using this beautiful paper, Victoria! I would love to see photos of your creations!

Wishing you a great day today! Thank you for stopping by to view my blog!

Barbara Diane

The NieNie Dialogues

Hello Again,

Another mention today of someone who was sent so many prayers by so many.

Last week, as I was looking at the blogs I check every day, I saw on Donna Centamore's blog "Butternut Sage" http://butternutsagedesigns.blogspot.com/ a posting on August 18th of a very special woman celebrating a very special day.

Stephanie Nielson's blog called "NieNie Dialogues" http://nieniedialogues.blogspot.com/ was where she wrote of her experiences of being a wife (she calls her husband Christian "Mr. Nielson") and mother of four young children. It is a delightful blog with beautiful photography and postings - revealing the beauty of NieNie herself.

On August 15, 2008 Stephanie and her husband were in a terrible plane crash. The pilot, Doug Kinncard, died the following day from his injuries and Stephanie and her husband Christian were in critical condition and suffered severe burns - Christian's on 35% of his body and Stephanie's burns covered 83% of her body. Their recovery was long and difficult - especially so for Stephanie.

Stephanie's first blog after the accident, on January 8, 2009, began the story of the long road back and her story of the time during their recovery, the return to their children and starting to build the new life they share today. It is a story of struggle and pain and bravery that most of us cannot begin to imagine.

Above all it is the story of the beauty of this woman, that remains to this day and can be seen not only in her person, but in the love of her husband, her children and once again in the beautiful photos and postings on her blog.

This photo is what I saw on Donns's blog - it is of Stephanie and Mr. Nelson and their children marking the 1 year anniversary of the accident by revisiting the site of the crash. You can see more photos on Stephanie's blog at http://nieniedialogues.blogspot.com/

Please do check out this outstanding blog - you will be glad that you did. God Bless you NieNie.

Barbara Diane

A Lovely Thank You Card

Hello,

I received this lovely hand made thank you card from Ali - the young lady who I have written about when she was so ill and who the Ali's Magic Box and the Castle Card were made for. What a happy and colorful creation! I love it!

What a wonderful surprise to receive this and what a wonderful card Ali! Thank you!

I am happy to report that Ali is feeling much better now and she and her mother both thank you all for the many prayers and good thoughts sent her way!

God Bless you Ali! I hope you are enjoying the remainder of summer!

Thank you for looking at my blog!

Barbara Diane