June so Bright

Well I did the challenge for 365 cards, Christmas cards all year round and Christmas stampin all year round. Please forgive me if I forgot the correct blog way it is written:) 365 cards has a design challenge so i incorporated it in to the 5 cards to make for Christmas all year round and Stamping Christams. Stampin Christams stated to have stitching on the card and, thankfully, it could be faux, since I suck at anything regardign stitching. For the Christmas cards all Year round, June Challenge was to make it bright and, I think, your favourite embellishment (forgive me as I haven't checked in on my mom for a while and I am writing this quickly:))Well I LOVE crystals so I used them on all my cards. I just bought some nifty paper with glitter already on it in all bright colours so I used it on the Merry Christmas card. My glittery card is the snowflake and I used the fine glitter in white, yellow, light blue and light green...yup it is everywhere. My Santa, which I love is a hark back to Christams stampin 2 weeks ago to make a card look vintage so I used that as inspiration as I have been having a difficult time as of late to make cards. Well I hope I met the guidelines, Oh and quickly, the one Santa, I did not colour him in at all and if I did I would make it soft. Would you leave himas he is or colour him in slightly??? Responses please to my question. I am a gemini at heart so I go back and forth:)

For baby Nathan

Well rarely I make a baby card but my 2nd cousin had a baby boy-Nathan, born June 11th-a Gemini(he will be a schizo like me) and so here is the card for him. I kept it blue and I stamped with blue dye ink the hands and feet, the stork, star and little bear on a moon. I used basic white cardstock and grey metalic as well. I coloured in the bear and outlined the bear with my tombow markers and used stickles. Since I can not sew anything I did the outline with a tombow marker and even that looks crooked. I am a terrible sewer...I once tried to sew the hem back in place on my skirt, 2 hrs later I was so happy that I stuck with and when i looked at the skirt it was all bunched up in places plus I sewed to my pants! It was just following the previous hem line where the stitching came undone! Ahh one of many priceless sewing disasters. Anyway this is my creation for Crafty Creations. I have been a bit pre-occupied with my mom who has vascular dementia so this has taken a bit of time but love means to be there in good and bad times and she has always been there for me. Now comes some bad times but this is part of life. I better stop before I go on in a droll....:)

Christmas for May-A Little Late

Well I am late with May's challenge for Christmas Cards All Year Round! I had to face some challenges of my own-I had 7 birthdays in 3 weeks and they are all close so that was difficult to get through. I also found out that my mom has vascular dementia. It has been an ordeal and her mood swings and fears have saddened me and I am quite tired. I have been told it is rapid. I am now giving her her meds. I have an unknown territory to deal with. She was an amazing lady-she lived through the bombings of Hamburg and Dresden, she survived being taken by the Russians, she escaped from them and from East Germany and actually suffered a major head injury and was in the hospital for 9 months having to relearn how to walk and talk! This happened all before she was 28! She was the great love of my father's and vice-versa. With all these memories going through my head it has been diificult to just sit and do some cards. I dont mind the first 3 but the last 2 I, think, are yucky. I am not a button girl but I tried my best. So not much on talking about the cards but, this time, my heart was not totally in it.

Happy Mother's day

OK the card is for the challenge at 365 day cards and I made it for my mom. She is not for pink and soft daffidils. She often likes the "manly" colours although she loves black and white which i have made for her in the past. I used the cuddlebug and added cryatls and stickers (stars). Now the main thing below...I did NOT do. This is what my mom created when she had her eyesight. They are made with real eggs! Today is mother's day. I realize that, at times, I can be impatient with my mom, who is 82. I can get frustrated because I can see she seems to be having trouble with her memory and I am concerned. She got her mRI done but we now have to wait to see the Dr. I hope it is nothing like Alzheimers. I own a duplex and she lives in the upstairs area so I try my best to be with her because, she has always been there for me. She started creating these "faberge-style eggs when I was little. She told me that they used to make creations with eggs when she was little in Germany. I didn't understand and asked her to make one and that is how it began for her. Over the years she could not find the right "stuff" to place inside the eggs so she decided to make them all. Yup the fairy and the lady and the little bird are all handmade by her. The Midieval Lady is in a goose egg which she did cut out as you see here. She made the lady out of bread dough. The fairy egg is from an emu egg. The egg is a dark green and if one slowly chisles into it it goes lighter and lighter til it is white. She decided to create the door in the image of a kingfisher. When you open the door(she hinged it) you see a midnight dream. She painted the background and created the fairy including the wings and her little dress. I think she may be about an inch, maybe an inch and a half long. She always said the smaller the better! I wish i had this artistry and patience but, I do not. Now she has macular degeneration and for a few years now she can not do her work. At least I have some to look at and I want to share with you. I will show a few more this week since i will honour my mom for the week in this way. She deserves it. My friends, when I speak of her life, state she could write a book and i do believe she could. I will write about her a bit tomorrow but I can say she survived the war (she is german), she survived a very bad accident and so much more but that is for tomorrow. I apologise if i bore you but I just wish her work could still be seen. To all mother's out there-happy Mother's week!

CraftyCreations-Backgrounds

At Crafty Creations, the challenge is to make/create your own backgrounds. I decided to try 3 on one card. 2 worked:) I stamped the blue berries in vintage Ink (Floral) and cut it out. I took black card stock and stamped and embossed the Happy Birthday in silver. I used chalks on the black but that didn't come out at all in the picture. The first background I used shimmering mists in blue and sparkly silver..oh yeah I first used my cuttlebug, then I sponged on lavender and red from my memories ink pad...and then the shimmering mists. The other background, I used perfect pearl powders in mystic blue, bronze and dreamsicle. I brushed them on and then layered the card. I finished it off with little crystals and silver border stickers. I really enjoyed making this one but boy are my fingers blue!

Hedgehog Heaven "Guten tag"

Ok on "Flutterby Wednesday" the challenge was to keep it simple. I hope I did! I stamped the hedgehog with the little butterfly in basic black and embossed him. I coloured him in with tombow markers. a while ago I bought some shimmering mists and I tried it out on some green scrap paper. I didn't like the way the paper looked but later I bought a small flower punch(from that terrific sale at "my" stamp store (Duffy's Classic's) and I tried it out and it seemed to work. I just glued them around the image and added flower crystals and then I tried to cut out the bright blue paper in a nice symetrical way....I should know better. I can never make a straight line and everything always seems a bit crooked...oh well. Now my lovely little german hedgehog..actually Austrian, well, I had to put her beside the card. When I went with my mom to Austria in 1972(I was 8), I bought 2 of them, one for me and the other I gave to my best friend(she got the boy hedgehog). I have cherished mine ever since. In Europe they are crazy for hedgehogs and a lady (Marlene-check out her blog) talked about her pet hedgehog the previous week on her blog, so I had to post this dirndle (Folk dress) girl in:) Auf Wiedersehn!

Challenges

Well I finished my challenges for Christmas Cards All Year Round( 5 cards in baby blue, soft yellow, soft pink and pale green). I made one of the cards in the design for Christmas Stampin all year round(the Green one). I completed the Flutter by Wednesday(a sketch) and Crafty Creations(Distressing). The last 2 is the yellow card. As you can tell I did my 5 cards for Christmas all year round. I missed March(bummer) as I was on a mission to complete my scrapbook and I had alot of , um, well, crap go on. I am glad I finished the challenges. The yellow card I thought would work for Flutter as that is a closeup of a Da Vinci Angel and it came with its own saying. I used glossy paper and I distressed it by ripping the edges and then burning the edges. I has goldmesh from wedding favours(I think they were those awful sugar coated almonds in them). I tried to highlight pale yellow. The green card-well I goofed on the edges by trying to punch through 2 pieces of paper-that was a mistake so I had to improvise and patch things up:). I actually attempted a pink card as I am officially sick of pink but I wantred to try and so I thought up the idea of the star hanging around(hahaha). The Fairy Queen card well I did not use paper for the background. Wanna guess??? Remember those awful wallpaper from the 70's and one would use this in the bathroom etc... Well that is what it is-wallpaper! My mom, who collects everything(generation, she is 82) kept a wallpaper book from that decade of fashion and interior design sin and I found it and used it for the card. I stamped the fairy in silver and used silver sparkle embossing and then highlighted her wings with stickles. The last card, I must apologise, it was already seen yesterday for the 365 day challenge but it was my 5th card for Christams Cards all year round. Well You know what I did all day. Everyone have a fun day and evening! Oh I didn't reread anything for spelling mistakes so forgive me:)