Friday....at last!!

  Yippee!   It's Friday and a gorgeous day here in Massachusetts.  It's hard to believe that we could very well be facing a major storm this weekend, especially by looking outside right now.  The Governor has now declared a State of Emergency for the entire State and here on the Coast, we are under a Hurricane Watch.   Yuk!!   I still HOPE that Irene will hopefully change paths, move further off the coast and keep us all safe.     I also want to express my concern for all my friends along the Eastern Seaboard and I hope by Sunday night, it will all be over and that everyone will be safe, not suffer and damage and be able to communicate with one another.

  In the meantime, I'm trying hard not to think about the weather and to let today be a very enjoyable day in my craft room and so far, that's exactly what it has been.    I have three new cards to share and although I had not realized it until just now, ALL my cards feature digi images from Bugaboo Stamps.   I really find they are some of my favorite images to color and always seem to really be happy with the cards I make with them.
 
  My first card today was inspired by the new Copic Coloring challenge over at 'The Outlawz' group and this week the girl's made it easy as the challenge is 'Anything Goes'.   This is the card that I created and will be submitted to the challenge.

   My next card was created for a new Challenge posted today over at Crafting by Designs and this challenge was to pull three pieces of scraps out of our stash, then add three circles and create a card.   Boy were all of my papers different, but because I could color a image to go with them, I was somewhat able to tie everything together to make this fun card.

  And I have one more that was made for fun and this one features one of my favorite images from Bugaboo, which is one of Jodie's Watering Can images.  This is the one that has the Tulips, which is one of my favorite flowers.

  I'm off now to work on some more cards and looking for some ideas and challenges to keep me busy.  If we do get a bad storm and lose power (praying we don't), I hope to have plenty to keep my busy during the day hours and hope we fare well with the storm.   A nice rainy day of crafting is not any problem for me, and that's exactly what I will hope for.  I have been through many storms in my life, living her on the coast and the worst part for me is being without power or not having my family all in a safe place.   As long as I know my family is safe and sound -- I will be fine!

   Update:   The latest forecast was VERY good news, at least for us here on the Northeastern Coast of Massachusetts.   It seems like Irene is slowing down and possibly even starting to fall apart a bit.   It even sounds like everyone in the path will have somewhat less of a storm to deal with and that's wonderful news to all.  We've now been changed to a Tropical Storm warning, downgraded from a Hurricane Watch and I'm still hopeful that it will not get any worse!  I'm very happy to hear this news and hope it continues to stay this way!  Yippee!!

   I'm back to share one more card today and this one was really fun to make.  I broke out a lot of my newest supplies and did some embossing and resist.   Whenever I plan to do embossing of inking techniques I like to create stamp several images, emboss them in a variety of colors and have then all ready to add paint, ink or other fun techniques.  I also used one of my favorite new stamps and this is another Hero Arts/Basic Grey Set that I fell in love with after seeing it on Jennifer's McGuire's Blog.

  I'm also excited because this worked out perfectly for a brand new challenge at Lily Pad that is being hosted by Simon Says Stamps and that's where I bought my newest stamp set, along with a lot of the supplies I used on this card!     This new Stamps set is called Butterflies and Wildflowers and you can find it in the store HERE!  

   This card was started by stamping the Wildflower image (with Versamark) on Glossy paper and then heat embossed with White Embossing Powder.   I then used a combination of Distress Stains and Distress Inks to paint over my image for the 'Resist Technique' - a technique I also learned from Jennifer.   Next, I picked out a HA Card  that matched and decided to make it a window cut out card.  I cut my window out with a Circle Shaped Nestie die and then cut my image even larger and adhere behind it on the inside of the card.   I then added a scalloped circle frame, a sweet Hero Art's sentiment and a Butterfly I cut with a Tim Holtz die in my Cuttlebug.  

   This is my latest card I and it was really FUN to create!  I'm also happy to be submitting it to my very first Challenge at Lily Pad!   Yippee!!

   And this is a close up view where you can see how I popped up the pink frame around my image! 

  And now I'm off for the day!  I need to pick up my room and put away the huge mess that is now covering my desk.  I've had a very creative day and I now have lots of things in mind to keep me busy if we do have a stormy weekend.   I'll be very crafting my heart out and hoping we do NOT have any power loss!!