My Rubber Therapy Blog

Just a quick share for today

Hi friends

I hope you are all doing well.  I can say when we are busy time has a way to run away quickly too.  I am realizing that more and more I need a list to get me through most days otherwise I don't get as much done.  I have been making a lot of cards in the passed 10 days and today is my last day to make them.  We are travelling for a few days but I wanted to let you see one of the cards I made this weekend.  I was so anxious to get my idea of a tulip card on paper when I received the punch I needed for it.  So here it is:

My tulip card

Bazzill card stock (white) & Green CS from stash. Memento ink (Bahama Blue) & SU Ink (Pretty in Pink) and some Tim Holtz Ink (Crushed Olive).  Punch Bunch (Ovoid petals) leaf punch and a vase punch. A rectangle shape rubber stamp (from stash).  Glass imitation sheet (gotten this at a Craft show).  Foam pad & stylus of different sizes. Dimensional tape.

I started with my tulips.  I shaped my ovoid shapes on the foam pad in a cupping way, after using a sponge with ink to do all the ovoid edges.  I trimmed some green CS in a very thin strip for my stems and punched out some of the leaf punches which I also added ink on the edges to give more dimension.

To assemble the Ovoids which will resemble more of of a tulip you need to put the two pointy ends together spreading the two like a fan. Glue together, then the last ovoid petal will go to the top middle with a pop up dot.  Then I curled the side edges of the tulip to make it look fuller.  I then put a dab of glue in the back and added my stem with the leaves already on.

Punched out my vase from the fake glass sheet and set aside.  Prepared my card then I stamped my rectangle shape in Bahama Blue, made sure it was dry before adding my tulips on to it.  Positioned the tulips the way that was pleasing to me, adhered the vase on top with some tacky glue.  Then adhered the tulips with some glue dots to secure it.  Adhered my center piece to the card and Voila!

Have a fantastic week!  I will post more flowers of mine and more cards this week. 

 

Here is a card to share with you

Hi Friends

Whew!  I have been submerged in my gardening for the passed 2 months and I can say now my garden front and back are blooming like crazy!  I love the look of it, it feels like we are enjoying ourselves in a Resort type relaxing environment, I love it, my oasis.  This is why we loved this house because it made us feel like we didn't want to leave it, the serenity feel makes us just relax and enjoy the feeling and the fruit of our labor as well.

Today I have a card to share with you.  Yes I am back into making some cards in between dead heading flowers and water again and again.  I will share more photos this week of what we have added to our environment as well as some newer blooms I have had the pleasure to sit and drink my first coffee of the day while admiring the colors all around me.

So for today, here is my card with the recipe.

This is my first card out of another bunch I will share with you.  I am into inking into Spellbinders shapes these days I can't seem to get outside of that but it is fun and it allows me to play with my paper punches and dies of all brands I have on hand.  So playing with textured papers and rubber stamp stems allows me to make interesting cards.  Inking edges with Tim Holtz inks and sponge daubers is making a simple card look elegant.  In my eyes that is.

So here we go, I went outside today to take my picture so you get to see some of my rocks around the yard.  So for this card, I used white whisper from SU cardstock for the card.  Some Bazzill textured white paper for the inked image.  Then I used some of my stash CS.  Thank you stamp from my stash.  Stamp stems from Gina K Designs stamp set, Tim Holtz ink purple and green, sorry no specific color I just played it by color appeals.  Some half pearls. I used some of my shimmering purple paper scraps I had for the blooms. A foam pad to cup and shape the flowers and a stylus. With a touch pen I added some veining into the leaves at the bottom of the stems.

I stamped the stems after using a long rectangle from Spellbinders.  I made sure the edges were darker than the interior.  I punched some flowers I have from Kwick Kuts (spelling) and added pearls.  With my foam pad and stylus I cupped the petals so it would look dimentional then secured them with some Eileen's all purpose glue and a white pearl in each flower. I hope you enjoyed the simplicity of this card.

Please feel free to leave a comment I sure apreciate them all.  Thanks for looking!

Have a wonderful day!

Some more photos of our garden

Hi Friends

As promised I was able to take a few pictures of the garden as it is now.

We finally saw our first irises, we have so far 2 different variety as you will see and we have a 7-8 foot tree of roses starting to open I saw the first two blooms today, yellow ones too!  How cool is that?  I will have to take some close up of some of them to try and make a 3D sheet with one.  I also found geraniums that I really had to get it was love at first sight.

So here are the photos:

This is the 7-8 foot tall rose tree, it is packed with buds ready to explode of happiness out there!  Will add a new picture of it when there are so many roses it will be yellow covered. 

This is one of the two kinds of irises that have opened in the passed 2 days.  It is of a gorgeous coral color with a darker colored stripe inside.  Love it!

Second kind and I know I will have dozens of them to open yet.  It is covered in that area pretty much taking over some of the other flowers.

The geraniums I had to get because of the so vibrant colors of pink and fushia.  On my way to pay for it the ladies that were coming in were all commenting on it and how beautiful it was.  There was only one there at the time.  

So these are the recent happenings in our gardens

I hope you enjoyed it!

 

I am still around

Hi Friends

Sorry for the non posting for a few weeks.  Time got away from me in the way that gardening was a priority to finishing up the planting as the Nurseries finally received their loads of plants for the season.  So I was almost first in line to get tomatoes and peppers of all sorts.  But when came the time to put them where it should go it became so hot in the sun that I had to do little at a time and take a break and go on.

I am happy to report that all my garden is ready to receive Summer with open arms.  Not so much for the heat for me but we have some nice umbrellas to stay away from the sun.  I also had many Doctor's appointments in the past 2 weeks so adding this to my crazy keeping up here schedule I was again having just barely enough time to reply to some emails and prioritize, not so much card making but I am seeing in my near future some card making again.  Next week I will have to attack a good few dozens since I am a tad late.

My flowers in the gardens are so gorgeous.  I am happy to report that my irises are out finally at least a few of them and a load more are getting close to seeing the light of day.  The wisteria season is just at the end of its rope now we get the prettiest pale green leaves nice and fresh for now.  We are proud parents of so many new chicks birds have established their nests around the garden so when I go out I hear the tiny squeeqy sounds all around me. 

So as soon as I get a chance I will post more photos of our garden for your pleasure and will start adding them to the folder I have already opened for that effect.

The allergy season is very much upon us which is slowing me down from the sneezing fits I get into so many times daily.  I never thought it was possible to sneeze more than a dozen of times in a row before now hee hee.  So it sure stops me from what I am doing at the time for sure.

Well, time for me to organize my desk and start making more cards as well as preparing more photos for your pleasure to view.

Have a wonderful day everyone!

Another masculine card

Hi Friends

A quick post today, I am stuck with a full blown cold which makes me rest any chance I get.  So here we go straight to the card:

Another stamp I have in my stash and the dear Father is from a SU stamp set.  I also used what is called Candi it froms from the UK, it comes in so many different colors.  I used black and beige CS and a pattern paper.  Used Spellbinder for the stamp and layer. I also used some crystal effect (SU) on the hour glass for a real glass effect the rest is self explained.  Thank you for stopping by.

Will be back next week with more garden photos and possibly cards as well.

Have a fantastic day everyone!

Good news & Masculine card

Hi Friends

I did my little stroll around the premises today and the only thing that was affected by the heavy snow, was my geranium flowers but I can see that there are more coming up in a few days.  So all is well with the garden.  Can you hear my big sigh of relief?

As for cards I have this one to share today I hope you enjoy it!

Recipe:  Well I used Chocolate, white, beige CS and a pattern paper.  Two rubber stamps one of a clock, and time to celebrate.  Chocolate ink pad SU, 4 golden brads, (1 for center of the clock and three for the brown strip).  Spellbinders circles. (inspired by a card I had seen at Stamp Works in AZ so is for tomorrow's card)

The clock gets matted twice one layer for Chocolate and then beige on back layer.  The main card is Chocolate.  I matted the beige over the Chocolate and thirdly I matted the pattern paper last.  I then positionned the clock to let a little of it hang over the edge.  The card is a smidge smaller than the normal A2 size.  What I did is, I cut my cardstock 8 1/2 X 11 in half lenghtwise then took an inch and a half from the length so it is shorter and it will allow you to let the clock to hang out.  Be sure to check with your envelope that your clock is not too high or you won't be able to mail it in an A2 size emvelope.  Live and learn hee hee

Finally I made a strip of Chocolate CS pierced 3 holes to position the brads.  I then stamped my sentiment and cut to size to then sponge daub around the sentiment edges.  Next step is to mat it with beige CS and fix it to the chocolate stripe.  Very simple and very masculine.

Have a great day!

 

I have a special Birthday card to post today

Hi Friends

Here we are after a Wintery day weather it is once again warming up quite rapidly so I won't mind the warmer because I have refused to turn on the heat all last night and today I am just wearing a sweater when it gets cooler is all.

Shortly after the sun came out yesterday I went for a little tour of our front and back gardens to see that some plants are on the so so side.  Whether or not it will make it, a few days will tell.  But I am remaining optimistic that I will have saved all of them or very little was lost.

So now about this card for today, I have made it for a friend in Australia which I hope will like because her and I share the common passion about making our own flowers for our cards and she always shows her beautiful cards she has made with me by email, the ones she made with all of her friends.  So after attending both stamp shows in March I had gotten some beautiful stamp sets from Heartful Creations which is very popular here online.  So I gave it a go at making the cute little poppy flowers for her so, here is the card I made for Trish:

This card was inspired by some of the cards Heartful Creations had on their displays at the show, but they had a vase with the flowers in it.  3 white CS kinds were used.  Bling, bazzill and SU.  The cage was from CS in my stash that shimmers in egg shell. So since I had the bird cage I was dying to try for the first time I decided to go ahead and make a small arrangement of poppies in front of the bird cage.  I also had some flourish dies and some leaves to add to make it more complete.  The bouquet that is.  I had also found a stamp to use like a flag with a toothpick saying Happy Birthday so I added a dab of glue to the end of the toothpick and planted it in some opening in between my poppies.

The poppie flower is a stamp that I have embossed with transparent powder, cut by hand.  Then I cut in between the petals so I could play more with my stylus to add more dimension to the petals.  I first cupped the middle of the flower from the front of it with a foam pad underneath.  Then I turned the flower over and did the cupping with all of the petals.  I did two layers of poppies.  I then cupped the middle again so I could insert my punched sun in black in the middle of the flower.  It instantly popped at me as being a gorgeous flower so I went from there to finishing the card the way you see it now.

Here is a closer view of what the flower looks like after being stamped and embossed on red CS.

So I hope you enjoyed it.  These cards are usually sent in padded emvelopes so a minimum crushing is involved.  But not a guarantee.  So I hope you received it in good condition Trish.  She is away for a week and she didn't bring her laptop with her so she will only see this when she returns home.

Have a great day everyone!

Our garden news

Hi Friends

I break from the usual cards to post as promised a few pictures of what the our garden was like last week.  So here are a few pictures:

We have been enjoying so much the weather for the passed 2 months we had Winter and then Poof, Spring and Summer into one.  It was really nice to pot a few plants get the tomatoes and green bell peppers some time to grow and flowers and spices and so on.  You know the drill right?

Some of my rose bushes.  This one is by the pool and growing rapidly

I have a few unknown named plants this one is one of them.  This was blooming in the dead of Winter.

We have a few weeping trees in bloom right now and you will see more close up photos of them attached below.

Cinec... can't remember the name now but it is gorgeous!

Front pond you will see 2 of 3 of our koi fishes down below

I found some dragonfly at the craft store in town.  Time to show them off.

From the front gate entrance the view of our garden.  Will show you pictures in a few weeks when you will notice a big difference.

While I was taking pictures of the whole garden yesterday I stumbled upon this resting butterfly on my rose plant.  It was so nice it was letting me approach it closely so I could take closer pictures.  I enjoyed this beautiful unexpected surprise.  I guess we have a guest who likes our garden already.  We also have the joy to house behind the bushes some interesting looking lizards.  They fear us more than I fear them so we are getting along just fine.  But leave doors open and you get a surprise that walks on your ceiling one day.

Enjoy a closer view of it.  It had a really nice furry belly and head.

2 of the 3 koi fish we have the other one shied away when it saw me with the camera.  I didn't know fish could be camera shy hee hee

Another view of the pool and garden surrounding it

Not sure if this will bring me some irises.  If you know please do tell.  Among some of you I know some are really avid gardeners so if you do know please feel free to fill up my questions with answers.  Thanks

Our pink geraniums, love the colors it is so bright!

Another rose bush with a backdrop view of my potting shed below

Another unknown tree name

Ahhhh but I know this one and it is gorgeous right now it is called a wisteria.  It makes those big flower grapes all around my porch this part was already open but the other side of the porch is a little later.

This pretty flower again is a no named one but it is pink and bright, you just can't miss it

The next few photos are of the weeping blooming trees of our front garden

Wisteria on the other side of the house the tardy side

 

Now that you have seen all the lovely pictures of our garden.  I was so proud of the look of it thus far with all the fun hours of digging and planting and watering, you know, the fun stuff that comes with a garden.  This morning we woke up to this and got me running in my slippers to save all I could.  Have a look below.

By the time it stopped and panic had set in and my running around to save what I could I looked like a wet dog but I couldn't shake it off LOL.  The snow was falling in huge clusters I had never seen snow flakes that big until today.  But we got about 2 inches but was quickly melting when it all stopped.

I felt fortunate that this was all we had here when Colleen the lady that always write comments had tornadoes emergencies around where she lives and also told me at that time that Dallas Forth Worth was hit by tornadoes.  I hope all is well with everyone.  It makes my garden on ice look like nothing after I heard the news.  Colorado also got close to a foot of snow if not more.  So we all hope this is the last of what we see of Winter. 

So this was a break from the card posting for today.  I hope you enjoyed a brief visit to our garden.  On the road to discovering more of what is and will grow next!  Exciting!

Have a great day, attach a smile to it, who knows it may become the best day you have had in a long time.

More cards.....Oh la la!

Hi Friends

You must be thinking by now that I AM ON A ROLL!  Well you could say that bot my roll stops and goes on and off as there is a lot of other projects to be done in between cardmaking like all of us I suppose.  But what matters most is whatever we do, we do it with a smile it always makes the not so fun work go much better and faster. That's my trick!

For today I am continuing the Easter cards and as the week goes by I will also include some Mother's Day cards.

So for today here we go:

 

This was also an easy card to make, once I had all the elements figured out.

I used 2 CS, white and pale yellow.  I must add I also did the same card in lavender and both looked really beautiful.  Need sponge dauber, ink pad (yellow), glitter glue, small egg shapes with added lacquer.  Pattern paper Easter related patterns.  Happy Easter stamp (SU).  Embossing Folder by Sizzix.

I made 4 corner triangles ready with the pattern paper. I embossed my Sizzix folder and cut it to desired size (make sure you are leaving a larger edge so you can see your triangles in the background later).  Then with my ink pad and sponge dauber I went ahead and inked the edges of the white CS and did the butterflies so it stands out better did the same with the embossed edge where the Happy Easter was stamped after applying some ink in it leaving the middle slitghly paler than the embossed and inked frame.

This card doesn't show the yellow inked edges but some were done that way.  I then applied some glitter glue around the square embossed and yellow inked image after centering the Happy Easter sentiment stamp into it.  I added the dried eggs to the bottom of the squared image once the glitter is dry.  At this point you can adhere the triangle corners keeping the same measurements of the edge left around it all then just fit the white embossed mat centered onto the triangles and you are done!

Sorry my explanations are sometimes a little tidious but if you are having an easy time by looking at the final result and work with that, I know you will end up making a lovely card no matter how you do it.  Have a fun day!

Make it an amazing DAY!

Hi everyone, how was your weekend? Glitter card to share

Hi Friends

I have yet another card to share with you but I hope you all enjoyed a fun and comfortable weekend doing something you love doing.  So now I better get to it and show you another one of my latest cards hoping to inspire this creative mesh in you for all the Birthday cards you have to make for the year.

Here we go:

I know so many of us have collected some peel offs and still have so many to choose from to make one of a kind cards.  Here is what I did with this card...Its focal image was adorned with glitter.....

Recipe

CS Certainly Celery and lavender, plus I added a pattern paper.  I used 3 Spellbinders die cuts.  1 tag, 1 Elegant post, and 1 rectangle die cuts.  2 peel off designs of choice.  1 Swiss Dots from Cuttlebug embossing folders. Ink=Matching lavender color was used. The card back ground has been embossed with Swiss Dots directly on the card. Then I chose one post from the Elegant posts collection cut one out in Certainly celery (SU) and also cut my tag to add my Happy Birthday peel off on.  Glitter Ritz-Micro fine glitter sold in a large array of colors, there is also a warm and cold white glitter, which once applied gives a total different look to your work but so elegant.

I first started but cutting a piece of double sided tape (Sookwang brand) I have the wider tape so I case use larger peel off images as I cut around the peel off image after the peel off image has been carefully added to the double sided Sookwang extremely sticky tape.  Then this is when I applied my glitter (cold) all over my design.  Once the glitter looks messy on the image and glue, go ahead and burnish the glitter onto the image in every little nook and cranny details of the image you are using.  Once you see a full coverage, you can then go ahead and remove the glitter to your glitter container for future use.  Nothing is wasted. 

If you see other areas that needs some more glitter now is the time to re-apply more glitter and finish burnishing the area in question. 

You are now ready to use your permanent ink markers you have in your possession.  Copic, Promarkers, Touch, Bic, Le Plume, etc... it will work just as long as it is a permanent marker.  Start with lighter colors and work your way in with darker colors.  I suggest that you keep it lively, I stay away from browns and navy blue colors unless it is for a small area.  Keep it light and fresh.  Flowers are usually a perfect item to try because colors are lively and inviting a smile.

So I made my focal point image a frame, rectangle in Certainly celery (SU) and this is when I sponge daub the outside edges for more interest.  I then added my pattern paper mat on top, then followed my Glittered/colored peel off image to it, the tag below.  Finished off with the Elegant post ornament, ink could also be applied on the post piece as well.  Anything goes.  Let your imagination work wonders for you.

I hope you enjoyed the mini lesson and if you have questions on this technique please email me.  In case you are wondering if I have tried the Martha Stewart glitter or other brands for this technique, I have not.  But you are welcome to try it and let me know how it worked for you.  So I can share the information with my readers.

Have a fantastic glittery day!

 

 

Sunday April fools share

Hi Friends

Another busy weekend yet in the garden and pool.  Trying to get everything done at a healthy pace here.  It is not easy as I tend to just see the end of the project instead of appreciating how I get there.  That often gets me in trouble but live and learn right?  Taking it easy Nikky= Get it done asap LOL.

For today's card, no it is not a trick considering the date of April 1st.  It is true I have another card to share with you so here it is:

Easter card

Another fun card that can be mailed without costing a forturne

Recipe

2 CS colors are needed.  Mine were from the Bazzil collection, white, purple. 1 pattern paper from Gina K. Designs collection.  One lilly stamp from Just Rite collection.  One Fancy tag from Spellbinders collection.  1 stamp Easter Blessings from same Just Rite set.  1 satin ribbon running across and tucked under the white mat onto the card.

I colored my stamp with different tones of green and yellow with prismacolor and used the OMS technique with paper stump.  I then cut around the lily leaving a slight amount of white all around it, as it gives a true dimension and adds more interest to the image as a focal point on the tag.  I also mounted the image over pop up dots.  I hope you enjoy this one as well

Thank you for leaving your comments.  It means a lot to me as I it so encouraging to post new cards to you and perhaps in exchange it gives you some ideas to make your own.  Please feel free to steal the ideas on here.  So drop a few lines on your way out and also feel free to mention about my blog to other cardmakers if they are needing ideas, this is why I do this, for fun and sharing always!

Have a fun fun fun day!  Get inspired and create!