Bunny with carrot

 

Happy Sunday and thanks for taking the time to visit the Charmed Life Blog. Today is one of those laid back Sunday's that I love. Nothing pending and it allowed me to just sit back and relax.

 

Our day started with church. Our Pastor had a really good message today. He used the scripture verse from John 11:38. It is the account of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. Pastor said so much and 2 of his statements that stood out with me:

 

1.  When God speaks people come alive

2.  When we put our lives in God's hands we don't accept that nothing can change.

 

I made a big pot of marinara sauce for dinner. I will serve it with some brown rice pasta which is really good by the way and a leafy green salad. The sauce is smelling so incredible as I sit and type this post. Can't wait for dinner. I use red wine in my sauce and I love the flavor it gives.

 

Now onto my card for today. I am starting with my Easter cards and this is another one for the stash. The layout is from this week's sketch challenge #479 on Splitcoaststampers.

 

 

My card colors are from this week's color throwdown #283.

 

 

The image is a Great Impressions Stamp- bunny with carrot E573.  I colored him with Spectrum Noir markers and prismacolor pencils and gamsol.

Cut with a Spellbinders labels 8 die and layered it on the fancy labels 8 die cut in tangerine tango.

The glittery background and dotted designer paper is something I had in my stash from Recollections (Michael's). Used another Spellbinders die cut in basic gray for my sentiment.  Stamp is from the Marks Finest Papers set "blessings".

 

That's my card for today. Time to get back to the kitchen to make salads and cook the pasta. So until next time......God bless.

 

I am also entering:

1.  LadyBug Crafts has an anything goes challenge.

2. Sparkles Monthly Challenge is Easter Parade.

3. East Wind Blog has a spring challenge.

4. Great Impressions Stamps has a spring celebrations challenge.

5. My Sheri Crafts has a celebrate spring challenge.

6. Robyn's Fetish has a green and glitter challenge.

The Birthday Train

Happy Tuesday everyone and thanks for taking the time to visit the charmed life blog. We are having some crazy spring weather here in the Pittsburgh region. It is really cold -as in freezing temperatures cold. And there was snow in our area today.

The ski resort that is about 1 1/2 hrs from us had so much snow they are opening a few trails today. Spring extremes I tell ya!!

We had such a busy week-end. We had a garage sale with my son and daughter-in-law. Whew-what a lot of work getting ready for the sale. It was at their home because they had more stuff to sell than we did.
Of course Friday was a beautiful, warm  and sunny day, but not our sale day. Then Saturday the rain came and it lasted all day. We had their garage all set up on Friday. Le me tell you we utilized every bit of space in the garage. we had it packed to the hilt.

We didn't get all the people that we would have if there was no rain. But, it still went well. Glad its over though. I was so exhausted on Sunday that what I intended as  a brief 5:00 nap turned out to be an all night sleep (lol).

Onto my card for today. This one I made for the color challenge on Splitcoaststampers.

Karen was our hostess and she chose the color palette of more mustard, early espresso and pool party.

I decided to make a scene using a brayer technique. I  used a train image from the Marks Finest Papers set “train talk”.

Instead of using designer paper, I created a little scene by brayering the background with pool party and more mustard inks. I sponged in the mountains with early espresso ink.

My train track is a Martha Stewart fence punch and I cut the top off. I stamped my image and colored with Stampin-Up markers in the challenge colors.

I did some fussy cutting and placed it on the track. Stamped a couple of pine trees, added a birthday greeting and 3 punched circles to complete my card.

That's it for me today my blogger friends. So until next time......God bless.

Some other challenges:
1.  Outlawz greetings challenge is "inspired by a song". How about "long train running" by the Doobie Brothers.
2.  Secret Crafter Saturday Challenge has an "inspired by a movie" challenge. How about The Great Train Robbery-starring Sean Connery.
3.  Totally Gorjuss has a "boys toys" challenge.
4.  Crafty Ann's Challenge blog has a "it's a man thing" challenge.

Marks Finest Papers Blog Hop Day 4

 Welcome to Mark's Finest Papers a Heinrich Company's 
April Blog Hop!

This month's New Stamp Set Releases are

Fabulous Dogs Featured April 17
Daffodil Greetings Featured April 18
Hey, Cowboy! Featured April 19
Train Talk Featured April 20

Please hop along with us! You have a chance to win one of the above stamp sets! Just comment on the following blogs (don't forget this one), each day for more chances to win! (You do NOT have to comment on all the blogs each day! The names are drawn randomly!)

All four winners will be announced on April 21, 2012 on the Mark's Finest Papers blog. You can go back and comment if you missed a day. (HINT: The more you comment, the more chances you have to win and comments on the MFP blog count twice!) The deadline for commenting is 11PM EST on Friday April 20, 2012.

Lois
Vicky
Anne
Pat G.
Karen H.
Patty P.
Mary
Marilynn
Pam
Debbie
Nancy
Bonnie
Kathy
Brenda
Toni
Tangii
Anna S
Sue
Kelli
Janine
Mark's Finest Papers

I love this train talk set. This image could be colored as well. But what I decided to do was to brayer a background and just stamp the image. I like how it turned out.

For the background I brayered 3 shades of blue ink. Then I tore a post it note and sponged around that for my mountains. At the base of the mountains, I sponged olive ink and a little black.

I stamped my train image and decided to make it a birthday card. So I used the sentiment from the daffodil greetings set. I layered the image panel over olive cardstock and then marina mist (medium blue).

No ribbon, lace, buttons or brads and that's different for me. But, I wanted to show all of you that with our images you don't always have to color.  Sometimes you can just stamp and go. And, that's exactly what I did (lol)!!

This is the last day of our hop. I hope you have enjoyed all the samples we have shown you with the new sets. Now click over to MariLynn's blog to see what she has to show you.