The Daffodil

I'm learning that sometimes simple is quicker, easier, fun and beautiful.  Since I have very little free time lately I've been leaning towards simplicity.  I love the new sketch #203 at Skissedilla.  Perfect for some photos taken of lovely daffodils.

 Not much to this layout.  Some misting, cheesecloth and homemade rubons.

Here is the lovely sketch #203 from Skissedilla for their 4th birthday post.

I'm finding it therapeutic lately to squeeze in a little creative time. 

Please keep my family in your thoughts and prayers, especially my mom.  

We have been on a long and emotional journey this past year and a half. 

I visit my mom each day and embrace the time I spend with her.  I cherish the good days and cry with the bad days. There has been talk of bring in hospice and I am having a hard time taking all of this in.  For all of you that still have your mom, call her, talk to her, hug her, love her.  

Thanks for stopping by!

. . . Debbie

All Things Grow With Love

Another chilly day here.  Still wishing for some warm Spring days.  I was inspired by the sketch #202 at Skissedilla.  This is my first time playing along with their sketch challenge and when I read the post for the sketch "Nabon has created this beautiful sketch, it reminds me of Spring day!!",  I knew I had to look through pictures of my garden from last year and use one of my photos.

Here is Nabon's lovely sketch:

I used some old Prima papers along with some misting, masks and paint.  I added some purple paint to the modeling paste and also misted and inked some lace flowers.

I hope everyone enjoys their weekend!

Thanks for stopping by!
. . . Debbie

My SIster My Friend

The March Challenge at Berry71bleu is You Color My World! 

  Let's get creative and use some paint on our projects!

I made my first canvas, a gift for my sister.

 My sister loves owls. I had held on to an old Kleenex box that had owls on it and cut them out along with some of the colorful flowers on the box to use on my canvas.

 

I enjoyed working with the paints that our sponsor DecoArt supplied us. I did a lot of stamping on my canvas and used paints rather then inks.

I used some of the blue Pastel Paint and watered it down to create my sky background along with some yellow Frosted Fun Paint to create the sun's rays. The hearts were stamped on using paint rather then ink and the purple dots were made using some bubble wrap painted with purple paint then dabbed on the background.

More stamping using the DecoArt paints.

                        The sponsor for our March Challenge is DecoArt.

                                 

                       

                         

                           

The winner of our March Challenge will win this prize from DecoArt.

                  

                           

               There will also be a random winner who will win this set of Craft Twinkles Writers:

               

                        You can read all about the challenge here.

                             Thanks for stopping by!

                              . . . Debbie

You Are Special

Spring officially has arrived, but if you step outside here it definitely still feels like winter.  We had a little bit of snow in the wee hours of the morning and it is very windy.  A good day to stay inside and have a little creative time.  I just finished up this layout and love the finished look.  I stretched out of my comfort zone and went a little paint and mist crazy here.  I used sketch #56 at Keeping the Best along with 13 Arts Challenge #5 hosted by Agnieszka, where you are to incorporate a minimum of 5 handmade flowers, stitching and the colors pink and turquoise.

My background paper is from 13 Arts Frosted Life Collection.  

I layered on lots of paint, modeling paste and mists, some rub ons from my stash, 

along with some stamping.

I punched out several pieces of tissue paper and layered them to make my homemade flowers.

Nothing like my trusty sewing machine to add some stitching to my circles.

I'll be back tomorrow to share my project for Berry71bleu's paint challenge.

Thanks for stopping by!

 . . . Debbie

Together Forever

Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend.  It's cold and cloudy here.  Wondering where the warm weather went.  I managed to work on a layout and it felt good to get it finished.  Life is still hectic and so little "me" time. I used my March kit from Artful Delight packed with papers from Teresa Collins collections Memories, He Said She Said and Stationary along with the March sketch from Artful Delight and the Up, Up & Away Challenge at Frosted Designs.

Here I did a little stamping using the Teresa Collins He Said She Said stamp set included in my month kit:

Here I've added a little cluster. I used some Tattered Angels Candy Apple Red
Glimmer Mist on the pink flowers from the kit.

A little fussy cut work, inking and stamping:

Hope you have some free time to enter the March sketch challenge 

at Artful Delight.  You can check out the details here.

And while you at it, check out the Up, Up & Away Challenge at

Frosted Designs here.

Thanks for stopping by!

. . . Debbie

JAVA

Hope everyone had a nice weekend.  It was a cloudy and cold one here.  There is a storm front heading this way that looks as though will hit my area with some measurable snow.  Not looking forward to the idea of lots of snow.  We've had very little snow this winter and that's the way I like it.  It's a waiting game now.  I've got a layout to share with you today that I created for the Chevron Challenge at Frosted Designs.  This was a hard one to put together.  No matter what I did, I couldn't get it to look right, so I opted for a CAS layout and used lots of stuff from my stash.

  

Last year I bought myself a Keurig coffee maker.  I love it and my favorite morning coffee 

is Donut Shop Bold!

Hope you have time to join in on the Chevron Challenge at Frosted Designs.  We have an amazing new DT and lots of inspiration to share with you for this challenge. 

Thanks for stopping by!

 . . . Debbie

Small Joys

It feels great to get another layout done!  Ever so slowly (baby steps) my life is falling back into place.  I even spent a little time last night playing catch up on visiting everyone's blogs.  Not quite caught up, but getting there.  I wanted to share a layout with you today that I created for Berry71Bleu's February WhiteSpace Challenge along with LESSology's Challenge #22 How Charming.

The whitespace challenge was a hard one for me.  I normally don't leave any surface untouched, but I have to say between the gorgeous 7 Dots Studio papers, the Berry71Bleu handmade tag and a few special touches here and there I was quite pleased with the final result.

If you're wondering who the baby is and if you guessed me, then you're correct!  I cut out the center of a doily, misted it, then stamped it, inked the edges and crumple it and place it around my photo.

Dug into my stash for the LESSology challenge and found some charms:

 I took some small Prima flowers, you know the tiny ones in lots of colors in the tall jar 

( I know we all have them !☺) and strung them onto some thread:

 Some random stamping, beads and modeling paste:

and the finishing touch, a beautiful Berry71Bleu tag:

Hope you have some free time to create a project for Berry71Bleu's WhiteSpace Challenge.  There's lots of great prizes to be won!  You can check out all of the details here!

Thanks for stopping by!

. . . Debbie

Little Girls Are Precious Gifts . . .

If you are here for the Berry71Bleu Blog Hop please click here.

I have a layout to share with you today that I created using the February kit from Artful Delight which I combined with a couple of challenges.  The first challenge is the February Sketch Challenge at 

Once Upon A Sketch with the theme of "love" and the second challenge is Challenge No. 14 "hearts" from Scrap Africa.

Here are a few closeups:

 Tucked beneath my punched border is a journaling tag with a personal note from a mom to her precious daughter.

Thanks for stopping by!

. . . Debbie

Supplies Used:

Artful Delight February Kit

Dienamics Vintage Flourish Die

Martha Stewart Lattice Heart Punch

Martha Stewart Doily Lace Punch

Martha Stewart Vintage Doily Punch

Bo Sunny Stamps

Sizzix Flourish Die

Berry71Bleu Love Blop Hop!

Welcome to the Berry71Bleu Love Blog Hop!

 Hi this Debbie! You should arrived here from Bellaidea's blog.

If you get lost along the way, start here at the Berry71Bleu blog.

Happy Valentines Day!  
Today is a day all about love . . .   Each of our designers is going to share with you something or someplace they love where they live.  This should be interesting since we have ladies from the USA, Poland, India and Puerto Rico. 

The blog hop starts here at Berry71Blue

and the rest of the order is as follows:

Anupama

Bellaidea

Debbie

Kay

Marilyn

Marivic 

Berry71Bleu 

 We have a fabulous prize for one lucky person who completes all of the rules of the blog hop,  a 7 Dots Studio collection, Domestic Goddess:

 

To qualify for this month's FABULOUS Prize you must complete the following:

* Visit each blog listed on the hop to see what each designer has to share with you and leave a comment.

* Each designer's blog hop post will feature a word to make up a secret sentence, 

collect these words along the way.

* You must become a FOLLOWER of each blog along the way

 and LIKE us on our Facebook Page!

* For your last stop on our Blog Hop return here to the Berry71Bleu Blog.

Leave a comment letting us know you have

completed the hop.

(Please do NOT include the secret sentence in your comments.)

Now comes the hard part, you must take the words you have collected along the blog hop and  unscramble them to create a sentenence.

*Email the secret sentence to Debbie: mdjsburns@aol.com. 

The Blog Hop ends Sunday, February 17th at Midnight CST

Here's a little bit about where I live and what I love about it.

I live in a very small rural town in Maryland.  Lots of open space, wildlife and quietness!

I'm only a short car ride of 15 minutes to what I will call civilization, the hustle and bustle of traffic, stores and restaurants.  I'm about a hours drive from our Nation's capitol and will admit that even though I have lived in Maryland all of my life, I've only visited Washington DC a couple of times.

Winter is my favorite season where I live, especially after a snowfall.  I don't like driving in the snow, don't like shoveling the snow,  but love the scenery after freshly fallen snow.  Here are a few of my favorite pictures after a snowfall:

 These pictures were taken by my daughter back in 2010 after we were hit with back to back snow storms.  As of now except for a couple of inches here and there we have not had any major snowfall this winter.

My word for the blog hop is "where" . 

Your next stop is Kay's blog which you can find here.

Thanks for stopping by!

. . . Debbie

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