Being Together

Being together is the best gift of all!  Isn’t that what the holidays are all about?  I love getting together with family and friends and sharing the holiday magic.

I’m so excited to fill you in on a secret I’ve had for awhile.  I’ve been asked to be part of the Christmas Card  Challenge Design Team!!!  I can’t believe I am going to be part of this creative and inspiration group – I’m a frequent visitor to many of these designers as they continually come up with some of the most adorable creations!  Hopefully I too can inspire you in the weeks to come to get a few of those holiday cards made early so you can sit back enjoy the holidays just a bit more!

Today our challenge is BLING, you can use pearls or rhinestones - it is up to you!  Let your imagination run wild!  For my bling I added a string of rhinestones as Christmas lights to the tree – this card sparkles!

I designed the sentiment – feel free to use it if you like it!

Stamps: Lili of the Valley

Paper: Echo Park Paper Co – Falling Snowflakes

Die: Spellbinders – Label Eighteen

Embellishments: Ribbon – PTI, Snowflake Charm

Thanks for stopping by and I hope I’ve inspired you to join us for this weeks challenge – I can’t wait to see what you create!  Dee

Bling It

It’s been a couple of crazy weeks here which kind of explains why I pretty much dropped off of the map for the last little bit.  I’ve been working on a few cards but I just can’t post them quite yet – stay tuned and you’ll see why! Yes, I am being a tease!!!

This card kind of took on a life of it’s own.  I originally was going to make a masculine birthday card but after adding the blue scalloped mat it seem too girly so on to Plan B and I’m so glad I did.  I think this image from Di’s Digi Downloads is just perfect for the space.  I don’t usually think of using gray for a feminine card but I think the yellow really brings it all together.

Sketch: The Sweet Shop

Papers: Nitwit - Little Sir Nitwit

Stamp: Di’s Digi Download – Who Do I Pick

Diecuts: Spellbinders Circle and Scalloped Circle

Punch: Martha Stewart – 2 different butterfly punches

Embellishments: Ribbon – American Crafts, Bakers’s Twine, Rhinestones on the flowers and the butterfly

As always, thanks for stopping by – I love visitors!!! Dee

Challenges:

Digi Design Challenge - Show Us that Bling     Wags ‘n Whiskers Stamps - Summer Fun

House of Gilli - Die Cuts/ Punches     Phindys Place - 1 image, 2 DP, 3 embellishments

Kick Up Your Heels…

… and celebrate!

That’s just what I’m doing!!! I’m so-o-o excited to announce I’ve been chosen to be part of the Designed 2 Delight’s Design Team!  I’ve loved (and used) Faith’s adorable images for years and I am just thrilled to be part of this creative and inspiration group of gals.  Hopefully in the weeks to come I can inspire you too to try D2D images and join in the fun we are going to have along the way.

Today I’m showing you a way to use a D2D digi stamp with just a minimal amount of coloring.  I am by no means a copic expert; never was – probably will never be but I do love to play with my copics.  Rather than color the main parts of the image, I paper-pieced the catepillar, the leaves and flower.  The only coloring was the small flowers on the ground and the grass and let me tell you that took all of 30 seconds to do.  I added some rhinestones for a touch of bling – gotta have a bit of sparkle!

Stamps: Celebrating Catepillar (sentiment is included with purchase)

Paper: Nitwit – From the Sea Too

Coloring Medium: Paper-Piecing with a touch of copics

Embellishments: Rhinestones

I hope you enjoyed by D2D creation – thank you so much for dropping by and I hope I’ll see you again soon!  Dee

Challenges:

Sentimental Sunday’s – Whimsical     Stamptacular Sunday - In the Garden

Crafter’s Companion - Here Comes Summer     Sweet Stamps - Anything Goes

Creative Inspiration - Anything Goes     The Paper Shelter - Bling it On

Looking at it Two Ways…

Good Morning!  I’m having an extra day off from work this week as today I’m gramma-sitting my adorable baby grand-daughter.  My daughter is a teacher and had to return to teach the final two weeks of school.  Rather than look for daycare for two weeks, all of the grandparents are taking turns watching her – let’s just say she isn’t much work, a bottle here, a diaper change there and of course lots of cuddle time!

When looking at the new challenges released today, I just knew I wanted to try The Play Date Cafe’s color challenge.  The challenge is to use Black, White with a splash of Mustard Yellow.  The mustard yellow gives the color a more masculine feel I think which is just perfect for a Get Well card I’m making for a relative that was recently in a motor vehicle accident. The color inspiration has a charcoal color so I hope that’s okay to use as I used that for the background color.

Stamps: Daisies – Hero Arts

Sentiment: Framed Out #1 – PTI

Punch: Butterfly – Martha Stewart

Embellishments and Miscellaneous: Pearls, Inkssentials white gel pen, Prismacolor pencils, OMS, Versamark, Black Embossing Powder – Ranger, White Embossing Powder – Stampendous

Okay that’s one way but I also wanted to do a more feminine card, this time I flipped the rotation of the card and used a canary yellow vs mustard yellow.  I subsituted rhinestones for pearls.  I didn’t have any yellow rhinestones so I colored some clear rhinestones with a yellow copic marker!  I freehad cut the yellow banner behine the sentiment.  It’s hard to tell but I propped the sentiment using black foam squares.

Stamp and Sentiment: Mat Stack 4 Collection – PTI

Die: Mat Stack #4 – PTI

Ink Smokey Shadow – PTI

I hope you enjoyed my different takes using the same stamp for two different cards.  As always, thanks so much for stopping by!  Dee

Challenges:

Sparkles – Get Well     Cupcake Craft Challenge - Simply No Design Papers, Birthday

House of Gilli - Embossing (wet)     Totally Stampalicious - Clean and Simple

Kaboodle Doodles - Clean and Simple     Top Tip Tuesday - Clean and Simple

Simon Says - Clean and Simple     The Paper Shelter - Birthday with a Sentiment

Hero Arts – Birthday

DAD

It’s a bittersweet time of the year for me, my dad passed away a few years ago and I still miss hearing the sound of his boots as he would come in the house. Whenever I have a bowl of icecream or popcorn, I think of my dad as he had one or the other pretty much every night while he watched the nightly news.

We are into week two of Aud Sentiment’s “Dad, Daddy, Papa” challenge – we’d love for you to make a project for a dad and we want you to use any form of the word Dad in your sentiment.  Our sponsor is Elephantastic and Helen the creator is generously giving away some digi’s to the winner of this challenge.  Check out their site, there is an adorable elephant along with some very cute stamps to choose from.

I used Roger, I think he was a freebie awhile back three times and added letters to spell dad.  I colored the image with copics and punched them out using a circle punch and matted each of them with a circle die cut.

I LOVE this paper and the best part – it’s digital paper.  I found these papers, Stockbridge, at Sassy Designs - the entire set was a little more than a dollar!  I thought the plaid paper looked just like a shirt pattern so of course I had to add a ribbon tie to it.  The two background papers are topped with a punched border using an EK Success border punch and a ribbon layered over the border.  The sentiment is computer generated.

I hope I’ve inspired you to join Aud Sentiment’s “Dad, Daddy, Papa” challenge!  I can’t wait to see what you create!!!  Dee

Challenges:

Totally PaperCrafts - No Pesky Girls     Allsorts – For a Boy or a Man

CES – Anything Goes     Kreative Stamp Friends - Father’s Day

Really Reasonable Ribbon - Father’s Day

Huggable, Lovable, Snuggable…

It has been an absolutely gorgeous spring here this year.  The grass is green and I purchased my flowers yesterday – hopefully the frost stays away or I’ll be bringing my pots into the house at night.

I usually start out deciding on my sketch first and from there I choose my papers.  For todays card, I’m using Sketch ‘N Stash’s challenge sketch.

Thinking of springtime was the inspiration for my card – I just love these new papers from Nitwit.  Stuffed With Love is the name of the set and they are just lovely for any card that needs a pastel palette and of course their perfect for baby cards.

I have this adorable Di’s Digi Downloads digi stamp that has been waiting to be colored – isn’t she just so adorably cute???  I added pearl brads to the center of the flowers as a simple embellishment to complete my card.

Thanks for stopping by!  Dee

Challenges:

Paper and Such - May Flowers     Papertake Weekly - Cute, Cute, Cute

For Fun - My Favorite Girl     2 Sisters - Make it Girly     Digi Design - Spring

By the Cute and Girly - Spring is All Around

Wonderful Wife

I received a few new toys the other day and I wanted to play with them so I decided to use them to make this card that my son asked me to make.  His wife’s favorite color is pink, so pink it is!

Sketch: Mojo Monday

Papers: Cardstock

Stamp: Hero Arts – Pattern Hearts and Flowers, Digi Sentiment – Me, you can find it here if you’d like it

Dies: Spellbinders - Loopy Circle, Memory Box – Piestra Tile

Embossing Plate: Stampin Up

Embellishments & Extras: Ribbon, Swarovski crystals (they really do sparkle more – these are leftover from their wedding), Ranger – Clear Embossing Powder, Goosebumps Shimmer Texture Spray, the roses almost have a lacquered look to them with a bit of shimmer/shine.

As always, thanks for stopping by – stop back again when you have a chance!  Dee

Challenges:

The Crafty Pad - We’re Girly, Use Pink    Lollipop Crafts - Mama Mia

Totally Stampalicious - Sparkle, Shine, Glitter & Glam      Flouishes – Pink

Crafty Sentiments – Mother’s Day     Creative Card Crew - Sentiment as the Focal Point

Party Time Tuesday - Mum’s the Word     Ribbon Carousel - Word to your Mother