New Releases for Whimsie Doodles!

It's November 1st and that means that it is Release Day over at Whimsie Doodles!!

Can I hear a Hooray??? Now that Halloween is behind us, Melyssa has turned her sights to the upcoming holidays of Thanksgiving and Christmas and she has some awesome images for us!!

The first set she has for us is the one that I didn't get a chance to show you a sneak peek of. This one is called Muffin For Christmas! See this cute little Christmas tree that is actually a muffin inside a cupcake liner? ADORABLE!!!

Here is the whole card that I made. I used BG Eskimo Kisses paper and colored my image in with Prismacolor pencils and Gamsol. I added some red stickles to the tree for a sprinkle effect. The big pink satin ribbon is from Joann's. The sketch for this card uses Mojo Monday's sketch for week #110.

Included in Muffin For Christmas is the muffin and sentiment you see here and also a snowman muffin and various cupcake bases. Click HERE to see this set.

Considering Melyssa has already celebrated her Thanksgiving holiday in Canada, it was really sweet of her to make this image at the request of one of our DT members. Isn't it so cute!! And doesn't it accurately depict how we feel after eating all that food on Thanksgiving??

This is one stuffed bird! LOL! This set is called Get Stuffed!!

This card was made using papers from Recollection's Fall Paper pad. I went with the colors on the DP and colored the turkey using Copic markers. I accented the circles on the DP by adding the brads. Using Nestabilities label 3 I framed the turkey. I love that ric-rac and thought it added a perfect touch of country!!

This set comes with the turkey and sentiment you see pictured here! You can see the full set HERE. This set is located in the "This and That" section of the store!

And now one more new release for Christmas. Isn't this pair just the sweetest? You are looking at Olive the reindeer and Toasty the Penguin. Toasty is hanging on for "deer" life there isn't he??

I struggled choosing my DP for this one and finally ended up using an old BG paper from the Scarlett's letter collection. I liked that it had black in it to match the penguin, and also had some colors that worked for Christmas too. I thought it turned out to be a nice color combo and one you wouldn't ordinarily expect to see at Christmas time! Grey, black and brown are not the typical Christmas colors! Can you see where I added diamond glaze to the light bulbs?

This set is called Olive and Toasty and comes with only the image you see here. I paired it with a sentiment from the Sweet Sentiments collection that was released on October 15th! Click HERE to see Olive and Toasty.

Whew!! That was a lot!! But if you want to see more, there are still all the DT members blogs and the Whimsie Doodles Blog too that will be featuring some more of these images today so I encourage you to visit them. Just click on the names of the DT members from my side bar to visit all the WD blogs today!

To shop at Whimsie Doodles... CLICK HERE!!

Happy Shopping and have a great Sunday!! Can you believe it's November already??? Did you remember to set your clock back??

There are more new releases happening today too! Scroll down to get the link for your copy of this month's SheetLoad of Cards eZine and also head over the the Unity Blog to see the newly released KOM there!!

Have a great day and may your bucket overflow with quality time spent with friends and family!

Growing in Unity Blog Candy Winner! And a WD Sneak Peek!

I had such a great time Growing in Unity this week. This company is so amazing. Not only do they provide you with such inspiration to help us grow as stampers, but with Angela and her amazing quotes and encouragements, it is hard not to grow as individuals as well! I am so happy that I have found this awesome stamp company and I just love using their stamps!

Thank you for all the wonderful comments you left on my blog during this past week, and promised I have some Unity stamps to give away! They are in the form of a grab bag and I have a total of six stamps that you can see pictured below!

Starting from the top and moving left to right, the stamps come from the following sets... Tiny Trinity, Christmas Elegance, Tiny Trinity, Plant a Tree, Something Within, and Sending My Love. (The stamped images are not actual size or scaled to each other.)

So who won my Growing In Unity- Unity Grab Bag?????

After totalling all the comments and using Random.org, the winning comment was this one!!

Congratulations!!

Please contact me by Monday November 2nd by 11:59 pm or I will choose an alternate winner! My email addy is: sownsew25@verizon.net

Now on to another stamp company that I just love... Whimsie Doodles!!




Tomorrow is the November 1st which means that it is a Release Day again and Melyssa, as always, has not disappointed with her latest creations!! I have some snippets to show you of two of the three releases coming out tomorrow! I will show you the whole the full reveal for all the sets tomorrow!

You are going to LOVE these!!

These two sneaks are from one of the new sets being released tomorrow!

And these two are from a second set being released!

Anxious to see more?? Well just stop by again tomorrow when I will show you the full views of all three of my cards showing each of the Whimsie Doodles New Releases! If you head over to the Whimsie Doodles Blog, you can leave a comment for a chance to win a new set!

Have a very safe and Happy Halloween! Don't forget to set your clocks back one hour tonight if your area uses Daylight Savings Time! And may your bucket be overflowing with all treats and no Tricks!!

SheetLoad of Cards November Sneak Peeks!

Make sure to head on over to SheetLoad of Cards to see sneak peeks from the upcoming issue.



But before we jump into November '09, don't forget about the fabulous October '09 issue, sponsored by DRS Designs!! You still have time to enter the Show Us Your SheetLoad challenge for chances to win gift certificates from the sponsor!!

Growing in Unity- FWF Friday

Happy Friday Ya'll!! I am stuck at work and have to make this very short and sweet!! I hope you are on the Blog Hop for Friends with Flair Friday and are enjoying all your stops visiting the blogs of sweet Unity Fans!!

Don't forget to leave a comment here today! I will be picking one winner from all the comments left on my blog during my time of Growing in Unity this week. The winner will be receiving a grab bag of Unity stamps. I will close the comments down by morning and will announce my winner tomorrow!!

Good Luck and thanks for visiting me all week!!

My card today combines three Christmas stamps, Cosmo Cricket paper and some beautiful red velvet paper to make this Christmas card. The ribbon is from DCWV and I also used a MS border punch.

I am showing you this angle so you can see that the snowman was embossed in silver.

Do you see how perfectly that winter wonderland circle frame fits around the snowman's shape? And don't you just love the Swirly Christmas sentiment in the panel underneath the snowman? Oh so cute! Slowly but surely I am tackling my Christmas cards this year! Maybe I will have them in the mail before December 20th this year! LOL!

The Unity stamps I used are:

Snowman: October Stampin Store Kit
Winter Wonderland circle border: Bright & Merry Winter Wishes set
We Wish You Swirly: Bright & Merry Winter Wishes set

The green paper under the Snowman is from CutCardstock.com and is the neatest shimmery paper that is so beautiful in person. It is called Stardream paper and you can find a multi-colored sampler HERE.

Have a wonderful Friday and may your bucket overflow today with lots of yummy Unity Eye Candy!!

Growing In Unity- Who Does That Thursday!

Yeah! It's Thursday and I am on my fourth day of Growing in Unity! Thanks so much for those of you who have stopped by daily and left such sweet comments. Don't forget that tomorrow I will be drawing a name from all the comments left during my Growing in Unity week and will send some lucky commenter a grab bag of some Unity stamps!

Did you see on the Unity blog that there will be an opportunity to buy the January's CHA release stamps for a very limited time over this weekend. There are five sets that the Unity customers can by early... who does that??? Don't you just love Unity??

The card that I have to share with you for today is one of those unfortunate but necessary cards to have to make. It is a sympathy card. I have a dear friend who used to be on my DT when my partner and I ran the Wishblading Well and I learned today that her dog was just shot by some stranger while her husband was playing with her outside. I am so sad about that and can't imagine the grief they must be experiencing. The dog was only two years old and had a lot of life left in her. I can't imagine the motive that would cause someone to do such a thing.

So using the dragonfly stamp from Unity's October Stampin Store Kit and the "we care" sentiment from the Nov 08 KOM I went for a very simplistic look to this card. I was inspired first by the somewhat Asian look of the dragonfly stamp and decided to pair it with this beautiful Wisteria BG paper. I colored the images with my Copic Markers. I lightly colored the background with my new Copics Airbrush system to match.

I want to share with you some information about the yellow cardstock that you see used here. I received a wonderful package of papers from Cut Card Stock.com and this Coredinations paper was included in this package. This sheet comes in a set of pre-embossed CS in the Jenni Bowlin line by Coredinations. The 12 x 12 sheet was embossed around the outer edges similar to the shape of a Nesties Label 1. I chose to cut out around the embossing and use that shape as an accent on my card. I didn't want to sand it either, but I am sure you know that you can do that with Coredinations. I encourage you to check out Cut Card Stock.com, they have an awesome collection of papers with great prices and even a sale right now for their Facebook Fans.

If you haven't already done the Who Does That blog hop of the Unity DT members, go on over to the Unity blog and check out what they have to offer. I don't know about you, but I am inspired week after week by their creations!

I hope you will come back tomorrow for my Friends with Flair post and my last Growing in Unity card share. I hope you have a wonderful day and may your bucket overflow with warm caring wishes for your friends.

Growing In Unity with a SSW Sketch

I know that my Unity Friends are aware that on Thursdays we get to have the Unity DT blog hop, and on Friday's we have the Friends with Flair blog hop, but did you know that Wednesdays can be really sweet too?

For me and hopefully for you now too, Wednesday's mean that it is time for a release of a new card making sketch from Sweet Sketch Wednesday! The creator of these sketches, Arlana, who happens to be a Unity fan also, makes some really sweet sketches. Many of the weeks are sponsored and have prizes to be given away. So I hope you will try and play along with us in the future! Just stop by the SSW blog and check out more details.

We are up to SSW Sketch # 21 this week and here is a picture of it...

This week's sketch also incorporates a color challenge, but we were also free to use Halloween colors since this is the last week before Halloween.

As you can see, I chose to use Halloween colors for my card...

That adorable Frankie image is from the Unity stamp set called Little Monsters, the sentiment comes from the Hauntingly Sweet set and the cute spiders are in the set called Unlucky 13.

I used my Copic markers to color Frankie in and cheated a little by using this great DP from Recollections that helped me create the scene you see on the right side panel without having to go to a lot of extra work.

The three bat brads are from Recollections and are so cute because they have a little flocking on them! I should be about finished with my Halloween cards now and plan on getting them in the mail today!!

You may have read some hints of mine about leaving some comments on my blog this week. On Friday when my week of Growing in Unity is over, I will be choosing one person to win a random grab bag of Unity stamps just for leaving comments on my posts throughout the week. Please only comment once per day. For each comment you make you will have a chance to win the stamps. Good Luck!!

Two more things...

I have a project to share with you on the Sweet N Sassy Stamps blog where I was Guest Designer for the month of October. Click HERE to check out that post!

Also, today I am the sponsor for a card challenge over at Paper Craft Planet in the Whimsie Doodles Group. Click HERE to go to PCP and then just join the Whimsie Doodles group if you want to play along!

Have a great day and may your bucket overflow with goodness!

Growing in Unity- Enjoy Your Birthday

Today is my second day Growing in Unity and I have a little challenge for you? I need you to guess what one of the stamps that I have used on my card!

I know that you can see that the sentiment is stamped on the banner that gets pulled behind the plane from the October 09 KOM. And I know that you can see that the actual sentiments are from the May 09 KOM...

...but can you guess what stamp was used to create the polka-dotted petals on the flower in my card??

Any guesses?? I was going for a use of this stamp that wasn't what it was originally intended for! If I told you that it is from a stamp set at Unity that you will want to be using in November to celebrate Thanksgiving, would that give you a hint? The stamp I am referring to was stamped seven times to make this flower and then they were all colored identically using my Copic markers.

Did you see just how enormous the flower is that adorns my card? The size of the card is 5 x 6.5 inches and the flower covers most of the front of it!

Were any of you able to guess that the "petals" on this flower are actually one of the turkey feathers from Unity's Build a Turkey stamp set? I couldn't help it, but one time when I was looking at the feathers in the stamp set I saw petals instead of feathers so I just had to go with it!!

The DP I used (that is soooo busy!) is from Junkitz' Fanciful line. I made this card for one of my dear neighbors who recently celebrated her birthday with her twin sister. I still need to make her sister one also, but I am going to have to come up with another design for her! I think they gave up the matchy matchy twin thing a long time ago!! LOL!

Thanks so much for stopping by my blog and leaving all the love yesterday! It won't go unnoticed as I have a little give away planned for my last post this week! I hope that you will come back by tomorrow and continue with me as I Grow in Unity!!

May your bucket be overflowing with great ideas for using your stamps in unique and different ways!

I am Growing In Unity!

If you are a Unity fan then you probably know what Growing in Unity is. But for those of you who don't know, it is where fans of Unity Stamps have signed up to voluntarily put Unity stamp creations on their blog for a whole week from Monday through Friday. So if you like Unity stamps as much as I do, I hope that you will be back to see much more of Unity goodness on my blog all week long!

Before I show you my creation for today, I wanted to thank all of you for the fabulous Birthday wishes that I received. Never before have I received birthday blessings from so many different technologies. They came in the form of snail mail, email, phone calls, texts, Facebook posts, and blog comments. But you guys sure know how to make an old lady feel better!! I had a great weekend spending time with my family!! Thanks again for all your birthday greetings!

The card I am showing you today is the one that I made for the current Unity Bachelor Bro challenge. This week's challenge was to make a card using only Pink and Brown that can appeal to Broman's Sweet yet manly side.

This really was a challenge for me to come up with a masculine card that has pink in it!! But I think that the sentiment might just keep it more on the masculine side than on the feminine side.

The title sentiment says... This is what Love Looks Like...

And the handwritten portion of the sentiment says...

A PIZZA, A COLD BEER & A NIGHT

IN FRONT OF A WARM FIRE WITH MY SWEETIE!

I hope that Broman likes it!! And best of luck to all of you who are going for the challenge too!

The Unity stamps used in this card are

• Fact of Love Journaling block
• Heart from the winged hearts in the August 09 KOM
• Fireplace from Jolly Little Winter
• Hearts of Old background stamp

The DP is from Basic Grey and the image was colored with Copics. The Kraft paper is from The Paper Co.

Keep scrolling down to see my post earlier today using Sweet N Sassy Stamps!

Thanks for stopping by today and please come back again everyday this week for more of my Growing in Unity projects! Have a wonderful Monday and may your bucket be overflowing with all the things that Love looks like to you!

Hapy Autumn with SNSS!

I am still enjoying my time as a Guest Designer over at the Sweet N Sassy Stamps blog. For today I have created the adorable card you see pictured below that uses the digital stamp set from SNSS called "Leave Me Smiling."

This card uses a technique that I have never used before so if you want to find out what that is, and want more information about this card and the stamp set used, please stop by the SNSS blog for all the details!

Click HERE to go to my post at the SNSS blog!

I am excited to be Growing in Unity also this week, so I will be back

soon with a post using some Unity Stamps!

Friends With Flair Friday and a Cherry on Top!!

Today feels like a day that deserves a Cherry on Top!! I have a lot of reasons to celebrate...

• Yesterday felt like the good ole days around the Unity Forum (yeah for BINGO!)



• Today is Friends with Flair Friday



• My daughter Leah is coming home from college today



• My daughters and I are going to see the "So You Think You Can Dance" Tour tonight



• It's my birthday on Sunday and I have a three day weekend off from work!!!



• I get to play with Unity all weekend long because it is my week for Growing in Unity starting Monday!!

Life is good right??

My Friends with Flair card for today was made for a challenge at the Caardvarks site. Nikki Sivils who is kind of new to the industry is sponsoring the challenge and has some great give aways. The challenge is a rather tall order though... well not really, it is just to make a "tall" card! LOL!

Using Nikki Sivils' line of paper called My Sweet Cherry Pie, I decided to pair it with Unity's Cherry and sentiment stamp from the June 09 KOM to create this cherry of a card...

I like how it turned out. I love the contrast of the crisp colors against the Kraft and I also like that it is kind of clean and simple (well for me anyway!) I think these cherries are so adorable!!

I hope you are enjoying the FWF Blog Hop and if you have stumbled here without knowing about it, please visit the Unity Blog HERE and start at the top of the list and visit 50 blogs filled with Unity stamps creations made by the best fans in the world!

I am Growing in Unity all next week,

so please bookmark my site, start Following me, add me to your blog roll or just be sure to stop by and see more Unity projects all week long starting Monday!!

Have a great day and may your bucket overflow with good things to celebrate!

Are you a SCS Fan Club Member?

I am and I want you to be one too!!

Now that I am in the Splitcoaststamper's Dirty Dozen I want to be able to share with you what I created for this month's Fan Club Gallery! However, As much as I would like to, I just can't, quite yet! So, here are some snippets of my submissions for this month's Gallery. The theme was "Treats All Around." I hope this peek might entice you to join so you can see all of these projects in full and also the submissions from the 11 other Dirty Girls!

So, if you want to see these and many other projects you just have to become a Fan Club member! By becoming a Fan Club member you not only get access to look at all the projects that the Dirty Dozen contribute to the monthly DD Gallery, but there are many other perks as well.

Taken directly from the SCS website, here is some more information about becoming a Fan Club Member...

What is the Fan Club?

The Splitcoast Fan Club is our paid subscription program. We provide some great extra benefits to Fan Club members, including access to special monthly galleries created by the twelve members of the Splitcoaststampers Design Team, dubbed the Splitcoast Dirty Dozen.

How does it work?

Each month, members of the Dirty Dozen are given a design challenge. The best of their creations are added to a special gallery that Fan Club members can visit for ideas and inspiration. We announce and open the new gallery on the 15th of each month.

What about the galleries from past months?

As a Fan Club member you have access to every gallery back to July, 2004 when we first launched the Fan Club.

What other benefits are there?

Fan Club members get instant (no approval required) upload privileges in the gallery, and access to a special forum containing templates and instructions for design team projects. (This is one of my favorite perks! :-) )

Will I need another password or something?

No extra passwords or anything complicated. Once you’ve joined, the Dirty Dozen gallery will show up alongside all the other gallery categories. You’ll be able to check out the new additions each month, leave your comments, ask questions, etc. just like any other gallery.

How do I join?

Fan Club subscriptions are $24.95 (USD) per year or $14.95 for 6 months. You’ll receive a receipt and welcome note via e-mail and your membership will activate immediately. Please note: if paying via e-check your subscription will not activate until your payment clears.

Where’s the money go?

Fan Club subscriptions (along with advertising) are the primary revenue source for Splitcoaststampers. When we launched the Fan Club in July of 2004 we were still small and had very little overhead. Our expenses today are much higher and fall almost completely into one of two categories - people and technology. The people who work here are tremendous, really! You can meet them on our Team page. Servers and bandwidth are another significant expense - our combined operations require multiple servers and over a terabyte of bandwidth each month.

Here is a direct link to the page where this information came from and where you can read even more about the Fan Club.

Take me to the Fan Club Page at SCS!

I hope that you will consider joining the SCS Fan Club if for no other reason than to support the awesome stamping community that they provide for us. Thanks for letting me advertise a little here, I just love SCS and hope that you do too!!

Sweet Sketch Wednesday

This is my second post for today, so please scroll down to see my post with a FREE Whimsie Doodles image announcement in support of Breast Cancer Research!

Can you believe that we are up to sketch number 20 already at Sweet Sketch Wednesday? I hope that you have been playing along! Many weeks there are chances for you to win some free stamps, so I hope you will start to use the sketches and play along with us.



Here is this week's sketch...


This week we were sponsored by the Digistamp Boutique. Sally-Ann Hancock designs these stamps and has graciously offered a prize for the winner of this week's challenge. For details on how to enter, please visit the SSW blog.



She graciously offered some of her stamps for the DT to use for today's challenge. The first card that I made uses Milly Singing Carols.

The DP that I used is from a K&Co collection that I got last year for Christmas. I am really loving more non-traditional colors for my Christmas cards this year!

Milly and her sweet little side kick were colored using Copic markers. The image panel was cut with one of my label Nesties.

The snowflake punch is from MS and to accent the snow, I added some dimensional glaze to the landscape and then sprinkled Snow Glitter on top of it. The ribbon is a Target Dollar Spot find that coordinated perfectly and I also added some lace from Joann's to give it a bit of a vintage look.

My second card uses the Digistamp Boutique image called Christmas Robin.

Again the papers are from the same K&Co Christmas collection and the brown CS base is from The Paper Co. To create the border of holly leaves, I simply printed the digistamp multiple times and colored each set of Holly leaves and then cut them out. I then lined them up on my card to form the border that you see here. The sentiment I created using Word Art in Power Point.

This red-breasted robin and all the Holly leaves were colored using my Prismacolor pencils and Gamsol. I added a touch of red stickles to the holly berries on my main image.

For added dimension I printed one extra holly leaf set and popped it up on top of the main image.

Click HERE to visit the SSW Blog and see the rest of the DT's creations.

Or you can visit them from clicking on their links in my sidebar.

Have a great Wednesday and for the rest of your day may very sweet things flow out of your bucket!!

Keep scrolling down to see the Whimsie Doodles post from today too!!

FREE Hope Fights Digistamp from Whimsie Doodles

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month and Melyssa at Whimsie Doodles has created a new digistamp and sentiment to help support breast cancer research.

Her name is Hope Fights, and we think she represents the pink ribbon campaign in a fantastic way. Hope is FREE from today (October 21st) through Friday, October 23rd, on the Whimsie Doodles Website. After Friday, there will be a charge, with all proceeds going to Breast Cancer Research. Melyssa has decided to share her for free for a couple of days so that we can get as many people to participate as possible! In fact, Hope is our Whimsie Wednesday challenge at Paper Craft Planet today. So download Hope, tell your friends, and come play along for a good cause if you can!

Today is also the day for our Whimise Doodles sketch challenge on the Whimsie Blog. Share your creation on our BLOG using the sketch provided and you'll be entered to win a FREE digi!

If you're like us, you like to combine challenges, so feel free to combine your Hope image with the sketch challenge!

I made this card to give to a family friend of ours named Gayle who is surviving her battle against Breast Cancer. She will be walking in the Breast Cancer 3 Day walk coming up in our area on October 30th - November 1st.

This is a picture of the Sisterhood of the Sunshine Survivors and our friend Gayle is on the very left in the back row. Their motto is Cancer is not for Chickens!! Gayle has set up her own personal page for the Breast Cancer 3 Day Walk to help raise money for this great cause. If you are interested in donating money to this wonderful cause and don't have any one to donate in the name of, I would ask that you consider donating to Gayle. Her story can be found HERE!

Have a wonderful Whimsie of a Wednesday and may your bucket be overflowing with hopes and prayers for those battling Breast Cancer!