I'm a Finalist!

Just to keep you guys up to date on the status of the SCS Clean and Simple (CAS) DT contest that I entered I have a little announcement to make...

I made it to Round Three!

I am a Finalist in the Olympic Games!!  

Woohoo!!

For this final round which is being judged as we speak, we had to  submit a card inspired by an Olympic Reporter making an announcment.  I chose to announce the birth of a new baby!

Here is the card that I made...

This adorable planter with sprout image comes from Unity's Jan10 KOM, and the sentiment is from their Little Sprout set.  I colored the image in using Copic markers to match the strip of DP from BG's Lemonade collection.

My goal in coloring this was to make the pot look like it had algae growth on it.  I think I pulled it off close enough!  I also made an embossed frame around the image with my Scor-Pal and bone folder.  Then I finished it off with the three tiny rhinestones on the left.

Before I made this card, I also tried my hat at another one that I thought I would share with you.  I ended up submitting the first one above to the contest as my friends and I felt it fit the CAS style best!

Here is another card I made announcing the birth of a new baby!!  Not sure why my cards are all about babies!  Do you think I just might have babies on the brain since I work with them everyday??  LOL!

The stamp you see here is called Daisy Canopy and is one of Elzybells stamps.  It is so cute and so are all of hers!!  I pulled out my neglected Prismacolor pencils to color this one and had such a fun time blending and playing.  I like how Prismacolors give a softer look then Copics can sometimes.  The DP is from Cosmo Cricket.  The CS is Bazzill.  The ribbon is from my stash, but I think it was a Michael's find.  The sentiment was computer generated and printed out!

Here you can see a little closer look at my coloring.  My idol at coloring with pencils is Paula Williamson.  If you don't follow her blog you should think about it!  Her coloring and her witty blog posts are worth the trip!  Her blog is called Paper Possibilities.

Want to see the rest of the finalists for the CAS DT competition?  

Take a look at Miss Boo's (Jen's) blog post HERE!

The Closing Ceremonies (for our Olympics) will be held in the 

CAS forum at SCS from 5-10pm on Wednesday (that's tomorrow!!)

The new CAS DT will be announced at that time and there will be lots of chatting and card sharing and even some challenge cards too!!  Hope you can make it!!

Have a wonderful day and may your bucket overflow with the kind of happiness that comes from seeing a newborn baby!!  Until tomorrow...

We are Hippity Hopping Today!!

Happy Hippity Hop!!  

Isn't it nice that now that ippity has come along and that we have these awesome H{ippity} Hops planned, that we don't have to dread Mondays anymore?  Hippity Hops have turned Monday's from drudgery into a day full of inspiration.  Many ladies will be posting creations they have made with {ippity} onto their blogs today and you can find who is participating by visiting the {ippity} Blog HERE.

You are invited too!!

We invite you to sign up and join us next week for our H{ippity} Hop by visiting the Ippity Forum sign up thread at SCS which is usually up by the Friday before. Simply add your name and blog address to the list and we will make sure you show up on the master blog list!  

Eryn is hosting our H{ippity} Hop today which means that she gets to pick the challenge for this week!!  She picked a fantastic one... it is one of my FAVORITE challenges to do!!  Can you guess it?

It's a sketch challenge!!  Yeah!! I LOVE Sketch Challenges!!!  As you all know I am working my way through ALL the sketches on the Master Sketch list at SCS.  Not counting all the ones that I have randomly done over the past couple of years, I have finished the first 12 on the list and am working my way through the next 12.  I copy and paste the pictures of each sketch onto a letter-sized paper so that 12 sketches fit onto each sheet.  Then I print it out and leave the sheet in front of me as I create cards so I can use them whenever it strikes my fancy. 

The sketch that I used for my card today is SC08...

And here is the card I made using it...

At first glance you may think that I did not follow the sketch very closely, but keep in mind that they are just guides and that you can tweak them to make them work for you.  I did not use the two equal squares in the center as shown in the sketch, but you can see that I put them together to make one long rectangle in place of the two squares, or you can also see that the spring panel and the basket actually "represent" the two smaller squares.  Let your imagination be your guide and the let the sketches work for you! They are only inspirational... not set in stone!

 My card for today uses stamps that you will find in the Thoughts of Spring stamp set that is one of {ippity'}'s New Releases.  It is the perfect set to use for all your spring and Easter cards and layouts.

As of today you can still preorder this set from me for a discounted price!  Once my stamps arrive, which will probably be tomorrow, the price will go back to my regular sale price.


 

For today's card I used Basic Grey's Sugar Rush paper.  I loved how the plaid worked well on the basket to make it actually look woven!

The lace is a recent purchase from JoAnn's and the flowers are from Prima.  The cute pink half pearl is from Darice and was in a pack of several colors and only cost a buck!!

We sure hope that you will play along with us in this week's challenge.  Eryn will have all the details for you about it on the SCS {ippity} forum.  So be sure to stop by there and find our the deets and what you have a chance at winning!!

So head right on over to the {ippity} blog and start at the beginning

to be wonderfully inpsired by some more {ippity} creations!!

CLICK HERE!

Have a wonderful Monday and may your "basket" be full of fun new {ippity} stamps to play with!!

Ippity Sneak Peek #4- Winter 2010

Yippee!!  We've Made It!!

Today is the final day of the Sneak Peeks of {ippity}'s Winter Collection!

And at 12:01AM CST you can begin to buy your stamps from an {ippity} chick of your choice!!  I hope you were thinking and told your DH that new {ippity} was what you wanted for Valentine's Day!!  And thinking of that, I hope you have a very Happy Valentine's Day.  Be sure to give some love and get some love today, even if you have to give it to yourself! Everyone deserves a little spoiling sometimes, right!? My DH has already presented me with a card this morning and is planning on making breakfast for me.  He loved the Unity card I made for him HERE, and he really seemed to like his CD case too! He said it was very sweet!

So on with today's Sneaks!! Visit the {ippity} blog to see the actual snippets and then also make sure to swing by all the DT members' blogs to see some more {ippity} goodies!  We have three Unity DT girls helping us out again today and I know you will LOVE what they all have made!!

The first project I made uses the new set called Signs of Spring...

 The stamps from that set used here include the Bunny, the sentiment and thought bubble and the bottom "spring" scallop border.  They are the perfect stamps to go with an Easter or Spring theme!! Wait til you see all of the stamps that come with the collection!  They are so cute!!  You are going to love them!

I managed to use another SCS sketch for this card!!   It is SC04 and was originally inspired by a card of Asela Hopkins HERE.

An additional sentiment that also comes with this set fits inside the thought bubble and...

GUESS WHAT?????

EVERY sentiment from the Just Wanted to Say set also fits inside the thought bubble too!!  How cool is that!!  

The DP I used is from MM's Flower Patch collection.  I colored the sweet bunny in using the warm gray Copic colors and also added some colorless blender to make the fur seem less smooth and to add texture.  I added some blades of grass around the bunny using my Copics too!  The bunny was stamped onto the card first and then stamped again onto an additional sheet of paper, cut out and placed on top of the original stamping so I wouldn't have to cut around the skinny stem of the flower. 

Here is a bit of a closer view so you can see more of the bunny and also a little closer peek at the border.  There are FOUR scalloped borders in this set!!  Woohoo!!

I LOVE this set!!!

And now for our last Sneak Peek!!  If you loved Devoted, then you are going adore this set!!  It is called What Matters Most...

 I have to tell you that I find this set absolutely amazing!!  It is so beautiful and offers wonderful messages about God's love and the meaning of Easter! 

This scrollwork Cross is gorgeous!  To accent it best I airbrushed around a mask of it in a soft orange color and topped it off with a rhinestone in the middle.  It would also look gorgeous embossed!

Can you believe that sentiment?  Amazing isn't it!  It actually comes with perfect symbols to describe the same equation, but I chose to leave those off for this card!!  I LOVE this so much!! I think Heather did a wonderful job designing a stamp with so much meaning behind it!

What a message!  I chose very beautiful paper from the MME Home collection to try and match the grandeur of this card's message.  I hope I chose well!!  The cross and sentiment are stamped with SU's Sage Shadow ink.  The lace is from JoAnn's and the ribbon is American Crafts.

Well there you have it! You have seen some snippets of all the {ippity}sets being released tomorrow!! 

 What do you think??  Are you excited about our new stamps?

To see some more samples using today's Sneak Peeks, please visit the blogs of my fellow talented DT members and we also have a few Unity DT girls joining us too!  

Thanks girls for sharing your creativity with us!

Eryn Hagen
Eva Dobilas
Heather Rolin (Guest)

Lisa Henke
Maria Gurnsey
Michelle Woerner

Unity Girls...


Amber Hight
Julie Campbell
Wendy Chang

Don't miss all the fun and excitement planned ALL DAY LONG 
on Ippity Forum at 10AM CST tomorrow! 
 There will be chatting, challenges, prizes, BINGO and oh yeah
all the New Releases will be unveiled in full!!  
You won't want to miss a  minute of it!!

We hope you join us!!

I would love to know which one of the stamp sets being released is your favorite and why!  I hope that you will take a moment and share that with me!  Have a wonderful Sunday and enjoy your Valentine's and may your bucket overflow with all kinds of love!

Whimsie Doodles Bunny Blog Hop!

Yeah!! The new Whimsie Doodles stamps are here!!

Did you like the sneak peeks, or rather the little teasers we showed you yesterday?  Well today we get to show you everything!!  And then you get to go to Whimsie Doodles and buy some new stamps!!

Welcome to the Bunny Blog Hop of Whimsie Doodle Proportions!!

We have some SUPER cute images to share with you, and we can't wait to get started!  but first let me tell you how the BUNNY HOP is going to work!

 

You can win a free Whimsie Doodles image by collecting all the letters that are on the DT blogs and unscrambling a special word.  Simply hop from blog to blog and collect a letter.  Then once you have them all collected, you will unscramble those letters to get a coupon code to use in the Whimsie Doodles store so that you can download this adorable Jelly Belly image free! 

The leter that you are looking for on my blog stop is the letter 

But before you start hopping to the other DT members' blogs to get the rest of your letters, let me show you the projects that I made special for today's New Release!

This card showcases the digistamp image called Bunny Leah!  I just love this little girl!  Besides the fact that she is so adorable, she also has the same name as my daughter!!  I will be sending this to my granddaughter for Easter this year!

Bunny Leah was colored with Copic markers.  She was placed on two Nestie scalloped circles and then on top of this springy DP from MM.  The flowers are from Prima and Kaiser and the brads are from BG.  I added ribbon that I bought from a local Stampfest, stitched around the edges and added a border punch from MS to complete this frilly look!

Here is my next project to share...

The stamp set you see here is called Koale's Chicks.  Isn't he so cute sitting on that bale of hay and playing with his chicks?  I actually added two of the chicks to the image to help create a barnyard type scene.  The ground and grass were created using sponging and my Copic markers.  I also added the border of paper grass using the new MS grass border punch.

The brads I added are from BG.  The images were colored with Copics.  The sentiment you see here is just one of the adorably whimsical ones that Melyssa has come up with for this release!  She has the cutest most clever sayings!!

And for the last project I have to show you for today's release...

This image is called Leah's Basket.  The sentiment comes in the collection.    The basket and eggs were colored with Copic markers to coordinate with the BG paper from the Lemonade line.  The sketch is SC12 from the Master collection of sketches at SCS.  Here is a picture of the sketch...

This sketch goes back to when tearing was popular, but I decided to change that up and use my border punches instead of tearing the edges.

I didn't make a sample for the last set that is being released today but she also is releasing these amazing sentiments that would work perfectly with any of these sets, or even on their own....

Easter Sentiments

Once you've done your hoppin' and visited all of our Doodlelicious Divas, you'll go back to the Whimsie Doodles blog and leave a comment to be entered into a drawing for a $10 gift certificate, or two $5 gift certificates to the Whimsie Doodles store!

Alicia

Dawn

Denise

Donna

Joni

Kelli

Kelly

Melyssa

Nicole

Nikki

Paula

Sheri

Thanh

Whimsie Doodles Blog

Your next stop on our bunny hop is Melyssa.  Enjoy all of the Doodlelicious eye candy today and have fun collecting your letters!  

 

Don't forget that the letter you need from my blog is the letter A

 

 

Be sure to leave comments along at all of the stops on the hop to be entered to win 

Whimsie Doodles gift certificates.  

 

 

The winner will be announced on the Whimsie Doodles blog tomorrow!

Have fun on the hop and please come back later for sneak peeks of the upcoming Ippity stamps!

Happy Easter! FREE Downloads for You!

Hope you all have had a wonderful weekend and a very Happy Easter! I want to publicly thank my best friend Tiffani who spent over twelve hours yesterday helping me finish Leah's Graduation announcements. You are the best friend ever Tiff--- I love you!!! They need to get in the mail ASAP! The majority of them are finished and will be mailed tomorrow!

Needless to say, there wasn't a lot of time to make other cards or scrapbook layouts this weekend, but I have spent some time getting my disaster area of a stamp room cleaned up. I can finally see some counter space again, so that is good!!





Quickly I wanted to show you that last few cards I made for Easter. No Fine Print is being listed, so if you have any questions about the stamps or supplies used, please leave me your question in the comments section.



This first one comes from the Wacky Wednesdaay color challenge on the blog called 365 Cards which was to use the colors orange, purple and green. Surprisingly these colors actually worked for an Easter Card! The sketch is one of Lauren Meader's My Time Sketches (#29)

This second card is probably my favorite one this Easter. I gave it to my mom and she loved it! It is the only one that truly talks about the real meaning of Easter with the resurrection of Christ. My mom is a wonderful Christian woman and I knew she would appreciate this type of card. The sketch for this card is from SCS Sketch Challenge 223.

For good measure I threw in a couple of other challenges into this one too! One is from the Cuttlebug Challenge Blog's Be Inspired challenge 26 where we were to use vellum on an Easter project.

This picture depicts the inside of my mom's card which shows that I also decorated the inside which was a challenge given to us on the ABC Challenge Blog for the letter I that stands for "inside."

Remember this card with the Easter Chick Cutting file that I made recently? You might recall that I told you that I would give you the cutting file and the downloadable digital stamp file for FREE? Well, I finally got them ready for you to be able to download (see below.)


I also decided to make a card from the digital stamp file of that cute little chickie coming out of the egg. I really like how it turned out! What do you think??

Click HERE to get the FREE Easter Chick Digistamp

Click HERE to get the FREE Easter Chick Cutting File in GSD, KNK, WPC, AI and SVG formats

Sorry for getting these to you so late in the game as far as Easter is concerned, but maybe you can use them for next year!

Have a great night and may your bucket overflow with thankfulness for the fact that He lives!

More Easter Cards and some CAS Cards!

Why does time fly by so quickly? And you know it doesn't just fly by only if you are having fun!! LOL! I have been spinning my wheels here lately, but I am getting caught up with some stuff that needed doing. Thankfully I have been able to steal a few minutes in the scrap room to produce a couple of cards!

First of all I have been promising to post a couple of Easter cards that I had previously made. I am interested to see how they appeal to my stamping friends because they don't use a lot of stamps. :-)

The first one is made from a die cut that comes from one of the VIP files that we gave away while we ran the Wishblading Well. It is an adorable image that our DT member Pam found for us that was on some wrapping paper. So we turned it into a cutting file and I think it makes for an adorable center stage appearance on this Easter Card.

The sketch for this card comes from the Truly Scrumptious Blog posting HERE. I did turn this digital cutting file into a printable digital stamp that I will get ready and share here with you.

Keep your eyes open during this week for a FREE cutting file and FREE digital stamp of the above image!

The next Easter card came about serendipitously as I was going through my embellishment drawer for Easter. I found these ceramic 3D eggs that I bought from Joann's last year that are made to hang on an Easter tree. It just so happened that the size of the eggs fit perfectly with the egg body of the Oogaloo Happy Easter stamp I have that shows the image of an egg with legs and the words "Happy Easter" on it!

(I just realized after uploading this that the bow that used to be on the right hand side fell off!! ) :-(

When I showed it to my DH he said "How in the world are you going to mail that card?" It is really thick... I won't be mailing it... it will go to one of my own kids! Here is a side view of the dimension. It is really heavy!!

Finally, I have two CAS (Clean and Simple Cards) to share with you. They were inspired by a challenge at The Cuttlebug Challenge Blog HERE which was to use make a CAS card using Kraft, Black and either white or cream and of course also the CB.

As I have told you before I am not a CAS kind of girl by nature, but they do work well for masculine cards... so that is what I did with them. It was the perfect inspiration for some masculine birthday cards I needed this week.

This first one uses my SU set called Loads of Love. I blended Copic markers to try and match the Kraft color. That was a little challenging in itself with my limited number of markers. I drew in with a marker using a ruler the road lines. The CB was used just for the zig zag line on the left. It surely could use some embellishments, but with respect for the CAS challenge, I refrained!

The second one uses a stamp called Road Rider from Artful Inkables. The CB provides the background texture. I used the distressed wood embossing folder. To color the bike I only used grays and the colorless blender.

Drop a comment if you have any specific questions about anything I used on any of these cards. I am a little short on time today to give you all the Fine Print for each photo!

Have a great day! I will check back in ASAP with some GIVEAWAYS! May your bucket be overflowing with Clean and Simple tasks for today!

Two New Easter Cards!

REMINDER!!!

I am giving away BLOG CANDY on Sunday April 5th in celebration of 5,000 hits.

Click HERE to sign up!

I am still working on my Easter cards to get them ready to send out this year. I love this time of year and I especially love the colors and themes relating to spring and Easter.

Here are my latest two creations and of course they are done using some recently posted challenges!

This Happy Easter card uses the sketch from Shirley's 2 Girls. I missed the deadline, but I still liked the sketch and wanted to use it! The stamp is another adorable Elzybells stamp that I got from Amuse. I love these little Chicks (or are they ducks??) and I have several of these images on different stamps of hers. The DP used on this card is from the MM Chloe's Closet set like I am giving away in Sunday's BLOG CANDY. I love these papers and will be using them a lot more in the future!

The second card is cute and feminine (IMHO) and I think I will be giving it to my sweet little GD Shaelynn for Easter. The stamp is an old SU bunny from 2001 that I bought on Ebay. I thought it looked like it was hopping and therefore made it perfect for the sentiment I chose to use. This card is full of details... from the border punch to the bunny buttons, to the fluffy embossing on the tail, to the little pearl embellishments, and even to the machine stitiching! This was one of those cards where more was never enough! LOL!

The sketch was from Paper Craft Planet's Saturday Sketch. I mirrored the image and chose to use a circle instead of a flower for the accent piece. The gingham paper is also from MM and the adorable mint green Hoppy Easter was a Michael's find this week! Love it!!

Here is a close up of the bunny hopping! (LOL!)

I am a little short on time today and didn't post the The Fine Print for the cards, so if you have any questions about any supplies that I used to make these cards, just leave me a question in the comments section.

Thanks for looking, don't forget to sign up for the BLOG CANDY and have a great day!

May your bucket be overflowing with the warm colors and pretty images of spring!

Happy Monday!!

Usually Mondays are days that we moan and groan about but for me it is turning out to be quite a nice day! In fact, as far as getting called in to work, the whole weekend was nice too! It is rare that I not get called in atleast once over a two day period. And today is day three and still no calls!! My streak will end this evening because we have a scheduled c-section for 5:30. I am not complaining though! If I can get a little reprieve like I did these past few days, I can make it through the next unbearable stretch of work I get!

So, you aren't here to listen to me talk about work are you?? But since work has been kind of slow, it means I have had some time to make cards!! I have some to show you!

I have three cards to share with you today! Two are Easter cards and one is a birthday card for my dear friend Donna's son who is turning two!



The first Easter card uses a Penny Black stamp and will be posted on their challenge blog as well as onto the Sweet Challenge Sunday Sketch Challenge blog since I used their sketch!



Here is the first Easter card...

The Fine Print: DP: DCWV Nursery Baby Boy pack; CS: The Paper Co.; Stamp: Penny Black (image), SU (Sentiment); Ink: Amuse black, Copic Markers and Sakura stardust Gelly Roller pen; Ribbon: Joann's (Twill Tape), Target (Orange dotted); Dew Drops: Stamping Bellas; Nestabilities; Flowers: unknown.

The second Easter card was made using my brand new stamps that I got from Flourishes. The little chicks (that are oh so cute) come in the set called Signs of Spring. I love everything in this set so I am sure you will be seeing more of it!

The sketch for this card coincidentally works for two different sketch challenges. The first one is from SCS for the Clean and Simple (CAS08) challenge for today but it is just flipped. The second sketch artist who gave us basically the same sketch challenge was Kazan (sketch 23) from 2 Sketches 4 You. I am not typically your CAS kind of girl, but it really is a challenge and that is what "challenges" are all about right?? I kept finding myself wanting to add more layers and embellishments. It also uses the Timeless Tuesdays Challenge on the Flourishes blog which was to use embossing. I added the buttons by embossing them with my Cuttlebug.


I liked how this one came out and will be giving it to an awesome friend of mine who lives in NY. Her name is Kim; and as far as chicks go, we have always stuck together and have helped each other through some difficult times! (The latest thing she did for me was help me get through my wedding day by bringing me a bottle of wine to drink while I was getting my hair done... she really knew what I needed at that moment! LOL!)


Ok, I digressed!!! Here is the card...

The Fine Print: DP: MM Flower Patch paper pack; CS: Georgia Pacific; Stamps: Flourishes; Embossing Folder: Cuttlebug (Just My Type); Button: unknown; Circle Punch: EK Success; Nestabilities; Ink: Amuse and Copics.

Finally the last card I made is the Birthday card! Isn't it fun to create things for little kids? You get to play with adorable images and also bright colors that we often don't get to use.

The sketch for this card also comes from the 2 Sketches 4 You website and is the bonus sketch this week. I think it is a great sketch that I can see using again! I also incorporated a challenge from the Cuttlebug Spot on this card. The challenge this week was to use your Cuttlebug embossing folders twice on the same object. Look below and you will see that the lower circle highlighting the number two was first run through the Cuttlebug using the Swiss Dots folder, and then a second time using the Number Collage folder.

I highlighted the dots by rubbing my inkpad over the embossing before adding the second folder to it. Then I accented the number two by drawing around it with a souffle marker! Kind of cute I thought! Take a look at their website and you will get lots of ideas for combining more than one embossing folder onto your projects!

So here is the card that sweet little Brock will get...

The Fine Print: CS: The Paper Co.; RP: DCWV Paper Stack; Stamps: CC Designs (Image from It's My Birthday) and Penny Black (Sentiment); Ink: Amuse, Copics, Souffle and SU; Embossing Folders: Cuttlebug; Nestabilities.

Here is a close-up of the double embossing! Kind of cool huh?

Well, that does it for me today! If things go well tonight I hope to get a little more time in to make some more Easter cards! Easter is going to be here before we know it!

Less than 200 more hits to my blog and it will be BLOG CANDY time!! I will try and show you tomorrow what is going to be up for grabs!! Keep coming back and may your bucket be overflowing with warm fuzzies as soft as Easter bunnies!!