Busy Beauty Image Release

It's time for another release of some adorable Busy Beauty images, and once again we are having a blog hop to show them off. If you came here from Grace's blog, you're on the right track. If not, you'll want to go back and start there, because if you leave a comment on each blog you'll be eligible for the grand prize which is 3 images of your choice FREE from the Busy Beauties Boutique. Carolyn of "p.m.s. etc.", our author of Busy Beauties along with her artist-friend Thomas, will select our grand prize winner and announce it on her blog. When you are done at my blog, be sure to continue to Heather's blog. Also, like last time, each DT member will pick one winner who left a comment on their blog to pick one image from the boutique of their choice. So, without further ado, let's get started!
This tree is decorated with several of the newest images from Busy Beauties. Once I saw them, I knew what I wanted to do with them and as I colored them, I was getting pretty excited. I resized the oven mitts and pot holder to a bit larger size. (There are several different versions of oven mitts.) I printed the cupcakes in two different sizes. I colored my Frilly Cupcakes and then decorated them with Stickles. There are two pans of cookies-one plain and one with chocolate chips. I went with the plain and made them sugar cookies with sprinkles. I had to perch Baking Beauty in the tree since it displays her handiwork. She's munching on one of her yummy cookies. I also added Gingerbread Girl and Boy, Stick-Figure Reindeer, and Jolly, the snowman, to the tree. I played with the gingerbread people and the reindeer in Photoshop so I could make them holding hands, and I shrunk them down a bit. I left Jolly his regular size. I'm sorry he's a bit blurred in the picture. I promise he's not blurry in person. I wanted them to help announce their appearance so I put them on the tree as well. That doesn't even cover all the new releases, so I hope you'll follow the blog hop and check out the rest of the images and what the others have done with their images. Thanks so much for stopping by and have a wonderful day.

Copic Creations Challenge #17

Happy December 1. It's time for our 17th Copic Creations Challenge and this Challenge is bringing you snow and more specifically, snowmen. The DT has come up with the cutest snowmen and snow pictures to get you in the spirit of winter, holidays and all the warm fuzzy thoughts and feelings that go along with this time of year. My little duo is from Whimsie Doodles. It is a digi-stamp called Snow Friends. My snowmen were colored with N1 and R0000 for the pink one. I colored both of those in along the edge and used my colorless blender to pull the colors towards the middle. For the "blue" one I used N1 and BG10 and did the same thing. My trees were first colored in YG13 and G28, and then lightly sponged with Always Artichoke and Certain Celery. The scarves were done with RV10,11,& 14 and BG10 and 72. The tree trunks were colored at the base with E44 and then I blended my greens into that as I went up the tree trunk. It's such a simple image but I loved it when I saw it - I do love the look of whimsical images , and I like what they have to offer. My DP is Basic Grey's Eskimo Kisses and the sentiment is from PTI's "Made of Snow." I hope you can take a moment and look at the cute snowy cards the girls have done for this challenge. Then if you can, play along. Our sponsor for this challenge is Whipper Snapper. Thanks so much for stopping by and have a wonderful week.

Magnolias on Ice

I have been longing to ink up my Tilda and Edwin On Ice stamp, and when my new issue of Magnolia arrived I couldn't put it off any longer. I had also just received the background Park,Pond scene from Alota Rubber Stamps and I think it's a great scene for the two of these cuties to skate on. My DP's are from American Craft, "Merrymint" and I glittered up my die cuts in the upper corners to set it apart a bit. I colored everything with my Copics - have I mentioned that I LOVE my Copics!...and I used a bit of liquid applique to add some dimensional snow to my pine trees. I'm so envious of all of you who manage to keep up with your cards so faithfully through the busy holidays. I wish I could do that but I am just pulled in too many directions. I did manage to donate 28 cards to our church to send to our missionaries, and I have another 25 or 30 that I'll send out personally to family and friends, so I'm not exactly sitting around,-- just not getting to my posting or commenting as much as I'd like. Tomorrow is December 1 and that means another Copic Creations challenge. Be sure to check out what our DT has in store for this challenge and thanks so much for taking the time to stop by.

Just-Rite Snowman

This adorable snowman is from Just-Rite Stampers. I loved this set the first time I saw it and love the cards I've seen made with it. I used my Basic Grey DP's and my MS snowflake corner punch. I embossed my main CS with my Snowdots Embossing Folder. The sentiment comes from PTI's Mailbox Greetings set. I colored my snowman with my Copics. Thank you for stopping by and have a wonderful holiday. I want to wish you all a happy Thanksgiving day.

Flourishes' "I Believe" Santa

Wow, it's been over a week since my last post, but last week was a busy one for our family. My best friend was here for most of the week. While she was here, my precious 16-month-old grandson who lives with us was admitted to the hospital for 2 days with viral bronchialitis. Not a fun time. Needless to say, I was not stamping or blogging.
I did this card awhile ago but I was so inspired by this card from Linda Duke for Flourishes that I decided to go back and color mine. Linda's card is exquisite and I know mine doesn't hold a candle to hers, but I'm still very pleased with it. I had stamped it in one of my distress inks and just colored the berries and holly leaves at first. After seeing hers, I decided to be daring and try to color it. It was already in my card and ready to go, so if I messed up, I'd have to scratch the whole card. I colored it with my prismacolor pencils. Haven't used them in awhile. I do like how it turned out and I still think this image is incredibly beautiful and detailed. At our house, Santa is acknowledged but not emphasized, so I chose to use "Merry Christmas" instead of the "Believe" sentiment that comes with the set. I hope to be back before a whole week goes by again, and I hate that I've not had time to visit and comment on your blogs, but the holidays keep me busy. I'm so happy that 3 of my 4 kids and their families will be with us for Thanksgiving, and all 4 of my kids and their families will be home for Christmas. This will be a first in a long, long time. There will be 19 of us for that. Thank you for stopping and looking. I do love and miss your comments and just generally keeping in touch. Have a wonderful week and Thanksgiving Holiday and good luck if you dare to go out on Black Friday. LOL Hugs,

Copic Creations Challenge #16

It's mid-November and time for our 16th Copic Creations challenge. The theme of this challenge is "Gold", or coloring gold objects. Our challenge this time is sponsored by "I Brake for Stamps" and they have a very generous prize for the winner of the challenge. You can see the CC Blog for details. My card is one of their images called, obviously, "Santa." There was a lot to color, but I thought it was such a beautiful image and I am pleased with how it turned out. The DP's are mainly SU's Candy Cane and the two solid green CS pieces are both from SU! The copics I used for my gold items are YR21 and YR24. The DT has done some beautiful coloring on some beautiful images. I hope you check them out and then join
our challenge and color some gold. Thanks for looking.

House-Mouse "Kit" Challenge

This week's challenge at House Mouse was somewhat elaborate. The DT were all furnished a kit, but we the challengees were supposed to try to duplicate as best we could the ingredients in their kits. Those ingredients were:
Colour theme - Brown and Cream
1 x spotty/patterned paper
Brown Ribbon
Silver thread
Charm
Stamped image
Sentiment
Swirl die-cut (or something similar)
embossed card (brown or cream or both)
Pearls (or diamontes)
I had to make a card for my daughter's 3rd anniversary and this HM stamp was perfect, so I decided to see if I could make the card go with the challenge. She loves brown, so I used my PTI DP for the color/spotted paper. The ribbon is also PTI. The one thing I do not have is silver thread. I also have no charms but I used my ribbon slide from Flourishes and decided that could be my charm. My background is a Divine Swirl embossing folder for my Cuttlebug and I used my Kaiser half-pearls for the pearls. Hope this counts for the challenge, but even if it doesn't, I love how it turned out anyway. Thanks for stopping by. Thanks, America, for the challenge. It's nice to be participating.

Babies and Christmas

I have two cards to share with you today and they're both stamps from Flourishes. The first is from their Baby Love set and it is for our very dear friends who were blessed today with a new granddaughter. Their oldest grandchild is 16 if I'm not mistaken, so this has been a thrill for them to anticipate this new little one, and a girl at that. We are so happy for them. The papers used are from SU's Pink Pirouette. This set came out a few months ago and I immediately fell in love with it.
The next card is from their Christmas Wreath set, and I think it is one of the handsomest wreaths I've ever seen. I've already seen it colored several different ways and every one that I've seen is gorgeous. Flourishes is preparing to release their November sets this week so peek previews are already out there. No, I'm not doing a commercial for them. I just happen to love and have need for these images right now, so I'm thrilled that they're sitting here waiting for me to ink up. It's also time to donate my Christmas cards to our church for the Women's ministry to send out to our missionaries, so I need to go through what I've been saving up and get them ready to pass on to them. We are getting ready for Tropical Storm Ida and the rain is steadily increasing. Schools were cancelled today and much more is supposed to be closed tomorrow. I'm going to clean up and watch a movie and hope that we don't lost power. Thanks for stopping by. It's always a treat for me to see what others are doing and share with you what I've been doing.

Favorite Things Challenge at Flourishes

I love the challenge at Flourishes right now, and I actually had a chance to participate. The challenge is to do a card illustrating a line from Sound of Music's "My Favorite Things". If you don't remember the lyrics they can be found on their blog. I decided to do......oh, heck, I'm sure you can figure it out, although I upgraded from "strings." This is Flourishes "O Christmas Tree" set and I tried to keep the feel more country with this cute little tree. I love the plaid paper, which is from My Mind's Eye "Merry Days of Christmas" collection. The ribbon for the ribbon loops is from Sharon Johnson's ribbon store. My daughter is about to start rehearsing for our local production of Sound of Music, so I was excited to do this and get into the spirit. The DT has done some beautiful cards for this challenge. Be sure to check them out if you can. Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful week-end.

Christmas Treats

The other day I saw this adorable image on Cindy Haffner's blog and learned that it comes from Whimsie Doodles. It is a digi-stamp set, and there are 3 versions of the muffin bottom and 2 tops, the Christmas tree and a Snowman. I thought it was just so cute, and they do have some sweet images. The "Sweet Treats" sentiment is from one of my Just-Rite stamp sets and the holly leaves are punched with my MS punch. I colored it with my copics. The main DP is from Cosmo Cricket's Jolly by Golly. The ribbon is from SU and the slide is from Flourishes. Thanks for stopping by. I'm getting so anxious to post Christmas images, but I certainly don't want to overlook Thanksgiving. Have a wonderful week-end. Be sure to keep the families of the victims at Ft.Hood in your thoughts and prayers. Our SIL was just there last month. I'm so thankful he's home with us currently.

Copic Creations Challenge #15

Wow, November 1 and time for our 15th Copic Creations challenge. The theme of this challenge is red hair. I used an adorable image from Mo's Digital Pencil called End of Summer. Until today, it has still been summer here. It was warm and muggy all week long. I'm happy that the temps dropped today, but we were wondering if there would be an "end of summer" here. So while this isn't exactly autumn leaves and pumpkins, it would be right in tune with things in our part of the country. I used two colors for her hair,....YR18, and E07. I decided I liked the blend so I didn't add any more than that. I loved coloring this image. She looks so carefree and happy. I used little flower brads in the corners and attached brown Kaiser pearls in the centers. My sentiment is from SU. Be sure to check out what the rest of the DT did here. Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day.

Little Boo's card

Here is my last Halloween post, made for my 16-month-old grandson. He lives with us and since the beginning we started calling him "Little Boo." I got this adorable image, FREE, from Digital Delights. You can follow their link to all future Freebies including this week's, which is really cute.
My head is swimming with thoughts of Christmas presents and tomorrow is November 1. Yikes! I've got a good start, but I'd love to have everything bought and wrapped by December 1 so I can address all the other things that take place in one little ol' month. We'll see if I can pull it off or not. Meanwhile, enjoy your day, however you spend it. Thanks for stopping by. Tomorrow is our next Copic Creations challenge, so be sure to check it out.

Halloween Bunny

This image is one of the Busy Beauties images that Carolyn from "p.m.s.etc." carries and when I saw this I had to have it. For me, there is a story behind this. When our second son was in high school, he had a girlfriend who's mom was doing a special Easter program for kids at a local park. My son's girlfriend somehow talked him into dressing up in a bunny costume and passing out candy. She got pictures of him, and one of them is very much like this image. It's been in a frame for years and it's too funny. Needless to say he hates it, but mom is proud of him for being a good sport, despite the resistance he had to being a cool dude in a bunny costume. The actual title of this image is "You call this a Halloween costume?" I forgot the "Halloween" , which would have made more sense, but otherwise it's perfect and it's off to my son. Like I mentioned yesterday, I don't normally give credence to Halloween, but the images are too stinkin' cute this year. I had to do cards, at least, plus of course we are armed with candy. Hope you like this, and if you need it quick, these are digi-stamps that can be purchased here. Happy Friday!

Halloween Fun

I have to say that I've had fun coloring my not-very-scary Halloween images this year. I decided to put them together in a Tri-fold card that I got the idea for from Flourishes here. I received the Basic Grey Halloween papers from Kelly of KLSnS and loved them, and I used 3 of them in this card. I put
my cute little Trick-or-Treat-ing ghost from MFT on the front of the card. He's supposed to be coming out from behind the tree so use your imagination please. I loved my images from C.C.Designs so Cow Emma is on the inside, as well as my adorable costumed-Tildas. My crazy cat from Mo's Digital Pencil is the finale. I tried to include a closer-up look of Cow Emma and Pumpkin Tilda. Aren't they the cutest! I normally don't get into Halloween, although strictly from the standpoint of kids getting to dress up, I love it. However, the paper already started today with it's warnings about times to let your kids go out and be sure you inspect their candy. When it comes down to that, I'm reminded of the evil that goes with it. I'm thankful our church has a big festival for the kids to come to and have a ball in costume. Anyway, I hope you like these little cuties. I'm really wanting to make and post so much more, but other demands have taken their toll lately. Maybe I can get back on a more regular schedule. Have a wonderful week-end and Happy Halloween. Thanks for stopping by.

Fall Wedding

I wanted to share another card I got done. This is for our nephew's wedding which we will be attending this week-end while in Orlando. I decided that they probably would prefer something with a "natural" look to it instead of a fancy wedding card, so I used my Falling Leaves set from Flourishes. The sentiment and rings are from Flourishes Wedding Essentials set. The sentiment on the inside is from Gina K called With This Ring, and the Congratulations is an Inkadinkadoo stamp that I love. I stamped the various leaves in Fall SU colors, and then colored the one leaf and acorns with my copics. I mounted this on SU's Soft Suede - I really like that color! The ribbon and buckle are also from Flourishes. Well, yay!...I managed to post two cards. If I have internet access while I'm away I'll try to get around to see what y'all are doing. If not, I'll have to ooh and ahh when I return. Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful week-end.