WM Sketch Challenge

I am participating in another WM sketch challenge. I'm using papers from my new "My Mind's Eye-Stella & Rose Collection." I used the Very Vintage Labels #10 set again (I know I'm going to use this set a lot) with a sentiment from SU's "Refuge and Strength". The flowers are die cut from PTI's Beautiful Blooms II die cuts out of their yummy wool felt. The scallop along the border is also PTI's Large Scallop Border die cut. Thanks so much for stopping by. Have a wonderful week-end and a Happy Mother's Day!

Mother's Day on my Workdesk

I told you that I'm enjoying a new love-affair with WMS (Waltzingmouse Stamps) so I have more to share with you. I couldn't wait to try making my own plaids with my new WM "Pic-Nic Patterns" set, so I came up with a Mother's Day card that I'm really quite pleased with. It also uses "Very Vintage Labels #10" which I am loving as well. I included hearts from my SU heart punch, ribbon from PTI, a sentiment from Flourishes "Spring Bouquet" and the children playing are also from Flourishes "Kids at Play" set. My inks are So Saffron, Marina Mist and Soft Suede, all from SU! My workdesk shows the elements prepared for assembly, so I'm going to link to the What's on Your Work Desk Wednesday post. I've already mailed out 3 of the 5 cards I made. Bethany, on the outside chance that you actually look at this post, Happy Mother's Day! -early. Thanks for stopping by. I should have another challenge post for you tomorrow.

"Go Nuts"

My goodness, it's May 1 already. Didn't we just get through the Christmas holidays a short time ago? It's also time for another Copic Challenge, and this one is one that will probably stretch you. It did me, but that's why it's called a CHALLENGE. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?! Our sponsor is LOTV (Lili of the Valley) and the challenge is creating clouds. Mary has posted some great tutorials on the Copic site so be sure to check them out and then give it a try. My image is called "Little Acorn", and I chose this one immediately because my 2-year-old grandson has been going around singing the "I'm a nut.." song. I decided this would have to be his birthday card for his 3rd birthday in June. The balloons are carrying away the little fella in his acorn so it worked out nicely to feature the sky challenge. The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink and I was glad I had it to put with this card. Be sure to check out what the rest of our talented DT has come up with, and please note that we welcome a new DT member, Cheryl Valadez. Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have a lovely beginning to the month of May.

Afternoon Tea

I wanted to play more with my Waltzingmouse stamps so I made a card for this week's sketch challenge. This one uses the "Afternoon Tea" set, and the Afternoon Tea Sentiments for the little flourishes and the "Need a Cup?" sentiment underneath the Afternoon Tea. I love the look of the main image, which I stamped twice in two different colors and cut out and layered. The embossed design is Cuttlebug's "Texture". I'm off to do some serious kitchen cleaning - we have had electricians here for a week and a half now and today they re-wired the kitchen. I'm sure that I, and they, will be glad when this project is done. Thanks for stopping by.

Quick and Easy Easter "Baskets"

I wanted to share these little "baskets" I made up following the tutorial for the "2-5-7-10" box here. I altered it by not making the top flap and folding down the top edge 1" instead. I used my Spellbinders Egg Die and my Martha Stewart grass punch for decoration. The sentiment is from Clear Dollar Stamps' "You're Eggs-trordinary". I plan to fill them with Easter grass and candy for my little ones. These were made from SU's "Banbury" DP (not sure if it's still available, but the colors worked well for Easter.) The weight actually ended up being the easiest to work with, after several attempts with regular CS. (The one in the middle is CS covered with DP, and it's really sturdy, but I didn't want to take the time to do that for all the remaining baskets I had to make.) I also ended up using Tacky Glue and it went together more quickly than using my double-sided tape. Just a quick post for any of you last-minute preparation people. Happy Easter. I'm off for a run to prepare for a local race next week-end. Yikes!

Waltzingmouse Sketch Challenge #43

I am jumping in on the end of a Waltzingmouse sketch challenge. I've recently discovered their stamps and how much I'm drawn to them. This set (Very Vintage Christmas) was the only set I owned up until a week ago, and since I had already made this card and it fit the challenge, I added flowers from my most recent set and I was good to go. The flowers are from their Rescue Remedies set, which coordinates with Spellbinders 4 Dies. I got the inspiration for this card from another blog last Christmas, but I honestly can't remember who it was....I'm so sorry. I altered it but I was so drawn to this set thanks to the stamper who shared this. I'm going to post this to the challenge site and hope I'm in time. Have a wonderful Easter week-end and as always, thank you for stopping by.

Another Miss Muffet Cutie

I want to share another one of the "Little Miss Muffet" designs with you. This one is is called "Birthday Bunny" and I made this for a sweet little boy who just turned one. I love their designs because they're easy to color and just so cute. They even have a challenge blog which I keep meaning to jump into. My papers are Basic Grey. As you can see I kept it pretty simple for this one-year-old. Thanks for stopping by. I do appreciate so much the comments you leave. Have a wonderful day and Blessed Easter.

Paper Temptations

Hi and welcome to our next Copic Creations challenge. Our challenge is being sponsored by the Paper Temptress and she has some wonderful papers. My image is colored on her super Cryogen White paper, which has a bit of a sparkle in it and was wonderful to color on with Copics. The image I colored is "Nutmeg" and she's one of the Little Miss Muffet stamps found here. They are digital images and I really fell in love with them. This one I colored very similarly to their sample image because I wanted to put her with the beautiful iridescent papers from the Paper Temptress. The picture doesn't do justice to the shimmer, but you can perhaps catch a glimpse of it on the rose-colored quadrant. I colored another MM image, "Peppermint," which I will post soon and she was colored on the Heavenly White CS, also from the PT, and I'm pleased with how the coloring turned out - I just need to make her into a card. I think you'll find that the DT has responded very favorably to this paper so be sure to check their submissions. Thanks so much for taking a look and I hope you're having a beautiful month of April.

Celebrating the Reason for the Season

In light of the true meaning of Easter, these friends of faith have gathered together to celebrate and share the Good News that Jesus Christ died for the sins of mankind and that He did rise from the dead so that all those that put their trust in Him would indeed be forgiven and have eternal life....Hallelujah! We wanted to emphasize the true reason for celebrating Easter with a card that draws attention to just that.

I used Flourishes "Easter Blessings" set (now 50% off) for my image and sentiment on the first layer and colored my image with Copic markers. I then printed the words to the chorus of that beautiful song by Keith Getty "The Power of the Cross" on vellum paper and layered it on top of the main image.

The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped: therefore my heart exults, and with my song I shall thank him. Psalm 28:7 (NAS)

We invite you to join us:
Heather
Kelly
Maria
Sammi
Lorie
Stacy
Kadie
Carolyn
Paola
Linda
Susan
Karen (You're Here)
Catherine

While we cannot even begin to reciprocate the Lord's gift to us, there is "blog candy" on some of the hop stops as a token of appreciation for your comments and encouragement.
We also invite you to celebrate the real "Reason for the Season" by posting your own creation celebrating Christ's Resurrection. There is a place to link on Catherine's blog, and a prize is up for grabs for one randomly selected card/project. The blog hop ends on Saturday at midnight (Eastern Time). Thanks so much for stopping by.

Enjoy the hop!

Copic Creations Anniversary

Happy April! It's time for another Copic Creations challenge. Mary, our DT leader, has done a fabulous job of seeking out sponsors and coming up with themes for our challenges. Mary, you're awesome, girl! Today is officially our 2nd Anniversary, but we're postponing our celebration until the June 1 post where we'll have several sponsors and lots of blog candy. For this challenge we want to say a big thank you to Crafty Secrets for sponsoring our challenge. I am using an image from one of their sweet, Medium sets called "Little Boy." The theme for this challenge is to use our favorite technique. That was a bit of a head-scratcher for me, but I realized that I like to use my die cuts and cut out my images to work with them when they "overflow" the die shape. This card is sort of doing the reverse. I didn't cut out the image but the die cut had to go "behind the image." That meant that I had to cut out a portion of the little boy image so that I could slide the die shape underneath and then create the opening for the sentiment. I have two sweet little grandsons with birthdays coming up in June, so this is going to be for one of them. I'm not going to list all of the Copic colors I used this time, but if you're interested just e-mail me and I'll be glad to tell you. Each time I post I'm hopeful that I'll have more frequent posts for you. I have several occasions coming up that require cards, so maybe I'll surprise you and have lots to share. Be sure to check out what the other DT members have created and find out what their favorite technique is. Thank you for your faithful visits and I hope you have a wonderful month of April.

Copic Creations and Sugar Nellie

It's mid March and time for another Copic Creations challenge. This month's challenge is sponsored by Sugar Nellie and the theme is "coloring blues." I just love this little image called "Country Style". The blues that I used are B32,34,39 and B93,95,97,99. I also used B0000 for the background. My ribbons are from SU! and my sentiment is Just-Rite's new "Fancy Tags" coupled with Spellbinders coordinating dies. The DT has done some adorable cards so be sure to check them out. Hope you can join us for this challenge. Thanks for stopping by!

Copic Creations Challenge

Welcome to the month of March and another Copic Creations challenge. This challenge is sponsored by Crafts and Me and the theme is Complementary Colors. The name of this sweet image is "Noon". I chose colors in the Yellow-Greens and Violets and they're all listed on the Copic Creations website. My sentiment is from PTI's "Mailbox Greetings" and the lovely plum-colored strip is a new punch from SU! The DT did a wonderful job coloring their images so be sure to check them out and find out what you could win by entering this challenge. These color challenges have been most helpful in learning more about color. I hope you'll join us and thanks so much for stopping by.

Sweet Birthday Hugs

My sweet little granddaughter is having her third birthday, so I played with some new papers and stamp and made her this card. The image is called "Snuggle", from the Greeting Farm, and the DP's were a freebie from SU's Sale-a-bration. The pretty blue CS is called Marina Mist, from SU! and I love the color. The border and flowers are stickers that came with the fun paper. I've been quite busy with Spring cleaning, so stamping is sadly not the priority at the moment. It will be soon, though, and I love when the house, or parts of the house, sparkle and shine. Wish I had time to see if this fits any challenges, but I have to keep up the momentum on the house. Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful week-end.

Two Challenges and a Birthday Card

I chose this image as my "favorite" House-Mouse image, probably because it's happy and peaceful and fun to color. It was hard to pick a favorite amongst all those cutie images, but this one is the one I chose for the "Favorite" challenge. I made it for a birthday card for a very dear friend, and she loves blues and yellows so I hope she likes this. I followed the sketch for Friday Sketchers challenge which I am just getting in before the cut-off, I hope. The inside of the card says "..on your Birthday". I used my new blue from SU called Marina Mist and I LOVE the color. My clouds are from MFT's Rain or Shine and I colored it with my Copics (my happy time.) Better close and get this posted. Thanks for stopping by.

Warm Colors Challenge

Welcome to our next Copic Creations challenge. Our challenge this time is "warm colors," and our sponsor is Bugaboo stamps. I chose this adorable little fireman in the Sunbonnet collection that you can find here. They have some really cute images so you'll want to be sure and check them out. My sentiment is from the MFT Rain or Shine set. I hope you had a lovely Valentine's Day and I hope you're experiencing some warmer temps. We are here and it feels quite nice. Thanks so much for stopping by. I hope you can play along with us and some warm Copic colors.