Owl Love You.....

A week ago I promised I'd post my other Whimsie Doodle images that I was so in love with, but I didn't even get one of them done until tonight. I do love this little guy and had to make sure I finished him. I colored him with Copics, cut him out and mounted him on one of my Heart Nesties. The DP's are Basic Grey's Sugar Rush, and the designs at the bottom are border punches. Crazy 4 Challenges has a heart challenge going on, so I think I'll enter him in that challenge. Their DT has the cutest cards with hearts - I'm really impressed! Thanks for stopping by and I hope you are having a good week.

Make Music in Your Heart

Good Monday morning to you! I hope you had a pleasant and relaxing week-end. I got to do a card for Our Daily Bread Design's first DT challenge. I learned about it on America's blog here and the challenge can be found here. The challenge is to use a heart/hearts in your design and you have until Thursday, February 11 (my birthday) to submit your design. They do not require that you use one of their stamps, but if you have one to use they welcome it. I did have one I could use and came up with my card that I was very pleased with. The sentiment and flower on the heart are from their Sing to the Lord set. The DP is one I had on hand by October Afternoon. The border is a MS punch and the flower is done from my new Nellie Snellen punch and emboss flower set that I pre-ordered from 7 Kids College Fund. I sponged the bottom and top flowers with Tim Holtz' Antique Linen. I also sponged the sentiment and flower and heart with the same. The ribbon behind the sentiment is from SU! My daughter loved the colors and the sentiment, especially since she is a musician. Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful Monday.

"Oops, There Goes Another Rubber Tree..."

Yay! My first High Hopes stamp gets colored and posted. I love this little guy, although I'm not sure how fond I am of coloring ants. This is my first attempt, well....second. The first ant was too dark so I started over with the Warm Greys instead of the Cool Greys. I colored the rest with Copics. He fit perfectly into my Mega Curved Rectangle Nestie. I had a flower punch that I inked with SU markers and stamped on the left side. I sponged So Saffron and More Mustard around the outer edges and used my two SU word punches for the sentiment. I attached my flowers and mounted it all on Garden Green CS and Voila! - I just smile when I see this little guy. This was a pre-order from 7 Kids College Fund and I got others to ink up as well. So glad I got them. Hopefully I'll share those with you soon. If you want to check out the other cool pre-orders they're offering, as well as the fabulous stock of items they now carry, you can get there by clicking on the logo on the left side of my blog. I hope you have a wonderful week-end and if you're on the east coast, don't get buried under too much snow. Thanks for stopping by.

Busy Beauties Blog Hop

It's time for another Busy Beauties blog hop. There were several images released once again so it was hard to decide what to work up for the blog hop. I decided to make an explosion box in order to display several of the images in one project by tucking them inside the box. My cover has "Teddy" with his message that he brings T.L.C. to Speed Your Recovery. Inside is full of goodies for most things that might ail you. There are band-aids, tissues, a prescription bottle of T.L.C., and the old stand-by....chicken soup. "Cuddle Me Better" Bear is in the middle and he looks like he has bandages and he's sick, poor baby. I printed him out twice, cut him out and made a backside and a little stand so he could be standing there waiting to greet you when you open the box. Regarding the blog hop, you should be coming here from Michelle's blog and going to Anita's blog from here. Instead of each DT member choosing a winner, we will have "Secret Beauties" along the hop who will be awarding three free images to one random commenter from their blog plus a grand prize winner of five free images (only those who leave a comment on each blog on the hop will be added into the grand prize drawing). I'm sure you'll see more of the new release images along the hop so be sure to check them out. They are all available in the Busy Beauties Boutique. Thanks for stopping by and have fun hopping.

Love You This Much

I got this adorable little snowman from Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps the other day. They are going to all digital stamps and had their clear stamps on sale. I was anxious to ink him up so I decided to incorporate two challenges in the process. The first is a sketch challenge from A Spoonful of Sugar. I don't think I've ever done one of their challenges, but I read about it on Shary's blog and decided to use it for my card. The other is the Stamptacular Sunday challenge, which is to make a card using only blue and white. I saw this on Christine's blog here and her card is adorable. I wasn't sure about using blue with the hearts, but I decided it would still be cute. The sentiment that came with it is so sweet. I used my "Snow Dot" CB embossing folder for the background paper. My blues are all SU papers in Not Quite Navy, Sky Blue and Baja Breeze. I colored him with Copics in B93, B95 and B97 and BG0000. I was so happy that I had bought a special ribbon trio from SU awhile back that included the Not Quite Navy ribbon. Hope you like it. It was fun and fairly easy with limited colors and the sketch all laid out for us. Thanks for stopping by. Be watching for the next Busy Beauty blog hop on Thursday with some cute new images that go with this time of year.

Copic Creations Challenge #21

Well its February and time for another Copic Creations challenge. This challenge is sponsored by Susanas Custom Art and Card Design and features her newest Victoria Case "Aurora" images done by the DT. The prize will be a complete set of the new pastel Copic markers and the Aurora stamp collection. The theme of the challenge is "feather blending." It is an interesting technique that you can find a tutorial for on the CC site. I feathered her hat and skirt with Y13 and BG 13. I love this little image and think you'll love the other images that the DT has worked up. My DP's are from Basic Grey's "Two Scoops" and my sentiment is from SU's "Best Yet." I hope you'll give this technique a try and join us in this challenge, and don't forget the awesome prize that is being offered. Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful week.

Joy in Little Things

Got a quick post today. I've been undergoing a huge project of purging my craft room and it's closet of unwanted/unnecessary items. I'm loving a cleaned-up, less cluttered room. However, its obviously deterred me from actually creating, but that's okay. There's more room and efficiency to do that now. I should take pictures while it's all cleaned up to share what works for me. But, onto my card that I did a few days ago. This card was inspired by Leslie Miller's card (Running with Scissors) here, and I really like it and set out to CASE it. However, it really didn't look all that much like her card by the time I finished because I had to change it to use what I had, but I ended up liking it very much. I was very thankful for the inspiration. Yikes, I almost got rid of this stamp set. It is "Oh So Lovely" from SU! The papers are Cosmo Cricket, the punch is new from SU! and I'm really liking it. I'm off to more projects, (golly it's nice to de-clutter) so have a wonderful day and week-end and as always, thank you so much for stopping by. I love when you do.

Welcome Little One

I made this card for a very special lady who is being given a baby shower for her first little girl. I'm also going to enter this into the Pretty in Pink challenge on Crazy 4 Challenges blog. My image is from Flourishes "Rock-a-Bye-Baby" with a paper-pieced hat on the moon and sleeper on the baby. It is colored with Copics and cut out with a Labels Six Nestie. The onesie is from SU's "By Ones and by Twos" and the sentiment from SU's! "Full of Life". The border at the bottom is Spellbinder's Lattice Borders. I added a few Kaiser "Rose" half pearls. The papers are all SU!
Thanks for stopping by.

Quick Post with Link for Tutorial

Some of you have mentioned wanting to learn the technique for using a Nestie where the image extends outside of the Nestie shape. I learned this technique at Rachel Jakes' blog here , but I have one suggestion to make. In her sixth picture down she shows making a light pencil mark where you'll cut to on the outside of the Nestie frame. However, you need to make the mark lightly on the inside of the frame. You'll see in her next picture that she actually cuts up to that point. That way you can gently slide the Nestie die up to where it needs to go. I tend to make light pencil marks here and there to make sure I line it up correctly once I put the Nestie back into place after cutting my image to where it needs to be cut. Sounds confusing, but the pictures will all make sense. Let me know if you have any problems.

Cloud Nine Leah

I'm back with another valentine card for you, and this one was so much fun to do. I love this image. I pulled out my Bittersweet BG paper from last year and used the colors on one of the papers to build my color scheme. I colored her with my Copics - love those markers! - and I cut her with a circle Nestie using the technique where part of it overlaps the die cut. I've used this quite a bit and so glad I learned about this. It seemed to be perfect with this one. My sentiment is from Alota Rubber Stamp's "Valentine Cuties" and I punched it with the Word Punch from SU backed with one cut from the new Modern Word Punch. I've got too more adorable images from Whimsie Doodles colored and ready to assemble into cards. I'll be sharing those with you as well so stay tuned. If you're interested in the tutorial on that technique with the Nesties, let me know in the comments and I'll try to find the link to it and send it to you. If I can't find it, I'll do my own. It's worth knowing for those times when your image doesn't quite fit. Hope your'e having a great week-end and thanks for stopping by.

I Love Ewe

Another post!....yes, from me! This one is a Busy Beauty new release called "I love Ewe Too" and it is in the Busy Beauty Boutique, along with several others that were just released. I thought this little lambie was too cute and had fun coloring her up. My layout is compliments of the sketch from Friday Sketchers this week. My papers are the new DP's from SU!, and my sentiment, bless them!, is from Just-Rite stampers Curlz font set. It JUST fit into my smallest Labels Six nestie. ("JUST fit", get it? Sorry- I'm punchy from cough syrup.) Yea....still not 100% but got another card done. Now I'll cough my way into some housework. That's sure to put me back down, right? Maybe if I get moving I'll actually feel a bit better, so off to the work!

Valentine's A-Plenty

You may be wondering where I disappeared to since my last post was a week ago. I've had that nasty cold, cough, no-can-talk stuff that's going around. I feel like I lost a whole week. I did manage to work intermittently on cards, but without much exhuberance I'm sorry to say. However, I finished these adorable valentines from Whimsie Doodles that I colored a week ago and I just love them. In fact, today they released 4 more and I've got to make them up as well 'cause they're just so darn cute! I colored these with my copics and used a variety of papers to go with each. They're pretty self-explanatory so I'll let it go with that. Hope you like them and thanks for stopping by. I'll try to quit being MIA and get back to some faithful blogging. Have a wonderful week-end.

Copic Creations Challenge #20

Well, it's mid-January and time for another Copic Creations challenge. Our challenge this time is Ethnic Skin Tones, and our sponsor is Philomena and you can find her images at Phindy's Place here. Her images are wonderful as you will see when you look at what the DT came up with for the challenge. My image is called "Bedtime Story," and I thought she looked like an adorable little Hispanic girl. My DP's are from Basic Grey's "Sugar Rush." The Copic colors I used for my skin tones are E11, E13, E17 and the cheeks are R32. The other images the DT colored are really fabulous, so I hope you can hop on over to the CC blog and take a look. Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have a wonderful week-end.... with some warmer temps, too.

Blog Hop Winner

Just a quick post to announce the winner of the Busy Beauties Blog Hop. From my blog, the winner is Stacy from Impressions of a Ribbon Addict. Congrats, Stacy. Thanks for leaving your comment. Be sure to e-mail Carolyn at BusyBeauties@nc.rr.com with your choice of your free digi-stamp.

Sweet Little Tilda

I couldn't wait to ink up this image that was part of the "Christmas-Winter, 2009" stamp club set. I colored her using colors from the new Sugar Rush papers by Basic Grey. I've had a bit more time for stamping with the holidays over, so I actually made this card to incorporate two challenges. The pleated strip down the left-hand side is for the Just Magnolia challenge and includes a tutorial on paper-pleating. Their DT did some great cards illustrating this technique. I decided that I didn't want to completely lay my pleats down flat because I think they look rather cute popped up. The layout was from Mercy's Tuesday Sketch challenge. The layout itself is great. I just struggled because of wanting to use the papers I had picked out from the Sugar Rush pack, and then I wanted to incorporate the pleat, so it actually took me awhile to put it together. The sentiment is from SU's Happy Harmony. Be sure to stop by later to see who the winner of my blog's blog hop is. The winners will be picked and announced tonight. Thanks for stopping by and I wish you a wonderful up-coming week.
Edit to Post: I realized, sadly, that this layout doesn't quite line up with Mercy's Tuesday Challenge sketch, so perhaps I'll have time to do another one, but I'm not going to post this one to that challenge.