Wonderful Watercolors

The the challenge at 365 Cards for Day 242 is to color an image (or two) using only watercolors!  Now, I don't know about you, but the only watercolors I have around are the ones with 8 colors in that little yellow tray.  I had and idea of what I wanted it to look like, so I had to mix some of the colors to get the shade I was looking for, but this is what I ended up with:

My card base is Bazzill Swiss Dots.  I burned the edges of the brown paper for just a little extra "something."  The digi image is from Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps, our sponsor for this week.

This has to be a quickie post as I'm on my way back out to work again, but I hope you go play along with us HERE.  I'd love to stop by your blog :-)

Thanks for looking!!

Makeover!

Hey there, friends.  I tried to spruce this blog up for fall with a new background and some fall-ish colors.  Whaddya think?

I've got a new card for you today for 365 Cards' challenge.  Day 235 is a Pick 3: Three patterns, three colors and three embellishments.  Our sponsor for this week is Catherine Pooler.  <-- Click to check out her website full of fun ideas and awesome Stampin' Up products :-)  Here's what I came up with for the challenge:

Your turn!  Go take a peek at the other fabulous creations from this week and then jump in a try a challenge or two... or seven :-)

Hi everyone! I've got some serious writer's block. So while I would normally attempt at least one funny thought, I find myself at a loss for anything clever to say.  And we all know that "if you don't have anything clever to say, don't say anything at all."  Or at least, I think that's how it goes... uhh... Let's move on.

Today's challenge at 365 Cards is to create a card using two techniques:  Sponging and sanding.

For the background, I crinkled up the kraft paper, flattened it back out, then lightly "sanded" it with an emery board.  It gives it a cool suede-like texture.  I did the sponging around the edges with a wedge cut out of a kitchen sponge.  Sometimes you just gotta work with what you have, y'know?

Alright, now it's your turn!  Prickley Pear is sponsoring this week of challenges, so play along and rock those challenges ;-)

\m/_ (-_-) _\m/

Yay for Fall!

Omygosh, you guys! I love fall!!  It has been absolutely gorgeous this week.  I love jacket and sweater weather :-)  Plus, the colors of the season are awesome...

The challenge for today at 365 Cards is a DIY challenge to create your own patterned paper.  This a challenge that's been done before, but this time it's got a twist-- it has to be harvest-themed.

Here's my card:

Since I was using a digi-stamp, it was pretty easy to create the background paper.  And since I wasn't about to hand-color a bazillion little pumpkins, I went ahead and colored the image in Photoshop before duplicating it.  I rotated the image several times and then just sort of placed them where they fit.  I didn't want the pumpkins in the background to "pop" quite as much as the front image, so I adjusted the transparency just a smidge.  To finish it off, lots of distressing ink!

It's been a very, very long day, so I'm off to bed!  If you haven't already, go check out the challenges for this week, sponsored by The Character Cafe :-)

F-F-F-Fun

Hey there peeps! It's Thursday! (Well, it is as I begin to type this entry, but we'll see if I actually finish it before midnight.  Probably not.  I've already restarted this twice.  But anyway....)  Thursday means it's my turn again to show y'all what's up over at 365 Cards.

Today our challenge is to use these three "F's":  Fabric, Fringe and Floss.   This one was super challenging for me!  First of all, those are three things that I don't use very often.  And then even what I did have didn't necessarily go together.  But you know how that goes... you just keep experimenting and hope you come up with something spiffy.

Here's what I finally came up with:

I've got the red embroidery floss, some red fabric that I cut into a strip and then twisted.  For the "fringe" I just used my CutterBee scissors and veeeeery carefully cut the black paper.  I think it worked out pretty well.  I absolutely love the "Lantern Rin" stamp from Sparkle Creations-- in fact, they're all really cute, so I hope you'll go check out the other designers' cards from this week!  OH, and as a bonus, the little tag is from the Pagoda Cricut cartridge-- it means "friend." Extra "F" points!! :-)

Check me out... it's 11:58. Hehe.

Taking Care of Business

Hello, dear Blogger-friends!  I hope that this has been a pleasant, peaceful week for you. I, for one, am glad that the weekend is here.  It's been yet another busy week at school, followed up by a few hours of watching the kiddos at church tonight.

Yesterday, Pam's challenge for us was to create a business card!  The idea is to create a card with your information that you can pass along, but rather than your typical card, this can be a little more personalized by actually creating a small sample of the work that you do.  To give you all an idea of what we're talking about, this is what I came up with:

I kept the info to a minimum on this one.  Right now, my blog is the main place where I send people who want to see what I do.  I'd love to see what you would do with this challenge-- make sure to hop on over to the 365 Cards blog and play along!!

Have a fantastic weekend!

Well, all of my plans for this weekend have completely changed. Sometimes that's not such a bad thing.  I was supposed to be going on another retreat with my church's student ministry, but I've had this scratchy throat thing creeping up on me all week.  Then yesterday, when I woke up, I had almost no voice at all. Then, by the time I was greeting the kids at school, I was starting to sound a bit like Macy Gray.  By the afternoon, my Macy impression was dead-on. Lol.  It was a rough day at school, so I was just completely worn out and feeling not-so-wonderful.  I decided that if I went on the retreat, I was just going to be miserable and not much fun anyway.  And having no voice when you're in charge of a bunch of 8th grade girls is no bueno!

So instead, I got to see the family for a few minutes before going to work for a couple of hours.  I made it home early enough for a game of Apples to Apples with my cousin, aunt and momma.  It was quite fun :-)  Then I went to bed and totally crashed.  I woke up with Macy syndrome again :-( But at least I can just chill.


Okay, enough whining...  The real reason that I'm posting is to show you my card for Thursday's challenge-- we're already past the 200th day at 365 Cards!!  How crazy is that?  The challenge is to use 4 different stamps on your card, making sure that at least 2 of them are images.  Here's what I came up with:

Four stamps sounded like a lot to me at first, but once I started working on it, that really didn't seem  like too big of a deal.  The hardest part for me was to find stamps that actually looked good together. I ended up using the bird (which is from our sponsor this week, DRS Designs), the flower, the Italian background stamp, and the little, tiny "miss you."  I have a lot of stamps, but I also have a feeling that my stash looks like a handful compared to the selection that I know some of you out there have. I mean, mine fit in one box. Haha.  But thankfully these worked out pretty well :-)

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you'll hop on over and join us at 365 Cards!

Color and Dimension... and Mice in the Jam

Hello Blogger-friends!  Happy Thursday, once again.  We've survived another week!  For my friends here in the States, I hope you all had a lovely Labor Day weekend.  We had some awesome weather here.  My sisters and I lit up a bonfire in the backyard and had a couple of friends over.  It was so much fun :-) And since no one had to be at school or work the next morning, we were outside until about 3 a.m.   We even ran out of firewood!  But that didn't stop us.  Earlier that afternoon, we'd seen a stack of wood on the curb a few blocks away.  So a quick trip around 1 a.m. solved that problem. Lol.

Today I've got a card to show you for the challenge over at 365 Cards.  Click on the link to view the details!

I love coloring with markers.  Especially new markers ;-)  The ones I use on my cards, most of the time, are a set of Prismacolor permanent markers that my dad used a bajillion years ago.  They sat up in a closet for the longest time and then, a couple of years ago, I adopted them.

Another thing I did on this card was use foam squares.  I never used to do a lot of layered or dimensional stuff when I first started making cards.  But recently I find myself using them on EVERYTHING. Haha.  My only problem is that sometimes even the 1/8" squares are a little too thick for my taste.  So in some cases (like today's card) I'll split each square into two layers.  You get more "pop" for your money and the card still fits in the envelope! *clapping*

Okay peeps, I've gotta get to sleep now (cuz it's still Wednesday night as I'm typing this)!!  See y'all soon... I'm shooting for at least one more post this week!

Ad Inspired

Happy Thursday!  Thursday used to be my least favorite day of the week... now I think it's turning into my favorite.  It's the only day where I don't have anything major to do.  I don't really have anything on Mondays either, but it's the beginning of the work week, so it's tainted.

ALSO, it being Thursday means that I need to tell y'all about the challenge for today at 365 Cards!  I really enjoy ad-inspired challenges, and that's exactly what I've got for you today...

Here's our inspiration piece from Pier1:

And here's my take on it:

When I saw this ad I knew exactly what paper I was going to use.  I've had this last little piece of embossed paper by K&Company forever.  It's so pretty and now I finally knew what to do with it.  The only problem was that it was an off-white color and I needed gold.  Thankfully, I've got some metallic acrylic paints.  I just used a little bit of paint on a dry brush to cover the paper.  It took a few coats, but I didn't want to get it too soggy and mess up the embossing.  If you're able to see the large version of the photo, you can kind of see the brush strokes which gives it a little bit of an antique-y look.

Can't wait to see what you all come up with!!  Thanks for stopping by :-)

Lovely... Most of the time ;-)

Hello my friends! How are you this fine (cloudy, gray, wet) Wednesday afternoon? Hehe.

On Monday, Scrap It With a Song kicked off yet another song-inspired challenge with "Isn't She Lovely" by Stevie Wonder.  Can you believe we're on week #20 already?? It's gone by super fast and I've been so honored to be a part of the DT with a lovely group of talented ladies.  But, as I've been trying to burn into the brains of my little 4-yr-old charges, we have to share and take turns and let another fabulous group of designers take over :-) That being said, this is my last project as a member of the DT, but I think I'll definitely be playing along in the future!

After spending so much time looking through hundreds of beautiful scrapbook layouts on the Scrap It With a Song challenges, I decided to try creating my own.  I haven't made a scrapbook page in a LONG time, but this idea was in my head and I really wanted to make it! This project features my little sister, Gina Marie, as a precocious 4-year-old.  She's 16 now. Back in the day we used to call her "Gina Marie Princess."  Now we just lovingly refer to her as "turdy-head" because we're SO mature ;-) Lol.

Thanks for taking the time to stop by! Hope to see you playing along this week!!