Magical Monday at TMITA

This week over at TMITA the challenge was to use any of the previous free images or the one posted which was a past free image or one from my new store Paper Cupcakes. All of the designers got to pick whichever image they wanted to work with from the store. I went with the image "Beary Nice Dance" . I made this image while on vacation in Tenn. and thought it would be fun for this challenge. Since we were suppose to incorporate something found in a New Years celebration or something that sparkled, I chose to place fireworks going off in the background. I used glue on a stamp with glitter. I have never really done that before and not sure if I like it more them embossing it... but it worked and looks great behind the dancing bears, but I truly love heat embossing. I chose to place the fireworks on black so it seemed more like evening and so they would pop. I colored my bears with my Bic Mark-its and cut them out and placed them on pop-up dots. I punched my little flowers and added some rhinestones to the middle. I also added a lovely green ribbon with a sparkle and gold trim. The sentiment is computer generated. I really liked how this turned out. I think this card has a happy feel to it and I can just imagine these two bears dancing at midnight in the deep dark forest under the fireworks having a delightful dance of romance!



So, have a "beary" nice day and have a safe and Happy New Year!

Free Digi - Sweet Trouble

This weeks challenge over at TMITA was to create a "Clean and Simple card with limitations on what you can use (e.g., "NO" brads, bows, or anything that would make it challenging to mail) and a color requirement PINK, of course, must appear on your card somewhere."

Soooo, since I have been wanting to do a easel card I chose to do that and then I kept my surface pretty flat. I added a fairly flat trim and then punched some snowflakes to match. I really love this style of card and I will be makikng many more of these and they are really simple as well, but I have to say it was hard to keep things flat and easy for mailing! I also used the embossing folder on one side and carried my pp up into my card that was on the base where my sentiment is. I drew a circle on my snowflakes and added some pink stickles. I also added some diamond stickles on her hat fluff. I also drew little circle on my container holding the candy canes to jaze it up a little to match the pp somewhat. I thought this image turned out really cute all colored up and I don't think she looks like much trouble either!! but then again, I don't own her! hehe




ok.. it is now 1:30AM and I am dead tired so that is it for me for this day!! Have a sweet day!

FREE digi - Snowy Flight

This weeks challenge over at There's Magic In The Air is to make anything BUT a card. I chose to alter this little tin I got out of the dollar bin at Target. It was like a little lunch box that had Boston Baked Beans Candy in it and I bought a few when I bought it. These measure about 4 x 2 3/4 inches, so they are not really very big. I thought I would use this to place a gift card in with some small candies.

The color of the tin was mostly a chocolate brown. So I left the brown on the small edges and then painted the tin inside the edges a lagoon color with Making Memories paint. I wanted to keep it fairly simple and so I went with the glitter stack paper from DCWV . I used my Bic Mark-its to color the image and used a light blue color pencil to add some shadowing on my snowman on the white. I placed him on pop dots too. I then added ribbons to match and I also had these big jingle bells so I thought a red one would be super cute so I added that to one side of the handle with all the ribbons and added the little element that said joy and called it complete. My only regret is that I only bought 3 of these little tins for a $1.00!! I wish I would have bought about 10 now!



There's a really pretty shear ribbon that is the color of the sky background in the glitter paper, but because it is shear it did not photograph the color very well at all, but in real life you can really see the ice blue in the ribbon line and the ribbons are also soo much prettier in real life as well.



I just noticed I didn't make his little cheek rosie! Oh Well, I will be fixing that now! :O) Have a great week and and thanks for stopping by and leave me a message I love reading them, plus they really makes all this posting seem worth it! Make sure you join us for the Blog hop and also if you would be so kind, place the blog hop icon on your blog and help me spread the word!

Have a great week and thanks for stopping by!

FREE Digital Image: Elegant Pumpkins

This is the card I made for the There's Magic In The Air's
monochromatic challenge this week. This is also my first ever monochromatic anything I have ever made. So, this time I actually picked my pp and colors first prior to coloring my image (there's a concept!). I knew I wanted a terra cotta color so I started there and found this rusty terra cotta color. I love the old world stack and there is where I found my pp. Then I went to my card stock stack that was already in a monochromatic way and I picked my card stock. I also thought instead of going with a white or cream to print my image on I would go with the lightest color of my monochromatic color and printed it off on that. So when I colored my image I would let that color come through, thus making my image also matching my monochromatic color. Since I have not felt good all week I just made this tonight and found it really hard to photograph this color. My colors are a lot richer and this is a little off in the color. My mom gave me this ribbon which I think is up-teen years old, I usually use it for when I make bread for church, but found it was perfect for this card. I kept my card simple with lots of matting with the black and variations of the card stocks, but it is kind of hard to see the variations, there are 3, but they are slight, except the lightest which I printed the image off on. Then I placed those three little black stickers above the image and thought it looked elegant and so I left it at this. I colored this with my colored pencils. I really loved how this turned out. I will have to do more monochromatic things!



If you stopped by to look, thanks a lot and if you left me some luvins in a post, I just adore you! Have a Magical Monday!

My First Interview!

Just a real quick post.. Dana Glass of the Examiner.com National did an interview with me at the end of last week regarding my digital stamps and the TMITA blog and wrote an article. It will be a 2 part article, one showcasing today and I believe the other tomorrow ((I think mainly because I am soo windy)) :O) but anyway... here is it is ((squeeling with delight)) THANKS SO MUCH Dana!! Please check it out it if you want some interesting facts about me, my images and how I think (lol well you might want to bypass the how I think thing!) You can find the article here!

FREE Digital Stamp Image: Autumn Splendor

This weeks challenge over at There's Magic In The Air was to be inspired by a picture in an way. You can stop by TMITA to see it and grab the FREE image as well.

I wanted more of an old fashion feel to my card this week. So I started off by printing my image on vanilla card stock. I colored my image with my colored pencils. I popped up my sunflower on foam dots for dimension as well as my computer generated sentiment and a few leaves. I punched my leaves in the scrap vanilla card stock and then cover them with a copper embossing powder which made them look more medallion like and then I drew on the veins to the leaves. I wish they showed up a little bit better here because they look really lovely and metallic and the ribbon has some metallic copper running through it as well. I also roughen up my edges of my image and sentiment and inked the edges with my colorbox chalks; a light brown. I folder the top right corner over of my image and finished it off with a cute little coppery mini brad and then rolled the same corner over with the green mat.



I look forward to the November images, I think there will be a lot there you will just love. So, in the meantime, create and have a great day!

Free Digital Image - "Harvest Geese"

Here is my card for the Magical Monday over at There's Magic In The Air. This week's challenge was brought to us by Curt and we were suppose to use pop dots or foam squares to make something pop. I actually popped my sentiment only because I made this card a while back and thought I would have time to make another, but didn't. If I would have popped something up on my image it would have been the fence and maybe the white pumpkin and the goose on the right. I made this card with scrap pp so I can't tell ya who made it. The lace is from my mom and I punched out circles and placed 1/2 of them above and below the image and added some red rhinestones to each. I added a layered flower because it brought all the colors together and I loved what Dawn did with her ribbon when she sent her card to me so I lifted the idea and did three smaller versions! I colored my image with color pencils and it is actually a little more rich in color in real life.



Well, that's it for me, hope you enjoyed your visit, leave me some luvins and let me know what you think, I love hearing from you!

Gigi on tube - paper piecing

This is the card I did to go along with the challenge over at There's Magic In The Air. The challenge was to do a paper piecing with this FREE image.

I paper pieced the umbrella, Gigi's swimsuit, her tube and her holves. I colored her body with my color pencils. I colored the dots from the image with the white Uni-ball pen, which is by far my favorite white pen. I really wanted to place my sentiment on the front, but I just couldn't place it where I felt I liked it, so I gave up and just placed it inside. The sentiment said "You're Sun Sational". I did my sky and water with chalks that have some sparkle in them, but you really can't see that in these pictures. I also placed Gigi's umbrella on pop-up dots to give it more dimension.





This is a card I did earlier in the year with this image. I colored this image with my Bic Mark-its:






















Well, that's it for Gigi, so why don't you float on over to my other blog and grab her and participate in this week's challenge!

In the mean time have a "Sun Sational" Day!

Get Inspired Challenge

I did these cards to play along with the Magical Monday challenge over at There's Magic In The Air. This week’s image was "Elvis in boots". The challenge was an inspirational challenge with color and textures. You can check it out here.

I kept my cards quite simple and concentrated more on the colors then anything. I wanted my image to stand alone and out on this card. I have a hard time keeping things simple sometimes, especially in my layouts. It's a little easier in my cards.

I colored my image with my Bic Mark-its and I used a diamond glaze on his rain boots and hat to make them more slick and also on the puddle. I thought the dotted ribbon was just wonderful with the button and thread being the perfect finishing touch.



You can see the diamond glaze better in this picture on his boots and in the puddle. The sentiment which is computer generated reads: Those who bring sunshine into the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves


Now isn't that button with the thread just too cute!

On this card, I kept it simple as well, but I copied the image in Print Shop Deluxe several times, as well as sized them down to smaller sizes and placed them that way on the original printout. I then drew more grass down the duck line and also added more water so they were in one big puddle. I then cut it out. I did this card, because if you have a program such as this you can crop the image close and place them closer together like in this card. This is one of the wonderful things about digital images. If you don't have a program Print Shop Deluxe is really not that expensive and fairly easy to use. It would really be worth the $50.00 to get it to do digital images in and your sentiments. You can find the program here you want to check it out.The letters are a bit brighter in real life but I took this picture in the evening. They were rub-ons and were actually a light blue, so I colored them red with my markers and then added black dots. Both these cards were colored with my Bic Mark-its. My youngest son Avery always tells me its a "Happy Day" and I just love that saying so I thought this looked like a Happy Day in a duck's life! I just also noticed on these pics that I did not color the eyes.. funny how you see stuff like that once uploaded, so I will go back and color them in now, but I am not taking more pics and uploading so you can pretend that they are colored! :O)





Well, that's it for Elvis, but I certainly will be using him a lot on other cards when I find time to do so!

I hope you find a puddle of joy somewhere today, so while you are looking for it.... have a Happy Day!

Gate Fold Card - Beached Boat

This is the card I made to play along with the Magical Monday challenge over at There's Magic In The Air (TMITA). For more details check out the blog here. The image is free for this week only.

This is only my second gate fold card that I have made and I really liked how it turned out. I picked a soft blue for the overall feel of the card. I think the image is a very calm and peaceful and so I wanted to use it for a friend who is going through some cancer right now. I wanted to make a card I could send to him, so this is what I came up with.

This is a picture of the card all closed up.




To open the card up you turn the photo anchors to the side of the image and sentiment and then the image slides out from under the sentiment. I hope they can figure it out! I am hoping if he doesn't figure it out, his wife will.




Below is the card all opened up. I left the inside pretty simple, but lined it with a pretty pattern paper. You can see the backside of the image at the top left and the backside of the sentiment at the bottom right. That might give you an idea how it works.



I colored my image with color pencils and then I did my sky with chalks, although I did add a little more yellow to the sky with my colored pencil, but the sky is mostly chalks.

Well, that's it for my gate fold! If you have never attempted a gate fold card before you should give it a try! (there is a link on the TMITA blog on how to make one). Stop by the blog and check out what the DT and GD's did with them, they all turned out great and of course they all are soo different!

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Ronan & Izzy - Summer Fun

Hi everyone! Just wanted to stop by and drop off this card. This image has not yet been released to the public. Not all my images will be free and this may very well be one of them. This cute little image is "Ronan & Izzy - Summer Fun". The cupcake actually does not come on the image, I drew it on, because I wanted to use it for a summer birthday card for my nephew. I can be overly detailed at times, but I try not to be too detailed on some of my images so everyone can add their own little extras onto the image to personalize it themselves. For instance, for extras I added dots on the tube, smaller dots on the larger dots on the ball and then the cupcake. I think this is a fun summer image of two friends having a good time in the sun! This image is also the give-a-way over at There's Magic In The Air. Anyone who participates in this weeks challenge has a chance to win it through a random drawing.





I made Ronan a little darker then I really wanted him to be and also made him a little splotchy (is that a word?) like seals can be. I colored this in the Bic Mark-its which I love, but still wish they had a much larger selection of colors. If I would have had a much lighter grey I would have used it to start out with.

OK.. off to get some things done today.... you have some summer fun and hey why not eat a cupcake too!

You Hoo..... it's "Kacey" !!!

Morning everyone! Yes, it's a Magical Monday again over at There's Magic In The Air. Below are the cards I made with the Free image "Kacey". This first card I followed the challenge over there which was a sketch. I wanted to do two complete different looks. This first one kind of soft in color, so I chose the pink with the black, which is always one of my favorite combos.



This second card I kept pretty simple, but wanted it to be way more fun in color. I really liked this pattern paper here and thought I really wanted it to do most of the work for me.... sometimes I am just that way; can you say lazy?! LOL.. but really I thought I colored the image so brightly in primary colors I thought with the paper I really did not want it to be too busy, so simple is good. I did add a few little blue flowers with rhinestones and the little red butterfly.



Now, make sure you go by "There's Magic In The Air" because this weeks give-a-way for the random drawing for participating in the challenge this week is another one of my digital images that has not been released and may never be free. So, if you want a chance on winning it, you have to participate! Did I mention it is super cute too? So go check it out. The image is full of summer fun!

So, thanks for stopping by and make sure you find the magic in today. It is everywhere; all you have to do is take notice!

It's a "Magical Monday" over at "There's Magic In The Air"

Yes! Today is the celebration kick-off to my new blog "There's Magic In The Air"!! I don't know about you, but I certainly feel the magic in the air today!! So what does that mean? That means today is the initial release of my first FREE original digi image!! As well as, showcasing the work of some very talented card makers who make up the Designer Team and Guest Designers for August. You won't want to miss out on the celebration, so head on over there and check it out, snag your free image, create a card and then link it back to my blog on Mr. Linky so we can all share in your creation as well!

So, you may be wondering what is the free image today? Well, the image is a cute little monkey with a very large cake! "Orson with cake" is the name of the image and you can view it below on my card I made using him, but don't just look at my card, there are six more wonderful creations over there. He is only available for free this week, so don't wait to get him, because he won't be free next week.

"Orson with cake"


I cut the image out and colored it with my Bic Mark-its and then used a liquid glaze on the icing and added micro beads to that. How yummy is that? Now go check out those other cards! They really are super cute!

Also, I am still giving away a large blog candy on August 27th, so make sure you check it out here for the requirements if you haven't already. So, what are you waiting on? I truly hope to see your creations linked there!


So, may today be a Magical Monday of your very own whatever you do!

Blog Candy Shopping

Good afternoon everyone! I am a little missing in action these days, because my time it being consumed with setting up my new and exciting blog There's Magic In The Air. Then I am on vacation for a full week (YAH). If you haven't been over there make sure you at least go check it out. I just posted a tutorial for blending the Bic Mark-it markers too. Although the kick-off won't be until August 3rd, I am still posting and attempting to grow my followers. So for all stampers and card makers, please help me spread the word. I went shopping for some blog candy last night so keep an eye open, it is for the other blog so you won't want to miss out. I think shopping for supplies can be just as much fun as using them and personally I love to give things away! I don't think you will be disappointed either, I bought something I really wanted to keep for myself, lol, how many times does that happen!?! I will be posting that sometime in the next few days once I believe I have it all. Right now it stands just over a $50.00 value, so...... check out my blog and become a follower!

Ok.. so here is my SECOND digi layout...LOL I promise to stop counting after 5, well maybe...

(sorry Mindy, I promise my next one will be traditional) and I must admit this could get to be addicting. This lovely kit is called "Happy New Year" and is from http://sweetblossomdesigns.blogspot.com/ I downloaded it just a few weeks ago and I am soo loving this lo of my 2 boys. This kit seemed just perfect for boys too which is a great thing, although I am sure very it could be used many ways. These little owls are super cute. I did this in Print Shop 23 Deluxe. Some of the other small elements, such as the brown brads, the metal plate and the brown torn paper is from "absolutely autumn" from http://sweetblossomdesigns.blogspot.com/. The paper is called "patriotic paper" and because it does not have a sheet with it stating the facts of how you can use it I don't have any idea where I got it from but it is the the blue and the background paper. I will have to go back and figure out where the ric-rac and the red pp from. I also dropped some shadows behind the little owls to give it some depth and behind the picture and the flurish type vine. Also, the vine was blue in the kit and I changed it to this more white color.

Also, if you click on my title to this post it will take you directly to Sweet Blossom Designs where there is great digi kits!! Free and for sale!

Thanks for looking

My FIRST Digital Layout!

OK... this is my very first complete digital layout that I have liked. I thought since I have been collecting digi stuff, I should at least give it a try. I did love making this, no mess to clean up, but I also love to just get my hands on things to and make that mess regardless of cleanup, if you know what I mean. I thought since I was giving Stephanie a plug on her freebie kit, I should at least try it out and show ya what you can do. Now even though this layout has a lot of her kit in it, I still used some other kits and mixed them. I just wanted a little splash of another color (I am so like that) so I pulled in some elements from another kit called "Spontaneous Delight" by Shally Princess @ http://www.shabbyprincess.com. I do love how this turned out and the only thing I would suggest when making kits from my first time user perspective is add ribbon or fibers! I love love love ribbon and fibers, but that is just me, but I kept wanting to put some ribbons on here and had a hard time looking for some in my downloads. Which brings me to another question? How does one organize their digi scrappin downloads to keep them organized and know where stuff is?? By seperate files for paper, embellishments, ect? If you have any great suggestions there for me, leave me a note, I sure could use some! Also, for my picture I took it into my photo editing and changed the color to match the papers and also added some distress to it, which looks great on this layout. So, be brave and mess with youe photos too and try different things out there. Thanks for looking and remember to stop by Stef's blog and link it to yours! If you like what you see, just click on my title to this post and it will take you directly to her blog! Enjoy and tell her Nina sent you!