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!

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!

New Digi Stamp Blog

Good Day Everyone! Well, I hope a lot of you have seen my exciting news in the last post. I have been busy busy getting this all to come together, although I still have plenty more to do!! So.... I'd like to introduce you to the site:



you can find it here, so go check it out for more details, it still is a little empty right now, but not for long so keep coming back so you don't miss out!!

House Mouse Challenge #40 - Wedding/Anniversary

This week's challenge was Wedding/Anniversary. How appropriate since Eric and I just celebrated our 10th anniversary. Although this in not the card I made him. To make this card I used my mirror image stamp. This stamp allows you to reverse an image by stamping the image onto the surface of this stamp and then you use that block to stamp your image in reverse (the image is always just a little lighter too). I don't use it a lot, but I do use it and I always love the results when I do. So, with that said, now you know how I achieved the double image in reverse. I decided to make one of the little mice white instead of the brown. Since we have had all different colors in mice and rats as pets I thought a little white one would be nice. I kept this clean and simple, which can be a hard thing for me to do at times. I went with a traditional red, black and white, I always think that is so elegant and sharp. I embossed the background with the hearts cuttlebug embossing folder and then on the black mat I used a fiskars corner/border punch to add a little detail in elegance without a lot of work. This card really did not take me that long at all, I would say I did it easily in a half an hour if not less. Ok... well, that is for me today, I am dang tired from celebrating the other night still, so I think I will post this and veg for a while! And remember you can always click the picture to get a closer look at the image.... OH and the inside says " two lives, two hearts, joined together in friendship, united forever in love". That is the verse we used on our wedding invitations I made 10 years ago though.



ok.. well, here's to another 10 years!!

House Mouse Challenge #39 - Birthday

Even though I have not posted for a couple of weeks, I have done some things but with my daughter's graduation and open house things have been just crazy crazy around here. I missed uploading these for this challenge even though they were completed during that week. So I thought I would just go ahead and post them. The top one was done for one of my girl friend's that I missed her birthday and the bottom one was done for my nephew who turned 13 just yesterday. I kept that one fairly simple since it was for a teen boy. I colored the top one with my bic mark-its and the sky with chalks. Thanks for looking!

House Mouse Challenge #36 - Gate fold card

This week's challenge was a gate fold card. Well, I kind of did not do the traditional gate fold, but this is kind of a gate fold.... ok.. whatever that is suppose to mean, hope you understand my garble... So.. I did do a the gate fold, but I overlapped it and then I also placed a couple of creases on each side of the gate fold where the pattern paper ends so It would stand while closed. I really like how it turned out though. The white flower holds the gate gold closed and you just really slide and lift to open it. I wish now looking at this on the screen I would have added a tough of yellow to the edges of the flower, but oh well it is in the mail. This is a new stamp I just bought when Hobby Lobby had them 50% off last week. I bought this one and then Bunny Cruise. Since I had many mother day cards to make I decided to make one using this challenge. The sentiment inside says "Soak up this special day!" ok... have ta run... lots to do, little time to do it... so I will catch you later and thanks for bloggin by!

House Mouse Challenge #35 - wish someone well

This weeks house mouse challenge is to make a card or anything you like to wish someone well! Sooooo, it certainly seems like I have lots of people I can send this too lately... and since I have a mess I thought I would go ahead and make this before I cleaned it up.

You really can't see it in this picture, but I used a liquid glaze on the puddle and the raindrops.





















Thanks for hopping by!

House Mouse Challenge #32 - something sweet

This weeks challenge was to include on your card something sweet, as in to eat or the word sweet..... so I was not sure what I was going to do, then looking through my stamps I seen this Gruffie stamp and thought how cute this would be if he was looking at a cupcake vs. that chipmunk! LOL.. so I taped off the chipmunk and then inked my stamp, removed the tape, stamped and then drew my cupcake... LOL.. so of couse the sentiment of "Hello cupcake" seemed somewhat humorous. I colored this with my colored pencils. I soo love those little square letter stamps. I bought them at Michaels in the dollar bin and I must say they have become one of my fav stamp sets to use on cards, they are truly just he right size for things like this. So.. that's it for me, so thanks for stopping by and taking a peek, and if you haven't checked out the posted videos below, please do so, I am certain you will not be disappointed at all!!

House Mouse Challenge #31 - Bags and Boxes

This weeks challenge was to make a box or bag using a stamp. Well, I am thinking that mine is more a bag... LOL... not really a box, but not really a bag, but closer to a bag then a box!! LOLOLOLOL.... So, I made the template myself, although I have seen things like this before but thought it would be easy enough to do without a template. I took a 11x7 piece of card stock and made my first score (going across the shorter length) at 4.5, then made another score an inch from the first. Then measure 4.5 from the last one and score again, that should leave you with another inch area. So, it should be 4.5x1x4.5x1 = 11(wink-wink). Then I used my fiskars shape it tool and cut the oval out, used a fiskars boarder punch and did the edge that folds over the top. I placed a white piece of card stock behind that design so the white would show through. I added a few flower stickers, as well as the bee. Stamped the little sentiment and the mice and colored them with my mark-it markers. Cut them out and I place the one mouse on a pop-up dot as well as the sentiment. This holds a snack size baggie. I filled the baggie with gummie bears (had those one hand) and then added the little mouse inside the bag with a glue dot. I stapled the baggie to the back and then folded over the flap, punched two small holes at the top and then ran some ribbon through it to be able to carry it. I kind of appears more purse like I suppose!! Well, this really did not take me very long to make so I thought this would be a great thing to give little ones that you might visit at Easter or ones that visit you that you might want a little something for, but inexpensive. I am not usually very good at explaining things, so if I have done an awful job doing so please feel free to send me an e-mail! Thanks for stopping by and looking and happy box and bag making!

Another One Layered Card

I thought since I had to make a confirmation card today I would keep to this one layered challenge that is going on over at the Hero Arts Blog. I wanted the card to be simple, but pretty. I knew I wanted it to be mostly white and you just can't beat those embossing folders for adding so much for doing so little. I used this cute little Hero Arts stamp that I actually won once just leaving a comment months back. I thought it would be perfect for this card. Thanks to my friend Mindy for the "my Faith" mini stamp set! I really have a hard time doing simple, but I really liked how this turned out. I will be duplicating this card again, maybe for a wedding! :O) I probably don't really need to explain this because it is so simple, but I embossed the botton side, stamped by heart and my words. Added my ribbon, then stickled my heart.... yep simple, but lovely and quick! I placed a nice bible verse inside and added the heart in there too!

Thanks for looking!

One Layered Card

In celebration of Hero Arts Birthday Blog, there is major celebration going on over there. One of the challenges was to do a one layered card. Tough thing, I must admit. So, since this is truly a challenge for me I thought I would give it a try.
Soooo.. I wanted a kind of springy elegant card, I guess I have spring fever. I bought this stamp a few months ago and have yet to use it. I guess this is kind of it's unveiling for me. LOL.. It is an ArtCard Stamp called Decorative Birds. I inked my stamp with four different inks. The flowers are a mix of Colorbox Orchid Pastal and Dew Drop Perfect Plum. The branches are ColorBox Lime Pastal and the birds Color Box Chestnut Roan. I actually stamped the image twice, the side on the left was the second stamping and I just did not ink the birds or the sentiment and then just added some more flowers and branches (plus I also flipped the image). After stamping I then outlined the stamped design with a 05 Millennium Zig pen. I then added a sparkly blue chalk for the background/sky. Inked my edges with the lighter pink and brown. Used a threading punch from Fiskars and wove my ribbon through that and added the bow and pearls to finish this off. I would not normally even think to do a one layered card, a little more challenging for me then a layered card, but, I do like how this turned out. I think I will do a fun one layered card now. umm..... off to look at stamps! (also, thanks for making me think outside the box!)

Clearly Vintage

I just wanted to do a plug for an awesome blog that is centered around vintage. Cora has lots of nice images as well as a nice vintage stamp line that she sells at her Etsy Shop. I failed to ask her if I could borrow some images to place here to show you, so since I did not ask permission I will just direct you to her blog and on her blog she has her link to her shop. So if vintage is your thing or not; you should check it out and tell her Nina sent you! :O) Her blog is linked in this title, but here it is too: http://www.clearlyvintage.blogspot.com/

House Mouse Challenge #30 - Shaped Card

HEY THERE CUPCAKE! OK.. I must admit, I have cupcake on the brain a lot lately... LOTS!! But that is altogether another future post, I promise! So, this week's house mouse challenge was to do a shaped card. I instantly knew I wanted to do a cupcake... guess because that is what is on my mind lately! (hehe covering mouth giggling) so anyway, I stamped the panda bear from the wheelbarrow ride and colored him and cut him out. I knew I wanted him to adorn the top of my cupcake. I made my own template for this card and I when I get around to it I will make a whole sheet pages of all the pattern pieces and upload it so if you want it you can have it, but that will have to be another day. I actually made my base out of a darker pink heavy paper per my pattern. This way the backside of my card was a pink. The crimped cupcake holder is the same paper, just a seperate piece that was crimped. I did this mainly because I wanted my baskside to have color. Since I had made some individual peices of pattern that were loose like the icing and the cupcake holder I just traced around my pattern paper for the icing and inked it with the dew drop inks and them I crimped my card stock for the holder and then I traced it and then cut my piece. Be careful when you crimp things, you will want to make sure you crimp then cut the piece to fit and I will tell you why. It tends to make your piece smaller because it crimps, thus using a bit more paper... so always crimp first and them cut... that was the paper crafting tip for the day! I also outlined my icing in black sharpie because I wanted my icing to stand out more, plus I wanted to have some swirls within the top too. I chose to add the black and white ribbon to mainly pull it altogether since I used the panda bear, plus it really pops and it adds some weight to the bottom which makes it more balanced to me. It really is a balance kind of thing, that's another thing balance, it truly is a funny thing, it is mainly just something I feel in my work, but there really is a truth to balance whether it be with color or a feel of weight and how it carries your eyes. Then I had these lovely sequins that I bought off Easter clearance at the craft store last year really inexpensively and thought that would be the perfect finishing touch. Although, I wanted to add some little white pearls in the center of the sequins from crafting many years ago I couldn't locate them ((oh well)). I also used the same pattern paper from the icing on the full inside and added my sentiment that said "because you're special". I made this for a friend that just had foot surgery. I am certain she will just love it. OK... Thanks for looking and I promise to have my template here in the next week for you to right click and save to your files... I think I might just add a little hanging tag from the bow that says "for you" or "thinking of you", but here is my pic for now.... so in the meantime... have a cupcake kind of day!

House Mouse Challenge #28 - One for the men

OK.. I must admit, I kind of did a real quickie here and because I did want to try this out, but my time for the last few weeks consist of doing things either late into the night or somewhat quick. So... this is somewhat quick, a bit simple, BUT I guess a little masculine. I think the key for making cards for men is truly the colors you tend to pick. I went with brown, red and black; "Manly" colors! LOL.. well, I guess. I stamped my tree and really didn't do another thing to it.. lazy? Then I matted it on the red and used my fancy corner punch and then stamped muzzy, colored him with mark-it markers and then cut him out placed him in front of the tree, glued him down added the chipboard frame (colored a roll of dots on that red) and added the mushroom, drew my little lady bug on that and stamped and matted the hello, added my ribbon and called this a quickie manly card!! I really wanted more of the tree trunk to show in the frame, but it did not work out that way, because I cut too much off one side and had to correct it ((ugh)) LOL... oh well... Thanks for taking a peek!

Domino Necklaces

Here is a fun thing to be creative with if you love jewelry or know someone that loves jewelry that would love to receive a unique handmade piece. I stumbled upon domino necklaces while "Stumble Upon"ing on evening and instantly knew I wanted to give my hand a try at these. I thought they would make wonderful gifts for anyone that enjoys wearing jewelry. If you have read my blog at all you seen the 70 domino necklaces I made for a women's retreat. They were quite a bit more simple, but simple is nice (you can see those here). I made these this past week. I really wanted to incorporate beads and wire into them. This first one I made as a demo for my friend Mindy, she asked if I would make her an Asian inspired one in red. Well, I am not sure how Asian it looks, but I think it turned out pretty grand. I stated off with drilling holes through the domino so I had a way of attaching the wire. I then added the alcohol inks which dry really fast on these. I then stamped a small flourish with a archival ink which is permanent. I drew the little flowers which is what I think makes it kind of Asian (hehe what do you think Minday?) and added some small doodling with some dots. Then I heat embossed some gold around the edges and then let that cool. I then sprayed it with a glaze. Then added my wire and beads.


This one I started the same way with the drilling, really no reason in the drilling the holes, I just drilled where I thought I might want to run some wire through. Then I used a denim and eggplant alcohol inks. Once that was dry I used a part of a stamp to emboss the swirls in silver and then added my beads and rhinestone. This necklace I did not seal, so not sure what that means. I wore this one to church yesterday and received lots of compliments on it. It looks great on a short cord necklace with a white shirt and blue jeans!

This one is really simple and I just stamped it in a permanent ink and then colored it with my mark-it bic markers. I sealed it with an acrylic spray and then added the small rhinestones. I thought she was a bit different and love that stamp.
The stamps I used for this stamp and the swirls I bought from The Enchanted Gallery/Blog She has some really unique ones and makes them just the right size for the domino's. Plus she has a lot of good information within her sites. I will be back some time to do a step by step of how I did mine. So, not sure when that will be, but I promise to be back to give you some pics and some how to's.

So thanks for stopping by today and now I must fly to the grocery store, ahhhh the pit falls of life!

Another Birthday Card

This was just another quickie birthday card I made for a friend. I used this cute Penny Black Stamp called Party Animals. I think this is actually the first time I used it to make a card. I colored the image with Bic Mark-its. Inked the edges with colorbox chalk - pink and added that cute striped pp. I outlined the image and the pp with black to make everything pop just a bit and added the blue ribbon and bow to bring out the little bit of blue in the image and the 3 yellow felt flowers gave it just the right balance I think.



Thanks for looking!

House Mouse Monday Challenge 25 - Sketch

Alrighty.... I wasn't sure I was going to get this challenge accomplished this week because it has been a crazy week, BUT since I had a baby shower to attend tomorrow I really wanted to make a card so I thought I would try to combine the two. Although I wish I had one of the cute little mouse stamps with them in the baby shoes to use, this is the best one I had to use. So with that said I went with it because after all it is cute too. So... since everyone else seemed to keep the same design, I decided I wanted to flip the design sideways and I also made it into a tri-fold card. I made a shaker box for my main element of focus. I soo love making them and knew as soon as I seen this sketch I was going to make one of some kind. I really didn't want to do a circle, because once again everyone seemed to be doing circles, except a few, BUT I did one only because I wanted to do my sentiment in the manner that I did it, so it worked perfect for me to stamp my image and make a shaker box. I did my text wrap in word. I also did the inside which is also below. Since my shaker box hung over the edge of the card when you opened it I stamped another image more close up and placed it on the inside without color (see below) I think this turned out super cute and I am quite pleased with it. I don't ever use sketches to make cards, not sure why, because it is so much easier and takes a lot of the thinking and design process out of it for you... but I enjoyed using this sketch and I truly enjoy seeing what everyone else comes up with! Thanks for looking and double thanks if you left some luvins! Have a squeaky kind of day!!

The blog had a sponsor 2redbananas this week, not only are they donate a fab prize but they created and joined in with this challenge to give us even more inspiring work to look at. Here is the sketch they gave us and under that is what I came up with. The link to this challenge if you want to see all the others great creations is in my title post.