Challenges from Beat the Blues Crop

Thought I would share some of the creations I made from the Beat the Blues crop at CardMakers last week. There were many fun challenges and just not enough time for me to complete them all but I sure loved making the ones I did have time for. Also got loads of ideas and inspiration from all the other creations that were posted. The card above was to follow a sketch...always a favorite challenge of mine to do.

The picture below was for a challenge that required us to make a corner bookmark and a card to place it on. I think I would like to go back and try this challenge again and make some more of these now that I have more time and no deadline to meet .



The next one was to wrap a candy bar. This was a lot of fun and quick to make. When you untie the ribbon and pull up on the ribbon the candy bar comes out. With some adjustments and changes in size, this would also be a great idea for giving packets of hot chocolate or some flavored tea bags.

This last one I have chosen to share with you was a challenge that I just freaked about when I saw it. It had my least two favorite things....monochromatic and use the color yellow. I am not a yellow person and I have always been lousy at monochromatic cards. So I pretty much had decided to not do this challenge. Then I decided ...it's called a challenge right? I need to conquer this challenge. Soooo ....a simple card I made and not my best but I was so proud that I did the challenge and conquered using my least favorite color and technique.


Next crop will be in May! Sure hope you will join us. Guaranteed to be loads of fun and tons of inspiration. Thanks for stopping by! Next post I will post another one of my favorite things.

House Mouse Flower Bed

I'm hosting the weekly sketch challenge this week over at Card Swaps on the CardMakers site. Sketch challenges are my favorite type of challenge. I also enjoy making my own sketches. I used a House Mouse stamp for my image....Flower Bed. I colored the sleeping critter with Prismacolor color pencils. Cardstock used is by Bazzill. The border punch is by Martha Stewart and the embossing is from a Cuttlebug embossing folder. I plan on making a few more of these to send out to wish some friends a happy Spring. We are getting a touch of Spring weather this week with temps reaching almost 60! I know it's only February but it sure is nice to get a bit of a teaser of what hopefully is around the corner soon.

Here's the sketch I drew for this challenge from which I created my card.

If you would like to join in on the challenge this week you can find it HERE. All participants will have their name put into my hat for a chance to win a RAK from me.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope everyone is having a great week!

Beat The Blues Crop at CardSwaps on the CardMaker site

Beat the blues crop is in full swing over at the CardSwap forum on the CardMakers site. Wednesday was the first day of the crop and it will go till this Saturday with challenges and games being posted daily. There are prizes for each challenge, games and a grand prize. You can find further details of the prizes and instructions for participating in the crop HERE. If you looking for some inspiration, friends to share your passion for card making with or just plain fun...check out the crop!

I am hosting one of the challenges today at the crop. Mine is called "Second Hand News." The challenge is to make a card using other printed papers that were originally meant for another purpose in place of designer or printed papers meant for scrapbooking or card making. Some suggestions would be a newspaper. map. sheet music, page from a book, napkin.....there are all kinds of ideas. I chose to use a local paper that I picked up in Chinatown in Chicago. I was inspired by the Chinese characters printed on the newspaper. Above is what I started with and below is the card I made using the newspaper.
I thought at first that I would stamp the panda on plain cardstock but decided to try stamping directly on the newspaper. I really like the end result. I though it almost looks like the panda had been printed on the newspaper by the printers.

I hope you like my challenge and will consider trying it yourself. Hope to see you over at the crop. Challenges end Saturday but you have till 11:59 pm CST on February 15 to complete any or all challenges and post them to be considered for the prize drawings.

Thanks for stopping by!

Tilda Easel Card

Hi everyone! This is Sweet Tilda by Magnolia. I love this image and thanks to my friend Jenny who was kind enough to send me her! I'm entering her into two challenges.

CardMakers Card Swaps weekly challenge : Easel card
Just Magnolia and Hangler and Stangler challenge blog: anything goes with added option of using ribbon

I colored the image with Prismacolor color pencils. Floral DP is by DCWV and the butterfly DP is by Paper Pizazz. Cardstock is Coordinations Foundations.



It's Super Bowl Sunday! May your favorite team win and if your not into football may you be having a crafty day making lots of beautiful creations. In this house we will be rooting for the Packers....while I work on some cards. Love multitasking. Have a great day everyone and don't forget about the crop coming up this coming Wednesday over at CardMakers!

My Favorite Things and a Spring Card

I love to visit other blogs to see what other people are creating. Quite often I also learn new techniques or learn of new products etc from visiting blogs. I would like to return the favor and share some of my favorite things from time to time and maybe some of you will learn something new from me. So I will share some of my favorite tools, crafting supplies, sites, techniques etc....some of "My Favorite Things" in my crafting world. I thought for my first favorite thing post I would share with all of you what got me started in making cards....Brass Stencils!

The card above was made for challenge day last week on ISC. The challenge was to make a Spring card. Usually I grab my stamps and start stamping and coloring but this time I pulled out my brass stencils and went back to what I fell in love with when I first started making my own cards. My Spring card uses two stencils from Dreamweaver Brass Stencils. The background is the bare tree stencil which I stenciled color using Colorbox pigment inks. After drying the ink I then used Dreamweaver's Spring stencil to paste emboss the word and then sprinkled glitter before the embossing paste dried. The card design is inspired by a project from one of Lynell Harlow's books of projects using the Dreamweaver stencils.

Below is a picture of some brass stencils. Sorry I didn't realize when I was taking the picture that the camera was reflecting onto the stencils. There are many nice brass stencils on the market but I am a big fan of the Dreamweaver line. The brass stencils are designed by the very talented Lynell Harlow. She has a blog that I like to follow for inspiration and ideas. You can find it HERE and you can also purchase stencils HERE.



Below are some cards I made a long time ago but thought I would share them as they also use brass stencils. The first one uses the crane brass stencil. I embossed the cranes, then stenciled them with gold pigment ink and then finished with a touch of glitter on their heads.

The next one uses Dreamweaver's flamingo stencil which I paste embossed and then colored with chalks. Love this stencil!

This last card uses Dreamweaver's Cyprus tree stencil which I used to spray bleach onto the cardstock bleaching out the color. I thought the end result looked like a bonsai tree so I continued on to finish the card with an Asian theme.

I use to play a lot with my brass stencils then I got caught up in the rubber stamp frenzy. I'm thinking it's time to pull those stencils back out and rediscover what all I can do with them....like run them through my die cut machine for easy embossing!

Hope you enjoyed my Spring card and my favorite things post. Also hope you are all keeping warm. Here in the Midwest we are buried in snow from the blizzard we had this week. We are still digging our way out! Thanks for stopping by.

Balloon Journey / Happy Hoppers - House Mouse

Squeaking in a card at last minute for the weekly challenge over at the CardMakers CardSwap forum. The challenge is to make a square card. Ummmm...judging by my blog of mostly square cards.....it was an easy challenge to complete. :) Love square cards! I also completed my crafty resolution this month which is to use a stamp each month for this year that I have bought ages ago but never used. Can you believe I let this adorable stamp sit around and collect dust? The image is a Happy Hopper from the House Mouse Stampabilities line. It's called Balloon Journey. I colored it with Prismacolor colored pencils. I also used the Stardust clear gel pen over the balloons after coloring them to add sparkle. Designer paper is by Basic Grey and cardstock is by Bazzill.

While I have your attention....I would like to let you know about the upcoming crop over at CardMakers in the CardSwap forum. Beat The Blues Crop is February 9th - 12th. Four days of challenges and games to get your mojo juices flowing. Yours truly will be hosting one of the challenges on that Friday. I have picked what I think might be a fun and interesting challenge. So if your looking for some inspiration or maybe you would just like to hang out with others who share your passion of card making / paper crafting...then be sure to check the crop out!

Thanks for stopping by!

Peek A Boo - New Baby Girl

Wow! It's been a month since I last posted. I needed the break though. I have been spending time with family and friends. My son is home for one more week then he heads back to the East coast for school. Things should be settling down then and I can get into the groove and back into crafting. Meanwhile I found some time today to put together this card for some challenges. I had trouble though getting a good photo to show the true color. I usually take my photos in natural sunlight but we were lacking that today. So I am afraid the pinks are not showing the correct shade of pink and the hair on the poor little girl isn't looking as blond as it does in real life.....sorry guys! I enjoyed making the card though. The image is called Peek A Boo Girl and is by Karen's Doodles. I colores the digital image with Prismacolor color pencils. The cardstock is by Bazzill. The inside sentiment reads : Congratulations on your new baby girl!".

I am entering this card into the following challenges:
Paper Sundaes Challenge Blog : Circles
Karen's Doodles Challenge Blog: Monochromatic
Cupcake Craft Challenges : Something new ( mine is new baby)
Crafty Creations Challenge Blog : New Beginnings ( new baby)
Cute Card Thursday : Monochromatic
Stamp Something : Anything Goes
Card Patterns : Sketch - which you can see below





I will be catching up soon with visiting all my favorite blogs. I am anxious to see what all of you have been creating while I was taking a break. Thanks for stopping by and I wish each and everyone of you a safe, healthy and happy new year. May it also be a crafty one!