Sketch Girl 15

I can't believe it's the LAST day of March! Which also means it's time for another Sketch Girl challenge. And I can't believe we're on number 15 already either - time flies when you're having fun :0)

Our sponsor for this sketch is Phindy's Place. She is an amazing artist! Phindy is offering a $10 gift certificate to her store to the SG15 winner.

A little about Phindy's Place:
Phindy's Place digital stamps is a new venture for children's book illustrator Philomena O'Neill (aka Phindy). For someone who has always drawn a lot of young children and animals, drawing digi stamps has felt like a natural fit for her. As a professional illustrator, Phindy draws her stamps as detailed and fully realized images. She sees her digital images as a collaboration between two artists - her own imaginative line work art and the crafter's talent and vision in coloring and embellishing that art to create a finished card!

So here's our sketch:


And here's my card:

I tried to go a little shabby with this, don't think I accomplished that all to well :0) I thought this sketch was rather difficult. Maybe because I didn't see much room for interpretation. Or maybe it was trying to make the image Phindy let us play with fit into the sketch. I'm sure the others didn't have any problems!!

Make sure to head over to the Sketch Girl blog and check out the other samples and link up your own card. Let me tell you, there are some super cute images at Phindy's place. You'll definitely want to "hop" over there and check them out too!!

Happy hop, I mean hump day!!

Inspired by the Sun (MFTW21)

Happy Friday everyone!

Back in January each DT'er was asked to "host" a MFTW challenge. Decide what the challenge would be and then design a card based on it. Well, my time has come :0)

I knew by the end of March I would be sick of winter, rain, and cold so I wanted a challenge that would be the exact opposite: springy, sunny, and warm! So, my challenge for this weekend is "Inspired by the sun". You could go with the colors, the shape, the lack of . . .

For my card I tried another silhouette. I knew I wanted a sunset/sunrise for the background. If you've never been to Michelle Zindorf's blog, you have to check it out!! She creates some amazing works of art with brayering and sponging and has the most fabulous tutorials on how to do it!! That is where I got the idea for the background on this card. The grass was created by the direct pad to paper technique - pretty cool!! Sprout fairy and the sentiment were the last images stamped and then she was colored in with a black SU! marker.

Hope you can play along this weekend. Link your creation to the Paper Makeup Stamps blog and then come back here and let me know that you did. I'll pick a random commenter and send them this card!

Spring break starts today and 70's are expected for next week!! Yeah sunshine!!!

Snail Mail (MFTW20)

Happy Tuesday! Here's a quick and cute little card I made for this past weekend's challenge (MFTW20)from the Paper Makeup Stamps Blog.

The challenge was to create a no layer card - you could use embelishments to your hearts content, but no layers! A difficult challenge for me. Normally I'm not satisfied unless there are at least 4 layers and a 1/2 sheet of pop dots on a card :0) But this was good therapy to get me out of my comfort zone and typical style. Now I need a color challenge for the same reason!! Seems like I am always falling back to the same colors.

The colors didn't show up to well in this pic. The snails are all different colors, but this pic makes them look very similar. The smaller snails were stamped from Ashlie Fairy and the larger snail is a stand alone image. All of the shells were colored in with Copics and then I used the colorless blender Copic to create the dots on the larger snail.

Hop on over to the blog to see some other awesome one layer cards and link up you own! You've got until Thursday to link it up. And then Friday I'll be back with another challenge for you . . .hmmm!

Bad Day? - Go Shopping!!

This is one of my favorite new images and sentiments just released from Paper Makeup Stamps. This is Sourpuss - isn't he just perfect !?!.

One way to make a bad day - good . . . . go shopping! And, if you're in the mood for some retail therapy (especially of the stamping kind), I urge . . . strongly suggest . . . um, IMPLORE you to head on over to the Paper Makeup Blog and STORE to check out the sale they just started this morning. The biggest sale EVAH!! Major inventory reduction on stamps, nesties and other accessories. We're talking 30-75% off!!

There is a limited supply, but the sale will run to the end of the month - if anything is left :0).

It's supposed to be sunny and upper 60's today!! Just a little tease before the snow and rain and COLD comes back this weekend :0(.

But at least for today - I'm putting that cloud away! Enjoy YOUR day, hope it's sunny!

Sketch Girl 14

Happy Monday everyone! Can you believe it's the 15th already! We're 1/2 way through March! Sunny days and warmer weather are just around the corner :0) I can FEEL it.

It's time for another Sketch Girl challenge. This sketch is being sponsored by Frenzified. They allowed us to use some of their digital images on this weeks sketch.

I chose an image and sentiment from the new Birthday Bakes release. Some really fun cupcake images, assorted candle styles and some super fun coordinating sentiments. I printed the cupcake on both white cardstock and blue pp. Then ran the cardstock image through my CB with Swiss dots folder. I cut out the wrapper in blue and paper pieced it on top. The candle was cut out of the blue and just colored in with copics. I stretched and skewed the original sketch, but all of the elements are there :0)

Make sure to hop over to the Sketch Girl Blog and check out the rest of the DT's samples, and link up your own sketch for a chance to win your very own images from Frenzified!

Have a great week, hope it's happy :0)

Just Playin'

3 much needed haircuts - check!
3 yearly physicals for camp, sports and school - check!
2 eye appointments - check!
taxes done! - check!



It's been a busy week so far, but found some "me" playtime last night. I bought this die from SU! and have never been able to figure out what to do with it. It's not as big as I thought it would be and I haven't figured out if I can "connect" the pieces to make it bigger. Anyone done this before? So when I saw this card while blurfing, I thought I would just try to use it as the focal point of the card.

Off to accomplish some more stuff this week! Have a good one :0)

Paper Makeup Stamps March Blog Hop!!

It's finally here, release day! And we saved the best for last (at least in my monster lovin' opinion)!! Aren't you loving what you're seeing?!?!

Well, if you came from Katie's blog you're in the right place, but if you haven't started from the top make sure you go back - you don't want to miss ANYTHING!!

I get to show you a new loveable Caliope and a sweet little coordinating sentiment. I had so much fun with this combo that I couldn't make just ONE card :0)

I know you're going to want to collect those letters for your secret coupon code!!

So here ya go. . .
Make sure you join us at the PMS release party at 8pm in the PMS Forum (http://www.papermakeup.com/forum/). Lots of chit chat, and more chances to win the ENTIRE RELEASE!! What could be more fun than that ???

Now on to the next fabulous, creative, awesome-ly talented . . . .CHRISTI !!!

Lucky Me!

It's time for another Paper Makeup Stamps release!! And since it's been awhile, we've been itching to show you what's coming this month!! It's extra big and extra awesome!!

Yesterday we got to see some sneaks at some very pretty wordart. Today it's all about "The Luck O' PMS" . I get to show you a sweet wordart stamp with the lucky theme:



I was inspired by a picture frame I saw at craft store to create this card. It had a silhouette of some kids playing in a field with dandelions. I thought "Hey, I can do that!" I stamped Kristin with black ink and then just colored her in with a black copic. How easy is that ?!?! The grass is already part of the image, I just drew in the ground and colored it in to make it look like she was sitting on a little hill. Then I just sponged the ink around her. A whole new way to color in the fairies - and only one marker is needed!

On a funny side note: I was soo excited about this card and showed it to my DH, hoping for praise and admiration. Instead he looks at it and says "Is that a duck fairy?" What!! O.K. -whatever. Note to self: you'll get a better response asking the dog, at least he'll wag his tail :0)

So, YOU can get really lucky too if you take the chance!! Paper Makeup Stamps is giving the ENTIRE RELEASE away to TWO lucky commenters. Just comment on each blog everyday (one entry per blog per day). You earn an entry for each comment. Join us for the release party and comment there for more chances!! You can see all of todays sneak peeks and read all of the details at the PMS Blog.

Hope you have a LUCKY day!

MFTW18

This picture Lisa M. found for this weeks MFTW (Makeup for the Weekend Challenge) is gorgeous!! Loved the colors, the springy flowers, and the bright cheerful sun! I knew I had to play along and THINK SPRING!

I decided to use one of my most favorite sets "Home Matters", it is only in digi form right now, but I'm wishin' and hoping and praying that PMS will release it in real rubber (poke, poke, wink, wink - Katie). This set has some really adorable images and sentiments including this birdhouse and sentiment, a doghouse and some clever off the wall sentiments, and even a car!! You can view the set here. Maybe if you like it too you can send Katie a poke poke telling her you think it would be a good idea to release it in rubber too!

I masked the birdhouses and then stamped over them with the two flower images from PMS's Friendly Flowers set. Because they are solid images, I just colored over them with markers and around the images instead of inking them up in different colors or stamping them out in different colors, cutting them out and layering them on top. Yes, I did it the lazy way!!

If you want to see the "real" way it should have been done, You can hop on over to the PMS blog and look at Lisa's take on the challenge - just gorgeous!! As well as all of the other awesome takes on the challenge so far.

Have a happy Monday - I think I'll be having Olympic withdrawl. It's been nice not having to fight over what to watch on T.V. :0)