Making It Manly and Winners!

Hi everyone!

I'm over on the Two Peas Blog this week hosting a challenge: Make It Manly. The challenge is to make a card, layout, or other project for a man or about a man. Easy right? The winner will receive a $5 gift certificate to the store. :)

Here's a sneak peek of my project:

You can find the details HERE. The challenge runs until Wed 2/27. To enter, upload your project into the Two Peas gallery, and be sure to select the Digital Challenge on the challenges page. If you'd like to play along but don't have any digital projects, you can check out the Two Peas Freebies.

Now for the winners of the Made With Love Blog Hop:

For the winner of the CAS-ual Friday Stamps:

Tasnim said...

This card is so awesome! I love it! Your digital work is AMAZING!!

February 14, 2013 at 8:32 AM 

The winner of the Sweet and Sassy Stamps:

Jamie said...

Cute Valentines card! Happy Valentines Day!!

February 14, 2013 at 4:53 PM

Tasnim and Jamie, I'll e-mail you. Thanks to everyone for leaving a comment. There are many other winners, so be sure to check out the other blogs on the hop.

Thanks for stopping by. Have a great day!

WCMD--Eek!

Hi everyone! A few months ago, I received an e-mail from Holly at Paper Crafts Magazine telling me I was one of the winners of the World Card Making Day contest. As you can imagine, I was doing a lot of woo hoo-ing and cheering (my 7-year-old had to tell me to "use my indoor voice"--ha ha). I also shed a few tears of joy, too. :)

I'm a big fan of having of making cards with particular people in mind. For my WCMD card, I had my 2-year-old son in mind as the inspiration. Without going into too much detail, we're pretty lucky to have him, and I think he's pretty fantastic. :)

Here's the card he inspired, which can be found in the March/April 2013 issue of Paper Crafts Magazine (you can buy the issue HERE):

The grungy strips are stamped with an Ali Edwards' So Totally You Strips brush. The inspiration for the colors comes from THIS Color-Collective photo (and yes, I want those pants!).

After I was done stamping the strips, I added another Ali Edwards sentiment brush from the So Totally Love This set. If you prefer clear stamps, the sentiment is similar to the February 2013 Studio AE stamps at Technique Tuesday.

Here's a close-up:

I want to give a big, big "thank you" to the editors at Paper Crafts! I'm so honored to have this card selected and to join the other incredibly talented ladies (be sure to check them out in the March/April issue).  

Thanks for stopping by. Have a great day!


Supplies
Cardstock: (brown) Bazzill
Other paper: (Premium Matte Photo Paper) Office Max
Digital brushes: (So Totally You Strips, So Totally Love This brushes) Ali Edwards at Designer Digitals

With Sympathy

Hi everyone! If you're in the U.S., happy President's Day.

Anyone else get some crafty time this weekend? Last week when I saw the new Two Peas releases, I almost selected a kit that had bright colors, digital brushes, chevrons and splatters--all elements I gravitate toward. But then I saw another kit...vintage elements, muted colors, flowers. The kit was a little out of my norm, but gorgeous.

I decided to select the kit outside my comfort zone and came up with this card:

Aren't the flowers and butterfly pretty? Except for the Hero Arts sentiment, all of the digital elements are from Jen Reed's Antiquities collection.

I started off by cutting down a 5-panel frame into a 3-panel frame. I often don't think about cutting down supplies, but there was no way I could fit the 5 panels on a card.  Under the frame, I layered distressed patterned paper, the floral/butterfly elements, and the sentiment. There was a lot of rotating and nudging going on. ;)

Here's a close-up:

I finished off the card with a pearl and sequin. I didn't have the right color of sequin, so I colored a white one with a Copic.

Thanks for stopping by! Have a great day!


Supplies
Cardstock: (blue) Stampin' Up
Patterned paper: (cream from Antiquities collection) Jen Reed
Digital brush: (Say It Again) Hero Arts
Digital elements: (flowers, butterfly, frame from Antiquities collection) Jen Reed
Other elements: (grey pearl) Doodlebug; (sequin) Hobby Lobby

I'm Really Not 10 Years Old

For my Made With Love Blog Hop card, please click HERE.

Hi everybody! I'm in an airplane right now blogging...how cool is modern technology? I'm heading back home after a week in Alabama for work. I loved being in Montgomery, but yeah for home!

I've been loving the fortune-telling stamps I've been seeing around (fortune cookies, magic 8 ball). I decided to make a different type of fortune-telling project--a cootie catcher:

Did anyone else ever make cootie catchers in elementary school? My friends and I would make them with secret messages on the inside about the boys we would marry or where we would live. I always picked Hawaii. I suppose South Dakota and Hawaii aren't too different. ;)

So for a fun Valentine's Day project, I made a cootie catcher. Please excuse the little wear on the image...it might have been used once or twice last weekend after I made it.

I used eight different digital patterned papers from Two Peas in a Bucket. Here's the first picture as it's being unfolded:

See how the patterned papers are different than the outside? It was fun to mix so many papers. Here's one of the "answers" inside a flap:

I used a digital brush from Hero Arts for that cute heart. The other flaps had similar hearts, but the last heart had a message:

Of course, you could substitute the inside for any kind of messages. If you're very ambitious, these cootie catchers would make great lunchbox notes.

HERE is a guide to the folding. It's been about 30 years since I had made a cootie catcher, so I needed a little refresher. :)

Thanks so much for stopping by! Have a great weekend!


Supplies
Patterned papers: (Sweet Pea Chevrons, Sweet Pea Stripes) Truman Studio; (Eye Candy Chevrons, Eye Candy Patterned Paper) Just Jaimee; (Madras Solids) Polka Dot Pixels
Stamps: (heart from Love in Hearts and Borders) Hero Arts
Cootie Catcher Template: Valorie Wibbens
Font: AK Cupcake

Made With Love Blog Hop

Hi everyone! Today I'm taking part in the Made With Love Blog Hop.

If you would like to start at the beginning, here's the hop order:

Taheerah Atchia

JJ Bolton

Joscelyne Cutchens 

Jennifer Ingle 

Amy Kolling

Agnieszka Malyszek

Wida Miller

Jocelyn Olson <--You are here

Miriam Prantner

Anita Recksiedler 

Elena Roussakis

Jennifer Rzasa

Erin Lee Schreiner

Dana Warren

Laurie Willison

Tessa Wise

Nina Yang 

Wer're each making a project based on a LOVE theme. Here's a card I made:

It's a submission reject. Actually, it's a two-time reject, but I still love it. :) I used some Ali Edwards digital brushes to stamp the "be mine" repeatedly in the background. Then, the heart and "valentine" stamps from the same set are layered on top.

We were lucky enough to have some very generous sponsors for our hop. I have two prizes to give away.

First up, I'm offering a set of stamps from CAS-ual Fridays Stamps to one lucky person.

Want to see the stamp set? It's a brand spankin' new set called "Breathe:"

Gorgeous, isn't it? Michele at CAS-ual Fridays will ship the set directly to the winner.

I'm also giving away TWO stamps sets from Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps to another lucky person. Woo hoo!

In addition to these two winners, there is a grand prize for the hop--a $90 gift certificate to the Ribbon Carousel.

Just hop along to each of the blogs, and one winner will be selected from all of the comments. To enter, please leave a comment on this post by 11:59 EST on Thursday, February 21st. Please make sure I can reach you--either follow my blog on Google, leave some a way to contact you, or check back. I'll announce the winner on my blog.

Be sure to visit all of the other blogs in the hop. There are some *fab* sponsors on the other ladies' blogs, too: Avery Elle, BasicGrey, Becky Oehlers Stamps, Bossy Joscie, Fresh Squeezed Stamps, Gel-a-tins, Great Impressions Stamps, I {Heart} Papers, Lil' Inkers Designs, Mama Elephant, Neat & Tangled Stamps, Punky Sprouts, Ribbon Carousel, Simon Says Stamp, SRM Stickers, Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps, Sweet Stamp Shop, The Crafter's Companion, The Craft’s Meow, The Twinery, Timeless Twine, Uniko Stamps, Unity, Viva Las VegaStamps

Next up in the hop is the amazingly clever Miriam Pranter.

Thanks for stopping by!


Supplies
Cardstock: (True Black) PTI
Digital Brushes: (For the Love of Love) Ali Edwards at Designer Digitals

I'm Not Sure What These Are, But I Love Them

Hi Everyone! I can't believe it's been a week since I posted. My husband, daughter, and I went to Minneapolis for a few days for my daughter's first Irish Step Dancing competition (I've never seen so many wigs in my life). I did get to go to The Paper Source--swoon!--love that place.

Anyway....a couple of weeks ago, Aly with Truman Studio released the new Rhapsody digital kit over at Two Peas. As soon as I saw one of the papers, I gasped first, and then  proceeded to make this card:

Those leafy/medallion/flower images were part of a sheet of patterned paper. I lightened the white in the background of the paper to have a white outline when I fussy cut. Then, I enlarged the patterned paper, printed it, and fussy cut the leaf-things.

For the rest of the card, I used a digital brush to stamp the Kristina Werner sentiment onto the lacey patterned paper.  Here's a close-up:

I think part of why I liked this paper is it has purple. I'm usually not a super-huge fan of purple, but I find purple patterned paper hard to find. Is it just me? If you know of a great collection with purple, please share!

Thanks for stopping by! Have a great day!


Supplies
Patterned paper: (purple background, leaf image from Rhapsody collection) Truman Studio; (green lace from  Bellflower Papers) Adrienne Looman, both kits available at Two Peas in a Bucket
Digital brush: (sentiment from Card Frames and Sentiments) Kristina Werner at Two Peas in a Bucket