Keep Christmas: Mojo Monday 218

This is my favorite time of the year. I love the holidays! The smell of pine trees in the house and christmas cookie baking; twinkling christmas lights and colors; yummy foods and deserts; and the Christmas movies and TV Specials always make this time of the year so very merry!! One tradition I try to get the kids into every year is to watch all the original Christmas movies like "It's a wonderful life!" and "Miracle on 34th Street" and of course all the animated ones like "Frosty the Snowman" and "Rudolf and the Misfits". Top of my list however is "A Christmas Carol". It doesn't matter which version: old, new or animated. I like to watch at least one version.

I also love this time of the year because it gives me an excuse to bring out all my old Christmas stamps. Like the one I used on this card.  It's a retired one called "Keep Christmas" and of course reminds me of  "A Christmas Carol". I used this weeks Mojo Monday challenge for the sketch and was happy to pull out my sewing machine for this one. It's been awhile since my sewing machine has seen paper!

If you look closely you can see that I watercolored the image with tombow markers, cut out parts of it and layered them to add dimesion. This image was a little difficult to layer because I wanted to keep going but figured that after 3 I better stop or it won't fit in an envelope!

Happy Holidays!

Flock Together: Mojo Monday 215

Welcome back!

It's been awhile but I'm finally back in the blogging world. I couldn't wait to play with this weeks Mojo Monday challenge. I've had this retired Stampin' Up! DSP laying on my desk for awhile and been wanting to use it with the bird punch to make some coordinating notecards.

I used a cuttlebug embossing folder on a scrap piece of Tempting Turquoise cardstock and then punched out the bird and its wing. The SU! gemstones are colored using a yellow copic marker. I love using my copics to color pearls and gems to make coordinating embellishments. So fun and economical.

This sketch and strips of DSP inspired this card:

I decided to make a whole set of these and they will be available in my New ETSY Shop tomorrow.

Thanks for looking!





Purple and Brown..yuck!

I don't feel this is my best work. Purple and Brown?....Yuck! I love both colors seperatly but not so much together.

This is my entry for Mojo Monday Sketch Challenge 159 and Color Throwdown Challenge #113 using Perfect Plum Early Espresso and Vanilla. I didn't have Early Espresso so I used my go to color Chocolate Chip and chose Whisper White instead of Vanilla. I had an incredibly hard time using these colors together, but I think I pulled it off OK. Got a chance to use some of my Wrinkle Ribbon. I am so in love with it I had to dye my own to coordinate with my favorite colors. You can pick some up in my eBay Store.

I did get a chance to use one of my favorite techniques...the Baby Wipe Swipe. Love it..Love it..Love it.

Thanks for looking!

You're on my mind...

Still on my quest to take better pictures, I have to say that I am ok with this one. I think the picture could be a little bit clearer, but overall I'm happy. But, that could also be because I love this card so much. The layout is from this past weeks Mojo Monday #151 and it is going into my index file of favorite "go-to" card layouts. I kept the background elements simple; no embossing or texture other than the sewing.

 

Here is a nice close up of the fairy. This is one of Lauretta's designs over at Craft Your Passion; a digi stamp called "What are you thinking, Fairy?". As soon as I saw this one, I knew I would have a blast coloring it with copics. I used stickles on the wings and highlights are created with a white gel pen. Next time I use this image I'm going to create a background, maybe brayered water or a woodland background with some mushrooms and branches...hhhmmmm...the gears in my little brain are starting to turn!

Today's challenge at Craft Your Passion is a recipe challenge: Anything goes! And sometimes that's a harder challenge than when you get so used to doing challenges with lots of directions and restrictions. Don't you agree?

Have a great week, everyone!

CYP Challenge #18 with a little bit of love

Ever have one of those days when no matter how many times you photograph something it never seems to look right? First,  I was in a rush trying to get this card uploaded for the Craft Your Passion Challenge which should have clued me in, but after taking about 20 shots I still wasn't satisfied. I loved coloring this digi image and I have to admit that I am so bummed that the pictures are not doing it justice, but please trust me that it is way cuter in person. {smile}

Challenge 18 at CYP is to use Red, Green and Black. At first I was worried that it would look to Christmas-y {is that a word? it should be} because of all the Red and Green but I think I pulled it off by using this adorable Frog image by CocoDingo. The frog is actually colored twice, cut out and layered on top of each other for a little dimension.

Well, back to taking more pics and hopefully improve my technique! Enjoy.

Guest Design Team for Craft Your Passion Challenge

Wow! I can't believe it! My first GDT ever and it is with the wildly creative team at Craft Your Passion Challenge Blog. Thank you so much Lauretta for this fun opportunity. This week's challenge is a sketch challenge and let me tell you I had a lot of fun with this one.

I got to use Lauretta's Aloha Wedding Digi stamp which I thought was totally appropriate since I live on the Big Island of Hawaii. Im fairly new to digi stamps but I love it! I love being able to resize the image to whatever size I need. I colored the bride with copics and used stickles to accent her dress, bouquet, lei and haku lei on her head. The backgound paper is Pink Tiare from Island Paperie and a raffia bow finishes off the card. Go check out what the rest of the design team has created using this sketch and their fun digi stamps!

The Shabby Tea Room

This pretty little card was inspired by the following teapot image at The Shabby Tea Room.  The Shabby Tea Room is a newer challenge blog with some great ideas and inspiration. The owner also sells some really beautful vinatage ribbon on Etsy that I plan on ordering sometime in the near future. I used an older SU! set, I think it's called Toile Flowers or something thereabouts, for the image. The image was embossed and colored with Copic Markers and though it's hard to see from the picture, the two flowers were stamed a second time, colored, cut out, and mounted using dimesionals for some "pop"! The patterned paper comes form SEI's Juliette and Chocolate Collections. Both lines are gorgeous!

Isn't this a lovely teapot? One of my nightly rituals af ter the kids go to sleep, is a cup of tea in one of my three favorite tea cups. My grandmother collected them and now I'm following in her footsteps... Miss you grandma...