Chillin' With Summer Girl

TGIF!  Hope everyone is looking forward to an enjoyable weekend!

With all the heat blanketing the US right now, this little cutie chillin' out with her Popsicle needed to be colored and put on a card.  She's Summer Girl from Mo's Digital Pencil.   Don't you just adore her fish sunglasses?!  The card design is my take on My Favorite Things' Sketch #81.  The papers are from a Recollections multipack, the chipboard sun is from a summertime collection from the Dollar Tree, and the pink Popsicle I made from scraps and accented with copic markers. 

ATS July Review Part II - Garden Gnome Lucy Revisited

Remember I shared with you that hubby thinks my cards are "too fussy", well is he in for a shock on this one!  I stepped out of my comfort zone and tried my hand at the latest flower decked out style that seems to be all the rage these days.  Going super girlie was nice for a change, but I'm not sure this style is for me.  On the other hand, Garden Gnome Lucy does look pretty comfortable among all those blooms!

ATS July Review

Today All That Scraps is having a review for the Sweet November July stamp releases.  My card once again features Garden Gnome Gertie.  Rather than the rubber stamp, this time I used the digi image and paper pieced her outfit.  I didn't have a problem until the little butterfly on her apron...yikes is it tiny!  I had to use my fingernails to try and hold the paper.  If I use this design again and decide to paper piece, I'll make the image a little bit bigger.  To make the green plants coordinate with the sprouts in Gertie's nut planter, I used the C.C. Designs die Mistletoe and cut the branches apart.  Gertie's frame is the Spellbinders Lacey Ovals.  The papers are from Pebbles Sunny Side, and the sentiments were cut from one of the papers in the pad.

Please check out Amy's blog, A Thousand Sheets of Paper, Nancy's blog, Creative Palette, Marion's blog, Card's by MarionE, and the design team girls at ATS to see their cards for the review, and remember the stamps, both digi and rubber, are available for purchase at All That Scraps.

3rd Christmas Card

It was love at first sight with these Lil Victorian Christmas images from Tickled Pink Stamps.  Lil Lolita Kellita is my favorite of the bunch.  She is so elegant and ready for the holidays in her ruffled gown and holly hair accessory.

Looking at the calendar, I'm going to need to speed it up a bit if I'm to get all of my Christmas cards made before December!  Time is ticking!  Stay tuned for more Christmas cards in the coming weeks!

An Extra Birthday Card

I suppose I was on a birthday card binge this past week while making a couple for my mother.  This one turned out to be an "extra".  Not that little Ellie's Birthday from Saturated Canary isn't completely adorable, but I didn't finish her up in time.  And truthfully, the colors I chose for her are more appropriate for a younger person's card.  If she doesn't go into the shop, I'll save her for one of my niece's birthdays!

Fairy Isabelle

As I've mentioned previously, I have an affinity for Fairies, and Isabelle from Kraftin Kimmie is a gem!  Don't you just love her flowing dress?!  I'd like to have a cocktail dress made like that, only a touch longer.  It would be flattering to any number of body shapes and especially for those of us with curves.  With such a feminine dress, I had to choose soft colors, hence the pink, blue, and cream.  I cut her out before I bought a good pair of scissors (if you are going to cut out your designs or paper piece, please invest in a decent pair of scissors...trust me, it makes a HUGE difference) so I had to replace her antennae.  I cut the stems off the blue flowers and used them as the replacement.

Happy Birthday Mom

Happy Birthday Mom!  I hope you enjoy the day we have planned!  And I also hope you like your birthday card, especially since you picked the image.  While in my craft room, mom spotted the Mo's Digital Pencil image Strawberry Girl among several designs I had printed out and asked if that was for her.  So of course, I had to use the image for one of her birthday cards (she always ends up with more than one, lol).  I pondered several different colors for this little girl's dress before deciding on yellow (not a go to color for me), and I'm pleased I did!  She's a little ray of sunshine!  I glossed her strawberry bag and added a hint of sparkle with a Spica pen to her flip flop straps.  The card layout is my interpretation of the iSpy Sketch #23.  I wasn't able to play along with the challenge as I couldn't post Mom's card until today.  Maybe next time!

Have a pleasant weekend everyone!

Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge #162

A Happy Friday morning to all!  Hope everyone has a nice weekend planned.  Tomorrow is my mother's birthday, so we'll be taking her and her husband and two mutual friends to Tarpon Springs.  Going to eat some yummy Greek food and visit the shops (we'll play tourists for the day, hehe).  Sunday hubby and I are laying a stone patio for mom.  Today is beach day!  Yippee!  Looking forward to relaxing in the water.

Today I'm dipping my toes into the Sketch Challenge pool.   I've made a card to play along with the Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge #162.  I've used the digi, Bee with Flowers, by the lovely and talented Lyn of Spyder's Corner.  Check out her blog for this and other freebies!  I've been a stalker...um...follower, yeah that's right, follower, of Lyn's for a good while, lol.  Her designs are cute and charming.  This digi was calling out to be colored and paired easily with the sketch challenge layout.

Btw, thank you to everyone who stopped by my blog yesterday and left such lovely comments!  I so appreciate you taking the time to write and share your thoughts on my work!  Big hugs to all!

Little Bit of Magic

Amy's done it again!  And she's once again allowed me to be a guest gal and showcase her new rubber stamp sets.  Her new Sweet November set, a Little Bit of Magic, is the cutest, most adorable to date!  There are nine, (yes nine!), precious little fairies along with a tiny flower, and the coordinating set has 11 sentiments.  How could you not fall in love with this set?!  It is amazing, magical, joyful, cheerful, playful, whimsical, cute, etc, etc, etc!   The moment I saw the stamps I had a vision for the card to create.  I've been wanting to make a tri-fold shutter card for ages, but hadn't found the right inspiration.  These little ladies were the perfect choice!  And they were such fun to color, cut, and craft into a card.  ;-)  In addition to fussy cutting the fairies, I fussy cut some butterflies from the coordinating paper.  Then I glittered the butterfly wings and glued just the bodies to the card.  To mirror the set sentiment "Capture the Magic", I used my computer to print out the "Have a Fairy Happy Birthday!" and inked the edges of both sentiments.  As for the quality of the photos...sorry folks...who knew taking a picture of a tri-fold card could be such a difficult task.  A big thank you to Pam Sparks, a contributor and design team member at ATS, who gave me some helpful tips for next time.  You can check out Pam's work (which is wonderfully creative) at her blog Expressions With Heart and at ATS.

Please do not forget to go to Amy's blog, A Thousand Sheets of Paper, and Nancy's blog, Creative Palette,  to check out their cards, and leave a comment for a chance to win some blog candy!  Also, check out the design team's cards at the All That Scraps blog.  The stamps will be available for purchase at ATS on Saturday, July 14th!

A Little Old Fashioned

I'm using Girl With a Rose by Birdie Brown today.  According to Torico (aka Birdie Brown), this image is the most popular in her shop.  There are so many coloring options with this little cutie, and she certainly caught my eye with her doggy ears and striped cropped leggings.  I went a bit old fashioned looking with this card.  The rose paper is from Crate Paper Pretty Party which has a vintage feel to it.  Coloring the image was quick and easy and the card came together in record time.

Here is the inside of this card.  It's pretty typical of how I finish the inside of cards.  I like to use the same papers as on the front of the card and add a little stamp to compliment or coordinate with the image on the front...in this case a rose.

Patience

How is everyone on this lovely Tuesday?  Life here in SW FL is back to normal after the all the hoopla of Tropical Storm Debby a few weeks ago.  At our home, hubby and I are attempting to keep from cluttering the house too much before company arrives next week.  It's a lot easier to clean up if you haven't let the little stuff pile up...especially the dinning room table which for some reason becomes the "catch all" for all the pieces of paper (not craft related) that find their way into our house...mail, magazines, newspapers, training materials, etc.  Hopefully we can keep the surface clutter free for the next few weeks!

Patience is the name of today's image from Mo's Digital Pencil.  This image reminds me so much of my daughter when she was that age.  Lauren LOVES critters!  For those of you old enough to remember the Beverly Hillbillies, Lauren is a lot like Ellie Mae Clampett (minus the funky country clothes, hairdo, and speech).  No critter was too large, small, furry, scaly, dangerous, etc....sometime I'll tell you the black widow story...talk about giving a mom a heart attack...whew.  Anyway, the card came together pretty quickly, and I've left space for a sentiment at the bottom once I decide who to send the card to and for what occasion. 

Have a Bee-utiful Day!

Cute alert!  How adorable is this little one?  Say hello to BEEatrice from Whimsie Doodles.  She was a joy to color.  Of course she had to wear yellow and black.  I gave her wings a touch of pale green and covered them in Stickles glitter.  Black cardstock, white cardstock embossed with a flower pattern, white dotted black patterned paper, a scrap of yellow patterned paper with a sentiment added, a die cut border, and a pale yellow ribbon came together in harmony to create the card.

My Niece's Birthday Present

Hi all!  Last week my husband and I traveled to East Tennessee to spend some time with family and friends.  While there, I gave my niece her birthday present early.  I didn't want to mail four 13x13 pictures, and she and her mother are moving into a new home later this month, so she can use these on a focal wall in her new bedroom.  Below are the photos of three of those pictures (I posted the first one on June 16th). 

Have a great weekend!

Garden Gnome Girl Gertie

Last, but not least, here is Garden Gnome Girl Gertie!  She is my favorite of this release by Amy of Sweet November.  Gertie must be the nurturer of the bunch.  Look at how she cradles the fragile little shoots of new growth as she presents them for inspection.  Coloring her was fun, but challenging for me with all that open space.  Obviously some more practice is in order, but I still like the way she turned out.  After coloring her apron, it looked flat and very uninteresting, so I dabbed on some chalk ink to give it a little dimension and texture (not sure if it shows in the photo).  The papers and flower stickers are from an old set by Basic Grey titled Origins.  I'd been dying to use them, but hadn't found quite the right opportunity.  Gertie was the perfect fit!  From the moment I saw her, I knew she had to wear green and brown.  Since I couldn't decide which paper to use as her background, I chose 4!  It worked out well, so I might have to try that again on some future cards.

Please check out Amy's blog, A Thousand Sheets of Paper, Nancy's blog, Creative Palette, and Marion's blog, Card's by MarionE to see their creations using Garden Gnome Lucy.  Amy is once again so generous in offering blog candy.  All you have to do is leave a nice comment on our blogs.  All the names will go in a hat, and a winner will be drawn for each of the three Garden Gnome Girls.  If you are not one of the lucky winners, do not despair.  The stamps, both digi and rubber, will be available for purchase at All That Scraps later this evening.

I've thoroughly enjoyed my time as guest gal for the July Sweet November release, and sincerely hope I have the opportunity again sometime.  Thank you to all of Amy's followers who were kind enough to stop by my blog and leave a nice comment.  I appreciate it!

Garden Gnome Girl Myra

Introducing Garden Gnome Girl Myra!  Isn't she sweet?  Her little nut wheelbarrow is full to the brim with flowers freshly picked to bundle and send to a friend.  This adorable design by Amy of Sweet November needed little help from background papers so I used an old doodlebug blue dotted as a border to accent her blue dress and bonnet.  A free form paper pieced sun and a grass border die cut were the only other papers used.  Not wanting her apron to compete with the sun, I opted to make it striped yellow and white rather than solid yellow.  I chalked the sky with clouds, added three cute little puffed birds, stamped on the sentiment "Hello Friend", and voila, the card was complete!

Please check out Amy's blog, A Thousand Sheets of Paper, Nancy's blog, Creative Palette, and Marion's blog, Card's by MarionE to see their creations using Garden Gnome Myra.  Amy is once again so generous in offering blog candy.  All you have to do is leave a nice comment on our blogs.  All the names will go in a hat, and a winner will be drawn for each of the three Garden Gnome Girls.  If you are not one of the lucky winners, do not despair.  The stamps, both digi and rubber, will be available for purchase at All That Scraps on the night of Thursday, July 5th.

Happy July 4th!

Happy Independence Day America!  How are you all celebrating?  We're headed to a dear friend's house for a backyard cookout and pool party.  Good food, good friends, and good times!  Our hostess is providing the meat and drinks (as well as the pool, lol), and the rest of us are bringing the side dishes.  We'll be giving the fireworks a miss this year.  We just returned from a trip up North (where it was significantly hotter than here in SW FL...105 degrees to be exact...what's up with that?), and hubby and I are still tuckered out from the drive and all of the excitement of the past week.

This little card was another commission for another July 4th birthday.  I couldn't post it earlier as I did not want to take the chance that the recipient might see it prior to its arrival in the mail (sorry about the picture quality, I didn't check before the card was sent...lesson learned).  This sweetie is Waiting on the Parade by Mo of Mo's Digital Pencil Too.  She reminds me of the days when I took my kids downtown to watch the parades.  At first they looked so cute.  They were dressed up in their little holiday/festive outfits and had clean shiny faces.  However, before the day/evening was over, anyone could tell what my daughter had to eat that day just by looking at her face and clothes.  Lol, bits of each item consumed were still clinging to her cheeks, shirt, and shorts.  Ahhhh....the memories....

Hope you all have a fun, festive, and safe holiday!

Garden Gnome Girl Lucy

Whoo Hoo!  It's the Sweet November July release!  The July release features three Garden Gnome Girls.  Today we are showcasing Lucy.  The moment I saw the ladybug on her apron, I knew I had to use black and red on this image and card.  Her dress called out to be paper pieced and of course she had to have a matching band on her bonnet.  After cutting her out (thank you Amy for making this image so easy to cut out), she needed a background and this aqua with white flowers from Echo Park's Hello Summer coordinated quite well with the red with white flowers from My Mind's Eye Just Dreamy 2.  I designed the sentiment (which I've added to this post as a special freebie for you), and adhered it to a black cardstock circle.  A white die cut strip and a puffed ladybug finished the card.

Please check out Amy's blog, A Thousand Sheets of Paper, Nancy's blog, Creative Palette, and Marion's blog, Card's by MarionE to see their creations using Garden Gnome Lucy.  Amy is once again so generous in offering blog candy.  All you have to do is leave a nice comment on our blogs.  All the names will go in a hat, and a winner will be drawn for each of the three Garden Gnome Girls.  If you are not one of the lucky winners, do not despair.  The stamps, both digi and rubber, will be available for purchase at All That Scraps on the night of Thursday, July 5th.

Sweet November Guest Gal!

I'm a Sweet November Guest Gal for the July Release!  Thank you Amy!  I am so thrilled and honored!  I've loved Amy's designs since I first discovered blogland and began card making.  In fact, hers were the first designs I purchased.  Amy's characters are whimsical, playful, and sweet.  Her images and the stories that she creates to accompany them take you to a realm where wonder and magic thrive!  Pain, heartache, and strife do not exist in this world.  What a joy to escape to such a beautiful place, if only for a little while.  Amy's designs are fun, interesting, and easy to work with (both coloring and cutting).  And her blog...wow...her cards are AMAZING!  If you haven't yet checked it out (A Thousand Sheets of Paper), you totally should!

Since this post is all about Sweet November, my card had to include one of Amy's cute images.  This little one is Sweet Tadpole Lily.  Using Echo Park digital papers to set the scene, Lily could be at the beach, at a water park, at a pool, or at any other place where water and sun abound.

Over the next three days, you'll see cards made with the Sweet November July Release images, available for purchase at All That Scraps, the night of Thursday, July 5th.  See you tomorrow!

P.S.  There might be an extra little something for those who stop by tomorrow.  :-)