Two posts in one day ;- )

     Ha! bet you thought I wouldn't be back, well here I am and I will be posting twice because I have 2 challenge deadlines today (did I hear someone say, ahhh, that's why... hmmm.) Well, I've been busy playing scrabble and monopoly and going to the movies and just spending time with my family and friends, while my son was home. Then, there is always a let down after he returns to college. I'm suppose to use this blog and the card making to help me get past that, but I didn't fee like it, so there! I actually have been busy editing photos in Photoshop and I do have another card and a gift holder I made to show you, but I will keep those for maybe tomorrow. We don't want to overload you all in one day ;- )

     The first challenge is CDAC (Creative Digital Art Center). You'll find us here. I used the snow globe image from Crafty Ann's (only, wait, you can't see that yet.) They had provided a number of other nice images that you could pair with it, but since I have a friend whose birthday is coming up and she loves penguins (her name is Gwyn and that is how she explains to people how to pronounce her name correctly, not Gwen), I figured I'd use Meljen's Penguin's Little Letter image to go with it. This will fit her challenge "Anything Goes" so I'll enter it there too ;- ) The images were colored in Photoshop. The black card stock is Core'dinations Black Magic and is embossed with Sizzix's snowflakes. I cut the hole with Martha's circle cutter. I set up the words and the heart on the Gypsy. The letters, except for birthday, are from the Cricut Plantin Schoolbook cartridge and "birthday" is an element from the Cricut Sweet Treats cartridge. The heart was cut from card stock from the Peppermint Forest pack.

front

     I wanted the inside of the card to have a surprise, so that is where the snow globe image can be seen. The sentiment is my own, done in Print Shop. The fonts are LD dabble from Lettering Delights,  Kauffman (the script) and wm Christmas3 for the  skating penguin. You can get it as a freebie here. I added glitter pen to the base of the snow globe and Martha Stewart fine crystal glitter to the snow at the base of the penguin.

 inside card

close-up of image inside card

     This would also make a nice Valentine card. Please leave a comment, because I love to hear from you.  I'm also entering this into the challenge at Going Buggy here for grey (black)/ red/ white. Read the next post for the challenge from The Outlawz.

Finishing in the past and beginning the new.

     Well, I have a couple of things to cover today. Who'd of thought ;- ) First, you'll recognize this card. It was made for my sister-in-law and the progressive challenge at Crafter's Digital Art Center. You'll find the info on it here.

     However, at the time I hadn't finished the inside.  I thought you'd like it. I found an image by googling woman screaming and vintage.  If you can't find it and are interested, drop me a line and I'll send it to you. I only used a part of it and I used a black gel pen to make a frame. The font is a freebie called Greenfuz and the line element is from Print Shop.

Kind of a fun surprise ;- )

     The next card is for some friends, who have been trying, unsuccessfully for a number of years, to have a baby. Recently, they were out of town at a family wedding when they got a call that they needed to get to the hospital immediately, there was a baby waiting for them. The attended the wedding and drove through the night and are happily, now a family ;- ) This is the card I made for them. I used my Cricut Imagine and the Nursery Tales cart to make the background paper and the layered images. However, I used my Gypsy to make the shaped card from a shape from the Storybook cart with my Expression. I then cut the same shape using the paper I had made with the Imagine, on the Expression 1/4 smaller, to use as the background paper.  (Got all that ? Good! or are you yelling Equipment Overload!) I used glitter pen on the dragonfly wings and gel pens on the frog and grasses. What are the chances of sticking you hand in wet gel pen? In my case 100% I added Martha Stewart Brown Flockingto the cattail and wiggle eyes to the frog, as well. The sentiment is my own. The font is SNF Classy Charm from Scrap N Fonts cut with oval nestabilities.

You can sort of see the details. Will be getting my camera back soon, thankfully.

     In order to do the sentiment, I printed a coordinating 3 in. by 3 in. square of pattern paper. I attached that to a piece of printer paper. Before running it through, I did a test run, to make sure I knew where my sentiment would print and which way to put the paper in. Now, I accept no liability for your printer, if you try this ;- ) I try not to let my husband know that I'm doing this >.< I set it up so it would print in the upper corner and taped the paper in the upper corner so the tape was on the back (securely.)

      I cut a second shape for the inside and using the same SNF Classy Charm font, on plain printer paper,  I added the inside sentiment. I also used DB Frilly Words from Lettering Delights to add the words near the center and the element in the center is from Print Shop. I embellished it with more layer images from the Imagine Nursery Tales cart. On this card, I've obscured the name to protect the innocent ;- )

    

     I also always sign the back of my cards with a matching ink and on some I also add an embellishment.

     I thought I'd give you a sneak peak at the beginning of the cards I'm making for the college students. Do you know what Cricut cartridge I'm using? I'm working on the Gypsy to move the multiple images around to save paper.

     Thanks for stopping by and spending some time with me. It means so much to me ;- ) Hope your week is filled with creative time, new inspirations, and blessings. Please take a moment to leave a comment. Thanks!

Anniversary Swirl

     Well, I'm still behind but I do have 1 card done ;- ) It's an anniversary card for a dear friend's (who I've known since 2nd grade and is my son's godmother) son and daughter-in-law.  I used the oval card in Cricut's Wild Card cart  (6 1/4 in. if you cut the envelope to fit a 12 in pice of paper) for this card and welded my own Happy Anniversary from the Plantin SchoolBook cart on the Gypsy using the Wisteria paper from Basic Grey adding a gem from Hero Arts for the dot in the  i and a flower from Creative Charms. In the nothing comes easy category of my life lately,  my Xyron was jammed, but fortunately the LetraTac came through for attaching the sentiment (see posts here, if you want to know more about LetraTac.)  To cover the window, I cut the blackout option and cut it in half, using only 1 oval here.

     On the inside, I made a digital sentiment using LDJ Jilligraphy font from Lettering Delights. You can find them at the affiliate link on my side bar. I also added a line element from Print Shop, which is what I laid it out in. I cut the sentiment with an oval nestibility and inked it with Distress Inks Peeled Paint and Concord Grape. The swirls are from the same Oval card in Wild Card, under the icon button and I used the Gypsy to reverse one of them. I added pearls to the ends.

     I made the matching envelope as well. I used the remaining oval, cut in half, in place of the envelope liner (I had a mail carrier to beat and waste not, want not ;- ) I might have blinged it up some if I wasn't in a hurry, but I do like the simplicity of the way it turned out, so maybe all in all it was a good thing. The green paper is Bazzil from Archivers.

     I will probably make, the now belated anniversary card that is left, the same, possibly in different colors. It will depend on what I find when I dig through the mess I made in my studio. I also will have to make a belated birthday card. She is such a good friend, she will understand and will probably get a call and maybe that will just be all she wants. She isn't a card sender, herself. Then I'm on to my next crazy bunch. I'm sure that I'm already running behind. >.< I know I need to make 2 groups to go out to the college students I send to.  I wanted to get them out before Halloween and I haven't updated my total to include the new freshman, so I don't even know how many I need to make. Though, I do know what I'm making. For the ones I sent to last year I have a design picked out and the new ones will get the same design I sent last year, ha ha!

  Thanks, as always, for stopping by. I'm glad you came.  Please feed my ego with a comment or ask any questions you might have ;- ) Have a blessed and creative day!
     

Scaredy Cat plus some links to freebies.

     Today's card features an image from the 4th round of the Digi Freebie Progressive Challenge over at Crafter's Digital Art Center. The image is from Design2Delight Digital Stamp by Faith Skrdla. I colored it in PhotoShop. I decided it would be difficult to color the cat black (plus his features would disappear), so I got creative and checked out some free PhotoShop patterns and found some that simulated fur by Obsidian Dawn (find them here). I decided to use Cheetah ;- ) This card is for my husband's sister-in-law's birthday. She really loves halloween and her birthday is near it, so I usually do a halloween themed card. The font on the right is Firecat Medium by David Rakowski. You can get it here as well as a number of other places. The Snoopy is a free dingbat called Snoopy Ding by JBS you can find it here. The final font, at the bottom, is LD Penelope is from Lettering Delights. Just click the affiliate link on my sidebar.
     The sentiment on the right was inked with Black Soot Distress ink. I used a glitter pen on the eyes and mouth of the Snoopy pumpkin (sorry it didn't show up well in the photo >.<) and just had to color Snoopy's ear, eye and nose with a black gel pen. It just offended my Snoopy sensibility to see them orange, hee hee. The bottom sentiment was cut with the small scalloped nestibility. I also added a large black flower from Archiver with 2 buttons in the center tied with twine. Sorry, the photo quality isn't up to par, but my son has my camera. I miss it :-(

Click on photo to enlarge

     There's still time to join the next round of the Progressive Challenge for $1 to get the images. there will be 1 more round after that. Thanks for stopping by and taking a peek. Please leave a comment, because they mean a lot to me. Have a inspired day!

The Big Three-0 and window box visitors.

     Well, as promised today's card is for my friend's son's thirtieth birthday, though I still don't see how that is possible, since we were babies 30 years ago. He must be adopted ;- ) Anyway, I embossed and sanded the Core'dinations cardstock using  the Cuttlebug embossing folder. I cut out the "30" from AC metallic cardstock, using the  Cricut Plantin Schoolbook Cart and the Gypsy, so that I could size the width and height separately and popped it up on the card. The sentiment is from Clear Stamps and is embossed with sterling silver embossing powder. I really got creative to make the label. I used the gypsy to resize what was suppose to be the mat from the "Families are Forever" card on the Cricut Just Because Cards cart. It would be button 34, the one with the tree swing in the handbook. I turned off the keep proportions lock and changed the proportions to .6 inches wide by 2.5 inches long. I added a brad and popped it up. The edges are inked with Ranger Distress Fired Brick.

     On the inside, the sentiment is done digitally in Print Shop. The fonts are LD Thankful and LD Dabble both from Lettering Delights. They have great fonts and dingbats, as well as SVG's and graphics. If you sign-up for their e-mails, you get 9 fonts free. You can check them out here, through my affiliate link or by clicking the link in my sidebar. I then added stickers from American Traditional Designs Party Icons, that I get at Hobby Lobby. The Happy Birthday pattern paper is also from Hobby Lobby.

     I think the inside looks kind of like a celebration ;- ) 

The other day I shared some roses, so today I thought I'd share some visitors to my flowers with you.

 Notice the center of it's back. How feathery it is. Click on photo to enlarge.

 Look at that face \. ./

     Thanks for stopping by. Please leave a comment, so that I know that you were here ;- ) Have a blessed day!

Stop and smell the roses.

     The card I have for today, was made for a dear friend's daughter. I prepare you, for when you read the sentiment on the inside ;- ) I'm sure I will be getting a call from her mother, who was the Matron of Honor at my wedding. The image is a Hero Arts stamp and I painted it with water colors. I added and embellishment from Creative Charms. The pattern paper is from Paper Studio, as is the paper strip I used for the sentiment. I used a glitter pen over the blue Happy Birthday words and it darkened the whole look of the sentiment a bit too much, so I added the white dashes with a white Signo Gel pen to the top and bottom of the sentiment.

     I did struggle with what to write on the inside. It is the hardest part of making cards for me. Everything always seems so trite. Maria still has one of the first digital cards I ever made, going back to the Mac II with the first version of Print Shop, on a very dottie, dot matrix printer (maybe 26 years.) She also is the first recipient, of the first cut and pieced card I ever made, which was for her wedding shower (2 1/2 years ago). That's a lot of written sentiments. This sentiment was done digitally with a combination of Print Shop, using LD Penelope from Lettering Delights for the font and Photoshop Elements, using Inobscuro roses brushes to make the rose background. I "stamped" the rose, used the find edges filter with a darker color and then dragged it into Print Shop. I think it gave a very nice and artistic effect. I went over the rose outlines with a clear glitter pen. You can see the glitter better in the second photo of the inside, which has the colors wrong because of the setting sun, but does show the effect of the glitter. Just noticed, while looking at the photo, the font used for "Maria" is Black Rose. It's a free font that you can get from any number of free sites. I also went over the "29" with a gel pen.

 Click to make larger

Click to make larger - then you can see the glitter better, so I don't sound crazy ;- )

     As long as I'm talking about roses, Here are a few photos I took yesterday, of the roses from my new bush that we planted this year. OK, in the vase there is a ringer as well ;- ) I love the ruffled petals on this yellow rose.

     Thanks for coming by and spending some time here today. Please leave a comment. They really mean a lot to me. Have a blessed day!

Star Baby and reception freebies, shown as promised!

     Let's start with the card, because I haven't posted one in awhile. Today's card is for my neighbor's newborn granddaughter. Her, (the baby), name is Stella, hence the theme of the card. I used the Imagine and Nursery Tales again, because I want to get as much use out of such a baby oriented cart, when I can, being the mother of a 20 year old son in college ;- ) All of the paper and images are from this cart, except for the shooting star, which is from Everyday Paper Dolls, accessories 2, shifted. It's the accessory for the astronaut. The paper for the star is from Core'dinations Couture line. I colored the star with a Copic marker and added detail with the Starlight Glitter pen. All the images were popped up with pop dots. The sentiment is from Clear Stamps Greetings and was embossed with gold metallic embossing powder. The rose is Prima.

     The papers on the inside are also from the Imagine Nursery Tales cart. The sentiment was done digitally, however the images were stamped. The star, under the word "star", was with Studio g pigment chalk ink and a stamp from Northwoods  and the ones on the bottom are with Mementos Angel Pink dye ink and an un-named stamp, that I got from a friend. The fonts are LD farfetched, (from Learning Delights)  Wizzard (free on the internet) and Storybook (also free on the internet - try Urban fonts). The blue paper was stamped with a stamp by The Stamping Bug and embossed with Kaleidoscope embossing powder. (The last names have been obscured in iPhoto to protect the innocent - ha, ha!)

     What would I have done differently? Well, there is the usual, stamp straighter, on the inside ;- ) Otherwise, I'm pretty happy with the way this one turned out. The Imagine, didn't do a very good job cutting the the stripped part on the front and I could have made it do that again. I had re-calibrated it just the other day, so I don't know what it problem was. Maybe the heat and humidity.

     With the Prima flower on the front, I used my Ultimate Crafter's Companion to make and envelobox for the card. That's an envelope that has some depth to it. It still isn't quite deep enough but it's better.

     Here are the gifts in the goodie bags that  50 people received at the Splitcoaststampers "Cupcakes and Cocktails" at CHA.

Susan and I both got the same color of Flower Soft, but we got different stamps from Taylored Expressions.

Our stamps were different from Unity Stamps.

These were the same for both of us.

This was also the same.

This was the same.

This was a special stamp from Splitcoast themselves ;- ) Who dusts?

     I thought these were wonderful, generous gifts. Thanks so much to the sponsors! The cupcakes were great too. There were door prizes, but we were not the lucky ones. Now I said I'd share our return home story. Since we left from the hotel, instead of the convention center, we entered the parking garage a different way. In the morning we'd taken the pedestrian walkway to the convention center which was on the floor where we parked our car - color green. We got to the elevators, level G color red, get on and there is no color green. I said let's go up 1 floor, because we weren't up very high. We go up and there isn't a green there either. We walk to the edge to look for the walkway and see it below us, huh? Fortunately, I said we should walk down, instead of taking the elevator. There is a floor in-between, where the elevator doesn't go. Then we start to look for our car - D1. we can find Ramp D and Ramp C but no just D. God must have been guiding me, because I get another idea to go up and around and Ramp D is part of the interleave that makes parking garages work, which I've never understood, but knew must be cool. Once on the road we had no more troubles. She and I do go and pick up my son from college with no trouble, handling all of the mess of the downtown Chicago expressways. Somedays you have it and somedays you don't ;- )

     Thanks for dropping by a spending some time with me. Please, take a moment more, if you have it and leave a comment, so I have something to read from you. I'd love to know that you were here. Have a blessed Sunday!

Male graduation card.

     Today's card is another graduation card, only this one is for a male. We have a graduation party to attend this weekend. One of the cards in the earlier posts is for his sister and the party this weekend is for both of them. She is graduating High School and he is graduating 8th grade. To see her card (if you missed it and are interested), click here. I know in some areas, 8th grade graduations aren't celebrated. Here, depending on where you go to school, you child may attend the same school from Kindergarten (or pre-school) right through 8th grade, with the same kids, making it a bigger event, then if they changed schools at the middle (or junior high school level).

     The papers are from Paper Studio's Graduation Paper Pack and the stickers are from Stampendous Class a'peal. I cut the name with Cricut's Plantin Schoolbook cart in the standard setting 2 times and popped it up. I embossed the sentiment with silver glitter embossing powder.

     On the inside, I just matted the sentiment, I wrote digitally with Print Shop using the LD Dabble font from Lettering Delights and I stamped the stars (Northwoods) and embossed them using silver glitter embossing powder.

     I think it turned out nice, though the star on the right should be over to the right a bit more, but I have a tendency to just eyeball things.

I still have a wedding card to do and a few birthdays coming up. I can't believe the CHA Supershow is the week after next, though it's not the same this year. I was looking forward to taking a few workshops, but there aren't any. I guess it will just be make-and-takes and shopping. What I've really wanted to see were the booths in the real  CHA. Maybe some day.

Thanks for stopping by. Please leave a comment. I love to know what you think and that you stopped by. Hearing from you is a real pick me up ;- ) Have a joyous week!

Sale at Lettering Delights.

     Just wanted to let you know that Lettering Delights is having a sale on all things summer, including SVG's and graphics as well as fonts for the month of June. Just click on the link at the top of my blog or the one to the right if you are not a current Lettering Delights subscriber and you will also get 9 free fonts just for signing up for their free newsletter. They have also just introduced some new SVG's that are very girly. Jump on over there and see while the sale is on ;- ) Get out and enjoy the flowers!

Anniversary or Valentine ;- )

     Today's card is an anniversary card for a dear friend's oldest daughter. I used the same love bird stamp that I used on the wedding card I showed on the last post (by Inkadinkado), but I wanted this one to have a different look. I decided to use the heart from the Martha Stewart Seasonal Cake Cart. The pink cardstock in the back is Core'dinations Glitter cardstock. So, once I started in this direction, I found myself using pinks and reds. When the front was done, it looked like it could be a Valentine, but I basically decided that both celebrate the same thing... Love. So it's appropriate. The roses were ones I made with the Quilled Creations Quilled Roses quilling set, that I showed in this post here. I found this kit at Hobby Lobby. I frosted them with Martha Stewart fine glitter. The ribbon was on clearance at Michaels. I actually even remembered to round the corners this time. Woo Hoo!

     The inside was done digitally in Photoshop Elements. The font is LDWedding, for most of the writing,  LDJ Jilligraphy for the word "wonderful" and LDJ Revelry for the word "Romantic". All these fonts are from Lettering Delights. The heart flourish is from the brush set, Valentine-clip-art-3 from photoshopfreebrushes.com. The 3 red roses are from the brush set, inobscuro_roses. You can find it here. It says it works with Photoshop 7, but I use it with Elements 3, so if you like it try it. I used glitter pen around the hearts and on the rose details, but you can't tell in the photo.

  
     What would I do differently? I like how it turned out, maybe use purple to stamp the birds and in the ribbon, so it doesn't look so much like a Valentine, unless I was making a Valentine.

     Thanks for stopping by. Please leave a comment, I really appreciate hearing from you and knowing you were here. Have a Happy Mother's Day! Enjoy your families. 

Wedding time of year.

     Today's card is a wedding card. Our friend's son is getting married. I used pattern paper that I had picked up at Hobby Lobby from Paper Studio. The stamps were Inkadinkado Spring mini assortment from JoAnn's (I think, either that or Michael's). The scalloped oval was made with nesties. I used a  Icy White Viva Decor Pearl Pen to make the embellishment from the birds to the heart.  I'm not sure why the embossing wasn't coming out very well. The embossing on the card, isn't the only ones I did. I made many attempts to get these. I re-package my embossing powder into different containers, so I'm not sure which gold metallic powder this is, because I couldn't locate the original container.

     On the inside, I used a stamp from Inkadinkado (Wedding/Anniversary set) and some stickers on my digital sentiment. The font is LDWedding from Lettering Delights.

     What would I do differently. Well, I meant to tip the sentiment on the front, but I should have tipped it more, because it just looks crooked. I wish the the embossing turned out better. What type of embossing powder do you like, for metallic embossing?

     While I was out in my yard today, I was greeted with this.

    Happy little volunteer flowers, peeking at me from near my patio. I only put potted flowers here, but some snuck out and have come up again ;- ) What a nice surprise!

     Oh, I want to add the Jacilyn Dashwood is having a  candy give-away on her blog. Click here to go there.

     Thanks for stopping by and looking at what I created today. Please leave me a comment and tell me what you think. It really means a lot to me, to know you were here. I hope your day will have a happy surprise in it as well. Have a great one!

Stamping and paper piecing.

     Today's card is for a male friend from Church, who was one of my son's teachers in 6th through 8th grade. In fact, he is one of my son's favorite teachers. Last week, during my fuzzy thinking period, I had picked out a different card idea for him, which I didn't remember today, so today, I created a new card idea ;- ) I used the Hero Arts stamp set Birthday Wishes, which is exclusive to Achiever's and the QuickKuts Nesting Circle Variety Cookie Cutter dies that were designed to go with them. I embossed the main image first with silver embossing powder, then paper pieced the plate and frosting from scraps I had. I believe the frosting is pearl paper from Crafters' Companion. The confetti is colored with metallic markers and the candles with glitter markers. (Yes, glitter on a guy card.) It's a birthday, celebrate!  I felt the gel maker colors were too vivid and the glitter ones looked better.  The background stamp is also from the set.

     The sentiment was done digitally using LDMarooned and LDDabble, both from Lettering Delights. The candle embellishment was a gift from a friend and the stars are from K&Company's Happy Birthday stickers.

     What would I do differently? I'm not sure. I think it works as a nice, general birthday card. I usually use these silver, metallic embellishments from JoAnn's that are cakes, hats and balloons, but I'm currently out of them.

     For those of you who love fonts, my DH, sent me an article he found on Macworld about a cool font that looks like embroidery. Well, that was what it was about for me. The article went on about the software used to design the font and a font designing competition (at least I think that's what it went on about (YAWN). If you'd like to find out about it, here is the link. If you just want to check out the FREE font and maybe get the FREE download, here is that link. It especially looks great on textured backgrounds. My name is Debbie and I'm addicted to fonts. It's been 28 hours since I downloaded my last font ;- )

Thanks for stopping by today. Please share your thoughts in the comments. I love hearing from you and it's great to know you were here. Have a very Blessed week.