Thankful Bubbles -- Pilin' On the Embossing with Add a Little Dazzle

This week at the Pile It On Challenge our theme is Embossing (wet or dry) and we're sponsored by Add a Little Dazzle. They were very generous, and provided our DT with samples of their colorful metal sheets. It embosses and cuts beautifully on my BigShot.

I embossed this dazzling blue metal sheet from Add a Little Dazzle with a Cuttlebug folder, and it was so stunning by itself that I kept the rest of the design fairly simple. The metal embellishments were cut/embossed from a soda can. The sentiment is from TLC Creations and I created the banner shape & border in InDesign. The metal sheet is adhered with ZipDry glue (it glued well, with little need of flattening) onto a silver Recollections cardstock. The white papers are a heavy, coated Hammerill cardstock.

On Friday my husband had a kidney transplant (he and the living donor are doing great!), and my Mom helped me make thank-you cards for the many people who have supported us during this time. I created this design and we ended up making many similar cards (well, Mom did...I've been cleaning and getting life organized for his 6-week recovery). I will try to get a photo of Mom's cards -- they are gorgeous!

Inspiration/Challenges:
Creative Card Crew #66: Sea/Beach
Inky Impressions #169: No DP
Inkspirational #61: Splash
Ladybug Crafts Ink TLT Challenge: CAS
Scrap it with a song: Foo Fighters - "Times like these" (Boy, this song has made me emotional in times like these!)
Simon Says Stamp: Embossing
Sisterhood of Crafters: Diecuts/Punches
The Crazy Challenge: Die cuts and punches

Thank you for visiting, and hope you'll join us this week at Pile It On,

Bag + Tag challenge at Crafting with Dragonflies

This fortnight at Crafting with Dragonflies we're challenging you to make a bag with a matching gift tag, either attached to it or separate. There are lots of great bag tutorials out there, and I chose Mini Tote Bag tutorial at Popper&Mimi the to make a set of bags for a recent crafting get-together.

I used the beautiful Pansies digi stamp by our sponsor, Sami Stamps: 

The tutorial calls for the bag base to be 3.5 inches high, but I made them 4 inches. The pink paper is from Stampin Up! and the other two papers are from Close to my Heart. They are sturdy, if light-weight, papers and were perfect for this project. I used adhesive tapes & ribbons to decorate them.

As I mentioned, I made these for a craft-a-thon at my house last week...several years ago, I met some local crafters online, and we ended up being practically neighbors! We get together every few months and since my Mom is visiting we got together at my house, and I thought these would work nicely to organize our supplies at the table. The green bag was for my Mom, and the pink & blue bags were for my friends and contained small presents. I actually made a fourth one for myself, but it was already filled with crafting supplies by the time I took this photo! Such a handy thing to have, and amazingly sturdy.

I colored the digi stamps with Copics, and used them to decorate the ready-made tags (hand-made, if not by me). I attached them with colored twine.

Inspiration/Challenges:
Fairy Tale: Use a Digital Stamp Image
Miriam's Crafting Blog Monthly Challenge: Containers


Thank you for visiting, and hope you'll join the Bag + Tag Challenge at Crafting with Dragonflies,

My 5th Blogoversary Candy Winner

© Clker.com

Thank you for your lovely comments celebrating my 5th Blogoversary. The online crafting community has touched my life in so many ways, and I appreciate every single one of my readers.

There were twelve entries for my Blog Candy, all craft bloggers that I've had the pleasure of working with. Ya'll rock! I used good ol' Random.org to pick the winner...

That's you, Dawn Lancaster!

Congrats Dawn! Send me an email (CGsaysSomethingLoudly [at] gmail [dot] com) with your mailing address. 

Thank you all again for supporting my crafting and being an inspiration,

Pilin' on the Monochrome

This week at the Pile It On Challenge our theme is Monochromatic and we're sponsored by Crafty City.

I just adored Yumi Muraeda's Pop-up Tag Album for Graphic45, and just had to try one myself. Her video tutorial is great, but I really ended doing my own thing. The only tag dies I have are from a Stamp & Die-cut set from Doodlebug/Sizzix, which are very small but I do love mini books! I consider this a pictorial story of the overgrown wonder that has been my garden this year. The pop-up pieces were cut with a QuicKutz border die. The leaves & flowers were cut with Sweet Stamps dies.

Inspiration/Challenges:
Crafting By Designs: Diecuts
Everybody Art Challenge #286: Monochrome
PDE Linky Party #14: Tags
The Sailing Pineapple Blog #10: Nature Calls
TokBobok July Challenge: Monochrome (2nd entry)

Thank you for visiting, and hope you'll join us this week at Pile It On,

CAS cards at Crafting with Dragonflies

This fortnight at Crafting with Dragonflies we're challenging you to make a Card in the Clean & Simple style (CAS). This challenge is sponsored by Pickled Potpourri Designs, and one lucky participant will receive a $7 gift certificate to their digi stamp store. 

This is about as CAS as I get! I used the Happiness set by Pickled Potpourri Designs.

I converted the Butterfly PNG into a cut file using SCAL, and I cut it and a shadow version with my Silhouette Cameo.

The sentiment & trail (from the same Pickled Potpourri set) were printed onto a shiny white paper (Recollections) and heat-embossed in neon orange (ZING). The top butterfly is actually cut from a black paper and heat-embossed in the same orange powder, to mimic the effect of the powder on the black text.

The orange and green papers are Recollections cardstocks, and the punches are from a Martha Stewart "Punch Around the Page" set.

Thank you for visiting, and hope you'll join us at Crafting with Dragonflies,