Howdy, 2013

I had so much fun Guest Designing this month for Eureka Stamps (you can see all my GDT projects here); their images are so much fun to color, and I liked being able to play with Southwest themes.

For their final challenge of 2012 and their first challenge of 2013, the Eureka Challenge team wants you to use Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, and Something Blue. I designed this card, featuring Eureka's Cactus, while visiting my Mom in Arizona.

Inspiration/Challenges:

1. Eureka Stamps Challenge #20: Recipe
• Old: Metal embellishments (a friend gave Mom a big bag of Western-themed metal embellishments, and she passed few along to me), and jean-patterned paper 
• New: Bright green Liquid Pearls, patterned papers, and star ribbon
• Borrowed: Mom's gecko punch
• Blue: Blue patterned papers & blue thread (machine-stitched)
2. Hiding in my Craft Room #78: Freestyle
3. Jellypark Challenge: Old & New
4. Card Crafter's Circle: Anything Goes
5. Charisma Cardz: Anything Goes
6. Paper Play: Out with the old in with the new
7. Shelly's Images: Out with the old in with the New
8. Great Impressions: Anything Goes

Thank you for visiting,

Delightful Dancin'

Wow, Christmas is only a week away! I think I have all our gifts and cards together ... but I always find myself making a few extra things at the last minute.

I couldn't resist making a penny-rocker with Rosa, one of my favorite images from Mo's Digital Pencil.

I'm entering this into the current "D is for..." challenge at Mo's Digital Pencil Too. My Ds are Dots, Dancer, and Doily.

Thank you for visiting,

Christmas Spirit at Eureka Stamps

It's my third challenge as the December Guest Designer at Eureka Stamps, and this week we want to see your Christmas Spirit. I mixed classic with silly with these sweet Holly Doggies:

It's such a silly sentiment, but I couldn't resist! It and the little bone stamps from a polymer set. I stamped them onto a precut tag, added the border with a PITT artist pen, and inked it with Vintage Photo distress ink. I colored the image with Copics and then added texture with the three colors of Flowersoft's Teddy Bear collection, using a ZIG glue pen.


Inspiration/Challenges:

1. Come and Get It Challenges - Anything Christmas
2. Eclectic Ellapu - Anything Goes 
3. Everybody-Art-Challenge #217 - Anything Goes
4. Here Come the Boys - Anything Goes
5. Lia Stampz Challenge - Winter holidays
6. The Squirrel & the Fox - Christmas 
7. Sunny Challenges - Winter holiday card 
8. Unique Crafters Challenge - Christmas 
9. Visible Image Monthly Challenge - Christmas

 
Hope you'll join in on the "Christmas Spirit" at Eureka Stamps this week. The challenge will end on Dec 23, and we'll be taking a break fro the Christmas Holidays, and then we'll return with a new challenge on the 31st.

Thank you for visiting,

Piling on the Embellishments

click photos to enlarge

Our theme at the Pile It On! Challenge for the month of December is "Pile On The Embellishments," so I used a bunch of long-hoarded embellishments to make this very shiny and fairly heavy card. I cut the matching envelope on my Cricut.

The big tag is an actual gift tag that I saved from last year (it reads, "Nice List... You made it!"), complete with pretty ribbon. The mauve-and-gold Santa ribbon is from my mom's stash.

As I plan to give this card to a family member, I decorated the inside with photos of my dogs in the little plush antlers Mom gave me. The antlers on Percy (our Iguana) and on me were PhotoShopped on! You can see another photo of Allen in his antlers on my post for the OSAAT blog hop.

Inspiration/Challenges:

1. ATCs and Cards with Attitude - Always Anything Goes
2. Aud Sentiments Challenge - Anything goes with seasonal sentiment
3. Card Crafter's Circle - Red, White and Green
4. CCEE Stampers - Santa Claus is coming to town
5. Crafting for all Seasons - Green, red, and glitter/sparkle
6. Crafts 4 Eternity Recipe Challenge - Blingtastic
7. Crafty Ribbons - Tag/label big or small
8. Jellypark Challenges - Tag it
9. Pixie Dust Studio - Christmas Traditional Colours
10. Use It Tuesdays - All About Christmas/Hannukah (the tag came with a gift from "Santa" last year, and I've been hoarding the light bulbs & Santa hat brads forever!)

In the "small world" category, on my way home from visiting my parents last week, I sat next to the nicest woman, who ended up being CAKath from Splitcoast Stampers! I told her that I seem to be meeting crafters everywhere, so there must be a lot of us... She replied that there might not so many of us, but we tend to find each other. Isn't that too true! 

This story ties in to Pile It On because we started talking about BCA cards and it ends up that she also made & sent a card to Jennifer Scull from our Design Team! Jennifer has been such an inspiration during the past year, and I'm so pleased that she's going to be coming back as a regular DT member in January. 

Hope you'll join us this month at Pile It On!  Thank you for visiting,

Final OSAAT challenge of the year... and a Blog Hop!

Over at One Stitch at a Time (OSAAT), the challenge blog for the StitchyBear Digital Stamps (SBDS), we're celebrating the end of the year with an easy "Use a Digi" Challenge & Blog Hop! 

If you're hopping along, you should have arrived here from the talented Tracey's blog. Your next stop is the crafty Karen. You can see the entire hop list & rules at OSAAT (because otherwise the next sentence will seem really weird; otherwise, you'll know you'll need it!)

"Lucky Lady/Gent, Let me Lend you a Letter: L."  

Besides collecting letters, be sure to leave a comment on every blog post, including this one, for a chance to win the product we used. I used Christmas Day Tiny Tickets and Christmas Paper VI by Stitchy Stamps to make this Christmas photo album.

My generous mom gave me the die-cut pages, and I covered them with the DP and added Stitckles to the pages (and some liquid pearls to the front).

I ink-distressed the tickets and added color detail with colored pencils & Sakura glaze pens. The precut frames are from Studio Calico (although I did have to trim them a little bit), and I bought them at my favorite craft shop in Arizona, Scraps of Love. I made this for my parents, but I made it while I was visiting them so I put the frames on with re-positional glue, and added photos once I returned home... and then sent the book back to my folks. It went across the country twice! I especially wanted to take photos of my dogs in the little plush antlers Mom gave me. As you can see, they were good sports but weren't too excited about it!

 

I'm entering this into the following fabulous Challenges:
Avadares: Anything with a digi
Bloggers: Holiday Gifts

Just Add Ink: Just add Christmas

Little Miss Muffet Challenges: Christmas Related  
Simon Says Stamp: Your Favorite (2nd Entry) Favorites: Stickles & Pearl Pen
Totally Stampalicious: Anything Goes

Thank you for visiting & for participating in the OSAAT Blog Hop!  Your next stop is the talented Karen.