Happy day after Thanksgiving!!!
I hope everyone had a wonderful family day yesterday.

I'm stopping in real quick with a little reminder card for Sami Stamps!

 This image is Christmas Lights Mermaid from the fabulous release last week!  I decided to try and do a deep ocean type look for my background.  It's kind of hard to see in this pic, but there is a subtle gradient to the blues so she looks like she's deep down in the ocean.  It's really pretty, and I misted it with some glimmer spray so it's super sparkly.

Since she's wrapped in Christmas lights, I tried to give them a little halo in the water.  I tried several things to get the look I wanted and ended up liking the chalk the best, but it's still really soft and a bit hard to see as well.

I went with a fun color scheme for all my papers since they matched the watery background the best and added some large sparkly snowflakes to finish it all off!

Our Anything Goes challenge is still open for a few more days, so run on over to Sami Stamps and join in!  Just be sure to use a Sami Stamps image!!

Thanks for stopping by! <3

Hi everyone and Happy Friday!!!!
It is time once again for a new Sami Stamps release!!  You're going to totally love this one, it's all about Christmas Mermaids!!  Eek!!  So fun!

For my card this week, I've used the lovely Mistletoe Kisses Mermaid.

I just love this image so much!  This card took me several attempts though...I had this really fun idea in my head to have some sort of watery swirled looking background behind the kissing mermaid and fish.  After a couple practices, I felt ready to put it on the card.  Well...first round I messed up big time and had to scrap it.  Second round, I sprayed the background too many times and it smeared quite a bit...but I went with it anyhow hoping to salvage it...and failed again.  I had tried to turn it into a shaker card and ended up loading so much stuff into the shaker that the image ended up covered completely...so scraped that.

And tried again.  This time, I went slow with my swirls and I carefully misted the background, checking after each spritz to make sure it wasn't too saturated.  And it turned out perfect!  To do the watery background, I just cut a couple of masks with a border die and swiped my ink blending tool away from it to get a faded line.

I printed off the image twice so I could get more of a 3D look by layering them together with foam tape in between.  To add a little more excitement to the present, I took some silver thread and wound it around in loops behind the bow.  I also stuffed a couple bows in the lower right corner to get a fun shoot of string there as well.

To finish it all off, I just scattered some pearls around the image and heat embossed my sentiment from The Cat's Pajamas Elegant Christmas stamp set (appears to be sold out since I can't find the link to it..)!!  That sentiment just seemed perfect for this lovey image! Fun fun!

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
    613 Avenue Create #98-Anything Goes/Hello
    Catered Crop-Anything Goes
    Crafty Catz #256-Winter Theme
    Delightful Challenge-Add Bling
    Sweet Sunday Sketch #245
    The Cat's Pajamas #279-Anything Goes
    Word Art Wednesday #159-Anything Goes

So be sure to visit Sami Stamps today and check out all the awesome DT creations!!  And don't forget about our Anything Goes challenge!!

Thanks for stopping by! <3

Hey everyone!
Time for a new challenge at Meljen's Designs!  This weeks theme is Thank You.  Since I opened the gates on the Christmas cards yesterday, I figured I should keep with that theme a bit.  The Christmas type supplies have been sitting on my desk for weeks now, and my little pile of completed Christmas cards grows a little more each day, but I held off sharing them just because I wasn't ready for that season to be here yet.

But with the snow on the ground and the wind so cold your blood freezes...I figured it was time.  So for my card this week, I kept with the feeling of the holidays.

I used this super adorable image from Meljen's Designs called Cozy Little Chickadees.  I just adore this image.  They are so cute and snug together...and who can resist Chickadees!  The image has been colored in with my ShinHan markers and cut out with an oval die.  For the little snow piles on the branch, I "painted" on some embossing paste and covered it with some sparkly embossing powder before heat setting it so that it bubbled just a little.  It adds some fun texture and shine to the whole image.

Overall, this card is pretty simple.  The poinsettia came together super quick.  I just had to sit around and wait for it to completely dry before I could add it to my card.  I coated the strands of twine with some star dust stickles as well...so more waiting for that to dry.  Took quite a while, but in the end was totally worth it all!

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
    Addicted to Stamps and More #122-Make Your Mark
    Crafting When We Can #82-Use Your Markers
    Divas by Design-Let it Snow
    Fussy and Fancy #127-Pairs or Two of a Kind
    Penny's Paper Crafty #204-Anything Goes

Be sure to swing by Meljen's Designs and join in our fun challenge!  Remember you don't have to use a Meljen's image, but you get a double entry if you do!!  Oh and don't forget about their sale!  You can read all about it in my post here.

Thanks for visiting! <3

Hey Everyone!  Happy Tuesday!
Well, it's finally happening.  I am posting my first Christmas card of the year!  I've avoided it for so long, but now it must happen.  But I don't think there is a better card to start the season with than this one.

We start a new challenge today at Tuesday Throwdown and the challenge is Christmas Tags.  So I decided to add my tag to a fun card.  Our awesome sponsor this week is MyGrafico and they have provided the most adorable images for my team to use!  This sweet image that I've used on my card is from the Christmas Santa set!

I started off by using a couple of new Winnie & Walter products that I won from their most recent release.  I used the Scenery: Big Band Sci-Fi Star Creative Screenings and laid down a thin layer of embossing paste over it.  Once I removed the stencil, I covered all that embossing paste with some sparkly clear glitter.  I also added a few red splatters for extra interest.

For the tag, I took the new Peppermint Zone stamp and misted it with some perfect pearl/water mist.  Then set it right down on top of my festive berries inked piece of paper and "stamped" with the water.  Since distress inks react with water, this resulted in a faded look where the stamp was, but left behind all that shimmer from my pearl mist.  It's so awesome!  I know I'm going to have loads of fun with that stamp!

To finish off the tag before adding it to my card, I strung some twine through the top and then coated it with some multi medium matte, then wrapped it around a pencil so that it would curl.  I set that aside to dry while I worked on the images and sentiment.

The sentiment was cut with my silhouette about 4 times, layered together and then coated in glossy accents and glitter.  I colored up my images with my Shin Han markers and then fussy cut around them and adhered them onto my tag, adding just a little touch of red stickles to the holly berries.  Put everything together, and it was done!

I totally adore this card!  It was the perfect creation to pull me out of my multi-week lull of having nothing creative run through my mind.  And this card sparkles so much, I can't help but smile when I look at it!

I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
    Crafty Catz #255-Christmas is Coming
    Delightful Challenge-Happy Holidays
    Inky Impressions #185-Animals
    Simon Says Stamp-Stars
    Winnie & Walter-Join in to win

So be sure to stop by Tuesday Throwdown and join in our Tags challenge!! Thanks for visiting! <3

Hey everyone!
I don't have a card to share today..don't worry I have LOTS of ideas swirling in my head!  Just been busy with other projects, which I will share with you next week. (They're pretty cool!!!)

But! I wanted to share a couple of awesome offers from some of my favorite companies!  Just so happens, I'm also on their design teams :)  Lucky me!!

First up is Sami Stamps!

What an awesome deal!  Why wouldn't you enter for the chance to win 15% off every purchase!?  Sami always has the best images in her release (believe me...I've seen next weeks..and wowzers!!)  If you're anything like me, browsing amazing images AND having a discount is like the perfect recipe to empty my bank account :) 

So YES!  Go spend some money so you're entered to win this awesome prize!!  Here are her shop links:
Sami Stamps Blog/Shop
Sami Stamp Etsy Shop

And to help further convince you...here are a few of my favorite Sami Stamps cards that I've made:

 Sami Stamps Image-Spring Branch

 Sami Stamps Images Butterfly-Flower & Butterfly 3

Sami Stamps Image-My Snowy Friend

And for my second enabler message!

A 50% off sale!!??  Woot!  Meljen's Designs is another all time favorite stamp company of mine!  Again, you can never go wrong with having a nice large collection of Meljen's Designs images!  Plus, I have never not found an image to go with whatever design or theme I'm trying to work with.

I honestly don't know how you will choose what images you want!  Heck, buy them all!  They're 50% off!

Here, let me know show you some of their awesome images too:

 Meljen's Designs Image-Kitty Cat Love

 Meljen's Designs Image-Nerd O Saurus

 Meljen's Designs Images-Little Layered Flowers

Ok!  Long post, I know.  But I couldn't just let the days go by without telling you of these sweet deals!  Have to make sure you're well supplied on images :)

Oh!  And on a side note-not related to cards/images at all-my hubby's next game comes out on Tuesday!!!  The reviews have started to come in and they are amazing!  This game is going to totally rock!  So if you know a gamer, be sure to tell them about Far Cry 4!!!

Thanks for visiting and have an absolutely fabulous weekend!!!!  <3

 

I just wanted to let you know that it's my day to share a fun project with you over at Meljen's Designs!!

Here's a little peak!

You can see the full project and post over at the Meljen's Designs Challenge Blog!!! 

Have a fabulous day!  <3

Hi Everyone - Happy Friday!!!
I am so excited to share with you the new Sami Stamps release this week!  It's too darn cute...just yeah...so cute!!  You don't want to miss it!

I couldn't resist and chose 2 images from the release to use on my projects.  This first card features the Butterfly Kisses image!

I know it's a fall release, but I decided to go cute and girly for this card.  I don't have a ton of fall colored papers in my collection, but man I have a lot of pink!  I really wanted to keep this kitty nice and white for the card, but after finishing it all up, I realized that the kitty kind of gets lost and blends in with the white background.  A few of my wonderful teamies suggested maybe darkening up the shadows on the kitty to help pull her away from the white background, so I may give that a try.  She just turned out so cute, I really didn't want to "try" something and then totally ruin the whole thing.

To get a matching strip of paper, I found that by using the victorian velvet distress ink with just a light layer of picked raspberry on top, the color matched perfect for my background paper!  I love how easy it is to get the right color with those distress inks!  The sentiment is white heat embossed, I colored in the hearts with my wink of stella glitter brush pen and then covered them with glossy accents to help them stand out a little.

I also used the victorian velvet distress ink to change the color of my twine to match better.  It was white and grey but the white was just too bright, so changing the color helped tone it down nicely.

I'd like to enter this Butterfly Kitty card into the following challenges:
    Crafty Cardmakers #126-Cut it Out
    Let's Craft and Create #98-Animal Antics
    Retro Sketches #139
   
My second card features the Feather Nap image.

I so adore this image!  Sami is always the best at drawing up little kitties, and they always speak to my heart and beg me to use them :)  I decided to color this sweetie up like my little princess Cloud.  She's been sneezing a lot and moving a little slowly the last few days and she was just heavy on my thoughts while I put this card together.

I used some Lawn Fawn papers for the background, which are about the only fall papers I have :)  But they worked perfect for this card!  I used a grid stencil from Memory Box to make up the blue background around the edge.  It's soft enough that it doesn't distract from the center of the card, but still adds the perfect touch.

I finished everything off with a printed sentiment, a large bow, and a few matching pearls.

I'd like to enter this Feather Nap card into the following challenges:
    Catered Crop-Gratitude
    Delightful Challenge-Patterned Paper
    MilkCoffee-Hand Colored Image
    Simon Says Stamp Wednesday-Thinking of You

Be sure to stop by Sami Stamps to see the rest of this amazing release!  And check out the DT's creations...you're not going to want to miss those!  Totally blew me away with this release, they are pretty awesome ladies! <3

Oh!  And we start a new challenge at Sami Stamps today too - Anything Goes!!  Nice and easy, just remember to use a Sami Stamps image!!

Thanks for stopping by! <3

Happy Thursday!!!
I know it's still been super quiet around here even though I keep saying I'll be back...it's been hard to get things created lately.  While I have the drive to get stuff done, the ideas and inspiration just don't seem to be popping out of my head.  I've been busy!  Just not with cards to share with you...other than my design team works, because I love using images from my design teams :)

So today is the start of a new challenge at Meljen's Designs.  They have the most adorable images to use, and there is always one that works perfect for every situation!  Well our challenge is a fall photo inspiration with some super bright fall colors!  Not the typical fall colors you'd think, but still so beautiful.  I really wanted to try and match them as best I could, not sure I succeeded but I'm close :)

Even though the challenge is for bright fall colors, I figured since my family in MI received some snow this week, and we are expecting some of the white stuff over the next few days, that I'd through in a snowman on my card.

Like I said before, Meljen's Designs seems to always have the perfect image for everything, and this time is no different!  How perfect is that Harvest Snowman?  He's fall and winter together!  Love it!!

I also tried something a little different with him this time.  Since I had taken the colors from the inspiration photo (below) and did a watercolor wash for the background with them, I wanted to watercolor the snowman as well.  But trying to watercolor an image that has been printed never really works for me because my printer ink bleeds really bad with the water.  But since watercolor paper is a little thicker, I thought maybe the ink would stay wet enough after printing to be able to emboss it.

So I got all my supplies ready right on top of the printer so I could do everything as soon as the paper was spit out.  I sized up my image, stuck in my watercolor paper and printed.  It looked pretty dry when I pulled it out of the printer, which had me worried, but I poured on the clear embossing powder anyway.   And it worked!!  The whole image was coated with embossing powder!!  Ahhh...now I can paint it :)

My only tip would be to probably use black embossing powder instead of clear though...the embossing powder melts a little bit off of the printed line, so some of the paper underneath shows through the watercolor.  Maybe that wouldn't be there if it was embossed in black.

Anyhow!!  I painted up my snowman, added a piece of vellum over my watercolored background to really tone it down, cuz it was quite bright.  I embossed my simple "Thank You" sentiment and added lots of enamel dots and gems around the snowman.  Super cute!!!

So join in the fun this week with our awesome Autumn Brights color inspiration photo!!


I'd like to enter this card into the following challenges:
    AAA Cards-Watercolor
    Catered Crop-Gratitude
    Creative Fingers #54-Anything Goes/Layers
    Fussy and Fancy #126-Thankful
    Word Art Wednesday #157-Anything Goes

Thanks for stopping by!! <3