The Outlawz Paper a la Mode Challenge

Good Saturday morning, everybody!  My goodness!  Do you realize that we are at the end of October already???  Monday is Halloween, then it's less than a month until Thanksgiving and I have not even started my Christmas cards yet!  I just can't get over how the second half of the year has flown by so quickly.  So much has happened this year and yet the most important thing of all still evades me... a job!  I can't fathom that I have been unemployed for 14 months.  I have not been without a job this long except after my son was born since I was 16 years old!  If it was by choice it would be different, but it's not.

Anyway, enough of the bad stuff.  Let's talk about the good stuff.  It's the weekend and therefore it's time for another new Paper a la Mode challenge at The Outlawz!  Woot woot!  This week, our fearless leader, Rona, has given us the challenge to use stitching on our projects.  It has to be real stitching too, either by hand or machine.... no faux stitching allowed.  Well, I have done plenty of faux stitching but I had yet to use a sewing machine on any of my projects.  One reason was that I was afraid I would mess it up and that my colored image would be trashed.  Well, this time, I decided to take that risk and I did some straight and zig zag stitching on my card.  I don't know how well it will show up in the photos but I used a copper metallic thread.

The image is, of course, Tilda by Magnolia Stamps.  This was another of the cute Tildas my friend, Tracy Valore sent me a few months ago.  She knew how much I loved Tilda but that I had none of the Magnolia stamps so she stamped off a bunch of them and mailed them to me.  I had so much fun coloring all those cute little sweeties. This version holds a basket full of some kind of flowers.  I wasn't sure what kind of flower they are supposed to be so I made them look like Delphinium by coloring them blue.  I stitched around the image, and both of the mats.

I used the Martha Stewart's small butterfly and rose leaf punches, a Sizzix leafy vine die and a Spellbinders Shapeability Fancy Label die.  The flowers are from Recollections as are the pearls.  The DP is from K and Company and the image is colored with Copics.

I am entering this card in the following challenges:

Card Makin' Mamas #32 - Cut It Out (the MS punches, Spellbinders and Sizzix dies were used to create my card elements)

I hope you'll visit The Outlawz and check out the great challenges we have going on every day of the week.    We always have some fabulous prizes donated by some totally awesome sponsors.  I'm going to try to be back tomorrow with another new project if I can get it finished in time.  If I don't, it will be the first part of the week.  Thanks for stopping by today.  Look for my first project for Joy's Life coming soon!  Until next time, have a blessed weekend and...

Happy crafting!
Anniebee

New Scrapbook Layout for Quick Quotes Friday Challenge

Wow! Three posts in one day again... this seems to be becoming a regular thing for me, doesn't it? LOL  Well, I didn't HAVE to post this one today but I wanted to go ahead and enter it in the Quick Quotes Friday Challenge so I needed to post it here first.  As mentioned in one of my earlier posts for today, this layout is much more whimsical than the last one I made.  It may not do as well in the challenges because of that but I really like it and I think the young mother in the photograph will love it too.  She is niece by marriage to my baby brother and that's her adorable daughter in the picture with her.  She is due in a few weeks with her second child so I'll have a whole new wealth of pictures to use in my layouts.

I need to do some pages for my grandkids if I can get some good pictures of them.  My grandson is no problem and I have a few page-worthy photos of him already but my granddaughter is at that age where she hates for people to take pictures of her, even though she takes them all the time with the camera on her cell phone!  Unfortunately those are not the best for scrapping! I'm hoping if she sees some of my pages, she'll decide it's okay to let mom and dad take a few shots for me.  We'll see...

But now, for the one I just finished.  I did this one all in pink, black and white and used some of my handmade paper roses as well as some Petaloo Mulberry flowers to embellish the page.  I think it looks really sweet and girly and both of these young ladies are the epitome of girly!!  I'm not sure it's obvious in the photo but the little girl is wearing a pale pink ballet leotard and tutu. I created another layout a while back featuring this little cutie pie which you can see here if you're interested.

The next couple of pictures are close up views of the roses I made using black and white designer paper that I colored with Copics.  The actual shade of pink is a bit more vibrant than it appears here.  The petals are dusted with very fine iridescent glitter and are very sparkly.  That detail is also lost in the photos. The black organza bow shows up best in the next shot.

 

I had a bit of trouble photographing this one for some reason.  The lovely pink of the designer paper looked washed out in the upper right quadrant and I had to adjust the lighting a couple of times to get it to look right.  These are the best shots I could get.  It's extremely windy outside so it was impossible to take the pictures out there.  Thanks for visiting my blog today and if this is your second or even third time here, I REALLY appreciate your patience and perseverance!

I have more things in store for you over the coming days so I hope to "see" you again very soon.  Until then....

Happy crafting!
Anniebee

5th and final entry for Round 5 of the CDAC Progressive Freebie Challange

Please scroll down to see my project for this post but I wanted to make sure to include the following so everyone would know which of my projects was chosen for this award by my bloggie friend, the very talented Linda of Lindy's Maid Wid [Heart].  Linda and I served on my first design team at Amber's Crafts and Stuff, which was a challenge blog that didn't last very long but we had a lot of fun creating inspirational projects for Amber's readers.  If you have never visited Linda's blog, you owe it to yourself to do so.  She makes some awesome cards and other things and is a very sweet person too.  Thank you so much, Lin!  I'll gladly pass this award on to 5 other deserving crafters over the next few days.

Hello again! I'm back again with the my last entry for the CDAC Progressive Freebie Challenge. In keeping with the food theme, this card features some yummy chocolate chip cookies. I got so hungry making this card! I wasn't sure that I would be able to color this image, which is from Digidrawn, but once I got started, I couldn't stop until I finished it. I think it looks surprisingly realistic! Looking at it again, I'm getting hungry again (I haven't had breakfast yet)!

I thought this would make a festive holiday card so I used red and green holiday paper from a stack I bought at Hobby Lobby a couple of years ago. It doesn't have a name on it so I'm not sure who the manufacturer was.

I don't know if you can read it in the photos but the little tag on the bow says "From my kitchen to yours" and on the inside I included Neiman Marcus' chocolate chip cookie recipe.  This is not the one used in the urban legend that originated several years ago about a woman who was charged a large sum of money for the recipe but is their actual recipe that anyone can obtain from their web site for free.  I thought it was a cute touch and worked very well with the image on the front of the card.  I'm planning to try the recipe this holiday season to see if it is worthy of the Neiman Marcus brand name.

I hope you have enjoyed seeing these final entries for the challenge.  I'll have a whole new set of images for the last round next week.  I'll be back a little later with a post for my newest scrapbook layout that I created for the Quick Quotes Friday Challenge.  It's a lot more whimsical than my last one, which I'm thrilled to say was selected by the Quick Quotes design team as one of their Top 3!  It also took two other Top 3 prizes and was the winner at If The Shoe Fits, Scrap It! last week!!!  I was tickled to death because, as my regular readers know, scrapbooking is not really my forte.  Maybe it should be! LOL  Thanks for stopping by today and please stop back later if you have a chance to see my other post.

Until then...

Happy crafting!
Anniebee

Last 2 entries for the CDAC Progressive Freebie Challenge

Good day, all! As promised, I am posting the last of my entries in the 5th round of the CDAC Progressive Freebie Challenge. This post will be the 4th entry and the next one will be for the 5th. I'm also posting a layout today. So watch for my third post a little later.

Okay, there is a theme of sorts for these last 2 cards... they both have to do with food! LOL! The first card is a turkey and is really cute for a Thanksgiving project.  He has a pie too! This image was available with and without the pie and I could have made a card for each one but I really had no interest in coloring the turkey again as I had other things I wanted to work on. I think he turned out really cute though and I liked him much better after I colored him than I did before.

Isn't he one of the cutest turkeys you ever saw? He was created by Sew Many Cards and I colored him with Copics. I love his pilgrim hat and shoes and the heart shapes at the ends of his tail feathers. I decided that his pie should be cherry as it's my favorite kind! I created the sentiment in MS Word and cut it out to fit the tag. All the cardstock is from DCWV and the DP is from one of their newest Halloween and Fall 180 sheet stacks. I love those big stacks even though the paper isn't as heavy as their regular stacks. I have made all of my Halloween and Thanksgiving cards with that one stack and will be making some Thanksgiving layouts with it too.  

That's it for this entry.  I'll be right back with the other one....

Anniebee

CARD # 3 for CDAC Progressive Freebies Challenge

Back again with my third entry for round 5 of the CDAC Progressive Freebies Challenge.  This cute little character reminds me a lot of the Pokemon characters that my granddaughter was crazy about when she was a little girl.  She's now 16 and has outgrown such things but she had tons of the collectors cards and many of them looked similar to this image, which was created by Phooka.  Again, I colored him with Copics.  I am planning to attach a tiny white pom pom to the ball of his hat but I have to find them in my stash and haven't had time to look for them yet.

The sentiment was cut on my Cricut E at 1" from red foil cardstock using the Storybook font cartridge and the little square medallion was made with a Sizzix die on my Cuttlebug and the rhinestone glued to the center.  Cardstock is Paper Studio  and the DP is some I bought at Hobby Lobby in 2009, I think.

I don't know how well you can tell from my photos but I attached the little guy to the card face with an Action Wobble.  This first picture shows him in motion and that's why he looks a bit blurry.

Well, that's it for today.  I hope you have enjoyed seeing these cute cards, even if they are not in my usual style.  I do like to get out of my box occasionally so I enjoyed coloring these images and making these cards for the challenge.  I hope you'll drop by tomorrow for the last 2 of my entries for this round.  Have a wonderful week.  My wish for you is that you find time to do something creative.  Until next time...

Happy crafting!

Anniebee

CARD # 2 for CDAC Progressive Freebies Challenge

Hi!  I'm back with my second entry for the 5th round of CDAC's Progressive Freebies Challenge.  The image I used for this card is by Just Some Lines.  I wasn't really crazy about this one either until I got it colored up and put on a card.  Now I really like it!  This cute little bear (I have made it a girl bear thus the pink coloring. The actual color I used is V000 however) is perfect for a new baby card and that's how I used it.

The image was colored with Copics and I drew the cloud on which I stamped the sentiment.  I used Stickles on both clouds to make them sparkle and the moon and stars were some old rub ons I had left over from a couple of years ago.  Both types of blue cardstock and dp are DCWV.  The silver foil cardstock is from American Crafts.

Two down and one to go for today.  I'll be right back with card #3.

(To be continued)

Anniebee

A bunch of new cards for the CDAC Progressive Freebies Challenge

Good morning, everyone, and happy Monday!  I have 5 new cards that I have made using the free digi stamps provided by CDAC for their progressive challenge which is in its 5th round right now.  I have to post them one at a time though because I have to link to them on the CDAC site so my plan is to post 3 today and the remaining 2 tomorrow.  This is the same thing I did last round so I hope you'll all bear with me through this process.  It's admittedly a bit tedious but necessary to make sure that the cards link up properly. If I had any sense, I would post them as I complete them but when I get on a roll, it's hard for me to stop, take pictures, edit them and write a blog post before I continue the creative process.  My poor feeble mind just doesn't work that way! LOL

I promise to make the next 2 posts short and sweet, with only a brief description of the card and credit to the image's creator.  Okay, here's the first of the 3 for today.  Now, I have to be completely honest in saying that these digis are probably not ones I would choose if I was purchasing images for my card making but after coloring them and putting them on cards, I think they turned out rather cute!  This one is a little girl holding a basket of gingerbread men.  Judging from the basic shapes used, I think it was drawn on the computer. The artist was SSBS Design and I colored it with Copics.

I have to tell you a little anecdote here.  When I was a very young child, my dad would take my brother and me to the bank and barber shop with him once a month.  He worked for the postal service so he was only paid once a month.  The barber shop was next door to a bakery and as a special treat and reward for behaving ourselves on these outings, he would buy each of us a big gingerbread man to eat on the trip home, where our mother and younger siblings were waiting for us to get home.  I don't think the younger ones ever enjoyed this outing with Dad or the gingerbread men either.  That is one of my fondest memories of my early childhood.  My dad worked nights at the post office in downtown Fort Worth so we didn't get to spend much time with him during the day except on weekends and I cherish those times when it was just Dad, my brother and me hanging out together.

Okay, back to the card. I thought it would be fun to give this card to my sister for Christmas so I found Paula Deen's recipe for gingerbread man cookies and printed it out to put inside the card.  I'll probably stamp some Christmas images on the recipe before I give the card to her.  The sentiment is one I made up and typed into Word, printed on cardstock and cut out to fit my tag. Cardstock and dp is by DCWV.

That's it for the first card.  Please stand by for the second and third ones.

(To be continued)

Anniebee

My Important News!!

Note: For my JustWordz Design Team Friday project, please scroll down to the next posting.

Hello again!  I have been chomping at the bit to share my great news with you but I needed to wait until I published my final project for JustWordz.  I also had to wait until Joy made the official announcement on her blog, which she did on Wednesday.

I am so thrilled to tell you that I have been selected for a position on the design team at Joy's Life!!! If you have a Cricut or Silhouette, you more than likely know Joy and are familiar with her website, her fabulous stamps and her wonderful paper creations.  Hers was one of the first blogs I discovered after I bought my Cricut and I have been a subscriber ever since, even though my die cutting has kind of taken a back seat since I got my Copics.

As a member of Joy's new design team, I hope to combine my passion for coloring with Copics with my love of electronic die cutting to present you with something of a hybrid approach to creating cards, layouts, mini albums and altered items.  I am itching to start creating new pieces with Joy's stamps and I'm also anxious to meet and get to know my new teammates.

I hope you will continue to support me in this new endeavor and that you'll visit the blogs of my "teamies" when we present our first projects in a couple of weeks.  In the meantime, I will still be posting projects for the Paper a la Mode challenge at The Outlawz as well as other projects.

Again, I hope you are getting to enjoy the wonderful fall weather we have been having (it's about time!) and I wish you all a fantastic weekend!

Happy crafting!
Anniebee

My Last Design Team Friday with JustWordz Stamps

This will be my last project for the JustWordz design team. The current term ends today and Kim is in the process of selecting and notifying her new team members. They will soon take the reins and I have no doubt at all that they will provide every bit as much creative inspiration as the current team has. I hope they have as much fun as I have had these past 4 months. This is a wonderful and extremely talented group of women and I'll truly miss working with them and with Kim. This is both a sad and exciting moment for me. I am sad that this term has ended so soon and I am saying goodbye to some really great artists and friends but I am also excited for the new path I have chosen. More on that later but now it's time to talk about my project.

This week, Kim asked us to create a project for a specific family member. My assignment was to make something appropriate for a sister. Well, my youngest sister's birthday is coming up next month so that worked out pretty perfectly, didn't it? I've had this lovely digi stamp in my library that I have been wanting to color so I decided it would be a good one to use for this purpose. I don't recall who the artist was that created it so if any of you know, please tell me so I can give him/her the credit.  In my opinion, this design just "begged" to be pieced.  It's a ceramic or earthenware pitcher holding a bouquet of roses.  Simple but elegant.  I love the yellow and blue color combination seen in French Country decor so I colored the pitcher in those colors.  I also colored the two uppermost blossoms 3 times so I could cut and layer them to make them look 3-dimensional.  I stamped my sentiment, for which I used the Everyday Sentiments stamp set, onto a distressed tag and tied a small piece of hemp cord through the hole and popped it up on the card. I hope my sister likes it and I hope you do too.  

Materials and supplies:

Base card - Core'dinations cardstock in royal blue

mats - Core'dinations cardstock in royal blue and beige

DP - DCWV Tradewinds stack

Image - artist unknown

Medium - Copics

Sentiment - JustWordz Everyday Sentiments

tag - 7 Gypsies

paper rose - Recollections

Scotch ATG adhesive

foam tape - from Big Lots

Inside stamp - Inkadinkadoo

I am entering this card in the following challenges: TBD

Thanks for stopping by today.  Have a wonderful weekend! I'll be back a little later with a very important announcement.  Until then...

Happy crafting!

Anniebee

Another Halloween card

Good day, crafty friends!  I don't have anything spectacular to post today as I'll have projects for JustWordz and The Outlawz coming up on Friday and Saturday respectively.  So I thought I would show you a variation on a Halloween card that I posted a few days ago.  If you happened to miss that one then this one will be all new to you! This image was one that I received as a freebie for the CDAC Progressive Freebies Challenge going on right now.  That reminds me that I haven't yet started on the newest images they sent us!  I had better get moving or I won't get my cards finished before the deadline.  Anyway, this is my favorite of all the images we have received so far.  I think it's called Dragonlets and Me and it's by Delicious Doodles.  I loved coloring the first one so much that I had to color a second one!  It's an awesome image for Halloween because it's full of mood and drama, which if you know me, you already know that I adore in the images I color.  

It is, of course, colored with Copics.  This card is similar in design to the first one I made but the papers I used give it a bit of a different appearance.  There are a few other subtle variations too but they are insignificant.  Thanks for visiting me today.  I hope you'll drop by this weekend for the projects I mentioned at the beginning of this post.  Until then...

Happy crafting!
Anniebee


I am entering this card in the following challenges:

CMC Copic Challenge #29 - Halloween Fun
One Stop Craft Challenge #153 - Halloween
Card Makin' Mamas #31 - Halloween
Crafting For All Seasons - #12 - Halloween or color (lack, lime green, purple, orange)
Divas by Design #13 - Something Spooky
I Brake For Challenges IBFCC#12 - Halloween
More Than Favors by Paula Wacky Wednesday #56 - Halloween
Through The Craft Room Door #12 - Happy Halloween with the color orange

A Quick Post for Quick Quotes Challenge

Hi, everybody!

I am a big fan of Quick Quotes and not very long ago, I won a pack of their awesome scrapbook papers called "French Quarter". The pages in this collection are basically black and cream with a vintage feel to them AND it's double sided! Yay! I have been wanting to create a couple of layouts with it but just have not had time until today! Quick Quotes does a monthly challenge and the theme for the current challenge (it ends today so I'm getting this posted just under the wire) is to use a single photo on your layout or card instead of multiples. Well, guess what?! That's right, I finally got it done!

The photo I used is a black and white print of my niece, Kirsten. She's my go-to girl when I need a photo to use on a quick layout project. She's very photogenic and is sweet too. Plus, I have dozens of pictures of her already! Even though you can't tell it here, she has auburn hair.  One of my new favorite color palettes is cream, black and yellow so that's the one I used for this layout except that I added bits of orange too.

So, what do you think? Personally, I love it! All of the embellishments are from my stash and most of them are from blog candy winnings. Have I mentioned lately that I love blog hops and giveaways? After having been laid off for over 12 months now, the little bits and pieces I receive in my winnings go long way in keeping me crafting without having to spend any money and I am ever so grateful for my loot.

In addition to the Quick Quotes Friday Challenge #5, I am entering this layout in the following challenges:

Lasting Memories Challenge #60 - Add dimension
Totally Gorjuss #102 - Bingo (flowers, swirls and bling)
If the Shoe Fits, Scrap It! #93 - Girls/Women
Frosted Designs Fabulous Friday - Fancy Trims
Frosted Designs Sketch #26 - Sketch is shown below

That's all for today. Please visit me tomorrow for another new card and Friday for my final JustWordz Design Team project. Until next time...

Happy crafting!
Anniebee