Mrs. Comfy is my kinda gal!

I'm back today with another digi stamp image. This one comes from Phindy's Place. This adorable lady is Mrs. Comfy and this particular image is called "Mrs. Comfy Goes Surfing"! She's sitting at her little table with her tea (in my house it's coffee), her feline sidekick and yummy chocolates, surfing the net. She's rockin' the animal print leggings, purple sweater, turtle slippers and silver hair... my kindred spirit! I want to be just like her when I grow up... if I ever do!

This is more of the dp from Basic Grey's Lime Rickey collection. I find it difficult to embellish very much with some of these papers because the designs are already so "busy". So I decided to keep this one clean and simple too. The sentiment is another one from Pink By Designs.

So, again there's not much to say about the supply list that you can't tell just by looking at the photos. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me or put it in a comment and I'll do my best to get back to you right away. I have to finish a 4th of July card for a swap I'm in so I need to jump to it. I'll check you peeps later! Thanks so much for dropping by today. I appreciate each and every one of you!

Happy crafting!
Anniebee

Beginning of Summer Par-tay at The Outlawz!

Hey, everybody!  There's going to be a big summer party over at The Outlawz starting today, June 5th and going through next Saturday, June 11th.  There are going to be lots of activities going on this whole week so get your groove on and be there... or be square!  Click on the party announcement above to be instantly transported to the party place and join in the fun.  And if you want to help us spread the word, you'll get a chance to have Marti Wills of Pezadoodle Designs, design a customized banner, watermark, and signature for YOUR blog.  I would so love to win this as my blog could use a mini makeover!  Hope to see you there!


Have a great week!
Anniebee

Happy Sunday, all! It's a Wonder-ful Day!

Well, summer has descended upon Texas already and I'm not even ready for it! The average normal temps this time of year are in the mid to high 80s and we almost reached 100 yesterday! Yikes! I have no idea how I'm going to survive an extra month of high electric bills but I'll just have to trust the good Lord to take care of that for me. I have been trying to decide what kind of card I want to show you today and I've decided on one featuring an adorable digi stamp by Mo Manning, my very favorite illustrator. I just think this image is so cute and she reminds me of myself when I was somewhere between 4 and 6, just before I started grade school. Her hair even looks like mine.  In fact, it still looks rather like this on a windy day! Haha!  She is called "Wonder" and she is available in the digi shop at Mo's Digital Pencil.

I had seen some of Mo's work around for a long time and always admired it but I had no idea how to use digi stamps and so I never pursued my fascination with her designs. As luck would have it, I won a gift certificate to Mo's shop on a blog hop. Well, I wasn't about to let that opportunity get away so I got my certificate code and went shopping. She had so many wonderful designs, it took me 3 hours to decide what I wanted. And I couldn't decide on just one either, even though my certificate was only good for $5. I bought 3 designs and after my coupon was deducted, I think I owed $4. I just couldn't help myself! I really, really LOVE her digis! And now some of them are available in rubber too! Oh, happy day!  You can buy them here.

Here is little wonder with her hummingbird friend. Isn't she just the cutest thing? The first one I colored is about half again the size of this one and that's one of the wonderful things about digis... you can print them out any size you want whereas with rubber, you typically get only one size. Just for grins, I'll show you the first card  too. It's very plain and simple because I didn't want anything to detract from the adorable image. Here it is... same stamp but much larger (it's hard to tell from the pics) and I used different colors. I think I like the pink and blue palette a little better but I like the overall design of the twisted easel card. Maybe I'll remake it with a blue and pink palette! I just never tire of coloring these gorgeous images. They're so much fun! The inside sentiment simply says "Happy Birthday".

Click on the images to enlarge them and you can see the detail if you like. So which one do you like better?
I'd love to hear your candid opinions.  I'm not going to list all the details again because most of the supply list is just solid-colored card stock but the dp on both cards is from Basic Grey's Lime Rickey collection. I love the colors and retro feel of those papers!  They remind me of the 70s. Yes, I was there and yes, I do remember... well, sort of! LOL! The paper flower on the sentiment tag on the easel card as well as the heart pin, buttons and twine were sent to me in a cute little treasure chest of goodies from my sweet crafty friend, Kay.  How about that... other than the orange daisy, there are no flowers and no bling on either one of these! Can you believe it?

I entered the top card in Mo's Digital Pencil Challenge #85 - Sketch

 

Okay, that's it for today, girls and boys. I'll be back tomorrow with another one. Have a blessed Sunday and a great week next week!  Until next time....

Happy crafting!
Anniebee

How about a very late (or very early) Valentine's Day card?

Yeah, I know... it's summertime and I'm posting a Valentine?  No, I really haven't lost my mind.  Well, maybe I have but this card is not the sole indicator of that fact. LOL  Actually, I created this card as part of a design team application and I thought it turned out rather cute so I thought I would share it with you (despite the time of year) rather than trying to save it until next February. I used one of my favorite color combinations on this one; pink, black and white.  It features sweet little Tilda.  Because of her lamb and bonnet, this image was probably intended for Easter but I thought the sentiment stamp, from Pink by Design's Be Mine stamp set was befitting of her.

Because I am so late getting this posted, I am not going to include the details this time.  If you have any questions, just put it in a comment and I'll try to answer them.  I hope your weekend is off to a good start.  I haven't been to bed yet but I'm headed that way as soon as I finish this.  See you again tomorrow with another card!

Happy crafting!
Anniebee

Three for three... I think I'm on a roll!

Happy Friday, everybody! I hope the week went well for each and every one of you. I have been doing a little more crafting and making plans for a couple of upcoming projects. I think I must be coming down off of my card making high as I feel a little disoriented without any images to color! Of course, I can't do much coloring anyway until I get ink refills for several of the markers I use the most. The problem is that none of the stores near me carry the refills so I'll have to order them online and wait for them to arrive. Ugh! I don't know why these big chain stores can't carry the items we need but what irks me more than anything is that they won't even take suggestions from their regular customers!  That's just bad business in my opinion.  It never fails that when I go to one of the big crafting stores (you know the ones I mean), they either don't carry the item I'm looking for or it's out of stock. Sorry to rant so early on a Friday morning.  I just needed to vent my frustration for a change.  Okay, down from my soapbox now... I have another card to share with you today!

I posted a card using this same digi stamp a month or so ago but after I colored this one, it looks completely different from the first one. This time, I made the her look a little younger and more innocent. I like her because she's so sweet and is easy to cut out by hand. I also like to add my own patterns to her clothes or with some care and patience, she can be printed onto patterned card stock and her shirt or jumper could be fussy cut and layered onto the colored image, the way I did with The Big Guy's shirt on my last card. It's a very versatile image that can be used for a number of different occasions. Okay, here she is.

One thing I learned in coloring all these images is that you can keep layering the Copic alcohol inks until they become fairly opaque and give the appearance of paint.  Pretty cool as far as I'm concerned.  

The deets:

The image came from DZ Doodles and was colored with Copics. It's called "I Wonder?" and is available for purchase from their store here. Base cardstock is Core'dinations with white glitter cardstock (DCWV) and light pink cardstock (Recollections) mats layered on top.  Mats are edged with darker pink chalk ink. The dp is from a My Mind's Eye 6" x 6" stack called Home.  This little stack has some really beautiful prints and lots of sparkle.  I used several sheets on the the cards I just made and I wish I had a 12" x 12" stack just like it. I used a paper doily to layer the image on and to make the sentiment, which is from a Cloud 9 clear stamp set called Simple Thoughts - Girl, stand out.  I cut the circle out with my Cutter Bee circle scissor.  The lace is from my doll making stash and the ribbon is from Michael's  All of the flowers and leaves are handmade by me from cardstock, colored and/or distressed with Copics.  The flower centers are yellow mini brads. I had to punch holes in the center of each layer of the little flowers other than the rose so I could insert the little brads. Inside borders were made using a Martha Stewart border punch and the inside verse is from the same Cloud 9 stamp set.  I used gel pens for some of the smaller details like the buttons and buckles on her jumper and the pattern on her little tee-shirt.

So there you are!  That makes 3 down and a whole bunch more to go! LOL  I hope you enjoyed this little card and that you'll come back to see what I have for you tomorrow. Beyond it being another card, I don't even know what it will be. Thanks for visiting. Your comments are welcome and appreciated. Have a wonderful Friday and a fabulous weekend!

Happy crafting,

Anniebee

2nd day in a row... are you impressed? LOL!

It's another day and I have another new card for you! I can't believe we're so close to the end of the week already! I think the holiday threw me off, even though I'm not doing the 9 to 5 thing right now. Today I have a card I made for my son for Father's Day. I think I'm safe to display it so early because I don't think he knows how to find my blog. At least I hope he doesn't! I just recently discovered the world of digi stamps and I am totally head over heels with the work of Mo Manning. You can see her digis here. I found this cute image in her store and it reminded me a lot of my son... because he loves to cook on the grill and also because he's a big guy who wears a ball cap all the time! He messed his knee up pretty bad playing football in junior high school or he might still be playing. So now he has to settle for watching it on tv. Because he lives in Houston and I live between Fort Worth and Dallas, we have a friendly fan war every football season.

Okay, I digress... here's the card. I have been trying to work on my "man" cards lately so I have made three or four in the new bunch I just finished. Even though I don't think of myself as a girlie girl, I find it easy to create projects for females but for males, not so much!  I have seen many other bloggers post comments that they share my affliction so I have made a conscious effort to work on that little issue.  This is one such attempt.

Surprise! It's an easel card!  I found that I really enjoy making this style of card so I made several this week. They don't provide as much room to write a long message as standard cards do but most people don't require it anyway and they can always enclose a letter if need be. I distressed the cardstock on this one. I have always admired this technique on other people's creations but I didn't use it myself very often. I received a Tim Holtz distressing tool in some blog candy I won a while back so I decided to put it to good use.  I was impressed with how easy it was to do and with the results. I also think it looks good with this particular design. Please tell me what you think... like it or not? Please note that there is not one single bud, blossom or bit of bling to be found anywhere on this card! Unless, of course, you want to call the metal stars and oval tag bling. Haha!

Here are the deets:

Base card is craft cardstock, cream mat is Best Occasions cardstock that I bought at Walmart a couple of years ago.  All of the blue and green dp is from an older K-Ology 6" x 6" stack.  The sentiment is from Pink by Designs "Be Mine" stamp set which is available here.  This set is so versatile!  I have used several of the stamps on my recent projects and only one of them has anything to do with Valentine's Day.  Love them!  I don't remember where I got the little metal stars but I'm going to look for more of them because I enjoy using them on my projects and I used the last of them on this card.  The blue ribbon is from Michael's and the oval metal tag was part of a barbeque cookbook recipe journal kit that I won on a blog hop.  I haven't put it together yet but I think it's coming soon.  The green punched border was made using glitter card stock from DCWV and was punched with a Martha Stewart deep border punch.  Big Guy's shirt is printed onto patterned card stock, fussy cut and layered onto the colored image.

Okay, that's it for today. I'll be back tomorrow with another bit of eye candy for you. Thanks so much for stopping by today. I look forward to reading your comments. Have a great Thursday!

Happy crafting,
Anniebee

Finally! A new card.... Butterfly Garden

Hi, guys!

I know, I know... I have been promising new projects for well over 2 weeks and I'm happy to say that I am finally posting one today! I have made a total of 23 new cards in the past 2 weeks and had to take and edit the photographs for each one. I just finished doing that yesterday so now I'm ready to roll! Yes, I have been a very busy Anniebee.

So without further delay, here is the first of my new cards.  I created this one from an adorable stamped image of Tilda that my very sweet blog and craft friend, Tracy of Tracy's Stamping Corner sent me.  I told her how much I loved Tilda but that I didn't own any of the stamps and couldn't afford to buy them right now so she stamped and sent me a whole stack of Tildas with a few others thrown in for variety's sake.  In return, I sent her a set of my handmade roses in her favorite color, pink.  So now you know the reason behind my card-making frenzy!  If you love Tilda and other similar character stamps, you need to visit Tracy's blog.  She is so artistic and creative and works magic with Copics.  I just couldn't wait to start coloring those Tildas and once I started, I just couldn't stop.... until I colored every single one of them!  Some turned out better than others, in my opinion, but I think all but one of them is card worthy.  Let me tell you, I had so much fun with my Copics and as a result, I need refills for about a dozen colors that ran dry during my coloring spree.  

The card is prettier in person but if you click on the pictures, they'll enlarge to show better detail. It measures 5 1/2" square.  The base card and mats are Recollections card stock in red violet and mint green. Designer papers and dimensional butterfly stickers are from K and Company. The papers are from the Best of Brenda Walton stack. The flowers, leaves and sentiment tag were made by me. The tag on the inside is by Heidi Grace designs (I added the sentiment myself to match the writing style on the front tag) and the pearls are from Recollections. The ones I used as flower centers are colored with a Copic marker. I love those markers, I tell ya! I can buy all my pears in white and make them any color I want. Awesome! I found the little poem on the Internet and printed it onto the mint green cardstock and cut it out using Martha Stewart's Around the Page punches. Oh, the little flower on the inside is from Studio G that I found in sets of 4 in the dollar bins at Michael's.  

I hope you enjoyed little Tilda in her butterfly garden. Rest assured that there are many more cards to come.  Unless something unforeseen happens, I should be able to post one a day for the next 22 days so my absence will be worthwhile, at least. Again, I'm so sorry for keeping you waiting so long. I appreciate your patience and support.

I have entered this card in the following challenges:

Outlawz Friday Copic/Promarker Challenge - May 27th (Anything Goes)
Outlawz Monday Greeting Card Challenge - May 30th (Anything Goes)

Happy crafting,

Anniebee