Guest Designer card for Little Blue Buttons Stamps

Hello, everybody, and TGIF!! Friday can never get here soon enough to suit me. I like my job okay but if I'm given a choice between working or crafting, guess which one wins... every time! LOL A while back, I was invited by Olga, the sweet proprietor of Little Blue Button Stamps to design a card or two using her new images that are being released this month. I was ecstatic that she thought enough of my work to ask me to represent her and there was no way I could refuse.

I had planned to make two cards using two different new images but as my luck often goes, things starting cranking up at work just about the time I was supposed to make my cards! I am transitioning from a contractor to a direct employee and I had to spend a lot of my spare time gathering information and documentation they required to complete my background check. You may recall that I moved back in September and most of my personal belongings other than my clothing and some of my crafting supplies are still packed in boxes and are in storage so I had to take the long way around supplying the needed information.

Long story short, I passed the background check and starting July 15, I'll be working directly for the company for which I have worked indirectly since February. But back to the subject at hand. I designed the card below using Olga's image called "Miss Lilly Chef". This little cutie, although not my usual style, was so much fun to color and I just love the final results. I used Copic markers to color her and her costume is all paper pieced and shaded with Copics.

And here's the inside, complete with Neiman Marcus' chocolate chip cookie recipe.

 

Please stop by and see all of Olga's digis at Little Blue Button Stamps and also visit her blog at here, where my card is on display. Thanks for stopping by today. I hope you'll visit again real soon. Until next time...

Happy crafting!

Anniebee

Name The New Girlz Contest for Kenny K's New Release!

For my DT card for the Kenny K's Krafty Krew blog, scroll down to the next post.

Hello again KennyK fans! We've got a brand new collection coming out June 23rd, and we haven't got any names for these girlz yet.........so we're going to leave it in your hands and let you choose the names.

Now if you want to win one or more of these cuties, then get your thinking caps on and give us your best names you can come up with for them. Each girl has a number underneath them, so what we want you to do is.........

1. Write up a blog post with your name choices for each girl or just one girl as long as you put the number for them i.e. 3. Rachel

2. Copy the poster to your blog post, then come back here and link up your blog post with Inlinkz.

KennyK and Elena will be checking out your blog with your name choices and will choose the ones they think best match the girlz.
If your name/s are chosen, then you will win the girl/girlz for the winning names.

This contest will run until June 21st, and the winners will be announced on the day of release
JUNE 23RD.

GOOD LUCK!!!

And don't forget about the challenge going on right now too!

Until next time....

Happy crafting!

Anniebee

Kenny K Father's Day DT Card

Happy Sunday to everyone! Here it is, the middle of June already and the days continue to fly by with no sign of stopping. I know our friends in the northeastern and midwestern states are more than happy to welcome summer at last but for me, I'm already yearning for cooler weather! It's not even officially summer and we have already reached temperatures in excess of 95 degrees!!! I'm afraid that as cold as the winter was up north, the summer will be equally hot down south.

Enough of my climate commentary. Now on to more fun things.... the new challenge at Kenny K's Krafty Krew. This week is Team A's turn to wow you with their inspirational Father's Day projects. Next Sunday is the day we celebrate fathers, those amazing male figures that head up our family units and provide guidance and discipline for our children. They are often underappreciated and Father's Day is our time to remind ourselves, and them, just how much they mean to us.

For my own contribution to the design team examples, I used Kenny's Club Kid image. The Glam Gang collection are my favorites of all of Kenny's images because they are so versatile and fun to color, aside from being sassy and sexy. Our sponsors this week are Kenny K Downloads and Marianne Designs. So without further delay, here is my Father's Day inspiration.

I am entering this card in the following challenges:

TBD

Please join us this week for a chance to win some fabulous prizes and an opportunity to appear in Kenny and Elena's Spotlight next week! Take care, have a wonderful week and Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there! Until next time...

Happy crafting!
Anniebee

Color Challenge at Kenny K's Krafty Krew

Good morning and Happy Memorial Day's Eve to all of my U.S. bloggy friends! The summer months are upon us already and I am not at all prepared for 5 months of hot, muggy weather. People ask me all the time why I live in Texas if I hate hot weather so much and truth of the matter is that my family and friends are all here and I can't bear to leave them behind as much as I would love to live in a cooler climate. 

Well, today is the start of another challenge hosted by Team A of Kenny K's Krafty Krew and this week, we're doing a color challenge. Below is the color chart for this challenge.

Our sponsors this week are:

with a $20 gift certificate

and 

with 

Now for my bit of inspiration for this challenge. I chose to use one of my favorite images from the Glam Gang collection, Brooklyn Babe. You can find her here.

 

I hope to see all of your entries for this challenge over on the Krafty Krew Blog but even if you don't enter, please stop by and see the wonderful contributions from my awesome teammates.

I am entering this card in the following challenges:

TBD

That's all I have for you today. Please have a safe and fun holiday weekend with your friends and family and don't forget to remember those who made it possible for us to enjoy the many freedoms we have in this country, our service men and women. Until next time...

Happy crafting!

Anniebee

A Steampunk Mother's Day at Kenny K's Krafty Krew

Hi, everybody! I know it's been a couple of weeks since I posted anything here. I have been extremely busy at work and just have not had the energy to do much crafting in the evenings. In fact, sometimes, I'm so tired when I get home that I am in bed by 8 PM!! Anyone who knows me very well, knows that I am a night owl by nature so going to bed that early is, indeed, a rare thing for me. It has become more routine lately, however.

Well, today is the start of a brand new challenge at Kenny K's Krafty Krew and it's Team A's turn to host. The theme this week really has nothing whatsoever to do with Mother's Day and when you see my card, you'll see that it certainly played no part in my own creative processes this time!

Our sponsors this week are Kenny K Rubber Stamps and Marianne Design so you'll not want to miss this challenge! As mentioned, the theme this week although not related to Mom's special day, is nonetheless a fun one. We're doing Steampunk this week!! I know a lot of you love that style so we hope to see lots of awesome entries this time.

Not only is my card not related to Mother's Day (my own mom passed on several years ago), it also is a bit unusual for this time of year. I really don't care much for the summer months as it gets very hot and humid in Southeast Texas so I decided to make something to remind me of the more pleasant temperatures of winters here. I used Helga Frost of Kenny's Steampunk Burlesque collection as the focal point for my card and my snowflakes purposely look rather like gears to go along with the Steampunk theme. I used those cute screw head brads again to give them more of a metallic look and I even added a little spinner to one of them. So without further delay, here is the lovely Helga Frost.

Yeppers! A Christmas card in May! I used silver gel pen under my Aqua Copic marker to give parts of Helga's costume a metallic quality. 

I am entering this card into the following challenges:

TBD

If you have a few minutes to spare, please stop by the Krafty Krew blog to see the awesome projects created by my talented teammates! We would love to have you participate as well. Thanks for stopping by today. I hope you all have a wonderful Mother's Day and a great week as well. Until next time...

Happy crafting! 

Anniebee

Time for Tic-tac-toe at Kenny K's Krafty Krew

Good Sunday morning to you all!

As all of you Kenny K fans know, today is the start of a new challenge at the Krafty Krew blog! This week, the theme is Tic-tac-toe, an all-time fave of many paper crafters. I know I enjoy this kind of entry immensely because sometimes it's a challenge in itself to use all of the elements in a given row together on a single project. The original tic-tac-toe game had 3 squares going across and up and down, making a total of 9 squares in all. This one has 4 each way, for a total of 14! That just adds to the fun for me.

I thought you might be interested in knowing some history on the simple game so I did a little research and found this at Wikipedia, which is, as often as not, anything but the expert on any given topic but in this case, I think it will suffice. Here's what it had to say about Tic-tac-toe, also known as Naughts and Crosses:

"An early variant of Tic-tac-toe was played in the Roman Empire, around the first century BC. It was called Terni Lapilli and instead of having any number of pieces, each player only had three, thus they had to move them around to empty spaces to keep playing. The game's grid markings have been found chalked all over Rome. However, according to Claudia Zaslavsky's book Tic Tac Toe: And Other Three-In-A Row Games from Ancient Egypt to the Modern Computer, Tic-tac-toe could originate back to ancient Egypt.^[1] Another closely related ancient game is Three Men's Morris which is also played on a simple grid and requires three pieces in a row to finish.^[2]

The different names of the game are more recent. The first print reference to "Noughts and crosses", the British name, appeared in 1864. The first print reference to a game called "tick-tack-toe" occurred in 1884, but referred to "a children's game played on a slate, consisting in trying with the eyes shut to bring the pencil down on one of the numbers of a set, the number hit being scored". "Tic-tac-toe" may also derive from "tick-tack", the name of an old version of backgammon first described in 1558. The U.S. renaming of Noughts and crosses as Tic-tac-toe occurred in the 20th century.^[3]

In 1952, OXO (or Noughts and Crosses) for the EDSAC computer became one of the first known video games. The computer player could play perfect games of Tic-tac-toe against a human opponent.

In 1975, Tic-tac-toe was also used by MIT students to demonstrate the computational power of Tinkertoy elements. The Tinkertoy computer, made out of (almost) only Tinkertoys, is able to play Tic-tac-toe perfectly.^[4] It is currently on display at the Museum of Science, Boston." 

Well, I thought it was interesting! LOL Anyway, I digress once again. Here is the grid for this week's challenge:

This week, we have 3 incredible sponsors, each offering up an awesome prize for one of our challenge entrants. They are:

with a $20 gift certificate,

and 

with the following prize pack

Now, on to my card. I used the bottom row of the grid going across for my card. I also used one of Kenny's new images being released today, called "Tomboy Trouble". I'm certain you'll recognize that sassy face! Yep! it's Troublemaker with a makeover! Isn't see a cutie? Because she's supposed to be something of a tomboy, I didn't want my card to be overly feminine so instead of using the usually bling, lace and ribbons, I used screwhead brads, colored hot pink with a Copic marker and hemp twine. I couldn't eliminate all indications of femininity though so I used lots of pink and included a paper heart doily and a butterfly and a bit of Stickles on the sentiment banner to add the slightest bit of sparkle.

Here's how it turned out!

As you can tell, the last image is a closeup. I can't say this is my favorite card of all times but Tomboy Trouble is definitely one of my favorite Kenny K digis!! That's all I have for you today. In a couple of days, I should have a Saturated Canary card. My poor SC digis have been neglected lately and have put up a bit of a fuss about that so I finally broke down and made a card with one I had colored a while back but never used on a card. If you have a few minutes to spare, please pop on over the the Krafty Krew blog and see the incredible work done by my talented teamies as well as the other new images Kenny is releasing today. 

I am entering this card into the following challenges:

613 Avenue Create - #17 Anything Goes (with optional photo inspiration)
Dream Valley Challenges - #55 Things with Wings
Eclectic Ellapu - Purple's Challenge
CMC Copic Challenge Group - #67 Celebrations
Dilly Beans - Think Pink
Challenges for Everybody - #19 Anything Goes

Until next time, take care of yourselves, tell your families and friends how much you love them and do something creative!

Happy crafting!

Anniebee

Ballgown in the Parisianne Style... for Rick St, Dennis

Good afternoon, everybody! This is my second post for today so if you're looking for my Kenny K challenge card, please scroll down to the next post.

I had the very special honor of being personally invited by Rick St. Dennis, one of my favorite illustrators, to be a guest designer for his blog, Sparkle and Glitter.  I really love the intricacy and level of detail of Rick's designs and even though coloring them in smaller sizes can be a bit of a challenge, it's the kind of challenge I adore. If you're a regular follower, you have undoubtedly seen several of his digis on my cards over the past few months. If you have never attempted one of his digis, you really should. They take a little longer to color because of the fine details but they are well worth the effort!

The image I used for this project is the brand new, never seen "Ballgown in the Parisianne Style". She was so much fun to color, especially the 8.5" x 11" version in green. Rick wanted to know what kind of markers I used and how I achieve a 3-dimensional effect with my coloring and this is what I told him. I use Copics on X-Press It Blending Card, starting with the lightest shade and layering on the darker ones in progression until I achieve the density of color I want. I use a lot of ink because I use so many different colors to get that density but I like the results I get. I use B60 for shadowing when I don't want the effect the grays and browns provide and I use E95 and sometimes V000 for shadowing on the human form as well as a white Jelly Roll pen smudged with my fingertips to bring out the prominent highlights. So there... you have all my secrets now! LOL!

So without further ado, here is the gorgeous Ballgown in all her resplendent glory. 

Above is the larger version. Below is the 6"x 6" card I made with her, dressed in rich, royal purple.

Soon I'll have more projects using Rick's incredible artwork as I was selected as one of the Top 3 in the last 2 challenges on Sparkle and Glitter and the prize was 3 digis for each win so I have several of his designs to color now! Needless to say, I'm in hog heaven. Visit Rick's Etsy shop to purchase his digis.

I am entering this card into the following challenges:

Red Carpet Studio - #32 Hollywood Noir

Catch the Bug - #135 Sketch

Our Creative Corner - Fashion and Style

Left of Center - #3 LOC (or use twine/ribbon)

Mema's Crafts - April Challenge (Anything Goes)

Crafting For All Seasons - #49 Floral Delight

That's all I have for now but check back soon for more projects using Rick's fabulous digis. Have a wonderful week, hug your children and your pets and do something creative!

Happy crafting!

Anniebee