Exciting News!!

Are you ready...can you guess....I am still jumping up and down over here...and my coffee is splashing everywhere! I was chosen along with several other wonderfully talented ladies to be on the Ladies with Attitude Design Team for Shirley's 2 Girls!!!!! I am very excited too, can you tell? Not only do I get to work with all their cool images, I am also going to be working with some fun women that I have gotten to know through the Twisted Thursday Challenges, on Paper Craft Planet and SNR. They are definitely a lively group. I am working on getting all the links added to my sidebar so that you can check out all the blogs when you have a chance.

Thanks a Latte

I have everyone had a great Christmas! Ours was very busy, but we had a great time. We spent a lot of time visiting with different family members, hanging out and we even managed to see a movie. My wonderful hubby gave me an air compressor so that I can airbrush with my Copics. It's funny, when I first started using Copics, I thought I would never want to airbrush with them. As soon as my ABS kit comes in, I will be playing with it!

ETA: I love seeing everyone's face when they asked me what Kip got me for Christmas and my answer was "An air compressor". The looks ranged from pity to horror! My man knows me though and he knew that it would make me happy, and that anything that can be used in the crafting studio tops jewelry any day. The first gift he ever gave me was an avocado slicer. What a man!!

I have been working on some thank you cards for the Christmas presents that I received this year. This card is going to go to my parents as a thank you for the Keurig coffee machine that they gave us. I used a set called Thanks a Latte from Clear Dollar Stamps. I used some brown and white Liquid Appliques for the inside of the coffee mug. Papers are from DCWV. 

Make sure you come back and visit tomorrow, I have an exciting announcement to share!

Merry Christmas

I want to take this time to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas. I hope everyone is able to spend their holidays with family, not only the family you were born into, but the family that loves and supports you. Merry Christmas!!

Gina and Kip

I will be back to regular posting on Monday, I've been a bit negligent this week as I have been shopping, baking, wrapping and all those fun holiday preparations. In addition to my regular cooking, I am attempting homemade cinnamon rolls for the first time! My card tonight uses a digital image and sentiment from Shirley's 2 Girl's. After printing the image, I colored it with Copics and Gelly Rolls pens. I used some distress ink on the sentiment. This paper is from a pack that I got at Archivers this summer, but the cover is now lost and I can't remember who makes it. I took two pieces of the same paper and cut out the poinsettias along the border and used foam dots of differing thicknesses to give it some dimension. I also added some more poinsettias that are from Prima to finish my card. thanks for stopping by!

Altered Dominos

I decided to try something that I have been seeing a lot of lately. My altered dominos will be made into magnets. I would love to make some into necklaces but other than drilling holes through them, I don't know how to do that. I have seen them done others done with a clasp type thing but I am not sure what it is I need to be looking for.  If anyone knows, I would love it if you would leave me the info in the comments. 

The first three are all done with Ranger alcohol inks and then were stamped with black Staz On and then I went around the edge with a gold pen. The stamp set is from Clear Dollar Stamps. The second was done using Copic refill (B01) and the pearl additive from the Ranger line. After I got it the color I wanted it, I embossed it with white embossing powder and edges it with the silver pen. The snowman is from a Studio G set. 

Isn't this sweet? My hubby brought it home to me the other day. I love fresh pineapple!

Happy Anniversary Kip

Thanks for all the anniversary wishes. Today is our actual anniversary, we have been married four years. I have had this image for a while, as soon as I saw it, I knew I wanted to use it for an anniversary card. This is a digital image from Mo's Digital Pencil and is called Jack and Ginger. There are some pretty incredible drawings in her collection and there are new ones all the time. After printing the image, I colored it with Copic markers. I decided to sponge around the image because the bright white panel was just a bit much with the paper that I had already picked out. The patterned paper is from the DCWV Once Upon a Time pack and so is the sentiment.

One thing we like to do is play along with the "traditional" wedding gift for each year and come up with something creative to go along with that theme. The gift for this year is fruit or flowers. Not the easiest thing to come up with a gift for a guy. I finally came up with making this tin of candy covered Oreos. They have a flower on the top! They were a little hard to get a picture of though. We are off to dinner now!

Snowman and Friend

I start out every year making individual Christmas cards and each one is different. Then one day I wake up and think "oh no, I need to get my cards in the mail today!" and then I try and come up with a card that is a little easier to reproduce so that I can get them out before the New Year! This is my easy to reproduce card this year. At the last craft night, I was able to get all the images that I needed colored and cut out so tonight I spent time putting my cards together. I really like that snowman and his little birdie friend. The image is from CTMH and was colored with Copics. The snow line was done with some Snow Writer stuff that I got on clearance last year at Michael's and I really like it. I like the sparkle in it and I like that I can get a very thin line or I can cover a larger area if I need to. The sentiment is from Studio G and the papers are DCWV. Thanks for stopping by!

Pink Penguin

Hello! My friend Angela and I were talking today about Christmas color combos and Pink came us and that we both had been seeing more pink in Christmas decorations and cards. That made me realize I haven't made a pink winter themed card. I was looking through my mountain of papers looking for something to go with this cute Shirley's 2 Girls digi penguin when I found this paper with the pink and black snowflakes. This was the free digi image from them yesterday for Digi Day on SNR Card Universe. The image was colored with Copic markers and I added glitter for the snow. The snowflake brads and the rhinestones are from Hobby Lobby. The rhinestone was clear but I colored it with a Copic marker to match the colors I used on the hat and scarf. The paper is DCWV and the ribbon is from my stash.

A funny story about this card though; as I was loading this card onto my gallery on SNR, I noticed that the card I made for the last Digi Day was also done with a pink and black color combo. I thought that was funny since it isn't a combo i use a lot but I used it on back to back challenges. Have a great night and thanks for stopping by!

Twisted Thursday--Glitter or Bling

Looks like I have been gone for a few days! I have been hard at work on Christmas projects that I can't post yet because they are for friends and family that read my blog and I don't want to spoil the surprise. This is the card I made for the Twisted Thursday Challenge. The twist this week was to use glitter or bling on your card. I used glitter card stock but the glitter was not cooperating with the camera today. I started with this cat image from Shirley's 2 Girls. I think one of the reasons I love their stamps so much is that they have several cat stamps with some pretty mischievous looking cats. As the owner of three such cats, these images really make me smile. My image was colored with Copic markers, the metal clip is from Paper Studio, paper is from DCWV Pet Stack and the ribbon is just some I had on hand. 

We did something fun tonight. Our anniversary is Thursday and instead of buying each other really expensive gifts, we try to do something fun and new. Kip has been planning these activities but this year he said I could. His surprise was tickets to see the Star Wars Concert. Wow. I have seen most of the movies, and enjoyed them, but he is a big fan. It was awesome. Here is a link if you want to check out their website. The music and narration was just incredible and in the lobby they had lots of exhibits of props from the movies, costumes, backdrops and some of the handwritten music. It was very impressive. One of our friends from church was there, sitting a few rows behind us so I asked him to take a picture of us together as a memento of our anniversary celebration.  Awww, I just love him so much!
Thanks for visiting! I am almost done with Christmas so I will get back to regular posting in the next few days or so. Have a great week!

Christmas Gifts

Hello! Wow, I can't believe Christmas is approaching so fast! I am almost done with my cards, I think. I have a few more gift items to make and I would like to get a card set together for my Grandmother, but I think I will be done before the holiday actually arrives. My crafty friend Angela and I have decided that we will exchange cards and gifts after Christmas so that is one less thing each of us has to do! Speaking of Angela, these are her stamps that she let me borrow. Both images are from CC Designs. After stamping them and coloring them with Copics, I added a little bit of white fun flock to her hat and some glitter pen to her belt buckle. After everything was colored, I cut them out and added them to my scalloped ovals that were cut out using Nestabilities. The sentiment is from a Studio G set, I have found that there are a lot of great sentiments in some of those sets and they are especially great when you are not wanting your sentiment to be a huge focal point. The paper is from the Making Memories Mistletoe set and the ribbon is from American Crafts. Thanks for dropping by!

Christmas Stockings

Good Evening! I have decided it is time to get serious about getting my Christmas cards done! I do make a bunch of different designs, especially for cards that I will hand deliver. But I also need several that will needs to go in the mail so I try to keep them a little simpler with fewer embellishments to keep postage costs low. This is one I have made to go in the mail. I have had this stamp for a very long time, since before I really started stamping and no longer know who made it. The image caught my eye one day and I bought it and it sat in a drawer for a long time after that! I do love the old fashioned looking, hanging stockings, even though they are a little hard to color. They were colored with Copics with a couple of touches with a Spica pen, I didn't want to them to be too glittery so there is just a hint of sparkle. The sentiment is from a Studio G set and was stamped with CTMH olive ink. The paper is from a paper pack from Hobby Lobby and the brads are from my stash.

How is everyone doing with their Christmas shopping? We were planning to go and hopefully finish up tonight, but I am still nursing a cold, feeling better, but not up for a marathon shopping even and Kip had to work late so we will have to go later in the week. I try to avoid all malls on the weekends leading up to Christmas though! As of right now I have exactly two gifts bought, my mom wanted craft supplies and my niece wanted a sign language book. Actually, my niece wanted the book I teach out of, but I found her one that included some flash cards, so I think she will still be happy. I have those two gifts and that's it! Have a great night!

More Silver and Blue

This happens to be my favorite color combo for my Christmas cards this season. I have made a few others with different colors but almost everything I have made is some shade of blue, silver and white. I started with this image from Shirley's 2 Girls and colored it with Copics. I think this is one of my favorite images from them, definitely a favorite Christmas image. I used some fun flock on Santa's suit, some silver glitter glue for the stars, and some liquid pearls from the buttons on the suit. All paper is from DCWV and the ribbon is from Jo-Ann's.

Craft night was so much fin last night, I was able to color several images and now they just need to be made into cards. This morning though I woke up with a full blown cold. I feel icky and am headed back to bed now. My wonderful hubby is bringing me juice home and that always makes me feel better. Have a great rest of your weekend!

Twisted Thursday--Tin or Foil

The S2G Twisted Thursday Challenge was to use the provided sketch and add the twist of tin or foil. I love the look of embossed foil so I pulled out this snowflake embossing folder. I usually fold my foil in half and then in half again before running it through my Big Shot and embossing it, I think it gives it just a little more strength and body and makes it a little easier to work with. My Snow man image is from Shirley's 2 Girls and was colored with Copics. I added a little Liquid Applique on the gloves and some Crystal Snow glitter on his body. I then cut out the image and used pop dots for some dimension. The big chunky glitter at the bottom is from Martha Stewart and the snowflake rhinestones came from the dollar bin at Jo-Ann's. The sentiment is from a Studio G set and was embossed with white embossing powder. Like I said, I really like the look of the embossed foil, but it isn't the easiest thing to take a picture of! No matter what angle or lighting I use, I end up with light spots. That's okay, it looks great IRL!

Tomorrow night is Craft Night at church, so if you are in the area, make sure you join us. The only thing I will be working on is my Christmas cards. I did get an early start this year but there are several more on my list. I don't make a lot of the same design usually. One reason is that I get bored making the same thing over and over and the other reason is that I have so many Christmas images that I try to use as many as I can. I have several friends that collect snowmen so I have made several with this image. Thanks for visiting with me!

Gift Box

I had a need for some small gift boxes and started out altering a box I already had but the gift items I wanted to put in there were just a little squished. To solve that problem, I made my own box. I used this digi image from Shirley's 2 Girls don't forget they are having a DT Call, info is here)and colored it with Copic markers. The sprinkles on the cupcake are micro glass beads and the marshmallows are the punch out of the embossed snowflake around the border of the lid. I used a Martha Stewart border punch that embosses and punches out snowflakes. Here's a slightly better shot of the lid:
And what did I want to put in my little box? Some K-cups for the Keurig coffee maker, one of each of the holiday flavors. I have it on good authority that Santa may be bringing me one of these for Christmas!