Sugar Skulls/ Day of the Dead

Good morning! The challenge on the Poisoned Peas blog is to make something using sugar skulls and flowers, something Day of the Dead related. Since I don't know a lot about this holiday, really just the very basics, I had to look it up and do some reading. Here is a link if you are interested in learning more, I found it pretty interesting, maybe you will too. I didn't have any stamps or digis that would work for this challenge so I drew my own sugar skull. After doing a rough sketch in pencil, I finished the drawing using a couple of different size Sharpies and then colored the skull decorations with Prismacolor pencils. I added some Prima flowers, buttons and flowers from my stash to finish my card.

I don't draw that often, and I almost never ever show anyone anything that I have drawn, so please be kind! I posted last week about trying to experiment and go outside of my normal habits of creating so this definitely falls under that category!

Have a great day!

Card Cupids Too Cute Challenge

Good Morning! I have a new Card Cupids Challenge to share with you this morning. The challenge is a simple on--the theme is "TOO CUTE". For this challenge we are sponsored by Di's Digis. I chose this image called "Hello Ladybird" because I love ladybugs and I thought this was "too cute" since the little girl is wearing a matching polka dot dress. The image was colored with Copic markers and the paper and brads are from my stash.

We hope you will join our challenge.

We have had several requests for cards lately and you can find the complete list HERE.

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The winner from the Card Cupids celebration posts is Tammy! Please contact me with your email info and I will get your prize to you.

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I wasn't around much last week because we went away with Kip's family for the week. We rented a cabin on a lake and spent the week relaxing. I didn't take my laptop or my iPad and tried not to get online too much with my phone! I took a ton of art supplies and paper, a couple of books and some card games. All together there are ten of us; me and Kip, his sister, her hubby and two kids, Kip's parents and his uncle.  We had a pretty good time. I opted out of the fishing and boating to spend more time with my sketch pad. It was a great break for all of us. Here is a picture of the view from the front porch of the house:

Vampire Scrapling

I learned something new! While reading the new challenge on the Riley and Company blog, I saw that the challenge was "Scraplings".  I had no idea what that meant so fortunately they provided this description: 

So what are scraplings???? Scraplings are normally 1.25" x 4.25" because they are often made from the off cuts you get when you make a square card (4.25" square) from a piece of card that is 4.25" x 5.5". However if you are like me your scraplings may be a little wider depending on what you are working on at the time. Now for me 1.25" is way too narrow and I normally have wider card then that left over so you can makes yours wider .... BUT for this challenge they cannot be any wider then 2.5 inches that is for the base of the scrapling ... you can have wider pieces hanging off your scrapling if you like, but that is up to you.

I thought that was pretty cool, especially since I end up with so many scraps of paper that exact size! My scrapling uses Count DracuRiley, colored with Copics, some  bat paper I have had for a while, some baker's twine gifted to me by my friend Jennifer, and some mini red brads. 

Fun challenge and I know I will be making more of these. 

Riley and Sophie on Vacation

I am  so glad the weekend is finally here! Since I was out of town last weekend and on the road so much, it felt like I didn't have a weekend, that makes this one even better. Kip is out of town on business and my plans for today pretty much include me, my Copics and a huge stack of images! The challenge this week on the Riley and Company blog is Riley/Sophie on Vacation. I know I would love a trip the beach about now, so I made a beach/water themed card to represent their vacation. Bikini Sophie and Fins Riley images are from Riley and Company and were colored with Copics, I used papers from Bo Bunny, a Fiskars wave punch and some brads from my stash.

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I hope someone can help me with a problem I have had commenting on some blogs. It isn't all of them, but several blogs that I have been reading and commenting on as well as some new ones. Normally when you go to the comment area, below the comment box there is something along the lines of "you are commenting as (in my case) Gina Lindsay. If I am not signed in there will be a drop down box that allows me to select a profile and then I can sign in from there. Over the past couple of weeks I have been to several blogs it has that "select a profile" drop down box, even if I am signed in, but it will not allow me to select anything. And since I can't select a profile, I cannot leave a comment. Most blogs I read I am not having this problem with, only about 7 or 8 of them. If I sign in with my same log in info and try to read or comment on these same blogs on my iPad, I don't have any issues, it is only happening on my desktop machine. Does anyone else have this problem or can you tell me how to fix it?

Thanks!

Riley as Rocky

Hello! The challenge on the Riley and Company challenge blog was a fun one this week. It was a recipe challenge to use three stars, two buttons and one ribbon. When I was looking through my stamps I thought this one would be perfect to use stars with and then decided to go with a patriotic theme too. I remember one of the Rocky movie posters featured a patriotic look so I went with that. I have a confession to make, one that my husband couldn't believe when I told him a couple of months ago. I have never seen one of the Rocky movies. Not at the movies or even part of one on cable. He did not believe me at first since I am kind of a movie buff, but its true. Now everyone knows my secret! Boxing Riley is of course from Riley and Company and was colored with Copic markers, the star sequins, buttons, ribbon and paper all came from my stash.

I wanted to mention that I was able to visit with my niece this weekend and gave her the shadowbox that I made for her. She LOVED it! Thank you for all the comments that you left for me, they really meant a lot to me. We were able to spend some quality time together talking about dreams and not listening to any one that tells you that your dreams are unattainable. She already identifies with me since we are the more creative family members so I think she is listening (and hearing me--after all she is 13!). I appreciate your comments so much. 

Thanks for stopping by and visiting me today!

Text Me Challenge

Good Morning! The challenge on the Riley and Company blog this week is Text Me--which means to use text paper. That can be from a book, newspaper or DP with text on it. I decided to use an image from the Riley Goes on Vacation release. I have been fascinated with maps lately and decided that one would be perfect here. My image is from Riley and Company, colored with Copic markers and the brads are from Jo-Ann's. I have had that paper in my stash for a very long time! I know it was part of a pack that my SIL gave me for my birthday a few years ago but I do not know where it came from. 

About six weeks ago while my niece was on Spring Break, I took a couple of days off and drove to my hometown to spend some time with just her. The previous visit she mentioned that she never gets to spend time with me and that we mainly only come home for holidays which is crazy for everyone. I know she was right so I called her and asked if she would like it if I came in, just to see her. I told her that we could do anything she wanted. And hey, she's almost fourteen so I know I need to take the opportunity before she decides hanging out with her slightly kooky aunt isn't fun. She is in the process of collecting things for a bedroom makeover and mentioned that going to Paris is one of her goals some day. We were able to find lots of stuff for her room and I am making her a shadow box to go in there too. That's where part of my map fascination comes into play, I have been looking at maps of Paris and maps of France in general looking for the perfect things to complete  the  shadow box. I am almost done, pictures will be coming soon!

Samantha  has a new blog post using a Riley image too.

Fool's Game Challenge

Hello! I have discovered a new (to me) challenge blog and stamp company and I decided to play along with their current challenge. The challenge blog is called Poisoned Peas Please and the challenge this week is called "Fool's Game". Any way you interpret a "fool's game" goes for this challenge. If you play cards like I do, any card game is a fool's game! I never learned that many card games and never really mastered any of them. This image is from Smeared Ink and is called Fortune Teller Carnie. Oh my goodness, do they have tons of stamps that I want! I went shopping and got quite a few the other night, but there are still tons that I want to add to my collection. I will be back there, and very soon! The image was colored with Copic Markers and I used a mix of paints to color the crystal ball. I found some cool playing cards at Target the other day and I knew they would end up on a craft project somewhere! I love the design and colors on the backing. I used some Distressing Inks (Vintage Photo and Old Paper) to age the cards so they wouldn't be so bright white. I added some pearls and eyelets from my stash. Papers are from DCWV. 

Speaking of card games, Kip and his friends play a game called Magic the Gathering and I play along some times too. A couple of weeks ago he went to KY to visit some friends and in addition to playing Magic they played another game called "Once Upon a Time". He was telling me about the game because he thought I might enjoy it. When he got off work last night and got home for dinner I could tell he was hiding something behind his back. He had found the game at a shop nearby. We played several rounds last night and it was a lot of fun!

Have a great day!

Spinning Clown

The challenge on the Riley and Company Blog this week is "Spring-ing into Action" which means to make a card that moves. I decided to make a spinner card. I have made these several times before, but this is my favorite of all the ones I have ever made before. As soon as I saw the challenge, I knew that this Clown Riley would be the image I would use. I guess I just thought that a clown would look great spinning across the card! 

I took a couple of other shots of Riley making his way across the card.

One thing I did different with this card that I haven't done with my previous spinning cards was to adhere the patterned paper to a stiff piece of card stock. It seems to be much sturdier than the ones I have made before and it spins without getting stuck midway!

Image is from Riley and Company, colored with Copics, paper is Basic Grey, and the little swirly things are from Jolee's (I think).

Have a great day!

Thinking About Spring

I am seeing definite signs of spring around here in Tennessee; lots of blooms, people readying garden spots, the sound of lawn mowers and tons of pollen coating everything! I love it though. We didn't have much of a winter, but spring is always welcome. The challenge this week on the Sassy Cheryl blog is "Think Spring". I thought this was a perfect image to use for a spring challenge. I know my nieces and nephew are on Spring Break this week and my FIL mentioned he has taken them fishing for the first time this year. I love that little worm crawling along the fishing line. I used an image from Sassy Cheryl, colored it with Copics, papers from DCWV, some twine, a tag and some baubles from my stash.

Thanks for visiting today!

Back to School

Hello! it is definitely back to school time; there's a bit of fall in the air, football has started, the school bus just passed by and I have to leave a little early for work to drive through school zones. I made this card for my nephew, he is starting his junior year. The school colors at his school, and my alma mater, are Black and Gold. I love the Emo line of stamps from Simply Betty Stamps because they are perfect for teens, especially teen boys. Cole is a pretty great kid and would never say anything negative about a card I have made for him, but it usually is a struggle to find something that isn't to juvenile or too generic. This is also my entry for the Simply Betty Get to School Challenge. I used a Notebook paper embossing folder for The Paper Studio, a border punch from EK Success, some brads and stickers from my stash and I colored everything with Copics.

Last year for Christmas my niece wanted a stamping kit from me as a gift. (Here is what I gave her.) Throughout the year I have been picking up some little additions as I find them. I found some cute little dollar stamps at Michael's last week and have put together a little box of goodies to mail to her. She is getting some Halloween stamps, a could of new colors of ink, some adhesive refills and some fall/Halloween card fronts and papers. I felt bad because Cole doesn't have a interest like that where I can pick up things here and there for him so I decided to make him a card and tuck in an Itunes gift card for him. I will get Zoie's card posted later, it is a Halloween one, using one of her new stamps.

Have a great Day!

Stitches-Real or Faux

The challenge on the Sassy Cheryl blog this week is to make stitches, real or faux ones. Mine are of the faux variety since I haven't figured out how to use my sewing machine yet! My parents are coming up for a visit this weekend and if we have time I will see if she can give me some pointers. I used the Sassy Cheryl image Button Flowers Bag and colored it with Copic Markers. She has a couple of more of these that are similar with buttons. I really love buttons. I keep buying them too, almost every time I go into a craft store I leave with some buttons. Anyway, I just think these images are too cute. Since I am sewing machine challenged, I had to draw in my little stitches around the border of my card. One day I will learn to sew!

I did buy a machine a couple of months ago and a great book on teaching yourself how to sew. Yeah, I still don't know how to sew. I can do basic things by hand; like sewing on buttons, fixing a loose hem, that type of thing. I was fortunate enough to have my Great Grandmother for the first sixteen years of my life and she taught me to quilt by hand. So I have pieced quilts and actually quilted with needle and thread but am lost when it comes to using the machine. It is going to be a crazy busy weekend. I have my 5K in the morning, am teaching a Copic class right after that and then have my parents here for the weekend and will be taking Mom out to celebrate her birthday. If we have a spare minute or two I am going to see if she can at least get me started!

Halloween Challenge

I just love Halloween. Everything Halloween too, all the images, the paper, the embellishments, the bite size candy, playing dress up, it's all fun to me. The challenge this week on the Simply Betty Challenge blog is Anything Halloween. It was so much fun to pull out all of my Halloween stuff for this challenge. While I was on vacation last week I even picked out a few new things. I think I have as much, if not more Halloween images as I do Christmas images. For my challenge card today I used Witchy Wednesday and colored everything with Copics and a little bit of a glitter pen. The papers, borders and saying are all from a K & Company pack.

Thanks for dropping by today!

Get Organized Challenge

Ok, well if you know me, getting organized is always a challenge, but this is for an actual challenge, not a comment on anything else. I was fortunate enough to win a $10.00 shopping spree with Amber Ink from a recent Blog Hop. As soon as I saw this Hostess with the Mostess set, I had to have it. And when I saw the current Amber Ink challenge was to make something to Get Organized I knew I wanted to play along. We are saving money to redo our kitchen. I have in mind a retro, 50's style kitchen using the colors white, yellow and red. I am forever printing off new recipes, clipping recipes out of magazines and trading recipes with friends. I really needed something to organize all those pieces of paper. My organization idea was to make myself a recipe book. I have made tons of these for gifts, but this is the first one I have made for me and I decided to make it to match my new (some day) kitchen. 

I covered a composition book with red card stock and then added some yellow gingham paper. My hostess was colored with Copic markers and then cut out with my new Nestability set. I decided any 50's hostess would of course be wearing pearls as she served her friends so I pulled out my adhesive backed pearls to use as embellishments. To finish my book I added some red ric rak and added some die cut letters for my title. The alphabet is a Sizzix set called Wingo Dingo. Here is a close up of my image. 

Our anniversary was a couple of weeks ago and I showed you what I made for Kip in this post, but forgot to show what he made for me. When I first started talking about my dream kitchen and told Kip the colors I wanted he wasn't very enthused. I think he was thinking something along the line of a McDonalds, that wasn't really the look I was going for. After explaining that I want to keep the walls and everything mostly white and use red and yellow as accents he started to come around. Since the traditional gift for five years of marriage is wood, he decided to make something for me to hang in my kitchen. We had seen something similar one day and I told him I loved it and would hang it in the kitchen for aprons. I was very happy to get this one that he made and of course customized to my color preferences!

I was quite impressed since he came up with the idea, gathered all the different material and found those cute yellow drawer pulls to use as hooks. 

12 Days of Christmas Day 10

The Simply Betty 12 Days of Christmas is still happening! Our challenge for Day 10 was to use a Simply Betty image and turn them into carolers. When I think of carolers, I guess I think of Victorian era or something from Dickens. I used Darcy and Timothy from the Victorian beauties digi line. Don't these guys look like they could be out caroling?

I have been so busy for the past few days! I have been hard at work in the craft room, but don't have much to show yet. Most of what I am working on is either Christmas or for my husband for our anniversary. I will show you when I can, I don't want to give anyone a preview about their gift!

We did have a snow day on Monday so I was able to spend the day at home. I kept Jenna and Samantha and except for lunch, they crafted all day long. They made stamped and made cards, played with clay and play dough and painted some ornaments. All in all, a pretty great day. Thanks for visiting!

12 Days of Halloween--Day 8

It is Day 8 on the Simply Betty 12 Days of Christmas. And today the challenge was to use a SBS image as our version of "Sandy Claws". I cannot tell you how many times that I have seen The Nightmare Before Christmas. When my nephew Cole was younger this was his absolute favorite movie. Not too long ago, Kip surprised me with a Blu-ray copy and I just watched it again the other night. So this challenge was very fun for me to do!  I used Bahumbug Christian for my card. I thought this swirly paper would make the perfect background for my Sandy Claws. His beard was made with Liquid Applique and the fur on his suit was done with some white flocking. I thought he definately needed some skulls floating sound somewhere so I pulled out this skull border from K&Co.'s Halloween line. Finishing off the card is some silver accents in the corners. 

I have had a busy day today. I got caught up on some house cleaning (boring!) and then played in my craft room for a while (FUN!). I finished my Christmas shopping yesterday so I wrapped a few gifts. After that my friend dropped off her two daughters (8 & 11) so they could hang out over here for a while. We goofed off for a bit then I took them shopping for their mom's Christmas gift. This is a yearly tradition that I do with them every year and I enjoy it as much as they do, if not more. It is always interesting to see what they pick out. Sometimes they know what they want and sometimes we wander around stores for a very long time. Today wasn't too bad. One year for Mother's Day, Jenna decided to buy some flowers. I swear we were in Wal-Mart for hours! She inspected every single leaf on every plant before making her choice. We had so much fun shopping. Kip was meeting us for dinner and after we finished what we needed to do we had a little bit of time to kill so they talked me into going into Bath and Body Works. They had to smell every scent in the store before picking out what they wanted to buy. After a sushi dinner we took them back home and then Kip and I went and saw the new Narnia movie. It was pretty good, but now it's late and I am going to get in bed. Thanks for stopping by tonight!

Simply Betty's 7th Day of Christmas

It's Day 7 of the Christmas celebration over on the Simply Betty Challenge Blog. The challenge today goes along with the Christmas song "all I want for Christmas is YOU" and Betty says "all I want is my Emos". So we were to use an Emo image and the colors lime green, purple and turquoise.  I used Candy Cane London and of course colored her with my Copics. This is not a color combo that I would have thought of for a Christmas card, but the more I look at it, the more I like it! Papers are from Making Memories, the snowflakes are some buttons that I have had for a long time and the shapes behind the image were cut out using Nestabilities.

Steampunk Christmas

It's Day 6 of Simply Betty's 12 Days of Christmas challenges. Here is the challenge: "the children were all snug in their bed while visions of steampunks danced in their heads." I have to admit that if we hadn't been challenged to make a steampunk card, I would have still be just admiring these images too intimidated to try coloring them. Even after I printed it off, I still sat staring at this image for a while before starting to color it. After I got started though, it really was a lot of fun! My image is from the Steampunk Gang at Simply Betty Stamps and was colored with Copic markers. The paper is from a Hobby Lobby Christmas pack and the letters and buttons are from a Making Memories pack from a while back. You can't really see it, but the letters spelling out "JOY" were added using foam tape to give it some dimension. The gear is from a digi set from My Grafico. Even though these images intimidated me a little, I had fun with this one and will be getting the rest of the set!

Copics used: Hair Y11, Y21, YR14, YR23, E07

Skin: E000, E00, RV02

Shirt & Scarf: E40, E41, E43, E44, E47

Dress: R35, R37, R39, R59, R89. C7

Boots: E44, E47, E49

Simply Betty's Witches Christmas Day

Jingle spells, jingle spells, it's Witches Christmas Day!! Well it is over at Simply Betty's challenge blog. This is my card for Day 5 of the 12 Days of Christmas where we were supposed to deck out our favorite Simply Betty Stamps witch. I used Witch Betty from the Halloween line and colored her to look like she was going to a Christmas ball or something. Betty is colored with Copic markers and I added some spica markers on her socks and sleeves for a more festive look. I wanted the smoke out of the cauldron to look sparkly too so I painted it with some Extreme Glitter paint from Folk Art. I love that little sentiment circle asking "naughty or nice?". Papers are by Making Memories.

I have been painting quite a bit lately, but can't show you anything because they are all Christmas gifts. Normally a week or so before the holidays, I will keep my friend's two daughters for a full day of shopping for their mom's gift, drinking frozen hot chocolate (or a peppermint mocha) and then will spend the rest of the day crafting. That way their mom can finish wrapping and getting all of her last minute stuff done without her little helpers. They have been seeing all my paints sitting out so they have specifically requested a painting day. I went to Jo-Ann's and found some really cute plaster and wood ornaments to paint. The girls love all things that glitter so I had to stock up on some glittery paint for their ornaments. I found the Folk Art Extreme Glitter paint and I love that stuff! This was the first time I have used it on paper. But I will be buying more colors!

Oops, one more Halloween Card!

I forgot that I had one more Halloween project to share.  It's a little sad that it's all over now. I still haven't put away all the Halloween papers and embellies though. {{Sigh}}, maybe I will start that project later this afternoon. Anyway, this card was made for a challenge to use your favorite Halloween candy as the color inspiration. I chose York Peppermint Patties and got my colors of the bag of them I bought last week to pass out the the trick or treaters. Yes, that's right, I bought them for the kids, not myself! Maybe a ate a few. Or most of the bag, who is counting?? My card uses an image from Shirley's 2 Girls, an embossing folder from Spellbinders, papers from DCWV, photo turns and brads from Joann's and button flowers that I have had in my stash for a zillion years. I painted her wings with Twinkling H2O paints.

Here is what I am grateful for today.

12th Day of Halloween

It's the last day of the Halloween challenge over on the Simply Betty challenge blog. On the last day the challenge was to include a witch on our project. My Witch Betty is cooling up something fun it looks like! I used a Simply Betty image, paper from Cloud 9, Studio G Glitter and of course my Copic markers! I have one more Halloween project to share with you tomorrow then I guess I will put away my Halloween papers for a while. I had had so much fun this year. Tomorrow I will show you the treats I made for the girls to take to school and some pictures of my Halloween party. Not a huge party or anything, mostly family, but I had fun putting everything together. I was going to post a few pictures tonight, but Blogger wasn't loading my photos, it took forever just to get this one done. Thanks for stopping by!

Oh yeah, don't forget to vote on Tuesday!!