GETTING READY FOR CHRISTMAS WITH RICK ST. DENNIS

Hi, and thanks so much for stopping by to visit. I am so excited! Our Saturday Paper a la Mode Challenge this week over at The Outlawz has a new sponsor - Rick St. Dennis! If you are not familiar with his digital stamp designs, you need to hop on over to our challenge and see what the Design Team has created, because we were lucky enough to be able to use his digis for our weekly projects. And if you like what you see, stop by his shop at Zibbet and see all of his designs - he has a bunch of them, and something for everybody's taste and style. For my projects, I chose the Holiday Cottage Scene digi - I just love nostalgic winter scenes like this one.

My first project is a framed piece to sit on my mantel.  I printed the digi onto sticky-back canvas, then colored it with Copics.  It was the first time I have tried Copics on canvas, and it's a bit tricky.  The colors come out much darker than I would normally expect, and there isn't much blending you can do.  You also have to be careful because the canvas can wick the color through its weave and you'll get bleeding outside the lines, so start out gently and see how each color works with the canvas.  I added some embellies, and even though you can't really see it in the photo, all the snow has Stickles added to give it some bling.

 

 The second project, which you can see leaned up against the frame in the other picture, is a couple of little ornaments/gift decorations that I made using shrink plastic. I first printed the digi onto the shrink plastic - since it shrinks to about 1/4 of its original size, I printed two copies of the digi onto one sheet of shrink plastic (it's letter size paper). Then I colored them with Copics, let them dry, and used my heat gun to shrink them. I also stamped some sentiment banners and shrunk those as well to add an extra element to the design. Then I made some little beaded decorations to add as well just for some bling.

 

I hope you like the projects I made using this fabulous Rick St. Dennis digi. Please stop by his store and check out his work - he is an amazingly talented artist, and we certainly appreciate his generosity as our weekly sponsor! Thanks again for stopping by! Big hugs and blessings to you!

SNOWMEN

Hello, and thanks so much for stopping by! This week's challenge over at The Outlawz Saturday Paper a la Mode is to make a project with at least one snowman (snowwoman?). I had this cute little digi in my files, and unfortunately I can't recall the name of the artist - so sorry about that. But I just thought it was precious, so I tried it out and put this cute little card together.

Last week I was making a Christmas card and could not find any red cardstock - seriously, who doesn't have red cardstock on hand??? But I found some this week that has a little snowflake-like shape embossed into it, but you probably can't see that really well here just because of the way I cut it and the other paper that's on top. I seriously need to order some red cardstock. I used to have a LLS that I could get all my cardstock from, but she shut down a year or so ago, so now I have to order it. Not that I mind - it's just making myself take the time to do it, and also keeping my spending in check at the same time. They probably have some at Michael's though now that I think about it, so perhaps I'll check there in the next few days. Always up for a trip to Michael's! Thanks again for stopping by to visit! Hugs and showers of blessings to you!

LATE POST AGAIN! ANYTHING GOES THIS WEEK

Well, here it is Wednesday already, and I should have posted this on Saturday.  But like I always say, I don't call myself the Procrastinating Scrapper for nothing!

Without further adieu, our Saturday Paper a la Mode challenge this week at The Outlawz is "anything goes".  I was bumbling around for an idea for something to make, and I ran across this sweet digi I colored last year but never made anything with.  The digi is from A Day for Daisies - always my favorite!

The papers and embellies are things I already had in my stash - still sticking with my "use my stash" theme for awhile, although I did discover that I am in dire need of some red cardstock, so I will be placing an order before too long for some necessities like that.

Thank you for stopping by!  Hugs and blessings!

IN THE CORNFIELD IS A SCARECROW

Greetings, and thanks for stopping by to visit!

Busy week for me, getting ready for a party at my house tomorrow (Saturday).  Going to be lots of fun, but so much to do.  In the meantime, I did get some crafting time in, and I made a cute little card with a scarecrow on it.

I got the scarecrow digi from an Etsy Shop, Baker Street Digital.  This scarecrow isn't your typical cutesy scarecrow.  It's not really creepy either - just a bit different.  I'm different, so why not have a scarecrow that's different?

I colored him a bit with some Copics, distressed around the edges with some Distress Inks, and added a bit of Stickles to his scarf.  The other additions - the swirls and banner and buttons and background papers are all old stuff I've had in my stash for ages.  I've been on a mission to use up what I already have, which will probably take forever, instead of buying new things.  It's been quite a few months since I've purchased any new crafting goodies (other than a few beading things), so I am doing good on my "use what you've got" resolution.

Thanks again for stopping by!  Big hugs to you, and showers of blessings!

"T" IS FOR TURQUOISE

Hi, and thanks for stopping by!  It's Autumn, my favorite time of year, which always gets me in the mood for making Christmas cards and decorations.  So this week I made a pretty Christmas card in an unusual (or at least not traditionally associated with the Holidays) color, turquoise.

Our challenge this week over at The Outlawz is to make a project, with the predominant color starting with the first letter of our first name.  I actually had to give this one some thought - what color starts with the letter "T"?  I kept thinking teal, but was pretty sure I didn't have a lot of supplies in that color, but then the light finally came on - turquoise!

So I found these papers I had in my stash from MME and this fabulously beautiful trim that I had been saving the last piece of, and decided on this card.  I added a bit of Stickles (diamond color) for a touch of bling, and some buttons.  Easy to make and relatively simple for me, but I love the colors - I guess I'll have to do more Holiday projects using turquoise!

Thanks for stopping by to visit, and I hope you have a wonderfully blessed day!  Big hugs!

CAROUSELS

Well, I'm late this week as usual - I should have had this posted on Saturday, but now it's Monday and just getting to it.

This week I made a birthday card using a carousel horse digi that I got from Little Scrap of Heaven Designs - there are a lot of nice freebies on that site.  I was googling looking for a carousel design, and found this one for free - can't get any better than that!

I colored it using my Prismacolor pencils.  Sometimes I just have a hard time using my Copics for some reason - I find using Prismacolors is much less stressful, there's no need to rush to get the colors blended, and there's just a lot more freedom when using the pencils as opposed to markers.  I use odorless mineral spirits with one of those paper stumps for blending purposes.  Speaking of OMS, I am about out - I have had this same bottle for several years now, so I need to pick up some more.  I'll just refill the bottle I have though, because it has this nice top that allows you to get your paper stump damp with a little sponge type thingy (I should probably put a picture on here so you can see what I mean).

I tend to go with a "less is more" look when I color with pencils.  I picked that up somewhere along the line from someone else in the crafty world, but unfortunately I can't recall her name at the moment - I want to say her first name is Darcy.  I like the soft feel of coloring around the edges and leaving a lot of highlight space.

Thank you for stopping by to check out my carousel horse.  Hopefully you'll find time to leave me some love in the comments section.

Have a wonderfully blessed day!  Big hugs!

A MOM AND HER SOLDIER

Okay, more scrapbooking this week.  I can't remember the last time I made two scrapbook pages in a row - probably not in years.  But this week's challenge theme over at The Outlawz Saturday Paper a la Mode is MONOCHROMATIC.  I actually chose that theme, because I tend to go monochromatic a lot anyway.

I had this photo of me and my son at his recent Basic Training graduation at Fort Benning, Georgia - this was 2 days before he had to be back to college for the fall semester.  He's enlisted in the National Guard while he's going through Army ROTC at college.  Anyway, I love this picture of Chris, so decided to use it for my challenge project.

It didn't turn out strictly monochromatic, since I used a bit of blue border for the photo to match the blue on his beret, and the background paper has a hint of blue in it, but I like it a lot.  I have quite a few scrapbook frames that I've purchased from Target over the years, and I put some of my scrapbook pages in them for display.  Since I've been doing some new pages lately, I've decided it's time to replace some of the older layouts with some of the newer ones - this is definitely one I will put on display.

I chose the title "Like Mother Like Son" because I was also an Army officer.  So proud of my boy!

Thank you for stopping by!  Big hugs and showers of blessings to you!