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!

BACK TO SCHOOL

Oh yes, it's that time of year again.  Of course, my kiddos are all grown up now - Michelle's been graduated from medical school over 2 years now, and Chris is a sophomore at Virginia Tech.  No little ones running around for chalkboards and pencils and rulers and such.  But I did happen to get a couple of pics of Chris moving back into his dorm on August 24th, so I decided to use one of those for my project for this week's Saturday Paper a la Mode Challenge over at The Outlawz.

Virginia Tech's colors are maroon and orange, so I went with that idea as I was building this scrapbook page.  It's been a while since I've done any scrapbook pages (I think this time last year was the last one I made), but I really need to get back into it and do something with the gazillion photos I have!

Love that young man!  Gotta make some time to get down to Blacksburg (a 4 hour drive) to see him, because I don't want to wait until his Thanksgiving break.

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

JUMP START

So glad you stopped by to visit!  This week I decided to get a jump start on some Halloween cards.  I had some sweet digis from A Day for Daisies all printed out in my box of pre-printed digis, and decided to use this cute little mummy guy - isn't he the cutest thing ever? - to make a card from one of my adorable little nephews.

I colored the image with my Prismacolor pencils for some subtle shading, then added some background shading with my Copics.  Found some sentiment stickers in my stash that were really cute (they are glittery, but you can't really see it in the photo) and added some buttons from my collection to finish it off.  I have 5 grand-nephews, and I like to send them a little something every once in awhile, so one of them is going to get this card.  Now I've just got to get busy and make 4 more, plus 3 for my little grand-nieces!

Thank you for stopping by, and have a wonderful blessed day!  Big hugs to you!

Inspired by Pinterest

Hi, and welcome!  This week I was spending some time looking around over at Pinterest, and I ran across a fabulous card by Nicole Heady, who is one of the Papertrey Ink design team ladies.  It was white stamped on kraft cardstock, then the white was outlined with a Copic marker.  Love, love, love!  If you want to see Nicole's card, here is the link:  Link to Nicole's card (you need to scroll down a bit to see it).

So I decided that would be my inspiration for our "Inspired by Pinterest" challenge at the Outlawz for this week's Saturday Paper a la Mode Challenge.  I love this challenge!  My daughter and I cook Pinterest recipes all the time, so I probably should have put a picture of something yummy here, but since it's a paper challenge, that wouldn't quite hit the mark.  In fact, I am making two different recipes tomorrow to take to a picnic that I got from Pinterest (maybe I'll take pictures and post them next weekend).

Anyway, I pulled out my trusty white inkpad (which is getting a bit dry because I rarely use it), a pretty flower stamp from Unity Stamp Company (I got it when it used to be the Ippity Stamps), and some of my large stash of kraft cardstock (I like to keep lots on hand, because kraft and black cardstock are my go to colors).  I also added some of my favorite mini alphabets for the sentiment, a pretty ribbon, and a few tiny jewels for flower centers on the 3 flowers I cut out and raised up with pop dots.

I like the way it turned out, and I plan to try this technique a lot more - maybe with some different colors to see what that looks like (will probably try a scrap first).  One note:  the Copic ink sinks into and spreads fast on the kraft cardstock because it's so porous, so just be aware.  It also didn't take a very dark color to do this, probably because the color sinks in and spreads so quickly - it would be different if it were on the typical smooth cardstock we use for Copic coloring.  I love the depth that the outlining adds!

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

Hop, Skip, Jump

Obviously I'm late and need to "hop" to it and get this project posted from last weekend!  As I always say, they don't call me a procrastinator for nothing!

I made this card using a digi I've had for several years from Daphne Hardy.  Daphne was making digis for a short while, and her stuff was just so cute and special, but alas, she left the scene and decided to do something different.  But nevertheless, I just adore this sweet bunny - I colored it with my Prisma pencils and then added some background shading and color with my Copics.  I'm still using older papers and things from my stash - not buying any new stuff until I pare down some of these pile of stuff I already have on hand!

Thanks so much for stopping by, and have a "hoppy" day!  Big hugs and blessings to you!

CHRISTMAS IN JULY

Yes, it's only 6 months away!  I love making Christmas cards and decorations and goodies (especially the yummy goodies), so Christmas in July is always a fun crafty theme time for me.  That's our theme this week over at The Outlawz for the Saturday Paper a la Mode challenge.  I love to make cards, but a lot of times I want to do something more 3-dimensional.  I decided to make some decorations.  I've made something similar to these before and used them for pumpkins and hearts - very versatile if you have the right shape of punch or die, or if you have a Cricut or other electronic cutter that can cut lots of the same shape.

I decided to make 2 different ones just so you can see the difference if you use more or fewer cutout pieces.  The one with the beads only uses 8 pieces, and the other one uses 16 for a much "fuller" shape.  After I put them together, the one with the 8 pieces looked so sparse that I started looking for a way to fill in some of the empty space.  I have a lot of beads in my stash so started "engineering" (I put that in quotes, because I'm not an engineer and my solutions are typically not so "elegant" as a real engineer might make) a solution for getting the beads onto the ornament.  What I ended up using is 8 strips of very thin wire (one for each "slot") to thread the beads onto - the wire is bent in half, with the "bend" at the bottom, one leg running up through the center of the ornament and one leg running up through the beads, then twisted together at the top, where the twisted end is wound into a little spiral shape (looks a bit like something from a Dr. Seuss show).  Hopefully that explanation makes sense.  I used a variety of beads and configurations for some variety, but obviously you could use whatever colors and shapes and arrangements that make you happy.

This second picture shows the beads a little more close up so you can see the details.

Hopefully you find time over the next 6 months to get all the cards, decorations, and goodies created that you want to - I tend to always run out of time, but maybe now that this challenge has given me a bit of inspiration, I will continue with my "preparations".

Thanks for stopping by!  Big hugs and showers of blessings!