Happy Birthday, Leap year!

Hello and happy birthday to all the leapsters today!  How many people do you know that were born on leap year? One of my childhood friends birthday is today.. She used to get angry when her brother would say "you really do act your age like a 2 year old!"  She would cry  "I am not 2,  I'm 8." Now since we are quite a few years older she gets smirky and sings  "I'm still a teenager,  na na nana  na nah!" LOL I love her anyway!

I would like to share with you today a super cutie!  I founds this adorable stamp set at my local scrapbook store made by Stampendous.  I love the them for they stamp very clean and sharp! The sentiment in the set was "Scooting by to say hi" and I cut off the "hi". Even though it is cut off from the phrase you could still use it by lining the edges up on your acrylic stamping block.

I was commissioned to make a birthday card for a lady who turned 84 years young today! Since her birthday is February 29,   She has had 21 actual birthdays!! Most of my card idea is from casing a card at my local stamp store: Photo Scraps in Eldersburg, MD

The sky was sponge with Memento Ink, sky blue.

The gate is a Memory Box Die Cut:  Wrought Iron Gate

Memory Box Die: Fresh cut grass

Copics. Scooter: YR24, YR23, Y15, Y11, Y00, Tires C5, C3, C1

Diamond Glaze is a dimensional adhesive that dries to a clear glass-like finish,. 

I added it to the metal sections  of the bike

Inside 

The froggies are from my stash, but pretty sure I bought them at Michael's. Aren't they adorable!  The Calendar is one found online and my sentiment is computer generated.  Papers from Stash.

TIP OF THE DAY:  Diamond glaze is water based.  I am able to dilute the glaze with water and add glitter or Stickles to it and apply it with a paint brush. You end up with a very shiny, glittery hard surface. 


Thanks for joining me today and Happy Birthday Leapsers!!


Challenges: 

• Fab and Funky: Leap
• Friendship Garden:  opps, I entered this one by mistake. Your not suppose to have any stamp images. Sorry:( colors blue, pink, green, orange with a twist: Birthday Ok my pink looks  red! is it?
• Gingersnap Creations: Leap
• Paper Craft Star   Photo and Save the frogs!
• Penny's Paper Challenge: anything goes
• Simon says Stamp: Anything goes
• The Perfect Sentiment: Sentiment and die cut. 

Happy Mailing - Bells and Whistles

Happy Monday everyone! Since it is 1 AM here I'm going to keep this short and sweet!

Today is the Greeting Challenge at The Outlawz and the theme is Pearls and Lace.  My card is created  using the  adorable Bells and Whistles, Happy Mailing image by Elisabeth Bell!   I had the great pleasure of meeting Tab,  owner of 7 Kids College Fund,  at her store in Phoenix a few months back!  Oh my gosh, talking about drooling!   She had all the Bell's and Whistles images and I wanted them ALL!  Good thing hubby was with me to keep my sanity in place!   I love "Happy Mailing" for it can be used for so many different occasions; birthdays, Easter, Thinking of you, really just about anything! I love the sizes of them too for they are just below 3 inches and perfect for any size card!

Paper: Memory Box: Viola which is the first paper pad in a long time to come out with pretty purples!
Die cuts: Memory Box  Tilth Floral and I purchased it at my Local Scrpabooking Store, Photo Scraps, Eldersburg, MD.  Rusty @ Oozak.com will soon be getting Memory Box dies in stock!! Yah! This is the Tilth Floral.

Four cuts: 2 purple and 2 green. I stacked the green on top of the purple and was really pleased with the look! Pearls were added to each corner. 

My lace and ribbon are from my stash, but I do know I purchased it on Ebay! The happy Birthday sentiment is a Basic Gray Rub On in white. I love Rub-ons! Flower Soft applied to the flowers and and grass. Sky done was created sponging Summer Sky, Memento Ink.. I sewed around the edges with my sewing machine. Copics for coloring.: Outfit V95, V93, V91, skin E11, E00, E000, pants: E43, E42, E41, Mailbox: C05, C03, C01, C00 and  colorless blender.

Challenges:

• Outlawz: Greet Challenge: pearls and lace 
• Craft Bloggers Network: Spring Time
• Creative Mondays: Anything goes. 
• Love to Create Challenge : Add stitching / real or faux
• Kaboodle Doodle: Shades of purple

Coloring with Memento inks

Hello everyone!  I am going to keep this short for I have too much information to share!  First of all I apologize for not being very good with blog hopping the past few weeks. I have really been busy organizing The Outlawz Rodeo taking place in Baltimore  May 18-20. If you are not familiar with The Outlawz it is a challenge site I created January 3, 2011. I invited 11 amazing women to join me and we started seven different types of paper craft challenges, obtained  monthly sponsors for prizes and have grown from 12 members to currently 1543 members.   The DT consists of 38 super, fantastic amazing women who's name are on my right side board. They have the  biggest hearts and amazing talent and  I love each and every one of them for they really are my sistah's!

Tomorrow I am driving to Glen Allan, VA for the Copic Intermediate certification class. Even though I have learned everything I know about Copics from Suzanne Dean and Colleen Schaan  I need the certification to obtain a position teaching Copics at my local community college and Scrap booking stores:)

Do you know what TTCRD stands for? It's abbreviations stand for "Through The Craft Room Door'" an online digital crafting magazine started by the talented Suzanne Dean and Marti Wills. This week the TTCRD challenge is CAS with a sentiment.  The random winner will win a $20.00 Gift Certificate to SCACD where you can purchase many of your crafting needs.

My birthday card was created using "Pine and Lake Silhouette" by  Northwood Rubber Stamps. I love Northwood stamps esp. the ones with scenery. I sponge ink my colors using Memento Inks. First I sponged Cantaloupe on the left hand side just right behind the tree line and made sure everything I did on top, I also did on the bottom to make it look like an identical reflection in the water. Around the Cantaloupe I sponged Angel Pink. Lulu next  spreading it over the rest of the image and added a little bit of Grape Jelly on the edges.  I love sponge coloring! It took me five minutes! I originally did it on Cryogen paper and hated it. The beautiful sparkles in the paper are awesome for copic coloring but not sponging.  The A2 size card was embossed with Cuttlebug embossing folder and sorry it doesn't have a name on it.

The Baltimore Rodeo Retreat details are all on 

The Outlawz Website!

Lots of fun and classes

Suzanne Dean,  Copic Coloring  

 Marti Wills, coloring with colored pencils and mixed media. 

Bell's and Whistles GD

Happy Monday everyone!! Burrrr winter has arrived here in Maryland and temperatures sure have dropped. We are at 28 degrees as I write this. Too dang cold for me to be out there! My hubby called me Friday from work and said "How would you like to go to one of the Islands the first of April?"  and my response was "do we have to wait so long!?!" Silly question, he knows I will go anytime!

I had an exciting email a few weeks ago asking me to be a Guess Designer on Bell's and Whistle's. I couldn't say yes fast enough and what a huge honor this is!  I was chosen for top 3 Designers. What an honor!!  I love Elizabeth Bell images!   This month's challenge at Bell's and Whistles is "Hearts" and I knew immediately which stamp I would be using and it is  Blowing Kisses.   She was designed  for SCACD and you can find her here.  She is blowing you heart kisses with lots of love! I wanted to create something a little different and found this video on  Splitcoaststampers by Beate to create a Heart candy box with easy to follow directions. I love the way it turned out!

Paper: Bo Bunny/Crush Collection
Memory Box Die: La Rue Heart
SpellBinders  Classic Heart and Scallop Classic Heart on sale here for 19.49!
Flowers: Prima
Copics: Face: E21, E00, E11 and R20. Hair: E35, E53, E51, E50. Dress: RV23, RV21 and RV00. Socks: YG23 and YG21.

 LOL! I am on a diet and had no candy to fill the box to make it pretty!! Lace holds the top and bottom piece together when open.

Lace was adhere to the sides in two strips.

Hope you like it!! Very easy to make following Beate Directions and Video.



TIP OF THE DAY: Store your not so juicy ink pads upside down to let the ink sink to the top of the pads.

Challenges:

• The Outlawz Copic/Promarker: Love is in the air
• Addicted to Stamps:  Must use Stamp, Valentine love
• Catered Crop : Hearts 
• Dream Valley Challenges Valentine 
• Let's Ink It Up:  No digi's Ribbon or Lace 
• Scrappy Frogs:  Die Cuts
  
• That Craft Place: Love is all around
• Crafty Bloggers Network: Love is in the air
• Crafty Boots Challenge: Valentines
• Kreative Stempelfreunde: Valentine
• Hooked on Crafts:  Hearts
• Lollipop Crafts - With Love (NON CARD creations) 
• Make it Monday - always Anything Goes 
• Make My Monday  - ROMANCE - Hearts and Flowers
• The Crazy Challenge - 2E - Valentines day

Round up your friends 

Come meet some of The Outlawz Design Team members and your online friends.

Happy Tuesday!

Happy Tuesday everyone and hoping you doing well. I have been really working hard for our Baltimore gathering, May 18, 19, and 20, which is open to everyone. Suzanne Dean and Marti Wills will be teaching Copic Coloring, Prisma Coloring and Mix media.  More details will be availabe in a few days which you will be able to see on The Outlawz website. I am so excited and cannot wait to meet people face to face!!

Today's card,  I used a Sugar Nellie Digi Stamp, Victoria. I  saw her on my friend, Kevin blog and had to have her immediately! I love, love her face and her sweet expression.The photo makes her face look red and it's not!   Anyhow, she was made for a very sweet friend of mine, Anary who is the creator of Gilli stamps and a super person with a very large heart! On Saturday, Anary's significant other arrange a surprise birthday luncheon and four of us, from the Outlawz Design Team were a part of it! We had an awesome time and she was soooo surprised!

Copics: Lavender V25, V22, V20, V00. Hair: E55, E53, E51, E50. Yellow: Y15, Y11. 

Cherry Lynn butterfly. 

Spellbinder: Lacy circle: They are having a sell right now!

Flowers and paper: stash. 

TIP OF THE DAY:  Adding glitter to a project. Glitter as you know sticks to everything! To keep your glitter on your project, spray it with hair spray. It does not loose it's sheen and the glitter does not come off! 

The Outlawz Challenges

The Outlawz is an online challenge site with 7 different challenges. The challenges run for one week and so we have a new challenge every day along with a free digi challenge.

We have site wide prizes and many times, prizes within the challenges. Oozak.com is one of our monthly sponsors. Rusty who owns the company gifts a $50.00 gift certificate each month to one lucky random drawing.  Come on and play for we would love to have you!

TIP OF THE DAY: Cleaning your rubber and acrylic stamps is easy with baby wipes.  The cheapest brand works just as well as the fancy name brands. They clean the rubber/acrylic stamps completely and when your done, throw it away! 

Challenges entered:

• Smudgy Antics: Anything goes
• 
  

TTCRD Challenge: Valentine's for a Male, NO PINK

Hello crafty friends! Where did January go? LOL It disappeared on me when I blinked! If the rest of the year goes this fast it's going to be Christmas again! Our weather today is 60 degrees and in case you forgot I live in Maryland. This time last year we had snow up to our noses, but I am not complaining! Hope you stay warm and dry where ever you are! Sharon, hoping you will have cooler days in SA!

Who has been watching the new products at CHA this week? My bank account is going broke for sure! Lots of awesome, must have toys this year for us to play with!  There is even a new embossing machine! So stay tune to your favorite stores to see what's coming!

Today is another fun challenge day at TTCRD ! We are being sponsor by Dude Time Doodles who supplied us Archie Heartful,  who is one  handsome dude! So come on and play with us! Dude Time Doodles is offering a $10.00 GC,  and Althea, from Ippidy an $18.00 shopping spree!! Lots of shopping for the lucky winners!!

Paper: Jillibean Soup/ Dutch Mustard. I only  found one store with some left here.
Conversational Heart Brads: Stash
Sewing on edges by machine
Nestability Classic Heart
Copics: Skin:E11, E00,E000. Hair: YR09, YR07, YR04. Shirt: YR65, YR13, YR04, R24, R22. Pants. YG23 and YG21.
Flowers: flower soft
Cuddlebug heart embossing folder.

TIP OF THE DAY: When your buying your craft supplies and you have a specific item you know you want.  Do a Google search. You will sometimes find large differences in prices between stores.   I always check E-bay before I purchase anything online, but make sure you check out the cost of shipping. What you might save in price you could be making up in shipping cost.  But, I have found lots and lots of bargains on E-bay including Nestabilities for as low as $10.00! 


Challenges: 

• Cooking it up with Katie: Hearts, embossing, punch
• Creative Belle Blog: Hearts and Valentine