Thursday, December 31, 2009

Mo's Digital Pencil Challenge--New Beginnings!

It is hard to believe that this will be the last Mo's Digital Pencil Challenge this year!!!  I may be stretching it a little but I think that this young man playing a video game kind of symbolized the Challenge. a new year can bring challenges and success!  Hope you like my card, I tried to keep it masculine!



Mo's Digital Pencil Challenge is so much fun, you should join in the fun.  Link your card in Mr. Linky and you may win a Mo's Digital Pencil image.

Short post tonight, I have had company for a week and we still have tons of snow and now it is super cold.  I was able to get my craft area reclaimed last night but have tons of stuffs to do.  See you tomorrow night.  I am so looking forward to a 3 day week-end.

Have a great day. 

Cathy

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

5minute gift card holder

I got an email tonight from StampTV and it was for a video tutorial on a gift card holder so I decided to take a look.  I need about 5 gift card holders and now that we are getting sleet and are expecting the snowstorm from .....heaven :) I decided to try it.   Here is what I came up with from watching the video...Thanks GinaK.



Aren't these cute.  The one at the bottom was made using the video instructions but I decided that I wanted to make quick ones without having to take all the time to cut the contrasting paper pieces (lazy aren't I).
I decided that I would use double sided paper, which of course I way over bought this year, not that  I don't overbuy every year, but that is a whole new issue LOL, 
The measurements of the base is 4 1/4 X 10 inches.  Score at 8, 5,4,3 to make your flap and card holder, fold, glue the card holder to the inside, cut the very edge off of the card holder top and tie a pretty coordinating ribbon around it and you are done.
I made all five of these in a half hour with 20 minutes going to the more detailed one.
These can be made for Birthday, Anniversaries, Graduation, Valentines gift card or anything you want to give a gift card for.
Let me know if you want additional pictures.  You can watch the video on how to make this card and all the measurements for the paper insets.
See you all later.
Cathy

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

What do you think ...a Valentines Card?

Hi guys,

I colored this image last night using Young Love from Mo's Digital Pencil.  Isn't it sweet?



Don't they look cute?  I couldn't wait to get this image and then I couldn't wait to color it and you know I couldn't wait to show it to you.
I still can't decide if i want to make an anniversary card or a Valentines card with this double pair of love birds.  Any suggestions are welcome!
Just a quick post.

I am really depressed as Omaha is going to get slammed with another huge ice/snow storm and I won't be having my big Christmas Family gathering as planned.  It was going to be the first time in a couple of years that all of my kids and grandkids were going to all be here and I have been planning it for months.

We are getting freezing drizzle right now so don't even know if I can get to work tomorrow morning.
Enough whining.

Looks like I will be coloring and making cards instead of celebrating, at least I have something theraputic to do :)

Cathy

Monday, December 21, 2009

Riley and Company Christmas Card

Riley and Sophie have a new home in Kansas at StampersInk and Riley wants to wish all of you Riley fans a Merry Chris Moose.  Riley and Sophie can be found at Riley and Company here.



This is a Riley image that I have had for a while but it has always been a winter favorite so I had to pull it out for this card.  Riley put on his most festive Christmas ski hat with red and silver glitter and glided across Moose Country Sky slopes to wish you all a Merry Christmas.

I know that Tanya of Riley and Company has some exciting things in store for Riley and Sophie Moose after the holidays and I am so excited to be a part of it. 

Merry Christmas to all or Merry Chris Moose to all LOL   :)

Cathy

Merry Christmas to Everyone!!!

Sophie from Mo's Digital Pencil would like to wish all of my friends and cyber family a Very Merry Christmas.  She dressed up in her cutest little Christmas Dress and her dolly is in her bestest green Christmassy dress as well.


Hope you have a wonderful Holiday and that you get everything you want and if not that you got enough gift certificates to cover them :) 

I will be back tomorrow with a quick post to show you a cute Riley and Company Christmas Card.

Have a great day!

Cathy

Friday, December 18, 2009

What is Black and White with a touch of Red?

Answer:  The colors I chose for this wonderful digital image from Sassy Studio Design.


This was a lot of fun to color.  I sometimes struggle with red bleeding outside the lines but I actually did pretty good on this one. 
This sweet little sexy thing would be perfect for a friend card, Anniversary, Birthday, Thinking of you, just about anything

I added some of my new favorite embellishments, punched and molded flowers,  in Red, Black and white.  A few MS punches ferny leaves and pearls add a variety of textures to this "Hi" card.
The sentiment is a punched label with a white piece on top at an angle and sponged with Black soot, Tim Holtz, distress ink used for sponging on sentiment and main image.

I am going to guarantee you that unless the housekeeping elves show up at my house, I will not be posting for a couple of days.  I have lots to do to get ready for Christmas at my house next week-end.  Weather permitting all of my children and grandchildren will be here, I don't really remember the last time that everyone got to be here at the same time and I still have to finish my Christmas shopping EEKKKKK.

Hope you liked my card and if you are busy with Christmas preparations as well, relax and enjoy it as much as you can,  see you again soon!

Cathy

Thursday, December 17, 2009

I'm the Guest Designer for Digital Delights this week!

A couple of weeks ago I played in the Delightful Sketches Challenge as Riley and Company was the sponsor that week.  As a DT member I try to support all the challenges I can.  Well,  I guess I read it, but didn't pay that much attention, that the DT members choose one of the participants to be the next Guest Design Team member over at Digital Delights.  Much to my surprise I received an email from Wendy last week saying that I had been chosen for this week.  Yippeee,  how exciting.  I got to choose 3 images from the store and below are the images that I chose.  They were so much fun to color:


Eskimo Kisses dp and MS punches made this a super easy card and Pippin was so much fun to color.


Nesbitt has a furry chest and the scalloped arch was created using a spellbinder scalloped circle die.  Some plaid dp, red checked bow, hearts left from MS heart border punch and I think this is my favorite :)


Bonny is all dressed up for a Holiday party.  I love to color words using the copic gradiant technique which gradually blends the colors together. 

All were colored with copic markers and I had a ball adding buttons, bows and punched borders to the cards.

You should check out the challenge as there are really cool sponsors.  As I mentioned earlier Riley and Company is the sponsor often and this week the sponsor is My Favorite Things.  There are great prizes for the winners chosen at random and who knows the Design Team members may like your card and choose YOU to be the next Guest Designer. 

Thanks for stopping by,  Have a great coloring day!!!

Cathy

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

All White Mo's Digital Challenge Card

Making an all white card is harder than you think.  The Challenge this week at Mo's Digital Pencil Challenge Blog is to make an all white card.  The main image could be colored but everything else is to be white.  This card took me 3 days to complete but I did it, and I like it!!!  What do you think?


The image is a brand new Mo's Digital Pencil image called Flossie and her Doll.  The image was colored with copic markers and I tried to keep it soft.  I added white dots all over the nightgown for added detail.  I really like the way that it turned out.  Now the hard part!!
The cuttlebug dotted swiss embossing folder was perfect to add a little elegance.  The edges were punched with the MS fancy scalloped border punch.  The Thanks is also a Cuttlebug die cut from an alphabet set. 
I thought that a couple of swirley scrolls would be pretty and tie in the embellishments.  The scrolls are a Quikutz die cut. 
A band of pearl centered ribbon on the left side adds a little something to that side of the card, and half pearls were added to the border scallops.  Pearlized buttons threaded with narrow sheer ribbon and tied in a single knot for the bottom and my favorite Lisa Cook flowers for the upper right corner.  The flower centers are also white pearls.  Finally a few sprigs of MS punches leaves and this pretty Thanks card is ready for that special someone.
Hope you enjoy the challenge this week and we hope that if you have a little time to play during the Christmas Holiday that you play along.   The Design Team and challenge blog will be taking a week off so that everyone can spend all their time and energy on their family.
Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Cathy

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Freebie from Mo's Digital Pencil--700 Members on PCP

Mo's Digital Pencil following on Paper Craft Planet just keeps growing :)  This week the followers of Mo's group on PCP reached 700 members,  Amazing.  Because the membership hasn't grown quite as quickly from 600 to 700 Mo gave us a freebie at 650 and Friday we reached 700 and Mo created this wonderful New Year's freebie featuring Bella and Bronte! Don't get me wrong it was only a couple of weeks since our last freebie for reaching 650 and Mo loves to "give" us images frequently.



Isn't this a cute image of Bella and Bronte as babies?!?  Because the image was babies I didn't want to use black and silver as I probably would use for a New Year's card.  The image is colored with copics and the red and silver are Copic Atyou glitter pens (love those guys) to add the sparkle associated with New Year's celebrations.
The red sparkle brads are from the Target dollar bin and I created corner mounts using the MS corner/border punch and trimmed to form the corner.
The Peace sticker was included in the Basic Grey Eskimo Kisses paper pack that I purchased and thought it worked for a New Years card. 
The Peace tag base was created by cutting a rectangle and punching the border punch (that matches the corners)  on the ends.  After the sticker was put on I paper pierced around the sticker to add a little detail.
Hope you are all staying warm.  We have finally shoveled out as much as possible from the huge blizzard we had this week.  The snow plows just got to our neighborhood yesterday and there is so much snow piled on the street corners that you can hardly see to pull out from a stop sign.  Oh well,  the joys of living in the midwest in the winter.

Hope you are all having a great day.  I need to finish putting up my Christmas decorations, maybe that will help with my Christmas Spirit.

Catch you tomorrow.
Cathy

Friday, December 11, 2009

Happy Christmas-Snowy Woods

I wanted to use the beautiful vintage sled from the Artistic Outpost Snowy Woods stamp set.


Snowy Woods is a wonderful stamp set with so many stamps and sentiments that you could make all of your Christmas Cards and have a great variety of cards when you got done.
I wanted to use this beautiful vintage sled with Christmas cargo.  The wreath, package and calendar page are all included in the set. 
the stamped image was colored with copic markers keeping the shading and brightness of the colors to a minimum as I wanted a little bit of a vintage feel. I wanted to make a pretty tag for the sentiment so I created the tag above with a MS corner punch.  A SU ribbon punch was then used to punch the slots for the ribbon to run through and tie, creating a nice bow and tieing the tag  pieces together.
The dp is Basic Grey  Eskimo Kisses  rooftop which I chose because of the cute little village scene.
The red check ribbon looks pretty traditional with the sentiment and sled.
The sparkle on the card is MS glitter which I glued on to look like sled runner tracks and snow drifts.  You can't really see the glitter very well unless you double click on the picture.  The snowflakes are punched with a MS snowflake punch and covered with MS glitter.
Thanks for stopping by and I'll see you tomorrow.

Cathy

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Yippee--Thanks so Much! Challenge Card

Thursday is Mo's Digital Challenge Blog day and this week we are to make a Thank you card.  I just think that Bella and Bronte on this Yippee image from Mo's Digital Pencil are just the cutest happiest pair and say many happy greetings.  Today they are saying Thank you!!!



This might have turned out a little too spring like colors with the dp and all but I really liked the way the dp looked with the image that I colored. 
Bella and Bronte are colored with copic markers and Look Ma, no sponging!!!LOL are you surprised?
The white border layered with the green polka dot is scalloped with the straight border punch from Martha Stewart.  The green ribbon with tiny yellow flowers is from my stash. 
The sentiment scalloped circle was made with two different circle punches and the SU scalloped circle punch.
The tutu has Sukara StarDust glitter pen along the ruffled edges. The main image panel needed a little something so I added a faux pierced border edging with my cutterbee single row BUG.

Thank you for stopping by and be sure to check out the rest of the DT blogs for lots more wonderful images from Mo's Digital Pencil. 

I got a really fun email tonight.  I participated in the Delightful Sketches Challenge two weeks ago mainly because Riley and Company was the sponsor and I got an email tonight from Wendy saying the DT had chosen me to the next Guest Designer.  Isn't that cool.  The sponsor this week is My Favorite Things so may just have to play again :)

I have to go out of town for a Memorial Service for my Uncle John who passed away last week.  I probably won't post anything new until Sunday night, depending on what time I get home.  Not a happy occassion but it will be nice to spend the week-end with my sister and see some Cousins and Aunts and Uncles that I  don't see often enough.

Update-- in case you wondered.  Omaha got between 12 and 15 inches of snow yesterday.  You know you live in the midwest when you get that much snow and you are only an hour late for work :)  Those snow crews are too darn effecient!!!

See you soon.

Cathy

Monday, December 7, 2009

My first MFT stamp, Pure Innocence, came today!!!

You all know how much I love to color, and when I saw this line of darling little girls I had to have one, which we all know will lead to all of them LOL. Oh well, I could be addicted to worse things than stamps. Here is my first My Favorite Things (MFT) stamp creation, called Pure Innocence Heart Stripes:


I added some of my favorite elements to this precious little girl.  The image is colored with copic markers and sponged with Blue Bayou SU ink .  The ribbon was added to the right side to create an anchor for the tag which has a wonderful sentiment that is one of three included with the stamp. 
The flowers dp is HL Simply Delightful and I just love the way it adds interest without detracting from the main image.  The flowers are hand made using the MS flowers punch.  I love that I can make them from the same or contrasting DP and they always match.  A tiny glass bead is added to the center of each flower and my simply darling Pure Innocent girl is done!!!

In Omaha we are getting a huge snow storm starting tonight and continuing until Wednesday.  We are under a Blizzard Warning and they are predicting up to 10 inches of snow and winds 30-40 MPH,  Lots of time to color is a good thing, that much snow, not so much!! LOL

Thanks for stopping by.   Hope you are warm and dry wherever you are!!!

Cathy

Terrible Two's-Deal With It!!! LOL

Mo's Digital Pencil owner and illustrator, Mo, created the cutest little group of Terrible Two's you ever saw!!!
I couldn't wait to play with them but really wanted to use all 4 on one project.  It was harder than it sounded.  I tried to create a merged image with all 4 but for some reason PhotoShop was not cooperating.  I know it was me but I finally gave up GRRRRR. Here is what I came up with:


The images were colored with copic markers and mounted using quikutz labels cut in half so that I had a top and a bottom label to match the clothing colors of the little "Angels" 
Two is such a hard age.  They aren't babies but they aren't "big" yet and it can be so frustrating for them and those who have to "deal" with them.
I thought the coordinating ribbons and assorted buttons might be a cute addition to the scattering of temperments displayed in this lineup.
Hope you enjoy this and laugh because you are "enjoying" this stage now or remembering when your little ones were testing the waters.

We are having a little snow tonight so perfect night for coloring and we are supposed to get a huge snow starting tomorrow and going into Tuesday ending up with projected 10 to 15 inches of snow.  Now that's just too much at one time !!!  I am prepared to be homebound for a day or two.  I don't make enough to take the chance of wrecking my car LOL

Have a great day.  See you tomorrow with something fun.

Cathy

Saturday, December 5, 2009

A Christmas Tree? Lumberjack Riley

I wanted to use some of my Riley Stamps that I got from Kristi before she sold the Riley and Sophie stamps to StampersInk.  You can't really have a lumberjack Riley without a bunch of trees, can you?  Here is what I came up with:


I used two different tree stamps to get the evergreen style tree look I wanted and then colored the trees and Riley with copic markers.  I really think that Riley should have on a red plaid flannel shirt and jeans but I didn't take the time to draw them in, maybe next time.  I have been known to dress Riley when he didn't come with clothes

I used some of my Eskimo Kisses dp that I didn't think detracted from the main image :).  The main image has been mounted on green and then red cardstock, which is also the same layering for the card base.

I was going to add a sentiment something to the effect of "Oh, Christmas Tree" but I decided to leave it blank for now.
The poinsetta flower was cream colored and I sponged the edge with red ink and added a red satin bow under the main image.
If you haven't stopped by the new home of Riley and Sophie, Riley and Company, be sure to do so, you can just click on the Riley in my sidebar to go to the new site :) There a several Riley stamps that were not available while Riley was under Hanna Stamps as they were going to be released the month or two after Kristi made the decision to sell.

I know that this stamp is not new, but it is new to me and I wanted to play, so I did  LOL.

See you all tomorrow.  I am sure that I will have an Artistic Outpost card and a Terrible Two image from Mo's Digital Pencil.

Happy Coloring

Cathy


Friday, December 4, 2009

Love Bytes!!! MFT Robot

Isn't this a cute pair of Robots that were released on Wednesday night after the My Favorite Things Release Party.  I am always looking for images that are great for boys of about 4 to 10, not that girls don't like robot images too but it is usually thought of as more of a boy thing.  Here is Love Bytes:


I attended my first ever My Favorite Things Release Party Wednesday night and really wanted to buy a couple of images or stamps so that I could play in the challenges as I have 3 friends, Cindy, Frances and Megan,  who are on the DT and KelliJo who was a DT member this month.
I did buy a Pure Innocense Heart Stripes which is a stamp, two digital robot stamps and the chocolate and pink digi paper.
I used the hearts and x's on white for the dp as I wanted it to look like a circuit board and I added red glitter dots along the circuit path :)
The sentiment is computer generated and the hearts are left over from the MS heart border punch, don't like to waste anything and I do occassionally need a little heart LOL.
I am so ready for the week-end.  I hope to get my Christmas Tree up and decorated tomorrow or at least by Sunday.  It is cold here and possibly snow by Tuesday ugh!!
Hope you like my silly robot card, it was fun and great for a quick card.

I think that I will do a Riley card for tomorrow but we will see what my mood is tomorrow.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great week-end.

Cathy

Thursday, December 3, 2009

For all your unforgettable Sticky Christmas's Barbara H.!!

It's Thursday and that means a new Mo's Digital Pencil Challenge.  This week our challenge is to make a Christmas card, using traditional Christmas colors, for someone Special.  First my card, wonder why Mo named this image Sticky?  LOL


The Special person that I created this card for is someone that I have actually never met, she is a very special person named Barbara Hardeman.  Barbara currently has 3 foster children that she is caring for while their parents are deployed overseas.  They are a set of twins and their older brother.  I think the babies are a year and the older brother is 3.
I read somewhere on PCP that she has fostered 45 children. This is just incredible to me and I am in awe of her and know how lucky these little children have been to get to spend the time while their parents are away with Barbara.
So Barbara, for all the little stickies you have enjoyed, loved, and remember... this sticky is for you!!!

Can't wait for you to see the rest of the DT's special Christmas cards and take a few minutes to make a Christmas Card for someone special and share it with us, we'd love to see it!!!

Happy Stamping, see you tomorrow night.

Cathy

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

A second MFT card for Guest Designer Challenge

Just a quick post because it is very late but I wanted to share this cute Onsie card I created to use the Gardner Flopsey digital image for the MFT Guest Designer Challenge for December.  I created the template for the onsie a couple of years ago when I couldn't get any of the onsie templates offered to print out right on my printer( it was probably me but we'll go with the printer K).  What do you think?


I used Photo Shop to layer the onsie and Flopsey into one image which I printed out on lt. kraft cardstock.  The Gardner Flopsey image was colored with copic markers but because the whole image is approximately 1X2 inches it wasn't too easy to blend the copics.  The edges were sponged with Weathered Wood distress ink to show off the leg and arm holes. 
I drew the template so that the onsie folds at the shoulders and the neckline is punched out with a 1 1/4 inch circle punch. 
Hope you like it.  It was so much fun and perfect for a Welcome baby gift card, birth announcement , or you could attach a gift card to the inside.
See you tomorrow.

Cathy