Magnolia Vs. Stampavie Sketch -

Sketch time again on Magnolia Vs. Stampavie! And this week is a great one. I turned mine on its side, mainly because I was really wanting to use one of the Sarah Kay Christmas images. This is "Angels Rejoice"

And I love that they aren't perfect Angels... one has dropped their sheet music, one isn't paying attention, but they are all adorable. I colored the image with my Copics and Spica Glitter Pens, then cut with my Nestibilities Oval dies, then cut the larger scalloped oval out of one of the pattern papers from K&Company.



I love the papers from the Christmas collection of K&Company. They are really gorgeous, the colors and the patterns. I cut the side oval from the same as my scallops. I then stitched everything down with a gold thread. For the large circles or buttons on the sketch I found three gold colored jewelry spacers that are really large, and centered them with large gem brads, was a bit tough getting them through the holes in the spacers but I convinced them to go finally. The sentiment is a piece of ribbon that repeats the Celebrate the Season... over and over, I just cut one section from it and attached with mini gold brads. Then I doodled around the image.



I hope you will give the sketch a try this week, go ahead and take a look at the site and see the other DT inspiration at Magnolia Vs. Stampavie, these Ladies always wow me!





Hope you have a great Sunday - spend some time with family then with your stamps and ink!

HUGS and-

Saturday Donkey Day and a Purple Card

Hello and happy Saturday - yes today is Donkey day! I do have a card to share first though.

This Playful, Smiles card is for this weeks Cute Card Thursday - which asked for lilac. Well that makes me happy as I love all shades of Purple! I pulled out one of my Rachelle Anne Miller's "Lily taking Care" and colored her with my Copic Markers, again I colored the background with a bold bright color.

I then picked a couple of pattern papers from my DCWV Nursery Boy stack, and a scrap of purple card stock. For something different I used the flowers from the Rachelle Anne Miller stamp Oval Frame Set and created my own pattern on the purple with a VersaMark ink pad. After deciding on a layout I sewed down everything with a dark purple thread and a blanket stitch. The sentiments are cut out of one of the DCWV pattern papers. I then stacked three prima flowers with a glitter purple brad for the center, then punched four Martha Stewart Frond leaves punches, highlighted with white gel pen. It really all came together really fast, other than the sewing time, that blanket stitch takes a while to sew out!

Now how about some Donkey Photos? I went out before 7 am this morning - Poor Freddie was just getting up and really wasn't his playful self yet. In fact him and Mom, Bella, both were just stirring around and really didn't want to have their photo taken - maybe next week I can get some better photos of Freddie -

Then I headed over to Darlene's Momma Pen to see her and Pavo - Of course Dad had to get his photo holding the baby. Pavo was really calm and didn't move around at all, he really loves Daddy and seems to trust him completely now.

I got a few cute ones of Pavo with Mom - love this one, doesn't it look like a posed shot of a young kid being forced to give his Mom a kiss for a photo? He is looking at me and the camera but reaching over to Mom ... he is a cutie!

I wanted to show this close up of Pavo and his gorgeous face.... His nose is so handsome, it looks and feels like silk. It is millions of colors when you look really close, very soft and shiny. And I love that one white nostril... yep that is not a glare, that is a spot on the inside of his nostril. He may grow out of it, and it will color in, but I hope not!

This last photo was just too funny... We put round bales in for them this time of year. But this pen is all out, tonight when Hubby gets home from work we will bring one in for this group, but for breakfast they are getting the good stuff! The square bales that the Momma's get. Now in reality this is the exact same hay, cut from the same field at the same time... but to the Donkeys it is super special hay! If you could have only heard them while I snapped this... they were all talking, snorting, braying... they are so funny!

I spent a lot of time in our young pen this morning. Rosie is not feeling 100%... she is getting the same signs of her sickness again. I gave her some meds and will try and track down the Doc. It is always a holiday when I need him. Hopefully we can knock this round out early and she won't be feeling bad for too long. She is my baby and it just kills me to see her not well. And it was just a few days ago she was running and playing with the other young ones.

Well better run - I hope you all have a great Saturday - and a wonderful weekend, with lots of time to get inky!

HUGS and-

The day after Thanksgiving...

It is the day after Thanksgiving and that means Christmas is really coming - -------- that was me screaming! I am no where near ready for it this year. I don't know where or why I got so far behind. I haven't even started my Christmas shopping... and I usually make quite a few of my gifts and ahhh nope haven't done that either.





Well the Whiff of Joy Challenge this week helped me out some. A great little gift box, I thought it might be nice to fill with candies. Their challenge this week was going to be to make a bookmark, but then they opened it up to anything but a card. That was great cuz this helps me with one more gift....


I decided to use Lizzie one because she was just calling out to be inked, two she was the perfect size for the window of the tin, and three she is just adorable!

Ok, so first I started with my tin... recycling here, this is one of my many Prima Flower tins, love flowers, so I have lots of different containers that they came in, I use to keep them in their containers, but that gets a bit overwhelming and takes a lot of space, so I moved all the flowers into my embellishment tackle box. But I couldn't throw away all the containers so they are all in a box in the closet. I will be pulling out some of these tins and making more of these.




I first started to try and wrap the tin with pretty Christmas paper, but these lids fit so well that wouldn't work. I then dug through my ribbon and found this perfect wide ribbon, perfect width and color! Then found a gorgeous dark red satin ribbon to use around the lid, and made a fake bow for the front.


Lizzie is stamped out and colored with my Copics, and then cut with a Nestibilities petite oval. I have been really messing with this coloring the backgrounds, takes time and ink but I love how it makes the image pop. I gel pen doodled around the edge once the background ink dried. Then I simply added two Prima leaves and two Prima Poinsettia flower stacked and held together with a jewelry spacer and red mini brad.



hmmmm... wonder what candy would look best in this tin?




OH and you have to visit Ila at Artfully Ila she is celebrating 100,000 hits!!!! NO surprize as she is the master at coloring, her stuff is always just jaw dropping gorgeous! Go check her out and see!







Better get the day going - Pavo and Darlene are doing great, and as expected she shared him with us this morning and let us love all over him. He is such a cutie. Pop back in tomorrow as it is Donkey Saturday and I will have photos of him, Freddie and others to share!

HUGS and-

Happy "Pavo" Day!

I have no card today - but I think I will be forgiven ;0)

It is Thanksgiving - and we have some Pavo... that is Spanish for Turkey on Thanksgiving Day.

It is also the name of Darlene and Black Jack's NEW SON!!!!! Yes in the middle of the night last night Darlene gave birth to a gorgeous dark nosed little...scratch that... big baby boy!

He is adorable.. then again are any of them not? He is a bit timid, most of Darlene's babies are the first Day as she is extremely protective of her kids. She lets us love on him a minute or two then she pushes him away. After a day or so she will relax some. But we still get in there and rub on him and love on him so he will know us and not be afraid of us. Photos were hard to get this morning as it is extremely foggy and misting... but I did get a few to show off!

Don't you just love that dark nose? That is compliments of his Daddy Black Jack... a handsome stud.

I love this photo, this was really early this morning, and is about as close as Darlene lets Pavo get to the other donkeys... here you see Jazz, Macie and Cheyenne at the edge of the Momma Pen getting to see Pavo for the first time. You can really see how misty and foggy it was here this morning.



Well I need to get lunch on.. Turkey breast are in the oven, dressing is ready to go in next. Now I just need to vaccuum and pick up a few things and set the table. I hope those in the US have a great Thanksgiving Day - and for the thing I am Thankful For...(we have to all say one thing in the past year that we are thankful for you know) I have the obvious things, gorgeous healthy babies, my family but my one thing this year would be all of the wonderful blogging friends I have made this past year with my blog - you know I love each and every one of you!

HUGS and-

Two cards for Wednesday, then lots of cooking!

Hello! I have two cards for today! I probably should have saved one of them, just in case for tomorrow, just in case I don't get one done today... but I couldn't decide which one to not show.... so here they both are!



For the House Mouse Challenge blog I wanted the little guy to be squeaky clean! Ha squeaky! The challenge for the week is Polka Dota, love them, so that was easy. I pulled out my DCWV Nursery Baby Girl, and picked three patterns to go with my image, that I colored with my Copics. For the base I used a baby pink card stock, then layered the first pattern paper, the pink dots as the main pattern. I then used a scrap pink card stock and punched it with my Martha Stewart Lace Doily Border punch, inked the edge with green ink, then layered the stripes with it. The glitter dot paper I cut just a bit larger than my image. The edge of all the pattern papers were also inked with the green ink.




My image is matted with the pink card stock, then doodled with a grey Copic Multi-liner. I ran a piece of narrow satin ribbon that is a light green color across the middle of the card and tied in a knot. I used Dew Drops in a dark pink color for the corners of the image. The sentiment is from My Favorite Things - funny huh, I just didn't know what I wanted to use with this image and then ran across this one and it seemed to work well.



Now for my favorite part - I used Diamond Glaze for all of the water..... I love that stuff! In person it really looks cool. When I showed it to Hubby he said "wow, cool shame no one will see how cool online" So he is checking here...... good thing to know for future comments - LOL!






My second card... I love this image! Isn't she just wonderful? This is one of the new Whiff of Joy images and her name is Teenage Lizzie with box of chocolates
She is going to be perfect for Valentine cards, but she also has a yearlong sentiment of love. I don't know if my favorite part is her coat or her boots!






The Layout of this card is from the Whiff of Joy Paper Craft Planet Guest DT call It is a wonderful sketch, I just love Katharina's sketches, funny thing to me was how similar it was to my card above..honestly I made that card the night before I looked at this sketch! Little different but really funny!


I colored her with my Copics and Spica Glitter Pens, the matted her three times with the two card stock colors I used for the base and mat of the card. The pattern papers are all from K&Company, I have hoarded the sunflower paper I wanted to make sure it was for a really special card when I used it... this was it, the flowers seemed perfect for Lizzie. I punched the pattern paper with the Martha Punch for the band across the bottom. Everything was inked with a light brown ink. Then sewed down, machine wasn't thrilled while sewing the image... that was a lot of layers, but it did it! For my sentiment - I got a new package of Tim Holtz Philosophy Tags at the LSS this past weekend, love them and Cherish seemed to be perfect for this card. Then at the last minute I decided to gel pen stitch the edge of the card for a pop around the edge.


Ok, the competition for the Guest DT makes my chances of getting it slim, but I love trying... the sketches always rock and it forces me to really pull out favorite items, and try a bit harder! You should give it a go to! It is another chance to use your favorite Whiff of Joy images what could be better?





Some heads up here -



Ok... now how absolutely wonderful are these new stamps? Better get on over to Alota Rubber Stamps and place your order, these are brand new and will be going out the door first of the week, and I am sure they will be going out fast too! This is only four of the new images there are more click HERE to see all the new images available! Love the new background image, and the chair and sleigh are going to be fun! Don't forget all of your cute people images that we all love will work with those backgrounds!!! Think how cute they will look together! Tilda in the Christmas house scene.. or Edwin fishing on the pond? OH the possibilities are endless! Order quick to make sure you get yours in the first batch!


Alright now to the cooking - yep that is what I will be doing all day, that and cleaning. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving here in the US... and I have 4 or 5 pies to make - old family recipe stuffing to start, and then get the Turkey ready for the oven... actually this year I didn't get the whole Turkey. We went for two big Boneless all white meat breast. It is so sad here when the dark meat just sits there, no one likes it as much as the white here, they all want the breast meat - so that is all there is this year. Doesn't have the traditional look on the table, but hey nothing goes to waste and everyone is happy!


Hope you all have a great Wednesday and have some time to get inky - me I will probably be elbow deep in pumpkin and pecans for pies!

HUGS and-

My First Sketch at Spoon Full of Sugar!

I am so excited, my first "real" sketch is out there... please be kind with me. I have never done a computer generated sketch before, and really was nervous, but excited about my first being one of the challenges at A Spoon Full of Sugar! But here it is and I hope you will have fun with it.

And since this was my first sketch I had to make a Donkey card right? This is from Alota Rubber Stamps Donkey set, I just love the both set one and two! I colored my little guy and his turtle friend with my Copic Markers and Spica Glitter Pens. The moon is all sparkles! And those sparkles needed complimentary sparkle papers, so I picked three patterns from the DCWV Baby Boy Nursery papers. I inked the edges of everything with a bright blue cats eye ink. Sewed down all the pieces, including the sparkle blue ribbon as the band. I wanted my flowers on the top right corner, Retro EK Success Punch, are also inked and then have glitter brads for the centers.

The sentiment, part of set 2, I adore! (Thanks Helene for adding my special request sentiment in this collection!)

I hope you enjoyed my Donkey Kisses card and my sketch. PLEASE have some fun with it and join in for the fabulous prize at a Spoon Full of Sugar Challenge, this week we have a Gorgeous prize of Teenage Lizzie Kindly donated by Katharina from Whiff of Joy why not pop over and take a look at the fab stamps that Katharina has on A whiff of joy.

I need to thank a bunch of people for a Blog Award.....

(if I missed someone, please let me know as my email has been acting really off the last few weeks)

First I have received this award from Crafting Diva Designs, Kirsten at Isis Imaginings, Camilla
and Annie

This blog invests and believes the PROXIMITY - nearness in space, time and relationships!These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers! Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award.

So for my eight that I pass this on too - it is a few more than eight... but I am going to pass this on to my fellow Spoon Full of Sugar DT... for being brave and making some wonderful cards with my first sketch!

http://debbieeastmancardsimake.blogspot.com/

http://countrylovincardmaker.blogspot.com/

http://bunny-zoes.blogspot.com/

http://bubbles72blog.blogspot.com/

http://cstoen.blogspot.com/

http://shary-theothersideofme.blogspot.com/

http://lim-thevoicesinmyheadlimblog.blogspot.com/

http://trinastreasures.blogspot.com/

http://flatis-bastelleien.blogspot.com/

http://jacqui47.blogspot.com/

And our guest DT this week:

http://kreative-stempelwelt.blogspot.com/

Whew... ok, now I am going to get some breakfast and sit and enjoy some blog surfing and catch up from yesterday. Hope you have a great Tuesday!

HUGS and -

My Stampavie PCP Sketch Challenge Card

Even though I can't win the prize for the Paper Craft Planet Stampavie Sketch Challenge, I really wanted to make a card with the sketch. It was also a great chance to show off one of the new Sarah Kay Stamps that are just coming out.

This is "Time for Apple Pie" mmmmmmmmm -

I think she is just precious, I love that basket.

For my cards I chose pattern papers from K&Company, don't they have a vintage country feel, and perfect for the Sarah Kay.

I followed the sketch with three different papers, and cut to follow the layout. I cut my image, which is colored with my Copics, with my Nestibilities Oval, matted with the larger size cut with one of the pattern papers.

All of my papers are inked with brown ink. and corners are all rounded. The base is a light kraft paper card stock. I used three red brads and jewelry spacers for the dots. Country blue ribbon for the corner bands. Then I gel pen stitched the edge of the card. The sentiment if from My Favorite Things. A simple, country feeling card. I hope you will give the sketch a try, the load your card into the PCP Photo Gallery with the tag code SSC1 ... the prize will be drawn for THIS WEDNESDAY the 26th. So not much time left -

Today is MIL shopping day - (hubby took off work to stay home with Darlene - although she really doesn't look like she is interested in having a baby). We are going to run all our errands and then hit the grocery store to pick up all the food for Thanksgiving! I am so sure it will be a mad house.

Hope you have a great Monday and have some fun time to get inky -- try the sketch! Any Stampavie image can be used!

HUGS and-

Texture with Magnolia Vs. Stampavie!

Yes, it is Sunday and time for the Magnolia Vs. Stampavie Challenge! And this week it is a great challenge - to add texture to your cards! Bring as much Texture into your work,
Dry embossing, Flock, Fluffy stuff, Fabric - the possibilities are endless!

I had lots of different things bouncing around my empty head, but then my Magnolia stamp Club hit the mail box. Which was a REAL Surprise to me, because I thought it had run out this time and I didn't go and re-new it. But I was happy.. cuz these are some really cute images this time! (like sometimes they aren't LOL) I just love the ice skating couple!

And so I went with them first and then tried to figure out what texture I could add. Snow... and that meant puffy paint! And then I needed ice (slick is a texture too right?) and that is where I got really oddly creative. And sadly just doesn't look nearly as cool in the photo as it does in person! I don't know if you can even tell what it is... Aluminum foil and transparent shrink film. And in person it really does look like a shiny ice! I purposely put the puffy paint on with lines in it so it would have even more texture to it. And the falling snow is really high dots - it took hours to dry!

And of course Tilda and Edwins white fur has lots of stickles on them - :0)

All of this is right on top of the pattern paper from Memory Box, I love this pattern, so easy and fun to work with! It is sewed down to a sage green mat with a zig zag stitch. Then attached to the light blue card stock base.

My pretty skaters are pop dotted on their frozen pond to create a shadow. My sentiment is from Whiff of Joy, and is on a label cut with my Spellbinders Nestibilites. I stamped with a VersaMark pad and embossed with white, then gel pen stitched the edge. I used glittered white brads to attach.

It really is a simple card, but I love it. Don't know if it my cute couple, the snow or ice I like. But I am happy with the end result.

I hope you will have a go at this weeks Magnolia Vs. Stampavie challenge - Texture is so fun!

Want to also send out a shout out to all those that have joined in at the Paper Craft Planet! I think it is quickly becoming the place to hang and join in for some fun and ideas.

For a heads up on some prize give aways Stampavie PCP Group has a sketch challenge and the winner will be drawn this coming Wednesday... for any stamp in the Stampavie collections! Yes you pick what you want to win, then Heidi will be adding more embellishment goodies to go with it!

And Alota Rubber Stamps PCP Group has a huge Goodie Bag Give away, it will drawn for December 3rd, and to qualify all you have to do is upload a card to the PCP photo gallery tag it Alota-gbc1 - and you can do this as many times as you like each card you upload is one chance at winning!

Well off to breakfast with the neighbors, and then home to get my stuff together to teach a class at The Scrapbook Haus in New Braunfels. This week Susan has asked me to teach a class using Glimmer Mist, forced me to pull out mine, I haven't used it in forever - but had fun, it is really cool product - messy but fun. Hope you have some time to get inky and messy today -

HUGS and-

Five Heads are Better than One - Donkey Day!

Well you have heard that 2 heads are better than one... this morning I had FIVE little donkey heads all together. We clean and fill the water buckets every morning. They love the "fresh" running water, and this morning we had all 5 little ones with their heads in the bucket trying to get the streaming water. Are they cute or what?







It was a tough week this week here on the Donkey farm. Yes we are on pins and needles waiting for Darlene, and no there is no baby, and at this moment no sign of a baby today. But this week was also weening week for Rosie, Lina and Lola. All three girls are so close in age that we waited until they were all of age and then moved them from their pens with their Moms to what we are calling the kids pen. The same pen that Coffee and Toffee have been living the Bachelor life. Well watch out boys... three teenage girls just moved in. It is so traumatic. Not for the Moms, in fact we didn't even have one Hee or Haw from them when we took their children, the girls all went with us just fine and it was actually fun for them until they realized that "hey Mom didn't come too?" Lola was ok after just a few hours, Rosie was cool too... she just was a bit timid because she didn't know anyone in the pen. But poor Lina, the last of the three I expected to be upset... well she is still pacing the fence line 4 days later. She will calm down at some point and accept her new place, but she wants back into her home with her Mom! The photo of the 5 heads in the bucket above is actually all of these kids in the pen. Lina, Lola, Rosie, Coffee and Toffee. This photo is when we came out this morning, they wait at the edge of the pen for their good mornings. And this is Rosie as we were walking out... she is my talker.... she is my girl.

You knew I had to have a Freddie photo. Hubby loves to take his holding the baby photo and he wasn't happy with the one we took last week. So we did a retake. This little guy is gonna be sooooo hard to sell, he is so funny and will be a talker himself as he is already trying to get a real Hee Haw out. But we can't keep any boys... Man he is handsome... I am talking about Freddie here, but Hubby is pretty cute too ;0)

And then I have a photo of Gloria. I know a few of you are attached to this precious little girl. She is a mess. Yep no dainty girl here. I am constantly picking things off of her and trying to brush out her hair. She just goes back out and rolls in stuff all over again. You would never know from here that she is a black donkey would you? She is, just like her Dad, Black Jack. Mom is a dark brown and is a beauty herself (standing next to her here) But Gloria is a gorgeous black color, and now is a sun bleached red... How funny is that face. She is a bit lonely right now, her play partners Lina and Lola moved out... she is now waiting for Darlene to give her a new friend to play with.

I do have a card for today... well not really a card - I have been seeing some of these accordion cards on other blogs. Well I wanted to try and make one, I just forgot to print out the measurements. So I winged it, and I am pretty happy with how it came out. I used my Score Pal and just folded where it made the card work out to a 5x7... then made the folded pieces to turn it into the accordion. The front I decorated with a piece of Petunia Vellum, and a odd piece of pattern paper, looks like it is all wrinkled up don't it? Well it is just printing that way... cool huh? The image is a RAKed Hanglar image colored with Ranger Distressing Inks. Embellishments are felt flowers with glitter brads, a Heart snap from Heidi Grace and a white ribbon to tie it closed. Doodled the edges and ta da - I think I may have to make more of these! Perfect to send those RAKed images out... or gift cards for Birthdays.

Ok that is way long enough today - whew! I am going to now go and visit some blogs and then hopefully have some craft time - yea Get Inky! Hope you do too!

HUGS and-

Snow Flakes -

Although I sit here shivering the snow flakes are not here in Texas. In fact many of you would laugh that I am so cold and it is in the 40's outside.

But my snow flakes are for my Cute Card Thursday Card, the theme this week is snow or snow flakes. I pulled out this adorable Rachelle Anne Miller image as it has snow falling in the image, then found two pattern papers that also have snow flakes, one is from DCWV and the other is from Memory Box.

My image is colored with my Copics, Sakura Glaze Pens, Spica Glitter Pens and white gel pen. I doodled the edge, then matted on a scrap pattern paper. I found a ribbon that reads Merry Christmas across it, and ran it across the top with three snow flake buttons to the right. All the edges are stitched down with gel pen. I am back in that habit again.. sorry.

Hope you enjoyed my Christmas Snowflake card, me I am not sure, the colors don't seem right in the photograph....

Well kind of short today, lots on my list to do and I want to have some time to visit blogs and the PCP. And for those looking for a Donkey Update - Darlene has slowed down I guess you could say we have backed down from red alert 5 to red alert 3... still waiting - last time she delivered she made me wait around for over a week! Man yesterday she really did fool us though! I think she just loves the attention. ;0)

HUGS and -