Digital Tuesday Challenge: Clean and Simple

This week at the Digital Tuesday Challenge, the challenge was clean and simple...so I limited my embellishments and colors. My image is the new gingerbread line by Whimsie Doodles and psst...if you click on the Whimsie Doodle link, there is a freebie image of a cute little turtle...gotta love them freebies!

My gingerbread heart embellishment was made with Martha Stewart Heart Scallop Punch, then stickled and I added a little button with a touch of ribbon and twine. My image was colored with Copics and the glittery paper is by MME...thanks for looking...recipe is below!
Recipe:

• Image: Gingerbread by Whimsie Doodles, Holiday Cheer by Studio g
• Paper: by MME
• Punches: Apron Lace by Fiskars, Martha Stewart Scalloped Heart Punch
• Other: Stickles, button, ribbon, lace, white memento ink, tim holtz antique ink, cuttelbug divine swirls embossing folder

Stamptacular Sunday Challenge - Inside - Out!

This week on the Stamptaclar Sunday Challenge our challenge is called Inside-Out...which means you need to decorate the INSIDE of your card as well as the outside. Our sponsor this week is Emma from Stampin' Up.

My life has been super hectic lately, this is our "busy" time of the year and toss some packing on top of that and YIKES, my days just FLY by, so I have been unable to ink up my new summer Magnolia kit...until now! I just love this little Surfer Edwin...I grew up in California where surfers abound and it just takes me back there everytime I see Edwin...

I colored Edwin with Copics and then the wave is actually a Jolee's sticker, the white is fully glittered which isn't showing up well in the photos but twinkles in real life...

I decided the inside of my card should be a pop up a card (tutorial here) and the waves would look neat inside...so that's what I did there. Thanks for looking, recipe below...

Recipe:

• Stamps: Magnolia Surfer Edwin, Paper Studio Sentiment
• Stickers: Jolee's
• Paper: Paper Studio
• Inks: Paper Studio, Memento
• Other: Copics, Ribbon, Xacto Knife

Digital Tuesday - Christmas in July and a Freebie Image

I was a little late getting my card into the challenge this week, but I still got it done...LOL... This week at the Digital Tuesday Challenge, our challenge theme was Christmas in July. This adorable image is a FREEBIE by Digital Stamp Oasis and you can get it here.

I decided to do some non-traditional Christmas colors with this card and decided to go purples... My snowflakes are Martha Stewart Punchies and I ran them through my Xyron sticker maker, I then added the rhinestone and then put the tips in the purple glitter and shook that off then I added white glitter to the middle....just for effect.

Recipe:

• Stamp: Digital Stamp Oasis Freebie, Studio G Sentiment
  Other: Fiskars Apron Lace Punch, MS Snowflake Punch, Nestabilities Circle and Scallop Circle, Martha Stewart Glitter, Rhinestones, Copics and Cuttlebug Swirls Embossing Folder

Stamptacular Sunday Challenge Build-A-Card Bonus Fun!

By now you should have completed TWO steps in this BUILD-A-CARD process! If not, you'll want to go back to our Stamptacular Sunday Challenge Blog and start from the beginning.Somehow, some way...you need to include matting to your card! This can be done anywhere or any way you like as long as it's visible to the viewer! All set? Time to go and see
Joanne.

NOTE: Matting your card, it's also layering pieces of paper on your card, I hope this clear any confusion! If you need an example my melon card below...the green paper is a mat for the pink hearts paper.
BONUS...BONUS...BONUS...BONUS...Before you go, I have an extra prize up for grabs! Please leave me a comment and let me know what you like the most about our Stamptacular Sunday Challenge Blog! Here's the prize one lucky winner will receive...

This is a stamp KIT...it comes with the stamps shown AND an ink pad and an acrylic block!

And now onto our "Regular" Challenge, a shaped card...Did you see the dt's shaped cards? Wow, they all have fab projects this week! I decided to do a watermelon, I used my Nestabilities Circles and used the largest two circles, I then used my sizzix swirl, sent it through my Xyron X and glittered it, added it to my flowers and my stamped tag and decided to add some more bling with some rhinestones...it was easy peasy! I just love all the bright colors of this card...so summery! Thanks for joining me today!

An Unexpected Cardiovacular Workout

It's been awhile since I've given you an action packed horse adventure...this one happened last week...

...nothing get's a heart pumping that an unexpected cardiovascular workout...right? LOL

Beautiful day, last horse ridden and well let's just say the term "ridden hard and put away wet" would apply, it was a warm, humid day and the horse was worked fairly hard, we were both fairly sweaty (and don't think that the horse is the only one working hard...LOL)! We were walking (I had unmounted) back to the barn and my horse shook his head and shook it hard enough to get the bridle HALF off...the bit was still in his mouth and he was freaking out...rearing, shaking his head and then the whole this was OFF and he was OFF TO THE RACES!

Now mind you that our outdoor arena is in my IL's backyard, so when the horse took off, my MIL saw it and sprang into action...so the horse is running, I'm trying to figure out WHICH way it's going around the buildings and dh is holding on to horse #2 who would desparately LOVE to go join in the free roaming run... Our biggest fear is that a horse will take off down the road, it doesn't happen too often, usually the escapee decides the barn is best with all of his buddies and they lope a couple of times around the buildings (to say Wee HEE look at ME, I'm FREE (and you're not...ha ha ha!), grab some grass and then decide to go to the stall barn to torture their friends...really all in good fun (at least for a horse...humans...well..ya know, not so much...LOL). So anyway, MIL gets out in the middle of our road and stops traffic, horse then decides oh look, a LONG LONG road to run on...WHEEEE!!!!

Me: Puff puff, huff, puff, WHOA damn it, WHOAAAAAAAA!!!!

Horse: Ha ha ha, you can't catch Meee, you can't catch Me....

Me: Sigh.... wonder if I'm going to have a heart attack here? huff, puff, huff, puff

Now during this we had a customer helping his daughter get HER horse ready for the fair, he sees the free roaming horse and decided at a split second to go and help me...so he's running ahead of me, about the time I pass the stall barn, I hear "DAD!" and some banging...now we have TWO horses on the loose...sigh.... luckily this one decided one trip around the barn was enough and the grass looked delicious and stopped when I said "whoa"...

MIL is still holding traffic off...

Customer is STILL jogging after horse

Horse: ha ha ha ha ha ha...wonder how far I can run? ha ha ha ha ha ha!

DH: Floors the truck, passes both me and customer and does a movie car swipe and...the horse stops... dh leaps out of truck and grabs horse

Horse: what just happened?

Customer: gets in truck...drives it back...

Dh and I walk horse back, meanwhile MIL had let the traffic through...if looks could kill we'd all be about 12' under...

Oh the joys of country living...LOL

Stamptacular Sunday Bonus FUN!!!

Be sure to drop by the Stamptacular Sunday Challenge this week...there is bonus fun, which means BONUS PRIZES!!!! Trust me, you're going to want to join in...it truly is fun, I'm joining in on the fun... so be there or be ummm...hmmm...stampless! (yeah...THAT's it! wink!)

I did a quick and simple card today, wanted to play around with my new Basic Grey Paper and this is what I came up with...no recipe today, since it's uber simple...

Answer to Previous Trivia: Horses are measured in...ya ready? HANDS... one hand = 4" the average quarter horse is around 15 HANDS at their withers (were the front of the saddle goes)... so there you have it... Thanks for playing!

It's Freebie Day at Dustin Pikes....

It's freebie day at Dustin Pikes with this delicious Gingerbread image.... isn't she adorable? I did a really quick and simple card with her, she is colored with Copics and highlighted with stickles. I layered her and edged my card with my aprom lace punch and added some glitter to the punched areas (not coming up well in my photo though :( )

This is a super simple card today... thanks for looking...yesterdays trivia answer is below....

Recipe:

• Image: Freebie Wednesday by Dustin Pike
• Stamp: Studio G
• Paper: Creative Imaginations
• Other: Punch Fiskar Apron Lace, Heart Pins by Heidi Grace, Stickles, Glitter, Ribbon

Trivia: Yesterdays ANSWER here's the differences:

• Foal - A Baby Horse that covers both genders (like saying Baby...)
• Colt - a Baby BOY horse (most people confuse foal and colt)
• Filly - a Baby GIRL Horse
• Pony - a grown up short horse
  

Trivia: Today's Question

• To determine how tall a horse is, what are horses measured in (ie. inches?, meters?, etc..)

Digital Tuesday Challenge #15: As Easy as 1, 2, 3!

Today at the Digital Tuesday Challenge the challenge is as easy as 1, 2, 3! 1 Digital Image, 2 Patterned Papers and 3 Embellishments! So super EASY! This week our sponsor is The Character Cafe and one lucky winner will get their choice of 3 super cute images!

Trivia ANSWER: The answer to YESTERDAYS Trivia question was correct, Straw is a by-product of a cereal grain...in my part of the county it happens to be wheat! And at this moment in time, the farmers are harvesting the wheat and some are "double cropping" which means they will plant soybean in the wheat field for another crop immediately instead of waiting until next year...

Onto the card...and today's trivia question... Today my digital image is from Pink Cat Studio, it's one of the Weiman Wranglers, this little cowboy was made in honor of Ethan Weimann who recently lost his battle with cancer, you can read his story here. The proceeds of this digital image go to the Make a Wish foundation and so far they have raised "almost" $2,000. Each wish in the Make a Wish Foundation costs around $1,000, so far they've raised enough with this digital image for 2 wishes, isn't that great?!

I kept my card fairly simple and actually my patterned paper is double sided, so it's actually only one piece of paper that I cut and flipped around (talk about easy matching, I MUST do this more often!). I colored my cowboy in with Copics, cut him out with my Nestabilties Label 1 and inked the edges. I then added a couple more of my Nestabilities Label 1 to enhance my cowboy. I then added the sentiment and the horse shoe and inked those as well and added a tiny red bow...it was quick and easy!

Today's trivia question, since we're talking horses.... Can you tell me the difference between:

• A Foal
• A Colt
• A Filly
• A Pony

Thanks for joining me today, hope you are enjoying a little trivia...recipe is below!

Recipe:

• Image: Digital Stamp by Pink Cat Studio, Weiman Wranglers
• Paper: dp by Creative Imaginations (Debbie Mum)
• Dies: Nestabilties Label 1, Quickutz Horse Show, EK Success Circle Punch
• Other: Sponge and Tim Holtz Ink, Red Floss

Farm Trivia

Well, I'm not sure where you live, but around here it's 4-H fair time and crops are growing in the fields, so I thought it might be fun to have a little "trivia" for those "city folk"... so here's today's question and there will be more along the way (along with the answer the following day...) So we'll start with a really easy one..

Question 1.

Straw is the by-product of what crop?

Leave your answer in the comments section...

Stamptacular Sunday Challenge: A Sketch

This week at the Stamptacular Sunday Challenge we have a sketch challenge and the dt was fortunate enough the Papirloftet also provided card kits for each of us! Who is also our sponsor this week...My kit came with the paper seen, the flower and charm, the cow image (actually a sheet of images) and some rhinestone brads (not seen) as well as a small stamp (not seen as well). I really enjoyed this kit and fell in love with the cow! How silly is that...I just LOVE a pretty cow...and this one is such a pretty one, however I replaced my sentiment with a bow because I couldn't find just the right sentiment that wasn't too corny to go with such an elegant cow (if I was to guess I'd say she's a Swiss Brown, with those big beautiful eyes...love it!). Anyway, hope you enjoy and would love it if you could join in the challenge this week!

Recipe:

• Image, Paper, Charm and Flower by Papirloftet
• Ink: Tim Holtz
• Stamp: Hero Arts Italian Poetry Background
• Other: Sizzlet Die, Button, Nestablities Label 1, Martha Stewart Fence Punch, Organza Ribbon

Dustin Pike Sneak Peek!!!! (and pssst....freebie day!)

I've got a sneak peek for you today from the Doodle Dragon Studio (aka Dustin Pike) and remember there is also a FREEBIE over there today, so be sure to go check that out too!

Christmas in July...could things be sweeter? I love that I'm hammering out a lot of Christmas type stuff right now...less stress later! LOVE it...and speaking of loving it, isn't this snowman A.D.O.R.A.B.L.E.?? I just love him! I decided to make him a card, but if you take the pink off the back mat he'd be an easy tag too...and easy to color...lots and lots of easy to whip together tags or cards with this one! This one would be easy to mass produce!

I colored my snowman with Copics, cut him out with a nestabilities Circle and sponged the edges in pink, put him on my little tag with the apron lace border. I punched out a black snowflake and glittered it and added a little ribbon tail. I then put the whole thing on an embossed snowflake background...I was done quickly! Hope you enjoy and thanks for joining me today! Merry...err...Christmas...ummm...in July?! LOL....

Recipe:

• Digital Image: Dustin Pike
• Paper: KI Memories
• Punches: Fiskars Apron Lace, Martha Stewart Snowflake, Nestabilities Circle
• Other: Copics, Sponge/Ink, Cuttlebug Snowflake Embossing Folder, Glitter, Ribbon
  

Digital Tuesday Challenge #14: Sweet Birthdays

This week on the Digital Tuesday Challenge I'm the hostess...and my challenge this week is SWEET BIRTHDAYS! The stipulation is to use at least one digital image and create something sweet with birthday's in mind, it could be a cupcake card or it could be a candy bar wrapper decorated in a birthday theme, let your imagination go WILD!

I decided I would do a cute lollipop birthday bouquet, this is a really simple and quick project with sooooo many possibilities! I decided on Have a Sweet Birthday for my theme and used Tootsie Pops (tropical flavored I think) for my lollipops (really I just loved the colors...pink and purple!). I purchased my flower pot at Hobby Lobby on sale for $1.50, put some florists foam in (I had on hand) and then started sticking my lolli's in it. I then added some curling ribbon and my topper and a little ribbon for a finishing touch...
This has so many sentiment possibilities:

• How about for a teacher so she can "share" her bouquet with her students?
• Great for a major birthday... you could put a topper in it that says 50 (or whatever age) SUCKS!
• Also great for co-workers...inexpensive (mine is under $5, even with two bags of lollipops) and pretty to boot!
  

Thanks for joining me today and be sure to join in the Sweet Birthday fun...this weeks sponsor is MY GRAPHICO and they are giving away an entire digi stamp set to the lucky winner, so be sure to enter, I can't WAIT to see what you come up with!

Recipe:

• Stamp: Digi Stamp by CC Designs Penguin
• Dies: Nestabilities Circle and Scalloped Circle
• Other: Lollipops, flower pot, florist foam, curling ribbon, Copics, Skewer (for topper) and ribbon

All Decked Out

For those of you that were wondering about my snowman card, the stamp set is retired (I believe it was one of the Stamp of the Month's) by Close to My Heart and it's called All Decked Out... I did find a few on ebay pretty cheap...HERE is one...

Hope this helps someone out...and thanks for all the compliments!

Stamptacular Sunday Challenge: Christmas in July!

This week on the Stamptacular Sunday Challenge our theme is Christmas in July! Now I've had this snowman set, uninked since January...I had wanted it over Christmas, but alas it just didn't arrive quite in time...so I've been dying to ink it up and use it (It's a CTMH set by the way...All Decked Out). What I have loved about this set is that it's a build-your-own snowman, and there are so many choices, even for the face! It's just wonderful! My snowman is stamped on Kraft cardstock and then I colored him in with colored pencils and gamsol and highlighted him with my white opaque pen. I then threw some blue highlights on and then sponged the edges of him and pierced the edges. I think it kind of has a gingerbread feel to it...don't you?



I put him on Chocolate Chip cut out with a Nestabilities Scallop Rectangle Die and placed all of that on my Snowflake embossed background that I had drug a sponge over with my Tim Holtz Antique Photo Ink. I then added my sentiment and my layered snowflake. The snowflake is actually two snowflakes and branches, all punches by Martha Stewart, I sponged them all, ran the top two through my xyron, put them together and added my glitter, some fine and a little bit of chunky. I then finished is off with a button and some thread.

Thanks for joining me today, can't wait to see what you come up with ... it'll be nice to get a small head start on Christmas...don't you think? Recipe below:

Recipe:

• Stamps: CTMH All Decked Out, Sentiment by Studio G
• Paper: All by SU
• Punches: Snowflake ALL Martha Stewart, Nestabilities Rectangle and Scallped Rectangle
• Other: Making Memories Glitter, Mica Chunky Glitter (an ebay purchase), Tim Holtz Antique Photo Ink, Pencils, Gamsol and Stubs, Button, String

Let's Dance!

Well we had a HU.GE day yesterday, and we made several split decisions that are going to impact our lives for SEV.ER.AL years...and I'm happy with that, so happy I feel like DANCING! So this card is a reflection of how I feel about yesterdays decisions.

I decided to use Susie Squirrel Dancing by Digital Stamp Oasis as a start to my card, I then decided to layered her on this adorable pink paper by Making Memories, I then edged some white paper with my Apron Lace Edge Punch by Fiskars and put the whole thing on embossed black card stock. I added a bow and a little bit of stitching...this one was quick and simple. I decided not to use a sentiment so that I can use this as a notecard.

Thanks for looking! Recipe is below!

Recipe:

• Stamp: Susie Squirrel by Digital Stamp Oasis
• Paper: Making Memories
• Other: Copics, Fiskars Apron Lace Punch, Satin Ribbon, black thread (sewing machine), Cuttlebug Embossing Folder Divine Swirls.

A Mystery Release and Life in the Fast Lane

Hi Everyone! First, Dustin Pike needed to slow things down a little, so we don't have our usual weekly release BUT he still has a MYSTERY FREEBIE if you just hop on over to his blog... he put this freebie up and even those of us on the DT didn't know what it was...so it was a BIG SURPRISE to us all, but I promise you, you're gonna love it...and get ready for more of that...a LOT more of that...he's been busy behind the scenes and now the DT will be as well too...so if you're a big Dustin Pike fan, get ready for next week and the next releases...very...umm.... COOL!

Life in the Fast Lane; Dustin hasn't been the only one busy, it seems like my life's transmission has just found it's 6th and 7th gear. Very few of you know, that I took on a part time job (in addition to horse trainig) and my hours have been, um...expanding...LOL. I have also taken a step back from horse showing, a slight step, but since I'm not showing I'm now judging the shows, which is exciting, scary and I love it! It is LONG, LONG days in the sun, my feet and back kill me from standing for about 12 - 14 hours, but it is very rewarding...and very interesting being in the judges boots for awhile. I think I'm going to continue on with it, I've had some really positive feedback on my judging ability, so I think I'm going to stick with it for awhile. I equate being the judge is kind of like being the bride, everyone is pretty much at your beck and call...LOL...ok, maybe litterally! LOL... I also have a few more things going on in the background, so I feel like maybe I've hit the turbo lane on life's highway...LOL...Anyway, I've got another exciting thing to share, but it will be a couple of months yet (no mom, we're NOT expecting)...so anyway, things are moving pretty fast here! Well need to run, got a project on the brain I've got to get done!