Purple Day Blog Hop For Epilepsy Awareness

Hello my friends! Today starts the annual “Purple Day” blog hop and I have joined with my friend Fiki to help bring awareness about epilepsy.

Please take a moment and read important information about this special day:

Purple Day is a global grassroots event formed with the intention to increase worldwide awareness of epilepsy, and to dispel common myths and fears of this neurological disorder. Further intentions of this movement are to reduce the social stigmas commonly endured by many individuals afflicted with the condition; to provide assurance and advocacy to those living with epilepsy that they are not alone in their ongoing endurance; and to initiate individuals living with the condition to take action in their communities to achieve these aims.

The day occurs annually on March 26. To read more about epilepsy or how you can help in the U.S., check out the Epilepsy Foundation’s website.

My card inspiration:

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Isn’t she just the sweetest little girl with her big heart?! So delighted, of course, to have been provided this darling image from Digi Doodle Studios which is one of the sponsors for our blog hop today! This image is called Sweet Carlina and I’ve got her colored up in purples and pinks. She has a little white heart tucked in her jacket pocket to go with the white hearts on my design.

I found some pretty purplish decorative papers from a recent card kit I had and then I just followed along with a sketch to complete my design. (See challenges below.) After coloring her out, I’ve cut her out with a MFT Wonky Stitch rectangle die and then layered with a purple cardstock layer cut out with a MFT Scallop Stitch rectangle die. I popped it up with craft foam over strips of lace, twine and accents I’ve created with the papers. I’ve used a LF scallop border die to cut accents to go with my heart paper strips. Extra hearts left over were used in the top corner. I also added a purple flower button with twine to finish it off.

Here’s a closer view of the coloring I’ve done on her with my Copic markers. I’ve used white gel pen to dot her checks and color the heart in her pocket. You can barely see the shimmer that I’ve done over the heart she’s holding with a glitter brush pen.

You’ll also notice that I’ve printed out this image twice, fussy cut out just the portion of the heart she’s holding along with her hands and popped it out over the colored image to give it some depth.

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I hope you’ve enjoyed my inspiration for the blog hop! I sure enjoyed creating it and helping to give support to my friend along with creating awareness for epilepsy!

Challenges:

Time Out – Purple (helping to support epilepsy awareness with us!)
Sketch Saturday – sketch #602
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2012 Anything Goes
Arty Divas – #18 Anything Goes
Through the Craft Room Door – Anything Goes
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday – Anything Goes
The House That Stamps Built – M2520

DDS and PND Collaboration Blog Hop is Here!

Hello friends! Today is the “special day” of our really fun and festive Collaboration Blog Hop! Hope you will be joining along with us for lots of inspiration and prizes! Woohoo!

MY HOLIDAY HOP PROJECT:

I am on the Digi Doodle Studios Design team and here is my interpretation of combining each companies’ images together to come up with this fun snow scene for the Holidays:

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For my card here I have taken the Digi Doodle Studios Penguin Wobbles Special Delivery digital stamp along with the Paper Nest Dolls Holiday Friends digital stamp and printed them out over a piece of Copic Blending Card. I’ve colored them up and fussy cut them out for my scene here.

To create the scene, I’ve used some blue cardstock for the background and splattered some watered down gesso over it and then used a die cut to create the fun frame within it. I layered it over a piece of gold cardstock so it shows through. I also die cut some snowy hills with white glitter cardstock and some pine trees with green cardstock.

I arranged them over my blue cardstock panel and created the scene. I popped up the front layer of snow hill along with the penguin image with foam tape. I covered this snow hill layer with some texture snow paste…it’s so glittery!! I also added some more glittery details here and there on the images too.

I white heat embossed the sentiment and placed a peppermint candy embellishment next to it and attached the strip over the blue background. I then mounted this entire scene layer over some fun and festive foiled striped papers and then onto another blue piece which was then mounted over a top folding white 5.5″ square card base.

Here’s a bit of a closer look at the images and how I’ve colored them up with Copic markers. You can see that I’ve used my white gel pen for details on the bow in the present along with the shinny look on the candy cane and the cheeks of all the images. I’ve added a few dots on the deer’s back tail too.

I’ve used a gold gel pen to color in the sleigh runner, the band around the gift sack, the “lettering and dots” on the penguin’s sign as well as the bells the little girl is holding. I used a red gel pen to color in the little deer’s nose. I’ve used a green gel pen to create “dots” on the penguin’s present and the deer’s bow.

I’ve also added some glitter to the heart candies and the girl’s outfit trim.

You can also see just how puffy and dimensional that snow is too! It’s really glittery and was so fun to add to the scene! It looks like they’re gearing up to deliver some presents and the cute little Mr. Penguin Wobbles is all loaded and ready to go! LOL!

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I really hope that you’ve enjoyed my card today and have been inspired with it in some way to get you into the festive Holiday spirit!

Thanks so much for stopping in today my friends!

Challenges:

Stamping Sensations– Dec Anything Goes
Love to Craft – LTCCB41 – Dec Anything Goes
Lil Patch of Crafty Friends – Anything Goes
Shopping Our Stash– Happy Holidays!
Crafting By Designs – Dec Anything goes
The Paper Funday – Dec Anything Goes with optional twist: Christmas Holiday
Winter Wonderland – Anything Christmas Goes

“Purple Day” Epilepsy Blog Hop WINNER!!

Hello friends!

*Please CLICK HERE to see my 2 Crafty Critter Crazies Post for today or scroll down*

I’m back to share who the lucky winner is from my give away during the “Purple Day” Epilepsy Blog Hop!

I’d like to take a moment to thank each and every one of you that participated in the blog hop to help bring awareness of what it’s all about. I enjoyed meeting new friends and finding more out about you along with your experience with Epilepsy. Thank you to Fikreta for bringing us all together.

I have went through all of the comments to find those people that wanted to be entered into the drawing and numbered each one and then ran the numbers through Random.org to find a winner. And the winner picked is…………

karenladd

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!

UPDATE:

I have received confirmation from the winner and the prize will be shipped out shortly!

Thanks so much for joining with me on my blog!

Cute Card Thursday Has Spring Fever!

Hello friends! Hope you are having a great week so far! It is Thursday already and we are getting closer to the weekend and even closer to the end of March already! WOW!

Since it’s Thursday, it’s time for a new challenge over at Cute Card Thursday! The theme of the challenge this week is “Spring Fever“! I can feel it for sure! Hope you can join us this week with your Spring creations! Here’s what I’ve made for the challenge:

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For this card, I did the “smooshing” technique with a couple of distress inks and the little Aqua Pigment bottle from the kit (see photo) for an added color and shimmer. I set that aside and worked on the images.

Taking a couple of the scene images from the stamp set, I put them together to create this scene over some X-Press It Card and colored everything in with Copics. I then cut it out and sponged along the edge where the grass is and attached it over the smooshed watercolor panel. I took both the bunnies from the set, colored them as well and fussy cut them out and popped up the one in the front with foam tape and glued the one in the back. I cut both of these panels with the MFT Wonky Stitched rectangle die.

I stamped the clouds in the upper portion and colored them with a white gel pen. I then took a sentiment from the same stamp set and heat embossed it with EP and die cut a banner strip. I layered this piece over a piece of black cardstock and then took some of the paper from the kit and layered it behind the black. This is where I took the ribbon and wrapped around the layers and added the bow too. This was all attached to a white A2 top folding card base.

Here’s a closer look at the image panel. You can see the pretty shimmer in the background. I also took some liquid applique and put it on the bunny tails so that when I heat set them, they puffed up. Always hard to photograph, but I’ve added some shimmer to the carrots with a clear glitter brush pen and colored the shovel parts with a silver gel pen. Lastly, I’ve attached some sequins from the kit and filled the centers with some Nuvo White Blizzard Crystal Drops.

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From a different angle you may be able to see more of the shimmer on the card. I love how it turned out and it certainly has me getting that “Spring Fever” where I can’t wait to go outside!! How about you? What do you look forward to in the Spring?

Thanks so much for dropping in today my friends!! Have a wonderful day and I’ll see you soon!

Challenges I’d like to enter my card for:

Alphabet Challenge – ‘Z’ is for Zesty Colors (I’ve used Squeezed Lemonade and Spiced Marmalade distress inks for background)
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies (PIP1911) – Anything Goes
Allsorts – Favorite image, stamp or die (I love using stamps and coloring them!)

Whimsy Stamps Christmas Mouse!

Hello friends! I’m back to share with you a very special treat from Whimsy Stamps!

I have used this special image to share some inspiration with you as I am a Whimsy Stamps fan myself! 🙂

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Isn’t this darling?! Crissy Armstrong has created this adorable “Christmas Mouse” digital stamp as a special treat in appreciation for loyal fans of Whimsy Stamps! How cool is that?!

I have colored up this cutie with Copic markers in the following colors:

mouse body: W9, W7, W5, W3 Ear/tummy/cheeks: R20, R00, W3, W1, W0
hat: R59, R29, R27, R24 (same as ornament), YG67, YG63, YG61
Shading/Ground: C3, C1, E0000

I have also printed out this image an additional time to color up the ornament, fussy cut it out and then covered it with some Diamond Dust Glitter using the Nuvo Medium Glue Pen to adhere it. I then popped it up over the original image with some foam tape for dimension.

I cut the image out with a stitched circle die and added a gold cardstock circle layer behind it. I found some cool papers to represent the “night sky” that I was looking for. (I think these are Stampin’ Up! papers.) I’ve cut a piece out using the Whimsy Stamps Hand Stitched Nested Rectangles die and then I attached this piece to a white A2 sized top folding card base and off set it along the right side of my card. I then cut a thin strip of that gold cardstock to place alongside of the papers.

The circle was attached to the card with part of it sticking off the right which I cut off to align with the card. I thought this sentiment from the Whimsy Stamps Penguin Christmas Sentiments 1 digital set fit perfectly with this image. I cut it out to form the banner, sponged some light grey ink over the edges and attached it to the top of the card. Lastly, I’ve added some sequins with some Nuvo White Blizzard Glitter Drops in the center of each one.

Here’s a closer look at the design:

Here you can see the glittery details of the ornament…. love these types of ornaments on my Christmas tree!! I’ve also colored the ornament cap with a gold gel pen and added some ‘dots’ with a white gel pen for his cheeks. Looking at this, I’m thinking some glossy accents for his nose would be cute too but didn’t do that for this one!

Thanks for dropping in! I’ll see you soon!

Challenges I’d like to enter this card for:

Watercooler Wednesday -“All About Holidays” WWC198
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday – Anything Goes
4 Crafty Chicks – “Crazy Egg” Anything Goes
Jingle Belles – Christmas Cards

IT’S GIVE AWAY TIME!!

CLOSED!!!!

-Please note that I have sticky noted this post to the top of my blog, you will need to scroll down for new posts.-

Hello friends! It has been quite some time that I have had a little give away on my blog and since I’ve started up this new place, I have thought about it many times. Since my birthday is tomorrow, I thought it would be a great idea to give someone else a fun present instead! I have many things going on during the month of October and it will be hard to accomplish everything, so this is another way of saying thanks for stopping in and sharing your support with me!

Here’s what I’m giving away and I hope it’s something many of you would love to get:

I have added several of my favorite items that I enjoy using in this package. Everything is brand new and unopened of course as I already have these items! 🙂 – I have also ordered two more Distress Oxide inks to include in this package (not shown above) that will also be included in this give away! – Of course I will be throwing in a couple of other little fun surprises tucked inside of the parcel too!

That’s a package well worth over $85.00!!! Wow! Yes, I know I’m crazy, but I’m crazy about all of you and being able to share the love of my crafting with you all is something enjoyable that I get to do every day! I’m honored to have you join with me on this journey and that’s why I do it! 🙂

**EDITED TO ADD MORE GOODIES!!!***

The Distress Oxide inks that I’ve described above came in! Yay! PLUS, when another order came in, I realized that these other items are a few more “extras” that I don’t need, so I put those in there too! Plus, there is another stamp set that I forgot to take a photo of even after this addition! LOL! So I’m guessing this parcel will probably be well over $100.00 by the time I’m sending it out!! LOL!!

Best of luck my friends and thanks for joining me!!

*I will announce the winner right here on my blog on Tuesday, October 30th and I will also personally e-mail the winner using whatever e-mail address was provided to me in the InLinkz below.*

So what do you need to do to win?! You have choices to make! The first choice is a really easy one to do. All you have to do is enter your name along with your e-mail address (so I can contact the winner) through the InLinkz shown below. No matter what, if you are at all interested in winning this prize, please enter that by October 29th! – This is open to anyone world wide
IF you would like an EXTRA entry to win, then just share the photo above with a link to my blog post on how to enter! If you do this, then please leave me a comment telling me that you’ve shared it….no need for a link….just tell me that you’ve shared it on your blog, on Facebook, on instagram, etc. Please leave a SEPARATE comment for each time you share it! You get another chance for each time! – I know there are some people that were wondering where I went from my last blog and were trying to find me…so I’m hoping that the people who were looking for me can find me here again to follow along if they choose to do so.
Additional Optional EXTRA entry to win – I’m all about spreading smiles as far as I can with my handmade creations. I would love it if in honor of my birthday you can find a special person or a special place/charity that takes your card donations and send a special smile to someone. That would make my day! – If you do this, please leave me another comment about that!

Whatever way you choose to enter, I thank you for any and all of your support especially with the changes that have gone on through my blog and life! I enjoy seeing your lovely creations, visiting your blogs and sharing my crafty life with you. So glad that we are enjoying it together!