Warm & Cozy

I went a little nuts (for me) and included the current Newton's Nook color challenge in my list of things to try. Why nuts? It contains (gah) pink:

*feels forehead*

I don't own any Newton's Nook stamps (yet), so I thought I'd try and play one of their challenges. I used one of their free digital images, and yeah, I know, I also don't do digital. I swear I've been replaced by an alien.

Anyway, here's my card:

I colored the mittens with Copics and die-cut the rectangle. Pretty basic. And once again, I used my current color rut of light green & blues.

Oh, look, I've mounted it crooked. Sigh. I'll fix that.

Thanks for stopping by!

A Guest Gig at Stamplorations!

Hello! Back in September I won a challenge at Stamplorations, and that included a guest DT spot. (squee!) Today is that day, so here we go!

Here is today's sketch:

and my card:

I used two digital files here: the 1" Squares Digital Collage Sheet and the Printable Faded Butterflies Journaling Cards Digital Collage Sheet. First I cut out a square of four images from the birds sheet, then I cut out the grey journaling card and mounted the bird square inside the frame of the journaling card.

The layer under the journaling card is one of my water color experiment cast-offs, and I thought the orange and yellow worked well with the birds.  I mounted that onto a layer of grey card stock, then put the whole thing onto a white card base.

For the sentiment, I stamped one of the sayings from the Taylored Expressions Shade Tree Sentiments set onto a piece of Distress water color paper, then trimmed away some of the white. I like to do that around words that are only tall in a few spots because of a few long or tall letters.  I think it makes the sentiment panel less bulky.

Thanks again to Stamplorations for the opportunity for the Guest DT spot. I'm so honored!

Thanks for stopping by!

Let's Get Digital

(You are welcome for that ear worm.)  I don't know what came over me, but the other day I decided to scroll through my cache of digital images. I used to play the Hambo challenge every week, and I have a ton of their digital images. I pretty much stopped using digital since it means you have to color, and I am not a big fan of coloring. Then there's the whole "get to the printer, put in card stock, fight off the cat who's trying to help" part that smells of work.

So what did I do? I selected an image, sized it so six - SIX - fit on one page, trudged into the other room where my printer lives, put in some card stock and printed the thing. Then I put it on my craft desk from whence it taunted me until I used it yesterday.

I did it. I die-cut the images and started to color them. It took me ALL. DAY. WHAT WAS I THINKING?! Apparently, I wasn't.

Here is the first card:

I do love these birds, even though I can't color. If I'd been thinking clearly, I'd have printed them again on patterned paper and cut them out. Sigh. For the first image I used YR23 and YR24 to color the birds, and I thought they were too dark. I switched to YR23 and Y23 for the rest of them.

This card got a piece of ribbon stapled to it since ... well, this is a long story.  Let's just say I did a poor job of removing some washi tape and I tore the card stock. Remember: there are no mistakes in stamping; only opportunities for embellishment.

The patterned paper was from The Heaplet, or maybe from unpacking a box, I don't even remember. But the pieces of paper have been on my desk for a week or two, and they were driving me nuts, so I used them on these cards. I didn't even bother to trim them to the same size, which you'll see momentarily.

Here's one with the lighter colors of yellow for the birds:

The yellows, side-by-each:

It's a subtle difference, but I do like the lighter version better.

You'll also notice I colored the hats differently here. In the first image the lower floofy bits are colored yellow, as I declared them to be feathers sticking out from under the party hats. In the second one I declared the floofy things to be part of the hats. I'm still not sure which way I like them better.

The sentiment is (sentiments are) embossed, mostly because I could:

I might be in love with the Memento Luxe inks. Just sayin'.

I used a different sentiment on one of the cards, since I needed one to include in a box I'm shipping out:

This card also has a different bit of that patterned paper, just so you know I didn't make up that part.

I actually have a few more images printed, this time from Mo Manning. I love her stuff, but I still need to color them. Maybe next week.

Thanks for stopping by!

Products used: Hambo digital image: Silly Birds With Hats, clear embossing powder, SU Basic Gray card stock, misc patterned paper, SU Basic Gray taffeta ribbon, and the following:

InLinkz.com

I Tried Digital (Really!)

Well, it has finally happened. And I did not even kick and scream much. What is this of which I speak? I bought some digital images. I DID! And it is all Mel's fault. Just LOOK at this card! (All the links are there, too!)

So I just had to go look. Well, didn't I? And while I was there, I, um, found a few other images I needed. And I cannot even use the 'justifies shipping' excuse, cuz there WAS no shipping. I have no excuses, except that some of the images are soooo perfect for me.

Like this one:


The name of this image is "It's all about the accessories", but one of my neighbors has two mini doglets like this, and they have major attitude! I think the smaller the dog, the larger the attitude, so that's the sentiment I used.

And you HAVE to see the detail on this guy's face:


Perfect little scowl, dontcha think? The tag says SPIKE. Cute! (Please ignore the fact that this close-up also reveals the pathetic coloring job I did. Thank you.)

The next image I got was this guy - Simon:


I do believe that boys, especially teen and pre-teen boys, are the most difficult people for whom to make cards. THAT is why I bought this image. And that is why I made the card real plain, although I did manage to sneak in some ribbon. But it is a manly color, at least.

I got two more images, including that adorable sick piggy that Mel used, but they will have to be printed another day.

So what do I think? I think that digital images are pretty cool. You can size them and they do not take up a lot of physical storage space. But you need for your 'puter to be turned on and attached to a printer to use them. And you also need to take special steps if you want to emboss the image, which sounds like work to me. Do I feel like I cheated on my stamps? Yes, I do. But for an image here or an image there, this is something I could embrace.

In other news, I printed more business cards because I WAS OUT, and I am approaching Holiday Craft Show Season. I printed them until my printer jammed, and I took that as a sign that I had enough cards printed for now. At least I could check it off my list of things to do. ;-)

It is supposed to rain again tomorrow, complete with thunder boomers and everything. BUT, I will go to my market, if only to give the farmers something to do: yell at me for wimping out last weekend. Plus, there is only this weekend, next weekend, and the second weekend of November that I'll be there, and I need my last few fixes for the season. I'll be sure to report back on how the weather treats us.

Oh, I almost forgot! The other day when I posted my Boo Treats (bottom of this post), Brenda emailed me the following:

" When you said in today's post that you might try to sell them, I thought for a minute that you meant to the kids who come to your door! Now that would be a scrooge!"

HAHAHA! Ya know what? If I had a prize for the best idea left in a comment or sent via email, which (unfortunately for Brenda) I do not, this would TOTALLY win!!!

Okay, gotta go clean up ( oh I crack myself up sometimes) and get ready for bed. Thanks for stopping by!