The Helpful Elf

Hello friends and welcome back to my blog today. We have a great start to the day with this cute card for the new challenge at Sweet Sketch Wednesday and featuring those adorable stamps from Sassy Cheryl's.

Here the challenge sketch for the week and it's a fabulous one indeed. I love the layers and combinations of papers that it provides for as well as the really interesting look it provides too.

We're so lucky to have Sassy Cheryl's as our challenge sponsor this week. The digi images are just delightful and so fun to create with. The Grand Prize winner of the challenge will receive a $5 gift certificate to Sassy Cheryl's as the prize.  Yahoo that a terrific prize!

Don't you just love this sweet elf boy?  It's called Noah the Helpful Elf and he's a fun one to use for those Christmas cards. He was brought to life with Copic markers and Winter Wonderland papers from MME.

The design team has created some really terrific cards with Sassy Cheryl's stamps to inspire you this week. Take a stroll on over to Sweet Sketch Wednesday and take a peek at them.  Hopefully you'll be inspired enough to play along in our challenge this week.

Thanks for stopping by!

Molly Throughout the Year

Happy Wednesday friends! For those of you in the U.S. I hope you weren't up too late watching the election coverage last night. Try as I might, I succumbed to sleep early on - just can't do the late nights anymore! So we have a new term for the President today and a new sketch at Sweet Sketch Wednesday! And we welcome StampFairy back as our sponsor this week.

This sketch is one of our monthly blast from the past sketches - a favorite of the team brought back from week 109 back in July 2011. Quick and easy to go together but with wonderful results.

Just for fun, here's my card when we originally debuted this sketch to give you a little added inspiration!

Our wonderful sponsor this week is StampFairy and we all love the sweet, whimsical characters that Gerda creates there. The Grand Prize Winner of the Sweet Sketch Wednesday challenge this week will receive a $10 gift certificate to the StampFairy online store. A very generous prize and our thanks to Gerda for supporting us.

I chose this sweet Molly Throughout the Year image from StampFairy to create my card. The collection includes images of Molly for each month and this one is for November. The tree stump is one of the accessories in the collection. First colored with Copics, I cut out Molly and popped her up on the stump for some dimension on the main panel. The papers are from my stash - Bella Blvd's Family Tree.

I created my own embellishment punched out from the background paper in several layers so it would combine beautifully with the card. I love the tree background paper and the colors they bring together.

So there you have it - a fun autumn card to kick off November here at Sweet Sketch Wednesday. Take a stroll over to the blog and see the other wonderful creations from the design Divas using StampFairy images. You'll love what you see there!

Thanks for stopping by!

Old Barn

I hope everyone is doing well on this cold, crisp autumn day! At least here in Michigan, it's unusually cool for this early in November but the sun is shining and that certainly helps. Today I'm showing Old Barn - another one of the new collections released at Doodle Pantry just perfect for fall or year-round for that matter.

Here's the Old Barn digi set - you get several pre-colored images in this one featuring the barn in fall, winter and spring/summer seasons, four different coordinating digi papers and sentiments. Of  course black outline images are part of this set as well.

I used the black outline image of the barn and colored it as a fall scene with Copic markers. I masked the image and sponged the cloud background with inks - SU Baja Breeze and Soft Sky. The country looking papers are from Cosmo Cricket's Baby Jane line.

There's a terrific sample of this Old Barn that Laurie created and is showing on the Doodle Pantry Blog. It was merged with another new set and really shows the versatility of both images in creating some wonderful images for cards perfect for anyone. Follow the links to take a look.

And finally a quick reminder that a new challenge is underway at the Doodle Pantry Blog as well - you'll get a free digi set just for playing along!

Thanks for stopping by!

I'll Owl-ways Love StampFairy!

Hi friends and Happy Friday!  Today I'm showing my last card as a designer for StampFairy and a little sad about it too.  I've been on dear, sweet Gerda's team for almost two years and loved every minute creating with the adorable images that she creates. I'll "owl"ways love StampFairy!

Which brings me to this fabulous new release today at StampFairy called Funny Owls!

http://www.stampfairy.com/digistamps_critters_funnyowls.htm

Are these just the cutest images?  I can think of a million ways to use these adorable owls! The owl script is today's freebie and it too is so clever.

I couldn't help but think that these owls would look so fun paper-pieced in plaid and polka-dots. I took the main image and sized it down for the smaller owl and printed two of the larger one and popped it up along with his beak. Half-round pearls were perfect for their eyes. The cloud background and all the other papers used here are digital papers from Raspberry Road. The vine, sprigs and leaves are all MS punches and the flowers were made with MFT rolled rose dies.

I was inspired by this terrific sketch at Tuesday Morning Sketches for the layout of my card - what a perfect sketch for this image!  I'm playing along in their challenge this week with this creation.

These fabulous owls have inspired some amazing creations by the StampFairies this week. Hop on over to StampFairy World and take a peek.  I will miss my StampFairy team mates and all their incredible talent and creativity - thanks gals!  And a special thank you to Gerda for the privilege of bringing her amazing characters to life.

Thanks for stopping by!

Winter Star

Well it's the start of a new month and I can't believe how fast we flew through October. I love this time of year so I like for it to last!  However, I am pretty excited for today because of the new release collections debuting at Doodle Pantry and particularly this one that I'm showcasing. This wonderful holiday set is called Winter Star and the best part is that it is free with any purchase at Doodle Pantry through November 24.

There are 13 new collections out today ranging from holiday theme sets to masculine scenery sets. We have ants, birdies, deer and a racoon for those who love Laurie's animal images. You just have to visit Doodle Pantry and see these new releases!

This beautiful Winter Star image was colored with Copics and paired with the gorgeous papers from the Christmas Cottage line by Teresa Collins. I love the non-traditional add of pink in this line which softens the typical green/red combination.

This is a perfect image for layering and creating dimension.  I printed it five times and cut out elements separately for the base star with the berries, the pine cones, the holly leaves, the center snowflake and the snowflake star center. Those elements were all colored first then cut out and added to the base image with dimensionals for different heights. The final effect is so pretty and makes the image so much more prominent on the card.  Time consuming - yes! But so worth the effort for a special Christmas card. The Winter Star set also comes with pre-colored versions of the image which is beautiful too.

So I hope this whets your whistle and gets you to run over to the Doodle Pantry Store to see more, make a purchase and get this terrific set free! Later today we'll have a new challenge on the Doodle Pantry Blog with a featured set from the new release today - be sure to check that out too!

Thanks for stopping by!

Groovy Day

Hi friends! It's Wednesday and time for the start of another Sweet Sketch Wednesday challenge. We're having a "groovy" time this week with a new sponsor, The Doodle Garden, and hope you'll join in on the fun!

Isn't this sketch terrific? Fairly simple to put together and it gives you a chance to show off some fun paper combinations or to use tags - so many ways to use this great sketch that Arlana created for this week's challenge.

We are so happy to announce The Doodle Garden as a new sponsor here at SSW.  A relatively new digi stamp company, the owner/illustrator is Jennifer Nilsson. Her Etsy shop is filled with the most adorable images that you'll just love at first sight!  The Doodle Garden is providing 5 digi stamps to the Grand Prize winner of the challenge this week. Thanks Jennifer for your generous support!  You can also see more of Jennifer's wonderful digis on the The Doodle Garden Blog.

This groovy digi from The Doodle Garden is called "Groovy Girl Love" and I just thought it would make such a fun birthday card for a teenage girl. She was colored with Copics and her glasses (so cute I think) were enhanced with crystal lacquer. The perfect papers for this image are Momenta's Peace - you can see that they have shimmer and sparkles all over.

There are so many cute digis at The Doodle Garden and you can see a lot of them on the Sweet Sketch Wednesday's design team cards - take a look for more inspiration.  And have a groovy day!

Thanks for stopping by!

Barry in Circles

Today we have the cutest release of images at StampFairy featuring Barry, our sweet, dear teddy bear peeking out to greet you.  He's the most adorable bear in StampFairy land and I know you'll want to grab these images from the store!

http://www.stampfairy.com/digistamps_misc_barrycircles.htm

Here's the full collection released today called Barry Circles and the star image is today's freebie.

This little cutie was brought to life with Copic markers along with a little crystal lacquer to shine up his nose and a little sparkle on the stars to help them twinkle a bit.  The papers are Simple Stories' Harvest Lane.

http://fridaysketchchallenge.blogspot.com/2012/10/sketch-29-by-shirley.html

I was inspired by this sketch drawn by Shirley over at Friday Sketch Challenge.  Love those sketches there and this one was perfect for this new StampFairy image.  I'm entering my card in their challenge.

So there you have it for this Friday - another fab release at StampFairy.  Take a minute to pop on over to StampFairy World to see the terrific cards that my fellow StampFairies made for your inspiration this week.

Thanks for stopping by!

Scarecrow and a String of Pumpkins

Happy Wednesday everyone! We have a terrific new sketch this week for the challenge at Sweet Sketch Wednesday and we're showcasing digis from everyone's favorite Bugaboo Stamps.

Here's the challenge sketch and we can't wait to see what all our fans and followers do with it! I love the look of the oval within the circle on this one.

Bugaboo Stamps is our sponsor this week and we all love the fun images that Jodi creates there. Our Grand Prize Winner of the challenge will receive 7 digi stamps of their choice totaling $21 - a terrific prize worth playing along with us at Sweet Sketch Wednesday this week!   Thanks Jodi for your generosity in sponsoring us this week!

I used this adorable Scarecrow with Pumpkin String image from Bugaboo. Isn't this a cute image for fall or Halloween cards?!  It was colored with Copics and the papers used are from Pinecone Press "Spooky" collection. The spider web trim is a MS punch and I printed the bats and cut them out for the embellies. I like how they are hovering around the scarecrow in this sketch.

The Sweet Sketch Wednesday team has such creativity with the images from Bugaboo.  Take a hop over to our challenge blog and see what they created today for your inspiration.

Thanks for stopping by!