CDS Sneak Peek - Bob and Fred

Meet Bob and Fred! These little fellows decided to take a little vacation to come and visit Clear Dollar Stamps, but they loved it there so much that they decided to stay :) They are ready to send off clones to your doorstep starting December 1st because they are suffering some severe jet lag and need to rest up ;) These cuties have been brought to you by popular demand and are the perfect size to coordinate with their buddies from the Lost in Space set.



These guys make the perfect adornment for this CD Pocket gift card. As you can see they are like chameleons and can blend well with any colour *giggle*. Bob and Fred have bright and sparkly personalities so they have been paired up with some bold patterns and colours and they can pull of sparkles better than most people so they have sparkly star accessories.

Make sure that you get a chance to pop by the blogs below to see what the rest of the girls created for your viewing pleasure :)

Laurie Wilson
Lori McCroskey
Linda Borneman
Nancy Grant
Katie Renz
Candy Fosta
Sarah Taylor
Angela Thomas
Tricia Traxler
Cassie Trask
Linda Anderson
Trudy Sjolander
Wendy Hall
Tori Wild
Stacy Morgan

Card Recipe:

Stamps: Clear Dollar Stamps - Aliens Bob and Fred, Lost in Space
Paper: Watercolour, Bazzil Bling, Basic Grey DP, Black, Scenic Route DP, Doodlebug Design DP, Pumkin
Ink: Versafine Onyx Black, Baja, Pacific Point, Not Quite Navy, Caramel, Cocoa, Chocolate, Olive, Pumkin
Accessories: Sewing Machine, Cuttlebug, Nestabilities, Embossing Folders, Sponges, Pop Dots, Aqua Painter, Clear Embossing Powder, Lg and Sm Star Punches, Stardust Gelly Roll Pen, Tombow Markers

CDS Sneak Peek - December '09 SOM

Are you ready to see the last of my Clear Dollar Stamps sneak peeks for the the December 1st release? I know that you are all excited! ;) I'm starting off this morning with the Stamp of the Month for December. This sweet set is called Critter Log and features a family of Quail and a little bunny as well. The set is free this month with any $30 purchase (usually $50 purchase) before taxes!!!




For this 4 1/4" recessed window card, I chose to go with a green them and took the tree frog with me :) The image was water coloured with my Tombow Markers, cut out and paper toled to pop out of the recess a little bit while the background was sponged in with various colours.

The tree was make with the faux wood technique and then topped off with a bevy of Martha Stuart leaf punchies all adhered with mini glue dots. I thought that this would be a fun way to dress up the edged of the card ;)





See those black leaves all along the designer paper? Those were actually sponged on stencil style with my Sizzix Leaf Die negative - it makes for and easy way to add extra interest to your paper. I finished off the card with my paper ribbon slider sentiment and it's ready to go and put a smile on some one's face :)

Each and every one of the sneak peek artist were given this set to play with so be sure to pop by the ladies blogs to see what they have in store for you. Come on back here a little later because I have some new little guys that are out of this world to introduce ;)

Laurie Wilson
Lori McCroskey
Nancy Grant
Katie Renz
Candy Fosta
Sarah Taylor
Angela Thomas
Tricia Traxler
Cassie Trask
Linda Anderson
Trudy Sjolander
Wendy Hall
Tori Wild
Stacy Morgan

Card Recipe:

Stamps: Clear Dollar Stamps - December '09 Stamp of the Month
Paper: Watercolour, Cocoa, Artichoke, Mustard, Black, K&Co DP
Ink: Versafine Onyx Black, Artichoke, Baja, Navy, Olive, Caramel, Cocoa, Chocolate, White
Accessories: Sewing Machine, Cuttlebug and Dies, Tombow Markers, Aqua Painter, Sponges, Sizzix Leaf Die, Ribbon, Mini Brads, MS Leaf punch, Pop Dots, Mini Glue Dots

CDS Sneak Peek - Mr. Spike Doghouse Ornament

*Giggle* I love how this ornament turned out! For the December release stamps over at Clear Dollar Stamps we were challenged to make some gift ideas or 3D items and this is what I came up with! I used both the Mr. Spike (the bulldog) and the "You make me smile" stamps that will be released on December 1st to get in the holiday spirit to create and unusual ornament for the Christmas tree.




I started by water colouring Mr. Spike with my tombow markers and making him pop by creating a paper tole mouth. I then created the dog house ornament by using the sweet birdhouse template that Nichole Heady provided on her blog. I assembled the template and then paper pieced my faux wood planks on the walls of the house and the layers of shingles for the roof. For the finishing touches I added some olive card stock that was cut with my craft knife to look like blades of grass and the linen thread to hand the ornament from the Christmas tree.

Make sure that you get a chance to pop by the blogs below to see what the rest of the girls created for your viewing pleasure :)

Laurie Wilson
Lori McCroskey
Linda Borneman
Nancy Grant
Katie Renz
Candy Fosta
Sarah Taylor
Angela Thomas
Tricia Traxler
Cassie Trask
Linda Anderson
Trudy Sjolander
Wendy Hall
Tori Wild
Stacy Morgan

Card Recipe:

Stamps: Clear Dollar Stamps - Mr. Spike and You Make Me Smile, Dog Days (bone)
Paper: Black, Caramel, Olive, Watercolour
Ink: Versafine Onyx Black, White, Caramel, Cocoa, Chocolate, Olive
Accessories: Craft Knife, Cuttlebug and Dies, Nestabilities, Embossing Folders, Sponges, Pop Dots, Aqua Painter, Clear Embossing Powder, Bird House Template by Nichole Heady, Corner Rounder, Linen Thread, Tombow Markers

CDS Sneak Peek - T-Rex Gift Card Holder

It's that most wonderful time of the month again for some Clear Dollar Stamps sneek peeks! This little cutie is called Teeny T-Rex and has the "something to roar about" sentiment to coordinate. These little single stamps will be available for December 1st.

We were challenged this month to some up with some 3D items that would make some sweet give ideas for Christmas. I found this little 7 gypsies tin on clearance at Michaels and altered it to be a gift card/money tin for a child and can then be used after to store some treasures in :) My kids have alread tried to run away with it on more than a few occasions! lol




The T-Rex has been water coloured with my tombow markers, cut out and added to some sponged circle punches. I then added some fun googly eyes and placed the image onto the blue belly band for the tin. To open this up you just slide off the belly band and open up the tin from there.

I will be back a little later with another goody to show you, but until then feel free to pop by the blogs below to see what the girls have been up to with their sneak peeks :)

Laurie Wilson
Lori McCroskey
Linda Borneman
Nancy Grant
Katie Renz
Candy Fosta
Sarah Taylor
Angela Thomas
Tricia Traxler
Cassie Trask
Linda Anderson
Trudy Sjolander
Wendy Hall
Tori Wild
Stacy Morgan

Tin Recipe:

Stamps: Clear Dollar Stamps - Teeny T-Rex and Something to Roar About
Paper: Chocolate, Water Colour, Cosmo Cricket Dp, K&Co DP
Ink: Versafine Onyx Black, Mustard, Caramel
Accessories: Sewing Machine, 7 Gypsies Tin, 1 3/8" and 1 1/4" Circle Punches, Clear Embossing Powder, Googly Eyes, Corner Rounder, Sponges, Pop Dots

Hanging out the holidays with the Dirty Girls and ornaments too!

Hey everyone! Long time, no posts! I'm back and I can explain!

4 weeks ago, my trusty laptop (my beloved laptop) started developing a mind of it's own and crashing on a regular basis. Ordinarily, that wouldn't have been such a large issue but this was happening while I was teaching my online classes and therefore couldn't send in my computer for repairs.

I grinned and beared it until the last upload into my classrooms when all of a sudden my computer crashed and burned and decided to play coy and not start up again. Frustrated and disheartened I finally decided that it was time to send her in for an exorcism ;)

That brings me to why I have been unexplainably absent from answering emails, posting and well...life in general. You really don't realized how much you depend on your computer daily until it's in the hands of someone else! I have managed to borrow my dad's laptop while getting caught up on my workload (all due to not having internet access for a week).

This all brings me to today...I will be getting my laptop back in a few hours and hopefully she will purr like a kitten ;) To celebrate I decided to share with you a little something that I have been working on - well two things actually! The first being the Christmas ornament that I created for the November Dirty Dozen challenge of Hanging out the Holiday's with Ornaments :)

Both the Dirty Dozen and the Dirty Dozen Alumni get together once a month when we have some time and participate in a challenge just for fun. This month was my turn to be the hostess so I thought it would be fun to challenge the girls to create and ornamet for ANY holiday of the year including obscure ones. The only stipulation was that the ornament had to hang from something. That turned out to be quite a challenge when taking pictures at 1 am and needing to use a small lightbox! My ornament does actually hang, but it's hanging rather gently from a glue dot affixed to the back wall of my light box...the things I do to try to get to bed quickly I tell you ;)

This ornament was created using a stamp set that I picked up from Walmart for $5! What a steal! The poinsettia is actually quite large and it came with some holly leaves and a "For You" sentiment :0) I was quite happy to stumble upon this find that's for sure! I water coloured up this baby with my tombow markers and an aqua painter and then assembled this ornament following the instructions on Yvonne's Blog. - Um, if you haven't seen YvonneAna's work, then you haven't lived! She's amazing!!! Thanks Yvonne for sharing your gorgeous creation for me to case ;)

The last thing that I wanted to share with you was an exciting tid bit of info. Heather from Skipping Stones Designs has asked me to be her guest sketch artist for the month of December. The sketches will be found on her website every tuesday and I will be featuring her very sassy stamps. I hope you all will join me for that fun little adventure!

Card Recipe:

Stamps: Pointsettia Trio from Walmart

Paper: Gina K, Red, Watercolour
Ink: Versa Mark, Caramel, Red
Accessories: Cuttlebug, Nestabilities, Tombow Markers, Aqua Painter, Gold Embossing Powder, Sponges, Pop Dots, Mini Pearls, Hardware, Ribbon

It's Mojo time - Masculine style!

It's mojo time baby! I am sooooo thankful for Julee's Mojo Challenge this week! I really needed to make a card to ship off and I just haven't been feeling all that creative lately so I went on the hunt for some inspiration and I found it on the Mojo Monday blog in the form of a sketch :)




I have to say that although it was a bit of a struggle, I really like how this card turned out. This card is being shipped over seas and I needed it to be fairly flat and it had to be masculine. Yep, that was a bit of a challenge! I ended up creating this sponged sunset background to go with my cut out palm trees and added the finishing touch of my Faux Woodgrain Frame.



Because the image turned out to be a little bit on the large side, I ended up turning the sketch and placing it on a 5 1/2" square card. I really wanted to have my "framed" image as the focal point of the card so I stuck with some suble stitching to fill in some blank areas and to create some more texture...yes...I have a texure fetish..I'll admit it! *snort*

I'm keeping this post short, because I am beyond the normal realm of "tired" but I just wanted to add a little reminder to keep Jaimie Cates in your thoughts and if you have a moment or an extra card hanging around, please send it off to her with some well wishes. To find out all about Miss Jaimie, click here.


Card Recipe:

Stamps: Artful Inkables - Paradise Island, Winter Post
Ink: Caramel, Chocolate, Cocoa, White, Versafine Onyx Black, Baja, Navy, Apricot, Yellow
Paper: Gina K, Brown, Mustard, Water Colour
Accessories: Sewing Machine, Cuttlebug, Pop Dots, Sponges, Piercing Tool, Linen Thread, Shell Button, Tombow Markers, Aqua Painter, Clear Embossing Powder, Circle Punch, Mini Brads

Spreading a little love with a blog hop!

A little while ago I was incredibly saddened by a story that I had heard on the news about a vicious attack on a family leaving a mother dead and her 11 year old daughter struggling for life. I then recently came across a thread in the SCS forums looking for volunteers to spread a little love and hope to the little girl - Jaimie Cates while she is both recovering from her physical wounds in the hospital and grieving for her mother. You see, a small group of wonderful ladies organized a blog hop in order to raise awareness of violence and to hopefully flood Jaimie with cards of prayers and well wishes for her recovery and the challenges that she still faces. Here is the story behind today's post:

On October 4^th, 4 teenagers armed with knives broke into a home in a small town in New Hampshire. Alone and sleeping inside were a mother and her 11 year old daughter. These 4 boys broke into this home with the intent to rob and kill anyone inside. They stabbed the mom, Kimberly Cates, to death and left her daughter, Jaimie, for dead in their driveway. It was a completely random act, their home was chosen only due to its secluded surroundings."

Our hope is that everyone hopping around today will stop for a moment and think about Jaimie and her father and what life must be like for them now. One moment in time has changed their lives forever. We are asking that everyone reading this message please take a moment to make a card and send it off to Jaimie. You can make something very simple or much more involved, but please share some words of hope and love and let her know that people do care and want the best for her. Please send your card to the address below:



To find our more about how you can help and links to the newscasts, please visit the Stamp Something for Jaimie blog. There will be prizes but most of all...appreciation for anyone who can help to brighten a little girl's day...even for just a second :o)

Let the blog hop begin! If you arrived here from Deena's Blog then you are in the right place! If not, please start hopping from the beginning at Katherina's Blog.




This is my card for Jaimie. I wanted a whimsical image with a simple little "thinking of you" sentiment and I chose to used a Penny Black image mostly because they always make me smile and hopefully this card will put a smile on Jaimie's face.

I used this week's CPS card sketch to jump start the direction that this card would take. The goose has been water coloured with tombow markers, cut out and paper toled, and most of the designer papers have been run through my 'bug. I ended up going with some spring colours because they are cheery and they fit right in with my image ;o)




We would love for you all to join the rest of us blog hoppers by making a card to send to Jaimie Cates! Don't forget that your card can be as simple or as detailed as you like because every good thought is appreciated and will show Jaimie that she has alot of support from people that care all around the world :o)

Now get your pogo sticks ready and hop on over to Tanjii's Blog and don't forget to have fun along the way! Thanks for joining me here and we will see you at the finish line ;)


Card Recipe:

Stamps: Penny Black, Clear Dollar Stamps - Moosing You
Paper: Gina K, Olive, Water Colour, My Mind's Eye DP, Basic Grey DP, K&Co Dp
Ink: Versafine Onyx Black, Pink, Olive, Mustard
Accessories: Sewing Machine, Cuttlebug and Embossing Folders, Nestabilities, Sponges, Clear Embossing Powder, Aqua Painter, Tombow Markers, Pop Dots, Ribbon, Eyelets, WW Punch, Designer Punch, Piercing Tool