Getting Dirty with Angela Thomas

I'm back today with a card that I made for my bestie Angela Thomas' Dare to Get Dirty Challenge :D This card is for her DTGD12Jellybean74 challenge and I have to admit that I did alter it a wee bit :D If you are a Splitcoaststampers Fan Club member then you can play along too and find out how I altered my challenge card :D

For this card I used the Scootin' By set from There She Goes (currently out of stock). This was a case that so often happens to me...I colour up the image first and then try in vain to find papers that match. Most of the time it's not a problem but for this card, it was a challenge. I think that everything works though :)

Thanks for coming by today and don't forget to play along in the Dare to Get Dirty Challenges if you can. They only happen once a year and there is oodles of talent to be seen :D Oh, and did I mention that there are prizes? *grins*

Card Recipe:

Stamps: There She Goes - Scootin' By
Paper: Gina K, Water Colour, Black, My Mind's Eye
Ink: Versafine Onyx Black, Vintage Photo, Baja, Teal, Olive, Pumpkin, Artichoke
Accessories: Sewing Machine, Corner Chomper, Buttons, Tombow Markers, Chalk Pencil, Water Brush, Sponges, Glossy Accents, Seam Binding, Twine, MS Leaf Punch, Tape

The Dirty Girls are at it again!

It's that time of year again! What time you ask? Well it's the Dare to Get Dirty Challenges going on over at Splitcoaststampers of course! This year I'm hosting a challenge again but I' can't share the details of that challenge...no, no, no ;0) You have to be a Fan Club member in order to join me and all of the other Dirty Dozen and Dirty Dozen Alumni in the games :D Already a Fan Club Member? Well then join me for my challenge won't you? :D

While in the US last month I borrowed this image from my friend Angela (the Cat's Pajama's image) but I forgot to stamp out the sentiment to match, so I combined it with a sentiment from the Sentimental Birthday set from There She Goes. I think that it works well don't you? :)

That's it for now but I will be back tomorrow with another Dare to Get Dirty card for you viewing pleasure :) On a side note, I would like to apologize for clogging up your email and google readers with a glitch in my blog distribution of posts. Apparently quite a few of you were bombarded with posts dating back to May 1st. I'm not sure how that happened? Anyhoo, I'm sorry for forcing my cards upon you all :D

Card Recipe:

Stamps: There She Goes - Sentimental Birthday and The Cat's Pajama's
Paper: Gina K, Water Colour, MME, Suede, K&Co
Ink: Versafine Onyx Black, Baja, Teal, Vintage Photo
Accessories: Sewing Machine, Cuttlebug, MFT Cloud Dienamic, Buttons, Tombow Markers, Chalk Pencil, Water Brush, Dimensioals, Corner Chomper

DTGD - Challenges R Us

Well, it's official. The Dare to get Dirty challenges for this year have finished up but you still have until August 1st to upload your images for a chance to win prizes :D I didn't get a chance to participate much during the week of the challenges so I thought that I would make it up all with these two cards!

Are you ready for the list? Yes? Ok, then...you asked for it ;) This sweet little cuttlekids monkey qualifies for these challenges:

DTGD10notimetostamp, DTGD10DebDeb, DTGD10AmberDawn, DTGD10SuzanneJDean (Planet of the Apes)



And...this adorable butterfly card qualifies for all of these challenges:

DTGD10CraftyCaro, DTGD10DeborahLynneS, DTGD10Flowergal36, DTGD10notimetostamp, DTGD10DebDeb, DTGD10AmberDawn, DTGD10SuzanneJDean (The Butterfly Effect)

See! I was making up for lost time ;) This collection of challenges came about when I was assembling designer papers and went to my master list of challenges to get ready to make these kid's birthday cards. I circled a pile of challenges off the list and went to town to create these very simple, yet cute cards.

My kids have a birthday party to go to tomorrow (the butterfly card) and then the monkey card is for my nephew's 3rd birthday. His mom and dad call him a little monkey so I thought that it would be kind of fitting :D

Hope that you enjoyed looking at these and I can't tell you enough how handy theses cuttlekids dies are when you have some kid's birthday cards to crank out! lol

Card Recipe:

Stamps: Clear Dollar Stamps - Hanging Out
Paper: Gina K, Black, Water Colour, Grey, Saffron, Caramel, Ivory, Olive, Assorted Scrap Designer Papers
Ink: Versafine Onyx Black, Melon, Saffron, Mustard, Grey, Chocolate, Caramel
Accessories: Sewing Machine, Cuttebug, Embossing Folders, Cuttlekids Dies, Spellbinders Dies, Dew Drops, Sizzix Leaf Die, Sponges, Pop Dots, Stickles, Brads, Corner Rounder Punch

Getting Dirty with Holly

Today, I am thrilled to bring you a sample that I make for the ever talented Holly McMillan's (Toy's - DTGD10Toy) challenge for Dare to Get Dirty week! Holly is such a sweetheart and I was positively tickled when she asked me to be a sample maker :D




I used my favourite My Favorite Things set called Feelin' Fruity to create this "berry" delicious gift set. I took the opportunity to use up some excess scraps from my bin and pulled together this set that holds strawberry hard candies including the berries in the basket. I purchased the basket pattern from here.




The strawberry blossom that is on both the basket and the bag, was make with my boho blossom punch and my 5 petal flower punch for the leaves.



Thanks so much Holly for letting me play along with your awesome challenge! If you would like to play along to0, then please click here (SCS Fan Club Members only). If you are not a fan club member then take a peek at this page to see how you can become one :D

Card Recipe:

Stamps: MFT - Feelin' Fruity
Paper: Kraft, Water Colour, Black, Green, White, K&Co DP, Basic Grey DP, My Mind's Eye DP
Ink: Versafine Onyx Black, Green, Chocolate, Baja, Red
Accessories: Cuttlebug and Embossing Folders, Spellbinder's Circle and Scallop Circle and Square Nestabilities, Boho Blossom Punch, Brads, Sponges, White Gel Pen, Flower Punch, Ribbon, Button, Cello Bag, Linen Thread, Pop Dots, Sponges, Tombow Markers and Water Brush

DTGDblondie090277 Sketch

Hi ladies! I'm so excited to be bringing you this card today for the official start of the Dare To Get Dirty 2010 Challenges! If you have never heard of this before then let me give you a little run down. The DTGD Challenges are an annual event put on by the Splitcoaststampers Dirty Dozen and Alumni Team as a thank you to all of the Fan Club members. This year it's an entire week of challenges with roughly 5 challenges per day. You will have until August 1st to upload these to enter for some prizes. See this thread for more details.

This particular card was made up for the challenge that I'm hosting (DTGD10blondie090277) and I had some fantastic sample makers to help me out! Be sure to check out my challenge if you are a fan club member. If not...what are you waiting for ;D




I pulled out one of my older sets called Subs, Sails and Tugs to create this whimsical ocean themed card. I have been drawn to bold colours lately and this is no exception! I broke out my new October Afternoon Fly a Kite papers and dragged out my scrap bin for this fun card. The ship has been water coloured and then popped up in a paper "port hole" frame. I studded this with mini brads from Clear Dollar Stamps and added a coordinating shell button.

I had so much fun making this card! I will be back in a few days to show you a sample that I make for another challenge that will be coming up. Until then, be sure to pop by and partake in some of the fun that will be happening all this week over at SCS :D


Card Recipe:

Stamps: Clear Dollar Stamps - Subs, Sails and Tugs
Paper: Gina K, Black, Grey, Water Colour, Scenic Route DP, October Afternoon DP, Basic Grey DP
Ink: Versafine Onyx Black, Teal, Baja, Pumpkin, Navy
Accessories: Sewing Machine, Cuttlebug and Embossing Folders, Spellbinders Circle Dies, Cloud Stencil, Mini Brads (CDStamps) Hodgepodge Hardware, Shell Button, Clear Embossing Powder, Sponges, Pop Dots, Tombow Markers and Water Brush, Corner Rounder, Scallop Edge Punch, Mat Pack and Piercing Tool, Linen Thread

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

Dirty Challenge - Caseing a Beginner

Once upon a very long time ago I made this card. Why am I bringing this up you ask? Well, once a month the Dirty Dozen along with the Dirty Dozen Alumni get together to participate in a challenge. This month we were challenged to a Featured Stamper Challenge, but the hitch was that we had to each feature ourselves! Oh, it gets better! The only restriction that we were given was that we had to case one of the cards that were our very first SCS uploads! *whistles* Scary stuff!




Now the whole point of this particular challenge is to show everyone that we all start out at paper crafting somewhere and to show how we have "grown" in our abilities over the years. The problem was that most of us wanted to run with our tails between our legs because nobody wanted to dive into the deep dark depths of our beginning cards! lol But here I am rising above my embarrasement to proudly (go along with me here) display my card for all to see at the very top of my blog post! *snickers*




You can see in my case that I have changed the colours, added sewing, ribbon, paper tole and nixed the brads to choose pearls in it's place. I don't know about you, but this card looks a little more refined to me! I originally wanted to go crazy and change everything, but nooooo...somebody had to go and squash that theory and replace it with "you may do subtle changes to your card". Hmmph. So much for that idea! *wink*

***Edited to add*** - This card is an A2 Gatefold card. The belly band is a faux belly band and doesn't actually conect in the middle and neither does the ribbon. The image is only adheard to the right hand panel and stayes closed with a little magnetic closure. You open the card by lifting the left hand side of the image up :)

When I went to search my gallery for a card for this challenge I chose this one for a few reasons:

1. I don't own some of the stamps in my earlier uploads
2. I needed a maternity card
3. I made the original card for my brother and his now wife who just found out they were expecting (ahhh, memories)

But I have to say that the number one reason why I chose this card is that my brother and his wife just found out that they are expecting baby number 2 and I'm gonna give her this card to see if she even recognizes this from the original! Then I'm gonna ask her to bring out the original to compare it - let's make her sweat and see if she kept the card as a treasured keepsake! Bwahahaha!!


Card Recipe:

Stamps: Studio G Maternity Stamp
Paper: PTI White, Riding Hood Red, Watercolour, K&Co DP
Ink: Basic Black, Versa Mark, Creamy Caramel, Re-Inkers
Accessories: Sewing Machine, Cuttlebug, Nestabilities, Corner Rounder Punch, Taffeta Ribbon, Half Pearls, Aqua Painter, Dimensionals, Sponges, Paper Piercing Tool and Mat Pack