Whatcha Doin' Wednesday?

Hello!

The weather is looking pretty gloomy outside, yay!!  Hopefully that means we'll get some rain.  Hahaha!  I know I sound crazy but the past couple days have been extremely hot and I'm thinking we're ready for the weather change.  Plus we need the H2O.

I bet you're wondering about my post subject yes?  So instead of posting tomorrow for #TBT, I thought I'd share something for "Watcha Doin' Wednesday?" aka #WDW.  Yes I totally made that up.

We are celebrating my co-worker's "un-birthday" today.  Her birthday was in February, however she was not here to celebrate because she was on maternity leave.  So we decided to give her an un-BIRTHday party to make up for it.  I know sounds crazy right?  We're all a little bit crazy over here and any chance we get to celebrate we do.  ((hahaha))  Now as I'm the card maker in the group I usually try to make something that fits that individual's personality and I usually try to incorporate favorite colors, etc...  For Mariel, it was a little bit different.  I racked my brain and finally a light bulb came on!  She has the prettiest handwriting and for quite a while she was in to those chalkboard announcements, especially during her pregnancy.  So I thought why not do an ode to chalkboard and pretty letters.  Here is what I came up with using sentiment/letter/number dies and a couple stamps plus lots of white embossing powder...

Turquoise blue is also one of her favorite colors, at least it used to be, so I incorporated it into the design.  The polka dots are white embossed and it's backed by a warm white piece of cardstock and then glued down to the black card.  I cut the Stampin' Up Top Note die twice, once in black the other in the t-blue.  I trimmed the black piece so that it would nest in the t-blue then I added the white words.  Adding the pretty flowers from a RAK from Karen really added the girly touch I was hoping to achieve.  ((Thanks Karen!!))  As I was working on the panel I wanted to add an image but there was no where to put it that wouldn't cover up the words or look awkward so I decided to make an easel card within the card...  Here's the end result...

Ta-da!  ((hahaha!!))  I'm so proud of myself for this addition because I really wanted to incorporate Miyoko somewhere.  Now you can see the polka dot background which I love!  Here's a close up of Miyoko who happens to be the stopper for the easel.

That's just the top of the card, I still haven't shared the rest!  Here is the inside which I think is super CAS compared to the rest of the card!

Tons of space to write our "un-birthday" messages to Mariel and look a peeking Miyoko!  She is sooo sweet!!  Last I had to doll up the back of the card because there was glue stuck to the back.  Thinking I needed something easy I grabbed more black cardstock paper, an embossing folder and Miyoko again...

Another.. Ta-da!!  I love how she looks like a watermark! =D  I've never tried this before so again another happy first for me and I love the effect!  Well I think that sums up this card for today.  I hope she likes it!

********

Last, I know how much more can I write right?!  ((hahaha))  It's a quote/pic that Eva shared on FB.  ((Thanks Eva))  I for one agree with this statement, I think most of us would agree its something that we all think about when we are creating our projects.  Feel free to share or add to your blog space.  

Ok now, I'm done, hopefully you made it to the end.  If you only stopped to look at pics that's great too!  As always thank you for stopping by!!   Have a fabulous WDW!! 

Swiss Pixie Book Abigail

Hello!

Before I start I wanna send shout outs to my favorite peeps who always leave the best comments. Thanks Rachel, Eva, Karen, Denice, Lynn, Kathy & a  new friend, Aussie AnNie.  I'm so thankful for you gals who not only inspire me but also support with your kind words.  You ladies rock!!  If you haven't already become a follower of their blogs you should.  They have tons and tons of awesome projects and inspirations for your viewing pleasure.  Just click on their names above to be directly linked.  ^.^

Just the other day I got a some new stamps from CC Designs and couldn't wait to ink up one of them. Meet Swiss Pixie Book Abigail...  As you can see she was too cute to bypass for another day.

Just sitting here thinking of YOU

I did a super simple 1-layered card for easy mailing.  This is for the bookworm in all of us and I'm planning to send this to my grams who loves reading.  One of our favorite authors is Catherine Coulter. It's been so long since I've read a new book from her, I'll have to go to the book store and see if she's written anything new and then send it off to my grams.  I had a lot of fun coloring this image, especially the books!  hehe,  I went with a nice soft vintage colored palette and love the end result.  The distress inks make this look like a burnt piece of paper.  hahaha...  I thought the AmyR sentiment was perfect!!  You can never go wrong with an AmyR sentiment.

Swiss Pixie Book Abigail

Ok, this one is going to be short and sweet.  Thanks so much for stopping by!  Happy TBT!!

Turning 6 years old!

Hello!

Today I have a fun birthday card to share featuring an older CC Designs stamp from the Kiki La Rue line.  The image, called Sweet Kiki La Rue. is not only adorable she was the perfect choice for this birthday card I made for a sweet little girl...

I used several dies from CC Designs, MFT, Little B and a circle punch.  The pink cardstock is from MFT and the patterned paper is from Wild Rose Designs.  Also used was a white/purple twine from Doodlebug Designs and a white gel pen.  Everything was colored with Copic markers.

Below are some close-ups of the card.  First up is the flower with the #6 inside.  Yep this little girl just turned 6, she's a big girl now!  I used a Little B scallop die, a circle punch from Marvy and the #6 from CC Designs Cutter bubble numbers die.  I used Copics to color all three elements and then used my WOS clear glitter brush pen to give it a nice coat of sparkle.

Up next is Sweet Kiki La Rue herself.  I'm not so good with blonde hair, but this isn't too bad, is it? hahaha.  I stamped her in brown instead of black to give her a softer look.  I think she's adorable!!

There is nothing like having a double scoop with a cherry on top to make your birthday extra special right?  hehehe,

This card is already on it's way to the birthday girl and I hope she likes it.  Thanks so much for stopping by today.  Happy Hump day!!

Say Cheese!

Hello!

Hope everyone is doing well.  It's been a rough couple of months at work and actually getting to blog has been a bit difficult.  I'm so bummed because I actually like it here.  With all the new things going on at work it feels like blogging would be the last thing I'd want to do, but I'm going to try to turn that around and try to get back in to the groove.  What better way to finding my groove than with a sweet card and if I decided to enter it in to the C.C. Designs DT Call well that just shows ya I mean business!  (hahaha)  Dr. Maya Angelou said it best, "Ain't nothin' to it but to do it" and I don't think I have anything to lose plus I get to add another card to my stash.  Flipping through my C.C. Designs stamps, I came across Camera Birgitta.  I'm pretty sure I haven't inked her up yet so she was perfect for a CAS kind of card.

I'm a big fan of the C.C. Cutters and AmyR's sentiments, but there is just something about these Birgittas... So darn cute!  After stamping her on to the white cardstock I happily colored her with Copics.  Thought it would be fun to keep the summer colors alive as they make me happy.  And look she's got polarized sunglasses!!  hehehe  I added two perfect sentiments from AmyR's Wish You Were Here stamp set.  The last touch was to add the Daisy chain banner to the left side of the card.  There might have been just a bit too much white space for me and I like how the daisies look where they fell.

This was a lot of fun to put together and getting to write about it here was another point on the road to finding my groove.  Hoping to actually get back to visiting some blogs and catch up on what everyone has been making and sharing.  I know there's bound to be lot of cute Halloween and Christmas projects.  More inspiration to see and appreciate.  Before I go, "Say Cheese!" =D

Hehehe, sorry I couldn't resist.   Alrighty signing off for sure this time.  Thanks for stopping by!  Have a terrific day and stop by tomorrow when I share my mid-inspiration for Aloha Friday's current challenge...  Have you linked up yet?   Bye!!

Christmas projects recap

Morning!

I didn't get too much done for Christmas it just came way too fast but I did have some time to make a few things.  Here is a recap of what I made using stamps & dies from C.C. Designs...

This was a case of a card that Kathy made for one of our stamp camp meet ups that I missed out on.  She was sweet to give me the parts and since I had the stamps I was able to make it yay!  Featuring the Sweet November Fairwees digi stamp Jilly & Emmaline's Secret with sentiment from AmyR Christmas Sentiments II..

This next card features another set of Fairwees Piper & Mia (Banner Day), the C.C. Cutter It's snowing dies and of course an AmyR sentiment.  (I hand wrote the JOY in the banner)

Here are some quick bags I made using the sweet penguins and the Joy music sheet background stamp.

My co-worker asked me to make some gift card holders for her.  I came up with a super simple design and used the discontinued (from CC Designs site) Kraftin' Kimmie holiday trinkets stamps.

This next card features one of my new favorites from CC Designs, Roberto's Rascals Henry Claus.  I used some leftover cutouts (tree & wreath) for this CAS card. 

This next one was also fun to make.  Featuring Swiss Pixie Fuzzy Boots Birgitta...

I saw a lot of crafters making wreaths with ribbon and I thought to myself, "Hey self, why don't you do that on a card?" So I did. :)   The sentiment is partly from the dp and handwritten by me.  And last in my 2013 stash is another card featuring the Fairwees Jilly & Emmaline... (One of my favorites of the season.  Love how it turned out).

I used the following supplies from CC Designs:  AmyR Big Christmas wishes, Whiff of Joy Essential backgrounds text style & CC Cutter Bubble Alphabet die.  Here is collage of the rest of the card including the inside.

Thanks so much for stopping by...  If you stop by tomorrow I think I'll have something for the Yumi & Fumi Handmade CH #29 reminder.  hahaha..  Have a wonderful day!!

Hugs,
Lilo

She's too cute to spook

Hey everyone!

It's only a couple of days before Halloween, are any of you dressing up?  I guess I'm what you call a non-dresser for Halloween, but I do like the event.  Not sure if we're going to get the same 10-15 people coming to trick or treat at our house so just in case I'm getting a few bags of my favorite candy because if none come at least I'll enjoy eating the leftovers.  hahaha!

Today I have a Halloween card, but did not use a traditional Halloween image.  This little girl is another one of the cuties from the Three Little Autumn Girls set at All Dressed Up that has been sitting on my desk for a while.  Thought it would be fun to get her dressed up in Halloween colors (black & orange) with some grays and hints of purple, as in purple hair!  :)

Autumn Girl - All Dressed Up

I used a new Sizzix die for the intricate black background.  It was a bit difficult to work with, but the end result was a worth it.  I'll have to figure out a better way to remove it from the die next time.  I hadn't done clouds in a while and thought gray to black looked cool here.  I used a Studio G spider web to add a bit more spookiness but didn't add the spider cause it just wasn't cute enough. (hahaha)  See the flower?

There's the spiders!  I used the poinsettia die from Paper Smooches and some new Recollections Halloween paper to create the spooky spider flower and added a nice big orange gem to the center.  The sentiment(s) is from CC Designs, AmyR Ghostly Greetings sentiment set and I used another Sizzix die to cut it out.  I'm going to join in the All Dressed Up Halloween challenge with this card.  Wish me luck!  (haha)

I have one more Halloween post coming up on Thursday so hope you'll stop by again.  In the meantime, stop by the Yumi & Fumi Handmade blog for the newest challenge.  We've got a color challenge (orange, black, green, purple) going on and if you use those colors why not link up?  Go HERE to see all the details.

Autumn Girl - All Dressed Up

Mahalo for stopping by!!   Have a great day!!

xxLeanne

Other challenges:
Crafts 4 Eternity: #147
Sister Act Card Challenge #30 - Anything Goes
Through the Craft Room Door - Anything Goes
Simon Says - Halloween or Halloween colors

Shhh... Don't rock the baby

Good morning everyone!

Hope you had a great weekend!  Congrats to the Ravens.  Were you dissappointed in the game yesterday?  Lots of controversy, especially when the lights went out.  Too funny, by that time the game was just boring for me.  It did pick up in the end which is how it should have started.  I liked some of the commercials, but they weren't spectacular and Beyonce did her thang!  It was nice to see her partnering up again with Kelly and Michelle.  Looking forward to their comeback tour.

Today I have this fun monkey card I made for one of my dearest friends.  She's preggers and her baby shower theme was monkeys.  I knew exactly which stamps I wanted to use for her card.  The first was the cute monkey from Sweet November Land's Safari Pals set and the second was Baby Bear Beatrice from C.C. Designs. 

Yes the background is paper I made using the monkey and randomly flipping him upside down.  So love playing with digis to make fun background paper.  I didn't really have to do anything more.  I made the monkey bigger and placed him in the center then placed a tiny BBB on to his head.  Hehehe, Monkey looks like he's scared to move and wake the baby.  So I'm calling this one, "Don't rock the baby."  lol...  I used distress inks, Vintage Photo, around the edges and then used Walnut Stain on the edge of the paper.  I stamped the sentiment (AmyR Welcome Little One) Congratulations on some dp and made it in to a banner.  The diaper pins are from the CC Cutter Baby Accessories die set.  The ribbon was from the Ribbon Carousel and went perfectly with the rest of the card.

That's all I have today, Mahalo for stopping by!.  Have a terrific day!!
Hugs,
Leanne

Breaking out the old...

Good morning!

Thanks a lot for popping in today, I appreciate it very much.

So yesterday as I was washing clothes there wasn't really anything on t.v. that I wanted to watch so I decided to watch the first season of Hawaii 5-0.  As I watched the pilot I realized that I had never seen it before.  So glad I did because now everything sort of makes sense.  lol.  Mind you I have already seen most of the First Season, but don't mind watching it again.  I get to see Hawaii, some good lookin' guys and oh yea of course the story lines.  {lol}  All-in-all a good day. 

In between watching H50, I also got a chance to make a card.  My very first Valentine themed card of 2013.  I used an oldie from CC Designs.  The funny thing about this image is that I remember stamping it from my Copic certification class when this stamp first debuted, what 2 years ago?  Only recently did I find it along with some other papers from that long ago class.  Well I'm happy to say I finally finished coloring her up and have put her on a card. :)

Here's my finished card featuring the adorable C.C. Design Swiss Pixie Violet with Key.

The papers are from a S.E.I. paper pad I bought at one of the Anaheim Expos.  I was lucky enough to grab it as it was the last one!  I believe that was more than a few years ago too!  I have been waiting to use it for the right occasion.  I also have an older BG dp on here too. 

I used a bunch of punched hearts from a Spellbinder die, a couple heart punches and a heart from the C.C. Cutters Key & Lock die set to make the butterfly.  For the antennae I used a paper flower stamin.  I think I used about 10 hearts from the Spellbinder dies, two each from a small & medium punch and one from the C.C. Cutter die.  So that makes 15 to create the butterfly.  Used a Swiss dots embossing folder for the larger pink wings and colored the dots with a white gel pen.  I have some leftover hearts from the SB die so I just might make another one. :)

 Next I wanted to share a close up of the banners which spell out L-O-V-E.  The banners are from the C.C. Cutter Mini Banner die set.  The hearts inside the banners are each punched with a smaller heart punch I have.  (Yep got a bunch of punches, ha!)  I punched white cs and then I colored them up using Copics.  The letters were handwritten with a white gel pen.  Last I added white dots to the ends of the banners with Ice White Viva Decor pen.

Here is a close up of CC Designs Swiss Pixie Violet with Key in her pink, brown with a touch of red outfit.  I colored the key red and added Stickles.  I also added some to her headband.  I know I should have grounded her, but I get nervous when I do, I almost always end up not liking it.  Next time. {lol}

You are all in for a shocker!  I actually have the Copic colors I used.  Well that's only cause they are still on the table and not back in the holder.  {haha}  Here ya go:

Skin: E50, E51, E21, BV20, R20

Hair: E55, E57, E59, E79

Dress, hat, socks: R27, R29, RV10, RV11, RV13, E55, E57, E47

Boots: E55, 57

Key: R27, R29, E55, E57

Entering this card in to the All That Scraps challenge just for fun.

Alrighty, enjoy the rest of your weekend and I might have some pictures for you from CHA.

Aloha!!

Hugs,

Leanne

LFF #54 - Shhh.....

Hello...

Happy Aloha Friday everyone!

Thank you all so much for the wonderful comments!  Work has been so crazy and reading all the lovely comments makes the end of the day so much better.  Mahalo for making this girl's end of the day a whole lot better!  :)

Today for Lilo's Fun Friday I wanted to share a baby card I made for my friend Angie.  After stamp camp we became good friends and every month a few of us still get together for dinner and catch up.  She revealed to us that she was pregnant and boy were we all happy.  So many babies are on the way.  Love it!!  We were meeting up for dinner so I wanted to make a card for her.  Lucky for me a ton of really adorable baby images were just released from All That Scraps including some super cute forest and safari pals from Sweet November!!  Wow, Amy did an awesome job with this new release. And I can't leave out any of the CC Designs images... all super cute!!  

I purchased the digital images for most of the release and started to build a small scene...

Shhhh... don't wake the baby....

Oh darn!!  I missed a nose!!  {lol}  Oh well, hopefully Angie won't notice it.  hehehe...  Anyhoos, here's my card featuring the Forest & Safari pals who are making sure that Baby Bear Beatrice is staying all snuggled and warm during her nap.  The cool thing about BB Beatrice is that you can color her up as a little boy, which is what I did, no one the wiser. ;)  I had a lot of fun with the colors, mixing and mis-matching, but they all seem to go together.  I know there are a lot of mistakes, but hopefully I'll be forgiven.  {ha!} 

After I colored all the images (save for that nose) I cut the paper down and created a frame.  It was actually super easy.  After gluing down the colored image on to the dp I cut small strips of dp and angle/glued them in the corners.  Pretty easy!!  Oh look another handwritten sentiment {lol} hey I needed something fast. :)

Alrighty, time to say good night or good morning where ever you may be. 

Mahalo for stopping by.

Have a great Aloha Friday!!

Hugs,

Lilo

Candle Fun!

Hello!
Hoping you're having a good week.  So far it's been a pretty cool week for me.  Work is not so stressful this week and I had a really fun craft session with my work buddy, Kathy, Tuesday night.  The result of our efforts is what I wanted to share today.  I'm going to TRY not to make this too long, but there are no guarantees.  I understand if you just scroll through without reading, I have plenty of pictures .  No worries, just so happy you stopped by to visit me.  :)  Please make sure to stop by Kathy's blog and leave her some love too.  :)

During Christmas I saw a few of these wonderful images on candles popping up here and there and I REALLY wanted to make some of these for Christmas, but time ran out.  :(  I asked Kathy if she wanted to experiment with me and she said of course!  hehe, she likes to experiment as much as I do.  I found an easy tutorial on the Digi Bell DT blog by Lydia Bancroft and made sure I bookmarked it for later when I would have time to work on one. 

The supplies: Good sized candle, white tissue paper, stamp of image you want to use, coloring medium (markers, colored pencils), wax paper, embossing heat gun.

Lydia's tutorial incorporates how to print digis on tissue paper (pretty informative) and then add them to the candle.  She has pictures with detailed instructions.  Kathy and I decided to use rubber & clear stamps for our first attempts.  We didn't want to try to use our Copics so instead we used colored pencils.  Believe me it was a good choice, I'll tell ya why later on.  We both chose our images, she chose Sweet Thinkin' Mae from Some Odd Girl and I chose Birthday Monkey from C.C. Designs.  We inked our stamps with Memento ink (Black Tuxedo) and stamped it onto the tissue paper.  We then started to color.  (Tip: Make sure if you have some extra sheets of scratch paper underneath the image you are stamping & coloring. It helps create a good stamped image as well as smoothe strokes when using colored pencils)  When we were done coloring we followed the rest of the steps: cutting out our image, placing our image on to the candle, put the wax paper over it and gently heat set it.  Kathy went first and we were both so excited at how fast it took to heat it.  The cool part was seeing the image melt into the candle!!  SO COOL!!!  I noticed that you can put your image on colored side up or down.  Either way it picks up all the colors.  It just gives you another option to flip your image which is what I did.  Here's our first images, me up first:

Hehehe, he turned out so cute!  Here is Kathy's:

Doesn't she look awesome?  We both were super excited to get our first ones done and friends, let me tell you, it took us a total of 15 minutes to do this!  From picking the image to heat setting it onto the candle!!  So easy and fun.  Kathy did another one using the same image, but colored her differently. 

Here they are side by side:

I went a different route.  I decided to add the same cute monkey to the other side of the candle and I colored him a bit different.  This time I flipped him with the colored side up then heat set him.  Much more vibrant yea? 

Here we are side by side:

When I got home I had already decided that I was going to gift my candle to my cousin's son who is turning 1.  My parents are going to LV to attend the party and I'm sending this little guy with them.  I wanted to add his name and maybe write Happy 1st Birthday to commemorate the occasion.  So I used a Copic marker (and this is where I was so glad I had scratch paper underneath the tissue paper) to write his name, it looked really cool.  When I picked it up to cut it out I noticed that the ink had gone through to the scratch paper as if I wrote on that paper!  Whew, luckily I had that extra piece of paper to catch the ink, else I would've had to explain why Aaden's name was "tagged" on the dining room table!  LOL!   Anyhoos, I know when you transfer words you would usually write it backwards, but this time I heat set it with the ink side up.  Worked out perfectly!  And just below I wrote Happy 1st BIRTHDAY!

Now I didn't want to just send the candle without a card, so I made a small card to go with it.  I used the same cute Birthday Monkey, my newest Spellbinder, star circles, regular circles, C.C. Cutter balloons, distress inks and some twine to create this card.

I am so happy with this card.  So bright and cheerful.  The frosting on the cupcake turned out better than I expected.  It's actually two different colors, B21 on top and BG11 underneath.  I don't think Aaden will know what it is, but hoping his mom and my cousin will like it.  Here are a couple more pictures (stay with me! I'm almost done! ~ hehehe) of the candle & card, can you see the cupcakes peeking out from the sides in the first picture?  :) 

I'm probably going to dress up the bottom part of the candle with ribbon so it doesn't look too plain.  As expected, I dressed up the bottom of the candle not with ribbon but found some corrugated paper and a blue piece of rafia. 

Whew, and there you have it!  A 30 minute candle project, an hour card project and this post - all pau!  If you're still reading this you are so sweet, Mahalo! 

Alrighty, I'm tired now, so I'm going to get something to drink and maybe veg in front of the tv for a bit before heading to bed.  Have a fantastic Thursday!!

Hugs,
Leanne

Supplies & Copics:
Distress Inks: Vintage Photo, Wild Honey & Crushed Olive

Christmas cards with CC Designs

Wanted to send a shout out to my little cousin Alexis, Happy 10th Birthday Lexi!!

Happy Christmas Eve Everyone! 

So who else is scrambling to get everything done besides me?  Last minute shopping or last minute crafting and cooking?  Well I hope that it's a merry time doing all of those things.  I'm going to finish posting and then finish up some last minute crafts for some friends.  I'm listening to the Hawaiian radio station (Hawaiian 105) right now and they are playing Christmas music so I'm definitely in the mood and motivated. 

Here are some cards I made using some of the older C.C. Designs Pixies & Sugarplum images and some
AmyR sentiments.  I didn't get to use any of the images last year, so this year I wanted to make sure they got onto some cards.  I was picturing an easy kine wreath to go along with the images, and a CAS layout.  For the wreaths I used two Spellbinders (scalloped circle and inverted scallop circle).  It actually came out just as I envisioned and it was super easy to do.  For some I used kraft & white cs, which I embossed.  I also made some with dp.  Dotted the wreaths with either white or cream colored pearl pen around as ornaments interspersed with some actual half pearls to make it more festive.  Some are colored to match the card.  Lastly I added either twine or bakers twine to the top.  I am definitely thinking of doing this again next year. 

Santa Birgitta
Sentiment by AmyR

Nora, I gave her a Santa hat courtesy of Santa Birgitta.
Sentiment by AmyR

Cocoa Emma & AmyR sentiment

Santa Emma

(Digi) Christmas Angel(s) I added the smiles :)
Sentiment is from TGF Merry Tags

I don't know which of the wreaths I like more, the ones with dp or embossed.  I think they turned out pretty good.  This is the year of fast and easy so I think this qualifies for me.  hehehe.  Here are some close ups:

Well that's all for me right now.  I need to finish up some last minute crafts for tonight and tomorrow.  Yep, the procrastinator again..  lol!  So for those of you preparing dinner or just starting breakfast enjoy the next few days and cherish the time spent with your loved ones. 

Mahalo for your lovely comments and here's wish you all a very Merry Christmas Eve & Happy Holidays to all!

:)

Hugs,

Leanne