You know what it is...

You ready? You sure? Okay...

There it is - this week's sketch from The Outlawz! Easy peasy, right? What's that? You can hardly wait to finish reading this post so you can get started on your own card? Well okay! I know you're in a big hurry now, but would you like to see what I made? Well, would ya?? Good. Thank you...

The image is Girl on Swing by Stamp Oasis. She's been colored with Copics then outlined with a black Sakura Glaze pen. I might try to do the Glaze pen first next time. The ink ran onto her nose and kind of lifted the paper when I tried to get it off... :(  The sky paper is from American Crafts, and the butterfly paper is from Basic Grey's Urban Prarie collection. I made the little rolled flowers by coloring scrap paper with the some of the markers I used for the image and hit them with a teeny bit of Stickles. The butterfly punch in the corner is from Martha Stewart; I put a little piece of black paper behind it to make it stand out against the bg paper.

Woohoo! I'm done... Rush on over to upload your card. March is still rolling, and that $50 Oozak.com gift certificate could be yours!

Challenges: Anything Goes - Make Your Own Embellishments, Papertake Weekly - Girly, Let's Ink it Up - #11 Die Cuts/Punches, Stamps R Us - Spring

I see...

Polka Dots! And why am I seeing polka dots, you ask? They're the theme of the new challenge at Guylou's Inimitability!  If you'd like to enter the challenge, link up a new card or other project with polka dots before 10 p.m EST on March 31. Easy, right? If you win, you'll receive a free digi of your choosing plus another digi for your Guest Design Team Member spot!

Here's my card using the Cat & Fish digi:

This stamp seems like it could be awesome on a number of types of cards. I made up my own sentiment using Pea Aimee font from kevinandamanda.com. This kitty just looks like he's about to make a bad move! 

I used Copics to color everything then gave my fish bowl a heavy coating of Glossy Accents. The sentiment was punched out using an EK Success punch and inked with Colorbox ink. A piece of paper from the Home collection by My Mind's Eye is behind the cat, and a piece from the Road Trip papers from K&Co is the card front. The pearls are from a pack of e.line embellishments from Prima.

Ok, that's it for me! I hope to visit your blog soon to see your polka-dotted masterpiece! :D

Wednesday's Sketch!

Here's the new sketch at The Outlawz:

And here's my card:

That's Dottie Wonder Woman from Bugaboo Stamps. She's been colored with Copics then hit with Sakura Glaze pens (rope, boots, lips, eyelashes), and Spica glitter pens on her earrings. I also used a Glaze pen to color in the dots on the star stamp (The Paper Studio) and a regular Gelly Roll for the stitching. The stars have been embossed with some two-tone embossing powder that was on clearance recently at Addicted to Rubber Stamps.com. The paper is from DCWV's Rock Star stack, and the letters are by Making Memories. The ribbon was in some fabulous blog candy I got last year...

Don't forget that all March challenge entries at The Outlawz are worth one shot at a $50 gift certificate to Oozak.com! Come play along!!

Challenges: Simon Says Stamp - Stars, Going Grey with Scrap-Creations: Anything Goes, Papertake Weekly - Trios

Technology should be helpful...

So, you know Daylight Savings Time started the other day, right? Why did my silly phone (Samsung Impression) change all of the appointments after Sunday to an hour later?  I thought my uncle had a 2:40 appointment today, but the phone said 3:40 and I went with that...MISSED it!!  I told my uncle before we got there that I thought it was supposed to be 2:40, and as soon as I walked into the office, he told me that I was right. Had to reschedule to some ridiculously early time next week because the doc is only in twice a week... At least I realized it was the phone and was able to fix all of the other appointments I have coming up. And if you think I'm just crazy, I Googled it. This has been happening for a while... GRR!!

And the Winner is...

Sara I!!!

Yay Sara! Sara said she'd definitely rather be traveling (w/o her lovely children, mind you)...  :D   (Sorry Gina! Happy birthday anyway!) I'm running behind because I was doing my grandmother's hair; I'll be right back to show/tell you what Sara will be getting!
 

Ok! Here we go... 

 
Making Memories - Travel: 8x8 paper pad, rub-ons, and page pebbles, plus some Mini Shimmer Alphas, Basic Grey clear birthday stamps and layered stickers, K&Co Lotus Greeting Stamps, Hero Arts tags rubber stamps, and some flowers from I Am Roses. I had another paper pad and embellishments ready if "Chillin'" had been the winner's choice. Stay tuned; you never know when that will be up for grabs!  :)

Sara, you know about a million ways to reach me to give me your address so I'm not even putting my email addy on here...

Who's Dammit?

In case you too are wondering who Dammit is, one of my friend's kids asked that question the other night and I let my friend know that my next post would be titled just for them!! :D

I know, I'm out there... Today's post should be about my card at The Outlawz for the sketch challenge, right? Well, here it is!

Let me tell you, this was one of the easiest cards I've ever made. It took me some time to figure out which image I wanted to use, but that was probably the hardest part. The image is from Doodle Pantry. I got it in the Help for Katie pack as a freebie during the Heart Hop at CDAC (oops!), and it came as a line drawing and pre-colored. I was running late getting my card in so...this is the colored version! The paper is all digital from the Candy Kisses collection at Peppermint Creative. It was so easy making each piece the size I wanted in MS Word. (Hint to save ink when printing digi paper: If you know that a piece will be covered, put a white box on top of the part that won't show. No point printing a whole 5x7 rectangle when only an eighth of it will show on the sides...)  The ribbon is from American Crafts. I used red and pink Spica pens to go over some of the hearts, darkened up the sheep's cheeks with a colored pencil (my printer made the blush a little light), and went around some of the edges with some Colorbox inks.

So, it you'd like to jump in this week's challenge, here's a picture of the sketch:

If you haven't been to The Outlawz this month, Oozak is giving one of our March entrants at $50 gift certificate! Any Outlawz challenge you enter in March will get you one entry! Hope to see your creation there soon!!

**I'm entering Doodle Pantry's Digital Challenge #9 as suggested by Lisa over at Land of EnCRAFTment. Thanks Lisa!!  And THANKS to Laurie for helping me remember where this adorable image came from! There is a DP stamp in the Help for Katie pack, but this isn't it. If you want this one, you can get it from Doodle Pantry! :D

A Gift for You...

Well, one of you anyway. I finally picked a few things to give to one of my followers. I'm not going to show you what's included; it's a surprise! But I'll give you a little hint (not that it will help). There are things from K&Co, Hero Arts, Basic Grey, Making Memories, and I Am Roses. It's not a whole heaping pile of stuff, but who complains about free stuff?? (If you do, well, your mom should have taught you better. Don't bring your nonsense to my little giveaway...)  If you follow my blog and would like a shot at some free goodies, please put your name in the linky list below then leave me a comment telling me if you'd rather be traveling or chillin'.... I'll pick a winner next Monday, March 14, at noon EST. Good luck!

Get Ready... Sketch Challenge at Guylou's!

I have a confession.... Ready? I am a habitual reader... Now you know.  :D  I've been reading as far back as my memories go. Disney books with records (yeh, I'm old enough for records!) and Sweet Pickles are the first things I remember reading.  Strangely enough, I can't remember my parents reading to me at all. I know they must have, because they read a lot and always let me know the value of being a good reader, but in my head, Disney records taught me how to read. Now I'll read just about anything... except my Kindle. I've read one whole book on it since my father bought it for me last year; I LOVE the word games on it though! Weird, right?  I even have books in storage for my child(ren) whenever I get around to making that happen. A set of Sweet Pickles is in my collection!

Anyway, this month is National Reading Month. As such, G over Guylou's Inimitability has chosen to showcase two stamps for this challenge - Caroline & Marysse. Both of these young ladies are enjoying their books! There's also a sketch by Carmen from the DT for this challenge. You may remember me saying that Carmen is one of those folks I admire for unrestrained paper usage. Yeah... Cutting all these pieces of paper hurt me! I don't know how y'all do it. ;D

Here's the sketch if you'd like to play along with us:

And here's my card with Caroline:

If you'd like to play along, use the sketch and follow the rules on the challenge blog. You don't have to use a GI digi, but there are tons of freebies around! The challenge will be open until 10 p.m. EST on the day when everyone is Irish, March 17.  I hope to see your project soon!

p.s. Our guest designer for this challenge is Barbara from Forgotten Scraps. You've probably been to her blog or maybe her mom's recently since Barbara started a digi line and was giving digis away... Anyway, click here to see her take on the sketch. You can check out the rest of the DT from the sidebar...

Man...

Why is Blogger messing with me today? I just typed up a post, hit publish, and saw "Service Unavailable!" I know Blogger auto-saves, so I was trying to keep it together and not act like I was stressed that I may have to retype the post. After showing me that error page a couple more times, Blogger seems to have gotten itself together. Good thing too...

New Sketch Challenge at The Outlawz!

Warning: I am not feeling the card I made this week for the sketch challenge at The Outlawz. I guess that's one thing about being on a DT - you have to stretch. Normally, I can pick and choose what I want to do; I may have skipped this altogether if I didn't need to have something to show this week. I'd have to say that creating outside of your normal zone is one of the best things about being a DT member...

I didn't exactly follow the sketch either. I couldn't find an image that I wanted to put in the tiles, and I wasn't sure what to do with that shape at the top.  So...

Sketch

 

My Card

 

Sorry that the toaster's in the background. I was running out of light... PP - Heidi Swapp