Thinking Of You Watercolor Poppies

Happy Monday morning! I hope your week is off to a great start. I ended up having a fantastic weekend. I thought we were going to spend Friday night in our usual way -- grocery shopping (I know, we live a glamorous life) -- and Saturday just hanging around the house catching up on chores. Instead, we ended up playing miniature golf (I WON! Two holes in one! Yahoo!), going blueberry picking (14 one quart bags in the freezer and a great big bowl to eat fresh), and getting some great food in a neighboring city pizza joint that I love. Take a look at these beauties. I snapped a photo just before picking them.

Sunday morning I woke up early and while the house was quiet I decided to film the video that I know you guys have been waiting for. Watercoloring these beautiful Poppies from Sheena's Paint Fusion line by Crafter's Companion. I used my Distress Inks once again, in shades Festive Berries, Fired Brick, Ripe Persimmon, Mustard Seed, Bundled Sage, Peeled Paint, Olive Grove, Frayed Burlap, Vintage Photo, Black Soot, Faded Jeans, and Seedless Preserves. I took my sentiment from Stamp-It Australia Imagine "Dreamy Daisies."

The video ended up being an hour and twelve minutes long, but I was able to speed it up and edit it down to thirteen minutes and twenty seconds! It took hours of editing, but I was proud of myself. I hope you all enjoy. Please click on the YouTube icon at the bottom right if you'd like to watch the video in HD, and don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe. Let me know how you liked it and if you'd be interested in similar videos in the future.

Have an awesome day!

Bamboo For You

Good morning! How's the start of your weekend? Did you get any crafty time in last night? I did, and made this sweet little card for a friend using the Party Paws "Bamboo" stamp set by Crafter's Companion. I wanted to try something a little different with my sky, so I colored it yellow instead of blue, as if this little scene was captured at sunset. I thought it went well with my IndieGirl papers.

The Spectrum Noir shades I used on this one were GG1, GG3, GG5, PP2, PP6, PL3, EB7, EB8, DG2, DG3, LY2, and LY3. 

My cousin Ashley gave me that 6x6 paper pad. Isn't it pretty?

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Close In My Heart

Happy Friday, everyone! It's the weekend, yay! Do you have any special plans? Our plans pretty much just consist of hanging out around the house this weekend, which means hopefully I will manage to get some crafty time in.

The other morning, while the kids were watching tv, I managed to sneak upstairs and get a card made and a video filmed and this little cutie from Mama Elephant's "In My Heart" was calling to me. I colored her in with my Spectrum Noir markers and added a little lemon Lawn Trimmings from Lawn Fawn to finish up the card. Once again, I pulled my color palette from the current Mama Elephant Photo Inspiration Challenge, just in a more muted hue of those shades. 

There's still a few days left to play along if you haven't already! This is my fourth entry, but hey, what can I say? I love Mama Elephant like crazy much and they don't have a limit listed in their rules, so why not? ;)

Check out the video below with some real-time coloring. Click on the YouTube icon at the bottom right to watch in HD. And always remember to like, comment, and subscribe! That lets YouTube know that you think I'm doing a good job and it means so much to me. Have an awesome weekend!

Hello Little Prince

Happy Hump Day! Or should I say "Hop Day" in this case? ;) On Monday I showed you my watercolor card for the latest Lawnscaping Challenge, and today I wanted to share with you the boy version of that card. I worked on both of them together, since each one needed several times to dry between the layers. I would set one aside and work on the other.

For this one I used the same Lawn Fawn "Hello Baby" stamp set, but inked up the frog, cattails and lily pads instead, watercoloring it with Distress Inks in Peeled Paint, Olive Grove, Vintage Photo, Mustard Seed, and Broken China. I used the small heart in that set to create my fly wings, and then just drew a little circular head on those suckers. ;) I also added a dab of enamel accents in black to my froggy's eye and as a three-dot detail below the focal panel.

I hope you like it! Have an awesome day!

Hello Sweet Girl - Lawnscaping Challenge #86

Happy Monday! Welcome to Lawnscaping Challenge #86! This round we are all about watercoloring. Use your Distress Inks as I did here, or any other watercoloring medium you please. 

From pencils to paints and everything in between, the options are endless! And I must say, I cannot wait to see all the projects you girls link up, because I know they are going to be amazing! Whether you're showing off your mad skills or taking the plunge and giving watercolors a try, I just know you're all going to do fabulous! And the prize is a FREE stamp set, generously sponsored by our dear friends at Lawn Fawn. What could be better than that?

For my card, I inked up the sweet Hello Baby stamp set and watercolored with my Distress Inks by pressing them onto an acrylic block and using that as my palette. I used Frayed Burlap, Tattered Rose, Peeled Paint, Bundled Sage, Seedless Preserves, and Tumbled Glass. I accented that with patterned papers from my much loved and much hoarded original 6x6 pad by Lawn Fawn and added a little May Arts swiss dot ribbon.

Please head on over to the Lawnscaping Challenge blog and check out the other amazing design team samples and link up your beautiful watercolored cards and projects to play along. See you there!

To Our Treasured Friends

Hiya! Thanks for stopping by today! I've got another Christmas in July card to share, this time using the brand new Vintage Christmas Sentimentals from Crafter's Companion. These sentiments are seriously awesome. The only difficulty I had creating for this release was deciding which sentiments to use, because there are just so many great ones. Ultimately, I decided to showcase the Friends & Family set, which went perfectly with this adorable raccoon image (my favorite Crafter's Companion stamp EVER and the one that helped me discover them, and them me) Mulberry Wood "Christmas Wishes."

I colored this in with my Spectrum Noir markers, in shades EB6, EB7, BG1, BG4, BG6, BG7, PP1, DR3, DR6, GT2, GT3, BT1, BT2, and BT3 on Spectrum Noir Ultra Smooth Premium White Cardstock. I hope you like it!

I'm also linking this up to the Festive Friday Challenge. I used the birch tree paper and woodland critters to tie in with their theme in the inspiration photo, and also pulled my whites, grays, and browns from there as well. Check them out if you haven't already.

Have a great day!

You Are My Hero

Happy Friday everyone! I hope you're having a good one. I'm getting this post up late today because we spent the day with friends at our local amusement park. Beautiful day for it too! And call me crazy, but I invited the boys to spend the night with ours tonight, so we're having a big sleepover. But these are great friends of ours and my boys actually seem to behave BETTER when there's more of them. Am I the only one who notices this? Somehow the dynamic shifts and they're playing nice and sharing and taking turns when the five of them are together, in a way they never do when it's just my three. I guess that's boys for ya! Ha!

But speaking of boys, yesterday I filmed my second installment of using these sweet little kiddos from the Mama Elephant "In My Heart" stamp set. This time I had to use the little boy and give him reddish-blond hair and freckles. In fact, he almost looks a bit like my nephew! I used the current Mama Elephant & Me Photo Challenge as inspiration when choosing my Spectrum Noir colors.

One subscriber said he looks like Dennis the Menace! Ha! What do you think? The video showcases real-time coloring for those of you who are into that. Click the YouTube icon on the bottom right to watch in HD, and don't forget to like, leave me a comment, and subscribe if you don't already! I sure do appreciate all your support. Have an awesome day!

More Than Just A Little

Hey everyone! How was your Monday? Are you glad it's past? I always feel a little better about Tuesday. Like, okay, we made it through the start of the week and are already one day closer to the weekend again! Haha! Does anyone else feel the same?

So today, I'm finally getting a chance to blog this sweet little card I made a couple of days ago. I actually released the video on my YouTube channel as soon as it was uploaded, but due to scheduling conflicts, I just wasn't able to get this post up until now.

It's another card I made for Operation Write Home, inspired by the current Mama Elephant & Me Challenge. I used the banner paper to tie in the celebration theme, and pulled the colors with my Spectrum Noir markers and patterned paper. Why, even her outstretched arms and pigtails seemed to mimic the favor tops to me. Once again, I used the In My Heart stamp set (obsessed!) and as you'll see in the video, I also stamped out two extra little scenes with this set that I will feature in upcoming videos.

I really hope you enjoy it! As always, you can watch in HD by clicking the YouTube icon in the bottom right corner, and please don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe! Every single one helps me out and I appreciate it more thank you know. I'm steadily getting closer to my next big milestone giveaway when I reach 5,000 subscribers! If you're not already one, I hope you'll consider helping me reach that number. So excited!

Have an awesome day!

Miles Apart, But Close In My Heart

Happy Sunday evening, everyone! I hope your week is off to a good start. My family and I are in great spirits because our team won the 2014 Fifa World Cup today. Yay, Germany!

Being that my husband is German and our three boys were born in Germany and are half-German (we were also married there and lived there for five years) there was, as you might expect, quite a bit of hooting and hollering going on in our house this afternoon.

So since I was in a celebratory mood, I thought it was the perfect opportunity to play along with the new Mama Elephant & Me Challenge.

This month's inspiration photo is all about celebrations, so I used everyone's favorite party favor -- balloons! I used one of my favorite go-to stamp sets, Up & Away and colored it in with Spectrum Noirs, pulling my colors from the inspiration photo as well, though I did swap red for the hot pink, to keep it gender-neutral. I paired it with a sentiment from my other favorite new set, In My Heart.

This will be another card going in my box for Operation Write Home.

I hope you like it!

Still Christmas in July with Bebunni

Hello, hello! I'm back today with another Christmas In July card with Bebunni! This time I'm using the adorable Pointsettia stamp set by Crafter's Companion. Of course, it is a bit early to be creating Christmas cards, but I donate loads of cards to the Caring Hearts Card Drive which benefits the elderly in nursing homes,  and every year it's a scramble to make as many as I can, so this year I determined to begin early!

So I colored this little guy with my Spectrum Noirs in shades: DR3, DR5, DR7, JG5, JG7, GB6, GG1, GG2, GG3, PP1, PP3, PP5, IG1, and IG2 on SN Ultra Smooth Cardstock.

I hope you like him!

I'll be linking this guy up to a brand-new to me challenge called Festive Friday. Take a look at their yummy inspiration photo:

So when do you start your Christmas cards?

Create A Smile Stamps First Release Blog Hop

Welcome to the Create A Smile First Release Blog Hop!

You should have come here by way of the amazing Anika Lerche,

the first German paper crafter I ever came across.

Her work is so beautiful and brilliant, you will instantly want to add her blog

to your visitation rotation so you can be continually inspired by her as I am.

If you are just popping in now, be sure to head back to 

the Create A Smile blog so you can begin the hop from the start

and not miss out on any of the fantastic projects linked up today.

Here's my card:

I used the awesome Surfing Penguin, which is a FREE

digital stamp that Christine has available on the blog,

along with that great sentiment from Comfy.

And now, a little bit more about Create A Smile.

Create a Smile is a new stamp company in town, located in Germany! This is super exciting for me, because I was married in Germany and it is also the country where my husband and my three sons were born. We made our home there for five happy years and I love to go back and visit my husband's family any time we get a chance.

But back to Create A Smile stamps. :)

When Christine Drogt started illustrating and sharing images with friends, it soon became crystal-clear that those images would make awesome clear stamps.  Because Christine has always loved to make people smile (it can be as easy as smiling at strangers!) the name was found quickly (thanks to her friend Alison!) and the vision became reality.

Create A Smile stamps are made of high quality photo-polymer and produced in Germany. They will for sure make you smile!

We’re thrilled you are joining us as we begin this great adventure! We truly love the fantastic paper-crafting community (YOU!) and are so excited to be bringing something new to you all!

These are the facts:

Create A Smile are releasing our first two stamp sets TODAY!! You can find our store at www.createasmilestamps.com  We have TWO fun sets filled with super cute images, available for purchase.

You can win a $15 gift-certificate for the store-- all you need to do is hop along and leave comments on all the fantastic and inspiring stops (one comment per person, per blog please!). We’ll pick random winner from all the comments - so the more blogs you visit (and leave a comment on) - the more chances you have to be a winner!

You have until Saturday (July 12th) 8am CET - that's 2am EST. The winner will be announced on theCreate A Smile Blog on Sunday (July 13th)

Here is a look at the two stamp sets that are releasing today.

Comfy

 Friends In The Woods

And that's it! I'm the last stop on the hop!

I hope you had a wonderful time and got inspired.

Make sure to visit the Create A Smile blog often,

as there are many more exciting things in store as this 

wonderful new company develops and stretches its wings.

Again, I would like to link this card up to the Penguin Papers Critter Challenge,

as she is generously donating $1 per submission to Operation Write Home.

Have an awesome day! :)

Life Is Good

Hi everyone!

Stopping in to share this card I made this past Monday

using torn papers to create waves and featuring the Lawn Fawn "Life Is Good" 

stamp set that I just can't seem to get enough of!

So perfect for summer cards!

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the video!

Click the YouTube icon at the bottom right to watch in HD

and please don't forget to like, comment and subscribe!

Also linking this up to the Pinguin Papers Challenge

as she has generously offered to donate $1 for every entry

to Operation Write Home, a wonderful cause that I have recently

committed myself to participating in.

Please consider linking up as well --

the challenge theme is: Critters.

Have an awesome day!

Life Is Good - Lawnscaping Challenge #85

Hey everyone! Happy Monday!

Welcome to another fun Lawnscaping Challenge!

Challenge #85 is a fabulous summer color combo

that I am sure you are all going to love.

For my card I used the Lawn Fawn Hello Sunshine 6x6 pad

to die cut all my images from Life Is Good and added some clouds

with the Spring Showers dies, shading with my Spectrum Noirs.

I hope you like it!

Please head over to the Lawnscaping Challenge blog

to check out the other amazing design team samples

and link up your projects to play along.

Big thanks to Simon Says Stamp for sponsoring our challenge

with a $25 gift certificate to our winner!

America The Beautiful

Happy Independence Day!

I hope you're all outside enjoying barbecue and pasta salad

and getting ready for fireworks after the sun goes down, 

and more importantly, I hope that you all are finding 

a brief moment to yourselves to remember what this day means to us

as Americans, and to remember those who have fought 

to honor and defend our nation and our freedoms.

I wanted to pop in real quick before joining my family

and share this card made with the brand-new just-released

Patriotic Pride stamp set by Crafter's Companion.

I paired it with some beautiful patterned paper and colored the 

sentiment in with my Spectrum Noir markers in DR5, TB1 and TB5.

I hope you enjoy it!

Have a happy 4th!

Christmas In July With Bebunni

It's Christmas in July today here at the blog,

and I'm sharing this sweet card made with the latest addition

to the Crafter's Companion family -- Bebunni Christmas!

There are 8 new stamp sets featuring this little guy,

but I chose to use Rudolph because his sweet little outfit just melts my heart

and reminds me of my babies when they were little.

I colored Bebunni in with my Spectrum Noir markers 

in shades: DR3, DR7, GG1, GG2, BG1, BG3, TN1, TN2,  PP1, PP3,

 TB1, TB2, and TB3 on Ultra Smooth Premium White Cardstock.

It's never too early to get a headstart on Christmas cards!

Have you made any yet this year?

Make A Wish

Hey there! Good morning!

So I was looking for another challenge to play along with

last night and I came across the Avery Elle AEI<3u a="" challenge="">.

I've never entered this one before, but I thought it was perfect timing,

since I just received the Storybook stamps and dies in the mail

and I've been dying to ink them up and play with them.

Since their theme for challenge #10 is GOLD,

I decided to emboss my images with Ranger gold embossing powder

and I also layered the focal panel over some AC gold foil cardstock.

The woodgrain paper is from the new MME "Wood" 6x6,

and I watercolored (surprise, surprise!) my little scene with Distress Markers.

I hope you like it!

And check out the Avery Elle AEI<3u a="" challenge="">.

There's still time to play along.