The Glow of an Afternoon

Die Cut Divas challenge for April ends today

  Gina K Designs is the sponsor

This is my sample for the challenge of April holidays, rain, spring, IRS, Taxes,Easter, Storms and this is your last day to submit an entry for April.  I have so enjoyed these stamps.  Making a scene is so easy and you have so many useful stamps in the sets. I will be making lots of scenes in the future..  

Here is an example of creating a scene without a lot of stress.  

Supplies:
Gina K Designs The Northwoods 2
Die-namics Stitched Rec STAX
Copic markers E31, YG01, YG 03
Distress inks Mustard Seed, Scattered Straw, Shabby Shutters, and Peeled Paint
Cuttlebug
Narrow ribbons

Anything Goes for April

Morgan's ArtWorld has an Anything Goes challenge.  Isn't that perfect?  For my "Anything Goes", I colored this wonderful image, made a die cut tag and adhered it to a card with a ribbon down the left side.  I think she is a beauty who will dance her way into your hearts.

Morgan's ArtWorld

Die-namics Stitched TredTagStax

Posting my CCC card to The Purple Place

I try to join the Card Chain Challenge every month.  After you make your cards, do you ever send them out?  Most of mine, I give away at Christmas.  It's the one thing I can do for my co-workers and they love the cards (they tell me they do, anyway).  Someone will say "I used that card with the flowers or lighthouse or the grumpy old man" during the year.  So, at least, I'll know they're getting used.   I had one friend who couldn't use hers for two years because they were too pretty to give away.

Now I can give away a card every month for someone special for the CCC at my friend, Deborah's blog at the Society of Stampaholics.

The Purple Place (Lisa) has received her card and I bet you thought you'd never get to see the card.  The REVEAL!

This Penny Black stamp is a beauty and I don't stamp her often enough.  Hope you like her.

Arlene

Lot of Tags

Lots of Tags for you and me.

I made some tags last weekend, but I needed some more and thought I'd go through my entire scrap pile and put it into some kind of order.  To do that, I needed to (yes, needed) make more tags.  I really fell in love with the non-traditional tags I made last weekend and went wild this weekend.  I made 30 and then stopped counting.  Somehow the tags just seem perfect.  I threw paper away and kept a lot.  Here are the results of my labor.

Overall view of tags.  I picked out about 20 of the more unique tags to display below.

 A few more close-ups

And still more close-ups

Don't you just love the Snow-man?  This paper was from a 12"X12" paper

 

Here are the rest of the tags.

You can use code Arlene15 at checkout to receive 15% off your purchase of $25 or more (before tax and shipping).  Don’t forget that we are on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.  Follow us on these different social media outlets so you won’t miss out on any fun promotions!

Hope you’ll join in our April Challenge of Watercoloring with your Hero Arts stamps, dies and stencils. And, if you need some new supplies, don’t forget to shop at a2z Scrapbooking.. 

Don’t forget that we are on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.  Follow us on these different social media outlets so you won’t miss out on any fun promotion

Yes, Christmas, Here I Come

It was a beautiful weekend here and I created some tags, some may be an understatement, because I made 20 Xmas tags.  I need at least 15 for my presents for my co-workers exchange gifts.  There is one difference in making my tags = most are not made with Christmas themes.  I used NON-TRADITIONAL papers.  Do you have that scrap pile of papers that keeps building and building?  So do I and my tags ate into those 4 inch approximately square pieces of paper that don't get used.  I still have way too much scraps, but I still have time to use them before Christmas.  

Without further ado, as they (who is they, anyway?) say:  Here is my first set and how long I've had the paper.  Upper Left is an old note card (3 years) , upper right card (5 years), bottom left card (only one year), middle bottom card,  6 years), and last but not least, paper is made from strips of papers glued onto a piece of copy paper and only 3 months old.

Now that you know I've gone scrap happy, I won't make you go through each one, but the left two bottom tags are from a card stock type ring calendar and the dog is from a commercial Christ card I received. 

Give it some thought and use those old scraps for making tags. This was so quick that I had fun just pulling scraps out and running through my Cuttlebug.

Guess what!  The Christmas Tree dis I used is on sale at A2Z Scrapbooking, right HERE for only $5.00.  What a steal.  .     How can you turn that deal down?

Meanwhile please come join us in a little water coloring challenge for the month of April.

You can use code Arlene15 at checkout to receive 15% off your purchase of $25 or more (before tax and shipping).  Don’t forget that we are on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.  Follow us on these different social media outlets so you won’t miss out on any fun promotions!

Hope you’ll join in our April Challenge of Water Coloring with your Hero Arts stamps, dies and stencils. And, if you need some new supplies, don’t forget to shop at a2z Scrapbooking..  You can find me at A Bit of This and That.

Don’t forget that we are on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.  Follow us on these different social media outlets so you won’t miss out on any fun promotion

Time to Get your Watercolors on

Time to get your watercolors on.  You have a tie-dyed T shirt?  My granddaughter does, so it's not totally out of style.   Here's my tie-dyed card, well, kind of.  I got my water-color paper out and started puffing (yes, puffing) the color on the paper.  I used Ken Oliver crafts Color Burst and took a brush and water to it.  I love the background and thought it was perfect.  I didn't want to hide the background, so kept stamping and die-cutting to a minimum.  

Supplies:

Hero Arts Color Layering Butterflies Frame Cuts DI135 Dies Matches CL867 - A2Z

Hero Arts Color Layering Butterflies CL867 - if we don't have it in the store, you can REQUEST CUSTOM ORDER.at the store.

Elizabeth Craft Designs dies

Distress inks on the butterfly

I will be posting something different on the A2Z blog tomorrow.  You won't believe what I'm going to do with my scraps of papers.

You can use code Arlene15 at checkout to receive 15% off your purchase of $25 or more (before tax and shipping).  Don’t forget that we are on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.  Follow us on these different social media outlets so you won’t miss out on any fun promotions!

Hope you’ll join in our April Challenge of Water Coloring with your Hero Arts stamps, dies and stencils. And, if you need some new supplies, don’t forget to shop at a2z Scrapbooking..  You can find me at A Bit of This and That.

Don’t forget that we are on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.  Follow us on these different social media outlets so you won’t miss out on any fun promotion

Gina K Extra cards

I loved working with Gina K Designs stamps.  I couldn't stop, so here are some extras I worked on. Sponging on Distress inks on backgrounds make these cards go fast.  

 The two cards above are from "The Northwoods 2" stamp set

Copic markers on the trees & Distress inks on the backgrounds

This card is from the "By the Sea" stamp set.

Copic markers on all but the sky

Distress inks on the sky & sea

Elizabeth Craft Designs anchor from the Lighthouse die set (appropriate, eh?)

Cloudy Skys

See Die Cut Divas for the challenge 

holidays, rain, spring, IRS, taxes,Easter, Storms 

The sponsor is Gina K Designs

Below is my sample

I think my sky says spring and the colors I used for the weeping willows seem to denote spring.  I used Copic markers and inked the sky with one of my favorite distress inks, Broken China.  I used a torn piece of paper to sponge on the sky to give it depth.   I swiped Copic marker E31 across YG 61 for the ground and I think that turned out perfect.  The card is about 5 inches by 5 inches.  

I didn't like this at first, but it's grown on me.

Supplies:

Gina K Designs The Northwoods 2

Copic markers
Distress ink broken china

QuicKutz Dies - these are large circles 

Die-namics Blueprints 11 - sentiments

Cuttlebug

Live in the Sun

Check out Die Cut Divas 

 the  Sponsor for April is none other than

  Gina K Designs

This is my sample for the challenge of April holidays, rain, spring, IRS, Taxes,Easter, Storms

I mostly think of lighthouses in the spring, seeing the California seashore up by Crescent City where you can walk out to the lighthouse at low tide. 

 have so enjoyed working with these stamps.  I love lighthouses and of course had to make a card with one from the stamp set By the Sea.  I hope you enjoy her stamps as much as I do.

I used Copic markers on the lighthouse image itself and then used Distress inks to complete the sky and hint of water or grass, depending on your perspective.

Supplies:

Gina K Designs By the Sea

Die-namics stitched oval STAX

QuicKutz cutting dies - Oval - large die cut

Copic markers 

Distress Inks - shabby shutters, peeled paint, mustard seed and I think the last was scattered straw

Cuttlebug

Color Me Purple

I do love the background.  Surrealistic. You can imagine this background as anything you want.  I see a sky with a forest where that long line runs above the word Dream.  Or maybe it's a city in the future on another planet.  Hey, dream!

Supplies:

• Hero Arts Color Layering Butterflies 
• Hero Arts Color Layering Butterflies Frame Cuts   (DI135 dies match CL867)
• Elizabeth Craft Designs Dream
• Ken Oliver Crafts Color Burst Orchid (watercolored background)

You can use code Arlene15 at checkout to receive 15% off your purchase of $25 or more (before tax and shipping).  Don’t forget that we are on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.  Follow us on these different social media outlets so you won’t miss out on any fun promotions!

Hope you’ll join in our April Challenge of Water Coloring with your Hero Arts stamps, dies and stencils. And, if you need some new supplies, don’t forget to shop at a2z Scrapbooking..  You can find me at a2z Scrapbooking here.

Don’t forget that we are on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.  Follow us on these different social media outlets so you won’t miss out on any fun promotions!

I took the image apart - The Guy is a Hunk

The theme for this two week challenge at Morgan's ArtWorld is "For the Men".  This guy is certainly masculine in his warrior stance.  I thought that just his image alone was so intriguing.  That's why I cropped the image to show just this warrior.  The artistic work makes this an easy color.  The original image is so finely sketched and every line just perfect.  I will work on this image as a whole later this year, but I just had to work with this strong image first.

The challenge may be for the guys, but (heart beats faster) he certainly isn't hard to look at for the women either.  I hope you enjoy the card because it was delightful to color in.  Come join the challenge and have some fun.

Original stamp below.  The entire image is beautifully done.

Morgan's ArtWorld Celtic Warrior

Arlene, DT - Morgan's ArtWorld

Arlene has gone to the Pelicans

The first day of the Die Cut Divas' challenge for April.  I've gone, not bonkers, but I've gone to the pelicans.  This image is a fun one to play with.  I stayed with mostly black here.  I think that I should have gone gray tone on the wooden post, but on this one I didn't.  I still like it.

I really like this particular set.  Lots of options and a couple lighthouses that intrigue me.

Supplies:

Gina K Stamps - By the Sea

Die-namics Stitched tags STAX