HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Hello!

Entering challenges is pretty much a new thing for me but I decided to start taking advantage of this opportunity to share my creations and to find additional inspiration and ideas. I love looking at other's creative ideas - so much talent out there in blogland!

Today's card with Sassy Cheryl's "Click Your Heels Snowman" is an entry into three challenges: the "Snowman with a Die Cut" challenge at http://sassycherylschallenge.blogspot.com/, the "Party, Party, Party" challenge at http://ceschallenges.blogspot.com/ and the "Anything Goes" challenge at http://toptiptuesday.blogspot.com/

Thanks for stopping by today! What do you think of challenges? Do you take part in them? Have you been a winner? Let me know what you think!

Wishing you all a Happy New Year and all good things in the coming year!

Barbara Diane

Thinking of You

Hello!

I love the little House Mouse images - they are all so cute! After making so many holiday cards and an overload of red/green, it was so nice to work with a low key color combination. I used the "Jumping for Joy", "Oh Happy Day" and "Mudpie Wonders" stamps on this card.

I entered the card into two challenges: The "Warm Fuzzies" challenge at the House Mouse and friends Monday Challenge Blog http://housemouse-challenge.blogspot.com/ and the "Blue & Brown" challenge at Allsorts Challenge http://allsortschallenge.blogspot.com/


Thanks for stopping by today! Give a call to someone you're thinking of today!

Barbara Diane

Excitement In The Fairy World

Hello!

When I was creating the card that I posted yesterday, I printed Mo Manning's "Tea Cup Fairy" digital image 6 times in order to have the one I used for the card and the others so that I could cut out the extra flowers needed for the corners of the card and the double layer on the tea cup. After I had cut off the areas with the flowers, I had all of these sweet little fairies and I couldn't just throw them away! So I came up with the Valentines Day poster/card below to showcase them. I drew the cloud and then used Mo's "Guilty Bert" and "Smith" to complete the scene.

There is excitement in the fairy world - Bert has been found out! She knows who left the valentine in her book and he can act as cool as he wants but it is too late now - she's heading his way! What's going to happen next!

Thanks for stopping by today! I will have the results of the questionaire to share soon!

Barbara Diane

Mo's Challenge Entry Is WOYW Wednesday Share

The theme of the current challenge at Mo Manning's Challenge Blog is "Punches and/or Dies" and we are asked to use at least one punch or die cut on our project. I have used Mo's sweet little "Teacup Fairy" with a double SU Bigz Top Note die cut.

I learned a new term this week - one that describes so well what I often do with images. It's called a "fussy cut" - I love that phrase! That is exactly what it is - detailed, fussy cutting! I am always cutting out images and adding them to the card with dimentionals as I like the look and as it is very time consuming and "fussy" - from now on I will be using this phrase. :<)

This card has lots of fussy cutting! And as I am still caught up in the dazzle of Christmas card making, it of course had to have Stickles for sparkle - on the wings and highlighting the flowers.


Thanks for stopping by today! Because Mo's challenge changes every Thursday, my entry had to be combined today with my post for this week's WOYWW share. Be sure to check out each of these awesome blogs today - Mo's challenge blog entries are at http://mosdigitalchallenge.blogspot.com/ and Whats On Your Workdesk Wednesday at http://stamping-ground.blogspot.com/

Wishing you a happy day!

Barbara Diane

My Favorite Five Christmas Cards of 2011

Hello!

I wanted to join Debby on her blog "A Scrapjourney" in showing my five favorite Christmas Cards of 2011 - and it was a lot harder than I thought it would be! For me, this was the year of sparkle and glitter and I used Stickles everywhere on my creations! Here are my five choices - starting with my very favorite vintage Santa.

This vintage image was from "Digital Two For Tuesday" and I made over 30 cards using this image. Color was only added to the wreath and berries and Stickles was added on the berries and around the frame of the card.

In this poster/card I used Mo Manning's digital image "Tattered Santa" with her "Christmas Lamp Post" image to create a scene. Stickles was added to the light in the lamp and the bow on the wreath, the trim on Santa's outfit, the ribbon and clapper on the bell and the snow. I also added it to the center of each snow flake in the background paper. I used this Santa alone in many more cards variations.

This sweet digital image is from Phindy's Place and she is called "Miss Chrissy Tree". The Stickles was added to the tree lights and the star.

These delightful "Double Skating Snowmen" digital image is from Sassy Cheryl's and I used Stickles on the scarves, hats, and coat trim in addition to adding it to the center of each snowflake in the background paper.

And my final - not my least favorite - choice was made using the fun digital image "Merry Christmas" from Just Ink Lined and I am also using this on my New Years cards. The Stickles was used on the scarves, hats and drinks in adition to the snow and in the center of each star in the background paper.

Those are my five favorites of 2011 - it was a year of being overwhelmed with card making as I took on too much. So next year I will have to re-think this again and either make less cards (can't leave anyone out), make simpler cards (no fun) or start earlier (guess that's it)!

Thanks for stopping by today! Wishing you a good one!

Barbara Diane

Birthday Card For My Brother

Hello!

We have a beautiful sunny morning here in this part of WI - very little snow on the ground, just small patches here and there. It was very strange for us to have a non-white Christmas but also nice to not have to fight the weather. I hope that you all had a happy weekend!

I made this card for my brother's birthday using Sassy Cheryl's cute digital image "Birthday Lift" which you can find here http://www.sassycherylsdigis.com/ I love this image and have used it for many birthday and/or celebration cards in the past. I am also entering it on her "Show Me Thursday" blog at http://sassycheryls.blogspot.com/

After being so late with so many cards this past year, I wanted his to be on time! It arrived at his home even before his birthday, which is tomorrow. Happy Birthday Dick! I send you wishes for all good things to happen to you in the coming year - you deserve them!


Thanks for stopping by today! Wishing you some sunshine where you are!

Barbara Diane

Merry Christmas!

Hello!

It's finally here - it's Christmas! Merry Christmas everyone!

This is my very favorite of all the images I used this year for my cards and card/posters. It is one of Mo Manning's digital images called "Ragged Santa" and in this large card/poster I used it with her "Christmas Lamp Post" image to complete a scene. The background designer paper has stars and I used a drop of Stickles in the center of each star to add some sparkle. I also added some Stickles to Santa's fur trim, to the snow at his feet, to the light in the lamp, to the bow on the lamp post and to the ribbon and clapper on the bell. This was the season of using glitter in my cardmaking, that's for sure!


In this one I used blue as my main color and I loved the results! I also used this wonderful shiny silver designer paper with stars that changed into multiple colors depending on how the light hit the paper. I love it!

Wishing you all a wonderful Christmas Day!

Barbara Diane

Christmas Eve Is Here!

Hello!

The day of Christmas Eve is here! This cute little guy is called "Santa's Hat" and can be found here at Mo Manning's site http://www.mosdigitalpencil.com/ I colored in the snowmen's scarves on the background paper to bring a little color in from the image and the solid colored cardstock.

This funny little dog is the "Dog In Stocking" and can be found at http://www.justinklined.com/

Thanks for stopping by today! For those of you who celebrate Christmas, I hope that the chaos of last minute preparations today is limited for you and that your Christmas Eve is a fun time with your family. For those who don't, I wish you a lovely evening!

Barbara Diane

Cards Using Vintage Images

Hello!

Last year I was one of the guest designers on the "Digital Two for Tuesday" blog during the Christmas season. Cora posts vintage images that are free to use as artwork in projects and cards. Those of us who took part were given a number of different vintage images as options and were to choose one to create a card around. I chose the one in the photo below, but there were so many great images I saved them in a file and this year I chose to use two of the other images to make the additional cards in the photos that follow.

This is last year's card. I used water color pencils to color the image to stay with the vintage look. The leaves and berries in the border were punched out individually from red and green cardstock and I drew the lines on each leaf and and then outlined both the leaves and the berries in black ink and attached them to the card with glue dots.

One of this year's cards. This image reminded me so much of when I was a child in the 1940's - I loved it when I saw it. This version is without glitter . . . . .

and this version has a red Stickles glitter border outlining the green card stock and glitter also on the scarf and the trim of the outfit. I made one of these for my 92 year-old mother this year.

This was the second image I used this year and this wonderful Santa is my very favorite of them all. I loved the bit of color using the green and red with the rest of the image left in black and white. This version had Stickles red glitter on the berries and on the border all around on top of the red card stock layer. After the first 5 cards I continued to add glitter to the berries but I had to stop doing the border as it took so much time and I made many multiples!

Here are 24 of the cards I mailed out yesterday. You can see why I had to stop adding the Stickles to the border and apply it only to the berries!

You can see all of the great vintage images from this year and check out the December 2010 posts to see those from last year and the awesome cards that were made by the other guest designers at http://digitaltuesday.blogspot.com/ I love the vintage images. Thank you Cora for your kindness in sharing!

We had snow again Wednesday night but it is almost all gone. It seems hard to believe but with the expected forecast for the week days ahead, we may have a Christmas with NO snow. In this part of WI that just does not happen!

Thanks for stopping by today! I hope that you have a happy one!

Barbara Diane

Sparkling Smooth Sledding!

Hello!

This wonderfully fun image of Mo Manning's is called "Toboggan" and just makes me smile! I love coloring this happy pair and below are two variations that I made this year - the first is a card and the second one is a mini poster/card that includes that includes "Snowy Pines" - a Just Inklined image. As this has become my "Stickles Sparkle" year, they both of course have glitter!

Thanks for stopping by today!

Wishing you a day of smooth sledding and sparkle as you head into the holiday countdown! Only a matter of days now! I mailed the last 25 of my cards yesterday morning and hand delivered one. I am finally done - yeahhh! I am so relieved - next year I need to rethink this!

Barbara Diane

WOYW Wednesday - Candy Legs Elves

Hello!

Early morning in this photo and it was time to send out this batch of cards now that the glitter has dried overnight and start to assemble the project that Jim and I were making for everyone who lives in his group home and the staff, in addtion to a few others. We made a total of 18 of these little guys - took 2 days into late evenings. Jim did most all of the paper punching of the different shapes, thank goodness, and I put them together.

I wanted to do a tutorial but ran out of time - so I thought I would still share some of the photos with you as they are pretty self explanatory. If you have any questions please do contact me and I would be happy to help. Many of the punches I used were SU with other miscellaneous punches. I drew the pattern for the pants and used ideas from other bloggers in addition to my own to complete my little elf. A huge thank you to everyone who's ideas I used! I looked at so many videos and blog postings that I am sorry to say that I can't give individual credit.

Head - SU Ornament Punch
Ears - Petal of Paper Shaper's 2" 5-Petal Flower Punch
Nose - SU 1/2" Circle Punch
Hands - SU Heart to Heart Punch - altered large heart
Feet - SU Butterfly Punch - altered 1/2 of butterfly wing
Neck - SU Modern Label Punch - cut in half

Hat - SU Full Heart Punch
Brim of Hat - SU Label Punch
Tassle on Hat - MARVY Small Flower Punch
I used a white Signo Gel Pen to make border stitches on the hat

Body - SU Round Tab Punch
Collar - EK 1" Scalloped Circle Punch
Google Eyes

Pom Pom on Shoes - SU 1/4" Circle Punch
Trim on Arms and Legs - SU Word Window Punch altered to size
I used a white Signo Gel Pen for to make border stitches on shoes.

All the pieces ready to assemble.

I used candy strips in cello bags that I purchased at The Dollar Store for the legs and arms - using 2 of them taped together for the legs. Even with 4 bags of the candy I did not have enough to make the long legs on all of them and when Jim walked to the store for me they were all sold out so I made the elves for the staff with short legs! Thank you Jim for the effort!

The front and back of the pants were each drawn on the cardstock and cut out by hand. The stitching is again made with a white Signo Gel Pen.

Buttons On Pants - SU 1/4" Circle Punch

You might notice that on this photo I have added a flower at the base of the neck on each of the elves. That is because I used ribbon to make hangers for them and a couple of hours after I had hung my prototype elf up and was working on the assembly of the others, I heard this loud crash and it was my elf! The weight of the candy had caused the neck to pull away from the collar (even though I used a double layer of Score Tape) and down he went! So I stapled each one at the base of the neck (it didn't hurt them!) and added another of the flowers that I had used to make the tassle on the hat to cover the staple. (like a band-aid) "<)

So cute! Well worth the time and effort! I love them and Jim was very happy with them - but I was relieved when this project was finished and they were ready to be delivered! :<) They won't be given until Christmas but I hope they make them all smile! Plus the candy is chocolate!

Thanks for stopping by today! Be sure to visit http://stamping-ground.blogspot.com/ to look at all of the wonderful entries and add your own photo of the creations you have been working on!

Wishing you a happy day!

Barbara Diane