MY AWESOME ARIZONA ROAD RUNNER

I am such a lucky gal! So many wonderful things have been happening to me, I feel truly blessed. My design team sister Carole made me this lovely embroidered ARIZONA ROAD RUNNER towel. Isn't it gorgeous? I absolutely love it, thank you Carole you are such a sweet and generous person! The best part of being on a design team is getting to know other crafters and sharing knowledge. As you see in the picture along side the towel, there are the beautiful butterflies Carole made with alcohol inks. She also sent me a piece of the acetate all inked up in the alcohol ink. I bought some of these a while back, but I never used them as I really wasn't sure what to do with them. Thank you Carole for teaching me yet another exciting medium to work with. She knows I love butterflies, and she also knows I love working with the acetate. And best of all she knows I love to learn new things, and she is all about new things. Thanks again Carole, you are a terrific design team sister, and friend. Stop by her blog and see her beautiful work. She has a gorgeous card posted there today with sweet little coffee cups on it.

CUSTOM CARD FOR GLENNA

I have been working on this card for the last few days, I wanted to share it with you. Glenna asked me to make this for her friends husband because she wanted to let him know how much she appreciated everything he did for her friends 40th Birthday. She found a similar card in my shop, and started thinking like I do when I get a great idea for a card. So we truly did design this card together, and it was a lot of fun. I had a chance to get to know Glenna and she is a very sweet and creative person. She has to be if she went to all this trouble for her friend. The inside of the card represents the back of an envelope. How many of you remember when you put the return address on the back of the card? We decided to use a little creative license, to be able to show the lining of the envelope. I made the envelope into a gusseted pocket, where I placed 20 special notes, all trimmed in gold ink. I typed out all the special things he did to make her Birthday special. I was touched by the sweetness and care not only of this husband to his wife, but also the sweetness of Glenna, making sure this did not go unnoticed. Each note tells a little story about all the very sweet things this man did for his wife's Birthday. Glenna hopes this will be a special memento for her friend and her husband.
I would have to say this is the best part of my Etsy shop, I get to know the people I am designing something for, and I get to share a small part of their celebrations. I am always touched by their kindness to each other and to me. In the process, I get to become a part of their history. Thank you Glenna for sharing this with me. Thanks for looking ~Diane

WINNER OF THE WHEN CREATIVITY KNOCKS GREAT CRAFTERS TOOL HUNT!

Drum roll please!!!!!!!! The Winners are Spellbinders Impressabilities ....... AND ME!!!!
How awesome is this!!!! I am so excited, I just received this lovely e mail - I will let Ana tell you, I am almost too excited to speak or write!

Congratulations! You are the lucky winner of ALL THE TOOLS in the first When Creativity Knocks Great Crafter’s Tool Hunt! The manufacturers are sending the tools to us and as soon as we have them all, we’ll package them up and ship them off to you so you can start creating with them! Thank you for taking part in the tool hunt and casting your vote. We hope you saw some great new tools you’ll be excited to try. We also hope you have explored our website and will continue to be a part of our forum, view our episodes, etc. The episode library is full of inspiration, and we have product reviews and more in our forum.

Whoo Hooo! Thank you, Thank you! And Thank you! I am so excited!! I am doing the happy dance right here, right now! Those are some awesome tools, and now they are mine! I can't wait to get them and start using them!!! Yippee! Hooray! Whoo Hooo! and many Thanks again! I can't wait to share the news with all my crafting friends!!! Thank you for all the great tutorials explaining how to use each and every item. I love your web site with all the great episodes, and the library is wonderful to go back to and explore! You will see me as a regular in your forum too. And thanks for all the inspiration too! I can't wait!

This is the Awesome Great Crafters Tool Hunt manufacturers line up!

Spellbinders - Impressabillities is the winning Cool Tool!
This was my vote, and they won too, see what they had to say!

Impressabilities Rules! We Won! If I can quote Stacey Caron, “Yeahhhhh!!!!! Yippee!!!!! Yahoo!!!!!!” We owe our faithful readers a huge thank you for supporting us and for loving our Impressabilities templates! Don’t forget to check in over at When Creativity Knocks, a lucky entrant will win a prize package of one of all the nominated tools featured in the contest! That's me! Spellbinders wins a full-length episode featuring the Spellbinders Impressabilities and will be featured on the When Creativity Knocks website as the When Creativity Knocks Best Tool and receive a trophy! We’ll let you know when that episode is ready to view, and show off our trophy too! So thank you again, from the bottom of our hearts! We really appreciate your support!

We are memory Keepers
Tattered Angels
McGill
Imaginisce

Glue Arts
Easy Arranger
Completely Stencible -
Bazill - Squeezer...

I cant wait to get them and try them all out!! I will give you an update when they come, and show you all the cool tools, and what they do!
Thank you Ana Araujo , When Creativity Knocks Executive Producer/Designer
and all of the Awesome Great Crafters Tool Hunt manufacturers
for making this generous prize possible! ~Diane

STEPPING OUTSIDE MY COMFORT ZONE

I entered this card in 2 challenges Theres Magic In The Air and Digital TuesdayChallenge.

The only way to grow is to learn new things. And with the internet and all of your wonderful blogs there is no shortage of things to learn! I know it's hard to sometimes step outside of our comfort zone, but we have to if we want to keep our designs fresh. I have been doing a lot of that lately. So this week I am really taking a leap! I am going to actually "enter" a challenge, first time, don't laugh. I've done contests, but never challenges. I have to say I admire all of you who do this on a daily basis. I visit your blogs and see that you make such beautiful cards and sometimes enter them into 3, 4, or 5 challenges!
Now if that's not scary enough, I am also going to do my very first digital image! Actually it's not that scary, thanks to Nina at There's Magic in the Air. She is offering some free digital images, but she has also offered a wonderful tutorial "What is a digital image and how do I use it". Thank you Nina, I've read tutorials on other sites and just reading them left me feeling confused and believing I needed some fancy programs to print one. She explains it so clearly you just have to try it!
This challenge on her beautiful Deco Flower image calls for you to heat or dry emboss something on the card along with her free image. This is a 5 x 7 card, I used my Spellbinders Labels 8 Nestabilities, to cut and dry emboss. I colored the flower with Marvy Embossing markers, and used Stampin Up Glassy glaze embossing powder. Since I took Nina's suggestion to make a few images on the same page, I cut part of the flower out after I heat embossed it, and laid it over the original image. I also heat embossed the flower on the original image, on the opposite petals, so the colors look shaded but they aren't. I used the new Souffle 3D opaque ink for the leaves, along with a green marker. The beads were stitched together but I had to cut them up and place them on the stem 1 by 1. I added the ribbon and hid the rough ends by making slits and tucking it to the inside of the card. Thank you Nina for offering the instructions and the free image, I don't think I would have tried this if I had to buy one, but now that I see how easy it is, I will probably buy some in the future. One thing I did discover, is that I need some better coloring tools! Well, thanks for looking. ~Diane

I love this little Sizzlet Chloe.
I used my Cuttlebug Swiss dots folder along with my labels 8 from Spellbinders.

FUSSY FUSSY CARDS

I've been busy all day working on these cards. They are so fussy and they do take quite a bit of time to cut, emboss, stamp and layer together. I don't know if you can see from the picture, but I made them with clear Mylar. Actually the Mylar has quite a bit more visual clarity to it than the acetate I usually use. I also used the brightly colored vellum from Paper and More. I used the Spellbinders Fleur de Lis Pendant and the Petite Ovals Nestabilities . The ribbon trim took forever to get in place, but it is worth it, because it really lends a rich look to the cards. I have found that the Fleur de Lis Pendant die can be a little fussy at times, but the Spellbinders site recommends that you add a piece of wax paper between the die and your card stock or vellum. That helps the problem of trying to remove the cut outs from the die, but I still have a problem getting the die to cut in the inside square. I have found 2 tricks that work for me that I will share. I take a thin piece of computer paper, cut it to the small size square, and place it behind the inner square only. I also have a magnet that is cut to the width of the plate. So I can run it through once in one direction and to run it in the other direction I only have to turn the magnet 1/4 turn. I'm making these as challenge gifts, I thought it would be cute to send them my $100 card! Lol. So girls if you see the color you want put your dibs on it quick! I have the hot pink I used for the Spellbinders contest already cut out, but not assembled as yet. And I have 1 more to make tomorrow, not sure what color that will be. I'm leaning towards the orange, I have another one of those pretty orange vellum flowers from the Cricut left over. I hope you are all enjoying your day. Thanks for looking ~Diane

SYMPATHY CARDS

I promised I would post some pictures later today, so here they are. Sadly 3 of my girlfriends have asked me for sympathy cards in the last 2 weeks. I will let Michelle pick her two, then I will list the others in my shop. This is a lovely Stampin Up set, Close as a Memory. I have had it for almost a year and this is the first time I have used it. The image has a watercolor effect, and my watercolors were a little too bright! I stamped the image in Mellow Moss SU, ivory and olive (I think) are Stampin Up. I should say I know for sure they are Stampin Up, I am just unsure of the names of the colors. I used the Spellbinders Labels 8 Nestabilities and the Spellbinders Deckled Mega Rectangles Nestabilities. I stamped one in black ink, and the other three I used the black embossing powder, I like that better. I glued Cricut flowers to one, used a shimmery watercolor paint on another, used my Aqua painter and some Stampin Up ink on another, and my 2 way glue pen and glitter on another. Well I hope you like these. Thanks for Looking, ~Diane

MY CREATIVE PROCESS

This is what the finished cards look like.
These are all of my creative stumbles, failed attempts, none of these would work for me.

I am getting ready to start up in the card club again this year. I dropped out last year and gave it a break so I am excited to get back to it again. So much inspiration! We do a card swap when we meet, you make however many cards all the same, and you leave with the same number of cards, 1 from each player. It is so much fun, but I am having a hard time getting back into the swing of the 4 x 5 card format. I have been making the 5 x 7 cards for the last year and it gives me so much more room to create. I finished my cards, but I feel bad, they are not my best. I just couldn't seem to get what I wanted on to the paper.
I bring this up because a friend of mine asked me the other day "how long does it take you to make a card?" I tried to explain to her the physical making is not what takes time, it's getting the idea. Once I have the idea it's easy peasy!
For the swap I had this great idea to use some of my tie dye card stock. I cut some vase's with my Cricut and and some vellum flowers. I put these real pretty 1/2 pearls I found in the center. I don't like it, the vases are too big and they look dumb with the flower. Forget the vases, I'll just use the flowers. I cut some shapes with my new Spellbinders labels 8 die (one of my winnings from the Spellbinders contest). I embossed my cardstock with the Cuttlebug folder, then I decided to run through some stick and peel gold foil to add the bird as an element. I cut out all the birds and stuck them on the card stock and then I embossed the bird onto the card stock. Ok so I like the look of this but not the color of the card stock I chose. Change colors, I then use the Swiss dots Cuttlebug folder to emboss the frame I made with the labels 8. Then I decide the brown card looks too plain. I use a Sizzix embossing plate on that. But to emboss the front I needed to change the direction of how the card opens. Looks good, with the labels 8 rounded corners I decide it would look nice if I punched the corners round too. Ok I like that too. I add a ribbon, ok I guess. It needs something, and it's not the pretty vellum flower. The flower is too big! Ok go through all my embellishments to see what would look good. Problem, I now need to find something large enough to hide where I peeled the flowers off of the ribbon. Ok these pretty metal flowers are in the right size and scale (somewhat) but the centers are plain. Go through my bling and see what I can find. I tried rhinestones in red then green, nope! I see, the bright yellow seed beads! I put it on and say I'm done, but I'm just not that happy with the results. It's not ugly, I'm not fishing for someone to say oh, it's nice, I know it's ok. I just know I had something in my head and I could not translate that to the paper and it disappointed me. So that's what I mean when I say it's the idea that takes time. Am I the only one who creates cards like this? What do you do when you stumble and just can't seem to get it right?
Thanks for reading ~Diane

POP UP CARDS 4 more samples

Carole has a great challenge this week, pop up cards! I love making pop ups, they always bring such amazement to anyone who opens one up. They can range from simple to time consuming and elaborate. There are many ways to make a shelf, or you can buy pre made shelves to stick in your card. There is also the wire or plastic pop up that has your item spring forth and really pop out at you. I have pulled together some of my pop ups to share.

This is the inside of the card I made for this weeks challenge.
Card made with card stock from DCWV NANA'S Kitchen. Die cut flowers, grass and stems all made with Cricut Plantin Schoolbook, Cricut Accent Essentials and Cricut Walk in my Garden Misc supplies, mirrored butterfly, chunky black glitter, rhinestones, vellum butterfly with seed beads and Bazzil bitty blossoms.

Front of same card.

This is the inside of a card I custom made for a special customer in my Etsy store. I cut the balloons with my Cricut and stamped them, and added tiny strings to some of the balloons.

I made these with my vellum butterflies a while back when I was on a pop up kick!

This is an insanely detailed card, but I love it! I hand stamped the flowers, cut them out, stamped , cut and colored the bee, then covered it in Crystal effects. Like the balloon card I mounted the flowers in 3 layers.

For the front of the card I used an expensive napkin someone gave me as a gift. I found a technique make it into fancy cardstock. I separated the napkin layers, I then placed a piece of saran wrap on top of a sheet of cardstock and placed the napkin on top of that and ironed it until it stuck together. Did I say this was insanely time consuming? I used some of my vellum butterflies and dragonflies. I made 10 of these for the ladies in my card swap!

Well I hope you enjoyed my pop ups. Thanks for looking~Diane

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Please join me by Banning Word Verification from your blogs also. 

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Organizational tips for Scrapaholics

I need to organize, when my workspace is cluttered my brain stumbles on that clutter and it blocks my creativity. And now that I have recently joined the ranks of crafters who are addicted to Spellbinders , Quickcutz and Cuttlebug, I have a more pressing desire to organize my scraps. You don't need to waste a whole sheet of paper to cut with any of these dies or folders, so they are very economical in the sense that you can use up all those small scraps. That's what I told my DH, I need the dies so I can save money by using up all my scraps. That is if I can find them.

So I have decided to tackle the job of organizing my scraps. I currently keep my scraps in a very large shoe box on top of my worktable and another couple of shoe boxes on the shelf in the closet. Not a very desirable way to keep them, so I do more collecting of scraps then using them. Help came from my design sisters. Carole, summed it up well, " I keep even the smallest of papers and I have 3 trays. They are untidy, spill over and yell at me constantly to use them." I couldn't have said it any better Carole! (Mine are actually beginning to whine.)Margie admits "OK this is embarrassing, but this is what is happening to all of my scraps! It's all just getting stuffed on my keyboard shelf under my desk! I was hoping to use that shelf for "things I'm currently working on", but it turned into this, LOL! I need help! I hear you Margie, trust me, my mess is worse than yours. I've been saving mine since 2001!

Cara said "OK be nice!! I'm attaching my scrap bin. hee hee So you don't think I waste lots of paper, my SU demo has graciously shared bags of scraps with me, and 1/3 of the tote is instructional material I've collected in my 11 years of scrapping/stamping. What can I say , it works for me. It looks pretty organized to me, and it looks like you are actually using your scraps!I did some research and I found a few basic ways to organize your scraps. Some suggest to use an accordion file, and file by color, placing similar shades in the same section. This is good if you do crops, but I am more of a visual person, and I could fill 4 accordion folders!

ehow.com had an interesting 10 step program that ultimately ends with using a Cropper Hopper vertical paper holder. But I have to say I found step 3 to be somewhat amusing. "When deciding what to save, you might also consider factors like (a) is this an unusual color? or (b) do I have a lot more of this color or is this my last sheet? or (c) is this a color group that I use a lot? have a lot more of this color or is this my last sheet? and (4) is this a color group I use a lot of? I tend to save smaller sized scraps of unusual colors and expensive paper. I also tend to save smaller scraps if they go along with a larger scrap of the exact same color (like keeping a skinny strip that matches a larger rectangle of the same paper)"
Whew! Obviously I don't put that much thought into what I save, which is probably why I am buried in 4 boxes of it? ( I don't know, maybe I need to call my sponsor on it!)

The best idea for me came from a 5/15/07 post by Korie, we will always have paris. I liked this the best because it was more visual, and although much neater than mine will probably be, it's a great place to start. She has suggested the Cropper Hopper, along with color sorting, and she even made fancy labeled rimmed circle tags for them. (I'll skip the fancy tags.) I like the idea that it is simple, visual and they don't look like they take that much effort to keep up. Here is a picture from her site.

Both Carole and Cara also cut their scraps up ahead for embellishments. I have some thin scraps that I was thinking about punching some border edges onto, so they will be ready to go.

I save my paper scraps because I love the color, texture, pattern and feel of all the card stock and papers that I have. So what do you do with your paper scraps? Do you have an organizational tip you can share? Or do you just plop them in a box like me?
I'd love to hear your comments. ~Diane

Negatively Speaking

POSITIVELY STUNNING NEGATIVE CHALLENGE!

This is my negative card, my negative image is the Cricut cut out that was left after I cut out all those little flowers. This was certainly fun for me! Thanks for looking. ~Diane

Negatively Speaking

Today's post deals with using negatives, to utilize your scraps. I will show you how I made this acetate card with a left over negative from my Cricut.

Congratulations to the Tuesday Challenge winners...

3 of the Fav's (Top 3):
BrainyBairn

Kristen

SMK

Overall Winner!!!
Julia Moss

Thanks for looking ~Diane

Carole's Grand Opening

My friend Carole has just opened her Etsy shop,
would love to see you all support her

"I love sewing. I have seven sewing machines and they all are used frequently. Two machines are Brother Embroidery machines and there is such fun in creating projects with darling embroidery designs. I love to keep on hand embroidery hand towels to offer up as blog candy... this froggy represents one of the twenty froggy designs and earlier this year I finished a frog quilt. I am a frog collector and I have a bedroom with about 40 frogs sitting around from huge stuffed frogs to tiny little display frogs on a keychain.

I keep my creations. So much of my heart gets put upon anything I make so I just keep everything... I have stacks of quilts and towels, table runners, baby blankets and quilts, embroidery t-shirts, totes, trays and trays of cards that I have uploaded to various online sites, cards for design teams, cards that have been published. Now is the time I must finally open my Etsy shop.

The shop is open, but as of this moment, the shelves have not been stocked. My shop name is www.crayola58.etsy.com. Soon it will have cards of all styles and cute little handmade totes."

Isn't this the cutest hand towel!

Isn't it sweet! Thanks for looking ~Diane

Date as the main focus on a card

USE A DATE AS THE MAIN FOCUS OF YOUR CARD, LAYOUT, OR ALTERED PROJECT.

Recipe: White and orange cs, Spellbinders Classic Ovals Nestabilities, Just Rite Calendar Borders & Centers Oval Set Fiscars stamps, Tim Holtz mask, folk art black acrylic paint, crystal effects Stampin Up.

This is the first time I have ever worked with a mask, actually I thought I was buying a stencil. I was so wishing I had a black Copic Marker and an air gun! Copics would have made it so easy, but I had to make do with what I had. It was a little bit tricky to get the hang of it, but quite easy once you know what you are doing. I found the best results using a THICK white card stock. I stuck my mask on to the white cs and used a foam brush to apply the black acrylic paint. I did have a problem with the paint seeping under the mask, so for the last try I applied the paint and then immediately sponged up the excess paint from on top of the mask with a paper towel. I am happy with the final result. ~Diane

Spellbinders Grand Prize Winner!

Congratulations Margarita, of Grand Junction, Colorado, USA! She is the Grand Prize Winner in the Spellbinders Pendant Project contest! The Random Integer Generator made the final decision, which was a very fair way to do it. I won $100 in Spellbinder products, had a wonderful time working on my entries, following the reveals and being chosen in the Top 5! That in itself was quite a prize, so thank you Spellbinders and your Coordinating partners, I will be back again!

Where'd All My Money Go?!

I love the name of Steph's blog, Where'd All My Money Go?! I bet we all can relate to it too! She reached over 25,000 blog hits recently and she is looking to share the love with the most awesome Blog Candy! She will purchase a gift card or gift certificate to the place of your choice, so that you can get what you want! Are you ready for the Awesome part? The amount of the gift card will be $150. You have until 8/28 at 10 PM (central) to enter. I am posting and sharing this with you for totally selfish reasons, I want a chance to win! LOL You will totally enjoy your visit to her blog, as you scroll through her posts to the 8/9 Blog Candy post, check out all the beautiful cards and ideas along the way. And be sure to stop at the 8/12 Best Entrance post -( JK Wedding Entrance!) I love this You Tube video she kindly posted for us, I can watch it over and over. This video makes me smile from ear to ear, kinda like the way we'll be smiling if we win her blog candy! Thanks Steph, and good luck to us all! ~Diane

BUBBLES OF FUN DESIGNER CARD STOCK

Bubbles of Fun Designer Card Stock
Hello everyone, remember how much fun blowing bubbles used to be? Today's post is a tutorial which I hope will inspire you to let loose and have some fun with your paper crafting. In fact this is so much fun you could invite your children, grandchildren or friends to do this with you. I will show you how to make the Designer Bubble card stock I used in this Birthday card.

Card Recipe
Brown card stock, bubble card stock, violet pink vellum paper and the cute cake in the center is card stock from DCWV THE SWEET STACK. I cut and embossed the cake and sentiment with Spellbinders Petite Ovals Nestabilities.
I dipped the edges of my ovals in a Vivid raspberry ink pad and added some pink glitter to the flowers I cut with Cricut Walk in my Garden, and then added a brown ribbon.

Bubble Card Stock Recipe
Plastic tablecloth or protective cover for your table, plates to catch the bubble drips, small bowls, water and 1 teaspoon of sugar per small bowl. 1 bottle of bubbles- I only used 1/4 of this small bottle for all 5 dishes. Straws, food coloring (I used Neon Bright's I found at $store)
Sorry my recipe did not give a measurement for anything but the sugar. I did approximately 1 part bubbles to 2 parts water (free pour) and I added more food coloring as needed.
Card stock, I cut 8 1/2 x 11 sheets in 1/2 to make them a little easier to manage. I also try different colors because you never know what combination will look best. Rubber gloves are optional and old clothes for the little ones.

Now let the fun begin! Mix your water, bubbles, sugar and food coloring with your straw and start blowing bubbles! This was so much fun, and the bubbles were such beautiful colors too! Put a plate or old pie tin underneath to catch the mess, I figured that out a little late.

Notice the difference in the 2 bowls of bubbles? You want your bubbles to look like the top picture BIG, not the little bubbles near the straw in the second picture. Small bubbles make a large dark spot on your card stock.

Hold your card stock over the top of the bowl and let the card stock smash or break your bubbles. Pick up the card stock and move it around to fresh bubbles and keep doing this till you fill the page with bubbles (you may have to blow more bubbles to finish the page).

This gets messy ,1/2 way through I added a plate underneath.

Above the card stock drying out on the table,
below you can see it brightens up after it dry's for 24 hours.

I do hope you decide to give this a try, it will definitely release the inner child in you. So now that you have your very own designer bubble card stock what will you create with it? I think it would be a great background to use as a frame on one of those cute images everyone colors in with their Copic's. Anyone else have any suggestions as to what you could do with your Designer Bubble card stock? Please share your ideas ~Diane

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Chocolate brown, white and teal butterfly card

This week's Challenge is a color-combo!!

Chocolate Brown

Teal

White or Ivory

... AND to use an image using your fave coloring medium.

This is the card I made for the challenge, I used some of my bubble paper! Thanks for looking ~Diane

Spellbinders is thrilled to announce the Top 5 Winners in the Pendant Project Contest!

And I am thrilled to be one of them!

Here it is this is it! I have kept quiet since Thursday last week when I was told my card was chosen among the top 5! You have no idea how hard that has been! I just checked with Beth at Spellbinders and I can show you my card on my blog too! I have already won $100.00 in Spellbinders Dies and I have a shot at the Grand Prize of $500.00 plus goodies from Scrapbook Adhesives, My Minds Eye, Clearsnap, core'dinations and JustRite Stampers! Woo Hoo!

It was a difficult decision, there were so many entries, and so much creativity! Take a look at the Pendant Project Gallery!
Congratulations to all the top winners I share this honor with, and the 3 honorable mentions too!
Diane of Rochester Hills, Michigan, USA! Diane’s creative card using acetate and S4-204 Fleur de Lis Pendant with vellum caught our attention. That's me!
Margarita, of Grand Junction, Colorado, USA! Her entry was an elegant mini heritage album using S4-207 Kaleidoscope Pendant and S4-216 Kaleidoscope Borderabilities.
Marion of Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia! Marion’s adorable Baby card incorporated S4-208 In Spades Pendant, and S4-217 In Spades Borderabilities (both pieces!).
Monica of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada! Monica wowed us with her Queen’s Necklace. Monica used S4-204 Fleur de Lis Pendant, shrink plastic and a copper leafing pen to achieve these results!

Nicole of Wateford, Pennsylvania, USA! Nicole’s Framed Butterfly Quilt is just stunning. She used the S4-204 Fleur de Lis Pendant on this 12 x 12″ framed home decor piece.
And the honorable mentions were Baby Card by Kathy of New Plymouth, New Zealand.
Foil Pendant Card by Sandy of Canfield, Ohio, USA.
Purse by Jan of Garrison, Iowa, USA., (Jan is a blogger friend of mine!)

PAY IT FORWARD

I have been on the receiving end of Pay it Forward through an Etsy store, JTDtwo, she sent me some lovely storage boxes for the price of shipping, how sweet was that? Not to mention the very good fortune I have had of late! So when I saw this post on Amanda's Crafty Paper Girl blog I jumped at the chance! So this is how it works.

The first five people to respond to this post will get something made by me, especially for you. This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:

1- I make no guarantees that you will like what I make but I hope you will.

2- What I create will be just for you.

3-They say I have a year to get it to you. But I promise it will NOT take that long.

4- You have no clue what it's going to be. It’s a surprise to both of us at this point.

The catch? You must repost this on your blog and offer the same to the first 5 people who do the same on your blog.

So the first five people who post, and are willing to pass it along, will get a handmade gift in the mail from me. When you get it, make sure you post a pic on your blog!

I hope you'll play along and pay it forward with me!

TODAY IS MY LUCKY DAY

Wow! My email started going crazy this morning, Claudia saw my name on the Spellbinders Blog! I am one of the Top 5 winners in the Spellbinders Pendant Project contest! Woo Hoo! Yippee! That means I have won $100.00 in Spellbinders products and I have a shot at the $500.00 Grand Prize! How awesome is that? I am so excited!!!

I also received a blog award "Circle of Friends" from my new friend and team member Margie this morning! I don't know how this day could get any better. Thanks for sharing my joy! ~Diane

And I'm passing it on to to these friends.

Carole
Sandi
Kristen
Jeni
Tara

Bubbles of fun Designer Bubble card stock

Hello and happy Friday! This is my newest card, I wrote you another tutorial, this one explains how to make the Designer Bubble card stock I featured in this card. I hope you enjoy it Thanks for looking ~Diane

Blog Award from Sandi at Paper Trail

I  want to mention a challenge near and dear to my heart, posted by my friend Sandi at Paper Trail "Adopt a Teacher". Stop by her blog and read about how you can help, it's a wonderful and rewarding way to share our love of crafting. Thanks Sandi, (my daughter starts her first year of teaching on 8/31) for your challenge, you are Awesome!

This is my homemade flower card.

Recipe:Flower was made with Cricut Walk in my Garden and vellum from Paper and More. Spellbinders Petite Ovals Nestabilities and Spellbinders Fleur de Lis Pendant Shapeabilities. Beautiful background card stock from DCWV THE SWEET STACK, rhinestone and ribbon.


Wow, how great is this! I have a blog award! My very sweet friend Sandi at Paper Trail sent me this blog award. My kids can hardly believe Mom writes a blog, when I told my daughter I received an award from a friend she just shook her head and said "I don't even know how to write a blog!" I haven't been blogging for very long, but I do love all the people I have met and all the inspiring sites I have visited. Blogging has opened a whole new world for me, and I love it. So now I need to list 5 things I love and choose 5 others to pass this on to.
The 5 things I love will have to start with:
1. My family and friends (including all my new blogging friends)
2. Don't laugh, I love to cook, I married my Italian sweetie, and became Italian through osmosis.
3. I love to make cards, that's a given.
4. Air conditioning, we Northern gals just can't take the heat and humidity.
5. Helping people. I know it sounds corny, but I feel like my blog gives me the opportunity to reach out and share what I've learned and help others in the process.

Now for the hard part, choosing 5 others to share this with. I have to say it will be my sisters in the Die Cuts R Us design team. This is a wonderful group of women whom I greatly admire.
Margie
Jessica
Cara
Amber
Gwen
Carole who introduced me to Sandi, also received this award from Sandi, so it's not mine to give to her, but I can't leave her off my list.
Please stop by to see their blogs, they have so much inspiration!
And thank you again Sandi! ~Diane

Come join us for some fun!

This is the card I made for the Tuesday Challenge.


Here's the recipe for this card: The fabulous card stock background is from DCWV NANA'S Kitchen. The flower pot is barely bannana SU, and has a sheet of vellum embossed with a Sizzix plate over the top. I molded the flowers, ladybugs and flowerpot around various items on my desk to give them shape. I added dimensional foam to the flower pot, and the ladybugs bodies. I had some chunky glitter I found on clearance at JoAnns a while ago, I added it to the black bodies of the ladybugs and used it for the centers of the flowers. The ladybug eye's are from dollar store. Oops, I almost forgot, the flower pot, flowers, stems, and ladybugs were all cut with my Cricut Walk in my Garden.

Well the Spellbinders Pendant Contest deadline has come and gone. Good luck to all of us who entered! I entered 3 projects which I can't show you yet, but here is one of my rejects that didn't make the cut and get entered.


For this card I used the Spellbinders Fleur de Lis , I added a few rhinestones and an embellishment to the center. I wanted to enter it into the contest, but my family voted it down and chose another for me to send in. Thanks for looking ~Diane

Spellbinders Pendant Party ending soon!

Happy Friday Everyone! The Spellbinders Pendant Party is ending Monday August 10th! I hope you are all entering your great Pendant Projects, I know I am! I have 1 already entered, and the other 2 are half done, I have to get busy this weekend for sure.

I've been so busy this week I haven't had a chance to tell you about the Heirloom's Novi Rubber Stamp and Paper Arts Festival I went to last weekend. I took a ton of pictures(with permission of course), and I have so many fresh new ideas swimming around in my head, I am almost dizzy with creativity! So much inspiration, I saw a lot of Pop Up cards- so cute, a lot of vellum and acetate too. I love working with different substrates. I was able to try out a few different things too. And oh the stamps! So many unusual and fun stamps. Next year I will be back for sure! Thanks for looking ~Diane

T is for Teacher, monogram card.

Here is a sneak peek at my monogram card, along with the recipe.

Monogram card recipe.

I used this great apple cardstock from DCWV the Sweet Stack to make my Monogram card. I also used Green Galore, Pixie Pink, and Apricot Appeal that I cut with my Spellbinders Petite Ovals. The Monogram T was cut on my Cricut using the Plantin Schoolbook in a 1 3/4 size cut, on the 1st cut and on the shadow. I added a little bling with some pink glitter and I cut one of the apples from the DCWV card stock and I used some of the Crystal Effects. When the apple dried, I touched it with some real red ink and added a bow. I used the 3 D Dots foam adhesive under the apricot appeal and also under the pixie pink card stock to give it some added dimension. Thanks for looking ~Diane