Published in Ready, Set, Create Dec.09 / Jan.10 issue

These are the 2 cards I made for the Dec.09 / Jan.10 publication of Ready Set Create.

  The first card 25th, uses my favorite Spellbinder die, Fleur de Lis and my Cricut.

By: Diane
Supplies:
Cardstock: Around the Block Ash Filigree
Gold glitter, Dazzling Diamonds
Stampin Up, Cricut Stretch Your Imagination cartridge, Spellbinders
Fleur de Lis Pendant, Shapeabilities, Petite Ovals
Nestabilities, MS lace punch, gray ribbon

 

This card made a full page featuring all three photo's.

Pop Up Spinner Combo Card

By: Diane
Supplies:
DCWV Blossoms and Butterflies, Stampin’ Up Doodle This, Wonderful Wings
and Delight in Life, Vellum, clear acetate, 2 pennies, dimensional foam.
I made this card with lots of love for my dear friend and fellow blogger Carole at Paper Arts.  She has taught me so much and she is such a wonderful friend, I am so fortunate to have met her.
The butterfly spins in circles, I have directions on how to make both a spinner and a pop up in some of my older posts.  I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas, I was busy cooking and preparing as I am sure many of you were too.  I hope you enjoy and as always thanks for looking.  ~Diane

Happy Anniversary to Jan at Papercraft Pleasures and thank you for the Bind It All Blog Candy!

Look at this cute little Pink Wonder!  It is a Bind it All New Version 2.0 by Zutter Innovative Products, and I won it as a blog candy prize from Jan at Papercraft Pleasures.  Thank you Jan, this is just so awesome!  I can't wait to start creating some beautiful bound books and projects with this. Jan's blog Papercraft Pleasures is one of the first few blogs I started following.  I really admire her work, she has been published numerous times, and has many awards in her creative resume.  So it has always been a pleasure for me to follow her.  She has a very interesting blog with cards, scrapbooks, cooking, jewelry and much more!  There is just no end to her creativity!  This blog candy was in celebration of her 1 year Anniversary for her blog.  I suggest you might pop over to wish her a Happy Anniversary, and become a follower.  This is not the first time she has offered a Bind It All as blog candy either, I heard the last one went to Canada.  Thank you Jan, this is a very generous gift and just in time for Christmas!  Thanks for looking  ~Diane

Just Us Girls Challenge # 11

 

I made 2 cards for the JUGS Just Us Girls Challenge this week.  The challenge this week is to use the chalkboard technique.  Stamp your image in white ink, and then apply your chalks.  For those of you who have never tried this, the chalk will stick to your white ink.  I am so glad they suggested this challenge!  I chose to stamp this on some vellum I bought at JoAnns.  I colored it in with my Stampin Up chalks and then I used the eraser to clean it up.  I hardly ever use my Stampin Up chalks and I have never used the Eraser that comes with it.  I am so glad I gave it a try with this technique.  The eraser really cleans up the chalk residue that does not rub off, and I also used it to do some shading.

See the really neat embossing?  I was so fortunate to win those Cuttlebug folders along with a whole lot more from the JUGS challenge site last week!  Thank's to Mona from from Cupcake Creations, she sponsored the wonderful Blog Candy.  She has an interesting blog with beautiful creations, you must stop by.  There were 3 Cuttlebug folders, 4 really cool stamps, wonderful ornament gift tags she made (they are gorgeous) and a beautiful gift box she made with heat embossed snowflakes on it.  My daughter has already informed me I should put a gift card for her in the gift box.  I have a picture of all the goodies I received above.  I also want to thank Sandi from Paper Trail for the wonderful idea of using a double frame.  I saw a card on her blog where she used a double frame and I loved it, so I had to scraplift it!  I used the Spellbinders Labels 8 to make my frames.  I strongly suggest you use my links to stop by all of these sites, they all have so much to offer!  Thanks for looking.  ~Diane

Santa Chic

 

I made this card for 2 challenges this week.  The challenge at Play Date Cafe is hosted by Alison of Stretch n Bubbles this week.  Alison offered one of her images, but you can use any image you want.  The colors are Red, Lime Green and Bright Pink.  The challenge at Tellens Place is to use a technique called Paper Piecing, they too offer a free digi image to work with or not.   I embossed the red card stock with a Sizzix Texture Plate, I cut the 2 backgrounds with Labels 8 by Spellbinders.   I printed Alison's digi Chic on the green dp, and also printed it 4 more times on white cs.  I cut the flower hat 4 times, decreasing it's size on each cut, and colored each layer a different color.  I cut the purse and shoes out of the white cs also and colored them in and glued them on top of the patterned shoes. This was a lot of fun combining both challenges for this piece.  And even better since I really need to get my own Christmas cards done, Yikes!   Thanks for looking.  ~Diane

Winter Birds by Inkadoo

I made this card for the Just Us Girls challenge # 10.  This week it is a layout challenge, and I really like the layout so it was fun designing this card.  I used Winter Birds by Inkadoo stamp set and Night of Navy ink from Stampin Up.  This is the first time I have used this stamp set, found it on sale, then forgot about it.  For the background I used Core'dinations Cobalt Blues, and Cuttlebug Snowflakes, then I sanded it off.  I can't forget my Nesties, I used the round and Labels 8.  The stars are silver, and I used foam pop ups under all the white card stock to lift it up a bit.  JUGS has a new challenge every Saturday, so stop by and see what they are doing, the designers are top notch. Thanks for looking.  ~Diane

Pink and Red Valentine

This is my entry for the Tellens Place Red and Pink challenge # 3.  The fab digi gal image is a freebie from her site, although you don't have to use her images to enter, they are just too cute to pass up!  The wonderful red foiled card stock is a find from my local Dollar Treasure store.  I also used a piece of pink vellum from  Paper and More to fill in where I cut the heart out with the Cricut.  This is the first time I used the center point function.  It took me some time to figure out which direction to place the card stock to get the hearts to both print out in the same place with the hearts going in the same directions on both pieces, but I finally got it right.  I ran the heart cut outs through the Wizard with the Cuttlebug Swiss Dot folder.  Thanks for looking.  ~Diane

I'm feeling vintage, ha ha.

I am still in a vintage mood, so this is the project I made for the Jugs challenge.  The simple box template comes from a project I did at a Stampin Up workshop years ago.  I covered my box with a page from an old horticultural book that I misted with Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist in Coffee Shop.  I really love that Glimmer Mist, it adds instant aging with just a touch of soft glimmer.  I cut the poinsettias on my Cricut, Joys of the Season cartridge.  The cs is Stampin Up Sage Shadow and the red is one of the limited edition colors from another year, maybe Pomegranate, also misted with  Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist Coffee Shop.  The lace is hand crocheted, I found it at a garage sale this summer, what a steal!  I bought a box with about 20 feet of the lace and about 10 skeins of the embroidery floss.  The half pearls are from Michaels.  I hope you enjoyed, thanks for looking.  ~Diane

High Heeled Thanks

I made this card for the Just Us Girls Challenge to use Pumpkin Pie, Really Rust, Bashful Blue . It should also be a Thank you card.  I decided since these are not my usual colors, I would really break out of the box and not do the traditional type of card I normally would do.  I decided I would really take a chance.  I even tried to get my lay out to be a bit out of the box for me.  Not my neatly layered, equally spaced, symmetrical style.   The awesome image is from Stretch n Bubbles,   Alison offers Freebies on Wednesday for her followers if you want to give digital images a try.    I saw this shoe and thought of my boa material instantly!  I sprayed it ever so slightly with the Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist in Turquoise Blue, I used some of my dp that I made with the bubbles and a straw technique.  I do believe my blue is the Stampin up Bashful Blue, but I didn't have the pumpkin Pie or Really Rust so I came as close as I could.  I embossed the dp with the Cuttlebug Swiss dots, embossing folder and used the Cuttlebug Textile for the other 2 pieces I cut from my Spellbinders Labels 8 Nestabilities.  Ribbons are from JoAnns and Big Lots, and I don't know where my Thanks jelly is from.  I really enjoyed making this card, I stretched my skills and learned some new things.  Thanks for looking.  ~Diane

Tellens Place Challenge

All Right!  This card won the the first challenge at Tellens Place!  A new challenge starts today, and there is another awesome freebie digi image, but you don't need a digi image to enter!  Thanks for picking this card.  ~Diane

This is the card I made for the Tellens Place Challenge.  The challenge was to "embellish it".  The adorable image was a freebie at her challenge site.  I'm not sure if you can read the caption, it say's "Now this is how to shop Black Friday.  While the kids are in line, I'll be on line."  My grown children have plans to camp out at a few stores to get the doorbuster deals.  Not me, I will be sipping my coffee sitting at the computer, looking for the on line deals.  I'll also be watching the clock for the Spellbinders Black Friday contest!  ha ha.  Tellens Place is a new challenge site, run by a wonderfully sweet lady named Terry.  Her son Marcus draws awesome images which she also sells at her Etsy store.  Marcus drew this sweet lady for her first challenge.  I was also the fortunate recipient of some of Terry's blog candy, of which I used the blue and brown cs from her stash.  I also used my Spellbinders Impressabilities Circles, and the Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist Coffee Shop, I really like how that came out.  And it was so easy too.  I used Bazzill jewel templates Borders, and then placed 4 misc jewels in too.  These are more items from When Creativity Knocks Great Tool Hunt. The font is LD Going Nuts Scrap n Fonts (free fonts).  I colored the image with Stampin Up Markers, Prismacolor pencils, Souffle 3D ink, and a Tombow and Copic marker.

This is a picture of my blog candy from Terry at Tellens Place.  She even included some directions and envelopes for me!  And don't forget the adorable images, I stood them up in the back so you could see them better.  Thank you Terry.

 

Thanks for looking, don't forget to check out the Tellens Place Challenge site, new challenges start on Wednesday.  ~Diane

There's Magic In The Air Skating By.

The challenge calls for something reflective, like foil, along with Nina's image.  So finally, this is it!  My card for There's Magic in the Air Magical Monday challenge.  This penguin is adorable but oh the troubles I had getting him on to this card!  I made the mistake of asking my dear sweet husband, whose opinion I value, for his opinion on what I had so far.  I felt it needed to be tweaked a little.  Did I say a little?  This is a totally different card!  I like it better, but he is such a perfectionist.  My tree was too big, it would look better if I bent the edges of  the tree underneath.  When he wanted me to make jagged edges on the tree I had to put my foot down.  ha ha.  His constructive input really did help me get it just the way I wanted it though.  I used Nina's free image called Skating By, Cuttlebug Lace Tree and gold foil, the blue paper is Stampin Up and I used white embossing powder on the hat.  The star and snowflakes came from a set of confetti from JoAnns (only 1 dollar!)  I printed the penquin twice, once on white cs that I colored and cut out, then onto the blue that I attached him to.  Thats it, thanks for looking.  ~Diane

Play Date Cafe Challenge #5, and Soartful Challenges - Lovely

Welcome to the new designer at Play Date Cafe, Julie Campbell.  I went to her site A Vintage Chic and I saw all of her gorgeous work there too.  She really inspired me this week, and she has some fantastic blogs that she follows too.  That's where I found the image for this card.  The site is called Old Photo Album and she has some wonderful, free, vintage photographs!  I also had a chance to use the Bazzill jewel templates flowers and flourishes, and the  self adhesive jewels in wild pansy,  that I won through When Creativity Knocks Great Crafters Tool Hunt.   Bazzill really has it together on this system.  It makes it so easy to look like a professional when adding the beautiful jewels to your projects.  Check out my beautiful swirl, I am really proud of it!  Thank you Bazzill!   Stop by Play Date Cafe and see what Julie and all her other team members made, and you will see my inspiration.  I love the vintage look of the pearls and lace.   I just found another challenge site SoArtful Challenges, and they just happen to be using this exact image in their challenge this week, called Lovely.  I used the Cuttlebug Swiss dots folder and I made my flower from the Spellbinders round scallop die distressed with Tattered Angels glimmer mist.  Thanks for looking.  ~Diane

More Snowmen!

My friend want's some Christmas cards with Snowmen, so I will show you the second Snowman card I made.  I hope she likes it.  I used the digital image Snowmen from Kahwinkedink.  Labels 8 Nestabilities, Fleur de Lis Pendant and Ribbon Tags Trio Shapeabilities by Spellbinders.   Sage Shadow, pink and ivory cs and markers from Stampin Up, dp is DCWV Nana's Nursery Baby Boy. I did the embossing with Cuttlebug Snowflakes, added ivory ribbon and LD Wedding from Scrap n Fonts. 

Thanks for looking.  ~Diane

Spellbinders is doing it again! Black Friday Contest to announce 3 new sets of Nesties!

Just in time for Christmas, Spellbinders is adding three new sets to the Nesties line up!

Nesties™-008 Octagons - Large Octagon, Small Octagon, Large scalloped, Small scalloped

Nesties™-009 Flower - Peony, Dahlia, Blossom, Two Blossom
Nesties™-010 Label - Labels Two, Large Labels, Small Labels and Labels Four

I had such a hard time deciding which one of the flowers I wanted most, problem solved! 

Want to know what makes this even sweeter?  In honor of Black Friday, the traditional start of the Christmas shopping season, they are giving away 12 sets of Nesties™! You can win a set of Nesties™ by commenting on the Black Friday Blog Posts, once every 6 hours, starting at 12:00am Eastern Standard Time, November 27, 2009. They will give away 3 sets every 6 hours in the time slots as follows:
    * 12:00-5:59 am EST: Ultra Early Bird Give-Away
    * 6:00-11:59 am EST: Early Bird Give-Away
    * 12:00-5:59 pm EST: Sleepin’ In Special
    * 6:00-12:00 midnight EST: Gettin’ Back from the Mall Specials
Enter by posting a comment, on November 27, on the Spellbinders™ Blog, only once in each time slot, for a total of 4 times.  Entrants are eligible for the time slot they enter in, and for the future drawings. For example, if you enter between 12:01 and 5:59 am, you will be entered in all four drawings. You may enter again after 6:00 am to double your chance of winning, enter again after 12:00pm to triple your odds, and again after 6:00pm to for a total of four entries.
Spellbinders™ will draw three prize winner names from Random.org for each time slot. Each individual winner will receive one new Nesties™ set as announced, retail value of $80. A total of 12 winners will be announced on November 27-28, 2010. The total retail value of all prizes is $960.00.
Ok so I copied the information from their site, so now all you have to do is click on the link from here.  Spellbinders has such fab contests, they are an extremely generous company!  Good luck, I hope to see you there!  ~Diane

Christmas Card in honor of Henry

A very sad story to share here today.  A fellow stamper/paper crafter has lost her son quite suddenly.  Henry Anderson was only 3 years old, he suddenly became ill and passed away.  It is still uncertain as to the cause of his death.  The kind owner of Paper Makuep Stamps, Katie Cotton, was an online friend of Henry's mom, Sarah Anderson. Katie is a mom of two boys herself and a very generous person. One of the new releases from Paper Makeup Stamps is a cute little boy fairy making a snow angel in the snow. Katie named him Henry in honor of Sarah's son and is offering the image as a digital image. The cost of the image is a mere $3.00, and the proceeds will go to the Anderson family.  Anyone wishing to contribute by purchasing this commemorative digital image can follow the links here on my blog.  I don't know you Sarah Anderson, but my heart and prayers go out to you.  I hope you will find some small comfort in knowing so many people care.  I hope some of you reading this will consider sharing this story with the links to Paper Makeup Stamps on your blogs, so this image can live on in our hearts as we raise more money for the Anderson family.  I found this story thanks to the ladies at the Just Us Girls JUGS challenge site, as they know Katie Cotton.  Thanks for looking,  ~Diane

No wonder they called it the Wonder Store!

                                       

       

               

 I made this card with the inspiration provided by two very popular challenge sites.  My friend Sandi came up with the inspiration colors of blue/green, chocolate brown, tan and cream for the Play Date Cafe Challenge.  Sandi used whimsy and humor with these very elegant colors in her challenge card, so I decided to be a bit whimsical yet elegant myself.

 The challenge inspiration at Just Us Girls (JUGS) called for some dry embossing and to make it a Birthday card, celebrating team member Dana's birthday, I hope you had a good birthday.

Now for my own personal inspiration, I found this little booklet tucked inside one of my Grandmothers old cookbooks.  I wonder how many times she pulled it out to admire all the beautiful dresses.  I collect old and antique cookbooks because I love to reading them, and cooking the recipes.  It's a great way to get a glimpse into the lives of the women of that era.  This advertising ephemera has 6 ladies in different dresses all advertising the Paragon Broadcloth dresses for 1 dollar each!  The Wonder Store must have been Wonderful!  Beautiful dresses for 1 dollar!  I added the aged tan order blank, and stamped Happy Birthday in chocolate brown on it.  Wouldn't Dana just love to get one of these dresses for 1 dollar for her birthday?  I used Stampin Up ivory, and chocolate brown.  The blue/green dp is K &Company Brenda Walton "Mira".  I dry embossed the chocolate brown cs with a Sizzix Texture plate, and the dp was dry embossed with Cuttlebug Textile embossing folder.  Happy Birthday stamp is from Warmest Regards.  I hope you enjoy this, I had fun making it!  Thanks for looking.  ~Diane

Whoo Hoo!  This card was chosen for the Fab 4 at Play Date Cafe!

How's that go, a day late and a dollar short?

 

That's me this week!  I am a day late with the challenge sketch at JUGS, but since it was such a great sketch I want to post it anyway.  Besides, I used this wonderful new digi image Snowmen from my friend Kristen at Kards and Klay's, shop Kahwinkedink, and I can't wait to show it off!  I made the letters and small circles with Cricut Plantin Schoolbook, cs Regal Rose, Mellow Moss from Stampin Up, dp K &Company Brenda Walton "Mira", Stampin up fine cosmo glitter - green and confetti snowflakes from JoAnns.  Best of all, I had a chance to use one of my new toys from Spellbinders, that I won in the When Creativity Knocks, Great Crafters Tool Hunt.  I used the Spellbinders Impressabilities Snowflake.  What I really like about this is that I was able to fill my 5 x 7 card front with the embossed image.  It took me some time to figure it out, but I cut the frame off of the Impressibility and ran it through my Wizard twice.  On the second pass I let the portion of the card that was done hang outside of the plates, so it didn't flatten it out.  I cut my frame off very carefully, because I intend to use that to emboss a rectangle frame in the future.
Personal note, the Just Us Girls team has a special challenge for you (in addition to a new one they will have for you on Saturday). This one is to raise money for a family that you may or may not have heard about. One of our fellow stampers in our very charitable stamping community suddenly lost her son last week. Henry Anderson was only three years old, suddenly became ill, and passed away. It is still uncertain what the cause of his death was.  Please stop over to the JUGS site for details on how we can help this family.  Thanks for looking, ~Diane

Play Date Cafe Challenge # 3

I love the colors chosen for this weeks challenge at Play Date Cafe!  I used the Stampin up Real Red, which is one of my favorites, along with a white and black.  I embossed the red cs with a Sizzix embossing plate, I cut the layered panels with Spellbinders Deckled Mega Rectangles Nestabilities.  I heat embossed the Stampin up Kanji and Oriental Paintings using Versamark and black opaque embossing powder.  I used a Stampin Up punch for the Kanji squares and trimmed the red and black squares to a slightly larger size.  This is a fun challenge site, so stop by and check it out!

When Creativity Knocks Tool Hunt Tools have arrived!

Whoo Hoo!  It's here!  When Creativity Knocks Great Crafters Tool Hunt prize package has arrived! These are all the wonderful tools Ana and Megan scoped out at the CHA Craft Supershow in Florida.  I entered the contest by voting for my favorite tool, Spellbinders Impressabilities.  Spellbinders won and so did I!  Although it looks like a have a whole new list of favorites now!  Thank you Ana and Megan Araujo,and all of the Awesome Great Crafters Tool Hunt manufacturers
for making this generous prize possible!
I am so excited, I have so many wonderful tools to explore and share!  I will be highlighting each manufacturers tool(s) as I make projects with them in the coming weeks.  And these manufacturers were so very generous I am totally amazed!  I received way more than I anticipated from anyone, this is an awesome prize package!  Even more awesome than I had anticipated!  I have spent my weekend photographing  all of my wonderful new tools.  There were so many that I had to stand on a chair to get them all in the same shot!   Do you have any idea how hard it was to photograph them before I opened them?  I so wanted to tear into those packages, but I restrained myself till after the pictures were taken.  The photo above is from Cindi Bisson Associate Producer, When Creativity Knocks.  She sent me a picture of it before it arrived, it was packaged up so beautifully in baskets with cellophane and a large ribbon.  And the contents totally blew me away!  Hold on to your hats!  This is the line up!

Bazzill in Stitch'z carrying case, Bazzill In Stitch'z floss, Bazzill In Stitch'z piercing tool,  Bazzill In Stitch'z Piercing mat, Bazzill In Stitch'z 8 x 8 Flowers, Bazzill In Stitch'z Heidi Lynn's CAPS, Bazzill In Stitch'z Formal Flourishes, Bazzill Jewel Templates bling,  Bazzill jewel templates Christmas,  Bazzill jewel templates garden,  Bazzill jewel templates alphabet, Bazzill jewel templates flowers and flourishes,  Bazzill jewel templates borders Bazzill self adhesive jewels in chablis, clear, wild pansy, paulypoo and desert sun!  Wow!  They even gave me the carrying case to keep it all organized!  Thank you Bazzill, this is a totally awesome package!    I can't wait to try it all out!

imaginisce i*top Brad Maker,  imaginisce i*top Medium Topper Punch, imaginisce i*top  Small Topper Punch, 2 packages imaginisce i*top  Small Brad Daddies,  2 packages imaginisce i*top  Medium Brad Daddies, imaginisce i*top Topper Template for all 3 sizes.  Thank you imaginisce!

Tattered Angels Glimmer Screens Vintage Ice, attered Angels Tweezers, Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist Turquoise Blue, Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist Wheatfields, Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist Deep Plum, Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist Coffee Shop, Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist Pink Taffy,

Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist Iridescent Gold.  Thank you Tattered Angels!

Spellbinders  Impressabilities Paisley, Spellbinders Impressabilities Snowflake, Spellbinders Impressabilities Butterfly, Spellbinders ImpressabilitiesCircles, Spellbinders Impressabilities Tulips, Spellbinders Impressabilities Flourish.  Thank you Spellbinders and congrats on winning the Great Crafters Tool Hunt along with me!

We R Memory Keepers Crop-A-Dile Corner Chomper 1/4" & 1/2" round     
Completely Stencible  Re-Usable, Customizable Stenciling Kit         
McGill Angel Punch

Glue Arts Glue Glider Pro                                                                      

Easy Arranger 5"  and Dangles in Champagne

Thank you all, these are wonderful prizes I will truly enjoy for years to come!

These are the extra items sent along with the prize package from When Creativity Knocks. 
Creative Hot Marks

Scraperfect Perfect Printing Pouch                                                    

Clover Sweetheart Rose Maker 

Thank you Ana and Megan Araujo, When Creativity Knocks Executive Producer/Designer

and Cindi Bisson Associate Producer and all of the Awesome Great Crafters Tool Hunt manufacturers for making this generous prize possible!  I just can't thank all of you enough, this is so much more than I ever could have dreamed of!

Be sure to stop by When Creativity Knocks, Ana and Megan Araujo bring you fun, creative projects each week.  Ana travels across the country hosting home crafting parties for amateurs.  Each episode features projects for all ages.  Episodes can be viewed weekly on When Creativity Knocks.  This is an informative and interactive site.  Be sure to check out the Bloggers Bonanza (promoting designers blogs) and Creative journal, 2 of my favorite spots. Thanks for sharing the excitement with me, many new projects featuring these tools will follow.  ~Diane

Two for One Challenge

 

I made this card with 2 challenges in mind.  The sweet little bird on a pumpkin is a free digital image from Nina May of There's Magic in the Air.  Nina taught me how to download and adjust a digital image.  I am also using this for a new color challenge, over at Play Date Cafe.  The colors are orange, yellow and dark brown.  

The products I used for this card are as follows. The beautiful designer paper is K &Company Brenda Walton Mira, you can't see the pretty shiny gold trim in this photo, it is gorgeous paper.  I used DCWV Heritage textured cs in brown, a vellum flower I made on the Cricut, I embossed with a Sizzix texture plate and cut and embossed with Spellbinders Labels 8.  The orange cs was from a sale.  This was a fun but really challenging exercise for me.  I would have to say color is my weak point in papercrafting so I am happy to be learning more at Play Date Cafe.  And I am also new to digital art, Nina at There's Magic in the Air has already helped me there, now I just need to master some coloring techniques.  Hope you enjoyed this, thanks for looking.  ~Diane

Just Us Girls challenge # 5 card

This is my entry for the 5th Just Us Girls Challenge.  This week they have challenged us to create a holiday card designed to present a photo.  This is a special Wild Card Challenge with a little something for everyone who plays.  You will have to go to their site to check it out!  I used clear polyester to make this card which is 5 x 7.  I used metallic blue card stock to cut the word Joy with my Cricut Plantin Schoolbook cartridge.  The holly leaves were cut on green and red metallic card stock with Cricut Stretch Your Imagination.  I found Rachael Ray in a magazine.  I hope you can see it well enough.  The J and 2 cut outs of holly are on the front, the OY is on the inside and I put a large holly leaf next to the Y for a signature.  Hope you enjoy, thanks for looking.  ~Diane 

Thank you Aletha for the Beautiful Mandala.

I won this beautiful mandala in a giveaway hosted on our Etsy Greetings Team Blog.  The Etsy Greetings Team is a membership group I proudly belong to.  Our profile: We are a dynamic team of greeting card artists who collaborate to promote our artisan-ship through Etsy.com.

Our goal is to become the number one resource for buyers seeking quality handmade cards.

About The Artist: Her name is Aletha and she lives in Tulsa, OK, better known as “tornado alley.” She is a self-taught artist and says she is still in the process of learning. She loves rubber stamps, mixed media, and collage.  She started with rubber stamp art around 10 years ago after working at Hobby Lobby as assistant manager. Rubber stamps, watercolors, paints, inks, paper, etc., are all a part of her. What comes out of that are collages, mini wall art, frameable art cards, greeting cards, note cards, handbound journals, bookmarks, mandalas, and seasonal items. If she can stamp it, paint it, cut it, tear it, glue it, varnish it, she will do it.  And the results are breathtaking.  Aletha's shops are  named AJ's Designs.  She has an Etsy shop along with an ArtFire and 1000 Markets locations.   Aletha also does spotlight interviews on her blog featuring fellow Etsy artists.  She is always thinking of others.  Her work is beautiful as you can see.  She not only sent me the lovely mandala of my choice (eggplant and teal) I also received one of her beautiful handmade cards and bookmarks, which are equally beautiful.   So what is a mandala? Mandala means "circle."  The design is concentric and based on circular composition.  The mandala can represent any stage of life, past, present and future.   I have decided to display my mandala in my craft room where it will bring harmony to my creativity and also remind me of my wonderful friend who gave it to me.  Thank you again Aletha, for all of your kindness.  ~Diane

Challenge Card for Just Us Girls

I made this card for a new challenge blog I recently found through Mona at Cupcake Creations. I even like the name of it "Just Us Girls" challenge. This weeks challenge is to add a 3D flower to your project. This is a card my friend Michelle asked me to make for her (multitasking) ha ha. I made my flower out of vellum on my Cricut. I get these amazing vellum colors from PaperandMore. I put seed beads in the center. I used Apricot Appeal, and the patterned paper is from Memory Boutique. I used the Martha Stewart lace punch on the bottom, and this is a
5 x 7 card. And I found the velvet ribbon on sale at JoAnns. I hope you like it
and thanks for looking. ~Diane

Play Date Cafe

This is my entry for the Play Date Cafe color challenge. It reminds me of what Autumn in Michigan sometimes looks like. I had a tough time photographing this. I am working on a greatly needed new set up for photography. I don't know if you can see it, I used the Crystal Effects to layer the leaves for a more dimensional look. I used Core'dinations on the brown tree and leaves and Cuttlebug folder Snowflakes and Swiss Dots. I cut the tree, pumpkin and leaves from Cricut Stretch Your Imagination. I added some Dazzling Diamonds glitter to the snowflakes. Not sure if you can see it, I used a flourish Clear stamp with Stazon white opaque ink to add just a hint of wind to the picture. I must say this was a lot fun to make and the colors really challenged my imagination. Stop over to the Play Date Cafe and see what the designers made.Below is the color challenge. Thanks for looking. ~Diane