SC222 Biker Girl

http://Charmedcrafts.blogspot.com is having an awesome blog candy giveaway! I linked the card below to their candy offer!

Isn't this the most darling little girl! Thanks to my Swedish friend, she is now gracing my blog!! She is from a stamp company called hAnglar. They only sell their stamps in Sweden and Norway. I colored her with copic markers. I can see that I really need to work on my shading and thinking on where my light source is coming from. The plaid paper is from a 8 x 8 pad I got a couple of years ago. The dark green has a real heavy texture to it. The 'faux stitching' around the outer edge is a technique from the April Technique Junkie newsletter. I have found that it really doesn't matter what technique I use to stitch.....I always get it crooked. ;-) It did weird things on the really textured paper too.

Today I watched Zander.....for the most part he was a wonderful baby but later in the day he was truly fussy even with a nap and food. I think he teeth are really bothering him. He is cutting the second top tooth. It will make 6 for him when it finally comes through! It did make for a looooong day for me. Ray was so sweet.....he got dinner on the way home at Applebee's. Mmmmmmm, ribs!

Hero Arts One Layer

Hero Arts is asking for entries of one layer cards. While the grandson, Zander, was sleeping, I ran to the Stamp Hole to create. This is the one layer card I came up with. All stamps are Hero Arts with the exception of the itty bitty background dots from Stampin Up. There was lots of masking and stippling going on this morning! Too bad the sparkle didn't show very well. Each dandelion puff has sparkle on it. So....turn up the sparkle knob on your monitor! I don't have too many of Hero's newer stamps so I grabbed the one I did have and created. Like the cool frame around the photo?

Also, ran to the printer this morning to get the car club newsletter to get it mailed out. It was a little late this month......at least I'm not the reason! The new newsletter editor didn't get it to me until Thursday late. We'll have to get her on an earlier schedule next month!!

Sunday Success and Not So Much Success

I get this call from Pastor Wednesday afternoon. "Hey, Ann. Our organist for Sunday can't play for the late service. Can you do it?" Well.....I was already scheduled to be playing 4 of the songs with praise band already so what are a few more. Fortunately, they weren't too hard. A little bit of litury and a couple of hymns. Then we added in an voluntary for offering and some special music. The special music was fun. It was a piece that my daughter, Leah, and I did before. My Faith Looks Up To Thee. A very pensive piece with piano and some singing. I asked her if she would sing it again at Praise Team practice on Thursday night. She said yes and while we were practicing, my son and his wife (they are part of praise team as well) chimed right in with harmony. It sounded so nice! So we ended up with all three of them singing for service during communion. I was tickled that it came off beautifully. Some of the other songs, however, had their glitches here and there. I'm hoping that most of the parishioners didn't notice. Only the people who knew how it was really supposed to sound probably noticed! At least I hope!!
Ray went to a baseball game today with my son-in-law, Adam. Oregon State playing Oregon. Adam loves Oregon, Ray love Oregon State. Time for a little good natured battle of the schools going on here! While Ray was at the game (and BTW....Oregon State won!) I participated in a Copic Challenge that my friend, Kimm Bennington-Thompson hosted from her blog. You used only three colors of copics that were picked for you. Then you could add in one more color from a picked color family. This card is what I came up with. The dotted background is a technique I submitted to the Technique Junkie newsletter and was published this month. It is called Chalk Lines. I didn't do lines as you can see but I used the same technique. The sweet tulip heart is some handdrawn art from Kathryn the Teawife's mom. Kathryn is a TJ member and was kind enough to give me a copy of it! Isn't it a darling image!! Kudos to your mom, Kathryn. I used copics R08, YR04, G07 and my pick from the Y group, Y06. To get the shading on the red tulips, I added some green and blended over with the red. I love the way you can shade with colors that don't really belong to the same color group. I also added yellow on the leaves to add some 'veins'. I hope you like it! And as you can tell by the shadow on the card.....we actually have a little bit of sun today! Here is the link to Kimm's post about the copic challenge. Click HERE!

Breauna's Easter Card

I just had to show the card I made today for the Featured Stamper challenge on SCS. It will be the Easter card for my granddaughter and I was so pleased how it came out. I'm learning how to color with my copic markers and although I have a long way to go to be great, I'm quite pleased with it! I put some red cardstock behind the scan because the white card base didn't show up. Now that I see it like this, I think I like it so will probably add the red cardbase for real! That little bunny is clipart that I found. It is just adorable, don't you think? The corner punch is from EK Success.

Tomorrow I'm hoping to go to the Portland Saturday market and get some of the trophies for the Rhododendron Society shows. The first show is coming up in a week and I still need three trophies for it. Saturday market has great artists so I should be able to find some perfect items.

Another Teaser card

Well......this didn't scan worth a darn. The black and cream paper are so glittery and it just doesn't show..... Then, the scanner decided that it should put a moire pattern on the card. I tried to eliminate it with my program but it only blurred it too much. So, it is moire'd and unshimmered! That wonderful paper is from Paper Temptress. The BG above the image is a new technique coming out in the April Technique Junkie Newsletter called Newspaper reveal. A simple technique that gives dramatic looks. The directions had you adding Signo pen white around the image but for this card I really should have left that part off. Oh well...next time! The image os the Goddess on a pedestal is from TwoNancysArtStamps. The little pieces on the bottom two corners are 1/2 of a stamp also from TwoNancys. It matched perfectly with the Goddess! I was going to color the goddess in with copics. Stamped the image, cut it with my newest nesties and realized that I had stamped it with a Stazon pad. Augh! Copics don't work with Stazon......grrrrrr! So......I colored it in with my trusty water based markers. In the end it turned out just fine.

I felt lucky to get any carding done today as I was babysitting my little grandson, Zander. He was a little under the weather today with a runny nose.....oh joy! He was really hungry though. Pounded down 8 oz plus of milk plus two rounds of solids. He is starting to scrawl.......you know.....the scoot kind of crawl! He can now play patty cake as well as saying MaMa! Isn't he just the cutest little thing.

Tomorrow should be a fun day. For the evening, Ray and I get to go to the Doo Wop concert at the Arlene Schnitzer hall. I was hoping to wear one of my cool gowns but I think I'd be WAY overdressed for this event.

Newsletter Teaser Day

Well I did two cards for the teasers today for the reveal of the April 09 Technique Junkie newsletter. I used some paper from Paper Temptress that are soooo pretty. The technique is called Bingo Blast. And it is a blast to make for sure! Bingo the Zebra has some striped gold paper that has a lustre that is wonderful. The paper behind the blasts of color is also a Pearl glossy. You just can't appreciate these papers in a photo!! There is some gold on the zebra card as well from a Radiant Rain dauber. It wanted to ball up on the paper instead of splating out so I just let it do its thing and I like the result. The zebra isn't a stamp. It happens to be a clipart picture!! Hope you like the way I did the ribbon.......I've been seeing others do little ribbon tabs and have liked it to well that I thought it would work well on this card.

The second card that I made used a stamp from TwoNancysartstamps. Isn't this dancer lady fun. Since it uses the Bingo Blast technique, I've called her Bingo the Dancer although aren't most of the dancers named Lola! ;-) That striped paper is part of the lustre line from Paper Temptress and the ink floats like a dream on it. Since I colored her with copic markers I decided to emboss since the copics were pulling the black. Ugh!! When I got her done, she pretty much disappeared when I laid her on the Bingo Blast background so I mounted her on black and now she pops great! I just can't seem to stay away from ribbon on my cards and had this fun turquoise piece sitting around. It didn't really fit anywhere but near her bum so it gave her a little extra fluff on her outfit!! Now for the corners! I have several sheets of those gold or silver stickers and I regularly ignore them. Don't know why but I just do. This card really needed something extra so I dug them out and Voila! Wonderful! I do have to thank Caz, my friend in England, who share these stickers with me.......Thanks, girlfriend!! The rhinestones are from my recent earnings this weekend at the rubber stamp convention. I worked in the Auntie Amy booth and was paid $10/hr in product. She had packs of Queen & Co rhinestones 6 for $5. Makes putting lots of bling on your card much easier to swallow! I hope you enjoy!!

Not Sleepy!

Well, I couldn't sleep tonight.......Ray was snoring too loud for restful sleep so I went to the stamp hole to create. (Stamp Hole so named because it is in the basement and is a long narrow room with one small window at one end). I created two cards for the Sketch Challenge on SCS today. The first card was made with paper from K & Co. I acutally made it before I went (or at least tried) to go to bed. It was a huge pad that had really beautiful vintage looking papers in it. The image is from Maryse Carrier. Maryse was an artist for Magenta. Then she struck out on her own. I had my eye on many of her stamps. Then she decided to go in a different direction and put all the unmounted that she had on sale at 70% off. Well......I just had to stock up on a few! The flowers in vases is one that I've had for almost two years now and hadn't used yet! I thought the colors matched the paper quite well. I colored the image with copic markers. Those markers are so fun to color with. They blend so nicely. Although I wrote that the words were from Amuse......they aren't. They are from Hero Arts!

The next card that I did was the 'couldn't sleep' card. The dogwood stamp is also colored with copic markers and is by RubberStampAve. Kathy at Rubberstampave has some really great images. I added the swirls at the last minute and am happy with how they gave the card a little extra umph!

I missed working for Kathy York of RubberStampAve at the convention this year. The rubber stamp convention was this last weekend. Since Kathy wasn't there, I worked for Auntie Amy. It was interesting. She asked me to demo watercolor pencils and waterbrushes. That was easy enough to do. Gave people lots of ideas on how to use the brushes. When the brushes sold out, she changed me to selling the new Atyou Spica pens by Copic. Those little glitter pens are really wonderful. After those sold out, i switched to the new Versamark Dazzle Pad and the Glue Pad. I must say that I'm not really impressed with either. The Dazzle Pad is very subtle and I guess it has a place but it doesn't interest me much. The glue pad just isn't sticky enough for me. The glitter that it holds can be knocked off and they recommend that you hairspray it. Not for me! I demoed the little Quickie Glue Pen and sold some of those. Saturday was definitely the busiest day. I got one 60 minute break to eat lunch and run through the convention.

On Sunday I couldn't go to the RS convention early as I played organ/piano for both services at church. That was an interesting morning. I missed playing the triple amen in the last service completely. Had the liturgy book completely shut and there was no saving it. The early service went pretty well. During the offertory I had a little glitch though........As I was playing, I knocked one of the preset buttons which completely changed the stops! Horror of horrors!! At least the stops that it went to weren't loud ones but softer ones.

After church I hustled back to the convention center as I was scheduled to work from 2 - 4pm. I got there about 1pm and shopped. Worked for Amy only one hour. Business was slow and she just didn't need me. I did earn $70 in product which was cool. Got some great new toys! All in all I only purchased 5 pieces of rubber.........hard to believe, isn't it!

New Toys

Don't you just love it when you get new toys in the mail. When Luminarte announced that they were going out of business, I found a business that offered the products at 50% off and free shipping if your order was over a certain amount. I got all twenty four colors of Radiant Rain daubers and nine colors of the Shimmery Rain. Well.....the order came today in the mail! Will you look at all those colors.....I really love them!! Can't wait to have some time to play!! Maybe next week!!

This weekend will be the Portland Rubber Stamp Convention and I will be working at Auntie Amy's booth. I worked two years in a row for Rubber Stamp Ave and have loved it but they decided not to come this year. So....I'll work for Auntie Amy and get paid in product. Goody....more new toys!

I also did another card for the SCS challenge. It turned out to be a great guy card. I had some sheets of Aged Parchment (a technique from Technique Junkies) lying around and it just fell together! Stamp credits: The Angel Company (TAC) & Hero Arts. I don't know the manufacturer for the words on the aged parchment. The teal paper is Bazzill. I really love Bazzill paper!! The oval punches are SU. I don't remember where I got the brads but I think it was from Paper Wishes. The linen thread is from the Local Stamp Store.

Challenge card

Here is the card I did for today's Splitcoaststampers Sketch Challenge SC220. The little bird stamp is by Stamps Happen. I colored it with one of my most favorite coloring methods. Prismacolor pencils and Gamsol blended with paper stumps. The background paper was made using a technique from the Feb 08 Technique Junkie newsletter called Reinker Splash. I originally made it for a different stamp but it was sitting on the stamp table and went so well with this image that I grabbed it! Even though you can't tell it on the scan, the scalloped round is mounted up on dimensional tape.

Website problems

Well......I worked at getting a link to my regular website and found that it was down. So, until I get all the files uploaded again to the server the link to "Createdbyann.com" will not work, sorry!

SCS Challenge

Well.......You can now see that I have joined the ranks of the bloggers. AND like my diary in real life, I fear the entries will be few and far in between! Here is a card that I did for a recent Splitcoaststampers (SCS) challenge. I loved using some new paper from Patricia at the Paper Temptress. Go there now and get some.....it is fabulous!! It is called Retro Black Glossy Lustre. This is one of the first times that I have used such wide heavy ribbon on a card and black to boot! I hope that you find it interesting. I wish I could post the cards that I made last night but those will have to wait until the release of the Technique Junkie newsletter that they will be in. I couldn't sleep last night so I went to the Stamp Hole and created instead. Today I don't have my little grandson. He is with his auntie while I run errands and take the dog to the groomer. May today be the first of many entries!! Wish me luck.