Heart Attack

Well I'm home sick today (the shop is open Sunday afternoons) with what is hopefully the last grand headcold of the season, so I'm all curled up with my laptop, my laptop cord munching kitten, and watching glorious weather reports of rain.  Rain! So exciting to have rain not snow :-) and it's not even going to be FREEZING rain. Spring is definitely on the horizon.  So I'm going to spread the love and catch up with you, my bloggy buddies, with a series of hearty cards.
The challenge is use only cardstock and the papers from a Basic Grey paper pack I've had in my stash for about a year.  A friend of mine was also feeling uninspired by the Scallop Heart Nesties she had bought, so to make things interesting, use this set of dies on every. single. one.   Turned out limiting your supplies is a great way to get inspired.

Card number 1:

Supplies:
Basic Grey Bittersweet Paper Pack
Mark Richards Rhinestone Alphabet (X &O)
Spellbinders Classic Hearts & Scallop Hearts
Kaisercraft 12" Pink Rhinestone Strips
The Greeting Farm Pirate Anya (I think she's been discontinued, but there's lot's of other great characters there that would look just as cute, like this sassy little number)

Oh Boy!

Paper:          Daisy D, Anna Griffin
Die Cuts:      Elephant & Balloons by Cricut
                   Label 1 by Spellbinders
Stamps:        Brayton Alphabet by JustRite

Sorry for the blurriness of the photo.  Every have one of those days where no matter how you sweet talk your camera, it's not going to take a good shot?  Today was one of those days.

This card was made for a Baby themed card swap, but since all my friends (and I) are lining up to be Old Maids, I thought I'd come up with something that could swing for birthdays or other festive events as well, preferably ones that involve cotton candy.  I love cotton candy :-)  What you can't see due to excessive blurriness, is that I sanded nearly every square inch of that card and then rubbed brown ink over it in an artistic manner.  Even the elephant, who looks way cool distressed, btw, like an 1950s storybook about a circus that was very well loved.

Spellbinders Designer Spotlight

In case you want to feed my narcissistic tendencies and show Spellbinders how my public loves me ;-)  Here is a link the design team spotlight on moi.
http://spellbinderspaperarts.com/blog/designer-spotlight-on-donya-schroeder/
I'll be back tomorrow with a few new projects. Ciao dahlings!

Might as Well be Spring

Hooray, hooray~ It's up above freezing today!  The birds are singing and the dog is chasing them all the way to the neighbors farm.  Definitely something Springish in the air, groundhog be darned.  Here's a pretty little card to celebrate:

This is an uber simple card, easily replicated for masses of Valentines or birth announcements, you don't even have any major coloring to do, just stamp the main image (Crafty Secrets) in Versafine Black ink.  Normally I stamp images with Tsukineko's Archival Brillance Graphite so I can color them with Copics and not worry about bleeding, but with really detailed images you need that Versafine or you are going to wind up with a blob.  A very sad blob.

I did this card once using Marvy punches and one with Spellbinder Nestabilities in what I suppose could be called a cardmaking version of the WWF Smackdown.  Guess what? Nesties won, hands down.  They just look way more polished, especially when you are working with vellum, like on the background scallop here.  One other thing you can't do with the punches in that reverse stenciling technique to create a border (you can see a how to on reverse stenciling a couple of posts back, the blog party post).  Nope that's not an extra piece of tan cardstock behind the main image, I just inked up the die itself with a light brown fluid chalk inkpad.

Winner!

Congratulations to Patty, winner of the Tire Swing Stamp!  Here's what she wrote:
"I’m so excited! How awesome…I won something…I’m weeping so it is difficult to type or see what I’m typing. I’m so new to all of this and this ole dog is trying to learn all this new blogging, posting, and stamping stuff.  Thanks so much for blessing me with this precious stamp."
Patty also had some great memories of swinging with her friends at recess when she was a girl:
"It reminded me so much of when I was a child however; we didn’t have a car much less a tire to use as a swing.  At school during recess, my friend and I would swing all during recess.  I loved that you colored her hair reddish brown as that is my hair coloring. Believe it or not, my hair was almost that long"
Personally, my hair was never long.  I was one of those kids who cried when I got the tangles combed out of my hair (it's curly underneath the top layer, so evilly prone to tangles!), so my mom decided I was a pixie cut girl, lol.  I always envied those long locked beauties!

This is my "tire swing"- an old rope that goes out over the quarry.  Not for the faint of heart.  There are picnic tables, old cars, and TADPOLES (eeee!) lurking under the surface of that water.

Bless you, too, Patty! And I hope you have tons of fun with your new stamp!

XO
D

Bone Idle

Ahhhh, the sweet calm has arrived after the storm of preparing samples for CHA.  In some ways I'm sad that I'm not going this year.  I don't get to hang out with all my awesome crafty friends and do awesome crafty things...oh and I don't get to go to Disneyland! But... I get to breath!  And I don't have jet lag!  Boy howdy, is that ever a good thing!  So today, as a treat I did ab-so-lute-ly nothing.  Nada.  It was gorgeous :-)

Part of doing nothing was going out with Alfie to chat with the horses, Red and Bud.

They are total posers, lol.

Then Gabby the cat and I curled up on the sofa and (finally!) watched the newest Indiana Jones movie.  Harrison Ford is still a looker in my book.

Hope everyone is a having a similarly delightful weekend and don't forget you have 'til midnight tonight to enter for a chance to win the tire swing stamp!

XO
D

A big THANK YOU!!!!!! and Blog Candy!

I got a lot of great comments on the tire swing stamp I used on this yellow card (also seen at the bottom of my Spellbinders reveal entry)  She's a Door County Kid made by Door County Rubberstamps.  We sell them at Backroads Plum Crazy, but if you can't get here or to Oscar's shop in Door County then do visit their website- their stamps are so adorable and work great with Copics!

I figured while we were "in the swing" (har har)) of giving away fantabulous things, I'd throw out some more blog candy!  E-mail me by Saturday (the 24th of January) 11:59 PM CST at donya@backroadsplumcrazy.com and put "tire swing" as your subject line for a chance to win your very own!

Stamps:  Tire Swing by Door County Rubberstamps
                Live by Inque Boutique
Ink:        Tsukineko Brilliance Graphite
Paper:    Buttercream Cardstock
               Yellow Gingham Paper from my stash bought eons ago
               White Cardstcock
               aged teal scrap
Extras:   Copic Sketch markers, Spellbinders Classic Circle and Pinking Circle dies, Pop Dots