Winner and Starving Artistamps Sketch Challenge

First up today I'm excited to announce the winner of my card giveaway from the Your Next Stamp Blog Hop! I just wanted to thank everybody for stopping by my blog and for all of your wonderful comments!! Reading all your sweet words about my cards really brought a huge smile to my face and makes stamping just that much more enjoyable!! Anyway, on to the winner!!

I decided to use slips of paper instead of a random generator because I think it's fun! Here's the result:

(Sorry for the smudgy ink - I folded up the paper before letting the ink dry!)

And just to be clear, because I had 2 people named Jodi entered, the winner is this Jodi:

Congrats Jodi!! Please email me (link is in the sidebar) with your mailing address and your choice of card from my blog hop creations and I'll get that right out to you!

Thanks again everybody - it was such a fun hop and we hope you'll all join us again for the next one!!

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And now onto today's card! This month's sketch challenge at Rubber Stamp Chat is being hosted by Starving Artistamps (home of the DoodleFactory stamps) and there is a CRAZY fab prize to be won so I had to play! Here's what I came up with:


I used Squirt who is one of my fave DF characters because he's so cute! I did just a bit of coloring with Copics then cut him out and popped him up on foam boosters. I die cut the Quickutz letters 3 times each and glued them together so they'd have some dimension also, and lastly I added Bella's Baubles to the bottom right corner. The patterned paper is all from Sassafras Lass. I hope you like it and TFL!

Baby Girl Beebo and Blog Candy

Today's card was made using the Little C's Weekly Challenge #16 sketch.

I used Baby Beebo from the Doodle Factory, and speaking of DF, they just released an adorable holiday set called Santa's Sweet Shoppe as well as a set of matching sentiments, and they're giving away both on their blog! Go check it out and spread the word for a chance to win!

Other materials used: sentiment - Papertrey Ink (Bitty Baby Blessings set); patterned paper (Nana's Nursery Baby Girl pad) - DCWV; ribbon - May Arts; word window punch and Creamy Caramel cardstock - Stampin' Up!; scalloped square Nestabilities.

Yapples Swedish Collage

Starving Artistamps is having a Swedish Collage challenge on their blog right now and I decided to give it a try. Boy was this difficult, and my card isn't really collage-y, but I still really like it so it'll have to do!

According to the blog, the main elements of Swedish collage are:
~the shape of the card is SQUARE
~a bold mix of PATTERN PAPERS is used
~CHIPBOARD titles (in any language!), BUTTONS and/or STAPLES are often incorporated into the design
~COLOR COLOR COLOR the more color the better! (this is not your regular vintage style collage frequently done in the states! Ban the brown!)

I used a mix of papers from the DCWV Blossoms and Butterflies stack, along with the orange piece from Kelly Panacci. I stamped Yapples on the orange paper and on white CS twice. I cut out one whole white image, and then just the eyeballs of the other. I cut out the entire orange Yapples, except for the teeth and then layered it over the whole white Yapples. Lastly, I rounded and popped up both eyeballs. (BTW - did you know you can make him cross-eyed just by turning one of the eyeballs the other way? It's pretty funny!)

The little dots on the HEY are tiny blue rhinestones (wish I could capture the sparkle in my pictures) and I thought the crazy zigzag stitching would go well with Yapples. TFL!

Yapples Says Happy Birthday!

Today's card is another male birthday card, this time for my father-in-law. I thought he might get a kick out of the DoodleFactory creatures so I thought up this design.

I wanted to have Yapples yelling the sentiment but when I looked at him, he was facing left, and I really wanted him yelling to the right (somehow that just makes more sense to me). So I used the MirrorIt! Medium mirror stamp to reverse the direction he's facing.

Hope you like this one as much as I do! TFL!

Other materials used: sentiment - Close To My Heart (A Birthday Wish set); party hat - Papertrey Ink (It's A Celebration set); white cardstock - Georgia Pacific; red cardstock - Stampin' Up!; patterned paper - Daisy Bucket Designs; black and red Brilliance ink - Tsukineko; Copic markers; rectangle Nesties; Fiskars tiny flower hand punch.

Baby Beebo

Hmmm... Can you say that title 10 times fast? Lol!

Today's card uses the cutest little bear (?) from the DoodleFactory Country set called Beebo. I paired her up with a few different papers from the Nana's Nursery Baby Girl paper pad and some Berry Sorbet cardstock from Papertrey Ink.


The sketch was taken from the Papercrafts June/July '08 issue.

I stamped the entire Beebo onto caramel cardstock, the muzzle area onto white, and the diaper onto patterned paper. I did some coloring with Copics and then cut all three pieces out. I also used a white pen to dot the highlights back onto the eyes.

I used a ball-tip stylus to round the muzzle piece, then layered it onto Beebo using some 1/4" hole punches of scrap cardstock for dimension. Then I stuck the diaper down with some thin foam dimensionals.

You can see the dimension a little better in this close-up shot.

Thanks for visiting!

So this is bliss...

After a LOT of fence-sitting, I finally ordered the full set of Copic Ciao markers!! I got them from ebay and there were a couple problems with the seller, but he fixed them all and it only took 3 days to get from California to Hawaii!

The very first thing I did was to color a little, but then I immediately ran to the computer and created my own Ciao color chart. It took me 3 tries, but I finally got it and now it's in a page protector on my work area.

Then I needed to test them out so I played more with my Doodle Factory creatures from Starving Artistamps.

First up was Yapples. I chose him specially for his excited look because the message inside the card is "I got my Copics!" This card is going to a co-worker who is also anxiously awaiting the arrival of my markers!
Next up was Zot. I picked him because the size of his eyes perfectly fit the 2 different sizes of google eyes that I bought specially for these little guys (Yapples' head was too small for the bigger size so I had to just use the little size). The inside of this card reads "mmm... coffee!"

I need to work on my photography because the shading I did really isn't showing. I'm hoping that I'll have some bigger, better samples to show off my new markers soon!

Other materials used: notecards from Michael's; black Brilliance inkpad from Tsukineko; white cardstock from Georgia Pacific; Apricot Appeal cardstock (on Yapples card) from Stampin' Up!; yellow ink (sponged around Zot edges) from Stampin' Up!; Nestabilities from Spellbinders; google eyes from Darice.

More new stamps and Skoober notecard

I haven't been posting much because I've been really sick lately, and also, I just got back from a trip to California on Sunday! It was a ton of fun and I hope to be scrapping all those pix real soon!

I had a nice surprise waiting for me when I got home - an order that I had placed before I left from Starving Artistamps, Inc. for a whole BUNCH of DoodleFactory stamps! Yay!!

I've seen the images on blogs here and there and finally decided I couldn't live without them anymore! I ordered the full sets of the DoodleFactory Animals, Creatures, and the Halloween images. And those wonderful people threw in the DoodleFactory Birds N Fish for FREE!!

I'm still in the process of mounting them all on EZ Mount, but had to make a card with li'l Skoober right away because he's just too funny!

I started with this notecard that I found at Michael's during my trip. It came as a set of 12 notecards with matching envelopes for only a dollar! Sure, they're only a little over 2 1/4" square, but they're still a great deal. As cute as they already were, I knew I could alter them with some stamping.

And here's my finished notecard (with the matching envy): I used the small version of Skoober which was the perfect size for this mini notecard. I cut the scalloped oval first, then stamped Skoober with Ancient Page ink. I colored a little with Stampin' Up! markers, then smoothed out the pen lines with a water pen, giving it sort of a watercolored look. I gave him a little shadow all around with my water pen and a grey marker. I then ran the oval back through my Big Shot to emboss and sponged the edges. I adhered it over the flower image that was on the notecard and then finished off the inside like this:

Other materials used: "Be Mine" stamp - Cornish Heritage Farms; heart stamp - Papertrey Ink; Tempting Turquoise marker and inkpad, Going Grey marker, and white cardstock - Stampin' Up!; scalloped oval Nestabilities die - Spellbinders.