I'm Feeling All Christmassy

I wanted to enter A Blog Named Hero's Christmas in July Challenge and so I used one of my favorite dies from Hero Arts—the Layering Bear die on a white card. 

This die doesn't cut out the bear unless you use the outline die too, but I just put him straight on the card front. I used a glitter pen to add sparkle and a little pink and black paint to watercolor him. I added some snowflake "sequins" from Kat Scrapiness as accents. You can see the glittery part better in the second photo.

 

For the Lawn Fawn Challenge, Little Things, I kept on in the Christmas mode and made a tag with the little bulbs from the Trim the Tree stamp set and words from Peace, Joy, Love set. I love all things mini, so this challenge was right up my alley.

Hope you'll join me in both these challenges!

And click here to enter my August Crafty Giveaway!

Happy Weekend!

Chark

Power Poppy CASE a Designer

I just love how beautiful and detailed Marcella Hawley's stamps are over at Power Poppy. I've been stalking the blog and store for awhile and finally purchased my first two digi stamps (they have real stamps too), followed not long after by more stamps.😉

I'm going to enter this card made with the Everything's Rosy digital set for the Power and Spark Challenge, where you CASE one of the DT members. I've taken the glittered flowers, polka dots and black accent idea from this post from Allison. Here's her card. Lovely, right? Visit her blog to see how she made this one.

Ally glittered her tie dye flowers, and I used my Wink of Stella clear glitter pen on my flowers and mug. You can see the sparkly bits here. I trimmed out the bottom blossom and pop dotted it up. Next time, I'm going to try making her gorgeous background look.

I used my Prismacolor pencils as per usual while watching a Hallmark mystery movie based on the Hannah Swensen books, like The Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder I love the cookie recipes in the books and the Chocolate Chip one in this book is one I've actually made and love. They're crispy cuz you add crunched up cornflakes. Yum!

Thanks for the inspiration, Ally! Hope you'll join in over at the Power Poppy challenge here.

Happy Saturday!
Chark

Cardmaking Day with Winnie & Walter

If you didn't know, last Saturday was World Cardmaking Day and all kinds of blogs and companies had celebrations, mostly in the form of sales and giveaways. One of the most fun was Winnie & Walter, who had challenges that included cardmaking, games and giveaways. I didn't finish playing along on Saturday, but they extended their fun until October 9th, so yay! 

Extending the fun for a week meant I got to participate in more challenges. The very first one was a "craftie" or selfie of your craft area. Here's mine...keep in mind that this is after I started cleaning!
I'm a totally messy crafter and often lose my scissors or glue runner or any number of important things in the middle of creating. But then it's like a little treasure hunt, so it's all good! 

I love the Winnie & Walter dies and their geometric stamps/dies. I think they were the first to start that trend...or maybe they were just the first I encountered. At any rate, love the heart geometric die the best so far. And now they have cool word dies.

Here's one of the cards I made for their challenges. It's a Pinterest Challenge. And while my photo isn't the best, I thought the card turned out okay...but I'd rather have the cake :) 

The rose die is W&W and you can find it here if you need one too. I did something a little different and left a piece of black cardstock sticking out from the card base. I just thought it needed black and instead of mounting it on black, I put a piece behind it. Not sure it works, but I like the black edges.

Happy Belated Cardmaking Day!
Chark

Weekend Challenges

Yay, it's Friday! I love the weekend and the way it means no alarm clock. And it's going to be rainy, so I'm thinking I'll be entering some challenges. Thought I'd share some I'm thinking of, in case you're feeling like getting crafty this weekend too.

I don't enter this one too often, but I love the blog and projects I find on the Faber-Castell site. They have a monthly challenge called Take The Challenge With Mou and she is sooo talented. This is her project below. 

This time the challenge is Snow! So if you're inspired, make something fun with your Faber-Castell products to try to win some glass bead glitter gel...cool, huh? I feel like I need to break out those gelatos of mine.

And, since my New Year's Resolution is to submit more, I'm considering working on this sketch to enter Scrapbook & Cards submission call. If you're feeling saucy and want to join in to see if you can get published too, click the link and read the details.

And lastly, I love me some Lawn Fawn stamps and at the Lawnscaping Challenge blog, you can enter to try to win a gift certificate to Ellen Hutson, where they sell Lawn Fawn.

You can also stop by the Lawn Fawn blog to try to win this weekend as they are doing CHA sneak peeks. This is my favorite set so far. I love a good chickie stamp. :)

And of course, my peeps at a2z Scrapbooking are having their monthly challenge and this month it's Fireworks, which means you need to add some fun shine or glitter to your Hero Arts products and projects to make them really pop!

Here's my card from the challenge. I used Stickles with the stencil and rhinestones on the numbers to make mine pop.

Happy Friday!
Chark

You Can't Win If You Don't Play

That's the official Lottery slogan, but I've decided to borrow it and share some challenges with my crafty buds today. I just won a Neat and Tangled gift card (and spent it, lol) and never thought I'd get it. So...join in some challenges and see if you can win!

My friend, Lisa (The Purple Place) is hosting a 24-hour scramble at the Flickr Hero Arts group. You have to create a project with Hero Arts products in 90 minutes and then upload by tomorrow morning. Easy Peasy. If you don't have any Hero Arts, go to a2z Scrapbooking Supplies and pick up an instant HA digi kit. You just print and color. They have some fun winter images like this deer for $2.49. Yep, there are prizes at Lisa's and not much competition yet, so head over asap!

A Day for Daisies has the most graceful digi stamps ever, and they have a contest (and freebie to play along each time) where you can win a gift card to the store usually. You have three days left on this challenge (Black Lace & Day for Daisies), and you've got to pop over and see the little ghost freebie this time. Love!

I've never played along with The Sparkle and Shine Challenge here, but it's got to be right up my alley, doncha think? I see Stickles in my future for this one. You can win a gift card to Winnie & Walter....love them! You have six days to play along with this one! Here's their inspiration photo.

Another blog that requires Hero Arts products to win is A Blog Named Hero and their current challenge is a fun one, kraft, white and one color. Tricky, but fun. They are giving away a Simon Says Stamp gift card.  

I would be remiss if I didn't mention a2z Scrapbooking Supplies monthly challenge, All Things Fall. Here's my DT friend, Marha Lucia's take on this theme.

So, if you are already joining in Lisa's challenge with your Hero Arts, or A Blog Named Hero you can enter it at a2z too!

Hoping you win some goodies, cuz you're all winners with me! :)

Happy Monday!
Chark

Love A Competition

I really get motivated when there's a prize...who knows why. It's not like I don't have enough scrap supplies so why is the lure of more new goodies so appealing? 

Probably because fun new supplies mean I can unleash my creative spirit. Or just that I like opening packages. I'm not that deep. I like new stuff for my craft closet. It makes me happy and it makes me prolific.

 

I hosted the scramble over at Hero Arts flickr this weekend and used this photo as the inspiration to create a new card in 90 minutes...along with the tag and card I made. You should pop over there and see some of the beauties people made for this scramble.

If you're like me and a good healthy competition makes you sit down and create, here are some sites with challenges and prizes.

1. Faber-Castell's blog has a monthly Take the Challenge with Mou and you use your gelatos or markers or pencils to create based on whatever prompt Mou Saha gives you. For April, the prompt is creativity. That's an easy one, so I plan to take part. Love my gelatos!

2. Pretty Little Studio's blog has a monthly Sketch Challenge --you can win $10 worth of goodies and believe me, $10 in Pretty Little Studio products is plenty! I rarely spend $20 at a time over there and get tons of stuff for my money. I love their sequins and stars packs, the printed vellum and sweet retro images in die cuts.

3. Lawn Fawn has a challenge blog called Lawnscaping Challege and the current challenge is Dimension. You need Lawn Fawn products for this, but you can win a $25 gift certificate.

4. a2z Scrapbooking Supplies has a blog called a2z Scrapbooking Supplies  (and I'm on the Design Team this go-round) and this month's challenge is Stenciling and Hero Arts. There's a store gift certificate of $25 up for grabs.

Happy Monday and Happy Crafting!
Chark

Pretty Little Thank You Card

I used my colorful and vintage images from Pretty Little Studio to make a thank you card for my aunt. She loves purple, so I thought I'd go all purple. For my card, I punched circles from their Neapolitan collection. I used some Darice glitter tape and a white gel pen for "stitching." I added some heart stickers I got for 50 cents at Michael's today.

I used the inspiration sketch from PLS too, so I can enter it in their monthly contest to win a goodie bag. If you're like me, you'll love these new blue sequins they offer. You gotta check Pretty Little Studios out on Facebook to see the previews of new collections.

Join me in the challenge to try to win, and just see if you can resist their wonderful (made in the USA) papers, tags and stickers. Love the gold word stickers.

Happy Wednesday!
Chark

Oscar Night Hangover

I didn't do any drinking last night, but I still ended up with a hangover, of sorts. Our little party didn't end until 1 a.m. and I woke up at 5:30 and then got up at 6:30 to get the boy to school. Now, what is a 46-year-old woman thinking if she's doing this? Arrgh! So. Tired. 

Still, since we're in EST, this isn't that different from years past. The Oscars go late when you're not on California time. 

Here's my wrap-up (and I only really care about the dresses, the stars and the opening number...not the awards so much).

Best Dress in my humble opinion: Lupita Nyong's pearl dress. This is unique and still classy and gorgeous. Is there any dress this woman can't pull off? Stunning! Although it occurred to me later that sitting on it would be, well, uncomfortable. Or maybe it was like getting a little beaded massage like those beaded card seat covers. Either way, I'm impressed!

While none of the gowns were terrible, I wasn't in love with Emma Stone's dress. Fashion critics seem to love it, but it's just an odd color and looks a little like moss growing on her arm. She's a doll and I love her as an actress, but just didn't love this one her. They style doesn't scream "I'm in my 20s!"

 

Loved the dress Anna Kendrick wore and loved her opening number with Neil Patrick Harris. It's classy and sleeveless (that someone in their twenties can definitely pull off) and very Oscar Night worthy.

I have to admit, Rita Ora isn't exactly on my radar...just like I didn't know Dakota Johnson (Fifty Shades of Gray actress, daughter of Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith) before last night. But I super love Rita's dress. I don't know how it stands up in the front, but the back fishtail and the color is just gorgeous!

And here's a crafty tie-in, if you're all jazzed by fashion, why not try the Runway Inspired challenge here by Friday to try to win a gift certificate? I've never entered it, but I do love the idea and the cards that people make. Maybe this is the week I enter. Here's your muse photo.

I enjoyed some of the speeches, including Patricia Arquette's reminder that woman should be paid equally for their work already, for the love of God. Ok, she didn't phrase it that way, but I did because it IS 2015 and the pay difference between men and women (for the same job) remains. How is this possibly justified?

And, while I think tucking political agendas in Oscar speeches is a tricky, I gotta agree with her and she didn't take too long to make her point. Always a plus. 

Graham Moore, who won for Best Screenplay (Imitation Game), did his thank yous and then said he had attempted suicide at 16 and that he was now standing on this stage. His message? Stay weird, stay different and one day you'll find a place to fit in and when it's your turn to stand on the stage, pass the message along. Things get better.

I thought it was so beautifully well done.  

Speaking of different, Lady Gaga blew the roof off the building with her medley of The Sound of Music tribute (it's celebrating 50 years). Her voice is beautiful and even Julie Andrews was impressed I think. And I think her hair was gray last night...beautiful, but not really blonde...she looked great in it.

So, what were some of the highlights of the night for you? Some more of mine were our Oscar Night eats. We had lots of food and although it wasn't themed, here are a couple of so-easy recipes that we had last night—for get togethers you might wanna try.

This taco dip recipe is a tasty one, although I do add mild taco sauce to the top of the cream cheese layer and before the shredded cheese.

This Meatball recipe is an oldie but a goodie. And you make it in the crockpot.

Happy Monday...zzzzzz

Chark