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

Hedgehogs Are The Cutest

I love the mini Hedgehugs stamp and die from Lawn Fawn because it's adorable. And I would get a hedgehog for a pet for the same reason—they are so stinkin' cute! However, in my house of allergic people, I'm almost certain one of us would find a way to be allergic to hedgehogs. So I'll stick to stamping these little guys.

I created this scene with Lawn Fawn sun, clouds, and stitched tree and hill dies and added a sentiment die from LF too. All the papers are LF as well. The butterfly die is from a girl in a butterfly dress from Gina Marie Designs.

I'm entering this card in the Pet Love Challenge at Lawn Fawnatics and you can join in by Sunday too!

My favorite pet when I was a kid was my cat, Mikhail Baryshnikov...Mickey for short. Can you tell I was a fan? Loved the movie with Baryshnikov and Gregory Hines from the 80s, White Nights, and saw it multiple times at the theater and then got the VHS. Those were the days! Had the soundtrack cassette tape too :)

Happy Saturday!
Chark

Sending Octopi Hugs

My last entry for the Lawn Fawnatics Fun with Food Challenge is this Octopus card.

I used the small Octopi My Heart set with the coffee and mug from the Love 'n Breakfast set to make some buddies having a snack together. The hugs die is from Lawn Fawn too, as is the blue watercolor paper behind them. I used my Prismacolor pencils to color and then fussy cut them out. I should've stamp everything separately and die cut them and then attached the cup and muffin to their tentacles, but hindsight is 20/20! 

Speaking of 20/20, just had some cataract surgery even though I'm just 50, but it wasn't bad as far as surgery (15 minutes) and recovery (you can read and watch TV soon after) and OMG, I have 20/20 vision now! I got glasses when I was 7 for nearsightedness and have used them and contacts ever since. Until now. Through the magic of science, I can read all the road signs you want me to! I've been driving my hubby a little crazy with that, but even with my contacts, I never had such clear vision. So, some things turn out better than you expected. Just sharing a little happiness in this house right now :) I hope something you are worried over turns out better than you expected too!

Happy Sunday!

Chark

Bearly Hungry

Today I have another entry to share for the Lawn Fawnatics Fun with Food Challenge. 

I pulled out the cute Love You S'more stamp set and made a little bonfire night scene. We always have s'mores outside when the weather gets cooler. I don't actually invite the wildlife, but these guys seem like buddies, so they're having s'mores themselves.

I used Prismacolor pencils and Stickles on the stars and stamped onto kraft paper.

You have another day to join in the challenge, so ink your Lawn Fawn stamps up and link up!

Happy Saturday!

Chark

May I Have More, Peas?

So, I'm loving the Be Hap-pea stamp and dies over at Lawn Fawn and have been stamping and coloring away. The challenge this month is a Fun with Food challenge, so yay! I get to use the peas for this one!

I CASed the design from the Lawn Fawn blog and the card Yainea made here. She inked a circle for the focal point and put her peas in there, so that's what I did too. I just recently realized that LF also gives you sketches for some of their stamp sets to help get you started on your card making, which is super helpful!

I used the Lawn Fawn 6x6 watercolor paper pad too, I am in love with this paper pad! Here's a close-up of the peas that I colored with Prismacolor pencils. I love all the little faces you can choose for these guys!

Hope you'll join me in this challenge for a chance to win a gift certificate to a fab store!

I know I have more Lawn Fawn stamps with food, so I'm going to have to enter again...this is a fun challenge!

Happy Wednesday!

Chark

Stamplorations and Roses

I normally don't publish a post on Mondays, but I wanted to show you what I've created for the current Stamplorations Challenge. They are so generous with their free digi stamps and have a ton of giveaways, so if you haven't visited yet, you should! You can choose to do the theme or sketch or both—I chose the theme—and you don't have to use Stamplorations products but you can print out their freebies and use those if you like.

This is a free digi that I've colored with my all-time favorite Prismacolor pencils. I used an oval die, some Lawn Fawn watercolor paper and a hugs die from LF as well. I trimmed the roses on the right, so I could slip the pink cardstock behind them, as if they are coming out of the frame. I drew in stitched lines for another little extra. The word die is cut from prisma paper that has a shine so I didn't need to add any glitter to this one.

I have one more rose card to share that's not entered into the Stamplorations contest...it's a piece of 6x6 patterned paper from Altenew and I stamped the sentiment in black. I added a silver chrome pen to the words and thin silver stickers to the sides. So fast and easy! I love this Relections pad of watercolor-look paper.

That's it for this surprise post, hope you'll join in the challenges this month at Stamplorations!

Happy Monday!

Chark

Hap-pea Challenge

The Lawnfawnatics Challenge this month is Book, Movie or Song inspiration...and I've been so inspired by all the beautiful DT projects and the entries. 

This is my third entry to this challenge and I hope to squeeze one more in before it closes tomorrow. My book for two of my cards is Little Pea by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and illustrated by Jen Corace. The other Little Pea card is on my IG account here. 

For my first card, I felt that it wasn't as polished as it could be, so I searched the Lawn Fawn blog and decided that I loved the card made by Yainea at Lawn Fawn...I loved that she made a circular background to add the peas to. I colored all my images with Prismacolor pencils and used Distress Oxides in Twisted Citron for the inking and stamping. I definitely think this card looks more professional, but still fun.

I love this set since it reminds me of one of my and my kids' favorite books when they were younger. Guess what my daughter (the librarian) said when she saw this card? "Little Pea!" so I showed her the book sitting on my work space and we said a couple favorite lines.

Thanks for the fun challenge, the DT inspiration, Yainea, and the Be Hap-pea stamp set, Lawn Fawn!

Happy Saturday!

Chark

Lawn Fawnatics Book Challenge

So, the Lawn Fawnatics current challenge is to take inspiration from a book, movie or music for your project. I love children's books and have read countless kid's books with my son and daughter over the years. 

My daughter is now an elementary school librarian, so we often share books even now...she's always been a reader and if it hadn't been for the public library, we would've had to spend her college fund to get books to satisfy her thirst for reading. One she shared with me is this one, The Day the Crayons Quit. It came out in 2013, when my kids were teens, so I wouldn't have seen it if she hadn't found it. It's stinkin' cute and it was my inspiration with this challenge.

I used alcohol inks on a glossy cardstock, just letting them drip down the page as I held it in the air. The crayons and sentiment are from this mini stamp set that Lawn Fawn has. The faces are actually from the the Be Hap-Pea stamp set but because they have such a wide variety of faces, I used them instead of the one that comes with the crayon stamp. 

I colored the crayons with Prismacolor pencils and the happy birthday die cut is from Memory Box.

I've really enjoyed this challenge at Lawn Fawn and hope you'll be inspired and join in too! I have my first entry over on Instagram (link to my IG account in the sidebar here). And I know I'm not finished yet!

Happy Saturday!

Chark

Time for a Baby Shower and a Winner

Hi, friends, I have two baby shower cards to share...the first one uses with the shower theme and Lawn Fawn paper and dies. I also used a tiny heart die from Hero Arts Hearts Infinity Dies. I love the infinity dies by HA, they have tons of shapes and tons of dies in each set for a really good price point. We have some in the a2z Scrapbooking store and you can special order any of them from Hero Arts.

I used alcohol inks on glossy paper in rainbow colors and then die cut lots of tiny hearts. The clouds are stacked three high and I used a glitter pen on them.

For this card, I used the Hero Arts Ornaments Infinity Dies for the carriage and smaller Circles Infinity dies for the wheels. You can see more about this one on the a2z Scrapbooking blog here.

Baby showers are so fun...and babies are too! 

And now it's time for the winner of my National Sticker Day giveaway...I put my followers/commenters in a random generator and Miranda Smith was the winner! Thanks so much for following me to each of you...I appreciate your comments and your time!

You can email me by Feb. 28, 2018, (click on my blogger profile), Miranda, and I'll send out your stickers asap!

Happy Monday!

Chark

Hey, Happy Apple Day!

Tomorrow is Apple Day...supposedly celebrated first in 1990 and mostly celebrated in United Kingdom. But I say, hey, apples are for everyone. So, Happy Apple Day. I've got some Apple fun for you today.

First up, and most importantly, a delish looking apple pie recipe. This is a simple recipe and my mom uses a similar one—she and I do mix the cinnamon and sugar into the sliced apples (instead of layering with the apples), with a tablespoon or so of flour and a teaspoon or so of lemon juice. 

Also, we've found Pillsbury refrigerated pie crusts (that you roll out a little) are sooo good. You don't even need to make your own crusts to get a great pie. Don't forget to vent your pie after putting on the top crust and crimping it. Set the whole pie plate on foil to catch drips. So easy and delicious.

Second, some really cute apple projects you can make. I love this idea for decorating or even little gift boxes for teachers. They used glass paint, but alcohol inks would work for coloring too. The paint would probably be less expensive. I even saw where someone filled their clear bottle with red tissue paper. I think these are a little classier.

Next I have some free digi apple art and fave Pinterest ideas for cards.

This one is yummy looking...caramel apples rock!

Lawn Fawn always has the cutest images. This card is from The Dies Have It blog.

Lastly, one more apple goody before I go...Power Poppy stamps are gorgeous and so realistic...pop over to see more of their goodness here. I have several digi stamps of theirs and they are a joy to color.

Happy Friday,

Chark

Chocolate Chip Day

Wahoo! It's National Chocolate Chip Day...now that's a day I can get behind. Although I love the classic chocolate chip cookies, I like crunchy Wookiee Cookies too and I will eat chocolate chip waffles, chocolate chips on ice cream and stick them in my banana bread recipes. Just like this one. Yum!

And if you can't trust yourself with a whole batch of cookies, you can make a mug cookie for one. 

And even though the story about the origin of chocolate chips as we know them is that Ruth Wakefield, owner of the Toll House Inn, substituted chopped chocolate for melted and hoped that would work for her cookies, chances are she actually did it on purpose, knowing they wouldn't melt. Because she wasn't a novice and had always melted the chocolate previously, she should've know chopped would stay chunky...at least according to Mental Floss. 

At any rate, it was a great idea and even greater when Nestle made them available for sale in 1940 in chip form. One of my favorite breakfasts is a chocolate chip Eggo waffle with peanut butter and a couple of mini Nestle chips, along with a yogurt. 

How do you like your chocolate chips? Cookie form, ice cream form or straight from the bag? Or maybe just in crafty form like these adorable stamps from Lawn Fawn. Isn't this card from Elena Roussakis/Lawn Fawn sooo cute?

One of my favorite kids' books is If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. It came out when my daughter was little and I found the illustrations adorable and the story so cute. Then when she was in 8th grade, Colleen got to star as the boy (well, girl) in the story in a local theatre production. It was adorable too.

And here's my last chocolate chip recipe. Forgotten Kisses is sooo good. I use mini morsels and love how they turn out. And you leave them in the oven overnight, how interesting is that?

Happy Monday!

Chark

Sometimes You Need The Big Cup

Happy Coffee Lovers Hop! Don't forget to link up your coffee/tea/cocoa project to try to win some awesome prizes!

For my second coffee card, I paired a little elf from Hero Arts (a kit stamp from last year) with a cup stamp from Your Next Stamp. And what I got was an elf who needs to be extremely caffeinated during this busy season—sometimes you need the big cup!

The cover plate is from Reverse Confetti and the Christmas lights paper and Christmas tree papers are from two different paper stacks from Michael's. And, yep, I stickled the cup and hat and shoes.

GIVEAWAY: Just comment on this or any of my Coffee Lovers posts Friday, Monday, Wednesday or Friday to be entered to win this pair of stamps and dies from Lawn Fawn (I originally wanted to give a LF stitched rectangle die set, but I literally cannot find it, and I'm running out of places to look. But I know where these guys are!) 

If you comment on multiple days, your name goes in the draw multiple times (one per post, comments closing at noon EST Saturday, December 17).

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Monday!
Chark

Altenew Peony Stamping

I'm so jazzed about the Altenew Peony Bouquet set, I'll probably have to feature it all week. As far as coloring layering stamps go, Altenew was the first I saw on blogs and I was so impressed. I found the set at my lss and they came home with me. 

Today I have a project using the technique I saw on Jennifer McGuire's blog. She used a black marker after stamping to create the black background for her stamping. They look so cool against the black. She embosses her images, but I just stamped and colored the black carefully.

I watercolored the peonies with Tombow markers, I love these markers for their vibrancy. The sentiment is a die from Lawn Fawn and it gets a lot of use here at my house.

Happy Monday!

Chark

Pizza Party Day

Who knew there was a national Pizza Party Day? Not me, until today, and now I'm pretty sure I'm gonna need a pizza for dinner!
I've been eyeing these stamps at Lawn Fawn for awhile, what do you think, should I get them?

If I did, I could make cute cards like these from their blog:

Here's a recipe for  Rachael Ray's pizza puffs if you want to make your own.

And the even easier Pizza Turnovers with Crescent Rolls, we make these a lot at my house, but you gotta have two packs of the rolls or there won't be enough!

What's your favorite take-out pizza place? I love Jet's and our local Marion's Piazza and another local, Flying Pizza. I know one thing, any pizza is better than no pizza. 

Here's a free digi from Dearie Dolls if you want to have a pizza party with a coloring activity.

Happy Pizza Party Day! 

Chark