DeLovely Princess Shona

Hey everyone! Happy Saturday! It's been another whirlwind week for me, how 'bout you? I still can't figure out where the summer went. In my mind, it lasts until September. In terms of weather, it lasts until mid-October. In any case, my kids go back to school on Monday. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I think I'm more painfully aware that I only have about two weeks left of my husband's attention before the student athletes return and he's busy busy busy and on the road until late November. My "honey-do" list is still pretty long. ha!

Anyway, if it's Saturday, it's time for a new sketch challenge at Sketch Saturday!

Our sketch challenge this week is sponsored by Digital Delights, who was kind enough to share a few darling images with the design team to play with. I chose Princess Shona. Isn't she sweet?! There are also a castle, knight and dragon in this new series of digis. Be sure to check the Sketch Saturday blog to see them and all the wonderful cards created by the design team!

The DP and chipboard elements are from the DeLovely collection by Cosmo Cricket. I love using coordinating chipboard on my cards these days (as you may have noticed!). Funny thing though... when I uploaded my card and looked at the picture, I noticed something wrong with the image. Can you spot it? hee hee

Yes, I colored her arms as if they were part of her cape. LOL! That's what you get when you color while engrossed in a TV show. So I'm saying that she's wearing long sleeves and matching gloves. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it!

I hope you'll come along and play with us this week. I can't wait to see what you come up with using this fun sketch!

Celebration Charlie!

Happy Monday! It's time for a color challenge at The Pink Elephant!

And the color is... you guessed it... ORANGE!!! Orange is an often misunderstood color. But I say it's all about the shade! And the shades of orange in the Nutmeg collection by Cosmo Cricket ROCK!!!

Our sponsor this week is Digital Delights by Louby Lou. And, yes, their images are DELIGHTFUL!!!

My card features the adorable Celebration Charlie. He is wishing my son Clayton a Happy Birthday today! Okay, not really. Clay is a bit long in the tooth for this card, but today IS his 17th birthday. I'll have to make a card with a penguin on it for him... Clay LOVES penguins. I'll just have to save this cute card for someone else. (*grin*)

The sketch is by Jeanette Comerford for Friday Sketchers. I love Jeanette's work. Pop on over to her blog and take a look for yourself!

I hope you'll join us for this DELIGHTFUL color challenge! Be sure to pop over to The Pink Elephant to see what the rest of the Design Team created for this challenge.

Have a delightful day. Oh, and stay tuned... I have a very special post coming up next...

Happy UnBirthday!

CHAPTER 6: The Red Queen's FINE PRINT...

"The Red Queen shook her head, "You may call it 'nonsense' if you like," she said, "but I've heard nonsense, compared with which that would be as sensible as a dictionary!"

This week we're getting down to business and reading the "fine print" in Wonderland at the Oh, Alice! Challenge blog.

We're also SO excited to be welcoming Digital Delights by Louby Loo as our sponsor this week! WOW! What a lucky group we are! Wendy from Digital Delights has not only graced the Design Team with some super fun Alice-inspired images to use, but is giving away a TEN DOLLAR GIFT CERTIFICATE to one lucky winner who will be randomly drawn from all the entries this week! THANKS Wendy!

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to create a card using some form of TEXT/Printed DP, Old Book pages, Newspaper print, Old dictionary, etc. We just need to see SOME form of printed text on your card or project!

Need some inspiration WRITTEN out for you? Check out the samples on the Oh, Alice! Challenge blog from the Twisted Thirteen and our March Tea Party Guest Erin!

A note about my card: I used the adorable Madd Hatter Peyton image (so fun!), and took poetic license in coloring him up with my Copic Markers. The background is from the MK-Designs Tea Time Add-on digi pack from Shabby Pickle Designs (thank you Betty, my chief enabler, for turning me on to this site!). I resized one of the 12 x 12 papers to 5 x 5 before printing it out. I made the TEXT background myself. I also followed Mercy's Tuesday Sketch Challenge #66.

Speaking of Betty, I got to meet her and her sweet (and adorable) daughter Rio tonight at our LSS for some scrapping/stamping time after first grabbing a bite to eat at Macaroni Grill (yum!). Betty is just as fun in person as she is on line. I'm so glad I've found a new friend to scrap with ... I've really missed crop nights since my BFF Des moved back to Arizona. (Hi Des! I miss you!) Betty and I are planning another crop day in April. So fun!

Have a WONDERful day!

Officer Oakley

A blessed Sunday to you! It's time once again for another wonderful challenge at Stampin' Sisters in Christ. This week's challenge is hosted by sweet Candace Mitchell, who has a very special scripture and challenge for us. The scripture she chose is John 15:13 "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." The challenge involves making cards for our military forces. For full details, please click over to the Stampin' Sisters in Christ Challenge blog.

The importance of this scripture and challenge is more relevant than ever given the tragedy that occurred at Fort Hood this past week. As I said on the SSCC blog, is this a coincidence? I think not! God is definitely with us in that blog challenge and His timing is always perfect. Now more than ever our troops need to know how much we love and support them, and how grateful we are to them for putting their lives on the line each and every day for our freedom.

My father spent 25 years in service of our country, first as an enlisted Marine, then as a student at the Naval Academy (Annapolis), and finally as a helicopter pilot in the Air Force. He did three tours in Vietnam, where he flew air rescue.

My childhood was spent as part of a military family. I was born at Maxwell AFB in Montgomery, Alabama. We then moved to Bryan, TX where my sister Kim was born; then to Clark AFB in the Philippines where my sister Linda was born; then to Rome, NY where I started school; then to Luke AFB near Phoenix, AZ where my brother Andrew was born; then to Sevilla, Spain (Moron [pronounced mo-rone] AFB); then to Spangdahlem AB in Germany; then to Tupelo, MS while my dad did his last tour of Vietnam; then to Fairchild AFB in Spokane, WA, where my dad retired in 1972. A year later, we moved to Riverside, California, where I still live.

Because of my dad and military family upbringing, I have the most profound respect for the military. My sister Linda also did a four-year stint in the Air Force, and my brother a six-year tour in the Navy.

Regardless of your feelings about the war in Iraq and/or Afghanistan (let's face it, no one likes war), we must always always support the men and women who lay their lives down for our freedom and the freedom of others. I hope you'll take the time to send some cards to our troops as outlined in the SSCC blog challenge.

I know my card is a bit juvenile looking, but I found I have NO patriotic stamps in my rather extensive stamp collection. Shame on me! So I went searching around for a digi stamp and found this one, called Officer Oakley, at Digital Delights by Louby Lou. I paper-pieced his uniform because I couldn't achieve the right color of navy blue with my Copics. I used a gold gel pen to make the buttons and insignia on his cap. He looks a bit like an airline pilot, don't you think? But I did remember to put a gloss on his shoes. Shiny shoes are REALLY important to military personnel. A rather simple card, but clean lines are what the military is all about.

Thanks so much for stopping by. I hope you have a free day to enjoy all the things and people you love!

Maggie at the Beach

In a recent blog surfing adventure, I discovered Digital Delights by Louby Lou (thanks Heather!). And guess what! They offer a freebie every Friday (aptly called "Freebie Friday"). This darling image, called "Beach Maggie." was the freebie for Friday, July 24th (I think that's the right day). I couldn't resist downloading her. She looked like she'd be fun to color, and she was. You can buy her for $2!

I also decided to use Beach Maggie to play in the Delightful Sketches challenge... Sketch #3. Trouble is, when it said cards were due at midnight on August 6th, I thought that meant tonight at midnight. Turns out, midnight starts a new day (did you know that?), so I'm 19 hours late! Oh well. It was still a fun sketch and a fun image. I'm going to have to try again with Sketch #4. This week's Freebie is pretty cute, too... a bookworm... which I once was before I got so caught up in papercrafting. Now it seems all I read are blog posts! LOL

Ah well, it's all good.

Anyway, back to my card. Maggie is colored with Copics. The DP is from a Taylored Expressions Key Ingredients kit. Looks like this kit is sold out. They go like hotcakes, don't you know. The ribbon and flower rhinestone were also part of the kit. The umbrella is a K&Company Grand Adhesions. And, yes, in the tradition of my BBFF Michelle, I used my CB folder to emboss the aqua strip.

Speaking of the beach, we have got to get down to there one of these days soon! The summer is almost over and we haven't gone yet. Shame on us! We only live about an hour away.

Don't forget, there is still time to play in my Challenge for a Sunday Afternoon. The challenge this week is to make a "thinking bubble" card. The prize up for grabs is a Basic Grey June Bug 6 x 6 paper pack. Your odds of winning are pretty darn good!

Thanks so much for stopping by! I'll be back soon with more to share. Have a great evening!