Archive for the ‘Diva Challenge’ Category

I wanted to take a few minutes to thank all of my faithful viewers for taking the time to view my creations over the past year.
I will be continuing with my creations in 2010, and hopefully will have more items to share with  you.  I am however, starting school in 2 weeks, and not sure how much time I’ll have.  My New Years resolution (one of them) is to share more on blog – maybe I’ll even share my work through school (getting a Graphics Design certification).

For now, I wanted to share a little ditty I found by another demo. I had to try this one on my own, when I saw that I had to pay for and join another group (which I just don’t have time for!).  I’m telling you ahead of time, that I am NOT using ANY Stampin’ Up! products for this, as it was my first go, and I didn’t want to waste my beautiful paper!  I will be making more of these, and may even use them for my Christmas tags this year….we’ll see how much I get in the next day or so LOL

I HOPE to have a small video tutorial on this soon – just have to try to get my stuff set up – as I’ve NEVER done a tutorial before LOL  Wish me luck!!

LOL well I got it done, it is still processing through YouTube, but you’ll be able to see it here when its done!

Just a side note, the Diva’s are NOT going to have a card this week or next week, they are taking some time off to enjoy their families and the holidays!  A few of them had mentioned adding a card to the Diva blog – you might want to check it out!

Merry CHRISTmas everyone!! Have a blessed holiday!

Good morning everyone!!  9 day until Christmas – YIKES! I REALLY need to finish my shopping!! LOL I HATE waiting until the last minute, but sometimes you get the best deals that way!  It is going to be a weird Christmas this year, my son just called and told me he is on call all day, from 7 AM – 7 PM Christmas day…trying to figure out when as a family we’ll be celebrating.

This color challenge is the Diva’s last challenge for 2009.  We are going to take a couple of weeks off, come up with new sketches, new color challenges, and maybe even a new look for the Diva’s blog.  The one thing we can tell you for sure, is that we’ll be back at the same address!

Now onto the color challenge for this week.  I didn’t think I’d like the colors when I first saw them, but boy when I got working on my card, the colors REALLY popped!

This week I started working on uploading tutorial videos to the SUDSOL group, a group of SU Demonstrators.  If you are a Demo and haven’t found the group yet, find the banner on my blog, click it and check out SUDSOL! There are some great tutorials, business ideas etc.  While I was working on uploading the videos, I came across this great tutorial and KNEW I had to try it.  Thank you to Barb Millikin for putting this video together.

First the colors -

And now my card -

And a close up of the top of the card

Stampin’ Up! Recipe

I hope you all have a wonderfully Blessed Christmas and a very Happy New Year!!

Good morning everyone!!  I cannot believe it is December 2nd!!  23 days until Christmas and we have yet to have snow (measurable) in Michigan.  We’ve had flurries here and there (what I call spitting); but that is it…yesterday for instance it was almost 50 degrees!! Whats up with that?!?! HAHA

I am trying to get into the spirit of Christmas so I again made another Christmas card, even though the colors may seem a little unusual.  Here is the color challenge:

And here is the card I came up with

Here is the Recipe for the card:

Stampin’ Up! Products (all current)

I hope that you’ll play along with us!  You can see the cards the other Diva’s have made by clicking on our blog.  Remember if you play along with us, to go back to the Diva blog and leave your name and URL using Mister Linky.  We are picking cards  made with Stampin’ Up! products and the artists will be our featured artists for the week.  We’ll post your card and a link to your blog, and at the end of the year we’ll have a drawing from all the featured artists.

Have a blessed week!

Good Wednesday morning everyone!!  How is it that tomorrow is Thanksgiving here in the States??? It is insane how quickly this year has flown by.  I don’t know about where you are, but here in Michigan the weather has been unseasonably balmy…it has been in the mid to high 50s and we have YET to see snow!!  Usually by this time of year we’ve had (according to the weather people) at least 3″ of snow!  Don’t get me wrong, I am NOT complaining – I love these unseasonable weather and SO not looking forward to the white stuff heading this way!

This week the Diva’s are offering to you a Sketch challenge -

Here is the card I came up with.  I was so excited as I found this new technique weaving ribbon.  You can see the video here.  This ribbon weave is soooo addicting.  I taught my 10 year old daughter tonight how to make them, and she’s woven 3 different projects!

And here is a close up of the weave

RECIPE

I feel like I just posted last weeks’ card! Hard to believe we’re already well into November and that Thanksgiving is next week!! WOW

I’ve been working hard at getting items together for a craft show this weekend.  If you are in or around Auburn Hills, stop by the community center, and introduce yourself! I’ll be in the Gymnasium!  The craft show is from 9 – 4!

This weeks challenge is a color challenge and I REALLY REALLY struggled with these colors.  The red and green work well together as do the two shades of blue, but putting them all together – WOW!!

Here is the card I made – I got the idea from a gal over on Splitcoast Stampers.

Here is my card

I hope that you’ll all play along! If you do, please go back to the Diva’s website and post your name and blog address so we can check out your blog!

Good Wednesday morning to you all!! Goodness it feels like forever since I posted anything, and for that I apologize.  I was sick last week with something, (thankfully not the H1N1 that my niece and brother in law got!) but felt horrible. I slept most of the day Tuesday.

Lots of things happening here – I enrolled this morning in a certification program, for Graphic Design! I am so excited!  I’ll start back to school on January 5th – who would have thought, that 26 years (oops I just gave my age away!) after graduating, that I’d be going back to school!

I’ve been working on projects for a craft show that I’m in, in two weekends!  This weekend my husband and I are celebrating our 11th anniversary!  We had a very rocky year last year, but we survived, and are going strong again!  (Thank you God!)

Anyway – enough babbling; as the title says, we’re doing a sketch challenge this week

And here is the card I came up with – I struggle a lot with circles; so this challenge was QUITE the challenge for me, but I DID muddle through!

Good morning everyone!!  Hope you are having a great week so far!  I cannot believe how quickly October is flying by!  If you play along on Halloween, have a great time on Saturday night (or whenever you trick or treat).  If your kids go out, please make sure they have flashlights, flashers for their costumes or reflective tape and tell them to travel in groups, or have an adult accompany them.  I hate saying it, but in this day and age you cannot be too careful!

One more public service announcement, please bear with me!!  I wanted to remind everyone that October is Breast Cancer awareness month. I have had several friends who have been diagnosed with Breast Cancer and a couple who succumbed to Breast Cancer. A year ago, I had a scare, as did my very best friend….thankfully we’re both just fine, but it was an eye opener for both of us.

Did you know that studies show that 1 out of 8 women will get breast cancer…look at the number of people who have visited my blog – 19,198; that means that out of those 19,198, almost 2400 women will get breast cancer this year…how scary is that?!?!  What is even scarier, so that there are men being diagnosed with breast cancer…MEN! go figure…this isn’t just a gender specific disease anymore.  Men need to pay attention to changes too!

Please ladies, if you have been putting off your mammogram, now is the time to set up an appointment. Don’t put it off any longer…do it for your family, your friends, and most of all do it for you!

Ok, I am done with my public service announcements   Thanks for stickin’ with me!

This week, we have a sketch challenge for you

Here is my card with the recipe to follow…

All Current Stampin’ Up! Products

I hope you’ll all play along with the Diva’s.  Remember if you do play along, go back to the Diva’s blog and post your name and URL.  Each week, we get all the names together, and vote on a Featured Artist.  This is YOUR opportunity to possibly be listed on the main page of the Diva’s blog!

I hope you each have a blessed week!

Hi everyone, due to a family funeral I won’t have a card first thing this morning.  My husband, daughter and I had to travel to Virginia on Saturday and returned home late Monday night.  We spent Tuesday catching up on everyday things.  I am hoping to get my card made…However, here is the challenge, so you can get a headstart!

Be sure to check out the other Diva‘s cards though, and if you play along, be sure to post a link to your blog using Mister Linky.  We are starting to choose featured artists – don’t miss out!! You’ll be in the running every week!

Good morning all! It appears that winter is TRYING to make an appearance here in Michigan.  There is snow (UGH) in northern Michigan – hope they keep it up there.  We’re still trying to enjoy beautiful changing leaves…would love to see them fully change!

This week has been very exciting, I went to Specs Howard which is a Broadcast and Communications School in Metro Detroit.  I heard about the Graphics Design program and took the entrance exam and passed!  I just have to wait for the financial aid people and see if I qualify – if all goes well, I’ll be starting school (for a year long program) on January 5th!  I’m sooo excited! This is EXACTLY what I’ve been hoping for!  Praying the financial aid comes through!

Now onto this weeks challenge – it happens to be a sketch challenge.  I was excited about this one, but was unsure what stamp set I wanted to use.  Here is the challenge:

And here is my card for this week:

RECIPE

All Current Stampin’ Up! Products

Good morning!!!  Well if you are a Michigander then you know that the Detroit Tigers lost their final game last night.  It was an amazing game, 12 innings – never thought it would end!  They played a great season, was sorry to see it come to an end!

Anyway – on to this weeks challenge!  We had a color challenge, and they are PERFECT fall colors, but I decided to make it a Christmas card, very unusual colors for Christmas, but I love how it turned out!

Here are the colors this week:

And here is my card – I will explain all I did AFTER the pictures and recipe.

All Current Stampin’ Up! Products

Now for the directions – I heard about this really cool technique using a frame (either wood or cardboard) then using that with the Big Shot and the embossing folders.  This technique would then frame whatever shape in the middle of your card (ie: square frame, would leave a square window etc).  I decided a couple of weeks ago I’d try the texturz plates but had no luck, until I put a call out to the other demos’ to see if anyone came up with a way of using them.  Voila – Chris Kolly sent me the directions she used, and it worked perfectly!

Take your piece of cardboard (I used the cardboard that came in the back of the DSP package), and cut whatever design you would like, for this card, I used the Top Note.  My idea was to just attach the PineCone to the front of the card, but it just looked a little plain.  So I decided out of the other colors, I cut the Top Note again, twice, with the Crushed Curry and Dusty Durango.  Once I cut the frame, I laid the multi-tab plate down, then a cutting plate (clear one – depending on thickness of cardboard), texturz plate, cardstock (which I spritzed with alcohol, some use water, but the alcohol dries quicker), then the frame, and another cutting plate.  I ran this through and what was left behind was the texturz on the card, except for where the TOP NOTE frame was positioned.  I couldn’t see it too well, so I decided to cut two more Top Notes, and run them through the Texturz AFTER I adhered them together.  Low and behold, they lined up exactly and looked like the layers all ran through the Big Shot together.

To create the pinecone, I used the round scallop punch and punched 8 scallop circles.  I cut them down, so that I had several different layers.  My pattern choice was 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 4, 3.  After I punched them, I had to cut them down, so they would lay out correctly.  The first scallop circle, I only needed one “bump” so I cut it straight, and moved on from there, 2 bumps, 3 bumps, etc.  I then put adhesive on the back of the pieces and stuck it to a round tab punch.  This kept the shape, and gave me something to stick it to.  When I was done layering, I had to cut off the bottom round tab.  I then took the 2 way glue pen and applied the dazzling diamonds.   For the pine needles, I cut a few thin strips of garden green cardstock.

For the shimmer mist, I used a 2 oz spray bottle and poured in approximately 1 oz of alcohol, then poured in approximately 6 drops of shimmer paint, in this case, Champagne Mist.  Once you spray it on the card, the card will be wet and may bow just a bit, but the sparkle is amazing when it dries!

I think that’s all my little “secrets” this week   I hope that you’ll come back and check out the diva‘s cards, if you play, leave your name and blog URL so we can visit and see what you’ve made!