Posts Tagged ‘Diva Challenge’

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

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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.

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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!

Good afternoon everyone!  First of all I apologize for not having my card done this morning!  It was a crazy day yesterday and got even crazier as the day went on.  I worked for several hours this morning/afternoon to get it done.

This weeks challenge is a sketch challenge.  I hope you’ll all play along, and go back to the Diva’s website and post using Mister Linky.

Here is what I came up with -I will share the technique I used below the recipe and close up shot.

RECIPE

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As promised at the beginning of this post, I would tell you how I did the new technique.  I’m not sure what the name of it is, but its using the pastels and crystal effects.  We learned this technique at Regionals in Cincinnati.

What you need to do, is choose your pastel colors, and shave off a little bit into a container, then add a few drops of the Crystal Effects and stir it up real good.  It will begin to look like watercolor paint. If you let it sit longer, it will dissolve all the way, you can then paint onto your image, wherever you want the color.  If you look at the close up image, it kind of makes the image pop.  It is a very simple technique but it adds a lot of wow to your card!

Thanks for stopping by and taking a look today!  I hope you’ll stop back by the Diva’s blog!!

Be blessed!

Good morning everyone!! Well this week has been something else!  It is SUPPOSED to be the first day of fall here in Michigan, but it was almost 80 and very humid today, and is supposed to be the rest of the week!  Go figure! LOL

Yesterday, after 600 hours of training and schooling, my son earned his Fire Fighter badge!!  He is soooo happy to have that behind him, but anxious to start his paramedic training.  He told me just moments before the ceremony started that his dad and I needed to accompany him to the front of the council chambers (the ceremony was at the City Offices); little did I know, I would be the one pinning his badge on his chest!! I fought hard to keep the tears back, but they were visible.  Here is a photo of me pinning him.

Onto the challenge for today – it was a color challenge; and I was REALLY apprehensive about using Real Red with the other colors, but it worked out quite well.  Here are the colors for today.

I was excited to use a new stamp set; so I turned this into a very different Christmas card.  Here is my creation:

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RECIPE

Good Wednesday morning everyone!!  I ALMOST forgot to do my card, can you believe it??? LOL I was laughing, because last week, Heidi, Tana and several hundred other ladies (and a few gents) attended Stampin’ Up!’s Regional Conference in Cincinnati.  We met several wonderful ladies (Wassup Chris, Keri and Nancy?!?!)  I got soooo many new ideas, I think I’ve been on brain overload.  I wanted to try one of the new techniques I saw sampled, but couldn’t pick just one…I think that’s why I “forgot” about putting a card together HAHAHA

Here are a couple of pictures from Regionals

Julie and Shelli Gardner

Heidi, MaryJo and Chris

Heidi, MaryJo, Chris, Keri and Nancy

Penny, Tana, Heidi and Julie - Fellow Diva's

It truly was an experience to go to Regionals, meet people whose names you see all the time and to get the encouragement/excitement to boost our business.  I cannot wait to try the things I saw done!!

But Regionals weren’t the only thing getting my head spinning!  In early June, my husband was laid off from his job, in early August a portion of his company for which he was laid off, was sold.  Unfortunately the portion that was sold, was the area in which my hubby worked.  We really didn’t know what was going to happen; and spent a lot of time praying about what we should.  This past Thursday, he was called by the NEW company and offered a position!  The hubs started working again yesterday and we’re just thrilled (even though my prayer wasn’t answered…) God knew just what HE was doing.

But my head isn’t done spinning yet – my son called me while I was in Cinci and told me they moved the date back to the 21st for him receiving his Fire Fighter badge!!  I am soooo excited for him!  He’s worked a long hard 2 years to get here!  Now he’s toying with the idea of starting his Paramedic training, so now we’ll turn our prayers for financial provision for him to enroll!

Well you’re probably starting to glaze over, so I’ll get on to the challenge for this week, thanks for reading my previous ramblings!

This week the Diva’s were given a sketch challenge (are you seeing the pattern? LOL)  Here is the sketch

And here is the card I made…with the closeup below that

I LOVED this technique – stamp your image then use the Shimmer Paint that is available in the Holiday Mini, and sponge on the paint over your ink.  This was stamped on whisper white with Soft Suede and Champagne Shimmer Paint.

Here is the RECIPE for the card