21st Century Pillow Book

Every month, the Bombshell Stamps Design Team has our own private challenge. This month, we had to channel our Inner Bombshell! Fab challenge if you ask me…I’ve always wanted to be a bombshell (in more ways then one!). So, I made a scrapbook page featuring some of the photos my sister Monica took of me with my beloved PT Cruiser. The Bombshell Stamps that I used for this layout are from Pin-Stripes, Man’s Ruin, and Bombshell Angel (the words are from those 2 sets). I thought the Pin-Stripes set worked perfectly with these photos, and I decided to let myself be the bombshell this time around, instead of using an actual bombshell image. The large “a” is from Magnetic Poetry, paper from DCWV and Prism. Rhinestones are from Westrim, and embossing powder is from Stamp-n-Stuff. Plus some Stickles from Ranger, of course! You can click on any of the photos to see it bigger. I have to say, I adore the Pin-Stripes set! I am so glad I got it. It can be used for so many things, way beyond bomb

Greetings! It’s time once again for me to share another project featuring the ultra cool (and not for the faint of heart) Smeared Ink stamps! Today I am sharing a card using another image from the Misty Benson Tarot Deck Set 1. Today’s card features The Fool. I used colored pencils and chalk to color this image in. And what a cool image it is! I love the way Misty Benson draws faces. There’s something so sweet…and a little sinister about this “Fool.” This picture is a little washed out…but his skin is comprised of several layers of chalk. A few greens and some yellow. He was practically begging me to make him green! And I thought it wwas the perfect shade for him! The “Wicked” is from Smeared Ink’s Teen Style Sayings, and I thought it was totally appropriate here. The orange swirls are from Queen and Company. They’re felt and adhesive backed. Love them! Thank you for stopping by! Have an inspiring day!

It’s release day with StampInsanity !!! And, we have a new challenge for you as well. First, how about a peek at the new Zen Morgan digi set?   Isn’t it fabu? Just in time for Valentine’s Day! Although, don’t limit yourself! Chocolate is good any time of the year…well, any day really…24/7 if you ask me! ;) For this week’s challenge, you are to c reate a peaceful project. “Find Your Zen.” Soothe those frayed nerves! Just what I need right now… a little bit of peace…here is my offering. I colored Zen Morgan in with my colored pencils, and used chalk on the “Namaste.” I chose the spiral paper for my background, because I thought, with the spirals going down, it looked kind of soothing. Like the crazy of the swirls (ie: Life) is just kind of falling away. Don’t you just love how she’s munching away on chocolate? So cute!    And I love the felt flower I had in my stash. And the heart clip I also had laying around. I love using goodies that I’ve had for a long time.

It’s a hoppy kind of day with the Smeared & Smudged DT! One of our fabulous sponsors for the month of January is Delicious Doodles . And today, the Design Team, along with Teri, the owner of DD, are doing a blog hop the Smeared & Smudged way! I just have to say, I am SO in love with my image. I chose to work with Green Man , who holds a very special place in my heart. Here is my offering. Isn’t he majestic? I had a wonderful time coloring him in…using several shades of green plus copper and some goldenrod. Colored pencils, of course! You can click on any of the images to see them bigger. Check out that copper paper… It’s metallic and looks like taffeta! The next picture shows it a little better. Isn’t it pretty? I thought it really worked with the copper (metallic) acorns on Green Man. How would you like to win some digis from Delicious Doodles? All you have to do is enter either the Sketch Challenges and/or the Photo Inspiration Challenge at Smeared & Smudged! Now plea

If you stopped by last week, you may have seen a page from my new Art Journal that I made about my dog Oliver. That was the first page that I made in the book, but I needed a true “first” page. An opener. I used Smeared Ink’s Urban Decay and my watercolor markers from EK Success to make it.   I love coloring stamps with markers. Have you ever tried it? You can’t do it with all brands… you have to use markers that stay a little wet… sort of like the way Pigment Ink stays wet so that you can emboss with it. By using markers, you can get beautiful rainbow colored effects and/or very detailed coloring, which you could never really do with a stamp pad. I used the “Open” sign as the centerpiece for the page, because that’s what I want this journal to really be about. Me being open. Open to whatever art I create and being ok with it…not overly critical. It was a fun page to make, and super easy! Have an inspiring day!

I am pretty excited about today’s card. I have had this image from Kenny K colored in for weeks now, but I just couldn’t find the right stuff for her card. Nothing was working. So she sat, waiting patiently for the right “things” to come along. Well, yesterday I saw the latest Kenny K challenge , and I got super inspired! Not only does the sketch rock, but Cheryl ’s version is amazing (not that she ever makes anything that isn’t amazing!). So, I went in a totally different direction then what I thought I wanted, and it turned out pretty rad! Wanna see? Say hello to Carmen Electrifying! I colored Carmen up in my 2 favorite colors, purple and teal. And I think she looks hawt! You can’t really tell in this picture, but the lips are pink foil…you’ll see them better down below. You can click on any picture to see it bigger. And of course, I just had to make her bangs teal. I also used Smeared Ink stamps on this card. From the Urban Decay collection. You can see a screw head here on the

What is The World to you? Does it change from day to day? Lately, The World has been a little dark to me. But, I am trying to brighten things up for myself. I got something in the mail the other day that is certainly helping in that quest. I received Smeared Ink’s   Morbidly Adorable Tarot Set 1 from Misty Benson. I LOVE this set! Isn’t it fabulous? Even if you’re not into the tarot, you have to agree that these images are spectacular! The World really inspired me, and is just begging for bright, happy colors. And to be honest, this card made me happy. Which is exactly what I needed! You know this makes you smile! Aren’t those the sweetest skeletons you’ve ever seen? I thoroughly enjoyed coloring this image in.   I used Twinkle H20’s and colored pencils to color the image in. If you click on the image, you’ll be able to see it bigger…and all the pretty twinkle! If you look at the dragon, you can see a lot of shimmer. I used a lot of cool papers and minimal embellis

It’s time again for another super fun StampInsanity Challenge! This week’s challenge is called Shades of You. Thr Groovy Gurlz are challenging you to choose your favorite color and use only shades of YOU! Ok, and white, if you must! :) Winters blues? Red Hot in love? LivingStrong in yellow? I chose purple. I just had to use Hilda for this one. She’s holding her little pet dragon. And if you read my post from yesterday, you’ll understand why this image was so important for me to use today. The following information is from crystal-cure.com . Purple is the color of good judgment. It is the color of people seeking spiritual fulfillment. It is said if you surround yourself with purple you will have peace of mind. Purple is a good color to use in meditation. Purple has been used to symbolize magic and mystery, as well as royalty. Being the combination of red and blue, the warmest and coolest colors, purple is believed to be the ideal color. Most children love the color purple

Today is the January Smeared & Smudged member wide Blog Hop. “Want to know what our theme is? Well since it's the New Year, how about we do something NEW!! That just means that we want you to try something you have never done before. Use a stamp that you have never used, a color you have never used. Anything NEW to you!!! That's it.” Originally, I had intended to use these *new* images on a card… but crisis has once again struck my family. If you’ve been following me since October, you know what’s been going on. So my original idea morphed into something I needed to put in my *new* Art Journal #2. (I got a second Art Journal so that I could have one with white pages, as the 1st only has black pages). This is Oliver. I got him when he was 3 months old…just after I found out I was pregnant with Phoenix. His 5th Birthday was this month. We found out in the Fall that Oliver had lymphoma… We began giving him meds to treat it, and it worked for a couple of months…but Can

Surprise! Smeared Ink is releasing FIVE awesome new digi sets…just in time for your Valentine’s Day creations! My project today is featuring 2 fab images from the Shift My Gears set. What do you think? Smeared Ink has gone…a little vintage! This release is going to blow your mind! I love this car…and the sentiment is perfectly snarky! And if you like snarky, you are in for a treat! Coy, silly, and a wee bit of fabulous raunch make up the sentis in these sets. I used colored pencils and chalk for my image and sentiment My background paper is from K & Co. and the text is from Madness Paper (one of Smeared & Smudged’s rad sponsors this month!). Didn’t need anything else! Wanna see some of the sets??? Shift My Gears: Femdom: Love Grumpies: And there’s still 2 more! If you would like to see them, and some other fabulous projects created with them, then please visit the rest of the Smeared & Smudged Design Team! Terra ~ Tori ~ Alison (me!) ~ Black Dragon ~ LadyBrayton M

It’s Friday night…a time I don’t usually post, but it’s my day to show off some fabulous Smeared Ink “shtuff,” and I hate to disappoint! I was inspired to use Kelli’s card sketch. I hope you are too, because if you play along, you could win some rad digis from Delicious Doodles ! Click HERE to visit the Sketch Challenge thread. Here’s the card sketch. For my card, my focal image is from As Death, and the 2 background stamps (in the grey area) are from Quoth the Raven. I know, I know… I use those 2 stamps all the time…but they are perfection!!! They work with almost everything I make. This is such a creepy image. The stuff nightmares are made of! I colored the happy couple in with my colored pencils. I punched out some gears (EK Success) and highlighted them with a silver marker. The red cardstock is from Prima. But do you see the fabulous text? That’s from Smeared & Smudged’s other sponsor for the month, Madness Paper ! I think the text is in Czech, but I’m not positive. Whatev

Hello! One of Phoenix’s classmates has a new baby sister at home, so I wanted to make a card for the happy family! This is super different for me, as it’s really pretty. Hope you like it as much as I do. I adore these wings. I have used them for dark cards, but of course they work just as well (if not even better!) on pretty cards like this one. I used Twinkle H20’s on the wings and then layered Diamond Stickles on top. They are super shimmery and I wish I had a full sized pair for myself! ;) You can really see the sheen and glitter here. You can click on any of the photos to see it bigger. I don’t use a lot of bows, but this card was just begging for one! Luckily, my Mom had this piece of pink organza, which is exactly what I wanted. I popped the wings up off the card, for some dimension. I’ll be back tomorrow with something from Smeared Ink !

Hello! I took a bloggy day off yesterday because it was my Birthday!!! Yup! I turned 33 on 1/11/11. I thought that was pretty cool. Anyone out there into numerology? Maybe you can give me a head’s up if all of those numbers mean anything! :) On to my card… A few weeks ago, Kenny K had a contest to name some new images. I was lucky enough to be one of the chosen ones! I bring you… Harley Ryder ! Isn’t she cool? I love her little outfit! Think of all the color combinations you can do! Anyway, this week’s Kenny K Challenge is Love You. Harley is perfect for the challenge! She is colored up with my pencils, and though it’s tough to see, I used a lot of metallic silver, so she’s super shiny. I sat her on a brick wall that I embossed using my Fiskars Texture Plates. I just had to use some of my foiled flame paper from EK for this card, ‘cause you know this chick loves some flames! I also used some stud swilrs from Prima, and drew in some swirls with Stickles. The “XO” is d