21st Century Pillow Book

Hello! Today and occasionally going forward I will have a special guest designer (or two!) on my blog. My daughter Rhiannon is now a Designing Mini Diva for Doodles Paper Playground , and she is beyond thrilled. Rhiannon is 10, and if you've been a follower of mine, you'll know that I love to craft with my kids. Rhiannon has become quite the talented artist, and Amber asked her to join our Design Team to help encourage kids to get crafty. So, here is her very first post, written by her (and overseen by me). She created this card completely on her own, and it's even more beautiful in person. Hi, I'm Rhiannon. I started this card because I love the Unicorn Dreams Sparkle Blend from Doodles Paper Playground. I love the unicorns and the beads in it. I like that the colors are pink, purple, and blue, which are my unicorn colors. I stamped and die cut the unicorn, and then colored it with Arteza markers.  Then I die cut a window for my shaker out of black cardstock and pai...

Greetings! I have a new Wicked Wednesday ATC Challenge to share with yo today. This week, we are sponsored by Lemon Shortbread and the theme is "Something New." I used Bat Flapper Girl for my ATC. I cropped her quite a bit so that I wouldn't have too many tiny details on the ATC. The full image is great, and you should definitely check it out. She is one part of my "something new." I painted her with Twinkle H2O's. I haven't used them in a dogs age, and I am so glad that I broke them out for this project. Her skin was colored with my watercolor markers from Tombow. For the second half of my "something new," I used Wedding Dress irRESISTables from Imagine Crafts . That's the super cool splatter that you see in y background. It's a thick spray that stays dimensional and shiny. You can see in this picture how iridescent the Twinkles are, and the dimension of the irRESISTables. That's it for me today! I wish you a fant...

Haunted Design House …how I love thee…let me count the ways… Maybe not. That would take waaaay too long! I haven’t been able to play along with the first few challenges of 2011, but I’ve got one today, and I am really happy with it! This week, you need to create something “using angelic products or images and creeping them out as only HDHers can!” My project uses a smattering of different Smeared Ink images. May I say, that is one of the reasons I love Smeared Ink…their images all work so well together! Enjoy… I started off with the Praise Angel, by coloring him in with Twinkle H20’s. Cut him out…then went to town on my background. I was immediately inspired by the Confined Space stamp from Urban Decay…and thought it would work really well with the church from Holy City. Added some crows (holy City…made ‘em grey so that they sorta looked like doves flying up towards the heavens), other textures from Urban Decay…ink…chalk…done! The entire background is stamped directly on the card its...

So let’s start with the announcement, shall we??? I’m a Bombshell!!! No, not just in my husband’s eyes… I’m no longer Ms. July! I’m a full Design Team Member for Bombshell Stamps !!!!! I cannot even begin to tell you how thrilled and honored I am to be a part of such a magnificent team! I was really hoping that, in honor of my new status, I would be able to show off a new layout featuring one of the fabulous stamps, but, alas, my printer is acting wonky and I cannot print my photos properly. So, it’ll have to wait. But in the meantime, I have a card I made for one of the other fabulous Design Teams that I’m on… Smeared & Smudged ! This is obviously the Water Goddess from Smeared Ink , and I just love her. She’s so serene and lovely. Her face is so peaceful. More like a lazy river than a choppy ocean. I was inspired by this month’s S&S Sketch challenge. Here’s the sketch: It’s a loose translation, but I think it works for the challenge! I painted in my Goddess using Twinkle H2...

Happy Friday! Today I bring you another creation featuring Smeared Ink stamps. I have to say…I didn’t think I was going to love working with this set quite as much as I do! I knew I would enjoy it of course, but I really LOVE painting in these Goddesses! Here is my first take on Earth. She is painted entirely with Twinkle H20’s. I was worried that I didn’t have the right colors, but after some blending and layering, I think she came out pretty beautiful! Here are a couple of shots with her “Twinkle” showing! See the shine??? Here’s a close up. Please click on any of the images to see them bigger. I distressed the edge with Walnut Stain Distress Ink, and used some scraps of paper. Then I used Vintage Photo Distress Stickles in a heartbeat pattern. Since, this Goddess is really the heartbeat of our Earth. I do love me some symbolism!!! So, you have seen 2 of the 4 Goddesses. Click HERE for Fire. I think Air will be next! Are you falling in love with the set yet??? Then go on over ...

I am sick. My kids and I have nasty colds. My husband was sick, and now it’s our turn. So, sadly this will be another quickie post. I made this card featuring another amazing Sweet Pea Stamps image- Fairy of the Night from Plate 29. The Design Team Members of Smeared and Smudged have been asked to create cards and things with some of ching-chou kuik’s fantasy images. How lucky we are!!! So I decided to tie this image in with Macabre Monday’ s latest challenge: Purple Haze. Please click on any image to see it bigger. I was so excited about this challenge because purple is one of my favorite colors. My other favorite color is teal, so I jumped at the chance to use them together! I think it is such a striking combination. I used Twinkle H20’s, colored pencils and chalk once again for the fairy. I just love using those 3 mediums together! I also used Staz-On in teal to stamp the background of the card. Added a couple of flowers for some more dimension too. I hope you can see all the sh...

It’s no secret that I am totally in love with the stamps over at Sweet Pea . And I have been busy coloring the stamp that I have from them. I have a couple works in progress, but I just had to get this one done… it has been in my head for a while and I didn’t want to lose the inspiration! I needed to do a blue version. She’s the Winter Watcher, so it was just begging for blue! I used mixed media this time around… Twinkle H20’s and colored pencils. I am so pleased with how it all came out. Everything blended together so well… take a look at the cat’s eye! Remember, you can click on any of the photos to see them bigger! I put the card together a bit differently. As you may have noticed, I have the stamped image coming off of the card. Yeah, it may be a little trickier to mail, but I love that it’s unexpected. I just didn’t want to do another vertical card, and i really wanted those mats on there. I added some fiber and some awesome foiled paper from K & Co. See the foil shine??? I...

It is the first Tuesday of the year, which means it’s time for the first Twilight Tuesday Inspiration Challenge for 2010!!! This challenge was created by Margie, and I am in LOVE with it! Here’s what she wrote: Let’s start the New Year with a bit of Sparkle! Create a project using something that sparkles or shines - glitter, bling, etc. Comment: Share your inspiring resolutions for the New Year! I’d like to make a lil announcement to let you all know that… Jodi Ann of Inked Inspirations has joined the Twilight Tuesday Design Team!!! Please stop by and give her a big Twilight-y welcome! Welcome Jodi!!! Well, you don’t have to tell me twice! I love all things sparkly!!! First, I have to say, this is the toughest card I have ever had to photograph! Why? Take a peek at the black-ish looking cardstock. That’s actually a pewter mirror finish stock! See my hand in the reflection? Here’s a different view so you can see what I’m talking about… Like I said… not easy to photograph!!! But what...