Just a note...

Just to let you all know that I am still here. Just taking a bit of a Christmas Holiday and setting up my new laptop that Santa brought me!

Hoping you enjoyed a very Merry Christmas and are looking forward to a wonderful 2015!

hugs,

Nancy

My Last Post as a Meljen's Design team Member

Well, it was a difficult decision but I have decided to step down from the wonderful Meljen's Design Team. I have so enjoyed working with Melissa's adorable images over the past 2 and a half years and all the wonderful ladies on the Team. I will really miss all of you but I am hoping that our paths will continue to cross. You have all been a real inspiration and great  at helping  me to learn all the  "computery" things you need to know to be on a Design Team. Melissa, you are an amazing artist and you have such a generous heart; it truly has been a delight to work with your images and I pray that you will continue to flourish in your God given talent. Blessings to you.

My reasons for stepping down are; family, ( aging parents, in laws, children, grandkids),  full time working outside the home and I'm not as young as I used to be, lol! (At least that's what my body and the mirror keep telling me; though my mind says I'm still that girl I remember in my 20's, lol). anyway i will continue to create cards and things but only at a more leisurely pace. I also hope to continue blogging and enter those great paper craft competitions!  

Anyway, here is my last official Meljen's Design DT  porject.

 I decided to work with one of my favourite Meljen's Christmas images "Christmas Holly Fairy". You can find her right here in the shop.

 

 

 

I copied the image twice flipping it for the second one. After colouring her with Copics I fussy cut her out and then adhered her to chip board and cut her out again.

The word Christmas is wooden blocks from the Dollar Store that I painted, distressed and then modge podged pretty Christmas papers to. Then I added all of it to a greenery wreath. Here are a couple of close up shots:

 Well, that's it for now. I hoping to take a bit of a crafting break until the New Year.

Wishing you all a wonderful Holiday Season.

hugs,

Nancy

Thank You!

For the past 3 years my granddaughter, Alanna, has had a "Hot Chocolate Stand" with all the proceeds going to our local Outreach for Hunger. It started out as a Grade 6 school project called "Mr. Nobody". The assignment was for each student to take home a doll that looked just like a blue, faceless gingerbread boy and bring it back to school with something attached or added to it that would identify a need in our community that the student had helped. It actually not only made the students aware of needs in our area, but showed them that, even though they were young, they could make a difference. Well, as I mentioned above, Alanna held a Hot Chocolate Stand, raised over $600 for the Outreach for Hunger and attached a soup label to Mr. Nobody. The following year she decided to do it again, simply because she wanted to, and raised over $800 for Outreach for Hunger. This past Saturday Alanna held her 3rd Hot Chocolate Stand for Outreach for Hunger and raised just over $1650 . She realizes that she couldn't do it without a lot of help from her family, friends and donations from some local businesses. She is so thankful for all of the support she receives. 

Anyway, all that said, today starts the new challenge over at Meljen's Designs and this week's theme just happens to be Thank You! So I decided to make my Thank You card with Meljen's adorable pre-coloured image Christmas Cocoa. My printer ink wasn't the beat so I did add a bit of colour with my Copic markers.

Lots of MME papers on this card, with a few wooden snowflakes embellishments, {that I clear embossed to make shiny}. I also added a bit of this cute pompom trim and some faux stitching. 

I do hope you will get a chance to make a project for our challenge over at Meljen's Designs which you can find right here.

 

I'll leave you with a photo of Alanna and her Hot chocolate Stand.

hugs,

Nancy

Thinking outside the box...

Oh my, but this month is flying by! I can't believe we are headed into the latter part of November. Maybe that's why I felt I just had to make a Christmas card to share with you The only problem was I really wanted to use Meljen's Designs cute little image "Autumn Flower Mouse" . Then it hit me. I'm pretty sure Melissa meant  for that cute little flower  to be a Sunflower but why not turn it into a Poinsettia! Add some pretty Christmas papers, several heat embossed wooden snowflakes, and Voila!, a Christmas card!

I simply typed out this familiar phrase from the poem "Twas The Night Before Christmas" as my sentiment and added a fun twist for the inside verse.

So there you have it...my simple little thinking outside the box. Hope I inspired you to look at things a little differently to create something new, maybe even something for the current challenge going on over at Meljen's Designs!

hugs,

Nancy

Time for a new challenge...

My, how time flies! Here we are already finishing up the first week of November! The holidays will be upon us before we know it! I've been getting ready for Christmas for a while now because our family started doing a Pinterest Christmas exchange. We simply make gifts for each other from the things we have pinned. Last year was the first time we did this and I was kind of at a loss and everyone ended up with a  gift card inside a hand made gift card holder! {I did find the pattern for the holder on Pinterest!}. This year I am a bit more "Pin Savvy", so the gifts will be more suited to the different members of my family. It's actually quite fun, you might want to give it a try!

All that aside, it is also time for a new challenge over at Meljen's Designs and this week we would love to see your projects using these Autumn Bright Colors:

Remember you don't have to use a Meljen's image,{though there is a bonus if you}. Melissa does have a lot of cute freebies in the shop if you'd like to check them out. 

I worked with this fun image Autumn Candy Apple  

Since I used lots of DPs on this card, I decided to for go the embellishments. I think it turned out nice without them. The image was coloured with pencil crayons. I also ink distressed all the edges. 

Hope you get a chance to make an entry for this week's challenge.

hugs,

Nancy

*** Dream Big ***

Well, I've been working a bit more with those Distress Markers and here is what I came up with:

 

Again I chose to colour another of Mo Manning's adorable images. Isn't she the cutest little pilot you've ever seen! Lots of pink on this card, with a couple of lace accents, as well as an antique button, pearls and a bow. I also took the time to do some real stitching on this card as well. The sentiment I simply typed up on my computer.

Thanks for stopping by and wishing you a great week!

hugs,

Nancy

 

Challenges:

Crafty Calender - Bingo ( pink/sentiment/buttons)

My Time To Craft - Hobbies

Paper Creator's Crafts - Pink or Blue with Buttons

* Mo's Digital Pencil - Pearls and Lace

A Creative Romance - Pink

Alphabet Challenge - "S" Stitching

*Anything Goes With A Twist - Touch Of Pink

Brown Sugar - Anything Goes

Trick or Treat

Are you busy getting ready for the little Trick or Treaters that will be knocking on your door next week. Well, even though I don't really go for the whole Halloween thing, I do fix up a few bags for our grandkids and 3 little neighbour girls. So since this week's challenge over at Meljen's Designs is "Trick or Treat" I decided to make "tags" as my DT project.

I used the following fun Meljen's images: Bad Spell; Cute Little Candy Corn; Franken Kitty; Top Hat Pumpkin and Whacky Hat Cat. These are all available right here in the shop. Here are my tags...

I quickly coloured up these images with Copic Markers. I used a couple of fun frame die cuts backed with bright Halloween colours to mount the images on. I plan on attaching them to these cute Halloween cello bags that I bought at Michael's, once I fill them with candy. ( still waiting for the candy to go on sale!).

Hope you will take time to play along with us over at Meljen's Designs this week. Remember you do not have to use a Meljen's image, but Melissa has some really cute freebies in the shop and there is always the weekend freebie she gives away as well!

Until next time.

hugs,

Nancy

A bit of practice with Distress Markers

Hope your week has started off well. It is cold and wet here in SW Ontario, but that's OK since I wanted to just do some baking away. It is my eldest grandson's birthday today and since Braden doesn't like cake I decided to make him some Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies for his after school snack...always good with a glass of cold milk! Yum!

Anyway, another good thing to do on a cold, wet day is practice your colouring! So here is another of my attempts with the Water Colour Distress Markers, on loan from my daughter, Jasmine.

This time I worked with a Mo Manning image that I bought a few years back. I actually thought I had lost it (due to a computer crash), but thank goodness my husband told me to back up my files onto an external hard drive, because there she was- safe & sound! Here take a peek at the end result:

I decided to work with shades of purple simply because I found them the easiest to blend with and I wanted to finally use this mauve DP that I have had for forever! {You know, one of those papers you just love so much you can't bear to cut it!}. I used 6 different dies on this card, some bling, pearls, an antique gold button and a metal heart! The pretty ribbon flowers, satin edged ribbon, {bow}, and the crocheted lace are all from good old Walmart. I distressed most of the edges with my little heart shaped distressing tool and ink. Lots of machine stitching on this card as well.

I am really pleased with how this turned out. Those distress markers are getting more and more appealing every day! {I sure hope Santa reads blogs, lol!}.

 

Blessings & hugs,

Nancy


Challenges:
Card Mania - Buttons
Craft-Dee BowZ - Anything Goes with a Handmade Bow
Cutie Pie - Purple + Cute
One Stitch At A Time - Anything Goes With A Butterfly
That Craft Place - Girls - No Pink
Southern Girls - Words

*** A Cute Little Fox by Polka Doodle!

How's your weekend going - great I hope! Mine is kind of quiet, not feeling so well - gallbladder, I think.  So to take my mind off of pain I decided to work on a card. 

 

 

 I had coloured this image earlier in the week, using distress markers, that I borrowed from my daughter, Jasmine. {Thanks Jazz. I think I'm going to ask Santa for some!} I inked all the edges to give them a bit of distressing of their own. The DP is from my Treasure Box. Used a sentiment embossing folder on the card stock and a pretty die to make the frame. Brads are by MME. Lots of real stitching on this one.

Well, that's it for now.

hugs,

Nancy


Challenges:
Allsorts - Embossing
Hiding In My Craft Room - Embossing
STAMPlorations - Stamp & Embossing
Bunny Zoe's - Animals
*Sketch N Stash - Sketch
Quirky Crafts - Frame It

Braden's Birthday Card.

Good morning! Today is my turn for DT inspiration over at Meljen's Designs and I have a birthday card I made for my grandson, Braden, who will be turning 11 years old on Monday, to share with you. If you ask Braden what he would like to eat, {morning , noon, or night}, he will tell you he would like a "Cheeseburger!" It's his favourite. So for his card I knew I just had to use Melissa's "Big Burger" image. You can find it right here in the shop.

 

I borrowed some "Distress Ink Water Colour Markers", from my daughter, Jasmine, to colour  this image up. This was my very first time trying them and I think with a bit of practice I could get to really like working with them. I'm a "Copic Girl", but I love the soft look of water colour and have a hard time achieving that look with Copics. 

I started out to make this a CAS card with lots of white space. but I just couldn't leave that big white space alone, lol. So I added a pocket with an inserted tag, {that will probably hold a gift card for a much desired cheeseburger!}. The DPs, ribbon and button are all from my stash. I used my Dymo Punch to make the sentiment.

Thanks for stopping by to check out my post. Don't forget about the Meljen's Designs' weekly challenge which is a sketch , and keep an eye out for a freebie this weekend from Melissa as well!

hugs,

Nancy

Time for a new challenge....

Well here we are at Thursday again and that means it's time for a new challenge over at Meljen's Designs! This week's theme is "Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend!"; we want to see lots of "shiny" on your projects!. Remember you don't have to use a Meljen's image but the prize is better if you do!

Here is my Easel card...

I know that this weekend here in Canada is Thanksgiving, but when I think of shiny & bright I think of Christmas, so I went with a Christmas card! The image is a cropped Santa Baby Diva and you can find her right here.

Lots of die cut leaves, that I also embossed, on this card and I used gem stones and glitter to brighten it up.

I do hope you will play along this week. You can enter your card right here.

hugs,

Nancy


Challenges:
Crafty Little Fairies - Use 1 DP
Milk Coffee - Lots of Layers
Southern Girls - Girly/Shabby Chic {Girly}

A Little Fun With My Sizzix Products

With last Saturday being World Card Making Day, I decided to have a little fun with my Sizzix  products and there is what I came up with...

 

 

I had fun using 4 different Sizzix embossing folders, my star, pumpkin and scroll dies plus my Tim Holtz's House and fence dies. I used distress inks by Tim Holtz and Black Tuxedo ink by Memento. The papers are mainly cardstock and 1 DP by MMe.The sentiment stamp is from Michael's. I also used a circle punch to create the moon, glitter glue and a Sharpie Marker.

Thanks for stopping by to take a peek.

hugs,

Nancy


Challenges:


Sizzix  - Halloween Project {used 5 Sizzix dies & 4 Sizzix embossing folders}
Come and Get It - Halloween
Craft a Scene - By The Silvery Moon
The Corrosive Challenge - Halloween Colors
My Time To Craft - Die cuts Only!

 

Scripture Sentiment Stickers

Well, here we are again - mid week! And not only that but it's a new month! I don't know about you, but time seems to be flying bye to me. I really should start working on some Christmas projects but I found these wonderful Scripture Sentiment stickers at Dollar Tree and with all the great Sketch challenges going on I've been busy making, I would say, "all occasion" cards. Here is my latest one...

I used 5 different DPs, {mostly all BoBunny}, on this one and 3 different die cuts. I decided to stick with the colours of Fall - they are my favourite colours anyway! This sketch is by Sketchy Colors and I simply loved working with it! I cut out the 3 hearts with my good old original red Sizzix die cutter! Love that old thing! I added 3 antique white buttons to the center of each. And of course the main focus is the sentiment, one from the Scripture Sticker sheet I got at the Dollar Tree.

Well, that's it for today. 

I pray that "The Lord bless you and keep you."

Until next time,

Nancy

Challenges:

Sketchy Colors - Sketch

613 Avenue _ Use a Heart

Simply Less Is More - Use Words

Creative Corner - Brown and Turquoise

Keep It Simple - No Stamps

Inspiration Destination - Anything Goes

Another Thanksgiving Card

I have to say, even though I suffer terribly from allergies at this time of the year, it is still my favourite! I love the magnificent colours of Fall and I am so blessed to live in an area where no matter where you look those colours are there.

My card for today is a bit smaller than my normal 6x6, but in order to use the sketch by Kraftin' Kimmie and the biggest scroll die I have I decided to make the card 5x5 so all the pieces would look proportionate. The DPs are by 7 gypsies and Recollections. I used 3 different dies on this card, some faux stitching and doodling and a sentiment sticker - no stamps! I added an antique button just for fun. So here it is, hope you like it.

 

 

I was a fun change of pace not using any stamps; made this card quite quick & easy!

Thanks for stopping by. 

Sending hugs your way,

Nancy

 

Challenges:
Crafty Sentiments Designs - Bingo {DP; die cut & Sentiment}
Our Daily Bread - Fall Inspired
Creating in Faith, Hope and Love - Scripture Verse

Thanksgiving Day card

Good Monday morning to you! Hope you are looking forward to a beautiful day. Theses passed few weeks here in Ontario have been absolutely beautiful. Sunny and temperatures in the mid to low 20's C! I certainly hope it carries on into October! 

With that thought, October means Thanksgiving Day here in Canada so today I'd like to share with you one of the cards I've made to celebrate this wonderful holiday. This one features 2 of the new images by the amazingly talented Mo Manning; "Prudence & Nathaniel". I merged the 2 images together using Paintnet and coloured them with Crayola pencil crayons, blending with an ordorless solvent called Taltine. I used the sketch by Krafty Hands. The DPs are by 7gypies. The sentiment is a piece of pre-stamped ribbon. Here it is...

 

I hope I've inspired you to start your Fall cards and would love to hear you comments.

Blessings on your day.

hugs,

Nancy
 

Challenges:
Mo's Digital Pencil 2 - Clean & Simple

Patchwork

I love reading stories about the Amish and this summer my husband surprised me with a trip to Lancaster County, PA. The drive down was so scenic and our time in the Lancaster area was wonderful. We even bought a beautiful hand made quilt for our bed! So with our new quilt in mind I came up with this card for the "Patch Work"Challenge over at Meljen's Designs.

 

I think I used 7 different DPs on this card...mixing and matching papers that worked together. An assortment of odd buttons, tied with gold wire, was adhered to the center of each square. For the center square I printed Meljen's image "Stitched Country Heart" 3 times; once on cardstock; and then on 2 different DPs. I cut the heart out of the DPs on different lines so that I could layer them and add shadowing and dimension. I faux stitched around each square to give it that quilted look. I must admit that this came together much faster than a quilt would, lol!

Well, I hope I've inspired you to try your hand at a Patch Work card. Just remember to use a Meljen's image. Hope to see you link up in the gallery.

hugs,

Nancy


challenges:
Penny's Paper Crafty - Spots & Stripes
Simon Says - Anything Goes

Yes, I've been busy...

I don't know  why but paper crafting tends to hit me in spurts and stops lately. For most of the summer I was only fulfilling my DT obligations; I just couldn't get into the paper crafting mood. This week I ended up making 6 projects! Hopefully that is a sign that things are starting to turn around and my mojo is coming back! I recently stumbled across these super cute images by Ppinky Dolls, and I'm thinking they have given me the inspiration I needed. Let me share a couple of cards I made this week using them...

The top card also features a great idea shared by a wonderful paper crafting lady, Bev Code. You crochet through and around buttons to create flowers!

The second card features flowers made using 2 Spellbinder dies. One I got at the $ Store. Yes! I couldn't believe it - $3.00!!!, and the other I got at Winners, for only $5.00!!! Couldn't possibly pass up those deals!

Well, that's it for today.

Blessings to all.

Nancy


Challenges:
Crafty Girls - Anything Goes
Milk Coffee - Fall Colors
Pieces of My Heart - Use a Digi
Scrapper's Delights - Hand made Flowers

A few projects to share with you.

Good Friday morning to you all. Hope you are looking forward to a wonderful weekend. I know I am!

Over at Kit and Clowder, a fun FB Club, this past weekend they hosted another great challenge time. We have until the 22 of September to enter our projects for the different challenges. I just finished mine up so I thought I'd share them with you. Here they are:

This first one is for the "Crayon Colouring" challenge. I used my "big box of Crayolas" for this one! The image is by PPinky Dolls. 

This card is for one of the wonderful freebies that was offered.

This card features another  one of the sweet free images offered over the weekend.

Alyce is already hinting about some more fun scheduled over at Kit and Clowder for this weekend. I sure hope you get some time to check it out and join in on the fun!

hugs,

Nancy




Challenges:


Delicious Doodles _ Tag It! (card with little bear & 2 tags on it)
QKR - Fall Colors (card with little bear on it)
Wags 'n Whiskers - Furry Friends ( card with little bear on it)

Happy Birthday To My Baby Girl!

Good morning! Just wanted to say "Happy 33rd Birthday!" to my daughter, Jasmine, and share the Birthday Card I made for her. Jasmine has quite the "creative eye" and the ability to bring her beautiful ideas to life, so making a card that she would truly love is sometimes quite a challenge...our styles are a bit different. But, I enjoy a good challenge once in a while, so here's what I came up with.

 

I think it turned out quite nice; though in hind site I think Jazz would have distressed the edges, to give it that "Shabby Chic" look, {she is so good working with that style!}. But, nonetheless I know she appreciates the work that goes into "Home {and Heart} Made things so she'll love it! 

Even though her Birthday is today, we celebrated on Sunday, 

 [since we could all get together}, complete with Ice Cream Cake from Diary Queen!

 

 

So, that's it for today. Have a great one!

Until next time ,

hugs,

Nancy

Time for a New Challenge {with new rules} over at Meljen's Designs!

I sure hope you get time to join in on some of the fun challenges happening over at Meljen's Designs. The rules have changed a bit and you don't have to use one of Melissa's images to participate. But if you do { Melissa has been so generous all summer with weekend freebies, so you should have a few to choose from}, your prize will be even greater than if you use another Artist's image. This week's challenge is "Laugh Out Loud!", use a funny sentiment on your project. Here is what I came up with...

I have to say that although this sentiment is funny, in my case it is true! I love cupcakes! Not only to eat but to colour and Melissa has almost 2 dozen of them in the shop! You can check them out right here. This one is called "Cupcake Treat Trio" and I coloured it with pencil crayons. The pretty papers are all from my Treasure Box. I simply type out the sentiment on my computer using a fun font.

Well, that's it for today. Hope to see your project linked up this week!

hugs,

Nancy


Challenges:
Digi Stamps 4 Joy - Celebration
Mod Squad - Stripes

* Saying "Hi" to these cute images.

 

I recently discovered these cute digital images by Ppinky Dolls. Aren't they adorable! I love that these images have a lot of shaded areas already on the image. I used Copics to colour  her up with. The DP's are all MME. I used several different dies to cut out the different pieces. Embellishments included several buttons, thin satin ribbon tied in a bow, and 9 little heart brads. The sentiment is a rubber stamp and I used a circle punch to cut it out.

Hope to have another one of these images made up into a card really soon, {I've already coloured the image}.

Until next time.

hugs,

Nancy


Challenges:
*Ppinky Dolls - Anything Goes
Fan-tastic Tuesdays - Anything Goes with Buttons
Crafty Sentiment Designs - Spots and/or Stripes
Stamp and Create - Circles or Dots
* Cut It Up - Country's Colours (England)
Creative Knockouts - Bingo (digi/sentiment/ribbon)

DT Day over at Meljen's Designs

Hi there! For my DT Inspiration project I drew some inspiration from a little visitor we had this summer. A sweet little bunny! Here she is...

My husband and I thought she was just the cutest little thing and loved seeing her hopping around in our back yard. Then our neighbour told us that all of her Coneflowers had been eaten off, by what she suspected was a rabbit.  That's when we noticed that not only our Coneflowers, but most of our perennials, had been devoured! We also realized that our cute, little bunny had grown into a large, flower-eating rabbit! We tried to catch her in a live trap but ended up catching a squirrel instead!  Afraid that we might end up catching something worse {ie. skunk!}, we gave up on that idea. We then decided to secure our back yard so the rabbit couldn't get in, only to find out that we had ended up trapping her in! With the Fall season right around the corner we'd decided to give up catching her for now, only to discover that she has had a litter of little ones! Hopefully, as the foliage dies down in our flower beds, we will be able to discover where they are hiding and assist them in finding a new dwelling place. 

Anyway, all that said, here is the card that came out of this experience. 

 

 

 I still think bunnies are the cutest little things and Melissa has a litter full of adorable bunny images in the store. This one is called "Sweet Little Lop" and you can find her in the shop right here. 

Until next time, happy crafting.

hugs,

Nancy

I Love Sketch Challenges!

So glad you stopped by today because I want to let you know that Meljen's Designs is having a "Sketch Challenge". You can check out the great sketch right here.

This is what I came up with...

 

I'd call this sketch pretty "CAS" and I loved working with it!

I used Meljen's pre-colored image "Little Gingerbread Man". I used a Spellbinder die to cut out the holly leaves; used some red brads for the berries; a bit of folder embossing and several red buttons. Quick and easy, and it's given me a jump on my Christmas cards!

Well, I hope you will give this sketch a go and then share it with us over on the Meljen's Challenge blog. I'll be keeping my eye out for your work!

hugs,

Nancy

Time for a New Challenge....

Hope you are enjoying your summer. It certainly is flying by.  Hopefully the nice weather will hang around for a while.

Over at Meljen's Designs it is time for a new challenge and this week it is called "Splat!"; we would like to use paint, sprayed ink, etc. on your project.

I have to admit I had a hard time with this one, I couldn't get the ink to spray where and how I wanted it to! Let's just say at least 3 attempts ended up tin the trash! Here is what I finally came up with...

 

 

I used the Meljen's word art "Smile", with that cute little lady bug on it. I folder embossed 2 opposite corners and then I sprayed it with red Copic ink {from one of my refill colours}.  I trimmed it up close the the edge of the embossing and then mounted it onto white card stock. I ran a few strips of Washi Tape around the edge and then trimmed it up again to fit on my card base. I added a pretty bow and a few red flowers to finish it up. After so many attempts I was pleased with how this turned out.

I hope you will take a visit to the Meljen's Designs blog and see what the rest of the DT came up with and then try your hand at it! 

hugs,

Nancy

 

It's My Meljen's Designs DT Day

Good Friday morning to you. Hope you are looking forward to a wonderful relaxing weekend. Got to enjoy the Summer days while they are here!

Summer is a very busy birthday season for me, so I can never have too many cards on hand. Here is one I made for my daughter...

 

I used the Meljen's image "Little Stitched Flower", which I printed on 2 pretty DPs, in 2 different sizes. {Re-sizing of images; one of the many things I love about digital images!} I used a double layer of buttons, tied with stretchy gold thread, as the flower center. I had these wonderful big brads,but they were the wrong colour, so I pressed them into my ink pad and sprinkled them with embossing powder and heated them up with the heat gun...voila!, just the colour I needed! I folded little pieces of ribbon in half and attached them with the brads. The sentiment was cut using a die. All edges were ink distressed and, as usual, I faux stitched around most everything!

Well, that it for me.

Until next time.

hugs,

Nancy

Let's See That Card Stock!

Well, here we are the end of July already! One more month and school will be back in! Boy, do we have a lot of work to do before that can happen! YIKES!

Time to think of something a bit more calming; how about card stock. It comes in so many beautiful colours and you can do so much with it... shapes, distress, emboss, the list is endless. That's this week's challenge over at Meljen's Designs -"No DP, Just card Stock". Here's what I came up with...

 

 

 I used 7 different colours of card stock, {all of them from my treasure box!}. And I used 6 different embossing folders! I distressed each piece with an ink from the same colour family that each piece of cardstock came from. Who said card stock looks so plain!

The image is another one of the "Pre Coloured Images" by Meljen's Designs. They come in so handy when life gets busy and you just don't have time to colour up an image.

Well, that's it for today. Hope you will give our challenge a go.

Until next time.

hugs,

Nancy

A Little Summer Giva-Away going on at....

...Pink Paper Paradise! Head on over at and see the wonderful stamps you can win just by entering! Check out the details right here.

Have a great weekend!

hugs,

Nancy

Read any good books lately?

Good morning! Hope your day is going well. Today over at Meljen's Design's they have a new challenge going on and they would like to see a papercraft project inspired by a book. It can be a layout, card, tag, book mark, etc. I decided on a book mark, and since I love Fairy Tales, {my Dad told the best ones ever!}, I decided to use the "Frog Prince" as my inspiration.

Here, take a look....

 

 

It just so happened that Meljen's has a sweet, pre-colored image called "Frog Prince", so that made this project super easy! I used an assortment of DPs ans supplies from my hoarded stash and added some faux stitching and doodling to pull it all together.

 Well, I hope I've given you a bit of inspiration to give our new challenge a try and to check out the great images over at Meljen's Designs. 

 

hugs,

Nancy

Delightful!

Hope your summer is off to a wonderful start! Mine is, 'cuz I am offically on holidays! No big plans...just some much needed "R&R".

I've heard a lot of paper crafters say that they don't have time to create at certain times during the year, but I want to show you just how quick and easy a card can come together using one of Meljen's Designs "pre-coloured images". That's exactly what I used to make this card for our new challenge "Button It Up!", {use buttons on your project}.

 

This sweet image is called "Johnny Bird Boots, Color" and you can find it right here.

I always find it so much easier to make up a quick project by using a pre-drawn sketch, and there are a lot of great sites online where you can find these for free! I usually buy my designer paper in coordinating packs, so matching up patterns is pretty simple. When it comes to adding a sentiment, most of the time I simply type it up myself on the computer and play around with the different fonts I have until I find one that I think suits the mood of the card I've made. From start to finish this card took about half an hour to make & cost me mere cents! Less time then jumping into my car, driving to the store, trying to pick out just the right card and paying for it! {Can you believe the price of cards these day!}. Plus, I have to admit I tend to like giving a one of a kind card!

Well, I hope I've encouraged you to give our Meljen's challenge a try, even if you find your days busy!

hugs,

Nancy

Working with Textures

Time for another fun challenge over at Meljen's Designs. For this week's challenge we would like to see some texture on you r project. Here is my card...

I used the word image "Thinking Of You" by Meljen's Designs, printed on a piece of pretty DP. I folder embossed it and ran my ink pad over the embossed area to add more dimension. I used a bunch of different flowers and flower centers, die cut and embossed leaves, as well as some pretty lace, gross grain ribbon and a couple of stacked buttons. I even added a metal brad heart! Lots of texture there!

I hope I've inspired you to hunt thru your craft supplies and see what you can come up with to add some texture to your project. 

Until next time.

hugs,

Nancy

A Little Walk down Memory Lane...

I thought today it might be fun to take a little walk down Memory Lane; back in time a couple of years ago when I had the awesome privilege to be the June 2012 Guest Designer for Meljen's Designs. I was absolutely thrilled to be asked and even more thrilled when Melissa and Dee asked me to join the Meljen's Design Team full time! I can honestly say that I love being on this team and never tire of working with Melissa's adorable images.

Here are a few photos of the cards I made back in June of 2012...

See what I mean about Melissa's cute images - who could ever tire of working with them! They are so fun! And just to "toot my own horn", the card featuring "Tea Cup Mouse" was published in Canadian Scrapbooker Magazine!

Well, thank you for letting me reminisce a bit and I hope this has been an encouragement to you to keep entering our challenges and our Guest Designer calls over at Meljen's Designs; you never know, your turn could be right around the corner.

hugs,

Nancy