anyone for anya?

Good Morning all. It look like it is going to be a lovely day here today, though I have to work for a good portion of it, I will still get a chance to enjoy it later. Being Sunday morning it is time for another Anyone for Anya? challenge. This weeks challenge is a sketch challenge. My Miss Anya is colored with Copic markers. I am still getting the hang of my copics and suspect that I will never be as good with them as I am with colored pencils but I am getting better. She was colored to match this My Mind's Eye Signature Christmas and layered with a touch of true thyme and bravo burgundy card stock. I added a couple of thin burgundy ribbon to finish it off.

this week's sketch...

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Please join us and play along this week and make sure you check out the rest of the design teams blog.

bellarific friday sketch challenge...

It has been a while since I had time to play along with a Bellarific Friday challenge but this week I found some time. This image is one of my stash of images I had colored ahead, I did this one with my limited selection of Copic markers. Unfortunately I seem to have misplaced the designer paper that I colored the image to match so I had to find a substitute, this piece from My Mind's Eye seemed to work. Truly I am not sure what I was thinking at all with this color combo but hey the image was colored so why not use it. In real life the ribbon matches the paper I played around with the lighting and nothing would change the way it photographs so you will have to use a bit of imagination. I of course did not have any brads that matched so I used some craft ink and clear embossing powder to make the brads this shocking pink. My Attitudy has a touch of glaze and glitter added to her glasses, bag and shoes.This second card is one I did weeks ago for another Bellarific Friday Challenge and never got around to sharing with you. The image is colored with Lyra colored pencils blended with odorless mineral spirits and a blending stump. The designer paper is from last years Me & My Big Idea Christmas pack.

happy thanksgiving...

Happy Thanksgiving my friends! I hope you all have the opportunity to gather with friends and family today. I will be at my mother-in-laws with the whole family. Today I am thankful for many things; a loving God, my family, my husband and the children God has placed in our care, wonderful friends, a home that is nearly complete and mostly ours, a great church family, a small close knit community, the time to spend on my craft and the where withall to do so thanks to a fun part-time job. I managed to carve out a couple of moments this morning to put this card together for the SplitCoastStampers Ways to Use it challenge. The image is one that I colored experimenting with my Copic markers, to match this My Mind's Eye designer paper. I am a long, long, long way away from being competent with these markers but am determined to master them.

mission re-organization...

I have been on a mission this fall to rearrange my creative space. In my Stampin' Up! demo days I always had my Stampin' Up! stuff separated from the contraband but now those days are over and things needed to change. The biggest changes I wanted to make were to:

1. keep like things together, for example all the paper in one place, all the ribbon in another.

2. unmount most of my wood mounted stamps to conserve space

3. to have everything within reach but put away

I function better creatively when everything is put away. My space is tiny, only 10 foot x 9 foot and I have to share the space with my washer, dry and large freezer, so every inch needs to be used to its best advantage and ruthlessly organized.

Here is the view from the doorway. The walls are just a shade lighter then Ruby Red. You get a look at my main work area. The butcher block table used to reside in my parents home, I inherited it when they moved to Florida. In the far left corner tucked between the freezer and the wall is most of my sewing stuff, the mending basket sits on top. The remainder of my fabric and nearly completed quilts are under the table.

This picture shows my secondary work area. The counter height is nice to stand at and it has plenty of room to spread out a two page scrapbook layout as well as providing space for a friend to join me. Note the storage spaces both above and below the counter. The baskets on top of the cabinets hold sewing patterns as well as misc other crafting supplies.
This is the view from in front of freezer showing my Jetmax storage units and shelves as well as my laundry sorter. The double doors seen through the doorway lead to our family room.
View from the other corner of the room showing washer, dryer and freezer. Note my grandmother's sewing box on top of the freezer (the white thing on top of that is my homemade photo light box) and my design team calender on the freezer door.
This is my main work surface. Under the dust cover is my antique sewing machine. The dust cover, my curtains, stool cushion and ironing board cover were all made from a repurposed table cloth. All my pens, pencils and markers are within easy as well as my most used tools.

Just to the left of my table is my rolling cart which hold my paper cutters and scrap file.
A closer look at my secondary work area. The cabinets are stock cabinets from Lowes, as is the counter top. The drawers on the left hold re-inkers, photographs and albums. On the right the drawers hold tools, alterable items and album page refills. I plan on acquiring a 14x26 inch piece of glass to put on my counter top so that I can leave scrapbook pages in process out but covered so that they can not be disturbed by cats or children.
On the counter top is my extensive collection of ribbon. Current Stampin' Up! ribbon is on the right. The 4 ribbon boxes hold all the rest. The jar holds ribbon scraps.

The black drawers hold all of my punches.

Since ya know you want to look in my cupboards here is a peek of the center one.
and the right holds card stock and envelopes.
The left one holds more card stock, craft stamp pads, embellishments and adhesives.
A repurposed cassette rack freshened up with a bit of white spray paint hold most of my stamp pads.
In the knee hole under the counter top is my iris carts full of designer papers and misc 12x12 card stock.
Top left drawer full of re-inkers.

My Jetmax cubes. On the very top is my Bigshot as well as some Sizzix dies that don't fit anywhere else. The top row holds 12x12 card stock and stuff for the current months design team projects. The lower fabric drawers hold all of my Our Daily Bread Designs stamps and various other unmounted stamps in cd cases. The upper fabric drawers hold various stickers and embellishments. The open slots hold albums in process, retired In Color card stock and idea books.
Inside the two cupboard doors are all of my dies, Nestabilities and embossing folders. The drawers on the left hold various coloring tools, embellishment kits and glitters and embossing powders. The drawers on the right hold misc single wood mounted stamps and chipboard.
My collection of glitters, embossing powders, stickles and small stamp pads
My top shelf holds catalogs, magazines and two notebooks full of sketches. Two shelves hold wood mounted stamps that I decided not to unmount, including my background stamps, several alphabets and sets that my daughter uses. Three notebooks hold unmounted stamps as do the 4 boxes on the bottom shelf. The white plastic baskets hold cards that need to be package for sale and 6x6 designer papers. When I purchase a large pad or stack of designer paper there are usually 3 sheets of each design. I take one sheet of each design (saving the other two for scrapbooking) and cut it into 4 6x6 pieces. I share some and use the rest for making cards.
Most of my Stampin' Up! stamp sets are unmounted and stored on the lid of their original box. Stored this way an entire shelf of stamp sets fits in one box.

I hope you have enjoyed the tour of my creative space and I hope I have encouraged you to do some reorganizing too.

challenges...

Avoiding everything I am supposed to be doing today and playing instead. I combined a couple of challenges on this card. The color combination; Pretty in Pink, Bermuda Bay, and Old Olive is todays SplitCoastStampers color challenge. The card layout is from the current Bella SCS sketch challenge and I am also entering it in the Bella Birthday Bash contest. I colored this Ketto image a while ago to match some Basic Grey Urban Prairie paper and have just been waiting for the perfect time to make her into a card. Today was that day because the paper contains all the colors in the challenge. Ketto is colored with my favorite Lyra colored pencils blending with odorless mineral spirits and a blending stump. Hard to see in the picture but I also added some touches of glitter with a Sakura glitter pen and a bit of glaze with their glaze pen.

This second card I did for the Lord Have Mercy sketch challenge. I can't say enough how much I love Mercy's sketches, the simplicity of them makes them work well for me but they have enough pop to make them fantastic. Do you like these images??? Guess what? They are another Our Daily Bread sneak peek! (ODBD new release blog hop is Dec 1st) I love snowflakes (at least the kind on rubber stamps, not to fond of the real thing though) and I already have a bunch of them but these images are just enough different from anything else to be a must have, especially when you combine them with wonderful Christian messages. I stamped the snow flakes with whisper white craft ink on kraft. Added a touch of the Sei designer paper that I used last month and some chocolate layers and ribbon.

And since I could not resist making a third card this morning I decided to try a new challenge. The Crazy 4 Challenges blog has been around for a few months and I decided that today would be a good day to play along with them. Their challenge this week is a sketch challenge and I combined that with Kraftin' Kimmie's weekly challenge which is "Merry Christmas, Happy Winter". I colored up Kraftin' Kimmie's Oliver to match my new My Mind's Eye Signature Christmas designer paper I picked up this weekend. Oliver is colored with my favorite Lyra colored pencils blending with odorless mineral spirits and a blending stump. His hat and mug are paper pieced with a bit of the designer paper. The sentiment is an old Stampin' Up! rub on from a year or so ago.

Had to do just one more card because I have just been having way, way, way too much fun today. This card is for the Midnight Madness sketch challenge. I colored this really fun snowman with my Lyra colored pencils to match a bunch of scraps of My Mind's Eye designer paper that I had in my scrap box. I had to turn the sketch to make it work for but it was a great way to use up some tiny scraps.

papertake weekly challenge and a sneak peek...

This weeks Papertake Weekly challenge is entitled "Cracked Christmas". The challenge is to show us your favorite Christmas card. This weeks sponsor is:

As I opened my design team package from the fabulous Kelley at Our Daily Bread Designs on Friday I was totally blown away by the beauty of the December releases (ODBD new release blog hop is Dec 1st)and had to immediately change what I was doing for todays challenge so that I could give you a little sneak peek.

Isn't that one of the most beautiful images you have ever seen??? I was so excited by this image that I immediately stamped it and began coloring. Unfortunately I was so excited that I colored it without even thinking about what I was going to do with it once I had it colored. Usually when I create a card I start with the paper and card stock, or sketch, then paper and card stock. I then color the image to coordinate. Because I colored the image first I need to do some tweaking to get everything to work together. Most of my tinkering involved using every distressing technique I know. The main image is colored with my favorite Lyra colored pencils blended with odorless mineral spirits and a blending stump. I then masked the poinsettia and sponged color onto the background using antique linen distressing ink. I then took my Linen background stamp, inked with the same distressing ink and stamped over the top of the image. At this point I layered the image onto soft suede card stock and began the process of cracked glass. SplitCoastStampers has an excellent tutorial on this technique but basically you add 3 layers of UTEE embossing powder over the image, freeze it then crack the glaze layer and rub ink into the cracks to highlight them. I then tied some melon mango polka dot ribbon that I toned down the color with more distressing ink. The background of the card is My Mind's Eye Signature Christmas designer paper that has been distressed in various ways. It was first stamped with the linen background stamp then embossed with the Textile Cuttlebug folder. I then sanded, roughed up, splattered and sponged all the pieces of designer paper and card stock.

What I used:

ODBD His Gifts

melon mambo, soft suede and whisper white card stock

My Mind's Eye Signature Christmas designer paper

Versafine black stamp pad

Versamark watermark stamp pad

UTEE embossing powder

antique linen and vintage photo Tim Holtz distress ink

Lyra colored pencils, OMS and blending stumps

stickles

soft suede marker

melon mambo polka dot ribbon

Textile Cuttlebug embossing folder

distress tool, sanding block, sponge, spritzer tool

brown Spare Parts large brads

a little mojo in my monday...

Sometimes your Mondays just need a little mojo, or at least mine do and when mine needs it, I head on over to the Mojo Monday sketch challenge for a little bit of inspiration. Todays sketch is a wonderfully simple one. A great one I thought to highlight this really fun Sei designer paper that I have been hoarding all month. I thought I would combine the sketch challenge with this weeks Stamping Sisters in Christ challenge which is to make a card expressing thanks or thanksgiving. Rejoicing is thankgiving, right?

What I used:

Our Daily Bread Designs Christmas Verses

navy and white SU card stock

SU navy ink pad

Sei designer paper

EKSuccess wavy edge punch

corner rounder

rhinestone brad

white satin ribbon