A Day for Daisies Birthday Card Trio

A while back, A Day for Daisies offered these three birthday digital stamps for free for people to use.  I meant to post them sooner, but life has gotten in the way (as usual).  All of the images are colored with Prismas and blended with OMS.

The first card uses design paper from the American Traditional Design Celebrate Scrapbook Bundle mounted on two layers of cardstock by The Paper Company.  I haven't been using my corner punches very often, but this All Night Media one was perfect for this image.  The ball and balloons have both been given dimension with the use of Glossy Accents.  After looking at this again, I realize that I probably should have also added the Glossy Accents to the snake and snail's shell.  Oh well, I might try it on the next one (or add it later). 

You may probably notice all those nasty little air bubbles that are sometimes caused by shaking the bottle or moving the solution around too much.  If you see these forming before the Glossy Accents dries, you can just pop them with a pin (that I usually have stored in the hole of the applicator tip to also help clear any clogs in the tip). 

The little girl on this image reminds me of a doll that I used to have many moons ago in my youth.  We would always gravitate towards red-headed dolls in our family since two of my sisters had red hair, so the color scheme of this image started with the hair color.

Glossy Accents was also added to the balloons and strawberry on this image.  The cardstock was run through the Cuttlebug.  I was going to go over the dots with the green ink that I used on the background of the image, but it really muddied up the color of the cardstock.  I need to remember to use non-white core cardstock when I use the Cuttlebug unless I'm planning on distressing it or needing the white core to show through the design.  The paper lace was two-sided, so I cut it in half to fit on this card.  The rick-rac was from my mom's stash of trims that I received when she died. 

This image is still driving me a bit more nuts than usual.  I was going to write Happy Birthday on all of the cards, but I wanted to do something unusual on them.  Any ideas that you have to write on the cards would be much appreciated.  Even though I didn't use Glossy Accents on this card, I think I will add it to the cherry, starwberries and grapes.  Due to the lines being so narrow on the wire portions of the image, I used a gel pen to color in the silver to make it show up better. 

If you look closely at the pansies, you may notice that I also used a gel pen on the purple portion to cover up my boo-boo.  When I tried to add the purple to it, the yellow and purple mixed too much to a yucky brown color.  Thank goodness I was able to save it since this was one of the last things I colored.  Since the gel pens were already out, I decided to add some yummy sprinkles to the tops of the cupcakes and some highlights with a white gel pen.

That's it for my A Day for Daisies images for now, but I have tons more to show you later.  I love so many of Tammy's collections that I'm surprised that I have any money left to spend for food!  I adore the ones with the babies, and of course the fairies will always be a favorite of mine. 

~~~Lee~~~

SUPPLIES

Card One:

Paper:  Cardstock by The Paper Company, Celebrate Scrapbook Bundle by American Traditional Designs

Punches:  All Night Media

Distress Ink:  Tea Dye

Bling:  Rhinestones by K & Company 

Ribbon and Charm:  My Stash

Dimension:  Glossy Accents

Adhesive:  Scotch Glue Stick

Card Two:

Paper:  Cardstock ?, DP from my Scrap Stash

Ribbon:  Paper by K & Company and Rick Rac and Ribbon from My Stash

Flowers:  Sandylion Essentials Stickers

Ink:  Stampin' Up! Certainly Celery

Bling:  Colobok Adhesive Flourishes (cut apart)

Dimension:  Glossy Accents

Adhesive:  Scotch Glue Stick

Card Three:

Paper:  Cardstock by The Paper Company,  DP by MME Penny Lane  Chic Stripes and Sweet Blossoms

Punch:  Fiskars Corner Punch

Die Cut:  Creative Memories Oval Cutter

Ink:  Vivid Lavender

Ribbon:  My Stash

Bling:  Rhinestones by K & Company

Adhesive:  Scotch Glue Stick

Challenges:

Card Two:

Stampin' Royalty - Bring on the Bling - 29

Tuesday Throwdown - Dimension and Texture - 29

Other Cards:

Bearly Mine Challenges - Bring on the Bling - 29

Digital Tuesday - Cute and Girly - 2

The Stamping Boutique - Stripes and Dots - 28

Another Rubber Stamp Company is Closing

I just read an update on the Softpencil Studio facebook page that The Angel Company is closed.  I went to their website to check it out, and this is their statement:

"It is with great sadness that I must announce we are hanging up our wings.  These past several years our industry has faced enormous challenges and as a result, we have seen many companies close their doors.  We continued to hope we could see The Angel Company through this recession and back into prosperous days and we held onto this hope as long as we could.

One of the largest challenges affecting each of us is our industry not being able to support all of the direct sales companies in our field.  Even in a healthy economy, we are a niche market trying to compete for a very limited number of distributors.  As a small company, this has been a grueling challenge for us.  Times are tough for everyone ~ in direct sales and retail environments.

I would like to thank each of you for being an customer and Angel these past 14 years.  Indeed, it has been a pleasure to serve you.

The Angel Company"

We have lost so many fabulous rubber stamp companies, and many of them have been in the last year or so.  The bigger ones have had as many problems in this economy as the smaller ones.  I couldn't always budget to buy stamps from companies like Cornish Heritage Farms or The Angel Company, but I really loved so many of them and figured I could buy some of their items...later.  Well, later came, and they closed, so now people like me have to take a chance to get their favorites from Ebay, Etsy or other sites or stores.  I guess the lesson here is get them while you still can to help make sure that the company will be there tomorrow.    

~~~ Lee~~~

Elaine Cox's Katie Card

I thought it was about time I posted something before all you bloggers think I bit the dust!  Now that school is about to start, I'm going to have much more free time available without the grandkids. :o(

I've actually been making cards when I can, but I haven't posted them for awhile.  This card uses one of the Sweet Pea Stamps called Katie by the artist Elaine Cox.  I received this one from Jennifer Willis in a bloghop.  I love Elaine's images as well as sooooo many other ones offered by Sweet Pea Stamps.  I could easily spend every dollar I have buying all of these gorgeous stamps!

This image was stamped with Memento Tuxedo Black ink and colored with Prismas blended with OMS.  Who couldn't resist added a little sparkle to the leaves with a bit of Stickles.  You probably can't see it from the pics, but I used Glossy Accents on her eyes to give them a bit more depth.  The border was cut out with a Fiskars leaf border punch with some Stickles on it to tie it into the leaves on the image.  The mulberry paper matting was added to add more of an organic feel to the card.  To fray the mulberry paper, all you need to do is run a wet paintbrush around the edges, and then you pull the paper away around the wet sections.

I've been hoarding this gorgeous design paper from the DCWV Once Upon a Time paper stack, but I had to use it with this gorgeous image.  The leaves are embossed paper charms called Artsy Additions from HOTP.  All of the edges of the papers were inked with Tea Dye Distress Ink.  What's an earthy image like this without a bunch of fibers and ribbons from my stash?  It was also time to break out my stash of beads and start using them.

~~~Lee~~~

Supplies:
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Tea Dye Distress Ink
Color:  Prismacolor Colored Pencils
Dimension:  Glossy Accents
Papers: DCWV Once Upon a Time, The Paper Studio, Mulberry by unknown
Glitter:  Stickles

Embellishments:  HOTP Artsy Additions, Fibers, Ribbons & Beads from my stash

Challenges:
Clear It Out Challenge - Glitter - 29
Craft Us Crazy - Anything Goes -1
The Corrosive Challenge Blog - Girlie - 27
Happileigh Scrappin' Challenge - Girly Girl - 28
Karen's Doodles - Use your punches and diecuts - 28
Paper Crafting Journey - Anything Goes - 1
Paper Playtime - Anything Goes - 26
Pollycraft Monday Challenges - Autumn Colors - 28
Shelley's Images - Show Us What You Got! - 24
Stamp Insanity - Anything Goes - 25
Stamps R Us Challenge Blog - Anything Goes - 4

1000 Sheets of Paper MEGA Blog Candy!

WOW!  Amy over at 1000 Sheets of Paper is at it again.  Not only is she offering 1000 sheets of paper this year again as blog candy, she is also offering some really awesome stamps from her favorite companies as an added prize!  She decided to break the 1000 sheets of paper into groups of 200 sheets each and I can see why when you see what 1000 sheets looks like: 

The mega prize she is offering is jam-packed with blogger lusciousness.  Take a peek here:

In case you can't see it all, here's what' included:

• Tickled Pink Lil Steampunk Lilith and others
• Kraftin Kimmie Clarabelle, sentiments and others
• The Emerald Fairies Larakins
• Some Odd Girl Balloon Kaylee and Mooey
• My Favorite Things Pure Innocence Book in Hand
• The Craft's Meow Frieda stamps
• Stamping Bella Arthur and Annie
• Unity/Bella Blvd house
• The Greeting Farm Wild Sprouts that I designed (Stella, Ruby, Chelsea and Gigi)
• CC Designs Birthday Gretel
• and a Sweet November stamp from each release of this past year (Raspberry Flitter Friend, Briar and Sonata, Princess Isadora, Splash and Wave, Penelope and Juniper, Gemini, Darby and Dazzle, Milk and Cookies Christmas boy, Neva snowflake fairy, Fairwee Josie, jar and sentiments)

Random commenters also have a chance to win some more prizes like the one pictured below.

Since I can't possibly win all of these goodies myself, you will want to hop on over to 1000 Sheets of Paper by September 23rd if you want to have a chance to win any of these goodies!

~~~Lee~~~