Hold On To Your Hats - It's a Sketch Challenge

I know, I know, you're all sitting there with mouths agape wondering what has happened to me. It's Tuesday, the Sassy Cheryls Challenge Blog challenge only started today, and I already have my challenge card made. Don't worry, I promise not to make a habit of it. It was just that I really love a sketch challenge, and this one is easy and fun. We have the sassy and talented Miss Judy to thank, and I do thank her very much.

I post on the Sassy Cheryl's PCP group every day, and a little over a year ago, I started posting a SMILE or some quote of encouragement on the morning post. Last week one of the SMILEs was a quote from Eleanor Roosevelt - "A woman is like a tea bag. You never know how strong she is until she gets into hot water." That quote resonates with me, and when I was looking through my SC images, and came across this one called Polly's Tea Cup, I knew I had to use it with the quote for my card.  I've colored my image with PrismaColor and Faber-Castell Pencils.

I quickly whipped up the card parts using my Silhouette Studio Designer software, creating my tea bags. I filled my parts with digital papers from a kit from Just So Scrappy 2 called  Have Tea With Me. I created the tea bags myself. The teabags are about 1" tall by .8" wide and the Earl Grey label is less than 1/2" in diameter. Print and Cut is a wonderful thing.

Now remember, don't think this is early a posting is going to happen again any time soon. Thanks for stopping by.

Favorite Colors

The theme this week on the Sassy Cheryls Challenge Blog is Favorite Color Combo set by the one and only Sassy Miss Cathy.  As usual, I'm to the last minute getting my card made, but it wasn't due to the fact that I couldn't come up with a favorite color combo. I knew when I read the challenge last week, what colors I was using - purple and lime green, as that seems to be my bent in colors of late. I just bought a new rolling travel bag that is grey, purple, black and white striped and a new purple computer bag, both of which I had monogrammed in lime green. They'll be easily identifiable for sure.

For my image I chose this adorable image called Pondering Thoughts. She reminds me of me as a kid, waiting for May 1st, when my Mom deemed it okay to go barefoot. Her feet look like mine did after a winter  in shoes - a long way from being sticker tough. She's 100% colored with pencils, both PrismaColor and Faber-Castell.

I, of course, used my Silhouette Cameo, and pattern filling (I've added a new tutorial in my sidebar on a quick and easy way to Pattern Fill) to create my card. One of the neat things I did was using a decorative knife(Silhouette Studio Designer Edition only)

to divide the top layer into two pieces. I filled each with the pattern of choice, and then grouped the two pieces, so that it printed and cut as one rectangle(saving both on ink and assembly time). I thought the Serrated Blade 2 went along with the Wiggle Wiggle Wiggle theme. I also used my tutorial on combining a shape with a fussy cut image for my image cut-out.

The papers are from Shery K Designs Lime and Purple kit.

I guess you've all figured out by now, that I absolutely love my Silhouette Cameo, and even enjoy making the tutorials. If you have any questions or requests for tutorials on the Silhouette Cameo, please feel free to either ask in a comment or e-mail me. Also if you've gotten a little useful info from any of the tutorials, I'd love to know that too.

Fancy Edges At Sassy Cheryl's

This week's challenge over at the Sassy Cheryls Challenge Blog is Fancy Edges. The challenge was set by Sassy Judy, the new and very proud owner of a Silhouette Cameo. She's gone Cameo mad and becoming quite the expert with the tool, for which I'm truly grateful(since I was her enabler and she might have hurt me otherwise).

For my challenge card, I'm using the Sketch Challenge from last week's Mojo Monday challenge. I'm with Judy on my love of my Cameo. I quickly created the pieces for the card and then filled with patterned papers.  All of the fancy edges are from the Silhouette Online Store. My image is The Ladybug Bunny. Decided I'd make an Easter Card to send to my grandson. I hope he doesn't think he looks too girly.

I used the combining a fussy cut image with a shape to create the cut out of the bunny. There's a tutorial for the Silhouette over on the right at the top of my blog.

The papers are from Scrappy Cocoa from a kit called Something Spring purchased from Digital Scrapbooking Studio.

As usual, I've waited to the last minute to get my card entered in the challenge. I did however get it made, so that's a plus for me.

A Wedding We Will Go

This weekend, my husband, his sister, her husband and myself are going to the Mississippi Delta to the wedding of the child of one of my husband's cousin. We don't really know the child, but my husband has the fondest memories of time spent with these cousins when he was a child, and you've never seen men that like to attend weddings like the Swoope men do.

I really like to give wedding gifts, that the couple(at least the bride) will remember who gave them the gift, not just the usual  china or crystal. Also not knowing the child, I know nothing of her tastes.This is a picture of a cross-stitch wedding piece that I did for my husband and myself many, many years ago.

 
I certainly do not have the time to cross-stitch the piece, so I decided to make a word art of it to frame. I started out in Photoshop, and quickly moved over to the Silhouette Studio Designer software, taking advantage of a lot of the Silhouette Online sentiments. I was also able to take advantage of the images, to fill in the holes. I stayed with a black and white motif, then added a double black line bounding the word art, and finally filling a layer underneath with a beautiful and subtle ornate paper that I found on line several years ago.  The artist went by the name Pewter 7, but I can't find a link to the web site now. Once I had it all laid out, I simply printed it. There's nothing that says that you just because you cut it in the Silhouette Software, that you have to cut it with the Cameo. It's an 11" x 14" piece, and I love the way it turned out.

I also decided to do a fun piece, so I created a personalized Magnet/White Board with their initial, name and wedding date. It's done in vinyl. This is the first project I've done in vinyl, and there's definitely a trick to it. For starters it helps to have a big piece of transfer paper, instead of 3" strips. Again, I'm really pleased with the way this one turned out too. I just hope the bride and groom like them.

SPRING

Just had to post these images to let you know that here in Mississippi, signs of spring really arriving are here. It's an absolutely gorgeous day here today with temps in the 70's, almost cloudless blue skies, and best of all SUNSHINE!!!! For once we're ahead on water for the year due to the very wet months of January and February.

So for this week's Show Me Thursday Blog post on Sassy Cheryl's Blog, I wanted to show you pictures of the oak trees behind my house from a distance getting closer. I hope that if you live in a part of the world that has been looking at winter for what seems like forever, you too, will be seeing signs of spring.

 

 

I have a MonkeyMoo story to share. As you know, he's 6 and this year, he's playing baseball at the park for the first time. My daughter called yesterday to share this story. She says that he can hit the ball(coach pitched  at this age) in practice all the time, but that he has yet to get a hit in a real game. Well Thursday night after the ball game(another no hitter for him), his Dad tells him they're going to practice hitting over the weekend with a real baseball(they've been practicing with a hard rubber one I'm thinking). MM wanted to know why, to which his dad responded, because that's the kind of ball you're hitting at the game. MM looked at his dad and says -----"Dad, are you watching the game? I haven't hit any balls." I think he's got some Amelia Bedelia in him. Thankfully my daughter says that he's not upset about not hitting the balls.

Well, I'm posting my SMT early enough this week, that you all have time to share what you have going on in your lives for a chance at a free SC image of your choice. Come on and join the fun.

I've also added a couple of more Silhouette Cameo tutorials in the sidebar on the right.

               Silhouette Cameo: Adding Faux Stitching to a Shape

               Silhouette Cameo: Merging a Shape with a Fussy Cut Image

Let's It Hear for the Irish

First of all, I hope you are all sitting down, when you realize I'm posting my Sassy Cheryl's Blog Challenge card on Thursday(only two days after the Challenge start)  instead of waiting until the last minute like I usually do.  Okay now that you've recovered from that surprise, let's get on to the Challenge business.

Sassy Cheryl's Irish colleen, Jackie is the hostess this week for the Sassy Cheryls Challenge Blog.  Her choice of themes is Green, White and Orange in honor of  St. Patrick's Day. Thank you Jackie, for the choice of challenges, since it forced(can you see me twisting my own arm?) to go shopping for some digital papers(I'm always looking for an excuse to go crafty shopping). I found this wonderful kit called Feelin Lucky designed by Crazy 4 Monograms at Just So Scrappy 2.

This delightful image is called Beauty in the Making, and she can be found HERE at the Sassy Cheryls Store. I hadn't planned to use this image for my card, but when I started coloring, all of a sudden she was colored in greens and orange(they actually look like a better match with the paper colors in person). She's colored with PrismaColor and Faber-Castell pencils.

The card is based on this week's Mojo Monday's Sketch. Everything on the card was print and cut (including the stitching on the card) with my Silhouette Cameo, using the   digital papers and and elements from the Feelin Lucky kit.

Silhouette Cameo Tutorials

Again, I've waited to the last minute to type up my blog post for Sassy Cheryl's Show Me Thursday Challenge post. I love participating in this, since I love checking out what other's have going on in their lives. I especially like the fact that it doesn't have to be about crafting at all, and because of that, I've gotten to know more about my fellow crafters.

Among some of my friends, I'm known as an enabler, a title to which I'm very proud of.LOL If I find something I love, I want to be sure that my fellow crafters and friends know about my find.  If you've been reading my blog, then I'm sure you know I have a Silhouette Cameo that I absolutely love and adore. As a result, several of my buddies have purchased one. Not wanting them to be disappointed, and not being close enough to actually sit down and walk them through these operations, I decided to create some tutorials that would hopefully make things a little easier and the learning curve a little smoother. 

My SMT is the tutorials I've done and posted on You Tube. I should tell you that even if you don't have a Silhouette, you can download the Silhouette Software for free HERE, and use it for printing, even if you have to cut by hand. It's great for creating your own Word Art.

All of my tutorials are posted at the top of the sidebar on the right.  If nothing else, you'll get to  hear my Southern drawl, and that alone is entertainment.

Happy cutting.