Wednesday, March 31, 2010

CDS Sneak Peek - Fabulously French

Have you enjoyed the last few days of April's Sneak Peeks for Clear Dollar Stamps? Now who doesn't love a sassy shoe? This image is from Shawne Arnold's new set, Fabulously French. I had so much fun with this set - brought out my girly side (and I love my shoes) so this was super easy. I was inspired by my DP (surprise surprise right?) and a recent sketch challenge on SCS. Hehehe... I wanted to really showcase the shoe and who doesn't love a pretty polka-dotted shoe right? I do!!!!!

Hope you enjoyed all the sneaks that will be available tomorrow.

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

SSD018 No one knows my truffles



If you are looking for my Clear Dollar Stamp Sneak Peeks for today, please scroll down to posts below.

Hey everyone... wow... I've been a blog posting machine the last few days with sneak peeks and now with my fave day of the week, Skipping Stones Sketch Tuesday. It's the end of the month so this is our last sketch by the amazing Jami Bova and the last week that we have the fantastic Jackie Pedro and Sankari Wegman. These ladies have been so much fun to work with this last month (come back soon k?) You are all full of so much inspiration!

I've used the set called Chocolate Vol. 2 which hasn't been released yet. Can I just say I love my chocolate??? I'm so glad that Skipping Stones has so many sets with chocolate (Heather knows what we girls love... chocolate!!!). I love how this card turned out - I'm a sucker for any card with pink!!! I love that the card turned out very girlie. Now... if you've checked out the sketch for this week- you know I changed the sketch up a little (I used circles rather than squares - the squares just weren't working for me so I had to do what I had to do). I colored the chocolates with my Tombow Markers and then used Glossy Accents on part of the chocolates to make it more realistic looking. Hope you like it!

EDITED TO ADD: I just realized that I haven't drawn for my blog candy yet. So..
WendyP - please email me your address and I'll get the set sent off to you.

See you next Tuesday for another sketch and we'll be introducing our new Sketch Artist as well as two Guest Designers. You'll want to check it out!


CDS Sneak Peek - Fun at the Farm


I had so much fun with Wendy Hall's new set "Fun at the Farm" for Clear Dollar Stamps available April 1st. There are so many great images so I found it hard to choose which stamp to use but I had an idea with the chicken/rooster... We all know how much noise that they make in the morning to wake everyone up right??? I had this vision in my head that I wanted my rooster to sit on the fence. I've been experimenting with creating backgrounds for more interest in my cards. Still trying to perfect it but I really like how this card turned out. The sentiment "I just want to" is separate from "chick in on you"which is great because there are some other cute images in the set that have sentiments that you can combine with the first sentiment - definitely making this a versatile set.

See you tomorrow for day 4 of sneak peeks!!

CDS Sneak Peek - Fabulous Fruitstand

Shawne Arnold has created this cute new set called Fabulous Fruitstand available April 1st at Clear Dollar Stamps. This set makes me think of summer when I was a child visiting my grandparents in the Interior in BC. There were so many markets on the side of the road on our long road trip to Beaverdell (pop'n next to nothing) and I have so many fond memories of all the fruit we'd buy - my favorites being cherries and apricots (we ate so many that as an adult I rarely touch those two particular fruits).

I've colored this image using my Distress Inks (I've been wanting to experiment watercoloring using different mediums just to vary things up. I'm really enjoying the inks but I think I'll be sticking to my Tombows.

Check out what the girls have for you today. Great eye candy I tell ya!!


Monday, March 29, 2010

CDS Sneak Peek - Bless my Bloomers

Kim Teasdale has done it again!!! She's created another fantastic set for Clear Dollar Stamps' April 1st release with "Bless My Bloomers". How cheeky is the name of the set? If it gives you any indication it's a cute gardening set with a side of sassy! Kim and I have been BFF's for years and my mom is an avid gardener (from now until October if you want to talk to my mom you'll find her outside in her garden (they have the nicest one on their street). I'm honored that my mom was part of the inspiration for this set. For my first card above, I was truly inspired by the My Mind's Eye DP. As soon as I saw the DP, I knew exactly what I'd be using for this card. I love how well the color combo came together and how cheery the card is. Truly makes it feels like Spring. The layout for this card was inspired by this Spring card by Donna Wardle (She has the most amazing layouts with her cards).
What mom doesn't like flowers??? Okay.... I know they love real flowers but when I showed this to my mom she loved it (I couldn't give it to her right away though because I hadn't taken a picture yet). I wanted to do something 3D and I love how this turned out. I've made these flowers on some cards in the past and I knew they'd be fun for this project. For the stems I've used some wooden skewers that I have wrapped in floral tape. The felt butterfly I found at a local dollar store if you can believe it.

Check out what the girls have done today (see sidebar).

CDS Sneak Peek - Butterfly Bunny


Butterfly Bunny is one of the first illustrations by one of our DT members Trudy for Clear Dollar Stamps April 1st release. Trudy's illustrations are so life like and provide so much detail. I have to say I really enjoyed coloring this bunny and rather than using my Tombow Markers I ventured into using Distress Inks to watercolor. I'll definitely be using the Distress Inks much more after this. I wanted to keep this card soft and subtle looking and hope I pulled it off.

Check out the samples that the Girls have come up with today (see my sidebar). There are a few sets being shown and they are so much fun.

Sunday, March 28, 2010

CDS Sneak Peek - Blooming with Blessings


Blooming with Blessings is sure to be a favorite set for some Spring time inspiration. It has been illustrated by none other than Lori McCroskey for Clear Dollar Stamps April Release. I know I've said this before but I fell in love with this set as soon as I saw it. I've had a rough year so far so I've become more mindful of so many things in my life and it portrays accurately what my thoughts have been. Can I just say I LOVE this DP??? It's one of the new lines from My Mind's Eye called Quite Contrary. Kim Teasdale and I took a quick trip out of town to buy some of the new fantastic papers that are out there. I'm surprised we didn't use any of the same DP's for this release! Can you believe that in a city of 80,000 people that we don't have a full on scrapbooking store? We have to drive 20 minutes to a town of about 10,000 to buy some goodies? Crazy isn't it?

Check back tomorrow for some more amazing sneak peeks.

CDS Sneak Peek - Heartfelt Sentiments

This is my second of three posts today so make sure you check back later for another great stamp set. This card uses a new set called Heartfelt Sentiments available April 1st from Clear Dollar Stamps. I wanted to keep it clean and simple to allow the sentiment to really stand out. This set really is a must have as it contains so many sentiments and images- perfect for so many different occasions. I know I'll be grabbing this one out quite often to use. I love how this card turned out with the paper being my inspiration - cute eh?

Check out my sidebar to see what the CDS girls are showing today - it's all wonderful.


CDS Sneak Peek - Doodlebug

WOW!!! This month has just flown by! We're nearing the end of the month so you know what that means.... It's Clear Dollar Stamps Sneak Peek time. All the sets I show you over the next few days will be available on April 1st. This cute bug is part of Kim Teasdale's Bug Line and we've got our Doodlebug... A french artist as you can see. He's too cute! I've colored my bug with my Tombow Markers as I normally do. I've used a few Cuttlebug Folders on two of the DP's to add a bit more texture to the card. I don't often do this but I do love the look of it!

Make sure you check out what the girls have in store for you today. (Check out my sidebar- unfortunately with my computer issues I still can't add some things without it totally messing up posts).

Lori McCroskey has some exciting news too by the way!!!! Clear Dollar Stamps is creating it's own paper and ribbon line in some fantastic colors - you'll see us using it in the next while.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

MTSC66 So many seeds


My computer problems (it has something to do with the internet) are still persisting... darn technology. But I've figured out a less time consuming way to work with my pics. If I download the pics off my digital card onto my computer and then save to a flash drive, I can then use my brother's computer to edit the photos and get them uploaded... Easy peasy???? Hahaha...

Because of my computer issues I found that this past month I haven't made any cards just for fun. Everything I've been doing has been for my DT's lately. So yesterday afternoon I got to playing and decided to make a card using Mercy's latest sketch. Boy have I ever missed doing them!!! I'm going to try to do them every week again as I find that Mercy's sketches are always so wonderful. Thanks for the inspiration Mercy!!!

I bought the new Basic Grey line, Green at Heart over the weekend so I knew I had to play with uninked Stella from Stamping Bella. Can you believe I bought a whole bunch of goodies from Stamping Bella before Christmas and most of them have remain uninked. Horrible I Know!!! IT's a travesty. My mission is for all of them to see ink over the next little bit. My mom is an amazing gardener so I made this card for her. She's always saying she doesn't have enough time to spend in my parent's garden so maybe this will be a little inspiration. Love ya mom!!!

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

SSD017 Bunny Humour


Hehehe... I LOVE this set!!! With Easter coming up and knowing we'll all be eating Chocolate, I couldn't resist using the bunny stamps from the set Chocolate Vol. 1 from Skipping Stones Design. Guess what day it is.... Skipping Stones Sketch Tuesday! Yeah!!! I've been so busy lately getting Sneak Peeks finished and with life in general that I haven't had much time to stamp lately. But I love my Tuesdays!!! And right now, it's a day that will have a guaranteed post from me. Until my computer issues are totally resolved, I will be on my blog sporadically (although later this week you'll see me again).

Jami Bova is a master at sketches and this week is no exception. I've altered her sketch only slightly (I didn't have an oval that would fit both bunnies) so I've changed the image shape. I'll be definitely giving this card to someone over Easter (I'm not the only sweet tooth in town).


Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Hanging with my Peeps - SSD016 Blog Hop


Welcome to Skipping Stones Design’s Blog first DT only Blog Hop to celebrate the release of two new Spring/Easter Inspired sets - Gray Hares (I used this set last week) and Chick Chat (the one I'm using today). Heather has done a great job creating these cute sets - I saw them a couple of months ago and have been looking so forward to being able to use them. Of course they have the sassiness that Skipping Stones stamps always has.

If you just happened upon my blog today, you’ll want to go back to the beginning at Skipping Stones Design. You should have arrived from Michelle's blog.

Combined with the blog hop today, it's also Skipping Stones Sketch Tuesday which means the Design Team is showcasing another great creation from Jami Bova aka sgtstamper. We'd love for you to play along with the sketch. Just remember to use the keywords SSD016 if you are uploading to any online galleries or link your card at the Skipping Stones Blog. We'll be looking soon for Guest Designers so you never know....

For my card, I've used the new set called Chick Chat (I'll upload a link as soon as it's in the store which should be any time now) and colored the chicks with my Tombow Markers. I've been experimenting with backgrounds lately so I've sponged in some clouds and grass (forgive me... I'm still learning.... I've discovered I love the look of backgrounds but I definitely need more practice). The DP I've used is from the Origins Line from Basic Grey.

How about a prize? In addition to the fabulous eye candy, our DT has blog candy up for grabs. So as you hop, make sure you leave comments on every post so you have a chance to win!! (I'm still having problems with my computer so I don't have a post of it on my blog but you can check out a pic of the blog candy at the Skipping Stones Website).

I'm the last stop on the hop.... Have a wonderful day!!!!!!



Tuesday, March 9, 2010

SSD015 Gray Hares are Cute



It's that time again....It's Skipping Stones Sketch Tuesday!!!! Sorry I haven't been posting lately but with my computer issues getting things uploaded is a bit of a hassle. Sometimes my computer works (albeit for just a few minutes) and other times it doesn't work at all. Argh...

Jami Bova aka sgtstamper is our wonderful guest sketch artist this month and her sketches are fabulous!!! Please click on the SSD link above for a pic of the sketch (sorry ladies - my blog isn't co-operating). I totally forgot to mention our guest designers for this month - Sankari Wegman and Jackie Pedro!!! I'm so excited that you are all joining us this month - you are all ROCKSTARS!!!!!

I used the new set called Gray Hares that is being released as part of our Spring Release!!!! I had so much fun playing with it! I know that I'll definitely be pulling it out often! (especially with so many people I know hitting that age where they no longer want to talk about the number.

PS Make sure you check back next Tuesday... The Stamp Tramps (what we call the Skipping Stones Design Team) we're having a DT blog hop to celebrate some new releases!!! Blog Candy.... Gotta love it right???

Sparkle and Bling List:
Stamps: Gray Hares by Skipping Stones Design
Paper: Gina K White, Basic Gray, Cosmo Cricket DP, Bo Bunny DP, Watercolor paper
Ink: Versafine Onyx Black, Basic Gray
Accessories: Nestabilities, Tombow Markers, Aquabrush, sponges, Glitter Flourish, Clear Embossing Powder, Cloud Template

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

SSD014 Friends add color


Wow!!! I can't believe that it is March already - this year seems to be just flying by! I feel like I've been a bit out of touch with my blog the last week or so. I've been having major computer problems lately and believe it or not I had to borrow a friend's computer today just to get my picture done for this card!!! Crazy isn't it???

So if it's the First Tuesday of the Month... do you know what that means??? It means we have a fantastic new Sketch Artist at Skipping Stones Design this month. And guess who it is??? She's a sargeant!!! Hehehe..... Our new sketch artist is none other than Jami Bova aka sgtstamper!!! Yeah!!! I'm so excited! Jami joined us on our blog hop last month and we are so happy that she is on board with us this month!!! Please click on the link above for Skipping Stones Design to see the sketch (sorry everyone... explanation is below).

With my computer issues unresolved... I haven't figured out how to move around parts of my post today so that I can add what the sketch really looks like... I hear Macs are the greatest thing on earth but when you don't know much about them... it gets kinda frustrating.

For my card, I wanted to keep it simple and use some of my goodies that I haven't used at all. Because the sketch has a circle for the main image I've decided to use a felt flower from Basic Grey and the leaves in behind were made using a MS punch of mine. The sentiment is from the set called Healing Wings (one of my fave sets from Skipping Stones). The DP used is also from Basic Grey - it's the Sugar Rush Line (loving it).