WORKING ON THOSE CHRISTMAS CARDS --- CHRISTMAS WITH THE CUTIES, APRIL 2020

Hey everybody, how ya doin'?  I hope that this post is finding you all well, and keeping busy!  Speaking of keeping busy, I also hope that we all have the time to get those much-needed Christmas cards done!  We're already through most of the first half of the year, so time is flying by!  

At Christmas with the Cuties this month, we are looking for you to use those lovely traditional colors of RED and GREEN, and our sponsor is My Besties:

Here is the card I created:

This is one of the images the team was provided with for this challenge, and it is called Gnome-ville IMG14.  He is so cute!  This is the first gnome I have ever had to play with.  Instead of my go-to alcohol markers, I decided to use my Prismacolor colored pencils again.  Even though I LOVE being able to blend with markers, I also love the texture that colored pencils give to an image.  I tried my best this time to keep a light hand while coloring...boy is that hard for me to do!  LOL!  Anyway, I wanted to add more texture to his beard than the lines already drawn in, so I used the 2 grey pencils in my set and started adding hair.  I *think* I may have gone a bit overboard, as now his beard is grey instead of the white I wanted it to be, but so be it!  To add even more texture to the image, I added Stickles to all the snow, and white puffy paint to his hat brim.  Oh, and also some white gel pen details on the pompoms.  The plaid paper comes from Lawn Fawn's Perfectly Plaid Christmas 6x6 pad, and the sentiment is from the Nutty or Nice collaboration stamp set from Lawn Fawn and Simon Says Stamp.  It was stamped using VersaFine Clair Nocturne ink.  

Full frontal view

--CHALLENGES--

12 Months of Christmas Link Up #64:  ATG

Merry Little Christmas #21:  ATG Christmas (1/5)

Christmas Craft Creations:  Use a Stamp (1/3)

CHN Patterned Paper:  ATG using patterned paper

Love to Craft #45:  ATG (5/5)

Mix it Up #36:  ATG (5/5)

Besties International Challenge:  ATG (1/3)

Creative Moments #189:  ATG (1/3)

The Paper Funday #16:  ATG (4/4)

Gem of a Craft Challenge #9:  ATG (1/2)

Lil Patch of Crafty Friends #130:  ATG (1/3)

Word Art Wednesday #436 - #437:  ATG (1/5)

Colour Crazy #16:  ATG with coloring (1/2)

Lemon Shortbread #118:  (2/3)

Polkadoodles #17:  ATG (2/2)

Digi Choosday #17:  ATG (1/2)

Crafting Happiness #46:  ATG 

CHNC #487:  ATG Christmas

C.R.A.F.T Challenge #553:  Christmas (1/2)

The Outlawz Festive Fridays:  Christmas

The Outlawz Monday Greetings:  Use Plaid (1/3)

I thank you all for stopping by today...don't forget to check out the Christmas With The Cuties blog to see what the other DT members have created, and to join in!  Until next time,

Take Care, and God Bless!

~Marie~

BUGABOO NEW RELEASE TUESDAY @CATCH THE BUG

Hello, my friends!  Welcome back to my blog...how are you doing?  I truly hope that you are all feeling and doing well.  I know this #stayhome thing can be hard for some people, especially those who live alone.  I'm sending positive thoughts and good vibes out there to all of you!  :)  So, let's keep the positivity going, shall we?

Today I want to share with you what I made for the new release at Bugaboo:

This image is called Flower Trio, and it should be in the store for you to grab.  Aren't these flowers unique-looking?  I love all the little details that make them special.  I was inspired by these yummy plaids in the Lawn Fawn 6x6 Perfectly Plaid Rainbow pad to color the image in purples and greens, with yellows for an accent color.  Since some parts of the images are kinda small, I chose to use my Prismacolor colored pencils as my coloring medium instead of alcohol markers.  I know, shocker!  I really like the end result, although I do have trouble not using a heavy hand while coloring.  I also have a lead foot while driving, if that's any indication!  LOL!  

I grabbed a matching purple card stock from my Recollections stash, and used that as a mat for the patterned papers, and a scalloped mat for the image panel, all made using Spellbinders dies.  The sentiment was stamped in Dusty Concord Distress Oxide ink, and it comes from a stamp set I have had for-EVER called Greetings, from The Paper Company.  I used to get this brand at JoAnn Fabrics all the time when I first started stamping, and this set in particular still comes in handy!  For the inside sentiment, I used a combination of words from the Happiness and Merry and Joy stamp sets from Honey Bee Stamps, also stamped in Dusty Concord Oxide ink.  Sorry, I didn't think to take a picture of the inside!

Here's a different angle.

--CHALLENGES--

CHN Patterned Paper:  ATG using patterned paper

Love to Craft #45:  ATG (4/5)

Mix It Up #36:  ATG (4/5)

Crafty Gals Corner #206:  Easter/Spring (2/3)

The Paper Funday #16:  ATG (3/4)

Crafty Friends #133:  ATG (2/3)

Scrapping4fun #164:  Easter/Spring (2/4)

Colour Crazy #15:  ATG with coloring (1/2)

The Crafter's Café #240:  Flowers (1/5)

Lemon Shortbread #118:  ATG (1/3)

Sweet Stampin':  Bloomin' Wonderful

Polkadoodles #17:  ATG (1/2)

Digi Choosday #16:  ATG (1/2)

Crafting Happiness #45:  ATG or optional PURPLE

The Outlawz Festive Fridays:  Spring

The Outlawz Crash Your Stash:  Ribbon

That's all I have for today!  I hope that you liked my card...oh and don't forget to pop over to the Catch the Bug blog to see what the other designers have come up with for the New Release image.  You won't be disappointed!

Until next time...

Take Care, and God Bless!

~Marie~

THE USE IT UP OR DIG IT OUT HOP #useitupordigitout

Hey everybody!  How ya doin?  Fine, I hope. Is the quarantine getting to you yet?  We are still working, so life is not much different, except for the constant hand washing and using disinfectant wipes and hand sanitizer!  Oh yes, and wearing gloves to open the mail...outside.  And then sanitizing the door knobs afterwards.  Sometimes, I get a bit exasperated with it all, but I guess it must be done in order to stay healthy.

Anyway, onto better things.  In today's post, I am participating in a blog/YouTube hop organized by my uber fabulous crafty friend, Renee @DelaneyJaneCards.  The challenge is to Use It Up, or Dig it Out!

#useitupordigitout  

  You should have arrived from the wonderful Terra O'Brien's video HERE.  

When I bought the stamp set I used here, I knew EXACTLY what I wanted to do with it...I just never got around to it.  It was always in the back of my mind though, and when this hop came about, I knew it was time to JUST DO IT!  So, here it is:

Whaddya think?  Honestly, I had my doubts throughout the process, but I do really like the end result!  The stamp set is from Inkadinkado, and is called Decorative Doilies.  Aren't those doilies just gorgeous with the ink blending?   These are the Oxide colors of Squeezed Lemonade, Lucky Clover, and Mermaid Lagoon.  And I have to say that Kristina Werner makes it look SO EASY in her videos!  I had one HECK of a time getting the Lucky Clover to blend well.  Maybe it was my choice of paper; next time I will just use the Bristol Smooth!    After the ink blending dried overnight, I stamped the doilies with Versamark, and embossed them with Recollections Snow detail embossing powder.  Now I really need to do this in a variety of colors, with different sentiments too!  The sentiment comes from a set from Love Nicole that has a good variety of different words/phrases in it.  It was suggested to me that I cut a white one also, to help the black stand out from the background more.  I think that was a great suggestion!  :)  The black is layered up 3 times, and the top has several coatings of clear Wink of Stella on it for some sparkle.  Wanna see?

I was debating whether or not to also add some Glossy Accents, but decided to just leave well enough alone!

OK, so the next stop on this fun hop is the fabulous Sharon Luska, and the link for her video is HERE.

Thanks so much for stopping by today.  I hope you enjoy the hop as much as we enjoyed digging things out and using them up...hopefully we inspired you to do the same!

Until next time; stay safe.

Take Care, and God Bless!

~Marie~

SPRING FLING SATURDAY CHALLENGE AT CATCH THE BUG BLOG -- APRIL 11, 2020

Hello all, and welcome!  I hope your Saturday is going well; here in PA today, it is nice and sunny, but chilly and a bit windy.  Tomorrow, we're supposed to get heavy rain, so I guess it's good that no one is coming over for Easter dinner.

Despite these uncertain times we are going through, Mother Nature is still moving right along, and Spring is here!  Over on the Catch the Bug blog, we're all about having a Spring Fling for this week's challenge.  Here is my card:

For my card, I chose the adorable Bugaboo Bee 02 image.  I just love these little characters!  The Bugaboo Bee and the ladybug seem to be getting along just fine.  :)  I wanted a more pastel look for my alcohol marker coloring, so I started things off by coloring the ladybug in pink and gray, instead of red and black.  I used the Doodlebug Hello Sunshine patterned paper as a reference for my color choices.  When it came to picking which papers to use, there is a nice yellow houndstooth that I used as my background, and then this cute floral piece that I cut into 3 equal pieces, and then a Sizzix edge die for some interest.  I popped the image up on dollar store foam tape.  The sentiment is from Recolletions, and was cut from a small polka dot patterned paper in the same paper pad, and twice from a scrap of the Recollections 110 lb. card stock I use for my card bases.  Oh yeah, and the clouds were created using my Lawn Fawn Puffy Clouds die stencil, Tumbled Glass Distress Oxide ink, and the light blue Taylored Expressions blending brush.

side view

--CHALLENGES--

CHN Patterned Paper:  ATG using patterned paper

Love to Craft #45:  ATG (3/5)

Mix it Up #36:  ATG (3/5)

Color it, Create it, Show it off:  ATG with coloring (3/3)

Creative Moments #188:  ATG (1/3)

613 Avenue Create #232:  ATG (2/5)

Crafts Galore Encore #74:  ATG (3/3) 

Crafty Gals Corner #206:  Easter/Spring (1/3)

Digi Doodles #26:  Easter/Spring (1/3)

Gem of a challenge #8:  ATG (1/2)

Crafty Creations #408:  ATG (3/3)

If You Give a Crafter a Cookie #139:  ATG (2/5)

Word Art Wednesday #434 - #435:  ATG (1/5)

The Sisterhood of Crafters:  Kids Cards

Crafty Friends #133:  ATG (1/3)

Scrapping4fun #164:  Easter/Spring (1/4)

Colour Crazy #14:  ATG with coloring (1/2)

The Crafter's Café #239:  ATG (3/5)

Lemon Shortbread #117:  ATG (1/3)

The Paper Shelter #422:  Digital Image (2/2)

Polkadoodles #15:  ATG (1/2)

Digi Choosday #14:  ATG (1/2)

Crafting Happiness:  ATG

Little Red Wagon #544:  Mix 'Em Up!  (use different companies products) I used a Bugaboo digi, Doodlebug papers, Lawn Fawn cloud dies, and a Recollections word die

The Outlawz Festive Fridays:  Easter/Spring

The Outlawz Twisted Thursday:  ATG


Thanks for stopping by today.  I hope you will also stop by the other Catch the Bug DT blogs and leave them some love too!  Have a Happy Easter, stay safe and healthy.  Until next time,

Take Care, and God Bless!

~Marie~

HAVING SOME FUN WITH THE WHIMSY DUDLEY TP IMAGE

Hey all!  Happy Monday!  I know that seems like an oxymoron, but we really do need to concentrate on what makes us happy these days, don't we?  Even though I still have to work, I'm going to try my best to be happy about it.  LOL

So, talking about being happy, I have a card to share with you that makes me SO HAPPY!  The image is a freebie available from Whimsy Stamps, and he is fantastic!  Without further ado, here is my card:

I'm sure by now, most of you have seen this guy floating around the internet.  He is Dudley TP, and I ADORE him!  Many, many thanks to Whimsy Stamps and Dustin Pike for this freebie!  I have been a long-time fan of Dustin Pike images, and have quite a few of them from before he joined up with Whimsy.  I'm pretty sure there are some cards on my blog here using Dustin's images!

Anyway, when I first saw him, I wanted to color him orange, which is an odd color for me to use.  I don't have a lot of papers that are orange, but I did find the striped one in my stash.  The green plaid comes from the Lawn Fawn Perfectly Plaid Rainbow 6x6 pad.  I also found some card stocks that coordinated well with those papers, so I used those to back the cardstock pieces.  I followed an old Papertake Weekly sketch for my card (I still love using those!), and it called for a band across the card.  I couldn't use ribbon, because I already had the heart embossed layer  (a Love Nicole folder) glued down.  The only thing that I figured would "go" was more of the same card stock, so I layered them up.  It seemed like it was missing something, so I conferred with my buddy Renee (Delaney Jane Cards), and she mentioned toilet paper.  Eh, why not?  The image involves toilet paper, so I grabbed a couple squares (I figured we could spare them, LOL!), folded them over several times, added a few dabs of glue, and placed that in the middle.  PERFECT!!  I popped Dudley and the included sentiment up on dollar store foam squares, and this card was done!

--CHALLENGES--

CHN Patterned Paper:  ATG using patterned paper

Love to Craft #45:  ATG (2/5)

Mix it Up #36:  ATG (2/5)

Color it, Create it, Show it off:  ATG with coloring (2/3)

613 Avenue Create #232:  ATG (1/5)

Crafts Galore #74:  ATG (2/3)

Classic Design #4:  ATG

The Paper Funday #16:  ATG (2/4)

Crafty Creations #408:  ATG (2/3)

If You Give a Crafter a Cookie #139:  ATG (1/5)

Double Trouble #54:  Hip to be Square (this makes me think of Huey Lewis!)

The Crafter's Café #239:  ATG (2/5)

Crafting Happiness #43:  ATG

Colour Crazy #13:  ATG with coloring (1/2)

Polkadoodles #14:  ATG (1/2)

The Paper Shelter #422:  Digi Image

This post is part of a fun little blog hop organized by my friend Jill, who is a member of The Collective Creators Facebook group.  There are a bunch of members hopping along, so if you haven't already, I encourage you to check out everybody else's posts:

Jill Kileen   Kileen House Studio

LeeAnn McKinney  LeeAnn Gets Crafty

Saundra Rega  Crafted Bliss Studio

Donna Idlet  Creative Lady

Renee Moran  Delaney Jane Cards

Jessica Shier Jessica May Day

Marie Bingaman Another Card Making Blog  <---that font="" me="" s="">

Thanks so much for stopping by today!  I hope you all are well, and continue to be well!  Until next time, stay safe, and take care of each other!

God Bless!

~Marie~

HUMOR ME WEDNESDAY AT CATCH THE BUG -- APRIL 1, 2020

Hello!  Happy Wednesday, and Happy April 1st!  I hope you aren't going to play too many tricks today...I'm not playing any tricks, even though it IS Humor Me Wednesday at the Catch the Bug blog.  Here is the card I've created:

I loosely followed the current Tuesday Morning Sketches, #548 for my card layout.

I made this card in celebration of Find a Rainbow day, which is the 3rd.  I didn't know that was a holiday, but I DO KNOW that we could sure use some rainbows right now!  I was going to actually use a rainbow, but then I found this cutie, Rainy Day Bears -Side Rain, in my Bugaboo folder, so I thought I would go the more indirect route instead.  The colorful papers from the Doodlebug Hello Sunshine paper pad kind of hint at a rainbow also, I think.  The image was colored with alcohol markers to match the papers, and I added Waterfall Stickles to the rain drops and puddle.  Some Wink of Stella was also added to the polka dots and heart on the umbrella, and to the fasteners of the raincoat, but my pictures didn't capture any of it.  

The Honey Bee sentiment comes from the Happiness set, and I finished it on the inside with "You Make Me Happy."  It's like the song, but backwards.  Those gorgeous sequins are also from Honey Bee and are from the Clear Iris Mix.  MAN, do I love those sequins!  They are so pretty, I hate to even use them!  You all know how that is, right??

**CHALLENGES**

CHN Patterned Paper:  ATG
Love to Craft #45:  ATG (1/5)
Mix it Up #36:  ATG (1/5)
Color it, Create it, Show it off:  ATG with coloring (1/3)
Creative Moments #187:  ATG (2/3)
613 Avenue Create #231:  ATG  or option to use colored pencils (2/5) 
Crafts Galore Encore #74:  ATG (1/3)
Crafty Animals #37:  ATG  
Classic Design #4:  ATG
Digi Doodle #26:  Easter/Spring (1/3)
2 Crafty Critter Crazies #37:  ATG using a critter (1/5)
The Paper Funday #16:  ATG (1/4)
Die Cut Divas:  Animals (1/4)
Gem of a Challenge:  ATG (2/2)
Crafty Creations #408:  ATG (1/3)
Creative Fingers #182:  ATG (1/3)
Lil Patch of Crafty Friends #128:  ATG (3/3)
Word Art Wednesday #432- #433:  ATG (2/5)
The Sisterhood of Crafters:  Spring (2/3)
Cardz 4 Gals #118:  Cute Animals (2/3)
Crafty Friends #132:  Spring (2/3)
Double Trouble #53:  SomeThing, AnyThing, EveryThing (2/4)
Colour Crazy #12:  ATG with coloring (2/2)
The Crafter's Café #239:  ATG (1/5)
Lemon Shortbread #116:  ATG (2/3)
Fab 'n' Funky #475:  April Showers (or whatever the weather) 
Polkadoodles Week #13:  ATG (2/2)
Digi Choosday Week #13:  ATG (2/2)
Crafting Happiness #42:  ATG (weather)
The Outlawz Festive Friday's:  Spring/Easter

Here's more of a side view of my card:

That's all I have for today.  Thanks for stopping by again...please be sure to pop over to the Catch the Bug blog to see what the other designers have made for some of the offbeat holidays!  Until next time, take care of yourselves, and each other.

GOD BLESS!

~Marie~