LIL PATCH OF CRAFTY FRIENDS #184 SPONSORED BY FRED SHE SAID -- JUNE 19, 2022

Hello, and welcome back friends!  I hope you're all having a wonderful early summer (up here in the Northern hemisphere anyway). Today is the start of another ANYTHING GOES challenge at Lil Patch of Crafty Friends, where our sponsor is:

**Exclusive Sponsor**

Fred, She Said

Prize ~ $10 Gift Certificate

You can find Fred, She Said on all of these social media platforms:

SHOP

FACEBOOK

INSTAGRAM

PINTEREST 

And here is my card project:

For my card, I chose to use the lovely Paper Pricking Pattern - Frame & Flourish (Labels 8/Top Note Die).  This pattern is designed to fit the second largest die in the Spellbinders Labels 8 set.  As soon as I saw this in the FSS store, I knew this is what I wanted to use.  At first, I thought that I would do a backstitch around the outer pricking pattern, but when I was finished with the chain stitching along the swirl pattern, I had had enough of stitching for this piece!  I did get the look that I wanted though, so that's all that matters, I guess!  The GORGEOUS butterfly comes from the Spellbinders Stitched Glimmer Butterflies Glimmer of the Month club from May 2022.  I don't have a glimmer system, but when I saw these, I had to get this club!  I love, love, LOVE the look of these stitched butterflies!  To fit the design of my card, I couldn't use the actual side butterfly because it was too large, so I cut the front facing one in half and used that as a side view instead.  I also cut the antennae apart to change the direction of the left one.  I colored the antennae and body with a black alcohol marker and used Wilted Violet oxide ink on the wings.  For the accent pieces, I stitched them with a gold metallic thread that was just a TAD BIT fiddly to work with on such a small area, but I got it to work for me in the end! 😳 The little yellow flowers come from the infamous Spellbinders Be Bold Blooms die set and were colored with whatever leftover yellow was left on my blending brush, most likely Squeezed Lemonade oxide.  The purple centers were colored with an alcohol marker.  I mounted this panel onto the kraft card base with foam tape.  The sentiment comes from the Sending Sunshine and Smiles set from MFT.

--CHALLENGES--

Thanks so much for stopping by today.  I apologize for having my post up late, as life got in the way, and I forgot!  Don't you forget to head on over to the Little Patch of Crafty Friends challenge blog and share your creations with us, as we love to see what you create!  Until next time,

💗 Stay Healthy, Take Care, and God Bless! 💗

~ Marie

DIGI DOODLE STUDIOS DT SHARE -- BOYS AND TOYS/SHAPED CARD --JUNE 17, 2022

Hello and welcome back to my blog!  Today I am sharing my card for Digi Doodle Studios challenge this month of BOYS AND TOYS.  The DT twist was to make a shaped card.

I chose the adorable Little PJ as my image, and boy is he a cutie!  The image is colored with Copics, with some white gel pen was used on the bear's nose and eyes.  I am also using a paper from the digi paper set called Storytime.  I have been wanting to do a star-shaped card for the longest time, and just never got around to it until now.  I used the Silhouette Design program to size my image and the star shapes, and also colored my dark blue paper using the eye-dropper feature to pull a color from the paper.  The card base is cut from Accent Opaque 100lb white cardstock.  I cut 2 pieces, scored one across, counting 4 scallops down the side to ensure a nice solid fold.  I die cut the small blue stars from leftover scraps of the printed paper using the Spellbinders Five star set.  These were all offset onto white stars cut with the same die.  Little PJ and the small stars are all popped up on foam tape.

--CHALLENGES--

Crafting Happiness:  ATG

Creative Moments #235:  ATG (1/3)

Crafty Calendar:  ATG (3/3)

613 Avenue Create #6:  ATG (3/8)

Crafty Gals Corner #232:  ATG (3/3)

Classic Design #6:  ATG

The Paper Funday #42:  ATG (4/6)

A Place to Start #6:  ATG (2/8)

A Perfect Time to Craft #6:  ATG 

The Creative Crafters #53:  ATG (1/3)

Let's Craft and Create #184:  ATG (3/3)

The Corrosive Challenge #6:  ATG (3/4)

Crafty Friends #156:  Men and/or Boys (2/5)

Pearly Sparkles #74:  One for the Boys

Stamping Sensations:  Make it Masculine (1/3)

Happy Little Stampers:  ATG w/Dies

LeAnn's World 101 #51:  ATG

We Love Stamping:  ATG (3/3)

Word Art Wednesday #547 - #548:  ATG (3/5) 

Double Trouble #113:  Let's Be Masculine

Through the Craft Room Door:  ATG (3/4)

Inkspirational #267:  Use a Digital Element

Addicted to Stamps and More:  Make Your Mark

CD Sunday Plus #87:  ATG (2/3)

Penny's Paper Crafty #523:  ATG (3/3)

Little Red Wagon #658:  Digi Do (digital element)

Colour Crazy #24:  ATG w/coloring (1/2)

Crafty Catz #600:  ATG

Well, that is all from me today!  I appreciate that you stopped by today, and don't forget to hop on over to the Digi Doodle Studios challenge blog to join in with your BOYS AND TOYS projects!  Until next time,

💗 Stay Healthy, Take Care, and God Bless! 💗

~ Marie

FLOWER FAIRY BY POLKADOODLES --JUNE 14, 2022

Hello friends!  I have some awesome news that I have been itching to share with you...I am now a member of the Polkadoodles Design Team, working on the Digi Choosday team!  I am SUPER STOKED to be working on such an illustrious team alongside some of the most talented card designers!  I will apologize right now, it may take me a bit to properly get on with their schedule with them being 5 hours ahead of me, but I am ready to give it a shot!

Anyway, for my inaugural card project, I chose this sweet Flower Fairy Sitting image, which is part of the Winnie Daisy Fairy collection.  

Isn't she just a pretty little thing?  I colored her using alcohol markers to match these Pretty Spring Papers which are part of the Springtime Smiles collection.  I added white gel pen and clear sparkle gel pen accents to the image and clear Wink of Stella to her wings.  The Simon Says Stamp sentiment was cut from white glitter paper, and although it doesn't show well in the photo, it does IRL.

--CHALLENGES--

Crafting Happiness:  ATG

Crafty Calendar:  ATG (2/3)

Besties International:  ATG (3/3)

Craft Rocket #93:  Girls

613 Avenue Create #6:  ATG (2/8)

Crafts Galore Encore #100:  ATG (3/3)

Crafty Gals Corner #232:  ATG (2/3)

Daisy Chain #64:  Flowers

Classic Design #6:  ATG

The Paper Funday #42:  ATG (3/6)

A Place to Start #6:  ATG (1/8)

A Perfect Time to Craft #6:  ATG

Let's Craft and Create #184:  ATG w/optional Penny for your thoughts theme (add a sentiment) (2/3)

The Corrosive Challenge #6:  ATG (2/4)

Happy Little Stampers:  ATG w/Dies

LeAnn's World 101 #51:  ATG

We Love Stamping:  ATG (2/3)

Morgan's ArtWorld #6:  ATG (3/3)

Cute as a Button #81:  ATG (3/3)

Word Art Wednesday #547 - #548:  ATG (2/5)

Through the Craft Room Door:  ATG (2/4)

Inkspirational #267:  Use a Digital Element

Addicted to Stamps and More #431:  Make Your Mark

CD Sunday Plus #87:  ATG using a digital element (1/3)

Penny's Paper Crafty #523:  ATG (2/3)

Thanks a bunch for stopping by today to share in my news!  Hopefully in the next couple of weeks, I will be back to share the news of my granddaughter's birth!  I will have other card posts before that though, so until then,

💗 Stay Healthy, Take Care, and God Bless! 💗

~ Marie

ABC CHRISTMAS -- L FOR LITTLE, AND M FOR MUSIC -- JUNE 8, 2022

 Hello friends!  Welcome back to my blog.  Today's post is for the ABC Christmas challenge where we are using the letters L and M... L for Little, and M for Music.  I had the time to make a card for each letter, and here they are:

L for Little (the mice)

M for Music

I really wanted to use a Bugaboo image (miss them so much! 😢) for one of my cards, so I searched through my Christmas/Winter folder for something that would work for the "little."  I have plenty of images with these adorable mice, but I had never used this one with the sign, so this was an obvious choice.  I probably will never get to use all the Bugaboo images I have!  The patterned papers and the pink mats all come from the same 8.5x11 Christmas paper pack from Michael's that I purchased several years ago.  I colored the sweet image in alcohol markers to match.  The embossed layer was run through my Gemini Jr. with the Spellbinders May embossing folder of the month, Faux Stitch.  The sentiment and simple little snowflakes were stamped with VersaFine Clair Nocturne ink using the MISTI.  Merry Christmas is from the set Christmas Dreams, and the snowflake is from Oh What Fun.  That is my absolute FAVORITE Merry Christmas sentiment because I love that font!  I did perform stamp surgery on it some time ago, so that I could use it just like this.

The music card was actually the first card I had an idea for, and this sweet caroling snowmen image is from the now defunct Whimsie Doodles store.  I cut the image using the largest Spellbinders Labels One die, offsetting it to the right side so I could stamp the same Merry Christmas sentiment in the upper left corner.  The patterned paper not only has nice snowflakes on it; it also has pink polka dots.  Based on that color scheme, I colored the image with alcohol markers.  The metal parts of the light post were colored in using a black metallic Sakura Gelly Roll pen.  Both the patterned paper and the image panel were matted onto pink shimmer cardstock.  The mat for the image panel was cut using the accompanying scalloped Labels One die from Spellbinders.  I used a corner rounder to round the corners of the large pink shimmer mat and the patterned paper.  After I adhered the image panel to the patterned paper layer with foam squares, I added Glossy Accents to the globe of the light post.  When that had dried, I added white gel pen accents to the image.

--CHALLENGES--

Sparkles Christmas:  Cute Christmas Critters (the mice)

12 Months of Christmas Link Up #89:  ATG Christmas cards (1/10)

Merry Little Christmas #44:  ATG Christmas (4/8)

Crafting Happiness:  ATG

Crafty Calendar:  ATG (1/3)

Love to Craft #68:  ATG (8/8)

Mix it Up #59:  ATG (8/8)

Besties International:  ATG (2/3)

613 Avenue Create #6:  ATG (1/8)

Crafts Galore Encore #100:  ATG (2/3)

Crafty Gals Corner #232:  ATG (1/3)

Crafty Animals #62:  ATG w/an animal

Classic Design #6:  ATG

Critter Crazy #63:  ATG w/FEATURED critter

The Paper Funday #42:  ATG (2/6)

A Perfect Time to Craft #6:  ATG 

Let's Craft and Create #184:  ATG + optional Penny for Your Thoughts theme (use a sentiment)

The Corrosive Challenge #6:  ATG (1/4)

Dragonfly Dreams:  Outdoors (1/3)

Happy Little Stampers Christmas:  ATG

LeAnn's World 101 #51:  ATG

We Love Stamping:  ATG

Morgan's ArtWorld #6:  ATG (2/3)

Cute as a Button #81:  ATG (2/3)

Word Art Wednesday #547 - #548:  ATG (1/5)

Cardz 4 Galz #174:  2 or more Designer papers (1/3)

Through the Craft Room Door:  ATG (1/4)

Alphabet Challenge:  E is for Embossing (wet or dry)

Addicted to Stamps and More:  Make Your Mark

Peace on Earth #17:  ATG Christmas

Simon Says Wednesday:  Bright and Cheerful

Sweet Stampin':  3 of a Kind

Penny's Paper Crafty #523:  ATG (1/3)

The Outlawz Festive Fridays:  Christmas

Well, that's all for me today!  Don't forget to head on over to the ABC Christmas challenge to get a head start on your Christmas 2022 stash!  Until next time,

💗 Stay Healthy, Take Care, and God Bless! 💗

~ Marie

DIGI DOODLE STUDIOS NEW RELEASE -- BOYS AND TOYS -- JUNE 3, 2022

 Hello Hello, and happy Friday!  It's NEW RELEASE DAY at the Digi Doodle Studios shop, and this month it's all about those BOYS AND their TOYS!  Dina has drawn such cute images for this release, I don't know how you could only choose one!  Here is my card using Miles & Otis:

Isn't this image just adorable??  The original image faces to the right, but I flipped it in the Silhouette Studio software.  In doing so, I didn't realize that I would be making it look like he is driving somewhere "across the pond!"  Oh well, I'm still happy with how this card turned out! 😍

I knew I wanted them to be driving down a bit of a curvy road, but I didn't have a die or cut file for that, so I did a search in the Silhouette Store to find this one.  I cut it from white cardstock and inked it using Black Soot oxide ink.  The yellow lines down the middle were inked with Squeezed Lemonade.  While that dried, I colored the image with alcohol markers.  To make the windshield look like glass, I colored it with a light blue, and then added Glossy Accents.  This was also added to the headlights, the silver emblem on the hood, and the tire rims.  Oh yes, and I used a silver metallic marker to color those rims and the emblem.  I don't know about you, but I find it tricky to color with metallic markers, as they like to cover up the lines of the image!  I try to be careful, but I did have to come in with a 03 Micron pen and go over those lines to bring them back.

For my background, I used a set of nature stencils from Recollections that includes not only the clouds and grass, but also mountains, and an ocean wave.  I used Tumbled Glass oxide for the sky, and Mowed Lawn for the grass.  My sentiment was created using Henry's ABC's from Lawn Fawn.  These dies are my new obsession!  I cut them 4 times from black cardstock and once from black glitter cardstock and layered them up for dimension.  I didn't care for the white edge of the glitter paper, so I grabbed a black marker and went around the edges of all the letters.  Incidentally, the exclamation point comes from Henry's 123's.  I HAD to get both sets of dies! 😁

--CHALLENGES--

Crafting Happiness:  ATG

Creative Moments #234:  Summer's Here (1/3)

Love to Craft #68:  ATG (7/8)

Mix it Up #59:  ATG (7/8)

The Cutie Pie Challenge #171:  Digi's and Die Cuts

Besties International:  ATG (1/3)

Moving Along with the Times #143:  Masculine/Father's Day (1/5)

Crafts Galore Encore #100:  ATG (1/3)

Crafty Animals #62:  ATG including an animal

Classic Design #6:  ATG

The Paper Funday #42:  ATG w/optional twist of Masculine (1/6)

Die Cut Divas:  Summer (road trip anyone?) (1/4)

A Perfect Time to Craft #6:  ATG 

Crafty Friends #156:  Men and/or Boys (1/5)

Pearly Sparkles #74:  One for the Boys

LeAnn's World 101 #51:  ATG

Morgan's ArtWorld #6:  ATG (1/3)

Cute as a Button #81:  ATG (1/3)

Fab 'n' Funky #552:  Anything but square

Word Art Wednesday #545 -#546:  ATG (1/5)

Use Your Stuff #449:  ATG

Addicted to Stamps and More #430:  Die Cuts and/or Stencils

CD Sunday Plus #86:  ATG (1/3)

Simon Says Wednesday:  Little Critters

Digi Choosday #22:  ATG

Colour Crazy #22:  ATG with coloring

Crafty Catz #598:  ATG

The Outlawz Festive Fridays:  ATG

Well, that's all for me today.  Head on over to the Digi Doodle Studios shop to check out the new release, and don't forget to enter the BOYS AND TOYS challenge at the challenge blog too!  There's still plenty of time to enter, and we love to see what you create! The DT have really made some AWESOME cards for this challenge!!  Until next time,

💗 Stay Healthy, Take Care, and God Bless! 💗

~ Marie

SQUIRRELZ STASH BASH -- MAY 20, 2022

Hello dear friends!  Welcome back to my blog.  It's been a while since I've been able to say "It's my favorite time of the month" where the Squirrel Squad gets together for our hop!  We skipped last month for personal reasons, but we are back and ready to raid our stashes again!  You should have arrived here from the beautiful Anna's blog.  For this month's hop, we decided to CASE each other, and our names were pulled randomly.  I was lucky enough to get the unique and talented V, and I chose this card of hers to CASE:

Isn't it great?  I love the rainbow striped paper and the eclipse technique she used for this bright and cheery birthday card.  Now here is my CASE of her creation:

Is anyone surprised that I went with a Christmas theme?  Anyone? 😆 OK, here is what happened in the creation of my card.  I couldn't think of ANY striped patterned paper that I might have in my hoard stash, but I did remember that I had these leftover strips from this card that I could use to create my own striped background.  I glued them onto a piece of 65 lb. cardstock that was laying around on my desk, and then trimmed off all the edges.  My original plan was to just cut this merry die from the Papertrey Ink Wonderful Words:  Holiday set one time from the middle of the background, but it morphed into this instead!  

What happened was, I cut a few merry's out of more scraps of 65 lb. white I had laying on my desk, because I was going to need them anyway to layer behind the one I eventually cut from my background.  As I got to playing around with them on the background, I realized I really liked this layout.  I proceeded to die cut the merry from my striped panel, endeavoring to space them evenly up and down and side to side, AND to keep them straight.  We all know that's not an easy task on a diagonal background, but I think I accomplished it.  I made sure to keep the inner pieces from all the "e's" so I could replace them into their proper positions later.  I did have a few colored pieces that fell off after die cutting, so I had to glue them back in place, which proved to be quite fiddly at times!  After that, I layered up all the merry's (a total of 5 white layers underneath the striped layer), and while those dried a bit, I also glued down the rest of the striped panel to the card base.  To get the inner "e" pieces in their proper spots, I placed the merry's where they belonged, glued the inner pieces in place, then glued down the merry's.  I stamped the Christmas sentiment from Lawn Fawn's Christmas Dreams set in Nocturne ink using my MISTI.  I dug some Christmas gems from my bling bin and placed them in a *hopefully* pleasing way onto the card.  And that's it!  Oh, here's a side pic to show the dimension:

--CHALLENGES--

Sparkles Christmas:  Christmas Sentiments

12 Months of Christmas Link Up #88:  ATG Christmas (3/10)

Merry Little Christmas #44:  ATG Christmas (3/8)

The Holly and Ivy Christmas Challenge #116:  ATG Christmas (1/3)

Peace on Earth#16:  ATG Christmas (1/3)

Crafting Happiness #123:  ATG 

Crafty Calendar:  ATG (3/3)

Love to Craft #168:  ATG (6/8)

Mix it Up #59:  ATG (6/8)

613 Avenue Create #5:  ATG (6/8)

Classic Design #5:  ATG 

A Place to Start #5:  ATG (6/8)

A Perfect Time to Craft #5:  ATG 

Mirtillamente #9:  ATG 

Word Art Wednesday #543 - #544:  ATG (4/5)

The Corrosive Challenge #5:  ATG (4/4)

Addicted to Stamps and More #429:  Any Occasion

Crafty Catz #596:  ATG (1/3)

The Outlawz Twisted Thursday:  ATG (1/3)

The Outlawz Festive Fridays:  Christmas

Papercraft Challenges #82:  Add Bling

Unicorn Challenge #76:  Add Pearls/Bling

Pearly Sparkles #73:  Layer it Up (layers under the merry's)

Winter Wonderland:  Use 3 colors

Cardz for Galz #173:  Sentiment as Focal Point

Alphabet Challenge:  D is for Die Cuts

C.R.A.F.T Challenge #638:  Christmas

Simon Says Monday:  Add Texture

Simon Says Wednesday:  Layer it Up (5 white layers under the merry's)

Your next stop on the hop is the afore mentioned fabulous V, at her blog Passions and Distractions.  Don't forget to leave us some of that comment love, and to continue hopping!  I promise it won't take long at all.  Until next time,

💗 Stay Healthy, Take Care, and God Bless! 💗

~ Marie

LIL PATCH OF CRAFTY FRIENDS #182 SPONSORED BY LEANN'S WORLD 101 -- MAY 15, 2022

 Hello friends!  Welcome back to my blog!  Today is the start of a new challenge at Lil Patch of Crafty Friends, where the sponsor is:

**Exclusive Sponsor**

LeAnn's World 101

Prize:  2 Images

CHALLENGE BLOG

FACEBOOK

I have used the lovely Taking Flight image for my DT card:

I had it in mind to make a pretty simple card with this image, and I thought that the Spellbinders small die of the month for February 2022 would make a nice frame around it.  I used the Silhouette design software to size the image to fit inside the oval shape of the dies, and then printed and die cut it out.  I used mostly Copic markers for my coloring:  G05, G14, and G28 for the stems and leaves, Y02 and Y08 for the flower centers, and BG13, BG15, and BG18 for the butterfly.  To add some shading to the flower petals, I used Prismacolor markers in Cool Gray 10% and 20%.  I have a lot of left-over DMC thread from my cross-stitching days, so I did a search and came up with a pretty blue green to match the butterfly. I used 2 strands for the stitching.  I also searched through my cardstock for this pretty blue green color that comes from the Cool Water 8.5x11 paper pack by Recollections.  It reads bluer in the pics than it is in real life, but I had a heck of a time getting decent pics of this card! 😒 The hello sentiment was also cut from this cardstock 6 times to really give it presence on the card.  It comes from the Hello Hobby die set I picked up at Walmart, and it really is a pretty font!

To assemble the card, I die cut the green panel with the largest die in the Spellbinders A2 card creator set A, and adhered it flat to the A2 sized card base made from Accent Opaque white 110 lb. cardstock.  I added foam adhesive squares to the back of the stitched panel and added liquid glue to each foam piece before placing it on the blue green panel.  I fiddled around a bit on where I should place the hello, and finally settled on it's current spot.  I angled it up to the right a bit so as not to cover up any of the stitched flowers.  I added clear Wink of Stella to the darkest areas of the butterfly, the flower centers, down the middle of the petals, and the hello word.  That wasn't enough sparkle for me, so I adhered a clear gem to the center of each of the stitched flowers as well.  And that's it!

--CHALLENGES--

Crafting Happiness:  ATG 

Crafty Calendar:  ATG (2/3)

Love to Craft #68:  ATG (5/8)

Mix it Up #59:  ATG (5/8)

613 Avenue Create #5:  ATG (5/8)

Classic Design:  ATG

A Place to Start #5:  ATG (5/8)

A Perfect Time to Craft #5:  ATG

Mirtillamente #9:  ATG 

Word Art Wednesday #543 - #544:  ATG (3/5)

We Love Stamping:  For a Lady/Girl (3/3)

Penny's Paper Crafty #521:  ATG (3/3)

SheepSki Designs #62:  For the Girlz (2/3)

CD Sunday Plus #85:  ATG (1/3)

The Corrosive Challenge #5:  ATG (3/4)

Stamping Sensations:  ATG W/option of Floral or Fauna (3/3)

Addicted to Stamps and More #429:  Any Occasion

Colour Crazy #19:  ATG w/coloring

Crafty Catz #595:  ATG (2/3)

The Outlawz Twisted Thursdays:  ATG 

Crafty Animals #61:  ATG w/animals

Critter Crazy #62:  ATG featuring a critter (3/5)

Unicorn Challenge #76:  Add Pearls/Bling

I thank you so much for stopping by today!  You have 2 weeks to join in on the new Lil Patch of Crafty Friends challenge , so get on over there and show us your stuff!  It's always so fun to see what everyone creates.  Until next time,

💗 Stay Healthy, Take Care, and God Bless! 💗

~ Marie