Gecko Galz

Gecko Galz sponsored one of our DYSU challenges last month. They provided me with the amazing Winter Wonderland Digi Stamp set to create with. I loved working with this unique and fun stamp set. The Gecko Galz blog is featuring a few of the DYSU Design Team members creations this month. Be sure to hop on over and check it out.

When I look at vintage or grunge style cards and LOs, I always admire them but just can't seem to manage the process of creating them. By working with the Winter Wonderland set, I realized that I can merge my style with images that are outside of my normal choices. I loved working with these images and am happy with how my cards turned out. Big thanks to Gecko Galz for the opportunity to play with their amazing images!

These were on my blog for the DYSU challenge last month but I wanted to show all the Gecko Galz creations in one post.

DYSU Challenge #52 - Rainbow Of Colors

Hello all! This week we have a huge celebration in store! Do You Stack Up?! has made it a whole year and we are ready to party! For this challenge, we want to see a Rainbow of Colors! On your project, use at least 3 colors from the Inspiration Photo below.

This week's Sponsors:

Do You Stack Up?! Surprise Package	Stitchy Bear Designs $10 Gift Voucher
Bugaboo Stamps Winner’s Choice of 7 Digis	Dearie Dolls Winner’s Choice of 4 Digis
The Paper Shelter $20 Gift Certificate	Pink Cat Studios Winner’s Choice of 5 Digis
Amber Ink $10 gift certificate	Little Claire Designs Two Clear Stamp Sets

Hope Jacare
Winner’s Choice of 3 Images


Wow! What a celebration we're having! Awesome sponsors, prizes and a fun loving challenge. I used this fabulous Mad Monster Springy digital image from Hope Jacare for my card this week. It was a blast to use so many bright, vivid rainbow colors with it. This monster is ready to party with us! Come on over to DYSU and join in the fun!

Two, Two, Two Times The Fun!

CAS-ual Fridays and Market Street Stamps have teamed up for a special 2 week challenge with 2 ways to play. Create a CAS card using twine and kraft over at CAS-ual Fridays and/or create a card using a Market Street Stamp image over at Market Street Stamps. They even provided a free digital image to use in case you want to play but don't have any of their images. Although I do have a couple of their background images, I did choose to use the free image because it is so cute! Hop on over and play along!

I needed to make a bunch of thank you notes for the kids to send out for all the goodies they received for Christmas. This is 4 x 4 note card. After the first 3, I simplified this design a bit for the sake of speeding things up. I had 18 cards to make and was running out of time. My kids appreciate the smaller sized cards when it comes to writing. lol

I used the A Bit Of Burlap background stamp and the free digital image, both from Market Street Stamps, for this card. I used brown Martha Stewart bakers twine to stitch parts of the image.

The inside-

Little Nut Tree

Oh how I fell for this Little Nut Tree image! I had to look up "Little Nut Tree". I found that it is an English rhyme, probably referencing Katherine of Aragon. I made 2 cards with this image, but can't seem to locate one of them. Hmmm, I guess I need to straighten up my scrap room a bit. lol I included a bit of the rhyme on this card, colored the leaves red and used Glossy Accents on the nut, pear and bow. Pretty simple but to me this image doesn't need much. I'm entering this in the One Stitch At a Time Christmas Challenge to use any Stitchy Bear image. Some of my fave digital images have come from there so this wasn't really much of a challenge. But it sure was fun!!

 

Found it!

DYSU Challenge #51 - Stripes

This week's Do You Stack Up challenge is "Stripes". Come on over, see what the design team has created, and link us up to your striped creation. I can't wait to see what you come up with!

Our wonderful sponsors this week are-

 The Prairie Fairy $15 Gift Certificate

 

The Craft’s Meow 

Winner’s Choice of 1 Stamp Set

I used this cute skating moose digital stamp from The Prairie Fairy for my card. Isn't she sweet? I think she makes such a cute Valentine's Day card.

Come on over to Do You Stack Up and play along with this fun challenge. Good luck!

Are You Diggin' On Me?

While the rush to Christmas intensifies, I've moved on to the next holiday for this card. My crafting time has shrunk considerably with all the holiday prep so I decided to once again combine a couple of challenges that I just can't bear to miss. 

The challenge at Less Is More this week is "Music". I chose Super Duper Love (Are You Diggin' On Me) by Joss Stone as the inspiration for my card. I love this song and it is the ringtone on my cell for all incoming calls from my husband. lol

Over at CAS-ual Fridays, the challenge is "Signed, Sealed & Delivered- Create a Clean And Simple card with a coordinating envelope". Love this idea. I am usually too lazy to mess with the envelope but it certainly adds that little something extra!

My husband is a no frills kind of guy. Hunter/gatherer, meat/potatoes...I'm sure you know what I mean. There are only so many fishing, hunting, outdoor scenery cards I can stand to make. lol So I went with this funny emu digi stamp from Stitchy Bear. Our anniversary is just a few days after Valentines Day, so it will work for one of them. Hope he likes goofy for a change. lol

DYSU Challenge #50 - Winter

Hi all! Welcome back for a new challenge at Do You Stack Up?! As the chilly weather moves in, we want you to show us your Winter projects!

This week's Sponsors:

Crafty Emma £10 Gift Voucher (exc p&p)

Digi Darla Digital Stamp Club One Month’s Membership

Inky Impressions
$10 Gift Certificate


Brrr....it's been unseasonably cold here in Colorado for the past few weeks. We're not used to such constant frigid temperatures before winter has officially started. Needless to say, there has been a lot of inspiration for wintery cards.

I chose to make one last Christmas card. I used the Village Chapel A Muse stamp, some flocked We R Memory Keepers paper from my stash, Stickles and Liquid Pearls.

Come on over to Do You Stack Up and link us up to your wintery creation for a chance to win a prize from one of our awesome sponsors!

The 409 Technique

What to do when a challenge is to use a misting technique and you have no misting products, no misting bottles, no straws and your kid's Blo-Pens have all run dry? You take an empty 409 bottle, rinse it out, add a bit of water and re-inker and give it a spray. I didn't give much thought to the difference between misting and spraying...until with one squeeze of the trigger my paper was saturated and there was no misting effect in sight. I had even held the bottle at least a foot and a half away from the paper. Sadly, I chose to by-pass a practice run and went for it with my stamped and fussy cut images. Sigh...

At first glance it would seem my entry doesn't  meet the criteria for this week's CAS-ual Fridays challenge to use a misting technique. Although I can't in all honesty recommend this technique, I've decided to enter it in the hopes that you might get a chuckle out of my story.

If you want to see what a quality misting technique looks like, head on over to CAS-ual Fridays. I hope I have better luck with next weeks challenge. lol

Stay Cool

The challenge over at Less Is More this week is "Let It Snow". We've had snow and extremely cold temps around here for the last few weeks and I'm pretty darned tired of it. As I have already made over 100 wintery cards in the last month, I debated with myself over doing just one more. Maybe that's why they're called challenges? I decided to play with a new PTI set that hadn't been taken out of the package yet. This penguin is just so darned cute! How could I not like playing with him?

Hop on over to Less Is More to give this challenge a shot or to get some inspiration. There are some gorgeous snowy creations this week. I will be revisiting this challenge next summer when I'm sick of the heat. lol

Merry Christmustache

Just cracking myself up.

I'm entering this in the Random fun challenge over at Moxie Fab World to create a card using a mustache.

Green

How could I miss a Less Is More challenge?? Well...I guess I didn't but I am cutting it close. This time of the year is chaotic. I know I'm not the only one trying to squeeze some crafting time in. Hmmm....laundry, housework, choir performance, fundraisers, carpools or crafting? Decisions, decisions, decisions. lol

The color challenge at LIM this week is GREEN. I bought this willow stamp and die from PTI last month and have really wanted to use it. When I was growing up we had 2 huge weeping willow trees in our front yard. My dad would trim them a couple of times a year and my brothers and sister and I loved to grab the cut branches and have sword fights with them. Or maybe they were whip fights as those branches were very flexible. Whatever you call it, it was always a fun time. Any excuse to beat up on each other I guess. lol

I used the dies to cut an opening in the green paper and stamped the image on the white paper underneath.

Go take a look at some of the gorgeous creations made with green over at Less Is More this week. You won't be disappointed!

DYSU Challenge #49 - Something Old

So glad you could join us once again for a new challenge at Do You Stack Up?! This week we want to see Something Old! It could truly be something old, or just a vintage style or image.

This week's Sponsors:

Saturated Canary Digis Winner’s Choice of 2 Digis

Gecko Galz Prize Package: Pack of paper of the winners choice, 4 collage sets of the winners choice, a stamp set of the winners choice, and vintage pearl button pack, vintage lace, and Gecko Galz fibers

Wow, our wonderful Gecko Galz sponsor provided me with a set of vintage images that made it hard to know where to begin! I thought this image was so cute with the kids seeming to be having some good old fashioned snow fun. I fussy cut the entire image then popped it up for dimension. Vintage is not my normal style, but it was fun to try it and these images were fabulous to play with.

The next image was fun and unique to work with. I used a dingbat font for the greeting on the sign she's holding. I found this patterned paper in my scrap box and knew I had nothing better to go with this image. Sometimes you get lucky.

Hope you get a chance to come over to Do You Stack Up and join us in this challenge! I know I'm going to be seeing some amazing vintage style cards this week and I can't wait!!

Tic Tac Toe

That's the challenge over at Casual Fridays this week. I chose the column that included pink, chevron and aqua. I have never inked up these PTI chevron stamps even though I just HAD to have them. lol There are tons of options and fab creations from this challenge. Hop on over to Casual Fridays to check it out!

A Bit Of Bling

My daughter's Color Guard team has an opportunity to have a table to fund raise at a community Christmas event this weekend. The girls put together crafts, sweets and treats to sell so they will have money for new flags next season. I volunteered to make and donate cards for them to sell. I've made about 90 cards and am going to have to call it good. If they don't sell, I can always use them as I was planning to use photo cards this year and hadn't made many of the 80 or so cards I normally send off. This is one of the cards I made for them. Fingers crossed for a great day of fundraising!!

I did have the Less Is More "A Bit of Bling" challenge in mind while working on this project. This was my fave card with bling. There is just something I love about the blue and silver combo, especially for holiday cards. I know I'm submitting at the tail end of the challenge, but you can still hop on over to Less Is More for some gorgeous bling inspiration.

DYSU challenge #48-Ribbon

So glad to have you back for a new challenge at Do You Stack Up?! This week we have an easy on for you. We want you to use Ribbon (or anything that ties)!

This week's Sponsors:

Stamp Fairy Winner’s Choice of 3 Digis

Copic Marker Scrapbooking 6 Copic Ciao Markers (North/South America), Martha Stewart punch (rest of the world)

Sparkle Creations Rubber Stamps Charlotte with a Rose and Scooter Chloe Rubber Stamps

I used this adorable Santa image from Stamp Fairy for this week's challenge. I did most of the coloring on the computer prior to printing the image. For the first card, I fussy cut Santa, added beads to all the uncolored areas, a bit of glitter to the belt buckle and Glossy Accents to the lights. I'm sure the tree will look much more festive when the lights are added. I used a bit of baker's twine to the top of the tree as the "anything that ties".

I printed the image within a circular Christmas sentiment for my next card. I used a warm grey Copic to color the background of the circle so the white in the image would stand out.  Again, I added Glossy Accents to the lights. I used  a strip of pleated ribbon along the bottom of the image. Same image, two different looks. This Santa was a blast to work with!