Birthday Blogaversary WINNER

First of all I am delighted with all the wonderful wonderful kind words that were posted about my blog.  i love having my blog and am very thrilled that there are so many people out there that I like to visit my blog and find some inspiration.
Also I am very excited for all the new followers I picked up during this giveaway even though it was not mandatory.

OK, on to the winner...............I used Random.org but unfortunately I could not figure out how to copy the images onto this post. 
I had a total of 51 posts so putting in  1 to 51 Random.org
picked number 48

THE WINNER IS

Jenni said...

Thanks for the wonderful giveaway opportunity. I am your newest follower and am so excited for you! Your blog is beautiful. I love the colors and the adorable butterflies. I also love all of the categories that you have on the side. It makes everything so easy to find, Posted your giveaway on my blog too. Hugs, Jenni http://mylollipopgarden.blogspot.com 

Again thank you all so much.  Jenni contact me with your information so I can get your prize out to you

         dmcervantez(at)gmail(dot)com

Rainbow Trout Male Birthday Challenge

 Hello, this week is a busy week for me.  I am hosting the challenge this week at Crafty Creations where my theme is to create a male birthday card.  Then I am also hosting the RAQs Challenge on th4 Cricut message board this week.  Both will use the following sketch.

 

This is a Tami Mayberry sketch that I found and thought it could be adapted well for a male card.  Also Delicious Doodles is our sponsor and she gave the design team some great images to work with.  Be sure and check out Crafty Creations to see all the DT creations.  

Here is my card using the sketch and the trout image from Delicious Doodles.

I am pretty happy with how this turned out.  I colored the trout using my Promarkers and Copic markers.  After I was done coloring I brushed over the colors with Perfect pearls to give it a shimmer look.  It looks really neat in person, almost like the shine of a real fish.  I had to spray it with hair spray to seal it so the Perfect Pearl would not rub off.

Here is a closer look at the fish.

I Cuttlebugged the green panel.  The happy birthday is stamp. 

Thanks for stopping by and make sure you play along at Crafty Creations and RAQs challenge on the Cricut message board.

Thanks for taking the time to leave me a comment. I love to read them, besides that way I knew you were here to take a peak.

Challenges for this card
Tuesday Throw Down  Birthday  -  end 8/14
One Stitch at a Time  use a digi image  -  end 8/13
Crafty Our Days Away  Birthday  -  end 8/18
Anything Challenge   Birthday/celebration  end 8/22
Card Makin Mamas  Birthday  -  end 8/18
Make it Monday  Always anything goes   -  end 9/10

Simple and Pretty 2 cards

This week I am hosting the RAQs Challenge on the Cricut message board.  The way the challenge works is every Wednesday the host posts 3 sketches to follow, when you get them done you can post them on the message board thread.  It is a great place for inspiration and also take your card making up a few notches, I know it did mine.
So here is my cards for the challenge.  The first sketch is this one by Tami Mayberry, see this post on my blog to see this one, as it is also my card for the Crafty Creations challenge this week.
Here is my card for the second sketch.

It is a very simple sketch and the card is 8 1/2 by 4 inches and fits into a business size envelope.  I love how this turned out.  Because of the size I had to Cuttlebug it with two different folders since one was not long enough.  The top is Swiss Dots and the bottom is a Sizzix folder.
The flowers are cut from the Flower Shoppe cartridge.  This is a fabulous cartridge for making flowers and you all know I love to make flowers.

The flowers were cut from yellow and pink cardstock them sprayed with Glimmer Mist to give them some sparkle,  I even misted the white part of the card.  "You Touched My Heart" is a stamp.  I added a few pearl accents.  The whole card is very sparkly
  Would love to hear what you think of my card.
Then after I made this card they posted a Color Challenge on the Cricut message board so I made another one.  The colors are purple, orange, olive.   This one is a bit brighter.

I did a little different embossing on this one.  I made lines using my Martha Stewart score board and them I embossed every other with one of the Cuttlebug boder folders.
Here is a close up of the flowers

Thanks for taking the time to leave me a comment. I love to read them, besides that way I knew you were here to take a peak.

Challenges for this card
Make it Monday  Always anything goes  - end 8/14
Pixie Cottage   Say it with flowers  -  end 8/16
Sentimental Sundays  Flowers  -  end 8/13
Ginger Loft  Make it Sparkle  -  end 8/19
Crafty Calendar  Hot Colors (second card are hot colors)  -  end 9/2

Joy Fold Card

Here is my third sketch/challenge for this weeks RAQs challenge that I am hosting.  The Joy Fold card is very easy and fun to make.  Here is a link for Splitcoast Stampers for a tutorial and measurements.   Splitcoast Stampers is a great resource for tutorials and inspiration.

 The mushroom is from the Cindy Loo cartridge, I put Glossy Accents on the green part to give it dimension.  The mushroom also acts as the part that hold the card shut.

The papers are all from the DCWV Green Stack.  Oops can't remember where the happy birthday is from.
The thing about Joy Fold cards is that is is hard to see them with just one picture so here are a few more shots.

And more more with it open, looking down from the top.

Now it is your turn, go ahead and give it a try, they are very easy.

Thanks for taking the time to leave me a comment. I love to read them, besides that way I knew you were here to take a peak.

Challenges
Craft Your Days Away  Birthday  end - 8/18

One Year Blogaversary - Birthday - Giveaway

 **********This post will stay at the top till August 9th*********

Please scroll down to see my latest creations

Well July 31st today celebrates my one year Blog anniversary.  I can't believe it has been a year already.   I remember I was petrified when I first started my blog and was worried my creations did not warrant a blog.   I had so many people help me set it up and push me into starting a blog.  I want to thank all of them Melissa, Sheri, Bobby and many on the Cricut message board for encouraging me and giving me tips on how to get it set up.   Now that I have the hang of it I love having a blog and all the new wonderful extreme;y talented blog friends that I have met.  Over the past year I have been inspired, learned many new things and continue to be encouraged by my friends and followers.
It will also be my birthday August 9th so this will run from today through August 9th and will stay at the top of my blog till then.


So here is my little giveaway, I know it is not as much as some are but I know there are some fun things in there that you will enjoy.   Who knows I may add a few moe things before the deadline.

There is 12 Promarkers, ribbon, stickers, a little jar of bows and some other

odds and ends.

So here is what you need to do to enter:

 1.  Leave a comment on this post and let me know what you like about my blog or of there is anything I can do to improve it.  I will use Random.org to pick a winner from the comments.

2.   I would love for your to become a follower, but not a requirement.  I would like for you to become a follower because you like what you see on my blog.

3.  I would really like it if you put this on the sidebar of your blog, not required but I would love to get the exposure to my blog. :)  Or send over people to check it out.

YIPPEE, YAHOOO I REACHED 200 FOLLOWERS, I AM SO EXCITED. 
I think I will just to throw something else into the box:) 

That is it, have fun and while you are here I would love for you to take a look around and come back maybe visit me again.

A Patriotic Thinkg of You

This card I made following a sketch in the Cricut message board.  Decided to go with a patriot theme, since I will be sending it to a friend of our that is in basic training for the Air National Guard in Texas.  I know how important it is for them to receive mail during this time since it is the only communication they get during basic training.

The "thinking of you" is from Alphalicious cartridge, an older cartridge.  The papers are from a DCWV mat stack that has such a nice combination of plain colors and patterns to go with them.  I love this stack it is so handy.  The tag is cut from Stand and Salute and is suppose to be a dog tag.  I cut it out of silver paper and I added some "chain like" cord to it as the chain.
I love using my Cuttlebug folders to add that special touch to cards sometimes, however many times they are too small for the cards i make so they don't cover the entire surface I want them too.  This one being a patriot theme I wanted to use my stars folder, but it did not quite cover the area.  then I had an aaaah  haaaa moment (rare LOL) so I did part of the paper with the stars and the other part with a stripe folder to make it look like a flag.  i think it came out pretty cool.  You have to be careful when using two folders so you don't run over each other.  Here is a closer look.

Didn't it come out neat, I was pretty happy with it.
I left the inside very simple so I could write a note in it to our friend and see how she is doing.

While you are here don't forget to check out my giveaway at the top of the post.  Tomorrow is the last day

Thanks for taking the time to leave me a comment. I love to read them, besides that way I knew you were here to take a peak.

Challenges for this card
Raise the Bar   Anything Goes  -  ends 8/10
Paper Take Weekly  Anything Goes  - ends  8/8
For Fun Challenges   Anything Goes  - ends 8/9
Make it Monday   Always Anything goes  -  ends 8/14

A Simple but Difficult Card

Here is one of the sketches this week at RAQs Challenge on the Cricut message board.

 Now it may not look like it is difficult, but trying to make that cut on the right hand side using your Cricut was a challenge, at least for me it was and a few others on the Cricut MB.  And because I am generally pretty annual about following sketches, it had to be right on for me.  So this is what I finally came up with.

The papers are from the DCWV Black Current stack.  This has to be one of my top 5 stacks, that I love.
The "difficult" cut, after struggling with it in DS and CCR trying to use shapes from George and Plantin Schoolbook I finally...............used an envelope cut from Sentimental cartridge and just cut the flaps off, it gave me the best dimensional shape that I was looking for.  Sometimes I guess we just have toi think outside the box!

 
I Cuttlebugged the edges using some of the border folders.  I added a black and silver button to match the sketch.  The happy birthday is stamped and heat embossed.  Well sure hop you like my card and thanks for stopping by.

Don't forget to check out my Blog Anniversary giveaway at the top of my blog, there is only two days left.

Thanks for taking the time to leave me a comment. I love to read them, besides that way I knew you were here to take a peak.

Asian Lady

Now you all know that I am working real hard on my coloring with my Copic and Promarkers. This one is colored mostly using my Promarkers because I had the grays and black in the Promarkers. Copics & Promarkers work well together and since I had won an entire set of Promarkers last year from Enfys I have lot of colors to chose from.  I see so many awesome talented people in blogland and I just dream about being able to color like them.  I have been really trying to get the shading part.   I think I am inching closer and closer to getting it.  For this one I followed one of the images that Melissa Made, I think she is the most awesome Copic color-er out there.  I knew she had done someone with black hair so I put her image up on my screen and tried to follow.  

This week at Crafty Creations our hostess is Deena, she is so talented.  She got Digis With Attitude to be our sponsor and this in one of the images we had to work with.
The challenge was to make some kind of invite, which was a bit hard for me but I thought this image worked well to invite someone to go eat Chinese food.   The saying was computer generated, that I printed on card stock and then cut around it using one of the label cuts on Calligraphy Collection, ran a silver ribbon through it and attached it.  Now it is attached temporarily as I am not sure this will stay an invitation.  The silver paper is kind of glittery and the black paper is glossy, hard to tell in the picture.  I wasn't quite sure what that thing in her hand was so I just colored it light pink.
I added some Crackle Accents and a pearl to the flower in her hair.  I also added some very small black pearls to the flowers on her dress or Kimono.

 
 Another view (just cause I took the picture LOL)

 

I am so very very happy with how this came out.  It has to be one of my all time favorites as the coloring came out much better than I thought I could do.  I think I have figured out one of my problems with the shading.  I was coloring in the whole area and then trying to shade, I think I learned that some of the area has to be left without any color.
So if you have invitations to make come on over to Crafty Creations and join us.

Thanks for taking the time to leave me a comment. I love to read them, besides that way I knew you were here to take a peak.

Challenges for this card:
Digis With Attitude    Anything Goes  -  ends 8/30
For Fun Challenges  Anything Goes  -  ends 8/9
Make it Monday  Always Anything Goes  -  ends 8/8
Woodware USA  Anything Goes  -  ends 8/7
All Sorts Challenge   Free & Easy
Craft Your Passion  Anything goes  -  ends 8/7
Crafts and Me   Anything Goes  -  ends 8/8

Hello Flower Card

 One of the things I love the most is flowers, if you look around my blog you will see that I use them often.  In fact sometimes I tell myself, now make a card WITHOUT a flower on it.  LOL.  So when Cricut came out with the Flower Shoppe cartridge I "had" to have it.  This is my fisrt flower made with it.

It was so fun to make, I am going to have to make some more.  All the papers including the flower I printed and cut using the Imagine cartridge Blossom.  I love the papers in this cartridge.  I have just had my Imagine almost two months now and I just love it and it seems to stream line my card making.  It sure cuts down on the time I spent looking for papers to match on my card.    The stem of the flower was made using the parenthesis cut from one of the cartridges and the leave I ran through my paper crimp-er.  I guess I could run the flower parts through it also, I will have to try that.   The center I put some Viva Decor pearl pen, then sprinkled with glitter.   I also sprayed the flower with Glimmer Mist to give it a bit of sparkle.

I also used my sewing machine to zig-zag stitch the green checked paper to the pink part.  The "hello" is a stamp.  So what do you think of my first Flower Shoppe flower?

Thanks for taking the time to leave me a comment. I love to read them, besides that way I knew you were here to take a peak.

Challenges for this card:
Make-it-Monday   Always anything goes  -  ends 8/7
Sentimental Sundays  In the Garden  -  end 8/6
Colour Create  Pink, Green & White  -  ends 8/10
Sir Stampalot  Whatever your Fancy  ends -  8/27
Paper Creations   Stitching  -  ends 8/14

Beachy Keen - a Clean & Simple Card

This week for the "Free for all Friday" challenge at Stamp TV the theme was Lazy Days of Summer...........a clean & simple card with a summer theme.   No markers, pencils anything to color the image is allowed.  So here is what I came up with.

 A couple of years ago I bought a set of four crazy Flamingo stamps with saying, although I love them I had not used them yet.   When I had to do a summer themed card this "bathing beauty" was perfect.  I stamped in with Raspberry ink and torn the edges then mounted in onto raspberry paper.  The white background is Cored'inations pearl texture cardstock.

Here is a closer look at her so you can see all the details of her sandals  and bikini, yes she has a bikini on.  The saying off to the side saus "beachy keen", not sure if you could read that in the picture.

Thanks for taking the time to leave me a comment. I love to read them, besides that way I knew you were here to take a peak.

And don't forget to check out my Blogaversary/Birthday giveaway.  First post on my blog.

 Challenges for this card
Stamp TV   Clean & Simple summer theme  ends  8/4
Paper Playtime  SUMMER use digi or stamp  -  ends 8/6