A Gingerbread Christmas Card

Gotta love those Gingerbread guys these days. Here's a card I'm hoping to find a challenge or contest to enter. He seemed so happy.

I've entered him in Crafting for all Seasons Challenge



I made the card from the following digi artists:

Background paper:
Poinsettia Cup of Cheer, by Kimberly Stewart, Scrapbook-Elements.com

Curved border:
Merriment by Cathy Ann Designs, Scrapbook-Elements.com

Graphic:
Gingerbread Sayings by Whimsy Primsy, Digi Web Studio.com

Snowflakes:
Alpine Snowflake Punch by Martha Stewart

Until next time....Happy Crafting.
Lady E.

Merry Christmas - My Gifts to You

Warmest Wishes To You

I had hoped to get these gifts to you much sooner than now. Like all of you, preparing for the holidays took precedence in getting some things done first. In case you need a set of quick gifts, these might be perfect for you to do up in a hurry.

Below is a Card Box Holder and a Pillow Box I made as my give-away gifts for a writing party I attended last week. Once I got home I decided to add another gift which is the pinch box. All are designed with the same theme.

Warmest Wishes Card Box

This Card Box I designed for myself. It holds 4.25 X 5.5 cards.
Not the usual 5 X 5 box.
If you would like to have the 4.25 X 5.5 box template let me know.

Pillow Box

Suggestion: Don't use an ulta-heavy cardstock for this gift.
If the paper is too thick it will be hard to fold and bend.

Pinch Box
Suggestion:
Attach Velcro underneath top flap to secure box closed.
To hang on tree, punch two holes (centered) along fold of of flap.
Insert a matching ribbon through holes and tie.
Printing: For a small box print in full page fax mode.
For larger box use the full page photo mode.

All items used were originally purchased by me from Scrapbook-Elements.com
Sooty Santa Kit by Rina Kroes
Warmest Wishes Word Art by Kim Hill's Companion Phrases, Set #10.
Unfortunately neither kits could be located at this time. I have written
to the artists in hopes they will let me know if they are still available.

Other items:
Christmas Carolers Word Art by AKE Pangestuti, Scrapbook-Elements.com
Christmas Morning Word Art by Colleen Lynch, DigidesignResort.com

Until next time....Happy Crafting!
Lady E

Santa Stop Here

Santa greetings everyone. Borqna is on a roll these days, informing me of contests to enter.

Thanks, Borqna. What fun.

Here is my next card I am going to enter. Yippeee!

I opted to send it to Pollycraft Monday Challenge. I've noticed there are tons of other cards entered. Some crafters have entered more than once. Me? I'm sticking to one per contest (reason? It's all I have time for-grin).

If you haven't noticed by now, a lot of my cards are using unusual Christmas colors. Don't ask me why, but the urge to do so has been fairly strong this year.

My snowman is another CuddlyBuddly digi stamp. The back ground paper is from DCWV Christmas & Winter 180 Stack. Copics were used for the coloring, except for his hat. I did a little digi-ing on it to make it look darker. The snowflakes were from punches: Martha Stewart's Alpine Snowflake and Marvy Uchida's small Snowflake. The bling I think I got from a local craft store.

Until next time...Happy Crafting.
Lady E

Oh wow...another challenge

Thanks to another online friend, Borqna, I learned there was a challenge I missed. What fun...I went into my card collection and opted to enter this cute card.

The background paper is from, I think, DCWV Christmas Stack. (I should start writing everything I use down) The scalloped circles are Spellbinders, the sentiment is from a DeNami Designs wood stamp.The cute graphic is "Little Winter Bird", of course, from Sliek Je Digi Stamps. Don't you just love her work?

I colored Little Bird with Copics and added some Stickles for emphasis. The ribbon I picked up somewhere (during my foraging in stores...looking for goodies)

This guy is going to "Cute Card Thursday" Challenge. Wish me luck.

Until next time...Happy Crafting.

Frosty "Snow" Challenge

I stumbled across a challenge. It's titled "There's No Business like SNOW Business", hosted by DT and Shelly's Images.

I made this card quite a while ago. Since I'm trying to enter challenges, I decided to give it another try. Generally I'm lurker only.

The graphic used is a Magnolia stamp, colored with Copics and Stickles. The background paper I can't remember. For the sentiment I used a "Scrappy Cat" clear stamp. The little penguin I've had for a while...I added him for a change of pace. Grin.

Anyway...I'm trying.
Happy Crafting.

A Card from Ike

One of my favorite online friends, Ike's World, took three of my graphics and made an awesome card with them. She designed it especially for Day 6 of the 12 Days of Christmas with Smeared & Smudged.

If you'd like to download these graphics, scroll to the last week in November. They'll be waiting for you there. Don't forget...if you make a card with any of my graphics...let me know. I'd love to share your work on my blog.

Another note: Both Ike and Smeared & Smudged sites have interesting things to look at. Go check them out. There's a link up above for both.

Until next time...Happy Crafting
Lady E

Two Christmas Cards

The other day I managed to salvage some time and created these two Christmas cards. Both have graphics from Cuddly Buddly. The background and paper were from DCWV's large Christmas Stack.

This is a graphic from Dover Art that I like. Thought I'd use it between the cards.
You are welcome to use it, but remember it isn't one of my graphics.

Here is my first one. The graphic is titled "Emma Walking". I used Copics on the little girl. Spellbinders for the oval frames, and paper flowers with a bling as accents. The word art was cut from a grouping of paper holiday sayings.

I've entered this card in the Crafty Creations Challenge.

Cuddly Buddly's graphic for the next one is titled "Especially For You". Again I used Copic markers for colors and Spellbinders for the frames. The snowflakes came from Martha Stewart's Arctic punch, topped with a little bling. The word art came from an old stamp I've had for a couple of years. There's no name on it so I can't tell you who made it.

I entered this card in the Simply Create Too Contest

This is my first time entering any type of contests or challenges with my cards. Wish me luck.

Until next time....Happy Crafting
Lady E.

Happy Train Additions

As requested here are the JPG and PNG uncolored files. Have fun with them.

My Happy Train

Oh, boy...did I have fun today. I stumbled across a coloring book and fell in love with this happy train. So, I decided to play around with it. I added some toy soldiers, some Christmas holly and festive candy canes.

Let me know what you think? If you like it, I'll come back and include the black and white version as well as the color PNG file.

Until next time...Happy Crafting.
Lady E.

Georgie and Georgina Card

Had some free time today. Yippee!

I decided to buckle down and put Georgie and Georgina in a card together. I also added a tree and various ornaments to be with them. I did it all on the computer. Let me tell you, designing and placing all the itty-bitty ornaments was a bit of work.

Remember my haunted house card a while back??? It was a lot like that. Whew!

Here's my new card.

As a free gift, I have added the tree I designed (unadorned) for you to download if you so wish. The tree is in black and white, and colored, PNG and JPG formats.

In the near future, I will add the word art I designed for this card. Right now it's late and I probably should stop before I do something silly with the post.

Until next time...Happy Crafting
Lady E.

Georgina

FINALLY!! I managed to get Georgina where I think she's good enough to go on the road. I put a lot more work and time in her...crazy...I guess.

I should have been paying bills. :0(

Once again I used the computer to color her. She definitely needs some shading, but that's for another day.

Here she is as a Black/White PNG FILE



Here she is as a Black/White JPG

Well, that's it for now... I'm pooped and there's still those dang bills to pay.

Until next time...Happy Crafting.
Lady E

My First Gingerbread Boy

This week I accomplished something new. Still not sure if I have it completely correct, but what the heck, gotta start somewhere...right?

Below is GEORGIE, the Gingerbread Boy I drew then scanned into Photo Shop. Let me tell you it's been interesting trying to figure out how to get rid of pencil lines and erased ones. I still haven't figured out how to smooth out my lines so they look clean. But, oh well.

Here's my little guy. I colored him with the computer. One of these days, I'll tackle my Copic pens on him.

Here he is as a JPG (uncolored)


Here he is as a PNG (uncolored)

One of these days, I am going to take a honest-to-goodness Photo Shop class and learn to do things the right way. GRIN...strange but I tend to create everything by the seat of my pants...

Next post will be GEORGINA, my Gingerbread Girl. I still need to do some line correcting on her. She seems to be more complicated...naturally...she insists on having lots and lots of Christmas goodies drawn with her.

If you decide to do up a card using Georgie, please send it to me. I'd love to share it with others.

Until next time...Happy Crafting.
Lady E.

Autumn Frame

Sorry to be absent for so long, but the writing side of my life had to take priority for the last two weeks. I did manage to put together an Autumn frame for everyone. I'm still working on a card using the frame. Once I get if finished, I'll post it.

If any of you choose to make a card with the frame, I'd love to see it. I'll post it on my blog as well.

Here's the frame. First in JPG.

View Blog

Here it is as a PNG.

Until next time...Happy Crafting.
Lady E.

My good friend Sue designed a card using my Autumn frame.
I think it is beautiful. Take a look at what she's done.

Made by Sue EisenHauer
http://suzy-ikesworld.blogspot.com

Takes a bunch Sue. You are a doll.

Whooo Dare...

Finally found time to do another card. I felt adventurous and decided to do a digital card, using all digital graphics rather than stamps and markers. It was fun doing it but challenging as well. Every spooky thing I put into the windows or on the front porch had to be minimized to the size of a...a...well...whatever...they ended up pretty tiny.

The digital kit I opted to use was once again "Halloween Hoot" by WinkArtGraphics.

The kit can be found at 3Scrapateers.com. It is a newer version than the one I have. One of the main reasons I chose to use the kit again was the beautiful white owl you see above. For a couple of years, I have wanted to put him in some kind of card and never figured out what until now. The haunted house is one of the kit's background papers. Pretty cool, isn't it?

For extra decorations I used a Halloween ribbon...even the "Happy Halloween" sentiment is a part of a ribbon. I also added two colors of glitter glue and one Chenille stem because I thought the glittery colors helped the card pop.

Since I elected to write the sentiment directly onto the graphic, I decided to gift you with another version of the sentiment.

I hope you like it. It's been saved as a JPG file.

I think the white owl really helps the black and grey colors stand out. In the future I plan to print out the word art and attach it to heavy cardboard then layer the sentiment above a stamped graphic with pop up foam squares.

Here's what I did with the inside of the card just to be different.

Notice I included a sentiment in the clouds and added a few ghosts and another one of the kit's owls. Only this guy is black and definitely has an attitude. Grin.

If you ever opt to use my word art, I'd love to hear about it. It always makes me feel so good.

Until next time...Happy Crafting.
Lady E.

Update

Well...twenty minutes after I posted my blog, I went out to the car...remember those errands?...inserted the key in the ignition and all I got was...erunnnn, erunnnn. WONDERFUL...battery's dead!

Things normally comes in THREE's, don't they??

EEK!

Gotta admit. The past two days, I've been mentally dragging. Air conditioner went out and it got kinda warm inside. I figured if the dogs had to stick it out by staying home then so should I. (Actually, it was more like...waiting for the repairman to show...no set time when he'd arrive.)

Yes...Virginia...it's still hot in in the land of sunny desert.
Autumn does not exist.

BUT...I did manage to finish a card I started before my world turned HOT. I opted to use a colored digi from an online Halloween Kit titled, "Kimberly's Boo Add On #1" The designer is Kimberly Stewart from Scrapbook-Elements. This is another of my favorite sites to get digital graphics.

Here's the card I made.

This is the inside of the card.

I thought maybe you'd like to have the word art I made to go with my card.

For the front of the card. I left it plain so you could decide how you wanted it.
I opted to use an outer yellow glow to enhance the word.

PNG File



JPG File

For the inside of the card I uploaded the entire section, minus the back paper so you could choose your own. You can use orange for the color behind the text, or with your graphic program, change the inner color something other than orange.

PNG File


Included below is the sentiment without any background.
(Saved as a PNG File.)


I've added the Happy Halloween sentiment in black and white
in case you prefer no color.
(Saved as a PNG File)

That's it for now...got errands to run.

Until next time...Happy Crafting

Ghostly Greetings

It took me more than a few days, but I managed to get another card done.

This time I used Elizabeth O. Dulena's color page, "Pumpkin Ghost". I thought it was such a cute graphic and wanted to expand on it. I love the expressions on the pumpkins and the happy face on the ghost.

When I first saw this graphic, I had the image of the little guy popping out unexpectedly from pumpkin and wishing everyone ghostly greetings.

Ergo...the reason for my word art of the day.

The materials I used for the card were:
Background paper and the paper for the circle around the word art: 3Scrapateers' "Halloween Hoot" by WinksArtGraphics

Note: 3Scrapateers.com has some nice material on their site. WinksArtGraphic website has lots of goodies, graphics, and digital files to choose from.

The Bling came from Michaels, Recollection series.
The pumpkin background was cut with one of Spellbinders, pumpkin dies.

A special thanks goes to Elizabeth O. Dulena for giving us such a cute graphic.

Here are the choices you have for word art to download:

PNG (small printout with black background)

PNG (Large black background to cut with a die)

PNG (with just word art, no background)

I also made the word art with a red outline and an orange outline. All the files are saved as JPGs as well. If you'd like to have those, shoot me an e-mail and I will send them to you.

I still have to learn how attach a zip file to my posts. I expect it's not hard, just haven't spent time trying to figure it out.

Until next time...Happy Crafting

The Gory Details of a Birthday Card

Lately, my daughter has kept me busy creating cards for her. (Isn't it wonderful that a daughter actually supports her mother's obsession?) A day ago she came to me wanting a birthday card for a friend of hers. I usually keep several theme cards on hand. Nothing fit what she wanted and put out a request for this and that.

Ahem...off I went in search of this and a that. Because I was under a deadline, I didn't have time to design a special word art for the card. I showed her the various word arts I've collected. She chose Meljens Designs "Happy Birthday" digi. She also picked out one of Kenny K Download's Glam Gang. "Miss Thang." The background paper was from S.E.I.'s Blossom Paper Pack.

Here's what I came up with.

I have to admit I was fairly pleased with how I colored "Miss Thang". Even her skin tone came out okay. (For once) BUT...the dang glitter stumbled me up. SHEESH!

Or, should I say "the GLUE did?"

I opted to use Sizzix's Flower Layer's #2 to make flowers to go with the background paper. I thought the flowers could use more glitz. Off I trotted and attempted to spray 3M Super 77 Spray Adhesive over them.

Side note: I've had a can for centuries. (Back in the days when I used to do newsletters by cutting, gluing, and pasting text and graphics onto template sheets then run it up to a printer.)

After five minutes of getting the extra adhesive off my fingers, (so I could pick up the dang tiny flowers) I managed to sprinkle glitter over them. Of course, by that time some glue dried and glitter didn't stick...

IT DID on me!!! (I had to go pick up my dogs at the vet with glitter in my hair, face, hands, and clothes--made for interesting conversation with the vet.)


Isn't life exciting?

Here's what I looked like after a I managed to get all the glue off


Due to repairing myself to look normal, I don't have a word art for you to download with this card, however, I will have something for you in a couple of days. Keep checking back, okay?

Until then...Happy Crafting!
Lady E

Autumn Greetings

Today's freebie is the word art "Autumn Greetings". I designed it several days ago but did nothing with it until I could make up my mind which graphic to use. Last night I decided upon The Sherlocks Home free digi graphic "Alyssa Raking Leaves". You can find under the date posted August 26, 2011.

The thing is...I first decided to color Alyssa's skin just a normal skin tone...then...I got the brilliant idea to make her look like she's been out in the cold, you know, red nose and cheeks kind of thing? Ha! Now she looks like she's have a massive sunburn. SIGH.

Anyhoo...here's the card...the before (too much sun)

Here she is with her winter nose and cheeks.

Okay...you all can stop laughing now.

I told you skin tone and I have a long...long way to go. One of these days I'll get the hang of it. (Thinking positive here.) How many of you noticed, I gave Alyssa a sweater vest to wear instead of just a shirt? (snarky grin)

Enough of that...

Here is the word art. Enjoy.
The first version is a PNG.

JPG Version




PNG Version


JPG Version


I thought you might like to have the graphic as well...
to add your own word art to if you needed something Autumn like.


This graphic is a PNG version only

For those of you experiencing the Autumn season already, I hope you'll put my gift. to good use For those of us who will have to wait a few more months, or miss an Autumn season completely...pretend there's Autumn.

All the best.
Lady E.

I am so excited...Borqna used my word art for one of her cards. Here's it is. I just love Ugg. He certainly has a mission in mind. Grin.

Take some time and visit Borqna's blog. She is from Bulgaria and she has some wonderful cards to view. Thanks Borqna.