Blog Candy Winners!

I hope you haven't been on pins and needles waiting to know who won. If so, I am so sorry you had to wait so long. Waiting is no fun! I know that one for sure as I spent a whole lot of time waiting today at the clinic. Although I had to wait to be seen it is a blessing to be able to go to the doctors and I hope to be feeling better soon.

Finally... the winners are:

Stampin Cats ~ Pink Girlfriends Goodies
Mary Duffek ~ Green Celebrations Goodies
Ladies, please email me your addresses so I can send you your prizes.

Thank you all for leaving me such wonderful comments and for entering my blog blessings give away! I will be doing a "Pay It Forward" round soon.

SMILES!

Beautiful

Isn't it beautiful?! It always amazes me to see such colors in our sky. It was a short two moths ago that the sun could not be found over our horizon and now I can see it setting in the evening on clear days. What a treat from God to see such beauty!

On a different note, I probably won't be posting any creations between now and my blog candy drawing. Life has kept me busy with some temporary work, stamping obligations, and a FunShop to prepare for on top of the usual things like taking care of my family and home. Thank you all for your continued encouragement and support. THANK YOU!

PHOTO DETAILS:
Ignore the dusty window and glare. This is a snapshot out our dinning room picture window. It's kinda skewed so I could get the sun setting. As you can see we still have lots of snow. It's about -15 degrees with a windchill of minus ten to twenty degrees more. :-)

Coloring...

I've been considering adding Copic markers to my stamping tools. It's a tough decision to make and a hefty investment from my stamping budget. Instead of getting the markers I have been trying other coloring techniques. My main coloring technique is blending Prismacolor pencils with Gamsol. Over the weekend I watercolored with re-inkers for the very first time. It wasn't quite what I expected. Thankfully my watercolor pen didn't overflow with excess water when I applied the ink to the paper. Had that of happened I probably would not be sharing the included coloring samples. Anyhow, I used a Dove blender pen with chalk to top off the colors and each flower was done a little different for some variation. Since I was going for more of a colored marker look, I am not quite sure if I really was watercoloring correctly. All in all I am glad that I gave it a try. My next coloring experiment will be with re-inkers and rubbing alcohol. My husband went to our store last week and could not find any on the shelf. Even with help from one of the sales persons he couldn't find any. It wouldn't surprise me if our town doesn't sell rubbing alcohol in the stores since we are a "damp" community.

SPECIAL THANKS TO KEMI, KSS DESIGNS, FOR THE IMAGES!

QKD Challenge #2

It's Monday and here are the cards that the Queen Kat Designs Team has made for our Royal Court team challenge. The Royal Court challenge was to make a no layers card. It was a tough one indeed! Go check'em all out!

Penny
Tanis
Heidi
Lindsay
Toners

My challenge card was the blue Build a Bird card that I posted last Thursday. See here: No Layers.

LEARNING...

Last night was Technique Night at Laurie's. I love to go and hang-out with the girls at Laurie's. About half the time I don't stamp. Instead I sit down at the table and get to know everyone else better. When I am indulged I love to talk about what's going on in the stamping world online. When I have time I love to blurf and so do a few of the ladies at Laurie's too! We often swap blog sites and internet stores that cater to us lady stampers of the far North. Anyhow, here's the cards we made last night. Techniques feature the dahlia fold, a onesie Card, and ribbon flowers. Wanna see? Here they are!

No LAYERS

Can you make a no layers card? Here's my attempt! Does dew drops count as a layer? :-) I wish you could see the piercing better. I took a whole bunch of pictures and nothing made it pop. Oh well. Anyhow, us ladies of the Queen Kat Design Team has been challenged by Heidi, Sweet Somethings, to make at least one no layer card. To me Heidi is a pro at making such a tough card. Doing a no layers creation is very difficult but she makes it look easy. Can't wait so see what she comes up with this time as well as the other ladies too. As soon as I have links to their challenge cards I'll post an update. Keep your eyes ready for some inspiration from the QKD Design Team!

CARD DETAILS:
Queen Kat Designs
Build a Bird, Coffee Stain,
Diva Monster
Basic Grey Recess Paper
Versa Mark
White Embossing Powder
Ranger Perfect Pearls
Clear Dew Drops

Scrap PAGE

Yeah! Another scrap page done! One a month until June. That's my goal. Here I used more Queen Kat Designs stamps including the upcoming release of Build a Bird. This handy set helped me make the two accent flowers and the bird silhouette. The sentiment is from QKD's Diva Monster set and it goes perfectly with Ellie's picture. I was able to capture this picture of her yesterday when we went to visit Daddy at work. She had such a giggle sitting in her Daddy's office chair as I twirled her slowly around. Simply CHARMING!


DETAILS:
Queen Kat Designs
Build a Bird (April Release)
Diva Monster
Basic Grey Mellow Papers
Palette Ink
Wedding Paper Favor Flowers
Wedding Ribbon Flower
Faux Dew Drops
Martha Stewart Ribbon

QKD Newsletter

Hey there! I hope you had a wonderful Monday. The Queen Kat Designs Newsletter went out today and my contribution to the newsletter is the "Household Uses" section. This month I altered a formula can to gifted as a cookie holder. The stamp set used for this project will be making its' debut next month. It's called "Build a Bird" and was designed by Tanis of Paper Princess at Play. So sorry to keep this short again but I gotta get a going.

Good night.
:-)

Blog Blessings for YOU!

Through your comments, emails, and RAK's you all have been a blessing to me. You have offered me your support, friendship, and advice. Thank you so much for taking the time to read what I share and for looking over my stamping art. It is such a privilege to be a part of your lives and to show my appreciation I am going to send out some blog candy to two lucky winners.



If you would like to win one of these lovely prizes just leave me a comment on this post and with the help of a random generator two names will be drawn on Friday, March the 28th.

Unfortunately not everyone will be able to win.... so sorry. For you all that don't win I am offering a blog candy booby prize. My husband has suggested that I don't call it a booby prize. What I mean is consolation prize. :-) Here's the deal... if you don't already have one of the latest TAC (The Angel Company) catties I'd like to send one to you. I will provide the catty if you provide the postage. Not really a consolation prize... more like some instant inspiration! Out of all the catty requests I receive between now and March 28th one random requester will receive a surprise TAC stamp set too. Please give me an email if this interests you. You can reach me at: nancygrant@gmail.com.

No STAMPING...YIKES!

I received a promo from Creating Keepsakes. It's a DVD subscription kind of dealy-bob. Included in the promo kit was a set of five do-it-yourself cards. Also included was the instructions on assembling all the cards. I started to watch the DVD and was impressed and the card kit was extremely fun to play with. Now being the cardmaker that I am you know that I didn't do them as directed.



This is perfect timing for a challenge over at Moe Joe Designs. Mary's challenge is to make a card and your focal image can not be stamped...it has to be from a book, a magazine, some other type of art medium that is not a stamp. You can use stamps, but not for your focal image. So... here's my entries and there was no stamping at all on any of them. I hope she likes them.

CARD DETAILS:
Supplies provided from
The Essential Scrapbook
Video Collection ~ Free
Card Kits ~ Layouts
are my own :-)

Hello...

I hope you are not feeling neglected. Not much stamping going on lately and I am missing getting my fingers inky! I am sitting here in my workout clothes as I write this post. I was gonna go for a run hours ago and then got sidetracked. Hey, speaking of sidetracks... go check-out 4scrappysisters.com's message board. The Queen Kat Designs team has been posting challenges there all week and today is my turn. I posted my first sketch challenge! So EXCITING & I hope to catch you over there!

Big SMILES,
~Nancy

QUICK Cards

Here's two quick cards that I can see myself repeating. Tonight is a short and sweet post as life away from the computer is beaconing... deadlines, work, a toddler, etc. It's so sweet to be alive! I can't wait to get back to my stamping table and create something just for fun. Big SMILES!

CARD DETAILS:
The Angel Company &
Stampin' UP! Stamps
Palette Ink
Sakura Glimmer Pen
Blank White Notecards
DCWV Glitter Papers
Ribbon
Button
Flower
Cuttlebug Embossing Folder
Dew Drop

More BLESSINGS...

I don't know how it happens but oh am I thankful! This last month has been a monumental challenge winning month for me. Here's three more challenge prizes and two RAK's....what HAPPY mail!!!!

I encourage everyone to participate in blog challenges. You just never know when you might be blessed with a surprise PRIZE!

Challenge Prizes:
Allison's Suggestive Sunday Challenge Top picture.
Chrissy's Belli (Embellishments) Challenge Second picture.
Sweet 'n Sassy's February Lots-a-layers Sketch Contest Third picture.

Random Acts of Kindness:
Doris, The Stamping Tower, sent me one of her handmade cards, designer papers, & an envelope template with pre-cut papers to make more envelopes. Fourth picture.

Corie, Creations by Corie, sent me a special handmade birthday card with hedgehog images. Card pictured in the last photo.

THANK YOU ALL for the wonderful goodies. I feel overwhelmed with these blessing.

Faux COPICS?

I don't own a single Copic marker yet. My best friend and I have been going round and round about getting them too. We both are set on doing a fund raiser of some sorts so the expense won't effect our household budgets. Anyhow, I was blurfing last night and came across this post of Jody Morrow's from Confessions of a Ribbon Addict. It's very interesting and I thought I'd share. Go check it out! Here's the link:

Drunken Watercolor

Faux Copics? It just maybe!

THE PHOTO ABOVE IS FROM JODY'S BLOG.

Sneak-a-PEAK

It's another Queen Kat Designs Sneak-a-PEAK! This set was designed by Tanis, Paper Princess at Play and will be available in April. It's a birdie set and I must say there are so many possibilities with this one. What a fun set to stamp with! I hope you like it too! ;-)



By the way, the butterfly card was designed with Lauren of My Time, My Creations, My Stampendence sketch. I finished it and realized that I forgot to stamp in the sentiment! YIKES! Oh well! Maybe next time I'll have one for her challenge. It's too late to get another one made as her sketch has moved on to the next challenge.



UPDATE: I am so bad! I also forgot to mention that us girls of the QKD design team are challenging each other with weekly challenges. It's a fun way to get our samples made and to get to know each other better. Here Penny challenged us to use grey, red, black, white, and tan. Fabulous idea and the color combo is fresh! Thanks Penny!

Click on each name to see more challenge creations:

Penny
Lindsay
Toni
Tanis
Heidi

CARD DETAILS:
Queen Kat Designs
Build-a-Bird Set &
Dotty Scrolls
Mix of SU! and TAC
Cardstocks
Palette Ink
SU! Black Marker
Sakura Glaze Pen
Cuttlebug Folders
Queen & Co Felt Boarders

Technical Difficulties

Hello there! It's Monday and I've been trying to post with pictures since yesterday. For some reason Blogger is not loading my pics. I guess that's the way it goes sometimes. I'll have to try again later....

My Paper World #5

Today has been a busy day... every now and then I have the opportunity to work on projects for my former employer. Today just so happens to be one of those days. It's so nice to be needed but working takes away from my personal time at home which often means no stamping time. Lately I have been completing plenty of sketch challenges and today's post is no different. Thankfully this deadline gave me plenty of time to get it done. These two cards were completed for Nicola's Sketch #5 over at My Paper World. Nicola's challenges are wonderful. I love that everyday she posts another sample card with her sketch. All her cards are very creative and clever. My favorite kind of cards!

Anyhow, I needed some masculine birthday cards for a project and this sketch worked out wonderfully. I used some of my stamps and papers from The Angel Company. The hardware is from Stampin' UP!. Speaking of hardware these cards are for Chrissy's Belli Challenge #7 too. Her challenge this week includes hardware. Chrissy's challenges are very unique and fun. I didn't have a chance to do her challenge last week on punches but thankfully this week I have some cards to enter. Yip-ee!!!

That's it for now. This girl is tired!

Jill Inspired

I was inspired by Jill of Inkgenious's card that she sent to me and she was inspired by Nicole of {Capture the Moment}. Isn't it something how that works. There is so many inspiring paper artists out there!

So... I cut out enough supplies to make three cards and I was able to create three different designs. I think I might go back and re-make a whole bunch of these in a "Thank You" theme too. As for now I have three more "Get Well" for a stash my husband has requested. Feels so good to get that off my to-do list. :-)

CARD DETAILS:
Stampin' UP! Stamps,
Cardstock, & Ribbon
The Angel Company Sentiment
Prima Flowers
Mini Jewels
Scor-Pal

Sharing!

This is life in the arctic for sure! See Lisa Ungry's blog, Acrtic Living, for more of life above the arctic circle. Lisa lives in Wainwright, Alaska which is two villages over from us here in Barrow. I think it's about a 30 minute plane ride from us. Thanks Lisa for sharing! I wouldn't be surprised if the twins are my cousins.



My neighbor and best friend Laurie Serino's shared a day out with the boys (& her husband) last week. I love the pictures! If you want to see here's the link: Sleding.

Lastly, here's a photo that I snapped this afternoon when Ellie and I came back from her monthly appointment. I wish I could of captured the sparkles better. It's still cold here... hanging out around 20 below. It will be so nice when we can get out as a family and take a walk. Hope you are having a wonderful day.

TAG-ged

Tanis, Paper Princess at Play, has tagged me. YIKES... I gotta share more about me! Are you ready?! Here you go:

What were you doing ten years ago?
The year was 1998... a very bad time in my life but thankfully I had lots of support from my family.

What were you doing 1 year ago?
The year was 2007. I was adjusting to being a new stay at home mom. Not much sleep during and getting used to making do with less. (Still adjusting both a year later!)

Name your five favorite snacks.
1. Strawberries
2. Pop corn
3. Jalepano Poppers
4. Chocolate
5. Pistachios

Name five things you would do if you were a millionaire.
1. Thank God for such a burden.
2. Tithe.
3. Get a financial planner.
4. Invest.
5. Insist my husband quits his job.

Name five things you like doing.
1. Papercrafting
2. Blurfing
3. Singing gospel music.
4. Going to church.
5. Being with my family and friends.

Name five things you would never wear again.
1. Wide leg pants
2. Leggings
3. Tongue & Eyebrow Ring
4. Maternity clothes
5. Spike heels

Name your five favorite toys.
1. Paper Trimmer
2. iPod
3. Heat Gun
4. Digital Camera
5. Scor-Pal

And now for 5 people I'm tagging.... Doris, Marlou, Kim, Jill, Kemi, & Jen. HAVE FUN LADIES!

YOU MAKE MY DAY AWARD:

Marlou, from Scrapping with Love, gave me the "You Make My Day" award and then she nominated 10 people to give it too. How can I just give it to 10? There are so many. Today the lady that tops the list is Angela, Artistic Detours.

TAC Fun...

Last Thursday night I gave a TAC (The Angel Company) FunShop. We made a mini-scrapbook inspired from Jewels of Paper Jewels. She posted two wonderfully designed mini -scrapbooks. I love the colors she choose and the stamps too. Jewel's blog is one of my favorites. You should check her out if you have not already. Instead of making our project exactly like Julie's I used Lilly Anna designer papers, hardware, ribbons, and cardstock for my FunShop sample. This mini-scrapbook has many pockets for tags, notes, or pictures. I plan on putting a picture of my son in one of the pockets. For now all that is left is to print it up and put it in.


You can find a full detailed tutorial on Kristina Werner's Blog ------> another awesome blog!



MINI-SCRAPBOOK DETAILS:
The Angel Company Stamps:
Curls & Swirls
He Said, She Said
Punctuation
More Abundance


Lilly Anna Cardstock
Lilly Anna Designer Papers
Lilly Anna Hardware
Lilly Anna Ribbon
Bitty Blossoms
Brads
Colored Staples
Palette Ink

Showers of BLESSINGS!

UPDATE: You can find each of the paper crafters listed below in my "Blinks Lists" to the right.



I feel so blessed to have received so many blog blessings. Your friendship and encouraging comments have always made me special but receiving so much above that really makes me feel like I am overflowing. These following goodies are a combination of contests and blog candy that were won over the last month.

The first one comes all the way from Marlou in Northern Ireland, Scrapping with Love. She had a card challenge last month and a card I had made with my Queen Kat Designs stamps won. With such stiff competition I didn't think I had a chance. Surprisingly Marlou chose my card as the winner. Thanks Marlou for the prize. The only thing not shown here is the baggie of chocolates... I ate them. :-)




The second prize was from Jill of Inkgenious. She had a five minute card contest. Here she sent me one of her creations inspired by a card from PaperTrey. She also included a tin with coordinating carding supplies and a Take Five candy bar. What a treat! Thank you Jill!


Over the weekend I received a surprise from Jen of Pieces of Me. She was celebrating her 500th blog post and a had a secret blog candy drawing. Congratulations Jen with your blogging success and thank you for the awesome surprises.

Lastly, my blogging friend Kemi of KSS Designs sent me images of a stamp set that I missed getting while it was available. She was kind to take the time to stamp them out and get them in the mail for me. Not only that she also sent the cute card that she had made with the same stamp set also. To top it off I just got word today that her friend had an extra set and is going to send it my way! How exciting is that?! Such kindness is appreciated and inspiring.

What an incredible blessing to have received so many gifts and prized. God works in interesting ways and I am thankful to be showered with stamping supplies.


I hope you are being showered with God's blessings too. Much love to you all!

Smiles,
~Nancy

TODAY'S BIBLE VERSE: "The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever." Isaiah 40:8

SCREAM IT!

Queen Kat Designs is having an awesome contest! It's called "SCREAM IT!". What'cha screamin about? That you like QKD of course! So if you love Queen Kat Designs and want some chances to win some QKD goodies here are the deets as shared by my fellow design team member Tanis of Paper Princess at Play:

This blinkie contains a secret code to give shoppers 10% off in the Queen Kat Designs store: http://www.katstamps.com.

Take this blinkie and post it on your blog.
Make sure it links back to katstamps.com (if you need help, I can send you the html code).

Then leave a comment on THIS post that you have posted the blinkie and your name will be entered into a drawing for a stamping prize on April 1.

What's the prize?? It's a secret... :)
But the more names we have entered in the drawing the bigger the prize will get.

So, SCREAM IT! Tell everyone you know about the sale at Queen Kat Designs and all the fun stamps we have!

Want another chance to win? Place an order over $10 (store minimum) at the Queen Kat Designs Store and you name will automatically be place in the drawing.

Another Sketch Challenge - Prairie Paper & Ink

Amy from Prairie Paper & Ink's Friday Sketch Challenge #9 is definitely another fun one. I didn't realize until after I had finished my card and got it ready to post that we both chose monkeys for the sketch. Amy chose the to use her new CC Designs "Monkey Love" stamps whereas mine are from Clear Dollar Stamps "Monkey Madness". I still have lots more thank you cards to make and I hope this one will bring a smile to the sweet someone that I am sending it to.


Have a happy MONDAY!

CARD DETAILS:
Clear Dollar Stamps "Monkey Madness"
DCWV Glitter Mat Stack
White Blank Notecard
Cuttlebug Embossing Folder
Prima Flowers
Stickles
Prismacolor Pencils blended with Gamsol
May Arts Ribbon
Marvy Scallop Punch