Paper Craft Crew #266- Do you love to color?

I have to confess I am late to the love of coloring trend. When I was young, I stayed with my grandparents all summer. It was awesome. My Aunt Sue was a first grade teacher and she loved to color. She was really an artist. She would buy me a awesome fancy color book and crayons or colored pencils. She really wanted me to sit and color with her. I didn't stay in the lines and my color choices, well, were less than desirable. Moving forward 50+ years, I have learned to enjoy coloring. My friend Cheryl loved to color, I learned from her how to relax and enjoy the practice. I'm still not great, but I do enjoy it a
lot more and I am better at staying inside the lines.
Have you looked at the Stampin' Blends yet? My project today was fun. I wanted to participate in the PCC#266 Card sketch challenge and show y'all some ideas using the Stampin' Blends. I'm pretty happy with how this turned out. I used the light and dark markers in Pumpkin Pie, Calypso Coral and Daffodil Delight to color the feathers on the Just add Color DSP. I then fussy cut some feathers for my focal image, added the Copper Trim(I love) and some gold metallic thread.(It should have been copper, couldn't find it for nothing!) & the saying is from the Ribbon of Courage set. I really did have a good time coloring and playing with the shading and blending. I love the artist quality of the markers. I definitely need more practice! Hope you enjoyed this project as much as I enjoyed creating it. If you need any supplies, please shoot me an email or hop on over to my online store. Thanks for stopping in today. Have a wonderful blessed day and be a blessing to someone in need.

Love, stamping in Dixie,

Cindy

Getting unstuck.

Good morning friends! I hope today is going to be a great day for you. I am busy! Today I head up to Smith Lake with a group of my sweet customers, i.e. friends, for a weekend of scrapbooking, stamping and all kinds of fun. As usual, for all those who know and love me know, I am not ready! But getting there. So this will have to be short this morning.
I have had several incidents lately when I needed to come up with a project for something- a blog hop, a co-op project, a tutorial, a class and have felt stuck. Just no Mojo! Arrrgg, what to do. Well, my first go to solution especially for cards is a card sketch. I have a couple that are my favorite and if I start there I can usually end up with something I really like that may or may not like like the sketch, but gets my creative juices flowing. Here are some examples you have seen before.

These all started with the same sketch. It's a pretty easy one and I really like the outcome.


So here are the dimensions:
Cardbase is 4.25 x 5.5 closed,
First layer is 4 x 5.25,
DSP is 2 x 4, cardstock behind DSP is 2 1/4 x 4 1/4.
The top piece where I stamped the sayings varies greatly depending on your verbiage. The Thankful card is  colored CS 2 1/4 x 3 1/4 with the neutral piece being 2 x 3. The Christmas and Birthday ones are more square and on the fishy card I used a circle punch and banner. So you see these all started with the same idea but changed. Hope this tip is helpful when you are feeling stuck and can't find a place to start your next card. I'm off to the lake for some fun! Have a great weekend. God bless and I'll see ya soon!
                                           Love stamping in Dixie,
                                                 Cindy

October Stampin' Friends Blog Hop Give Thanks!

Good Morning and welcome to the October 2017 Stampin' Friends Blog Hop! Each of us is featuring cards and 3-D projects with a Thanksgiving or Thank You theme. If you just started the Hop be sure to keep going. You will find some amazing talent in this group. If you came from Kathie's blog, thank you for continuing. If you have visited my blog with any regularity, you know I love Thanksgiving! It is one of my favorite holidays. I love the colors, the decor, and
time with the family. It also doesn't seem as stressful as some other holidays.
So I often stick to simpler ideas during this time. This card uses one of my favorite sketches. It's simple and can be changed to look very different using the same layers.
The little wrapped candies I have made for each place setting at our Thanksgiving table.  Here is the card up close.

I used the Painted Autumn DSP which is still on sale until the end of October. This is the same card project I recently shared at the ESL class I taught. Another habit I have is leaving extra stuff on my desk. The two Soft Suede leaves are from this month's Paper Pumpkin! The piece of Burlap was literally a scrap laying on my table. Love it!

Here is a closer look at the candy wrappers. There are two different styles. Again using scraps on my desk, the one on the far left is a 2 x 6" piece of DSP scored at 3/4" from one end. I laid a Ghirardelli chocolate at the score and wrapped it up and adhered it with Fast Fuse on the 3/4" flap. The leaf branch on it is also a left over from Paper Pumpkin this month. There is a piece of copper trim tied around the top and the saying from the Painted Harvest Stamp set. The other two were made with a 4 x 4 piece of DSP. I used the envelope punch board and scored it at 2" on all four sides. Folded it around the chocolate square and adhered with a glue dot. Added some ribbon and a tag (left over from another project) and there you go! These are for the adults. The kids are getting pumpkin cookies I think, not Ghirardelli chocolate! There you go-easy! I hope you liked these and they might inspire you to create a cute table favor for your next family dinner. We can never be too thankful and we always have something to be thankful for! I would really appreciate a comment to let me know you were here and tell me something you have to be thankful for this year. Another thanks for joining us on the hop. See you again soon. Be Blessed. Don't forget to comment for your chance to win the great giveaway.

            Love stamping in Dixie,

                               Cindy

What a night!

Well stampers, I have no idea where you stand on the election and all that is happening in our country, regardless I respect you and your opinion even if it differs from mine. So, lets celebrate today! Just for today. Another 24 hours to make a difference in some one's life big or small. Be the smile your neighbor needs or the pat on the back a coworker needs today. Our elected Officials are important in our country, but it us, the people of this great nation, that will make or break our futures. I share Stampin' Up because I love what I do and in sharing it I hope I make a creative difference in your life! Thanks for letting me do that here and in person.

I showed a sneak peak of this card yesterday.
I really love this card sketch It starts with a half sheet of cardstock, scored in half. The first layer is 4 x 5 1/4. This layer is embossed with the festive embossing folder.
The DSP layer is 2 1/4 x 4 3/4 layered on the emerald Envy cardstock that is 2 1/2 x 5. The square layer is emerald envy 2 3/4 square and the Whisper White piece is 2 1/2 square. I used the Festive Birthday Designer series paper on this card. The Whisper White square is stamped with Melon Mambo and Tempting Turquoise ink. The Celebrate your day stamp is from the Designer Tin of Cards stamp set as is the confetti stamped in the corners. The piece is attached with dimensionals. I also added the Melon Mambo Thick Bakers Twine to the DSP layer. It's wrapped a couple times and tied in a bow.  I hope you enjoy this card sketch as much as I do. I'll be showing some more cards made with it soon. It is so versatile and easy to put together it makes for a great choice when you're in a hurry and need a card quick. Well, Celebrate today! Celebrate you, celebrate your freedom to live in this country and to vote on it's leaders. God bless you, but go be a blessing to someone else today-then you will receive the truest blessing!

Emerald Envy 8-1/2" X 11" Cardstock
$8.00

Whisper White 8-1/2" X 11" Cardstock
$9.00

Festive Birthday Designer Series Paper
$11.00

Melon Mambo Thick Baker's Twine
$3.50

Festive Textured Impressions Embossing Folder
$8.50

Stampin' Dimensionals
$4.00

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Help! I'm stuck.

Well, this time I'm not physically stuck (which has happened)! Today's post is about what to do and where to go when you feel your creative mojo has taken a vaca! Yikes! This really happens to me a lot. I'd like to give you "My secrets to getting back in the groove" so to speak. In my craft room and literally on my work space I usually have half of what I own. Well, that may be a slight exaggeration, but I like having everything close and at my finger-tips. Helpful? Not really. The lazy girl doesn't like to get up and get stuff. but this confused mess often overwhelms the creative queen. So, my first suggestion is clean up the mess! A tidy work space helps me to focus better and not be distracted by clutter.
 Next, Pinterest is my best friend at a time like this. I can just CASE (copy and share everything) something there. But maybe I really want to work on something original. I have a Pinterest board labeled Card Sketches. There are tons of sketch ideas, color combos even challenges there that help me get going again. 
     Speaking of challenges, this is another great way to get back into action. I follow a Facebook page, " Can you Case it?'. They offer a new challenge every Sunday. Sometimes it's a sketch and sometimes a color combo or themed card. Limiting myself to a select few materials again helps me focus. And finally, relax and enjoy the process. Often, I'm in a hurry with a deadline looming and I get stressed. This doesn't help me let the creative juices flow! when I relax and enjoy my "art", stamp something just for the fun of it, I find I end up making something I really like and remembering why I do this. I love to stamp and I love to share it with others!
So, my secrets to stamping great projects are clean up my mess, check out some ideas on Pinterest, CASE something, use a card sketch to get me started, participate in a challenge and finally relax and enjoy what I love to do! I hope these suggestions will help you start to create wonderful works of art. If you need a little creative coaching, let me help. Would really love to hear from y'all. Have a blessed day and be a blessing to someone else, then you will be     truly blessed. See ya later!
PS check back to see the card I made using that card sketch.