RF Weekly!! Recipe Challenge!!! Come and Play!

Hello Hello Everyone!!!

Welcome to another week of Robyn's Fetish Challenge !!! This week we were given a 'recipe' to follow.

Here's the recipe:

• any RF image
• 3 patterned papers
• 2 colors of cardstock
• 1 type of ribbon
• glitter or shimmer
• bling
• flowers

Sounds yummy, right??

Ok so here's what I cooked up!
I started with an unfinished, wooden clipboard that I picked up at ACM some months ago. They're cheap to begin with but I think they were on sale so I grabbed a bunch. Always a good 'go to' when you need something different.

I first grabbed some twisties (you know...the things you use to tie up your garbage) and I opened the clip. I then used my Brilliance Pearlescent Gold pigment ink pad to "paint" the front of the clipboard with.
I basically pressed the ink pad into the wood and schmooshed it all around so it was really 'inky'. I then used my super thick embossing powder and covered the wet ink. I used my heat gun and set the embossing powder. From some angles it looks like it's gleaming gold and from some angles it looks like it's just been rained on!! It's SO cool!!! I love heat embossing!!!

For my 'bling' I figured I'd go ALL OUT! I grabbed my sheets of rhinestones and went at the clip part!!! It took a while but with a little patience and some crafting tweezers I got the job done!! It's SO super blingified!! hahahhaah!I chose Robyn's cupcake image (I love anything cupcakes!!) and set to coloring it. I also decided to paper piece the cupcake liner. So I trimmed out some 12"x12" DP (with the cute pink butterflies on it) down to 8.5" x 11" and ran it through my printer printing the cupcake again. I trimmed out the cupcake liner and adhered it to the image already printed on white cardstock.
I then used my Copics to color the frosting, candle and sprinkles!! After coloring the sprinkles I used my glue pen to coat them up and then covered them in chocolate brown glitter. SO FUN!!

I then trimmed the entire thing out and set that aside. I wanted to do a simple matte for the cupcake seeing as there was already A LOT going on so I used a pretty yellow polka dotted DP for my first layer, PTI's Blush Blossom as my next layer and some pinky SU! DP as my third layer. I used PTI light yellow (forget the actual name) for the bottom 'pocket'. I matted it in the same Blush Blossom but just ever so slightly to give it a bit more dimension. I used some SU! rub ons for the 'friend' sentiment and since there was a flower right next to the word that covers my flower part! ;)

Inside the pocket I added the cupcake to which I have added a magnet so that the recipient can put it on their fridge or wherever and a gift card to a local coffee shop!

The matte paper is detachable so that the clipboard can be used on a kitchen counter to hold a pad of paper, on someone's desk to hold post-it notes, etc, etc. I wanted it to be beautiful AND practical!!

The last bit was to add my ribbon. And I will admit that I cheated...JUST a little!!! I used 2 ribbons instead of one ;) One just wasn't doing it for me!! LOL!

I hope you've enjoyed my blingidy, clipboard, pocket gift holder!

XOXO-

Royal Court Crop - New assignment...Thankful...

This next assignment was to come up with a 3-D piece for Thanksgiving. We had to use 2 QKD stamps, 2 embellishments and the color red.
I literally JUST this past Wednesday purchased this awesome 1/2 gallon Mason jar at Michael's for $2. I've told you before that I love things that are in miniature form but also in JUMBO form!! I thought it was SO cool and I knew that I could do SOMETHING with it. And then this challenge was issued!I grabbed the jar knowing instantly what I was going to use it for. Whenever we sit around the kitchen table...me, my DH, my 5 year old daughter and my 3.5 year old son we TRY to remember to say one thing that we're thankful for every day. It's not necessarily surrounding meal time, sometimes it coincides but it just happens whenever we're sitting together. So I decided to make this our THANKFUL jar. We now write what we're thankful for each day, scroll the paper up and put it in the jar. It can be something big...small...or in between.
I started with the lid. I measured out the inner piece of the Mason jar top and trimmed a circle out using my Cricut. I, of course, distressed the edges. I then stamped the word LOVE, in red, from this amazing QKD set. I proceeded to use my sparkly Sakura pens to color in the image. I then trimmed it up a bit and adhered it to the lid. I didn't want anything too dimensional on the lid as it will be opened a lot.

I then moved onto the band around the jar. I measured and trimmed and stitched then used my 'red liner' tape to adhere the band of yellow with the matching button paper to the jar.
I tied this red ADORABLE chicken ribbon (which I've been dying to use for YEARS now!!) around the jar and adorned it with a Buttony Bow. I then made a little distressed flag that says "We are thankful for...". I wrote it in my handwriting (which stinks!) but it worked. I adhered it to the jar with 3-D glue dots. Lastly I added a hang tag using the QKD Mini Sweets Set pulling out the word 'Enjoy'. I stamped it in red and heat embossed it. I tied it on with a little bit of extra twine that was on my desk.

I loved this challenge!!! This jar is now sitting smack dab in the middle of my kitchen table and looks AWESOME!!

Thanks Vicki for this great challenge!!

And thanks for visiting!!

XOXO

QKD Royal Court Crop - Coffee, Tea, or Me Challenge!

We're smack dab in the middle of a full on Royal Court Crop Challenge!! Our Queen Vicki is issuing many challenges to us to inspire, motivate and plain have fun with our awesome Design Team!!!

This particular challenge was called Coffee, Tea or Me. I chose the 'ME' option. I don't have many (or any really) coffee/tea themed stamps. The other part of the challenge was that we were not allowed to have any WHITE in our creation.
I started with a scrap piece of Cosmo Cricket DP in a dark brown polka dotted pattern. You can't see the polka dots from the front but they are in the back. And they are really dark...in a cool vibe way.

This picture was taken of me last weekend by my DH while at a local nature reserve where we do our "family pictures" every fall. He totally snapped this one of me while I wasn't paying attention. I altered the colors and added blurred it up a bit but I think that it captures ME as I am at this moment in my life. I'm in a tumultuous and confusing yet somewhat peaceful space in my head and this shot captures it perfectly.

I printed the photo on ivory cardstock and matted the photo on a piece of SU! Always Artichoke paper with the edges distressed. I, on a daily basis, feel like all of my edges are distressed.
I used the QKD Vintage Time Stamp , using retired SU! True Thyme ink on ivory paper, to represent the passing of time and how fast or slowly things change in life. I also mounted this on the Artichoke paper, distressed the edges and stitched it with chocolate brown thread in a zig zag pattern on my sewing machine.

It's a simple design but somehow so essential to my being right now.

I know they look really different but I took one photo with flash and one without. I couldn't get outside yesterday to get a good shot because it was raining here in MA.

Thanks for visiting!!!

XOXO

Robyn's Fetish Sneaky Peaky!!!

Stay tuned for an amazing upcoming blog hop on November 13th!!! With all new images from Robyn!!!

Here's a little peak of what's to come!!

The Character Cafe New Release Hop!!!

I'm thrilled to be hopping today with the TCC Design Team!! The first Friday of the month is NEW RELEASE DAY here at TCC!!! I was lucky enough to work with Izzy Elf!!! Isn't she simply THE CUTEST!?!?!?!!? You will want to make sure to hop along so that you don't miss one of the teams stunning creations!!! If you arrived here from Billie's blog then you are on the correct path!!! If not you can start HERE and enjoy hopping along!

You'll notice that I have a couple of different pictures. I wanted to take pics outside today but it's raining here in the Northeast so I was stuck finding a good spot inside! Which can be difficult. So I show one photo with no flash and one with a flash.

For Izzy, I started with SU! Hunter Green paper. My card is 5x5 with all corners rounded. I then chose my first layer from last years SU! Holiday Paper measuring down 1/4" and rounded all corners as well. I then set my base aside and started working on Izzy.

I colored her with my Copics and Sakura paint and sparkly gel pens. I twinkled up her ears and hair with a glue pen and gold glitter as well as the pom poms on the toes of her elf slippers. I used my silver paint pen to deck out her collar and cuffs.

For the gifts surrounding her, I decided that in lieu of coloring that I'd paper piece them. So I chose 3 different patters of the same SU! Holiday paper. I trimmed them down to 8.5 x 11" and ran them through my printer printing the image 3 times over. I trimmed out each gift VERY CAREFULLY and laid them over the black and white image. I then used the same paint pens to color their ribbons. I then as a finishing touch added a green self-adhesive rhinestone to the middle of each bow on the gifts.
I then matted Izzy (with corners rounded) on some of my FAVORITE PTI Pure Poppy paper (corners rounded) and used my sewing machine to zig zag stitch around the perimeter of the matte. Izzy was finished. Now to add the finishing touches to my card.

I pulled out some wired ribbon that I just bought yesterday at Michael's. I was thinking the size and pattern may overpower the entire card but it worked great!! I tied it using the very quickly becoming famous "Buttony Bow" created by my friend Joanne!! (if you're interested you can see her tutorial on this. She's a WIZ...the tutorial is on my sidebar).

I then added Izzy complete with her matte using 3-D adhesive dots. Very lastly, I used my SU! Star punch and punched 3 coordinating starts out of the same paper and added them as a decorative touch on the upper right hand side of the card to balance everything out.

Thanks for hopping along with us!!

Your next stop is Angela's blog!! Her creations are as gorgeous as her blog!!!!

Here are the rest of the details about this rockin' hop:

• Comment on all blogs to be entered to win the FULL RELEASE & become a follower (if not already)
• Discount code is "Remember" to receive 40% off from Friday (blog hop start) to Friday, Nov. 13 at noon
• Each DT Member will draw a winner from their comments to receive the image they worked with
• If you post about the blog hop on your blog or elsewhere, let us know and we'll add an extra ballot to the tree
• All draws will be made and posted on Wed. Nov. 11th (Remembrance Day)

Happy Hopping!!!

XOXO

Check out Robyn's New Site!

It's SOOOOOOOOO beautiful!!

QKD NEW RELEASE DAY!

Hey Everyone!!! You don't want to miss any of our awesome design team's creations!!! Go check out all of the fabulous new releases and sales that are going on at the CASTLE!!!

Buy 2 stamp sets get 1 separate stamp FREE
Buy 3 separate stamps get 1 FREE

Today's blog hop line up:

QKD blog

Shannon's blog

Jules' blog

Maria's blog

WIS blog

Bev (SG's) blog

Andrea's blog

Lara's blog

Anessa's blog

Nina's blog

Nancy's blog

Stephanie's blog

Queen Kat Designs Store

HAPPY HOPPING!

XOXO

Robyn's Fetish Wacky Wednesday!!!

Greetings everyone!!! Welcome to another FABULOUS Robyn's Fetish Wacky Wednesday!!! Today we've been given THE cutest image - Paula Pilgrim!! I want you to come check out Robyn's new and FANTASTIC blog!!

Every week Robyn is so beyond generous and gives out a FREEBIE IMAGE!!! So you MUST MUST go and grab the new image today!! This image is PERFECT to give to your holiday host or hostess or to make a project with while to have around the house as decor for the holiday coming up!!

Again, I've been trying to utilize as much scrap as I can so you'll see the mixy, matchy theme here as I attempt NOT to cut into new paper until I've used up LOTS of my scrap!!! I printed Paula on a medium beige paper and then fed a scrap of 12x12 through my printer to print out her outfit. By now you all know that I love paper piecing!! I proceeded to color the rest of her with my Copics, Sakuras and gold paint pen (for the buckle on kitty's hat!).
I used my corner rounder for the lower corners of the card and layers. I stitched layers 2 and 3 together using a zig zag stitch with chocolate brown thread. I used my friend Joanne B's technique (see sidebar for tutorial) for the buttony bow combo.

Lastly...I used Glossy Accents to glaze up our Turkey!! MMMMMMMmmmmmmmmm....!! It almost looks so real I can ALMOST taste it!!

My husband, kids, dogs and I are all headed to Maine for a week during Thanksgiving. We're going to my Aunt's house which will be empty except for us all week!! I'm looking forward to fires, puzzles, hottubs, and lots and lots of nature time!!! YAY!!!

I truly hope that you enjoyed my creation!!! Please go to visit the other design team members to see what they've done!!!

Hope you're all having a creative week!!!

XOXO-

Award!!!!

I got this SUPER FAB award from our darling Queen Vicki!!! Thanks Girl!!!

The rules are this: I need to pass this award on to five people, post on their blog to let them know I left this award, and then I need to answer a list of questions in ONE word.

1. Where is your cell phone? purse

2. Your hair? wild

3. Your mother? missed

4. Your father? tortured

5. Your favorite food? apples

6. Your dream last night? none

7. Your favorite drink? coffee

8. Your dream/goal? happiness

9. What room are you in? studio

10. Your hobby? lots

11. Your fear? destruction

12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? happy

13. Where were you last night? belly dancing (i know its 2 words but i couldn't figure it in one!)

14. Something that you aren't? mean

15. Muffins? gross

16. Wish list item? contentment

17. Where did you grow up? framingham

18. Last thing you did? treasure hunt (also 2 words...SORRY! LOL!)

19. What are you wearing? clothes

20. Your TV? off

21. Your Pets? gorgeous

22. Friends? complicated

23. Your life? wild

24. Your mood? pensive

25. Missing Someone? lots

26. vehicle? Pilot

27. Something your not wearing? earrings
28. Your favorite store? Bloomingdales

29. Your favorite color? black

30. When was the last time you laughed? last night

31. Last time you cried? i wish i could

32. Your best friend? ...

33. One place that I go to over and over? Marshalls

34. Facebook? definitely

35. Favorite place to eat? ...

Ok.. now for my nominees...

Joanne
Sarabeth
Donna
Alex
Anita

Enjoy Ladies!!

XOXOXOXOXO

QKD Royal Wed - NEW RELEASES!!!!

DON'T FORGET TO KEEP READING DOWN...THERE ARE 3 NEW POSTS FOR QKD TODAY!!!

I did an ENTIRELY different interpretation of Mia this time around!!! I completely challenged myself to do a card in only Grey, Black and White and any variations of those. DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD THAT IS??? =) I do now!!

LOL!! Anyhoo...thanks for visiting and I hoped you hopped from the Penny's blog!! If not you DEFINITELY want to start hopping at the beginning so you can see the entire team's FANTASTIC work!!!

I've been wanting to do something in pure black and white for some time now and have not had enough head space lately to tackle it. But I did today.
I started coloring...figuring...if it didn't work out at the fundamentals of the card (the main image) then I'd stop there. So I pulled out my black, grey and blender Copics, my fine art sketch pencils which are graded H for Hard or B for Black. Hard pencils are best for fine line, black pencils are better for most types of drawing and for shading in. An all purpose pencil is HB (just in the middle), but you can usually find H, 2H, 3H, 4H, B, 2B, 3B, 4B - and sometimes even higher numbers.

Anyway - (I'm a little obsessed with pencils!) I also used my silver paint pen, my silver and clear glittery Sakura pens, and a few regular colored pencils in white, grey, black, and silver.
I wanted the most texture on the image that I could create using only black and white.

The other cool thing about this card is that Mia is not attached to the card with the exception of the fibers that are holding her on. So if I were to give this card away I'd include a separate piece of long black ribbon and instruct the recipient to snip the existing thread and use the extra ribbon to tie through to create a snazzy bookmark!!! So when you actually hold this card Mia swings gently back and forth. It's pretty cool!

So I started coloring and while challenging I found it really fun!! I think she looks somewhat robotic, somewhat 'Wizard of Oz - Tin Man-esque', somewhat mystical, "Matrix-y". Not scary, not freaky...but perhaps a little...bizarre...spooky even. Which I totally dig this time of year!!

After I had her colored she still looked a bit flat. So I added rhinestones to her tail, sparkles to some of her flowers and silver paint to other flowers. I sparkled up her itsy, bitsy, teeny, weeny black and white polka dot bikini!! and added white velvet flock to her bow. After that she totally jumped out at me!!
I matted her on SU! black cardstock and corner rounded 2 of the 4 corners. I punched a small hole and threaded through black yarn fiber, silver elastic cording and black and white ticking ribbon.
Setting that aside I turned to the card base itself. I used a 5x5 black cardstock base, followed by a white matte trimmed in 1/4" and edge distressed. I went looking for grey or silver paper in my stash and didn't find any that worked. And then I saw my newspaper scraps. THAT worked great. I stitched the newspaper to the white matte. I then used scraps of my Tinkering Ink paper in Noir Blanc and cut 4 squares measuring 2" square all around. I puzzle pieced them together for a 'psuedo checkerboard' feeling. I liked how it looked but it still looked like it was missing...something.

So I started looking around at my stashes. Large, white buttons - very 'mod', white silky primas - too delicate, ribbons that were all too - cutsie. So I cheated...JUST A LITTLE BIT and hit my sticker drawer. I searched and searched and finally came across these fabulous, shiny and silver skull stickers that I bought for this Halloween season. It would have been absolutely perfect if they were solid black, white and silver but they're not. Either way, I grabbed the largest one and centered it in the middle of the 4 tiles.
When Mia is there you don't notice the intense yet super cool tattoo style skull behind her!! But when you clip her off to use her as a bookmark you have a different card entirely to display!!
Now it's onto Linda's blog to see what she has for us on this hop!!! YAY!!!

QKD blog
Alex's blog
Vicki's blog
Kelly's blog
Helene's blog
Penny's blog - You are here!
Meredith's blog
Linda's blog
Anita's blog
Sara's blog
Ashley's blog
Queen Kat Designs Store

XOXO-

QKD Royal Wed - NEW RELEASES!!!!

I SIMPLY love New Releases!!! Believe me, I LOVE all the stamps I own and I'll use them hundreds of times over but there's something about a new image that's just SO SUPER fun!!

If you arrived here from Penny's Blog then you, my friend, are on the right track!! If not hop on back to the beginning and don't miss one creation!!!

This gorgeous lady is Monarch Mia!! Just another amazing and stunning design from Maigan-Lynn!
I wanted to do something sparkly, girlie, whimsical and fun. So I looked through my newest paper purchase which was an on sale, end of summer paper pack from K&Company. It had papers with whales, submarines, waves, mermaids, sea horse, etc. Super cute with kind of retro-eclectic 60's designs, great colors. So I grabbed it up. I pulled out the papers with sea horses and mermaids. The colors were orange, pink, chocolate. So I ran with that.

I inked her in brown Colorbox ink and stamped her on a relatively old piece of parchment stationary and heat set her.

I grabbed the Copics and sparkly pens that I needed to work with Mia and set to it. My daughter has the coolest doll with hair that's, hot pink, orange, and yellow. So that's EXACTLY what I did. (I keep trying to snag the doll to have her sit on a shelf in my office as inspiration but Kendall keeps snagging her back! LOL!)

I thoroughly enjoyed coloring her and shifting color so that the image balanced well...I love the pop of turquoise. I blinged her butterfly-ish tail fin just a little with my silver paint pen and sparkled up the giant daisy/black eyed susan that she's perched on with my glue pen and some bright orange glitter.

I couldn't decide what her actual tail color should be so I decided to paper piece her. This heart paper is also from the same paper stack. I stamped her again on the heart paper, embossed, heat set and then just trimmed her tail out and glued it down. I LOVE this technique!!! It's so eye catching!!

With all of the coloring done, I set to matting my image on yellow and brown cardstock. I tied a sheer gold ribbon around the bottom and set her aside.

I made my card base out of this SU!'s pretty in pink and then PTI's summer sunrise. I adhered them together. I then adhered and stitched the chocolate brown and white polka dot ribbon to those layers.

I then took the mermaid paper, the seahorse paper and another matte of brown - adhered and stitched together. I then adhered Mia to the mix and then used PTI summer sunrise matching polka dot ribbon to tie around that entire stack. I then zig zag stitched around the perimeter making sure to INCLUDE the ribbon in my stitching to hold it down and give it an interesting texture.

The button trio was added at the end. They are all tied with hemp twine.

I truly hope you enjoyed my new creations with Mia!!! You MUST run to the store to grab yourself one or 8!! LOL! Yes...I'm a bad enabler...I know!!

Please enjoy your hopping on over to Linda's fab creation!!!

QKD blog
Alex's blog
Vicki's blog
Kelly's blog
Helene's blog
Penny's blog - You are here!
Meredith's blog
Linda's blog
Anita's blog
Sara's blog
Ashley's blog
Queen Kat Designs Store


XOXO-

QKD Royal Wed - NEW RELEASES!!!!

Hi Everyone!! Welcome to yet ANOTHER new release!!! The Queen has been VERY busy!!! =) I want to RE-introduce you all to Nivea (who you saw during our last new release) but THIS time she has a GORGEOUS background to work with!! YAY!!!

And it's also another ROYAL MONDAY HOP!!! If you hopped here from the Penny's blog then you are on the right track!! If you stumbled here 'just because' you'll DEFINITELY want to start at the beginning of the hop so as not to miss one of the teams GORGEOUS creations!!

Nivea now has a BEAUTIFUL castle complete with princess turrets, gardens and BUBBLES galore...of COURSE!!!I wanted to do something 'different' with her so I looked around my studio. I had purchased some decor for my kitchen that ended up being damaged...from Linens and Things and since they are long out of business I just put it in the 'eventually will be used' pile.

So it was an easy 'go-to' for me this project. I wanted an eclectic and funky feel to it so I grabbed a bunch of mis-matchy scrap and set to it. I adhered the green dotted paper first on one edge. I then layed it down - face down - and used my Exacto craft knife to trim around the rest of the edges and I then adhered it all with 'red-liner' tape so that the entire 'canvas' if you will, was covered in the green paper with polka dots. I then set that aside. I turned my focus to coloring Nivea. I used my Copics, gold paint pen, and my white gel pen. I had a GREAT time coloring her!!!I matted her on light blue, kraft and gold papers incrementally...corner rounding the gold paper. I then used some red scrap DP, corner rounded and zig zag stitched them together.

I then added a beautiful, sheer turquoise with white polka dot buttony, bow combo that I learned from my bestie friend in real life Joanne!! Such a great technique!!
I then went back to working on the plaque. I added some funky wave paper in opposing colors and shapes and stitched on some red pom pom trim. I adhered that to the right edge. I then added my Nivea with Background all done and matted up and sat back and looked at it.

It was GREAT...but missing....that.....something. I looked around and had another largish scrap with these pink, green and blue bullseyes all over it. I grabbed my 1-1/4" punch and punched them all out. I adhered them to thin cardboard and coated them with lots of glossy glaze! I let them dry overnight and added them in the am with 3-D glue dots. The effect I wanted was complete!! I think they look like funky bubbles swirling all around her in her beautiful world!!!
I am THRILLED at how it all turned out and I hope you enjoy it too!!!

Now off you go to Linda's blog to see her beautiful creation!!!

QKD Blog
Alex's Blog
Vicki's Blog
Kelly's Blog
Helene's Blog
Penny's Blog
Meredith's Blog --- THAT'S ME!! =)
Linda's Blog
Anita's Blog
Sara's Blog
Ashley's Blog
Queen Kat Designs Store

XOXO-