Sow's It Going

Card made last year for Inky Antics for summer CHA. I colored with colored pencils and Gamsol and used Cosmo Cricket's "Earth Love" paper line. I used 10410F Piggy and 0937D Sow's Going.

Back update

I wanted to do an update of my back. This note a sympathy post, but info for me if I need it if I have to see a specialist down the road AND to share with you what I've learned so far. I've had a couple of e-mails from you that are going thru the same thing.


Anyway I am going to PT and will for 6 weeks, hoping it will work. They started traction treatments Saturday and that gave me some relief until they took me out of traction. We are trying different things and I was finally able to sleep for 3 hours last nite the longest in several days so that was a good thing! DH also gave me a massage before I went to bed and I think that helped calm down the muscle spasming as well.

She had me sleep with a laundry basket and I put my legs up on it with my right (my bad side) knee to my chest and my foot against the basket. Sounds bizarre, but it gave me some relief and I was able to sleep for 3 hours (until I woke up coughing! Ü). Being in this weird position took away the shooting pain down my leg and foot. I still have pain in my hip area, but she (my PT) says for now that is okay. It's the pain down the leg that is dangerous if it lasts too long.

She said every day to try to walk on my heels and tippy toes. If I can't do it, then I will have to see a specialist right away as that is a sign of severe nerve damage. Some can go longer than others with the nerve pain down the leg. I am on day 13.

Another thing she had me do is get a brace for my back. I already had an elastic one from years ago and used it today and could tell a difference. My muscles aren't working very good right now and she said this would give me some support until we can get them to work.

I did a lot of reading and research today on sciatic nerves and everything I read she suggested we do, even the time line, so I am confident in the direction we are going. It even said ibuprofen is the best meds to take and if that doesn't work, narcotics, which I don't like.

Another thing I read is to try to stay as active as possible. I know that doesn't seem possible when one is in so much pain, but I am definitely trying it and plan to keep working as long as I can.

I hope some of this helps you if you are going thru the same thing. If you have anything that has helped, please feel free to share. Everyone is different and responds to treatment different, but if anything that helps me can help someone else, I want to share.

Spring Cupcake

** Be sure to scroll down to see the Inky Antics blog hop...someone will win free stamps Ü

My "Spring Cupcake" card by Designed2Delight was created for CDAC's "Other" challenge. Faith is hosting this challenge. The challenge is to use two different patterned papers. I used polka dots and stripes from my scraps and I don't know who they are by. This image is a freebie, so hop over to CDAC to pick it up and play along with us.

I printed on watercolor paper and went over the image with a glue pen and then embossed with clear embossing powder. I watercolored the image with Tombow markers.

Marker colors are  in the order seen left to right:
glue pen, clear blender, yellow 985, gray N95, blue 491, green 243, coral 873, and brown 977

The scroll design on the sides is the ends of a scrolly tag die by Nestibilities

Freebies!

Today is Freebie Friday over on Baby Bud Designs. Hurry over to pick up your free image. Here is a card I made with the flower.

I "Paint" I erased the face and in Inkscape (free downloadable program) I merged the flower and Ashton together. Love how it turned out!

Daffodils

** Be sure to scroll down to see the Inky Antics blog hop...someone will win free stamps Ü


We have a new feature at Designed2Delights Card Ideas blog. Every Thursday we will be giving you a sneak peek at what the free digi is going to be on Friday.

If you are familiar with how the free digi's work, you know that on the first Friday of the month, Faith shares a free digital image with everyone. All you have to do is grab the digi, create with it (you have a week) and then post a link to your creation before the deadline on the next Thursday at midnite EST on Faith's Delightful Inspiration Blog. Then you automatically get the next week's freebie in your e-mail on Friday and repeat. Ü If you miss a week along the way you can buy the digi from her store and keep playing.

Tomorrow's freebie is Daffodils. I colored the image with Copic Markers. The papers are Basic Grey.

Inky's First Blog Hop

Welcome to the first ever Inky Antics blog hop! It starts today and ends on Sunday, February 27th at midnight Central time. We invite you to stop and comment on each DT members’ blog, as there will be prizes given away. Three lucky winners (who visit and post at every stop in the hop) will be drawn at random to receive a new release Easter bunny clear stamp set.

If  you’ve come from Inky’s blog you are on the right track. If not, be sure to go there to make sure you don't miss any of the blogs. 

Jackie challenged us to use THIS bunny and have him holding something. This was more challenging than I thought it would be. I do like how my card turned out, but I tried lots of things before I found something that would fit in his arms. I think this is such a fun idea and can't wait to hop over to the DT's blogs to see what they slipped in his arms.

I created my own background paper with the egg background and embossed the cardstock with the swirls on the bottom panel. I colored the images with colored pencils and Gamsol.

Your next stop will be to visit Jovi’s blog. She has a super awesome project to show you.

Here is the list again in case you get lost along the way:
Inky Antics

Debbie Fisher (that's me Ü)

Jovi Kloess

Crystal Irwin

Tex Gerard

Michelle Pearson

Trudy Sjolander

Textile or Fashion

This was our new challenge and I had the perfect project to post.

I am teaching a 3rd-5th grade after school program for 6 weeks and this is one of our projects….a necklace made with a washer! Here it is on me. I wore it for Valentine’s Day.

Here is another close up:

And here is the tutorial if you want to make one yourself.


Here is a quick run down of how I made mine:
1. I traced the washer on the back side of the patterned paper I wanted to use.

2. I used are Tombow’s Mono Multi Liquid Glue to adhere the paper to the washer. Let dry!!!! Then sand the outside edges smooth. I used a paper punch for the inside, so it was already smoothed out from the cut.

3. I then repeated step #2 for the other side.

4. I used Tombow’s Mono Aqua Liquid Glue and SLOWLY (this is key so you don’t get any bubbles) all over the top of one side. Let this dry completely! I let it dry over nite.

5. Repeat step #4 for the other side.

6. Then I just added some fun cording I got at Hobby Lobby and added a necklace clasp to the ends.

I hope this has inspired you to try Tombow on fashion projects of your own. Be sure to hop over to the Tombow Blog this week to see what the other DT created with this challenge.

QKR Tuesday

This little Hug Me boy just makes me smile. I used Basic Grey papers from their Marjolaine line which is PERFECT for making guy cards.

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I hope you all had a wonderful Valentine's Day filled with love yesterday. As I was trying to figure out what to make to go with the pizza, Aaron asked if we could rent a movie. I said that would be a fun new tradition to add and make new memories and he says in his dry humor way under his breath "yeah as we lose some memories too". Only those that know Aaron can see the humor in that.

Here are a few goodies I made for DH and Aaron:

Homemade heart shaped pizza

Strawberry Crepes. I made the chocolate hearts by melting some chocolate in a plastic bag and cutting a tiny hole in the corner and squeezing out a heart shape onto wax paper. Let harden and you have a fun little accent.

I knew as soon as I posted this (in a rush as I was headed to work) that my friend Gail would e-mail me for the recipe. Ü

Whole Wheat Crepes:

3 eggs

1 c. milk

2/3 c. wheat flour

1/4 tsp salt

Beat eggs and milk in a bowl. Add flour and salt: beat with shisk until smooth. Refrigerate for 2 hours or overnight. Brush 8" pan with a little butter. Warm pan over medium heat. Pour 2 T. batter into pan, tilt quickly to coat bottom evenly (crepes should be lightly golden, but not brown). Do not turn. Stack crepes between sheets of wax paper. Refrigerate until cool and then fill with whipped topping and your favorite fruit.

*I was out of whole wheat so just used regular white flour for these, but I do make the whole wheat ones more often.

Scrappy Note Pad & Tombow Tip

Happy Valentine's Day!


I had lots of scraps laying around while creating Valentine Cards and decided to make some notepads. These are the ones made with a 5" x 8" jr. legal pad cut in half lenthwise.

The scraps are from Bo Bunny's "A Gift of Love" line". The "Just a Note" ticket is a digital one I found online from Scrapdictive.
I have a fun little Tombow glue tip for you that I got from my friend Bridget. She said I could share, but to be sure to let you know it is not her original idea and she didn't remember where she had seen it.

Break a toothpick in half and apply Tombow's Mono Multi Liquid Glue to the broken ends and let dry. When it is dry it is very tacky. In the photo you can see where I poked holes in a piece of egg carton to hold my tacky toothpicks.

Now you have the perfect little "tools" to pick up tiny pieces. I love this tip! Here I layed out my flower brads (that I have cut the brad tongs off) where I want them.

Next, I pick up the first flower with the tacky toothpick and apply Tombow glue to the back and then adhere back to the note pad where I want it to go.

All you need to do is use your fingernail or another tool to release the flower from the tacky toothpick. This works really well with tiny punched pieces and is what I did to adhere these tiny hearts in this project.

Scrappy Notepads

I've had lots of scraps laying around from all my Valentine and DT  projects and decided to make more notepads. These notepads are a great way of using up those little scraps. They are 2.5" wide and each notepad turns out different. Here are a couple of my favorites...

Again using scraps from digi paper by Summertime Designs:

and this one uses a fun digi precolored image and digi papers by Clear Dollar Stamps. You can see here on their blog where they showcased these designs.

LOVE Candy Bar Holder

With Valentine's Day right around the corner, the DT is sharing the LOVE this week on the Tombow Blog.

I LOVE Tombow and am so blessed to be able to work with them and use their awesome products. In this post I'm going to share with you some new and new to me Tombow products.

I LOVE to do the holidays up big and have ever since my boys were little. You can see on my blog here, here, and here just some of the things I have done for my "boys" (DH included Ü) and friends. I also LOVE to make fun and simple little gifts for my friends and coworkers. Just a little something to show I care. Here is one of my favorite that I did for Tombow and gave to a friend.

In the past I've just found creative ways to wrap candy and this year I found this fun box that holds a large candy bar. It was so easy and simple to do, which is another thing I LOVE esp since I work full time during the school year.

I colored the image (Designed2Delight) with Tombow's Dual Brus Pens (numbers: 990, 800, 062, 026, 772, 192, blender) and one of their new colored pencils from the "Very Pale Tone" collection. If you know me at all, you know I LOVE to color with colored pencils, so you can just imaging how giddy I was when I learned Tombow would be carrying colored pencils! Ü

I'm still "new" at learning how to use the Dual Brush Pens, but a tip I have for you when shading is to take your lighter marker and brush it on your darker shade marker and then color. You won't ruin your markers doing this. Just color on some scrap paper til the darker color comes off.

I used Tombow's Mono Adhesive Power Bond to put the box together, Mono Adhesive Permanent to add the layers to the front of the box and the lacy edge to the inside of the box and adhere the ribbon, and Mono Aqua Liquid Glue to adhere the buttons.

I hope you enjoyed this project of things I LOVE and would LOVE to hear from you if you make one of these Candy Bar Holders.

Be sure to stop by the Tombow blog as they are giving away prizes every day this week.

We are also sharing the LOVE on Designed2Delights Card Ideas blog this week with Valentine ideas. Hop on over to see the GORGEOUS work the DT did and be sure to play along for a great prize!

This project is also for:
Pixie Cottage Ribbon Challenge
Do You Stack Up Ribbon Challenge

More CHA Inky's

Here are the rest of the Inky Antics cards I made for CHA in January. All patterened papers are by Basic Grey.

I also got to color images for the catalog which is fun for me to see.

CHA Inky

Here are a few more cards I made for Inky Antics for CHA last month.

All patterned papers are Basic Grey.

Love Bear

It's QKR Tuesday (all that means is that I try to upload my QKR card/projects on Tues Ü) and this cute image is called "Love Bear". This is a digital image, but you can also get him in rubber.

This past weekend I just made up a bunch of cards with scraps and then will add images to them as I make cards. This is one of those cards. All I had to do was print the image, color him, mount him and add some punched photo corners. I colored him with colored pencils and gamsol and used my gray Copic for some shadowingl. I drew in the line to give him something to stand on so it doesn't look like he is floating.

Noelle CASE

Sunday on SCS is Featured Stamper day. I LOVED Lori's blog and CASE'd this card of hers. Here is my version:

I used paper from my new Bo Bunny paper pad "A Gift of Love".

"Wool Ewe" Be My Valentine

Isn't this digital lamb image from D2D adorable? I created this for the Red Hot challenge on Do You Stack Up and for From the Heart on Digital Tuesday.

I used more of the "Dance with Me" digital papers by Summertime Designs. I also used Fun Flock for the sheep's body.

Here is the inside:

There are some fun games and prizes going on on CDAC and PCP. You have to be a member to play, but it is free to sign up. So come on over and play with us.

Happiness Begins

Card I made for Inky Antics this year for CHA.

D2D Saturday Challenge

Be Mine Bear or Puppy Love: This is our next "Images from the Attic" challenge on D2D's Card Ideas Blog. We were to create a card and matching treat gift. Be sure to hop over to the blog to see the COOL ideas from the other DT players. Fun stuff!

As soon as Dollar General (in December) stocked their $1 candy boxes I bought some knowing I was going to alter the tops. Not too long ago, I saw this adorable altered candy box by Laurie Smidlin and decided to CASE her a little bit. (LOVE her blog!)

The "xo" paper is from Basic Grey's Oliver line, the reddish punched heart is Bo Bunny's "Back to Back's" tone on tone polka dots that I punched the edge with EK Success heart punch that I've had for 2 years and never used (shame on me!! I love it!) and the lined paper is My Mind's Eye "Alphabet Soup Boy 'Ledger' Paper". If you know me at all, you know how much I love mixing and matching companies. I love how these 3 different companies papers coordinated so well.

I colored the Be Mine Bear with Copics and also colored a paper doily to match (the white was too much white). I love that I had some vintage rayon seam binding to match as well!

See the cool heart embellies? They are from when I punched the heart border. After I glued the hearts on, I applied Tombow's Mono Aqua Liquid Glue to the hearts to give them dimension. This makes them look like they are brads or dimensional stickers. I like Tombow's Aqua glue for this better than the dimensional stuff you can buy because the applicator doesn't clog up and it is easier to apply in either small or large areas with it's dual applicator tips.

Here is the matching card I made using the heart and scalloped heart Nestibilities dies. When I cut the scalloped heart, I folded the cardstock in half first and then lowered it a little bit so that it would leave a folded edge to create a card.

**Also for One Crazy Stamper challenge and From the Heart challenge on Digital Tuesday.

D2D Freebie

Today is the 1st Friday of the month which means a new freebie on Delightful Inspirations. Hurry over to pick up your free digi of this fun Valentine heart. If you played along last week you also get this adorable heart with a kitty peeking out behind it.

For my card I CASE'd this one from SimplyHandmade on SCS. I love everything about her card. I used a page from an old book I got at a library sale for 10 cents just for the purpose of using it for papercrafting.

The patterned paper I used is by Cosmo Cricket from their Earth Love line. I also used buttons from my vintage button stash that I've had for a very long time.

I brushed the edges of all the paper with SU!'s Creamy Caramel ink and colored the images with Copic and then colored pencils and Gamsol on top (do NOT color with Copics over the colored pencils and gamsol or you will ruin them).

This is my second post today, so be sure to scroll down for my first one.

Thank You Gift Box

In January, when I ended up getting bronchial pneumonia and had to do 8 days of out patient IV infusions. I wanted to make a little something to say thank you to the nurse that was on staff those days.


We got to know each other those days and one thing she mentioned was that her hands get so dry due to our cold winter weather as well using so many alcohol wipes every day.

I love this box that was designed by Lauren Meader. I used bright fun colors of glittered patterned paper. I used Tombow’s Mono Adhesive Power Bond to put the box together and Mono Adhesive Permanent to add the patterned papers to the box.

In the box I added a tube of lotion, chapstick and a fun little bottle (from Hobby Lobby) of M & M's that I sorted the colors out to match the paper. Ü

Misc D2D

I have had lots of D2D images colored, but not put in card form and then I got sick. Yesterday we had school off due to high winds and severe low temps, so I got busy and made lots of cards.

Here are a few that I made using D2D's images...
Love You to Stitches

You can get this image with the mouse or without. I'm bummed because this is really 2 shades of salmon, not orange and whatever that it looks like in the photo. I may try to rephoto this. I also made this card for Digital Tuesday's challenge of shades of gray and one other color.

Love A Latte
I know I say this about all of Faith's images, but I really LOVE this image! I thought it would be fun to include the little chai pkg when sending this card. I was using up scraps making this and ended up making about 5 cards like this using different colors, but all with this sketch.

A Beautiful Life

For this card I copy and pasted to Paint and erased the stem and then copy and pasted more and arranged them to be close to each other. This is a sympathy card for a friend. I love the poppies for this type of card.

I colored the flowers with chalk! Been forever since I've used my chalks, but I thought they needed the softness that I can get from chalk. I loved this card I found on SCS and CASE'd it. Here is the inside:

and Winter Bear (this was created for For Fun Challenges)

I love this sentiment that I saw with a little girl in a swing by MFT and thought it fit perfectly for this snowbear sliding down the hill. Ü

I used fun flock for the bear's fur and lots of glitter in the snow. I thought the patterned paper looked like a sweater and as cold as it is out, one definitely needs a sweater!

Well, that's it for now. Thanks for looking! I will have more for you tomorrow.

Bee My Valentine

This Baby Bud image is called Beatrice. Isn't she a doll? or rather I guess a bee. Ü I decided to make her into a Valentine card so colored her pink and red instead of yellow and black and love how she turned out.

I colored her with Copics and glittered her wings. Sentiment was printed from the computer.

**Also for One Crazy Stamper challenge

QKR Stampede Angel

I love this cute angel called Angel Wishes! I used scraps to create the card base, then sewed along the "seams". This is a digi image (you can also get the same image in rubber), so I could remove her mouth (that looks like she is singing) with my Paint program. That's one of the cool things about digi images is that you can get so many more uses with them.

She is colored with Copics and colored pencils and gamsol. I glittered her wings and the star and added brads.