I’m Loving You

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It’s an exciting day over at the Meljen’s Designs blog and shop. Melissa is releasing a bunch of new digital stamps and pre-colored digital images for February in the Meljen’s Designs store today. (I’ll give you a peek below.)

Although I enjoy coloring, there are time when I love using precolored images. They are so quick and easy to use when you have a time crunch or want to make several cards quickly. I decided to use some of the new pre-colored digis to make several Valentine’s Day cards for teachers and grandparents. I stayed with the same design on all of them to make the paper & die cutting easier. (My card design is loosely based on sketch MFTWSC18.) First I’ll show you a look at all the cards and then a closer look at each of them.

As promised, here is a look at all the new goodies Melissa is putting into the shop today.

The theme for the new Meljen’s Designs challenge is “Loving You”. Perfect for Valentine’s day. You can link up your card, see the challenge rules and be inspired by the DT’s creations on the Meljen’s Designs blog.

Thank you for stopping by!

Supplies:

• Images: I Heart You Badge, Kitty Love, Little Light Bulb, & Loving Ewe precolored digis from Meljen’s Designs
• Inks: none
• Papers: Papertrey white & kraft CS, Bazzill Basics red CS, Basic Grey Sugar Rush DP
• Tools: Sewing machine, Big Shot, Spellbinders Nestabilities, Taylored Expressions Layering Doiles dies (small & medium), Martha Stewart edge punch, Provocraft Seeing Spots embossing folder
• Embellishments: Paper Studio clear gemstones (colored with R29 copic marker)
• Misc: Sentiments printed using the free font Words of Love

Challenges:

• By the Cute & Girly – Love is in the air
• Corrosive Challenge – Hearts
• Crafts 4 Eternity – Clean and Simple
• Crafty Pad – Valentines
• Crafty Purple Frog – Valentines
• Crafty Sentiments – Punches/dies
• Di's Digi Designs challenge – Valentines day
• Emerald Fairies Garden Challenge – Be my valentine
• Fresh Brewed Challenges – (monthly) Love
• I Brake for Challenges – Love
• Inky Impressions – Pearls or bling
• Lil Red Wagon – Valentines Day
• One Crazy Stamper – Love is in the air
• One Stop Craft Challenge – Stitching
• Paper Issues – All you need is love
• Paper Pretties – Love
• Paper Shelter – Love is in the air
• Pattie's Creation Challenge – embossing
• Penny's Paper Crafty Challenge blog – Love is in the air
• The Pixie Cottage – Sketch and/or CAS
• Simon Says Stamp – Animal Antics
• Stamp, Scrap & Doodle Saturdays – anything goes
• Stampin’ Royalty – Valentines day
• Stampin’ with the Dragon – anything goes
• Stamp-n-doodle – Valentines
• Stamps R Us – Valentines
• The Stamping Boutique (TSB) – Valentine
• Top Tip Challenge – Valentine
• Totally Gorjuss – K.i.s.s.
• Totally Stampalicious – CAS
• Tuesday Throwdown – Valentines
• Use It Tuesday – All about love
• Do you Stack Up Anything goes

Quick Christmas projects

If you need to make some quick, last minute Christmas tags or cards, don’t forget Meljen’s Designs offers colored digis. I printed off these cute, colored snowmen and using scraps I already had on my desk, made this cute tag in about 15 minutes. You can see Meljen’s entire collection of colored images HERE.

I also need a few quick, little gifts for a few people so I made some Hot Cocoa Customization Kits. I got my idea from this post. (Be sure to check out the post on Kirtsy – Megan’s kits are much cuter.)

I used a pre-colored Meljen’s Designs image to make a little tag. Included in my kit are some mini-chocolate chips to make the cocoa richer, crushed candy canes, malted milk powder, and mini marshmallows.

Just a reminder that the challenge last week, No Rectangle Cards, is still going on this week so you have plenty of time to link up your creations on the Meljen’s Designs blog.

Also, I wanted to share a picture of an early gift that Santa dropped off for me. He knows of my love of snowman and bird watching so he “gave” this to my hubby to give to me. That’s right, it’s a snowman bird feeder. It looks like it was an early gift for the finches too.

Since I am not sure I will have another post before the weekend, I’ll take this chance to wish each of you Happy & Safe Holidays.

Supplies for tag:

• Images: Caroling Snowman – COLOR (digital image) by Meljen’s Designs
• Inks: Distress Inks Antique Linen
• Papers: Papertrey kraft & dark chocolate CS, Echo Park Holly Jolly DP pad, Georgia Pacific white CS
• Tools: Color printer, Big Shot, Papertrey Journal Tabs die and Doily Details die, Cropodile, Stampin’ Up small circle punch, Sizzix tag die, Creative Memories corner punch
• Embellishments: Paperstudios metals, Clear Spica marker, misc. rick rack, twine, & bells

Supplies for Cocoa Kit:

• Stamps: Christmas Cocoa – COLOR digital image) by Meljen’s Designs
• Inks: None
• Papers: All scraps
• Tools: Big Shot, Sizzix oval tags die
• Embellishments: Misc. ribbon, twine, button
• Other: Food quality test tubes, misc. fillings

Challenges:

• ABC Challenge – Frosty
• Anything Goes Challenge – Anything but a card w/option of Christmas tag
• Bee-Crafty – Christmas
• Card Mad Fairy's Digi Day challenge – tags
• Catch The Bug – Baby Its Cold Outside
• Chocolate, Coffee & Cards – tag you’re it
• Craft Your Days Away – Snowmen
• Crafting for all Seasons – Christmas
• Crafty Calendar – Cold & frosty
• Creative Friday – Christmas gift
• Di's Digi Designs challenge – Christmas
• Digi Doodle Shop's Best – anything goes
• Divas By Design – Christmas
• Dream Valley – Christmas
• Hooked On Crafts – Christmas
• Inky Impressions – Christmas Cheer
• My Mum's Craft Shop – Anything goes
• My Time to Craft – Winter pals
• One Crazy Stamper – Christmas
• One Stitch At A Time – Christmas
• Ooh-La-La creations – Anything but a card
• Paper Take Weekly – Christmas
• Paper Issues – Holiday madness
• Penny's Paper Crafty Challenge Blog – Christmas gifts
• Phindy's Place challenge – Scraps
• Really Reasonable Ribbon- Anything goes + ribbon
• Sassy Cheryl’s Challenge – Snowman & diecut
• Sisterhood of the Crafters – Christmas
• Stamp N Doodle – Christmas
• Stampin’ Royalty – Christmas
• Top Tip Tuesday – Christmas
• Use It Tuesday – Christmas

Santa Baby

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The weather turned cold and dreary here this week. Brrrr…. Winter is on its way. Although I enjoy curling up near the fire with my blanket, cup of tea, and a good book, I made my way up to my craft room to make another Christmas card. To keep things easy, I used one of the pre-colored digital images from Meljen’s Designs. The colors perfectly matched my new Echo Park papers. This Santa looks so happy that I just want to pinch his rosy cheek. (But I won’t. I don’t want to end up on the “Naughty” list.)

A couple of weeks ago I finally scored at an antique store. Every one always shows off all their great thrift store or antique store finds but I feel like I never find anything “good”. I saw a sign that a local antique store was closing and that everything was on sale. Since I had time, I decided to stop to see if I could find anything “good”. I did! I got 3 quart mason jars full of buttons for $5. Once I got them home and sorted through them, I found there were quite a few lovely vintage buttons, a few other novelty type buttons, and a lot of plain ol’ buttons. I’m happy with my purchase. I plan on dying some of the plain buttons using a tutorial I found on Pinterest. I brought all this up because I used one of the buttons I bought on this card. Plus, I like looking at the jars of buttons on the shelf in my craft room.

Since it’s Thursday, there is a new release and a new challenge for Meljen’s Designs. Here is a look at the new digis going into the store today. Aren’t these mice super cute?

Of course they go perfectly with the new Meljen’s Designs challenge – use Orange and/or Brown. Stop by the Meljen’s Designs blog to see the projects from Team A using the new images.

Thank you for stopping by! Have a great day!

Supplies:

• Stamps: Santa’s Jolly Smile (precolored digital stamp) from Meljen’s Designs, Signature Christmas & Just the Ticket from Papertrey
• Inks: Close To My Heart Cranberry, Stampin’ Up Garden Green, Distress Inks Old Paper
• Papers: Papertrey white CS, Echo Park Holly Jolly Christmas DP pad, misc. red CS from stash
• Tools: Sewing machine, Martha Stewart edge punch
• Embellishments: Sakura Gellyroll stardust clear glitter pen, Tiara glitz Stickles, misc. button & twine

Challenges:

• ABC DT Challenge – Christmas
• Anything Goes Challenge – Stitching
• C.R.A.F.T. Challenge - Cute
• Cards for Men – Christmas
• Catch the Bug – Anything goes
• CES Challenge – Song or Film inspired (inspired by song “Santa Baby”)
• Creative Inspirations – Stitching (10 max challenges)
• Digital Tuesday – Anything goes
• Do You Stack Up – Inspired by song (“Santa Baby”)
• Feature Me Fridays – Always Anything goes
• Floweret – Christmas
• I Did It Creations – Winter/Christmas
• Incy Wincy – Stitching
• Lothian Crafts – Christmas
• Mami Doodles – Christmas
• Ooh-La-La creations - Stitching
• Paper Pretties – buttons
• Papertake Weekly – Christmas
• Really Reasonable Ribbon – Christmas
• Top Tip Challenge – anything goes Christmas
• Totally Stampalicous – anything goes
• Christmas Inspirations – Bows

Halloween Treat Bags

I just have a quick project to share with you today. I wanted to make up a few Halloween treat bags. I had these black lunch style bags from my blogging friend Maria of Crafty Cre8tions that I wanted to use.

Since I only had a little bit of time, I wanted to try to put together something relatively quick. I had these cute clip art images from Dover Publications that I printed out. (You can sign up on their blog for free, weekly samples.) I also used some doilies, embellies, and papers scraps that I had laying around my craft room. I added a Vintage Halloween Label from Lindsay’s Stamp Stuff. With the shading on the image, it was a snap to color these and cut them out using Nesties.

Don’t forget you still have time to enter the Halloween challenge at Sentimental Sundays.

Thank you stopping by! Have a great day!

Supplies:

• Images: Vintage Halloween Clip Art from Dover Publications, Vintage Halloween Labels by Lindsay’s Stamp Stuff on Mygrafico
• Papers: Echo Park Apothecary Emporium, Georgia Pacific CS
• Inks: Distress Inks in Antique Linen & Tea Dye
• Tools: Big Shot, Spellbinders Nestabilities, Copic markers
• Embellishments: misc. doilies, twine, buttons, brads, plastic spiders etc.

Challenges:

• Addicted to Stamps – Halloween
• Alphabet Challenge – s=soon to be Halloween
• Craft your Days Away – Halloween colors
• Crafting for All Seasons – Halloween
• Crafty Pad – Halloween
• Creatalicious – Distress your edges
• Crop Stop – Halloween
• Delightful Challenges – halloween
• Digital Tuesday – Halloween
• Dream Valley – halloween
• Fab N Funky – Distressed
• Fresh Brewed Challenges – (monthly) pumpkins
• Gingerloft Challenge – Halloween
• Inky Impressions – halloween
• Just Us Girls – 3D halloween
• One Crazy Stamper – Halloween
• Order of Opus Gluei – halloween
• Paper Play challenge – use black
• Pattie’s Creations – halloween
• Ribbon Carousel Challenge - photo insp
• Speedy the Cat challenge – alter something
• Stampin’ with the dragon – buttons & bows

Cute & Cuddly (Part 2)

Our Sentimental Sundays challenge this week is "Cute & Cuddly". I made 2 cards for the challenge this week. You saw the first one on Sunday and this is the 2nd one I made using up scraps and pieces on I had on my desk. ' ll

Using a pre-colored digi from Doodle Pantry made throwing this card together a snap. The best part is that I have another card for my OWH box. My box is almost full and will soon be mailed!

I also have some fun stuff coming up on my blog. On April 1st, there will be 2 blog hops. The first is to celebrate Meljen's Designs 1st birthday and the second is to show off the new digital releases at Whimsy Stamps. Make sure you stop to check out the hops. Like all hops, there will be prizes sprinkled along the way.

I will have a fun announcement in April for a GRAND OPENING on April 15th of something super cool. Stay tuned for this. I am dying to let the cat out of the bag but I have to wait. I can't wait to tell you all.

Thank you for dropping by! I hope you will come back for some of the fun events coming up.

Supplies

• Stamps: Bunny Friends with Bunny (precolored digi) from the Doodle Pantry, Ticket Sentiments from Raindrop Echo Designs on Whimsy Stamps
  
• Inks: Close To My Heart chocolate ink
  
• Papers: PaperTrey white CS, Neenah Crest solar white CS, Stampin' Up Bashful Blue CS & Bella Bird CS
  
• Tools: Sewing Machine, Big Shot, PaperTrey Victorian Lace, Beautiful Blooms II #1 & Banner Basics die
  
• Embellishments: Starbucks coffee sleeve, Liquid Pearls Opal, Paper, Hug Snug seam binding

Challenges:

• Delightful Challenges - Pastels + ribbon


• Ginger Loft - Dies cuts or punches
  
• Totally Paper Crafts - Cute & Cuddly
  
• Wee Memories - Anything Goes

Feeling Green

It's time for the new Sentimental Sunday's challenge. This week we are challenging you to "Go Green!" You can interpret however you feel, St. Patrick's day, the color green, or even recycling, but be sure to include a sentiment.

I decided to make a card for St. Patrick's day using a new, precolored digi from Meljen's Designs and a sentiment from Raindrop Echo Designs. Using a precolored digi made putting a card together really quick. These papers are out of my stash. I bought them a few years ago when a local scrapbooking store went out of business and they have just been sitting there waiting to be used.




I am looking forward to making my Guinness-Braised Beef Brisket & Quick Cook Cabbage and cracking open a Guinness while listening to my Celtic playlist on Thursday. What do you do for St. Patrick's day?

I hope you will join us in the "Go Green!" challenge at Sentimental Sundays. Thank you for stopping by!





Supplies:

• Stamps: Shamrock Bear (colored) by Meljen's Designs, Luck Sentiments from Raindrop Echo Designs (both available on Whimsy Stamps)
• Papers & CS: PaperTrey white cs, Georgia Pacific cs, Bazzill Basics Carob Cream, Karen Foster Design Celtic Knots, My Mind's Eye Signature Suite Textured Lime & Bohemia Textured Green
• Inks: None
• Tools: Sewing machine, Big Shot, Spellbinders Nestabilities
• Embellishments: Sakura gellyroll glitter pens in clear, gold & olive, Close To My Heart Stardust glitter gel, dew drops

Challenges:

• AI Factory - Luck of the Irish
• All Sorts Challenge - Luck O' the Irish
• Card Makin' Mama's - Something Green
• Clear It Out - Anything Goes
• Corrosive Challenge - Green
• Craft Your Passion - Anything Goes
• Crafty Ho's - St. Pats
• Creative Card Crew - no flowers
• Delicious Doodles - Green for St. Pats
• Do You Stack Up? - Layers
• Easy Craft Projects - Green
• Fashionista Friday - St. Pats
• Scrap Creations - Go Green
• Hand Stamped Sentiments - Go Green
• Lil Red Wagon - Green
• Paper Play Challenges - Green/Good Luck
• Pattie's Creations - Go Green
• Penny's Paper Crafty challenge - going for the green
• Sew Many - St. Pats
• Shelly's Images - Something Green
• Simon Says Stamp - anything goes
• Simply Create - a little monochrome
• Sisterhood of Crafters - St. Pats
• Stampin' Royalty - Go Green for St. Pats
• Stampin' with the Dragon - St. Pat's
• Whimsie Doodles - Glitter (on shamrock and coins)

Lindsay's Stamp Stuff - Quick Christmas Cards

This week Lindsay challenged her DT to create quick (10 minute or less) cards. (Think easy to "mass produce", even though I don't like this phrase for hand made items.)






Here are the steps to make this card.

1. Cut a standard A2 (5-1/2 x 4-1/4 inches) card base. You can get 2 card bases out of a single piece of CS by cutting it at the 5-1/2 mark. You could also use pre-cut/purchased card bases.


2. I cut another piece of card stock slightly smaller (approximately 5-3/8 x 4-1/8 inches). You will get 4 of these and a little scrap out of single piece of card stock.


3. I ran the above piece through my Big Shot using an embossing folder. I used the large dots because I like them but you can use any folder you like. The snowflake folder would look good too.


4. I imported the sleigh clip art image into MS Word and reduced to 35%. I used the "Rotate" image button to flip it horizontally. I didn't count how many of these you can get on a single page, but you can get quite a few. Print using the "best" quality and "color" settings on your printer.


5. I used my Big Shot and Spellbinders Nestabilities dies to cut my circle. (TIP: Use painter's tape to hold your die where you want it when running it through your die cut machine. It prevents it from moving and is easy to peel off.) You can trace a circle and hand cut or use any circle cutting system you have.


6. I imported the designer paper into MS Word. I changed my margins to "0" on all sides and dragged the DP image to cover the entire page. Print using the settings mentioned above.


7. Cut the DP into strips 2 x 5-3/8 inches. Again, I didn't count how many you get, but there are quite a few.


8. I had coordinating aqua CS in my stash. You could skip using it or use another coordinating color. I cut a strip 2-1/8 x 5-3/8 inches to mat my DP strip. I cut an additional piece using my Big Shot and a Spellbinders label die. You could mat the sleigh with another circle, a scallop, what ever you would like or skip this step.


9. Adhere the layers together. (See my note on paper piercing below.) I added a piece of velvet ribbon I had in my stash. I didn't tie in a bow to keep the card flat and easier to mail. I also found it quicker if I didn't have to fuss with a bow.


10. Add any additional embellishments you would like. I stamped "Noel" and added 3 gemstones.

Note: On my card, I added some paper piercing around the circle and the white embossed panel. Again, you could skip this but I liked the little extra it added. It did take some extra time. If you want to pierce your paper, do it before adhering the layers together.

If you have questions on any of these steps, please feel free to email me at shestamps11-blogs at yahoo dot com.



I hope this inspires you to get those Christmas & holiday cards made. Please visit the blogs of the rest of the DT to see what they have to show you this week.

Lindsay Weirich (Owner & Stamp Designer) - check Lindsay's blog for her weekly freebie!
Cindi Hooks
Diane Bove
Jennifer Bliss
Karin Martin
Laurel Seabrook
Leanne Garner
Margie Visnick
Micki Harper
Rhonda Walker
Shannon Neparko
Tamara Bennett
Tracey Allen


Supplies:

• Stamps: Winterland from Lindsay's Stamp Stuff (mygrafico.com), Tree Trimming Trio from PaperTrey
• Papers & CS: Georgia Pacific CS, misc. aqua textured CS, Winterland DP from Lindsay's Stamp Stuff
• Inks: Close To My Heart Crystal Blue
• Tools: Big Shot, Spellbinders Nestabilities, paper piercing tool, Provocraft Seeing Spots embossing folder
• Embellishments: Misc. gemstones & velvet ribbon

Challenges:

• Gimme a Break Challenge - Manic Monday #1 sketch
• 2 Sisters Challenge - non-traditional Christmas colors
• Alphabet Challenge - embossing
• Christmas Stampin' All Year Long - Anything Goes
• A Crafty Little Place - anything goes
• Crazy Challenge - On the Go
• Creative Belli - "R"embellishments (Ribbon - from Target $1.00 clearance bin 1 or 2 years ago)
• Iris's Spot - Christmas
• Korte O Mania - Christmas
• Lots to Do - Embossing
• Mygrafico - Christmas Giveaway challenge
• Mygrafico - anything goes
• Paper Cutz - Anything Goes
• Scrappy Frogs - Christmas
• Top Tip Tuesday - Anything Goes

Friends Forever

I love the challenges over at Clearly Inspired and try to participate each month. Yesterday I realized I was almost out of time for this month's challenge and I didn't have much time available to craft. I thought the perfect solution would be to use one of the precolored Bird on a Wire images from Doodle Pantry. Laurie had them available for free download a short time ago. But, when I went to print them out, I could not find them on my hard drive. I am having issues with my PC and I am not sure what happened to them. (Major bummer!)

I decided to stick with my precolored image idea and remembered that I had some from *Wink *Wink Ink. Thank goodness! I was able to print out this cute image and make the card in one evening (which is pretty fast for me!)

So what do you think? Although I love coloring images, I think I am going to keep these in mind for when I need something quick. Thank you for looking!

Challenges:

• By the Cute & Girly - Animal Antics
• ClearlyDelightful- Use a Tag
• Craft Your Passion - Anything Goes
• Crafty Catz - Animals
• I Did It Creations - Anything Goes
• Opus Gluei - Use your stash (nothing new)
• Sarah Hurley - Animals
• Stamp, Scrap & Doodle - 8-14-10 Sketch

Supplies:

• Stamps: Falling Apart from *Wink *Wink Ink, Just Because from CTMH
• Papers: CTMH Veranda Creative Basics paper pack, Juniper and Neutral CS, GP CS
• Inks: CTMH Juniper & Garden Green, Distress Inks Antique Linen
• Tools: Crop-a-dile, Big Shot, Spellbinders Nestabilities
• Embellishments: RibbonFX ribbon, misc. eyelet & dewdrops