Just a regular ol blog post kind of day...

**forgive me for getting this post up so late. I spent the morning

with my little man at the pediatricians office. He has the flu :(

I have a few projects to share with you...

and I am putting them all into one post because I am taking care of a sick little fellow

as well as trying to keep my little miss happy... sooo here we go!

My first project is for the new challenge at

WORD ART WEDNESDAY #162

I always look forward to sharing these projects. It is so encouraging for me to 

visit the blog, read the devotion, see my wonderful co-DT members projects

and to think about all of the wonderful things our Lord does for us every day.

We need Him - and we need each other. That is part of His plan for us.

To love one another, fellowship, be kind to and pray for one another... 

I am so blessed to know that I have so many friends here who I can trust and count on

to be that for me and I thank God for you all every single day. 

This weeks scripture is at WAW and is FREE! 

Save this week's free scripture/word art file to your computer,

 but are not required to use it in order to play along in our challenges. 

  We welcome you share your art with us; 

remembering that Anything Goes as long as it's family-friendly, 

and uses an encouraging or uplifting sentiment.

NEXT UP IS A PROJECT I CREATED FOR THE

The lighting for this card is terrible :( I will admit that right off. 

It was taken when it was very overcast and drizzly all day. 

So this is as good as it gets folks!

My daughter's ballet teacher LOVES coffee. 

Possibly as much as I do *wink*

This image was drawn with her in mind. I created this card as part of

a set I am going to be giving her for Christmas.

If you are interested in this image, you can find it in my shop here:

Ballerina 1 with Latte  

Speaking of CHRISTMAS. This card is also for our month long challenge

at Freshly Brewed Challenges - ANYTHING GOES as long as it's CHRISTMAS

 Here is a close up of a little bit of the sparkle. 

I do not have an icicle die, so I used my freshly cut grass diecut. 

I layered the cut cardstock and vellum to give it a more icy feel ;)

The snowflake and fourish were cut using my Cricut Accent Essentials cartridge. 

The background was embossed with a cuttlebug snowflake embossing folder. 

I also designed a cute little coffee mug for her teacher:

Hope she likes it ;)

I DO HAVE BLOG CANDY - (USA only)
(please write USA resident in with your comment in order to be considered to win)
(photo to come later... remember, sick kid.. sortof threw me off my game this AM)

And will be giving away a $15 Digital Gift Card 
to Fresh Brewed Designs (no requirements)

Stop by every day this week for more 
COFFEE PROJECTS and more chances to win!

Thank you for stopping by! 

I hope you all have a wonderful and blessed day!

Christmas Ballerinas

GOOD MORNING and HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

This photo was taken while I was sitting and waiting for my children to 

get out of class at their dance studio a few days ago.

The tree is simple and white with silver and teal decorations all over it. 

That was the inspiration for the cards I created to share with you today. 

These next cards were created using Fresh Brewed Designs

NEWEST digital stamps!

There were 7 stamps released today. 

Go HERE to check them ALL out 

{Excuse the poor lighting on these cards. It has been raining here the past

few days and I could not get a great photo ... :-( }

I decided to draw a few dance images.

 It is what I have been doing with most of my time after all. :-) 

I was not ever a dancer. 

I was a tom boy. 

I climbed trees and played with bugs. 

However, if I WERE a ballerina, 

I would be one who danced and had my latte in hand the entire time :) tee hee hee. 

This is also true for my daughters dance teacher, Marice. 

She LOVES coffee. 

We get along quite well ;-)

My first card features the new digi

Ballerina 2 with Latte

I tried to get a photo to show off the sparkle, embossed vellum

and the little snowballs, but, again, poor lighting. 

Hope you can see it a little bit ;-)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My children are also performing in this years Nutcracker ballet

at the new studio. I am so excited. My daughter has a few parts and my 

son was asked to be in the party / battle scene with Fritz and the other party boys.

They get swords and don't really have to do ballet. Of course he was in!

I drew this image in honor of a beloved Christmas tradition for many- 

The Nutcracker - Ballerina

This card has a lot of shine. 

The background paper is shimmery and the paper behind the nutcracker image is a metalic 

silver card stock.  I added crystal stickles to the white flourishes

and to the ballerinas dress. And silver stickles make the nutcracker shine. 

*you will be happy to know that my artistic daughter looked at the first version of

this image and made a crinkly face. She said his face was too round and his

eyes looked mean. When I looked at it, it looked as if he were there to eat

the poor ballerina! HAHAHA!!!

So you get the good one. I will keep the bad one to go and look at from time

to time and laugh :-)

Thank you for stopping by and visiting with us today. 

It is such a lovely day to be spending time with our friends and family and giving 

thanks for all we have. I am so thankful for all the blessings God has given me. 

I could not even begin to list them all. 

Please know that I am so thankful for all of you who visit and who love 

creating with us at Fresh Brewed Designs.

I am also thankful for my very best friends. The ladies on my design team. 

I don't know what I would do without this wonderful support group of beautiful friends.

God truly has blessed me beyond measure.

Have a very happy Thanksgiving!

Card 1:

Jingle Belles - Christmas feast (ballerina with latte :)

                         hope that counts :-)

Crafty Creations: Embossing (card features embossed vellum)

Simon Says Stamp: AG

Clear it out - stash (all scraps - old papers and vellum) snowflake

Card 2

Crafting for all Seasons: tis the season

Fab n Funky - die cuts

Dazzling Diva - AG - but goes with the photo color / metalic theme

Sweet Little Ballerina

My children are participating in this years Nutcracker Ballet production

at their dance studio. This is their first year at this studio and it has been absolutely WONDERFUL

aside from the fact that they have made us broke, lol ;-)

The kids truly enjoy all of their classes and teachers and classmates.
This is the FIRSTyear that I have ever been able to say that about any dance studio
we have been a part of.

Anyway, my daughter is the lead maid, the lead lemon-drop, and dances in the Russian dance
 part of the production. My son was asked if he wanted to be in as one of the boys
 in the party scene. He doesn't take ballet, but once he knew it would not be girly dancing
and they got to pretend sword fight it was all good! :-)
Here is a photo of my sweet ones in one of their costumes:

Aren't they just too adorable?!?

I can't wait to see this on stage!

They have worked SO HARD giving up EVERY SATURDAY to practice. 

My daughter is also a part of their competitive troupe. 

She was assigned a 'little sister' to encourage and help out throughout the dance year

and look out for while at competitions. 

 She asked me if I would make a set of cards for her. I told her she could

make them herself but she insisted and said she would make something next time. 

She chose my newest digi: LITTLE CHRISTMAS BALLERINA

to set the stage so to speak. 

Here is the set of 4 cards I created little Caroline. 

These cards were pretty simple to make. I carefully colored them all

to look as close to the same as possible.
I then used  my cuttlebug and spellbinders lable 4 die to cut her out 
I let the die extend over the paper so I would have a clean straight edge for the embellishment
that I added to the base. I added little bits of sparkle to the nutcracker using a gelly roll pen.
I also added sparkle to her dress and hair bow using crystal stickles. 

The finishing touch to the image was a white gel pen. I added dots to her cheeks, 

highlights on her tights, on the nutcracker, and dots on the holly. I also drew little white

circles around the image to represent snow. It is hard to see in the photos, but

is visible when you hold and tilt the card to the light. 

Thank you for stopping by and visiting with me today.

I hope you have a very happy and blessed day,

challenges:

City Crafter One Word Sentiment

Cuttlebug Mania_ Girly 

4 crafty chics - sparkle

in the pink- sweet simple

Christmas Ballerina

My second post for today!

GO ME!!!

Here is a card I created using the NEW digi

Christmas Ballerina 

 If you stopped by the challenge blog yesterday, you have already seen it :))

I just have not had the chance to post it to my personal blog yet. 

The cardstock for this card and the patterned paper is by papertrey inc. The diecut is a spellbinders lacy circles diecut. I used a deep purple velvet ribbon with lace from my scrap pile. The roses were RAKed to me. The image is colored using prismacolor and copic markers. She is glittered up with stardust stickles and I added white doodle dots using a white gel pen.

Challenges for this card include:  
ABC Christmas Challenge -  Anything goes, Just Keep on Creating - Christmas, Die Cuttin' Divas - Shimmer Glimmer Gloss,  Stampin' Sisters in Christ - peace or calm Word Art Wednesday: AG, Penny's Paper-Crafty  Ribbon and/or buttons

Just for Fun

GOOOD MONDAY MORNING!!! 

I have a fun little project to share with you today. 

I say fun because it is not fantastic :)

Just something I got in my head and started creating - throwing all caution into the wind and not really over thinking anything.. and just did it :D lol!

This is a little clipboard I created for my daughters ballet teacher from last year. Hannah loved working with her, but in moving up, she has a NEW teacher whom she is getting used to (it is a guy :) so you know that it is a big change... but he is amazing!) 

Anyway - I created a stencil of sorts using thick cardstock and my cricut. I then placed the paper over the clipboard and spray painted chalkboard paint in the corner. The rest of the clipboard was hand drawn then painted with acrylic paint. The image was drawn to look like the person who is receiving the gift. I drew it  with a sharpie marker and colored it with  prismacolor color pencils. I colored the dress with a red sharpie, covered it in glossy accents and then sprinkled it with a fine glitter. Wish it was more glittery... looks sugar coated. I messed up the middle, touched it too soon. So I had to add a glass microbead belt.  THEN I had a brilliant idea to cover it with stickles. Did not work so great! it did not spread well with the paint brush, but soaked up into it instead. We live and we learn right? But overall, I had a blast getting messy and creating it.

 I hope she likes it :)

Have a wonderful day today!

BIG HUGS!!!!

Whew!!!

so happy to find out that you are no longer seeing RED when you get here... and that it was not a hard fix... just a mean ol hoax at Shabby Blogs site. Thanks to my friends who 1) let me know it was there and 2) for helping me know how to fix it and 3) for leaving me all of the sweet comments yesterday when I was testing out the blog to see if it was working or not. You ladies rock!!!

We started a new challenge yesterday at Freshly Brewed Challenges. 

We have a SKETCH Challenge for you to try. Woot Woot!

I love sketches, but have the hardest time with my own, lol. Why is that?

Here is my card for this weeks challenge. 

I chose to use the FBD Loves to Dance digital stamp

Here is the Sketch

My little sweeties dance days for this year are drawing to an end. Her BIG recital is on June 9th so that means we have 4 four hour days of practice next week, one full dress rehearsal and then the BIG SHOW! We will indeed need a vacation after this week :D HAHAHAH!!! She is so nervous, but is going to be AMAZING!!!

This image was colored with prismacolor markers, the papers are all scraps 

the cardstock base is from Papertrey Inc, and the ribbons and roses are RAKs.

Thank you for stopping by today! I hope you all have a lovely day. Tomorrow is our last day of school. We are rewarding the kids with a 'field trip' to see the Avengers. My little miss will not be so thrilled, but she will get new dance stuff for her recital so that will make her happy and it will make them both even. I do think she will enjoy it when she gets into it, she just wont ever let on that she did ;). 

 God Bless,

Heather

Celebrate!!!

This weeks challenge over at Freshly Brewed Challenges is to create a themed something. The theme: Celebrate (and/or) New Year. The ladies have created BEAUTIFUL cards for you to enjoy, so I hope you will stop by and check them out.

I created this card using sketch #182 at Card Positioning Systems
and a Fresh Brewed Designs Digi: Emma Dancing.Patterned Paper: DCWV Glitter Stack
Ribbon: Heidi Grace
Birds Nest silver
Prismacolor markers
Silver Stickles



She can be found in the category called Girly Things over at the shop. Also, we now have a freebies section for you! Images are subject to be removed and changed ever so often, so if you see something you like, grab it now :D!!!

Dance

For this card I used the sketch provided on Spoon Full of Sugar. The image, well, you guessed it, another hand drawn image that I plan to add to my shop soon. I have loved watching Hannah in her ballet classes. She just lights up and dances so gracefully. Much different than the moody thing that lays on the couch and grouches half the morning, gets happy and then has to start school ~ grouchy again, gets over it, happy, goes to play ~ happy, fights with brother ... and the list goes on. :) Man I dread the teen years and when the 'mood swings' really hit. I will need LOTS of prayer:). No, really, she is the most amazing little girl around ;). She is so funny and so smart and has a wonderful heart. I am so very blessed. God has turned her life around with her eczema and all the things that troubled her last year up until around August of this year. I can not tell you how amazing it was Wed night when she did not want to sleep with socks on her hands. REALLY? It has been 5 years!!! And last night too ... she did not wake up screaming and needing them. I am so happy for her. I know she will be much more comfortable without them.

OK, sorry. I guess I am a bit of a chatterbox this morning. While Hannah thinks this looks more like her friend Crystal at her ballet class, Hannah was the inspiration for this image. I do hope you like it as much as I do. I know it is because I see Hannah when I look at it .. but it just makes me smile and feel warm and peaceful inside.


I am off. I hope you all have a wonderful Friday!!! I am having an image release and blog hop and prizes NEXT FRIDAY October 23. Mark your calendar and share part of your day with us:).