Happy Valentine's Day!

Hello blogland and Happy Valentine's Day!

Today I am sharing another make from Rick St. Dennis's awesome February collection of Pierrots that can be found here if you want the whole collection, but also here if you want just this awesome image.  I made an explosion box card that I purchased in the Silhouette Design Store and the video can be found  here.  I colored the charming Coquette Pierrot with Copic markers using V91, 93 & 95, as well as r20 for her cheeks and W3, w5, W7 & W9 for her hair and the other "black" looking parts.  I used R37, 39 and RV 69 for the reds.  I used the classic rose die, stamps and shaping mold from Heartfelt Creations for my roses and colored them with distress inks as well as some stamp paste.  I gave her to a dear friend for Valentine's day that really enjoyed her.  I hope you like her as well.

Thanks for stopping by!

Hugs,

Helen, aka Catz

Valentines, birthdays and such

Hello blogland,

Coming to you today with a new creation of mine using one of Rick St. Dennis Mfa's beautiful hat lady's on his latest release that can be found in his Zibbet shop here in the January Packet release for 2019.  There is also a really cute little freebie image that comes with your purchase of this sheet of digital stamps.  They are so versatile, I used several of my creations for birthday projects instead of valentines since my hubby is my one and only valentine.  For this project I colored this gorgeous gal with copics and decided to try out a paint pour for the first time ever. I used a variety of  Deco Art acrylic paints for the pour and a frame I picked up from the local craft store.  The lady is colored with Copic markers and I added some feather, rhinestones and floral elements.  If you know Rick's work, you know that the rhinestones and feathers are a must!  So I hope you enjoy this piece as much as I enjoyed creating it.  I have to give a special shout out to my bestie April as well, as we collaborated on some of the elements when I was creating her.  Thanks for stopping by and viewing my creation!

Hugs,
Catz

Layer Card

My dear friend April taught me how to make layer cards when I visited her earlier this year and well I am addicted to them!  They are so much fun!  I also recently rejoined the EDT (Elite Design Team) for Rick St. Dennis, Mfa.  Rick is so easy going and of course I love his images!  So I wanted to share a layer card I made with one of his latest sheets in the Kawaii cuties line for a Christmas card.  I used every single image from the sheet that can be found here. I used copic markers to color my images and a variety of papers from Heartfelt Creations and Bobunny.  I hope you enjoy seeing these cute images and this card as much as I enjoyed making it!  I am entering this into this challenge:  http://christmaswiththecuties.blogspot.com/p/challenge-rules.html


Hugs,

Helen (Catz) Smith

Forest magic

Hello Blogland,

I don't blog very often, but wanted to make an exception for this mixed media piece as I'd like to enter into the Aurorawings challenge blog for the Anything Goes for this month here .  I was hanging out with my cousin and teaching her the art of mixed media and decided I wanted to use these two gorgeous images from Aurorwings that you can find here and here called Lady Butterfly 1 and 2.  I just adore Mitzi Sato-Wuiff's drawings.  I used copics to color my fairies and spray inks in Clover (Tattered Angels) and Walnut from Dylusions.  I used Mod Podge to seal my canvas then sprinkled various bits of different gorgeous Martha Stewart Glitters from my stash.  I used a tree branch stencil and light molding paste to get the raised background look.  Hope you enjoy, this was a really fun project for me.

Y is for Yummy

Hello once again bloggers, just had to play in both parts of this challenge.  This one is Y is for Yummy and I just couldn't think of anything more yummy than a box of chocolates.  This gal is from Bloobel stamps and can be found here in her store.  This is a second part of the ABC Christmas Challenge as well.  Hope you like her.   Thanks for stopping by!

Helen

Z is for Zentangle

Hello Blogland,

I wanted to figure out a way to inspire myself to get some Christmas cards made earlier than the 11th hour when I lose many hours of sleep and time with my friends/family so I decided to try some year round Christmas blog challenges.  I am entering this card into the ABC Christmas challenge here using the Z is for Zentangle theme.  I wasn't sure about participating in this at first but I had a friend help me find the cutest zentangle image by Sherri Baldy's My Besties that can be found here in her shop.  It was a bit intimidating upon first glance but once I saw some other color inspiration in the Besties shop I tackled her with ease.  I used Copic markers to color her, I can figure out my colors should you want to know which ones I used.  I know the purples are V04, V06 and V09.  My go to skin colors are E01, E11 and E04.  I used the poinsettia and holly cling stamps with matching dies from Heartfelt Creations that can be found here in their shop.  I also used their new 3D shaping mold for this darling set of flowers.  Thanks for stopping by and having a look!

Helen

New found treasure

Recently I've discovered a new found brand of cute I just adore.  My Besties by Sherri Baldy.  I colored this sweet image as a guest designer for the Come and Get Challenge where we use something with a doily, which can be found here. I did two cards for this one using the same image.  It's so versatile!    The doily in the first card is cut from my Silhouette doilies cut files.

The image I am using is by Sherri Baldy #105 I love coffee, I love tea,  This  can be found here.  I used Copics to color these sweet little gals and some embellishments I purchased from my good friend who sells Creative Memories.  While I failed to use a doily in the 2nd card, I just had to show her off because I just love how different an image can look with different papers and materials.

Hope you like my project and thanks so much for visiting my wee corner of blogland.

Hugs,

Helen

Time for a challenge

You know I've never been one to join in blog challenges as blogs just seem like something else I have to put on my "to do list", but I've decided to give it a whirl and post a few to try and see if I can play in some challenges just for funsies.  This card was made coloring with Copics using this gorgeous Ching Chou Kuik image which was given to her fans as a gift a while back.  I made it into this card for my dear friend using a Tattered lace fan die and some paper from Heartfelt creations for the sentiment tag.  I would like to enter this into the come and Get it Challenge #117 Card for a Woman which can be found here.

Thanks for popping in to see my work.

Helen  

When digital and coloring collide

When I have the time I certainly like to play around with backgrounds and do some of my background classes from Kit and Clowder.  That being said I also like to be able to put a card together that is quick and easy.  I took a page from my good friend Sue Peck's book and started playing with digital backgrounds.  I simply add whatever digital png image I want to a ready made background and voila, instant work of art and I still get the fun of coloring the image. I also struggle with my drawing skills so having a ready made background suits me.

This leads me to the reason for this blog post.  I shared my ideas with Janice at Scrapper's Delights and she created some really awesome ready made backgrounds  for Halloween to go with her amazing images.  I was so excited to be able to play with the images and the backgrounds!  It was really difficult to keep this under wraps!

So without further ado, I would like to introduce you to Scrapper's Delights Gothic topper background collection which can be found here and the projects I created with the darling images as well.  The first card was made using the digi Honey Pumpkin Pie that can be found here.  The second is Bat Women who can be found here. My third project is using this gothic cutie named CU Evelin who can be found here.  Fourth  is this lovely duo Dracula and the princess which can be found here. Finally I had some fun placing this darling little Papillon fairy in a spooky scene, she can be found here.
    In order to achieve what I've done here is fairly easy using Microsoft Word and Paint.  You simply open Word and go to the insert tab and insert the background of your choice.  Then go to the page layout tab at the top and choose the wrap text and pick the option for "behind text" then go back to insert and choose whichever digi you'd like to use (in png format) and choose it then go back to the wrap text option and choose "in front of text and click in the image to move it around with your mouse to where you want it positioned on the background.  I then choose the print screen option and paste into Paint then crop the image and delete the composition I previously used and paste the cropped image into my Word doc that way you can size the composition to fit multiple up on a page.  Should you need any assistance in the execution of this please feel free to message me here or on facebook.  I am happy to give further instruction.

                                          

I hope you have enjoyed my creations as much as I love creating them.  Oh and don't forget in celebration of this launch grab this already put together image and background  that can be found here

This is the creation I made in about a half hour, that includes coloring and putting together my card...so fun and so easy!  Of course in all the excitement of playing with these incredible images and showing them to you, I failed to mention that I am proudly going to be a member of the Scrapper's Delights Digital Papercraft Design Team!    Hope you enjoyed your visit and I really hope you try out these awesome backgrounds with your Scrapper's images.  Please make sure to visit my teamie Sue Peck's blog http://applejackcardsbysue.blogspot.co.uk/   She has also created some amazing works of art using these backgrounds and some other amazing images from Scrapper's Delights.
Happy Halloween and "Fang you very much" for stopping by!!
Helen (aka Catz)

Inspirational post

It's such and honor to be part of Rick St. Dennis' EDT (Elite Design Team)!  I just wanted to post some inspiration for those who may have seen his art and felt intimidated by the details.  The first thing I can say is you never know until you try!  I am taking classes with Kit and Clowder and I'm learning but in the meantime I try to color as much as possible to improve my skill set.  Today's image is called Pistache 1930's Chanteuse she can be found here.  I colored her with Copics and used Gelly Roll pens for the sparkles.  Hope you like her! :)

Hugs,
Helen (aka Catz)

Weekly Inspirational post for Ching Chou Kuik's DT

Hello bloggers, yet another announcement!  All good things happen in threes, and this is two of three!  I was chosen to become a part of Ching Chou Kuik's design team.  I am completely honored and overwhelmed with joy about this as I am a fan of her stunning art work.  This is my first official piece as a member of this design team.  Hope you like her. :)

Today I would like to share with you one of the newer designs found on Ching Chou Kuik's Etsy store called Toadstool head.  She can be found here: https://www.etsy.com/listing/209992502/toadstool-head-digital-digi-stamp?ref=shop_home_feat_4 in the  Ching-Chou Kuik Etsy Store.

The current challenge for the blog is adding ribbon so I added some beautiful purple organza ribbon to complete this piece.

I colored the image with Copics using the Violet and blue green family of colors. The color palette was inspired by my dear friend and DT member Fernanda Oravec.    I added some sparkles that I am so fond of using stickles for the holly leaves and Gelly roll Stardust pens for the "freckles" on the mushroom.  I used a Martha Stewart punch for the wee branches with some added Stickles to sparkle up those leaves.

Have a great day!
Hugs,
Helen
(aka Catz)

Mixed media..someone is learning new stuff!

The best thing about road trips and spending the weekend with one of your dearest friends who you've met for the first time is sharing in good times, and creating with new techniques you haven't tried before.  I had the best weekend in a long time spending the weekend with my dear friend Fernanda Oravec.  I got to snuggle with some of the sweetest fur babies I've ever met, eat wonderful food, shop for crafts and craft to my heart's content.  I was sad to see the weekend go so quickly.  So I just want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart for such a wonderful weekend to Fernanda.  For the hospitality,the birthday gifts, the tips, but most of all your friendship!  This creation is one I did while visiting after Fernanda showed me how to create with mixed media.  I used Ching Chou Kuik's "Enter the woods"  you can find her here if you would like to purchase here from Ching Chou Kuik 's Etsy shop.  I used various stencils with modeling paste, iridescent and glitter decoupage by Martha Stewart.  I also added some fancy papers, ribbons, stickers, and beads to embellish it.  The image is colored with Copic markers.  

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Hugs,

Helen (aka Catz)

Facebook Elite Design Team

I haven't had the nerve to try out for a design team up until recently.  So I tried out for Rick St. Dennis's Elite Design Team and actually was chosen for a spot on the Facebook team much to my surprise!    I am over the moon excited about this and for the next six months I will be sharing all sorts of makes and pieces I color from Rick St. Dennis, Mfa's awesome collection.  He covers it all from cute to creepy, shabby to glamorous.  His shops can be found in two places, Etsy where you can download most of the digi files right away and Zibbet where if you are patient he is pretty quick to email them to you.  I prefer Zibbet only because the selection there is much larger and a few of the digis cost a little less.  Here are links for you to peruse his shop.

https://www.zibbet.com/rick1949
https://www.etsy.com/shop/RickStdennis?ref=pr_shop_more



Hope you enjoy!  I will share one of my latest creations in celebration to winning this spot.  This glamourous gal can be found here:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/200235999/satin-doll-digital-stamp?ref=shop_home_active_17

Rick draws some of the most amazingly clad ladies I have ever seen their gowns are so gorgeous!  Thanks for stopping by and sharing in my joy!
Hugs,
Helen

Birthaversary! :)

I love the fall and unlike most people I generally embrace my birthday.  On Monday I will be celebrating 43 years of life cancer free so far!  I am also celebrating another special anniversary, that of being married 7 years to the love of my life!  He is my sun, moon and stars which leads me to this post.  I am using the Ching Chou Kuik image called "Wishing Stars" that can be found here:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/207372948/wishing-stars-digital-stamp-instant?ref=shop_home_feat_4 

I figure since there's still an "Anything Goes" contest going on with her Inspiration blog which can be found here:

http://cck-digitalstamps-challenge.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/ching-chou-kuik-inspiration-and.html

Why not submit another entry to increase my chances of scoring some more of Ching's beautiful images!

I truly hope my dear husband likes this card, but either way I really enjoyed creating it and I know he appreciates the effort I put into making a card instead of buying one.  I colored her with copics and used Gelly roll stardust pens for the sparkly effects in her dress and on the stars.  I thought the glitter on the bottom would give a nice soft ethereal effect.  I wrote my own sentiment telling my sweet that I thank my lucky stars that we found one another.  Hope you like! :)

Hugs,

Anything goes

I decided I'd like to play along with the "Anything Goes" Challenge at Ching Chou Kuik's new Monthly Inspirational and Challenge  blog.  You can come play along by clicking this link: http://cck-digitalstamps-challenge.blogspot.tw/2014/10/ching-chou-kuik-inspiration-and.html
I was really drawn to this beautiful image from Ching's etsy store called Christmas Venice Night which can be found by clicking this link:  https://www.etsy.com/listing/206098368/christmas-venice-night-digital-stamp?ref=shop_home_active_3
I really enjoyed doing a holiday card and I have plenty of feline loving folks in my world.  I used copics to color it up and some Gelly Roll pearl and stardust pens to accent the image along with some fun stickers and glittery paper.  Wouldn't be a Christmas card without sparkle!  Hope you like my creation.  If you have any questions please feel free to ask!  Thanks for taking the time to stop by.
Hugs,
Helen

Rick St. Dennis DT call-Cute

Hello again blog landers!  This time I've shifted to the polar opposite of my last post, went from very creepy to a sweet and soft fairy named Pansy drawn by the talented Rick St. Dennis, Mfa that you can find here https://www.zibbet.com/rick1949/pansy-digital-stamp for your crafting pleasure.  I'm a card maker and colorist at heart so I went with my traditional card making for this piece.  I colored her with copics and used the Gelly Roll Stardust pens for the glitter in her hair and wings.  I love how they can make an image look magical without looking tacky.  I used paper from the Mariposas collection and some Jolee's embellies for the accents along with a sentiment from an Anna Griffin pad.  Hope you like her as much as I liked creating her.

Hugs,
Helen

Rick St. Dennis DT call Creepy

So there's this awesome DT call for the Rick St. Dennis, Mfa facebook group and for his EDT (Elite Design Team) and his facebook group design team.  I would love to be a part of this Elite team of amazing crafters.  These women are top shelf as is Rick St. Dennis himself as and artist.  The requirements are to create one cute and one creepy project.  This project is my creepy as you will soon see!  I used 3 different images to make this scene and you can find them here: https://www.zibbet.com/rick1949/monster-clown-digi-stamp
https://www.zibbet.com/rick1949/scary-go-round-digi-stamp and https://www.zibbet.com/rick1949/haunted-carnival-midway-2013-scene-digi
in Rick's Zibbet store.  Once I composed the project I drew in a dirt and gravel path and added some fly away trash papers to give a deserted feel.  I also wanted to achieve a long time abandoned effect so I chose colors that would give a somewhat vintage feel.  I changed the sign to read Carnevil as if someone spray painted over the letters to maybe give a hint as to why the area was deserted.  I just love the Monster clown as well, what evil place wouldn't be complete without a zombie right?! I used copics to color this with chalk for the background and some Gelly roll stardust pens for a little sparkle.  I took a picture frame and painted it with black then white Tim Holtz crackle paint. So without further ado, I present to you Carnevil!

Belle et Bete September progressive challenge

Hello Blog friends, this image will be for the second installment of the Progressive challenge over at the Sparkle and Glitter challenge blog for Rick St. Dennis, Mfa which can be found here:
http://sparkleandglitterwithrick.blogspot.co.uk/  The image for this month is Belle et Bete and what a wonderful image to work with.  If you should be interested in purchasing this lovely here is a link to the etsy store for Rick St. Dennis:  https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/205314047/belle-et-bete-digi-stamp  for your shopping pleasure. I colored this with copics using one of  my go to skin combos of E50, E51, and E11 to keep her skin soft and pale as a princess should have.  For her dress I used Y02, Y15 and Y38 plus a little RV66 for the accents.  I used of my favorite hair color combos for her of E71, E74, E77 and V99 for shadows.  For the Bete, I used E31, E57, E23and R20 for his pink inner ear.  For this clothing B91, B95 and B97.  I pulled some accents from a Bo Bunny collection of bits and pieces for the background and the words plus a few small paper roses.  Hope you like!
Hugs,
Helen

Christmas cards already?!

Okay, so I'm really not so ambitious to be making Christmas cards for myself at the moment.  I have a dear friend who ordered 30 of my handmade bests.  I will showcase this little cutie on my blog because I haven't blogged about one of my favorite artists in a long while Mitzi Sato-Wuiff of Stamps by Aurorawings.  I purchased this darling little image from here etsy site here:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/170324591/digital-stamp-instant-download-baby?ref=shop_home_active_1&ga_search_query=penguin
Such a darling little image and just perfect for Christmas cards.  Hope you like! :)  I colored with copics, any questions please let me know.   Thank you Mitzi for showcasing this creation, I am truly honored!  Thanks for stopping by!
Hugs,
Helen

Beauty through grief

I sit here a little stunned by the day I had today and a bit grief stricken at the loss of a BRCA sister and amazing woman.  She left a legacy through these projects:

The Semper Fi fund, http://semperfifund.org/

The Scar Project http://www.thescarproject.org/

flatandfabulous.org http://www.flatandfabulous.org/

I also found out another friend has been attacked by the nasty "C"  it doesn't even deserve to be spelled out...they know who they are and I love them so much!  

Being the person I am grief and angst (which is probably more common than you think among artists) brings out some creative energy.  I have to pour all of these emotions into something and here is today's creation.  How appropriate a piece when thinking of love and loss is the Phantom of the Opera?  

This image was created by the amazingly talented Rick St. Dennis, Mfa.  Should you want this image to add to your digi collection it can be found here: 

https://www.etsy.com/listing/204911764/phantom-digital-stamp

I colored this using copics and added some cuts from one of my favorite paper stacks along with some embellies from my Cricut.  If you'd like more details on those just let me know.  

Hugs,

Helen