Tuesday, November 30, 2010

MIDNIGHT MADNESS (MMSC82)

Well it's the last day of November already, can you believe it! I feel like I was just getting ready for the Thanksgiving preparations and the last few days have just flown by so quickly, it's scary! The Christmas season is almost here and now we are busy with all the gift buying and holiday planning, oh and let's not forget the decorations. I have to admit that one of my favorite times is when I decorate the house for Christmas. I love to see all the pretty festive colors that remind me of this special time of year and really enjoy bringing out all my little snowmen and finding just the right spot for them. Each year since my son was born we made it a tradition to get a real Christmas tree right after our Dutch Sinterklaas party and my son loves to walk through the trees touching their branches and smelling them. He gets so excited just picking the "most perfect tree just for us" as he says. Here in Miami we don't have the luxury of having the true Christmas feeling with the colder weather so it's always a little bitter sweet for me....I truly miss the cold weather and being able to wear a sweater or jacket when looking for our tree! It's just not the same choosing one when the weather is around 80 degrees!!! LOL
Our Christmas tree from last year 
one of our snowbabies families! 
my son spraying "snow" on the Christmas tree!
Anyway, I hope you will share a little of your Christmas traditions with the DT this week as it's lovely to read what other people do around this festive time of year.
Onto our awards this week and a big Congratulations to all our winners!
For my card this week I kept with the festivities and used this darling snowman from Inger Harding! I just love her images so much. I colored parts of the snowman with prismacolored pencils then finished it off with stickles to give it lots of sparkle. The DP is from Paper Temptress. Flowers are from Prima and paper doily, lace and ribbon from Michael's.
I want to wish you and your families a very Merry Christmas and hope you enjoy your celebrations not only for Christmas but for the New Year too. Stay safe, have fun and keep smiling!
Thanks so much for stopping by!
Happy Holidays!
Charlotte

Sunday, November 28, 2010

DOODLE DRAGON CHALLENGE #24

Hello fellow bloggers, it's Sunday and the Thanksgiving celebrations are almost over!! Are you all getting your Christmas shopping done in plenty of time and starting with the Christmas decorations? I'm in the process of doing both this weekend, in the hopes of getting things completed by the end of the week. For us we have Sinterklaas next Saturday with the Dutch club, and I still have plenty of organizing to do for that, then there's my son's school Christmas party to start on and gifts for the teachers. It sure keeps me busy being the homeroom mom!
Over at Doodle Dragon Studios we are having another great challenge today which is a recipe...to use embossing, bling, and metal. I hope you'll join in with the fun and create something pretty and shiny!  
I made an easel card with two of Dustin's Christmas images from last year and decided to put them together in a different way! I placed the bird up on an L shaped piece of cardstock to make him stand up alone. As you can see from the photos I used lots of embossing, both dry and wet embossing. The images were colored in copics with a touch of stickles to highlight certain areas. My bling is on the snowflakes, ribbon and the stickles and my metal parts are the snowflakes on the bottom half on top of the ribbon.  
Embossing and bling! 
Embossing, bling and metal! 
One last look at the cute little bird!
 I'm so happy with how this card came out and it was a lot of fun to make. I think I'll keep it for my son for Christmas. He loves Dustin's images and know he will love this card. Good job he hasn't seen the finished product!!!
The Corrosive Challenge - things that move (my bird pops up when you open the card out)
One Stitch at a Time - Celebrate in style, Glitz it up with bling, sparkle and shine
Paper Sundaes - Adorn those corners
Just us Girls Challenge - Add a 3D embellishment to your project (hope my bird counts)
Thanks for stopping by!
Hugs,
Charlotte

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

MIDNIGHT MADNESS (MMSC81)

Good morning folks...hope you all enjoyed a lovely weekend with good weather. I hear it's been snowing in some places already, just not as far South as here!! It's been a while since I've seen snow and I am so snow sick!!! LOL I'm having withdrawals from it so if there's anyone out there that wants to send some my way....I'll take it with open arms!!! For those of you who celebrate it, are we all ready for a Happy turkey day????I have my turkey in the freezer at the moment so no worries about it running away before the feest! Today my son has his Thanksgiving feest at school and is then off school for the rest of the week. Fun, fun, fun!
OK enough chatter...today here at Midnight Madness we have another sketch for you and it's another good one, but first things first....Congratulations to all our winners this week!!
Our Masterpiece Award goes to
#4 Sassy
Our Remarkables Awards go to
#18 Nancy Williams
#27 Sarah T
#42 Sandee
#64 Michelle Pearson
Our sponsors are
                                                  Our Montly sponsor is Paper temptress
For my project this week I decided to alter a gift bag that I had lying around the house. It was pretty to begin with but also calling me to make it a little more fancy! 
So with some utterly delicious paper from Paper Temptress I began working on my design and decided to keep it all in the green tones. I chose one of Priscilla's lovely Christmas trees and colored it in copics then added lots of sparkle to it by painting it with modge podge sparkle. I had a Christmas decoration with small silver balls that I took apart and placed some of them on a few of the circles, some silver gems and stickles to give some extra dimension and shine to the edges of the tree. I cut the tree out and popped it up on foam
dots.
The Happy Holidays stickers and snowman are from my stash from last year, snowflakes and glittery leaves are too. Ribbon is from Michael's. The dp colors I used from Paper Temptress are Serpentine (Stardreams Serp) and Emerald (Stardreams Em) 
Thanks so much for visiting! I hope you will check out my DT sisters blogs and show them some love.
Challenge up your life - make something happy with a small gift
Hugs,
Charlotte

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

MIDNIGHT MADNESS (MMSC80)

Happy Tuesday to you all!
It's time once again for another Midnight Madness sketch challenge, so hope you are all ready! I have to say I loved seeing all those pretty creations with last weeks sketch and can't wait to see what you all come up with for this week!
Congratulations to our winners this week!!
Our sponsors this week are Priscillastyles-store
 and our monthly sponsor is Papertemptress
My project this week was using both sponsors goodies, so I figured I'd better make something special!! I decided to make a matching card and gift box and used one of Priscilla's gorgeous Christmas tree images from her latest digi's...there are so many ways you can use these and I for one love them! 
I didn't want to loose the image in lots of color so chose the gold and white gold dp and some ivory lace and ribbon to adorn my card. This dp is just gorgeous and the photos really don't do it justice! The gold is called Antique Gold (Antique Gold Mica/Metallic) and the white is White Gold Cardstock. Both of which have this beautiful richness to them, with a sheen but not really shiny. Excellent quality that lends perfectly to being embossed! Love these papers so much!
I framed my trees with this pretty embossing folder from Cuttlebug called "Flourished Frame", then added some sparkly leaves from my stash, a white poinsettia from last years Christmas stuff and some yellow pearls and yellow metal brads. I colored the trees in copics, cut them out, popped them up on foam dots then added a little sparkle with stickles "Holly".  
My little jewelry gift box I added the same dp's too, then added some cream colored ribbon around the top and popped up another Christmas tree image and some pearls. A nice little gift set for someone special, don't you think!
Thanks for stopping by today, I hope you won't forget to check out my DT sisters blogs and leave them some love!
Have a fantastic week!
Hugs,
Charlotte

Sunday, November 14, 2010

DOODLE DRAGON CHALLENGE #23

Good Afternoon Folks, I hope you've all enjoyed your weekend so far and are having a nice, relaxing Sunday! Here at Doodle Dragon Studios it's time for another challenge...and it's a great one for this time of year!! We want to see your Thanksgiving or Thankful projects and if you haven't seen Dustin's adorable turkeys yet, you have a peek here and you really should go over and check them out.  
I chose to use the turkey with the whisk for my Thanksgiving table setting and I love how it turned out! This image was already colored by Dustin and all I had to do was re-size and print them out. I also decided to laminate two of the turkey's, the one which will be used as a coaster and the one for the name tag on the fan. 
I used some orange cardstock and folded it to make it look like a fan so it will stand up on the table.  
For the napkin holder I used some yellow dp edged with a Martha Stewart punch and placed the turkey on the front. I hope to use these once I make a few more for our Thanksgiving table at the end of November. If you love these turkey's you really should go and check the others out on Dustin's blog, they are too funny and now you have the choice to print them colored or in black and white so you can color them yourself.
Thank you for stopping by and don't forget to check out my DT's creations too!
Before I forget, we have a new DT member - Ted, so Welcome Ted it's great to have you onboard! Please check out his blog too as he has some fabulous creations!
If that's not exciting enough.....there's more........
 Dustin also has an AMAZING sale going on for three days, so mark your calenders peeps....

Dustin says "Starting Thursday Thanksgiving Day. I will be selling over 700 digi's, pretty much everything I have done since I started this whole thing for $30, yes that is right Thursday only $30. The only ones NOT included are the October and November Month Membership digi's. PLEASE do not email me and ask where they are, They AREN'T included. Friday it goes up to $40 and Saturday the last day of this sale it's $50. This includes all of the digi's on the following page..."

                                         http://www.doodledragonstudios.com/BlackFriday.html

You do not want to miss this incredible offer and remember that many of these images will not be available later, so if you love, love, love Dustin's images, as all the DT do, this is truly one amazing offer! Well, what you waiting for????? Go mark your calenders so you don't miss out on this!!
Have a great afternoon!
Hugs,
Charlotte

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

MIDNIGHT MADNESS (MMSC79)

Happy Tuesday folks!
It's time for another Midnight Madness sketch....are you all ready? We had another great turn out last week with some really lovely entries, can't wait to see what you come up with this week!
Congratulations to all our winners this week!
Our Masterpiece Award goes to
#50 Linda S
Our Remarkables Awards go to
#59 Rita M
#62 Nancy Brown
#75 Chris Olsen
Our weekly sponsor is PaperTemptress
Our Monthly sponsors are PaperTemptress
My card this week was made using some adorable images from Dustin Pike and delicious papers from PaperTemptress. I used Rosso Incandescent for the background dp and Sparkle Emeraude which is the sparkly green dp. Hopefully you can see the sparkle and shine from my pictures.
Take a look at the green dp, isn't it fabulous! That is exactly how it looks, there is nothing added to it, it really is this sparkly! If you haven't tried these papers before you should give them a try because they truly are the best!
Thank you for stopping by today! I hope you take the time to visit the rest of the DT and see their beautiful creations.
Hugs,
Charlotte

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

MIDNIGHT MADNESS (MMSC78)

Happy November folks!
November 2nd is a special day for me as 8 years ago today I married the love of my life and best friend, Arjan. We've actually been together for 15 years so it kind of feels like we've been married much longer than the 8 years...but that's a good thing!!
Over at Midnight Madness it's time for another sketch...are you all ready?
Congratulations to all our winners this week
Our Masterpiece Award goes to
Our Remarkables Awards go to
We have some great sponsors with fabulous prizes this week
Our weekly sponsor is DRS Designs
Our Monthly sponsor is Paper Temptress 
Priscillastyles store is also sponsoring this week!
For my cards this week I used something from both sponsors. My first card is using this beautiful candle stamp from DRS Designs which I colored in copics and popped up on foam dots. The background dp is from my stash from last year, gems were from Michael's and the silver strands are left over Christmas strings. I will definately be using this stamp again as I just love how it turned out and see many possibilities with it.
My second card is made using these gorgeous papers from Paper Temptress. Let me tell you, when you see these papers in real life they are so fabulous, you kind of don't want to use them all at once!
The papers I used are called Vintage Silver Lustre and Stardreams AZ in Azalea. The shine on both these papers is just beautiful and I tried to capture it here in the photo, although in real life you really see the difference. The sweet little angel image called Little Guardian Angel is from Sunshine and Giggles. Isn't she just the sweetest little thing! I colored her in prismacolored pencils and copics then sprinkled some ice stickles on her wings.
Well looking at all these fantastic prizes this week I think we will have a lot of entries for MMSC78! What do you think?
Thanks so much for stopping by my blog and for those of you who so kindly leave comments for me, they are so appreciated! I'm hoping that I will get the chance to visit some blogs this week as my computer has not been so nice lately! Now I have a new connector, let's hope it will work a little better! 
Until next time! 
Have a great week
Charlotte