All blog content, including designs, text, and photographs are COPYRIGHT © Janette Olen. Everything posted here is shared for your personal inspiration and enjoyment only and may not be used for publication or for design team submissions. Thanks so much for stopping by!

Monday, March 30, 2009

Sweet N Sassy Monday DT challenge- It's a sketch!!

I am back as promised with my Monday SNSS sample card for you. I like to schedule my post for just past midnight but sometimes it just does not work out that way. Anyway, I am pretty happy with how my sample came out. Take a peek at the sketch and my card:





What a treat this week with double the sketches and double the fun LOL! Korin gave us a great sketch to work with. I along with many other people love sketch challenges because it gives you a plan for your card and takes some of the guess work out of what to do. For this card I stamped my images from the SNSS Warm Up set on my paper temptress sparkle white paper. I colored them with my copics and they worked beautifully on it! Now, I will tell you that because this is a heavier weight cardstock it does take more ink from the markers. I actually used this paper because I had some scraps left over from my mojo card and wanted to see how it worked with the copics. Anyway, I cut the images and popped them up with pop dots and the scalloped circle is popped up higher than the other two. I distressed most of the edges with my scissors and sewed my dp layer onto my brown matte. The finished card measures 5 1/4" square. The bayou dp square measures 5" square and my circle dp is 4" in diameter. I thought that giving the measurements may help you because I know that it is hard to know how big a card is just from a picture on your screen.

closer look



Supplies:
stamps- Sweet N Sassy stamps Warm Up set
CS- SU parisian breeze dp, chocolate chip, Paper Temptress white sparkle
accessories- SU button, CM circle cutter, CM circle punch, SU scallop punch, pop dots, sewing machine, SU taffeta ribbon, linen thread, copics (E31, E33, BG72, BG75, E29)


Be sure to visit the sweet n sassy blog for more challenge info. The following DT members also have some terrific samples to share with you as well:

Sandy Domelle
Chrissy Dickinson
Courtney Fowler
Jeanette Comerford

I hope you have a terrific day and thanks for stopping by!

Mojo Monday Week 80

Here we are with our last mojo Monday sketch for the month of March. Julee has another cool sketch for us this week. Below is the sketch and my sample:





I stamped the butterflies 3 times (twice on patterned paper and once on white sparkle) and cut 2 of them out. I used glue dots to pop them on top of one another. I used stickles and rhinestones to accent the butterfly. The beautiful white sparkle paper is from Paper Temptress and the pink lemonade pop tones CS is a great match for SU's pink pirouette.

Some detail shots for you:





Supplies:
stamps- Verve stamps thankful blossoms, grateful elegance
CS- Paper temptress white sparkle, pink lemonade pop tones, SU bella rose dp, riding hood red
accessories- taffeta ribbon, stickles, rhinestones


Be sure to check out the other awesome samples from the mojo makers and find out challenge details on the mojo Monday blog.

Check back here in a little while for the Sweet N Sassy Monday DT challenge sample. I was not feeling that great this weekend and did not finish it so I plan on finishing it up this morning hopefully.

Thanks for visiting, have a blessed day!

Sunday, March 29, 2009

High Hopes Challenge 24

This week's challenge is to use creative borders and was presented to us by the awesome Ila. I was all over this challenge as I love to use my border punches!



I colored my image with copics and added pixie dust blingz shimmerz to the bubbles and stickles to the butterflies. I also used my copic marker to color the middle satin section on my ribbon and the rhinestones. I love being able to coordinate my embellishments to my image and papers by customizing them with the markers.



Supplies:
stamps- high hopes bubble love
CS- blue bayou, urban prairie dp
accessories- Fiskars sunburst punch, rhinestones, organdy ribbon, copics (Y21, Y26, E50, E00, E31, E33, E37, RV11, RV14, BG72, YG03, YG06, G21, G94, G99)


Check out the high hopes blog to see the divas' samples and to find out this week's prize up for grabs.

Speaking of copics and divas...one of the reasons that I did not post all week was that I was away for a couple days taking a copic certification class. The class was taught by the amazingly talented Marianne Walker and assisted by Sherrie Siemens. The talent Marianne has just astounds me and she certainly knows how to use and teach about the copics!! If you have not seen her blog you have to visit it! There is so much great information about copics and coloring in general. I drove to Toronto (even though there was a class here in Buffalo) to meet up with 2 of my amazing fellow high hopes divas. I was so blessed to spend time with Kim Reid and illustrator extraordinaire Crissy Armstrong. They are such wonderful ladies and I enjoyed my time with them. I also had the pleasure of meeting Kim's friend Andrea and Amy who were terrific too. They even put up with me as I have to admit that I was a bit nervous being in a different country and away from my kids and hubby for the first time. Thanks girls- love ya all!!!

I have a few pictures to show you but keep in mind that we are looking a bit rough as it was windy outside and we just came inside after being windblown LOL.


left to right- me, Kim Reid, Andrea


me, Kim, Andrea, Crissy


me, Kim, Crissy

Thanks for stopping by- have a wonderful day!!

Monday, March 23, 2009

Mojo Monday Week 79

I really like my card for this week's mojo Monday. What is not to like- great stamp set, gorgeous papers, and awesome sketch! This is one of my favorite sketches from Julee so far. Below is the sketch and my sample:





I used one of my favorite sets from Sweet N Sassy stamps called Love Blooms. I stamped the rose onto sparkle white paper and colored it with copics. The gorgeous papers are from paper temptress. They are metallic jupiter red, onyx metallic and blanc sparkle. The red panel was run through my cb folder. Each of the scallops on the bottom border were accented with a rhinestone as was the Love sentiment.

Supplies:
stamps- Sweet N Sassy stamps Love Blooms
CS- Paper temptress jupiter red metallic, onyx metallic, blanc sparkle
accessories- corner rounder punch, rhinestones, satin ribbon, copics (R46, R39, G21, G94)


Be sure to stop at the mojo Monday blog to see the mojolicious samples from the mojo makers and for the details on this week's challenge.

Thanks so much for visiting!

Pink and ???

Welcome to another wonderful Monday Sweet N Sassy stamps DT challenge. This week Sandy asked us to use pink and orange or pink and brown on your card. I chose pink and brown since it is one of my favorite combos. I decided to use the SNSS Warm Up set along with the basic grey bittersweet papers which you can also find in the sweet n sassy store.



Pretty straight forward card. I accented the steam lines with a spica glitter pen and I used liquid pearls in each of the scallops of the circle. I colored the bottoms of my dew drops with a copic marker to make them brown.

Supplies:
stamps- SNSS Warm Up
CS- choc chip, basic grey bittersweet
accessories- dew drops, sewing machine, spica pen, circle nesties, liquid pearls


The rest of the Sr. DT have some wonderful samples to share with you as well.

Chris Dickinson
Courtney Fowler
Sandy Domelle
Korin Sutherland

Thank you for visiting today. Have a blessed day!

Sunday, March 22, 2009

High Hopes challenge 23- Buttons

This week's high hopes challenge is to use buttons on your card and is brought to us by Niki. I was able to make 2 samples for this challenge. I was not able to post much this week so double the eye candy today LOL. Here is my first card:



The fairy was colored with copics and cut out. I used angel wings shimmerz on the wings and accented the hat with stickles. I cut a square from my dp and then cut it in half diagonally twice. I sewed the 4 sections onto my matte then adhered my nesties over it followed by the image on pop dots.

A closer view


Supplies:
stamps- high hopes spring fairy
CS- white, wasabi, plum pudding
accessories- primas, buttons, pop dots, labels one nesties, organdy ribbon, stickles, angel wings shimmerz, copics (E00, E50, G21, G94, V12, V15, V17, E33)


My second card also used the sketch and color challenges this week on SCS. Again, I used copics to color my image and then I sponged some ground. I sewed around my image and a border around the edge of the card. I tied a button around my bow with twine. The bow in her hair and the flower centers were accented with stickles.



close up shot


Supplies:
stamps- high hopes little missy
CS- riding hood red, black, red, kraft dp
accessories- black brads, stickles, taffeta ribbon, button, twine, sewing machine, copics (R46, R39, Y15, Y17, E00, E50, R20, E31, E33, E37, W1)

Be sure to stop by the high hopes blog and see the terrific samples' that the divas have for you and to see this week's prize.

Have a blessed Lord's day!

Monday, March 16, 2009

High Hopes challenge 22- No patterned paper!

Second post here today. I am a day late posting my high hopes weekly challenge card. I am so thankful that we have had gorgeous weather here the past few days but unfortunately the change in the weather has played havoc on my sinuses. I have had a very bad sinus headache for days now and nothing is relieving it. Even my ears are hurting so I hope that it will get better soon. So anyway, I have had the image colored for a few days but just could not put it into a card. I tried yesterday but I was sewing the image onto my matte and screwed it up. I was able to salvage the image by distressing the edges which I did not originally plan on doing but at least I was able to still use it. I decided that it was best to set it aside and come back to it today. It was a fairly good idea because I checked the challenge today on SCS and found that I could indeed use my finished image and combine the 2 challenges. So here is my finished card:



I have to be honest, I am not sure if I am completely happy with how this turned out. I am wondering if this image is too big for the ribbon frame technique. You can see how to make the ribbon frame HERE. I do like how the coloring came out though. I colored the image with copics and used some stickles to accent the flowers. So, here is a closer look at that for you:



Supplies:
stamps- high hopes wishing well and sentiment
CS- white, wild wasabi, pink pirouette
accessories- pink taffeta ribbon, pink rhinestones, copics (RV10, RV11, E31, E33, E37, W1, W3, G21, G94, BG10, E50, E00, R20)


So, this week the challenge was brought to us by our wonderful guest diva Diana and she asked us not to use patterned paper on our card. This has become a challenge for me as I frequently use dp especially on colored images because I choose my colors from my papers usually. Please check out the challenge details, prize info, and the rest of the divas' amazing samples on the high hopes blog.

Hope your day is going well!
Hugs,
Janette

Elegant Blessings

Hello and happy Monday to you all! Welcome to another mojo Monday sketch. Here is the sketch and my sample:





I stamped the cross with chocolate ink onto poison ivory cardstock. This cardstock along with the rest of the iridescent line (including my favorite cryogen white) is on sale for 40% off at paper temptress through the end of March. I then used my RV11 copic marker to color in the cross and sponged all the edges of my ivory cardstock in pink. Pearls were added to accent the beautiful cross image.

I hope you will stop by the Mojo Monday blog to see the info for this week's sketch and to see the mojolicious creations that the rest of the mojo makers have for you.

Supplies:
stamps- Sweet N Sassy stamps Elegant Blessings
CS- poison ivory, choc chip, berry bliss dp
accessories- RV11 copic, pearls, sweet blush satin ribbon, corner rounder punch, paper piercer


My second card also uses the beautiful newly released Elegant Blessings from Sweet N Sassy stamps too. This card is for the Monday SNSS DT challenge and I used the SNSS sketch for the week on Papercraft Planet. The challenge this week is an acetate and tissue challenge brought to us by Chris Dickinson. Below is the sketch and my sample:





I stamped the cross with black staz-on onto acetate. I flipped the acetate over and covered it with crystal effects. Next I added my baja reinker to the cross openings and saffron to the rest. I must admit it was extremely tricky trying to get the baja not to bleed outside the lines and I did get a little bleeding but not too bad. I added glitter which is a little tough to see in the photo because I kept getting a glare from the acetate when taking the pictures. Finally the crumpled white tissue paper was added on top of the crystal effects and set aside to dry.

Supplies:
stamps- SNSS Elegant Blessings
CS- white, baja breeze, saffron, granola dp from basic grey
accessories- baja and saffron reinkers, rhinestones, organdy ribbon, glitter, crystal effects


The Sweet N Sassy stamps blog has more challenge info. Here is the link to the tutorial on SCS for this technique. The rest of the Sr. DT have some wonderful samples to share with you as well.

Chris Dickinson
Courtney Fowler
Sandy Domelle
Korin Sutherland

Thank you for visiting today. Have a blessed day!

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Sweet N Sassy March round up

Time for another month round up with Sweet N Sassy stamps. All the DT ladies have certainly outdone themselves with some gorgeous samples for you!

Some of my favorite Sweet N Sassy stamp sets are the beautiful scripture sets. Today I have chosen to highlight one of the newly released sets entitled Easter Scripture. I also decided to pull out some of my new lovely paper from the Basic Grey Porcelain collection which you can find at Sweet N Sassy stamps too, how convenient is that- one stop shopping! I stamped my scripture, sponged the edges then stitched it to my scalloped rectangle. I accented my card with some glittery primas, pearls and organdy ribbon.



Supplies:
Stamps- SNSS Easter Scripture
Cardstock- sweet blush (PTI), SU white, basic grey porcelain
Accessories- pearls, primas, organdy ribbon, long rectangle nestabilities, sewing machine, swiss dots cuttlebug folder, paper piercer


Be sure to visit the SNSS blogpost to see all of the DT's wonderful creations.

I am hoping to have my high hopes weekly challenge card up shortly as I am late finishing it up. My dd got sick on Thurs night and I have had a nasty sinus headache the past 2 days so it is not quite done yet but should be soon. In the meantime visit the high hopes blog for challenge info and samples galore.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Creative Belli blog guest designer

Blessings everyone! I am very excited as I was asked by my friend and fellow SNSS DT member Chris Dickinson to be a guest designer for the belli challenge this week. Well, actually I was supposed to do it last week but I got sick for a couple days and was not able to complete my card in time. They also have a brand new blog to share with you which just went "live" last week- how cool! Every Wednesday on the Creative belli blog they have a new challenge for you and participants have a chance to be a guest designer for a future challenge. This week's challenge is an inspiration challenge from a book cover. Below I have my sample and picture of the book for you.





As soon as I saw the book I knew exactly what stamp set and papers I wanted to use. Now truthfully this does not happen too often with me so I was thrilled at this rarity LOL. I used the Love Blooms stamp set from Sweet N Sassy stamps which I also thought was quite fitting for this challenge since Chris is the illustrator of the set and started the belli challenge. I really love this set and use it quite a bit because it is so versatile containing birthday and anniversary sentiments in it as well. I stamped the rose in red on white diamond paper and then embossed the sentiment in black over the top. I then cut and embossed the oval and adhered with pop dots over the ribbon and top note die. The hearts are just "scraps" from my Fiskars heart border punch. The white diamond cardstock which is now one of my faves along with the awesome black lustre paper are from paper temptress. I am starting to get desperate for more as I only now have 1/4 sheet of both of them left- yikes LOL!

Supplies:
stamps- Sweet N Sassy stamps Love Blooms
CS- white diamonds, real red, black lustre
accessories- black ep, oval nesties, heart border punch, white satin ribbon, black organdy ribbon, SU top note die, pop dots


You can check out more challenge details and see some both inspiring samples from the belli DT on their BLOG.

If did not already know it, Sweet N Sassy stamps now offers digi images. Talk about instant gratification! It is a great affordable way to try out the stamps and there are so many cool things you can do with digital images like changing the size and orientation of them. One of the digi DT members, Deedee has some great tutorials on her blog explaining how to use your digital images. I have not had a chance to play with any of them yet but I am looking forward to it. Every Thursday Korin adds some new images to the collection so be sure to check back there often. I do want to mention that if you like to watercolor your images that you need to print them out on watercolor paper but that can be tricky. However, Diana Gibbs has a tutorial on how to do this too.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope your day is filled with more bubbles than troubles.

Hugs,
Janette

Monday, March 9, 2009

Eye on the Sparrow mojo

Happy Monday everyone! I love Mondays because I get to share 2 weekly challenges with you- the mojo Monday sketch and the Sweet N sassy DT challenge. This week's SNSS challenge is brought to us by the talented Courtney and is to use pastel colors. Below is the mojo sketch and my sample card for the sketch and for the pastel challenge (combined):



I stamped my image and cut it out using my circle nestabilities. It was then colored with copics, the sky was sponged with both sky and baja ink to have some shading, then the flowers were accented with stickles. I ran the soft sky layer through my cuttlebug folder but it is not showing well in the photo.

Supplies:
stamps- Sweet N Sassy stamps His Eye is on the Sparrow
CS- choc, white, pink pirouette, soft sky, berry bliss dp
accessories- satin ribbon, birds and swirls cb folder, pink pearls, circle nesties, paper piercer, copics (RV10, RV11, W1, W3, G21, Y11)


I just love this new Eye on the Sparrow designed by Chris Dickinson which was just released last Friday from Sweet N Sassy stamps. It has many great sentiments and scripture to go with it.

Check out the other terrific samples from the mojo makers and the info for the sketch challenge on the mojo Monday blog

Be sure to visit the Sweet N Sassy stamps blog for more details on the pastel challenge. The other Sr. Dt members also have some beautiful samples to show you as well:

Chris Dickinson
Courtney Fowler
Sandy Domelle
Korin Sutherland

Have a wonderful day and I appreciate you stopping by!

Sunday, March 8, 2009

High Hopes Challenge 21- Zig zag

Hello everyone! This week's high hopes challenge is to use zig zags on your project and is brought to us by the super talented Anna.



I watercolored my image with my aquapainter and reinkers as well as twinkling H2Os. I used pixie dust blingz on the bubbles. For my zig zags I used a zig zag punch for the blue strip and the zig zag stitch on my saffron section. I used dew drops between the sections of the punch to accent.

closer view



Inside of card:



Supplies:
stamps- high hopes bird bath
cardstock- saffron, bashful blue, su dp
accessories- twine, dew drops, martha stewart zig zag punch, aquapainter, twinkling H2Os, reinkers/inkpads, pixie dust blingz, sewing machine


Be sure to visit the high hopes blog to check out the other divas' samples and to check out the details on the challenge including this week's prize.

Hope you have a great day!

Friday, March 6, 2009

Sweet N Sassy in white diamonds

I really wanted to use my winter sets for the last time this week before I put them away for awhile. I actually made both of the cards I have today last week but just did not have a chance to post them here.

The first was from the sketch challenge last week using my snowflakes set.



I stamped the 3 snowflakes and punched them with the square punch accenting with rhinestones. I ran the white section through the cuttlebug snowflake folder.

Supplies:
stamps- Sweet N Sassy snowflakes
Cardstock- white diamond metallic, silver premium glossy metallic, Prism navy blue
accessories- silver metallic ribbon, slot punch, snowflake cuttlebug folder, rhinestones


The second card uses the newly released Elegant Blessings set and the release party challenge sketch from Jeanette.



I stamped the cross with plum ink and then sponged around it with lavender while still in the oval die. I used the smaller cross in the set because all the other DT members were using the larger one. That's right you get 2 gorgeous crosses in this set along with some great sentiments. I had been asking Korin to do a cross set for me and she did not disappoint! This is just one of the awesome 5 new sets that Sweet N Sassy stamps released last Friday. This was really a fantastic release!

Supplies:
stamps- Sweet N Sassy Elegant Blessings
cardstock- white diamond, PTI plum pudding, lavender moon
accessories- rhinestones, shimmer brads, oval nesties, white and lavender satin ribbon


The fabulous white diamond paper on both cards is from paper temptress. Let me tell ya that I absolutely LOVE this paper! It is so pretty and sparkly and it is a very heavy weight which is terrific for card bases. This is now one of my favorite papers to use. One of my other favorite papers that I have mentioned before is the cryogen white which is sort of a creamy white not a bright white and has shimmer to it. I use it very often and the good news is that it is on sale for 40% off this month at Paper Temptress so you will want to check it out.

Have a great weekend and hope to see you on Sunday for the high hopes weekly challenge. I am happy to say that my card is already finished for it too LOL.

Blessings,
Janette

Monday, March 2, 2009

High Hopes mojo Monday

Welcome to another mojo Monday!! I love Mondays because Julee always gives us a great sketch to work with. This week is even more special because it is a contest week- woohoo!! I am very excited because this month Julee is doing a little something different and will be giving away 7 verve stamps set and each of the mojo makers including me have a group of entries to judge. This is going to be so fun but tough at the same time because there are always a ton of fabulous entries. This past week was a busier week than normal so I combined the mojo Monday sketch with the high hopes weekly challenge too. Here is my sample and the sketch:





I colored the bunny with copics then cut it out and used pop dots to adhere it to my square which I sponged using the nestability die as a stencil. I then cut a white pom pom in half and adhered it to the tail with a glue dot. I chose to do this because "fuzzy" is the high hopes challenge this week on the high hopes blog. I also used a spica glitter pen to accent the white on the bunny.

Here is a closer look:


Supplies:
stamps- high hopes bunny, PTI sentiment
CS- white, bashful blue, celery, saffron, SU dp
accessories- ticket corner punch, taffeta ribbon, copics (W1, W3, G21, G94, Y26), paper piercer, saffron button, twine, copic spica glitter pen


Well if you love challenges and prizes this is certainly the week for you! Here is a recap of this week's challenges with links for you:

Sweet N Sassy stamps 3 Release party challenges with prizes- enter till Friday March 6th, details HERE

Sweet N Sassy Monday challenge, details HERE

High Hopes challenge 20 with prizes, enter till Saturday March 7th, details HERE. The divas have created awesome samples for more inspiration for you.

Mojo Monday 76 with prizes enter till Monday March 9, details HERE. Plus you can check out the fabulous samples from the other mojo makers.

Hopefully, some of these challenges will keep you busy this week LOL. I am sure that you all will come up with tons of fabulous cards and I look forward to seeing them!

Have a wonderful day and thank you so much for stopping by!

Sweet N Sassy Monday DT challenge

Hi there! Did you get a chance to check out the SNSS store to see the 5 new fabulous sets that were released on Friday night. If not, then be sure to go and take a peek at them. You won't be disappointed!

I am the hostess of the challenge this week on the SNSS blog. This week's challenge was suggested to me by another DT member and I thought why not since it is not something I typically do? The challenge is to create an ATC (artist trading card). ATCs are generally around 2 1/2" X 3 1/2" but that is just a guide. I generally don't make them so I figured that this week's challenge would be a great way to get me to work outside my comfort zone which is one of the purposes of a challenge right? I also decided to turn my ATC into a card because I was afraid if I did not do it right away then I would never get to it LOL. Take a peek:



Here is the full card


I paper pieced my colored snowman onto my kraft layer which I sponged with white using my oval nestabilies as a stencil and stamped with snowflakes. I added brads to the snowman for his buttons. I then sewed it onto my mattes, added the ribbon adhering to the back with glue dots and attached to the card base with pop dots. I scored 2 lines to frame my sentiment and accented with paper piercing.

Supplies:
stamps- SNSS primitive Christmas and Snow Friends (sentiment and snowflakes)
CS- kraft, white, Red
accessories- stitched ribbon, copics, sewing machine, oval nesties, black brads, pop dots, copics


Be sure to check out what the other Sr. DT ladies created for some more inspiration!

Chris Dickinson
Courtney Fowler
Sandy Domelle


Remember that there are also 3 release party challenges posted in the sweet n sassy forum and a random participant from each of the 3 challenges will get to pick their choice of one of the 5 newly released sets for March. How cool is that? You can check out the details of the challenges and see how you can play along HERE.

Thanks for visiting!