Hydrangeas & Doodles for Tuesday Throwdown

     Good day to all of you!  At Tuesday Throwdown this week, we have a new challenge and a really special sponsor.  Our theme is "Delightful doodles" and we want to see some creative doodling on your card.  You can get as fancy or as simple as you like (mine is very simple but fits the card) -- let your imagination soar.  Our sponsor is Kim Sherrod, the fantastic lady who established the Tuesday Throwdown challenge in the first place.  These days, Kim makes and sells her own incredible purses and handbags, and she's offering a $25 gift certificate to the lucky random winner this week!  WOW!  That almost makes me wish I wasn't on the DT so that I had a shot at being the winner.  :-D  Be sure to check out the challenge blog for a link to her shop.

I used the sketch at Sketches by Carly.

     The hydrangea image is a rubber stamp from Rubber Stampede and I colored it with a combination of Promarkers and my new Spectrum Noir markers.  Believe it or not, there are 9 different blues and lavenders used to color the image.   It's fussy cut and matted once, fussy cut again, and then I tied the bow on it.  It's popped up on dimensional dots.

     The little butterflies are gems, and my swirly doodling is their fight trails (gel inks.)  The butterfly dp is a scrap I had left over (from the Dreamcatcher stack by First Edition.)  The pearls were in my stash.

     Challenges:
Charisma Cards -- Monochrome
Fat Pages & Cards with Attitude -- Anything goes
Outlawz Copics and Promarkers -- Anything goes
Paper Crafting Journey -- Pearls and swirls
Poodles Parlour -- Anything goes
Stemplesonnen -- Anything goes
Totally Gorjuss -- Pearls
Willow Sketchie -- (sketch OR) Anything goes

     OK, that's it for this week's Tuesday Throwdown challenge!  Come play along, doodle your heart out, and I'll see you at the challenge.  I think the new DT members have been chosen and are being notified, so next week, we'll be revealing our new team members.  We'll also have two teams starting next week, even though Tuesday Throwdown will continue to be a weekly challenge with fabulous sponsors.   So I'll be seeing you there every other week instead of every week.  Happy Stamping.  NanaConnie

Beautiful Music

     The new digital images for the Creative Freebie Challenge at Outlawz arrived in my e-mail late last night and I stayed up to get this made.  The instant I saw Sandi's image, I started thinking "opera" and, since there were a couple of wonderful challenges which had music in their themes, I put a list of challenges together and ended up with this card.

I used the sketch from Sketch Saturday but didn't follow it quite so literally this time (a great feat for me!)

     I colored her with Touch Twin markers and heat embossed her neckline and sash.  I die cut the image and matted it with a die cut oval.  The dps are from DCWV's "Performance" matstack, including the piece with the sentiment "Sing your heart out", which I cut from the same piece as the oval frame.  I've had that stack at least a year and I keep hoarding it as though it must be saved.  lol  Better to use it, I think.  The pearls have also been in my stash quite a while but the flowers are relatively new, from Kaiser Craft this time.

     Challenges:
Clear It Out -- Something yellow
Di's Digis Designs -- Pile on the Flowers
Guylou's Inimitability -- Music or Dance
It's All about the Vintage -- Anything (vintage or retro) goes
Oldie but Goodie Challenge -- Flower Power
Paper Play -- Music
Skipping Stones Design -- Inspiration photo (woman holding flowers)
Use It Tuesday -- Emboss

     Ooops, Blogger forgot to post this as scheduled so I'm doing it myself now.  Happy Stamping.  NanaConnie
     

Cat Bath

     It's another beautiful Bugaboo summer day and today I want to share an image called "Cat Birdbath" which I used for my Guest DT card.  The theme at Catch the Bug this week is the easiest in the world -- Anything Goes!  So, I want to see you playing along.

      Isn't this the cutest little digi stamp?  I'm not sure kitty planned on getting wet when he went sneaking around the birdbath, but he probably deserves whatever he gets!  :-D

    Sketch (with some slight modifications) came from Digi Darla's and this is the second time I've used it.
 
      I colored the image with water color pencils and alcohol markers, die cut the circle and the black CS mat, then framed it with a doily (Spellbinders.)  The ribbon is sparkly and comes from Really Reasonable Ribbon.  All the flowers are Prima.  Clean and simple design with flower embellishments.  The card came together pretty quickly once the coloring was done.

     Challenges:
Creative Craft -- Tweet, Tweets
Flourishes -- Summer
Jackson's Digital Expressions -- Anything goes w/ optional flowers
LEJ Designs -- Fabulous flowers
Paper Pretties -- Summer fun
Scrapbook Sisters -- Use only 1 stamp on your card
Shopping Our Stash -- Triple Threat: ribbon, die cut doily, flowers
The Paper Girls -- Colors from the photo inspiration

     Don't forget that Bugaboo's "Christmas in July" starts in just another week and there will be ooodles of games, mini-challenges, and prizes.  I hope you're going to play along as much as possible.  I'm going to use it as an excuse to finally get a start on my Christmas cards.  Hope we see you at our Anything Goes challenge this week.  Happy Stamping.  NanaConnie