Digital Two for Tuesday 11

Each week our guest designers continue to amaze me. This week's designer Donalda is no exception. She has created two wonderful projects. Here is Donalda's bio. "I'm Donalda Martin and my blog is Donalda's Creative Place. I have been married to my best friend and the love of my life as of August 20th for 38 years. We have 3 grown sons Keith(36), Kurtis(34), Kalvin(25) and 2 daughters in love (Lisa and Keith, Amanda and Kurtis) both are from the same family. You guessed it brothers married sisters. No grandchildren yet but we do have puppies and kitties. We have lived in several states, right now we are living in Indiana. I have had to retire due to loosing the sight in one eye from Glucoma and having trouble with the other one plus other medical problems but that has not stopped me from doing what I love. I have done crafts all my life. I have owned 3 ceramic stores and made porclain dolls. I then started doing scrapbooking, then stamping and card making. I really love all the mediums that can be used. My husband is going to have to get me a larger room for all my stuff. " Here are the two projects Donalda has created for this week.

Card Recipe

Digital art - Digital Two for Tuesday

Cardstock - Stampin UP

Designer paper - K&Co.

Ribbon - Clearance from Joanne Fabrics

Rhinestones - Joannne Fabrics

Flowers

Markers - Stampin Up

Wall Hanging Recipe

5x8 Artist canvas

Digital Art - Digital Two For Tuesday

Designer paper - Hobby Lobby

Beaded trim - Dollar Tree

Ribbon and trim - Big Lots

Flowers - Prima

Rhinestones- Joanne Fabrics

Markers - Stampin Up

Digital Two For Tuesday 10

So we are up to week 10. It is hard to believe. Thank you to everyone who participated last week. Your projects are amazing. Here are this week's images. Our guest designer is the talented Carol from Chocolate, Crafts and Bears Oh My! She has designed 4 beautiful projects using the the images above. Here is her bio. " Greeting from the Peach State, my name is Carol Hurlock. I am originally from Connecticut, but moved to Georgia almost 18 years ago. Family is the center of my world and I have been blessed to be surrounded with the love of the sweetest men in the world, my husband John and my sons Wesley (23) and Ryan (16). I always said there is so much testostrone around here that I have to level it out. The men in my life have taught me to love sports especially football and baseball, play golf, fish, hunt, shoot, love classic cars, motorcycles, and play cards. Don't worry, I have filled their lives with bears....Teddy bears. This house we live in is shared with my bears. I have collected bears forever and it balances out that testostrone I was telling you about.My life has been filled with crafts as long as I can remember. When I was about 7-8 years old, my Mother and Grandmother introduced me to the square metal weaving loom that you make potholders out of fabric loops. I know someone out there is going to say....I remember those!!! Then I got involved with something almost like knitting but without the needles. It was a spool with four nails you wrapped yarn around and lifted the yarn over the nail with a toothpick looking tool that created a knitted tube that you sewed together for rugs and things. I learned to crochet from my next door neighbor when I was 12 with thread first not yarn. I learned to sew in high school and started sewing all my own clothes after that. I would go to work every Friday with a new outfit. I absolutely adored cross stitch when that was popular back in the 80's and think I own just about everything from "Cross Country Stitching". Their designs are awesome. I learned to quilt from books and my favorite designers are Thimbleberries and Debbie Mum. I started selling various crafts at shows in 1990 in Connecticut as Carol Anne's Country Cache. When I moved to Georgia, I streamlined into the fabric medium with dolls, animals, and mini quilts. I had this successful business until 1999 and my family had a blast traveling all over Georgia and Florida in a camper selling my things on weekends. I love floral arranging and make all my own wreaths for my home and gifts. I have worked with non-profit organizations for 10 years on committees for fund raising events. I love coming up with magnificent centerpieces and decorations on a budget. It is such a challenge, but so rewarding. I have been paper crafting for a long time. It started back when I wanted something special for my tags for my business. I used to make my own. I have made cards forever. I just started my blog this past January and found so many wonderful places on the internet to inspire my creativity. Right now my craft focus has been crocheting afghans, paper crafting, and quilting. I have a closet that I keep afghans to give to people who I know who are sick or hurt either physically or just need a pick-me-up. This is something I have done for 10 years. It started with a simple sending of an afghan to a lovely lady I meant on the Boyds Collector's Forum on the Internet that was diagnosed with cancer. She sent me the most awesome thank you note that made me cry for hours. In it she said how she was wishing for an afghan like her Mom used to make for the comfort that being wrapped up in it would bring. I still well up with tears thinking about it and it changed my life. I want to share my gift with others as much as I can and have dedicated the afghan giving in her memory. I have scrapbooked every one of my former co-workers kids, animals, weddings, and family events. I have made all types of items to leave at their desks for holidays as little gifts. I was a Bank Manager, but got laid off in January. The crafting community has helped me get back to my happy place after the sheer devastation I felt about losing a job I was so dedicated to for 10 years. So, I will continue creating daily and see where it takes me. It is sure to be an adventure and I invite you to come along with me in your creative endeavors. I created these different items for Digital Two for Tuesday's so everyone could see just how versatile Cora's images are. All I did was resize them for the different projects I did here. I wanted them to look vintage, so I used Ranger's tea dye distress ink pounce on all the images and then I sprayed them with water, let dry, then ironed them flat on the back side. I will have links and directions for all projects at my blog. Hope you have enjoyed viewing these possiblities and you will try them for yourself."

First up is the what I call the "Shirley Temple" set. The left piece is a tea bag holder. It holds two tea bags, The middle item is a belly band around two bottles of Bath and Body Works shower gel with a hang tag around one of the tops of the bottle for your To and From sentiment. The item to the right is a purse filled with little gift/note cards and envelopes. I will have the links to these projects up on my blog. The belly band is my own design, so I will have measurements and deets there.The second set is the "Fishing Boy". The item to the left is an altered box almost like a recipe box. I got this at the dollar store a while back and have been waiting to do something with it. It was perfect for this project. I kept thinking this is the perfect catch all for little boys marbles, baseball cards, coins, fishing lures, bubble gum, golf tees, other items little boys tend to keep in their pockets. The middle item is a gift bag to hold these gifts with a tag for the To and From sentiment. The item to the right is another gift/note card and envelope box.I have taken some pictures of the note cards close up and out of the box so that they can be viewed along with showing how the 3 x 3 envelopes are lined.

Digital Two For Tuesday 9

Here are the two new images for this week's challenge. I gave these images to this week's guest designer and asked her to step out of her comfort zone and she delivered two beautiful cards.

This week our guest designer is Sharon. I have been following her blog Shardon Exclusives for awhile and besides being a talented paper artist she makes the most beautiful hand beaded jewelry. I encourage all of you to take a look. Here is her bio. "Hi, my name is Sharon A. Kyser. I am happily married to a very sweet man (only 6 years ago). He totally supports my creative spirit. He even made a bedroom into an art room for me to develop whatever project I come up with next.
As a very small child, I remember making velvet paper roses for Mother's Day. Since then I have been into numerous mediums. I have sewed, contract dresses (at $1.50 labor per dress!) & clothing right out of high school. One of the last things that I sewed was my daughters wedding dress. Then I re-made her dress into a wedding dress for my parents 50th wedding anniversary. (I haven't sewn since!!!)
I won a prize at the Iowa State Fair for china painting. Then later was a runner up for first place in Tole Painting. I bought yards & yards of cross stitching products and have even worked in woods. ( All the while, I have always worked with paper products.)
May 2008, I started beading to be able to use some of the Antique & Vintage necklaces that my Mother had so passionately collected. The first lesson that I took, I cried out of frustration! I kept going back for more lessons and now I am totally hooked! I enjoy the process of the textures, the pattern designs, the colors, the sizes of the beads but most of all I love hearing all of the kind words when someone purchases a piece. I can not imagine what I did before beading except for working with paper. ( I have a huge stash of paper!) Sometimes it actually hurts when I have to use a favorite/beautiful piece of paper. But I like seeing a product once I am through adding all of my fru-fru. As long as I can possibly see, I will be working to create something new, something made by ME, as I have nothing else to leave this world! It pleases me to know that someone "cherishes" things that I made.

"I am so used to working with people/flower graphics so this assignment was quite a stretch for me. I am a very Victorian/Vintage-y designer and like a lot of fru-fru. The era that these pictures came from have very sleek lines & not at all fussy. But I took up the challenge, yet found myself lost in the frufru world again. I am never a black and white sort of designer. One always needs a little color in their life. But I just "went for it" and came up with the lady, (compliments of http://clearlyvintage.blogspot.com/) overlooking the Renault. The "reach high" wording was from http://digifree.blogspot.com/ files. I then put a band of rose colored circles across the bottom to ground the car. I went into photoshop and colored a few of the flowers over her head & the front of the car with a gradient brush to match the rose below. I added two of layers of ribbon of two textures then tied it with a bow. (See, I told you I couldn't get away from fru-fru.) The "thank you" is raised with a piece of matting scrap.
I am always looking for good ideas And I came across Jak Heath's work at http://crafterskitchen.blogspot.com/ . I have seen this style done in numerous places but I love the card she designed and thought I would use the general idea on my second card. I had some bright orange ribbon (too bright) so then I used my "Distress Ink" pad (by Ranger) and stamped until it brought down the tone to match the flower. Kinda' puckered the ribbon onto two way tape. I added a row of flower petals and topped it with one of my Momma's vintage buttons.

Guest Designers Wanted

See post below for more info.

Digital Two For Tuesday 8

Here are this week's Digital Two For Tuesday images. Won't you take the challenge this week and create something amazing. For those of you that love Digital Two For Tuesday I have made a badge that you can post on your blog. It is in the side panel.

This week's exciting designer Micki has created two cards using these images. Check out her fun blog and her beautiful artwork at Artful Expressions. Here is more information about Micki.

"Hi, my name is Michaela Harper but everyone calls me “Micki”. I was born and raised in Bad Hersfeld, Germany and immigrated to the United States in 1977. I am married to Chriss who is my biggest supporter, have a 26 year old daughter, Rachelle; an awesome son-in-law, Kyle and two awesome, beautiful granddaughters, Emma & Gracy. Having been raised in Germany, I‘ve always been exposed to all sorts of crafts. However, scrapbooking didn‘t catch my fancy. I even dabbled in stamping 15 years ago, but at that time that “bug” didn‘t catch my fancy either. (Gasp, imagine that, lol)
I have been stamping and scrapbooking for 3 years. I don‘t have that natural “knack” for art, be it stamping/scrapbooking or photography but I am persistent and keep at it. It‘s fun for me to look back at some of my first card creations, comparing them with a recent project and realizing how my crafting has evolved. I tend to create with the ‘less is more’ philosophy but force myself to step outside of my comfort zone and try new styles. Although I tend to gravitate towards the ‘less is more’ style, I appreciate any crafting style and find inspiration from just about anything.
I have always loved the vintage look & feel (I live in an old Victorian house) and was so happy to have found and follow Cora’s blog. I enjoy seeing each challenge participants ‘take’ of the weekly images. Ideas always start to pop up after visiting each of the blogs. A big thank you to Cora for having me as a guest designer. "

Mon Amie
Sentiment Stamp: from Carte Postale (Stampin’ Up!)
Cardstock:
Solar White (Neenah Classic 80lb cover) for image;Elegant Eggplant, Kraft for base (Stampin’ Up!)
Papers: (Stampin’ Up!); handmade paper scrap
Inks:
Milled Lavender Distress Ink, Espresso Adirondack Dye Ink (Ranger); Copic Markers
Embellishments:Rhinestones (K&Co)


The handmade paper is actually white. I misted it with water and used the blending tool to apply the distress ink.

Dream

Stamp: Inkadinkado
Cardstock: Millstone (Neenah Classic 80lb cover)
Papers: Enchante` (Stampin’ Up!)
Inks:
Vintage Photo Distress Ink, Espresso Adirondack Dye Ink (Ranger); Copic Markers
Embellishments:
Brads & Word Window from Embellishment Kit-Pewter (Stampin’ Up!)
Ribbon: from Scrapbasket


For this image, I put the emphasis on the towel & the hair… either leaving the other areas uncolored or using a very light color. I distressed the papers lightly with the Distress Ink using the blending foam tool.

Guest Designers Wanted

If you are interested in being a guest designer for Two for Tuesday please contact me at coraharkins@sbcglobal.net. All are welcome. That is what Two for Tuesday is all about to try new things. I have the following dates open. September 1, 8, 15, and 22. Your duties will include making a project with one or both of the images from the challenge, a short description of your project and a short bio. I will give you the images one week before. Please email me for more information.