Feels Like Winter

Yay! It's warm actually. Jeans and tank top today and it's 31st October. Hooray! Winter is on its way and here we go. Ooops, the white thingy that looks like a mess was suppose to feature a snow storm(ish).

Again wonderful stamp from Digi Doodle Shop  Eskimo
Die cuts Sizzix Framelits Square and Scalloped Square
Shiny snow Deco Art Glamour Dust
Thick snow Deco Art Snow Tex
Blings (buttons and blank label on top left corner) stash
Ice tiles Crystal Stickers Mosaic
Design Papers Laura Ashley collection
and one piece of kraft
Buttons and yarn are from stash
Colours Prismacolors and a bit baby oil for blending

Challenge or two:

Cards For Men -  Animals (husky)
Forever Friends - Bling Bling
Make it Monday - Anything Goes
Pollycraft - Anything Goes

Laundry Scrub Board Rocks

Unforeseen difficulties and more complications... That's my life at the moment.

BUT 

This gorgeous bloke is one member of Hillbilly Band, Cousin Willie playing Scrub Board and ohmy, he knows how to charm women ladies ;) Digis are from Digi Doodle Shop as follows

Cousin Willie

Tickets  I printed tickets on kraft after adding the event details, then cut them out

Lantern is printed on white card, coloured, cut out and glued on the wall. Matches and wooden shelf are part of the digi.

This is something again I love about DDS digis, they fit together so nicely. 

This week we have ever so popular challenge "Anything Goes" - can't wait to see your creations there :)

3 x Digis - Digi Doodle Shop

Backing Papers - Kanban Stone Wall and Wooden Fence

Die cuts - Spellbinders

Colorine - Marker Pens

Challenges I would like to attend to:

Make it Monday with Kraft Outlet - must include Kraft cardstock - Anything Goes (tickets and die cut)
Craft Your Passion - Use KRAFT Paper
Sweet Stampin - 2E, must Stamp - Anything goes
Inspire Me Fridays - always anything goes


I love visiting your blogs, so please keep me busy :)

Green and Purple

Digi Doodle Best Shop 
Challenge #79 - Green & Purple

Welcome to our next challenge here at Digi Doodle Shop’s Challenges.  Thank you to everyone who joined in last week.  We are always so appreciative of each and every one of you for sharing your wonderful creations with us.

This is my version for this week:

How this was made?

White card blank
Green square
Purple vellum embossed using Fiskars plate
Cream linen sheet
Image from DDS, here and details of Geisha Girl are here
Colours are from Prismacolor pencils (no blending this time because the paper was so soft and linen)
Ribbons from stash organza and satin
Blossoms from stash
Pearls I tried to paint purple and green with no success or very little of it :)
Fuji and tree branch on the background are a b/w image found free copyright, I recoloured it very light grey and then used Prismacolours to colour it "properly".

Can't wait to see your creations!
Digi Doodle Best Shop :)

Lavender and Lace

It is Thursday and time for Digi Doodle Shop's Best and Challenge!

This week at Digi Doodle Shop's Best we have Challenge #78 - Lavender and Lace. Doesn't it that sound beautiful? I wanted to make something very romantic and chose Bridal Bouquet & Garter Set from DDS. 

The idea in my head was to make something for a scrap book, so here we go.

 

Image - Digi Doodle Shop

Colorine - Promarkers

Gems - from Samuel Taylors 

Lace and Ribbons also from Samuel Taylors

Satin Roses from Home Bargains! 40 roses for 59 pence. Love the place!

Die - Spellbinders Labels Seven + a smaller one on purpose not exactly same shape. (Or maybe I just could't cut the same shape??? heheee)

Delicious Challenges for me to join in

Creative Craft Challenges - Congratulations

The Stamping Boutique -   Someone Special 

Cutie Pie Challenge - Bingo (glitter, lilac, ribbon/lace)

Woodware USA - 2E - Anything Goes (again)

I Did It Creations - Anything Goes

One Stitch At A Time - Anything Goes

Remember DDS Specials for October! :)

Anniversary 30

30 Years of Marriage

A wonderful couple from our congregation is celebrating their 30 years of marriage and my friend asked me to make a card for them. I love making something personal and I knew the husband had a motorbike so of course this image (Danny) was the one and only for the husband this occasion. Biker wasn't enough and this lass also from Kraftin Kimmie's collection was perfect choice for the wife. I hope everyone else is happy with the card. I was. :)

Image - Kraftin Kimmie Danny
Image - Kraftin Kimmie Posy
Ink - Memento Tuxedo
Card Blank - 6x6 scalloped 300gsm
Colorine - Promarkers
Light distressing - Tim Holtz
Scalloped die - Sizzix Framelits
Satin roses - stash
Pearl chain around sentiment - stash
Sentiment - by yours truly (wanted to give hint towards motorbike as well as marriage)
(Pearls and roses took no time at all with hot glue gun, and it was EASY)

Few lovely challenges:
Digital Tuesday - include a digital element - #131 We Like To Party (Any Celebration) - sentiment digital manipulation .jpg
Ladybug Crafts Ink TLT Challenge - 1E, SIO - #40 No Design Papers (Just plain cardstock played with)
Make it Monday  - #58 Always Anything Goes

This is the comment from the celebrating couple:

Debs said...

Hi, Such a wonderful, lovely card. We love it so much. Thanks for making it. You are so clever xxx

Two Made by Request

Beautiful Morning

This is my first card for Digi Doodle Shop's Best as DT member and it means it's a Special Day.

Theme for this week's challenge 77 is distressing. Link is -> THIS to the challenge.

There are two different digistamps on the card, the gorgeous Antique Wash Stand Set and Vintage Corset & Pantaloons. You can find DDS Digis from here. Aren't they beautiful?

I did some flipping, resizing and something else to get the mirror image to look like she is actually looking at the mirror. Colours are chosen to get Victorian era and also some smudging and some snow tex, lilac ink, scissors and patience to distress the card.

Hih, went wild with the pics, but trying to show "all the hard work" I've done :D

Can't wait visiting your blogs and seeing what you come up with! 

Digis - Digi Doodle Shop
Card blank 240 gsm A4 cut 14,5 cm x 29 cm
Backing Paper - pearlised 150 gsm (approx) from stash
White stuff  - Deco Art Snow Tex
Some silver glitter - stash
Ripped fabric - bought from wonderful shop in Bradford
Colored pencils - Prismacolors
Satin roses - stash
Green paper rose - ST
Gem in the lamp - stash
Drawer knobs - stash
Distress inks - Tim Holtz (I typed Tom Hanks, but then thought can't be right!)

Challenges I would like to take this card to:

Crafts and Me - #55 use a digi
Penny's Paper-Crafty - #63 anything goes
Truly Scrumptious - 2W - #67 distressing
Paper Take Weekly - Anything Goes
Crafty Cardmakers - 2W, C15 - (1st week) Anything Goes
Make it Monday - always Anything Goes

Till next card :)

Misc Baby Card Collection

The Great Idea was to tidy the craft room up a bit, but this happened:
(After taking the pics and posting, I made just a little bit finishing work. Lilac, blue and yellow roses I coloured myself.)

Awww... rather enjoying crafting than hoovering!

Open Letter From Mo

Dear Crafter,

First of all, I do not think you're a horrible person, and I really do appreciate you writing to me.  I wanted to give you a chance to respond -- which is why I didn't simply put up your name and let people "at you."  So I have shown I CARE about you -- even after people cried to know  your name -- but do you care about me?

NONE of us can sit here drawing for hours and hours every day to put new stamp images up if we are not being paid a livable wage.  If you can't buy a stamp -- why in heaven's name would you think that gives you the moral right to steal it from me?

I am a single mum.  I adopted two special needs (from abused homes) children as a single mother, and have raised them all by myself without asking anyone for anything.  I couldn't work in a regular job because my kids had difficulty in regular school for many years . . . so besides trying to heal them emotionally, I had to home-school them AND try to earn enough money to keep a roof over our heads.  For YEARS I slept on a couch in the living room because I couldn't afford a place with real beds for all three of us and I wanted my kids to be the ones to have the beds. Six years ago I almost died because I waited too long to go to the hospital because I couldn't afford health insurance.  I am still under thousands and thousands of dollars hospital bills because of that.  My youngest is 19 now -- and both kids are just out on their own . . . but my own mum is blind, has lung disease and severe arthritis so now I need to take care of her. 

The only reason I'm telling you this is because I want you to understand that EVERYONE has their sad stories.  In all these years I have never taken anything that wasn't mine.  I would never say, hey, I can't afford to buy this music CD, so I'll go ask my friends if they can burn a copy for me.  If I can't afford something I want -- I save up for it or I go without.  I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to do something simple like take my kids to see a movie but simply couldn't.  Stamps are a luxury -- not a need.  If you (or someone else) can't afford them -- you can't simply steal them. (And my images are NOT expensive.  They are $3 US no matter where you live in the world because all of them are available through my digital shop.)

And here's the BIGGEST thing.  Every moment that my images are up on a site like yours, people are downloading them freely.  And those people who download them freely think, "Hey, it was just FREE" so they pass them along to OTHER people freely and pretty soon NO ONE needs to buy them anymore because they're available for FREE!  Magnolia now has people like you taking their images and scanning them in.  Here is the history of Magnolia:

1: Magnolia does popular stamps everyone loves.
2: For years people buy them and Magnolia thrives as a business
3: The Internet happens.
4: Crafters enjoy the Internet and become skilled at using computers.
5: Craft forums and Blogs become popular and crafters from all over the world meet and interact.
6: Large swap groups are formed in forums everywhere, sometimes with hundreds of participants each.  People mail each other stacks of stamped images.
7. People start using printed images they have found on the internet -- mostly clip art.
8. Digital stamp companies run by solo artists start springing up.
9. Someone gets the idea to scan in their Magnolia images to make THOSE into digis they can share easily.
10. Others see the scanned in Magnolia images and scan theirs in too.
11.People start emailing each other  "OOOh -- I don't have those ones!!" and scanned images exchange hands.  10s of images multiply into 100s and then 1000s.
12. SOME people decide to compile these thousands of Magnolia images on CDs and sell the collections on Ebay.  Other people decide to BUY these Magnolia CDs.
13. Magnolia's profits DIP because a growing number of people are getting hold of the pirated "digi" Magnolias and don't need to buy the rubber.
14. Magnolia decides it's not worth it to put out new stamps, and there is one more company who needs to find a different product.

We're at about number 13 right now -- Magnolia is a member of my group "Stamp Out" and I happen to know they are confused, worried and not sure what to do about the theft besides GIVE UP.  If this can happen to a long established company like Magnolia -- how quickly do you think it can happen to a small company like mine, or Lily of the Valley, or the Greeting Farm or Stamping Bella, Stampavie or any other.  I don't think people realize most of us are small businesses barely skating by.  This GROWING theft by crafters who care more that they have "this cute stamp too" than that the artist can feed their child -- is KILLING stamp companies.

I am one who will fight to the end to protect my art -- and the art of all my friends.  I will be retaining a lawyer soon, because this is just going too far and in the future someone is going to need to be made an example of.

So to wrap this up, Crafter.  I do believe a person can be redeemed.  I'm hoping you're a person like that.  I will believe your apology is sincere if you not only stop giving (AND RECEIVING) stolen images yourself -- but if you take my letter to heart and help spread the word this is wrong, wrong, wrong.  It worries me that you say you have gotten my images from Photobucket but didn't give me the information to have them taken down.

Please let me know that you have understood my huge frustration is not just with you - but with all who are being "nice" by sharing when in fact you are making artists struggle (even more) to put food on their tables.

xoMo

DDSB NEWS FLASH

ALL Through October - Just click on SHOP or under the tabs section on the Digi Doodle Shop's Best! Of course you can just click the pic ;)


Oops! Almost forgot to tell you there are gorgeous NEW IMAGES!