Special 50/50

Hey guys. You are all cordially invited to join the 50/50 Digital Stamping Group and the Christmas Block Party!

All the deets are here. If you join, please tell them I sent you.

AiFactory Tuesday - Last Minute Gifts

I think my brain is still on overload. This week, we've been challenged to make something that could be created quickly and that could also be given to just about anyone. Since I've had multiple challenges on the brain (see yesterday's post), narrowing down "something" was harder than it should've been. Once that lightbulb went off, however, I had to stop myself from making more and more of these little goodies so I could take pictures and get them posted!!

The set we're using this week is Season's Greetings. It's a really cute set and would be great for Christmas party invitations, family Christmas letter stationery, gift tags, and a whole host of other goodies. I altered some binder clips that were leftover from work and made them into little photo or note holders.

In the first picture, I've shown them holding this year's school photos of my two younger daughters. The second pic is the clips close up.
I think they came out really cute! I think I'm going to give them to my mom when we go visit her later this week. I think she'll like them, especially if I include the pictures of the girls.

Please play along with us! You've got an extra week this time, due to the holidays, and you can win a clipart set of your choice from the AiFactory Store! Links to the rest of the team are on the left side-bar. You need not use an AiFactory image, but, as usual, we'd be thrilled if you did! Remember, if you post to SCS or PCP, this week's tag is AIF017.

Challenges this set is for:
Creative Card Crew - Anything Goes & DT Call (my third entry)
Color Throwdown #73 - except I linked it too late.
Easy Craft Projects #2 - inspired by the picture frame idea
AllSorts Challenge Week 32 - Anything But a Card
Bee Crafty 20 - Circles and a digi
(not sure if this counts, since I could have used the line art and it is a digital image?)

That's all of 'em for this set. Challenges are a lot of fun. Thanks for reading! Have a great one!!

My First Ippity Hop!

Hey there peeps! I hope you are all having lots of fun checking out the {ippity} goodness this morning.

I'm gonna keep it short this morning, since this isn't just for the {ippity} hop. I used Mercy's Tuesday Sketch Challenge #52 and {ippity} Kissmas & Mistletoe. Patterned paper is Basic Grey's Eskimo Kisses.
This card is also for the following challenges (yes, I'm multi-tasking again):
EtsyInspired #67 - Kindly Noted (using this card for the colours)
BasicGrey - Colour Combo (cream, pink and blue are all there in the Eskimo Kisses paper)
C.R.A.F.T. Challenge #30 - Free For All
Crafty Calendar Challenge #3 - Winter Sparkle
Corrosive Challenge #43 - Blingy (holographic embossing powder is blingy, right?)
Stamp with Us - Christmas (SU Garden Green and Pretty in Pink card stock, plus Whisper White craft ink, snail adhesive, dimensionals)
Kaboodle Doodles - Sparkly Winter (I see a recurring theme here)
Kraftin' Kimmie - Sparkle Baby
Creative Card Crew - Anything Goes & DT Call
Stamp Something - Holiday Something
One Stop Craft Challenge - Recycled (I recycled the cardstock for the snowman off another project, which is actually printed on the back side. Shhh!!)
Our Creative Corner - Let it Snow
Simon Says - Merry Christmas
Sophisticat - Christmas

Thanks for looking and have an awesome day!

Friends with Flair - End of the Year

Wow. Can you believe it's this close to the end of the year? And next week is...(taking a big breath)...Christmas??? I am SO not ready!! And this is so not the card I was going to make! But what are you gonna do when inspiration strikes?

I was trolling the net, trying to spark the mojo. I was going to use a challenge that required snowflakes or snowmen. That's great! I still need to make some more Christmas cards. Um, yeah. No. EIC struck again. Well, it did have some help from my friend, Becky, who is anxiously awaiting the birth of her son. I was looking through my stamps and looking at pictures and looking at sketches on different sites...

So I took the photo of this necklace from Marmar's shop, the sketch from this month's Sheetload of Cards, which, btw, is the last issue, so if you want them, you should scamper on over and download them before they disappear in March, and Unity's Bouncy Blue - and made a card for Becky.

Becky, if you're reading this today, I hope you like it!

Check out the full list of people participating this week on the Unity blog.

Quick announcement. You can purchase {ippity} stamps from me. Anything I sell is going to help my oldest daughter, Meagan travel to Europe next summer. She'll earn both high school and college credit, as well as it just being an incredible opportunity to learn and grow. I wish I could go with her! I can't, but I'm going to do what I can to make it possible.

Thanks for reading - and happy holidays!

Softpencil - It's Definitely Not a Card!

Happy Thursday everybody! It's Anything But a Card day today and believe me, I went about as far away from a card as I possibly could. When I first saw Gorgeous Life, the beautiful mandala designed by Elizabeth's very talented sister, Natalia, my brain went immediately to one of my other long-term hobbies.

I'm sure some of you have wondered where the name FibreJunky came from, considering I've been doing an awful lot of paper crafting these days. Well, for the past 15 years, I've been a spinner. I also knit, weave, sew...pretty much anything that has to do with some type of textile, yarn, thread, needle, colours...you name it, I've at least tried it. So, back to spinning. Some years ago, Spin-Off had an article about making your very own drop spindles out of used CDs. How could I not take this opportunity to make a pretty one??

Since it's Christmas time, I chose Christmas-y colours. The wool is some mystery wool/mohair blend - I think - that I had laying around. It's green. That's why I grabbed it and spun just enough up to make sure the spindle works.This handy, useful little project is also for Our Creative Corner's Holiday (Christmas) Challenge, Creative Card Crew's Anything Goes challenge, and the Whimsical Ink Society's Bright & Bold Challenge. I just love multi-tasking.

Hey - I've got 5 kids. If I don't multi-task, I'd never get anything at all done!

Now, two quick things before I go. First of all, please check out the rest of the DT's creations today. They're listed on the left side of the blog.

Second, I'd like to wish Elizabeth a great, big

AiFactory Tuesday - Challenge #16

Hi everyone! I'm typing on December 14. It's my youngest daughter's birthday - so a big Happy Birthday sweetie!!

Today the challenge is to do a Clean and Simple project using the clip art set Little Doctor Medical Cliparts. I was having some trouble with inspiration for this one, which is pretty backwards, since everyone around here has been sick! Then again, I'm pretty sick of doctors, doctor visit, medications, and illnesses at this point, so in that respect, not too surprising.

I was thinking of a few other things I wanted to do this week when I saw this cute necklace at marmar's shop on Etsy. Hmm....I like that blue. Bet I can get it to coordinate with that darling little nurse in the clipart set. Oooh, and wait! She has red on her little hat - and there's red in the necklace. I can do that, too! EtsyInspired Challenge #66 is done and so is my card for AiFactory.

Please check out what the rest of the team has done - and then it's your turn! When you're done, link your project to the AiFactory Challenges blog. If you post to a public gallery, please use the tag AiF016.

Angie
Erin
Fink
Kerry
Lola
AiFactory Challenge Blog (Link Posts HERE)

Thanks for all of the wonderful thoughts for Hannah. She's feeling much better. She'd never speak to me again if I shared the pics of her with her face all puffy. She's a teenager. I wouldn't humiliate her like that, anyway. Now...I may share them with her future husband, but that's an entirely different set of circumstances! It's my job to embarrass her at that point. Right??

Soft Pencil Thursday - on Saturday

Hello everyone. No, I have not fallen off the face of the planet, although it sure felt like it! Comcast was out in our whole area for over a day (what? me without a net connection?? HORRORS!!!) and then I spent the past 2 days taking care of two of my kids. Cody still needs some help, but Hannah, who had her bottom wisdom teeth extracted yesterday morning, is doing much, much better. Poor baby was in a lot of pain yesterday and didn't want me to leave her side. Today she just looks like a chipmunk. The dentist says her stitches will dissolve in a week or so. We're hoping she can return to school on Monday. We'll see.

This week we got the cutest image, We Wish You a Merry Christmas, to work with, and we were to use Christmas colours. A big can-do! I also chose to follow Sketch Challenge 257 from SCS, because sketch challenges are fun.

I wanted something puffy to use on their hats, but I don't have anything, so just used souffle ink. It's got texture, but not exactly what I wanted. I still think it came out pretty cute.

Thanks for visiting. Don't forget to check out the rest of the team. They're listed over on the left side of the blog.

If anyone has any advice on how to deal with a 19yo with Asperger's Syndrome, I'm open to suggestions.

AiFactory Tuesday - Tag Challenge

Good morning everybody! I hope you had a great weekend. I'm still sorting out everything for the upcoming blog candy, but it's definitely coming. I have it on good authority that I'll be able to offer something special, but I'm not saying just what that is yet, so stay tuned!

Today is AiFactory Tuesday and that means it's digistamp time again. This week, with Christmas looming ever closer, De challenged us to use the chic chandelier frames from this page. There are four to choose from!

I decided to colour my tags in Photoshop, just for practice, and then print them out. If you go this route, don't forget that you can zoom in on the file before you use the paint bucket on any one part. It's a lot easier to get into narrow spaces that way! Once I had one image done, I just copied it so that there were 8 of them on a page and printed them out. The font is Black Adder II, which I found here.

I punched holes in the corners with a Crop-a-dile and tied a ribbon through each set of 8, just to keep them together. These will definitely be getting used this year - and I've saved the file in case I need to print off more of them. With 5 kids, you know there will be lots of gifts under the tree!

Check out what the rest of the team has to show for you today - they're always so creative, I'm sure it's going to be fabulous!

Angie
De
Erin
Fink
Kerry
Lola
AiFactory Challenge Blog (Link Posts HERE)

When you're done checking them out, it's your turn! Make a gift tag or two. Link up to the Challenge Blog. If you post to SCS or another public gallery, please use the tag AiF015 so we can be sure to find your creations and leave 'em some love! This week's challenge winner will get the full set of four frames from the AiFactory Store!!

Friends With Flair - the Quick Version

Hey there peeps. This is a quick, down and dirty post. Kind of like my card. This is the last week of school before finals and so I thought I'd see how quickly I could pull off a decent looking card. I can do a really cruddy card in no time flat, but one that I wouldn't be horrified to send out? Well...that's another story! So in comes Sheetload of Cards. I've used their sketches before. They really are quick, especially if you're need to make a, er, sheetload.

Anyway. Just one, but I needed to make a birthday card. I pulled out one of the new {ippity} sets (and yes, you can buy them from me - just drop me a pm, email or a comment and we'll talk) and I think I even pulled off a fairly masculine card! What do you think?In case you're wondering, yes, that's a Basic Grey Indian Summer paper pad in the background. I took a second photo with the card and the paper, but I didn't like it and it's late, so I'm heading to bed. I have to be in class in less than 8 hours.

Don't forget to check out the rest of the wonderful Unity friends - you can find the full list on the Unity blog!

My First Softpencil Thursday!!

Hi everyone! I am SO super excited! I have been asked to join the Softpencil Design Team!! This is just amazing. I love Elizabeth's designs. I think they're just so adorable! Because I love them so much, I wanted to make sure I did a really good job on my first challenge, fever and nausea be darned!

This week we're working with calendar images. How appropriate for the end of the year, don't you think? I got to work with Spreading Fairy Dust, which I think is going to be perfect for my younger two girls. Our challenge was to use at least 2 layers. Well, I think I managed that!

I've double matted the calendar itself and then I did some paper piecing and layering within the image. I wanted it to be more dimensional - and I wanted to prove that just because it's a digital image, doesn't mean you can't paper piece! You CAN!! And no, I didn't print on patterned paper!!

I did a little cropping of the image, duplicated it onto a secondary file so that I could print just the fairy or just the house (actually, I printed 4 extra fairies and 2 extra houses, since I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted to do with them and I wanted extra in case of mistakes - not that I ever make mistakes or anything...) and then I cut out the parts that I wanted out of the DP and traced them with black ink (I used my Copic multiliner, but any fine lined marker would work) and that was all there was to it! I also popped up one of her wings for extra dimension.Here's a close-up so you can better see the dimension and the stickles. The colour is actually nearly identical to the first photo, but you can't see the stickles in it at all, so here you go. The background is shimmery chalk from Pebbles.

Go check out the rest of the design team and the main blog. There are eight new members of the team today! I still can't believe I'm one of them!! Yes, I'm giddy. I think I'm allowed!

Kerry
Cathy
Tracey
Ashley
Cat Darling
Jodi
Lisa
Mia
Tenia
April
Leanne
Carole
Annette
Guest Designers for December
Poppet
Dawn

Thanks for stopping by! Come back soon. I'll be posting blog candy this weekend in honour of hitting 100 followers!

AiFactory Tuesday - Digipaper Challenge

Hi Everyone!! I bet you guys all thought I'd dropped off the face of the planet. Well, not quite, but it sure felt that way! My computer was giving me grief, the youngest one was sick, Thanksgiving, school - you know the drill. I'm starting to feel like that lovely quote "The hurrier I go, the behinder I get."

In any case, this is the first time I've used actual printed digi-paper on a card. My first few ideas weren't working like I wanted them to. I think I was over-thinking things again. I tend to do that, especially when I'm stressed out. So then I remembered that I'd seen this week's Clean & Simple challenge over at SCS. It was to rework a card of your own. I chose this card. Now, there's nothing inherently wrong with that card at all. In fact, a couple people have favourited it. So I thought, why not let the digital paper be the star this time?

This is what I came up with.

As you can see, the paper is a subdued stripe in a light, sage green. I added some snowflakes and stamped the word "peace" into the corner, using the same ink and embossing powder as I used on the original card. The dimensions are the same, too. As Jen Buck would say EPLS.

Now it's your turn! You have until Monday, December 7, at Midnight! Post your challenge links to the AiFactory Challenge Blog and if you post to online galleries, please use the tag AIF014.

Oh, you want to know what you can win this week?? Your very own set of AiFactory Digital Papers. While you're checking those out, take a peek around. Mia has extended the Cyber Monday sale through Saturday, December 5!! Everything in the shop is 50% off!!

We'd also love it if you'd head around to see what the rest of the DT has to share. Thanks and have an awesome day!

Angie
De
Erin
Fink
Kerry
Lola
AiFactory Challenge Blog (Link Posts HERE)