Digital Tuesday Challenge 'Distress It!'

Hello and welcome to another Digital Tuesday Challenge.  This week's challenge is 'Distress It!', simply make a card or project that looks a bit distressed and be sure to include at least one digital element.  Our sponsor this week is Sans Designs.

To make my card, I used the Sans Design image ' a Flower 4 U'.  This is actually a full body image, but I wanted to focus on just the upper part of her body, so I used a circular Nestabilitie and cut just the top half of the image.  Because I'm a Clean and Simple designer, distressing is usually difficult for me, so I used 'faded and distressed' looking designer papers from Prima 'Jack and Jill'.  The only other distressing I did was to take a scissors and roughen up all the edges of the paper.  I used seam binding and hemp for my ribbon embellishment to repeat the soft, worn look.  Dew drops were put in the corner and Stickles on the flowers.

If you'd like to play along with us this week, simply click on the Digital Tuesday Challenge Blinkie in my sidebar and it will take you directly to the Challenge Site with further instructions.  

Have a great day! Amy

Spring Has Arrived!

Hello!  After months of my griping about our horrible cold weather here in Northern Wisconsin, I thought you all had a right to know that SPRING HAS ARRIVED!   We had a beautiful weekend of temperatures in the 60's and 70's and I was able to spend about a day and half outside enjoying it.  The rest of the weekend I had church and work obligations, or I would have spent every waking minute outside! 

So in honor of spring, I decided to show you what bloomed first in my garden this year.....PUSSY WILLOWS!  When I was a child we had a Pussy Willow in my backyard.  I was always fascinated by the soft, feathery pods.  I looked forward to the bush blooming every spring.  Well our bush then was planted too close to our house so my mother had my father cut it down.  I was devastated, and mad at her for, well, probably forever.  So I made a decision as a small child that someday, when I had my very house I would plant my very own Pussy Willow in my yard.  And I did!  And guess what?  I planted it too close to the house and now it's overgrowing the space and my husband wants to cut it down!  Sign us up for marriage counseling now people! 

Now even though I have daffodils and tulips just starting to poke their little heads up out of the ground, I still don't have any fresh flowers to cut and bring inside to enjoy.  So while we were looking at our beautiful Pussy Willow tree that is now probably twelve feet tall and all the pods were at the very top of the tree, I said to my husband, 'I wish they weren't so high up on the tree.  The whole point of having a Pussy Willow tree is so you can feel the softness of the pods.  I can't even reach them'.  Well the next day, I had to work third shift, so I took a nap when I came home from church.  When I woke up to get ready for work and walked into my dining room this is what I saw:

 My very own Pussy Willows to admire close up and to touch!  My husband cut them down and brought them into the house for me to enjoy.  (Don't worry, the tree is still outside too!  He didn't cut that down!  Not yet anyway!)  I guess he isn't that bad after all.

 I love how the long stems make such a beautiful elegant arrangement.

And here is a close up for those of you who may have never heard of a Pussy Willow tree.  I'm actually not sure if its a bush or a tree, but mine is very tall, so I'm calling it a tree.   It comes to life in the Spring with these interested, fuzzy pods, which eventually burst open and become an 'o.k. looking flower', and then it's just leaves the rest of the summer. 

Soon, and very soon, I'll have FLOWERS to post!

Have a great day! Amy

Digital Tuesday Challenge 'Birthdays!'

Hello and welcome to another Digital Tuesday Challenge.  This week's challenge is 'Birthdays!'.  Simply make a card or project with a Birthday Theme and be sure to include at least one digital element.  Our sponsor this week is MyGrafico and they are giving away one digi set to one lucky randomly chosen winner.

To make my card, I used the digital stamp set 'Aero Boy' by Deasy Designs and sold at MyGrafico.  I kept the card very simple because the images were so cute they could stand on their own!  I first printed a digital birthday sentiment onto sky blue card stock.  Then I printed the main image three times.  I colored and then cut out the full image and popped it up on dimensionals.  Then I colored and cut out just the circle engine part and popped that up on dimensionals, and finally, I colored and cut out just the propeller and popped that up on dimensionals.  It creates a really neat 3D effect in real life.  I then printed the sun and cloud images and cut them out and simply glued them to the blue card stock.

 Here is a close up so you can see the dimension better.

If you'd like to play along with us this week, simply click on the Digital Tuesday Challenge Blinkie in my sidebar and it will take you directly to the Challenge Site with further instructions.

Have a great day! Amy