Winners and Midway Post for Challenge #25 at Open-Minded Crafting Fun Today!

Good morning! It is Saturday morning!!  Kevin and I got approved for a house loan last week so we have been out looking at houses. Our lease is up here at the end of February and I have to give the landlord a 60 day notice.. so really we have to get going LOL  Doesn't give us as much time as we were thinking!  Today we will be out again looking at homes. We looked on line... we narrowed that list down. Now we are going by the houses and narrowing it down more and then we will have our short list of homes that we want to go inside to see. It is working well. We saw at least 20 homes yesterday and we narrowed it down to two that we want to see the inside LOL  So, I think thats pretty good! And me.. well.. I have it all organized LOL  People who know me laugh .. won't you Vicky :p  But it worked for us yesterday!!  Hopefully we will get a lot done today. I need some time to craft!

We have winners! They are posted on the Open-Minded Crafting Fun blog this morning for Challenge #24. Be sure to come back at noon to see all of the fantastic Midway creations for Challenge #25!

Our amazing sponsors for Challenge #25 are:




Here is mine:








For this card I've used Ashee from A & T Digital Stamps. Ashee is not a Christmas stamp... so I used a non Christmas Stamp and really some non Christmas colors for my unusual aspect for Challenge #25. I added the black lace, the ribbon, the bells and a bit of glitter on those white spots on the mushroom. Those little white spots on the mushroom are the only decoupage on this piece. I used Copic markers to color and a Christmas stamp with white ink on black.

Copic Markers Used:

• Hat and Tights: RV21, RV23, RV25; W5, W7, W9
• Mushroom: R24, R35, R46; E50, E51
• Skin: E000, E00, E01, E11, E13
• Grass: YG01, YG05, YG07, YG67

Challenges:

• Christmas @ Crafty Sentiments Designs Challenge Blog
• Anything With Wings @ Just Inspirational Challenges
• Challenge #130: Winter or Christmas @ Loves Rubberstamps Challenge Blog
• Dec 9th - Dec 15th: Anything Goes @ Through The Craft Room Door
• Challenge #95: Anything Holiday @ Pumpkin Spice
• Challenge #114: Modern Christmas Colours @ Glitter n Sparkle Challenge Blog
• PIO #49: Anything Goes Christmas / Holidays @ Pile It On!
• Challenge #241: Christmas Cards @ Robyn's Fetish Challenge Blog
• December: Anything Goes @ The Ribbon Girl Challenge Blog
• Challenge #243: Non-Traditional Christmas @ Craft Your Passion Challenges
• Challenge #78: Add Some Sparkle or Metallic @ Lia Stampz
• Challenge #121: Holiday Bingo (Lace, Image, Ribbon @ AUD Sentiments Challenge Blog*
• Christmas @ That Craft Place Ltd Challenge Blog
• Merry Christmas @ Crafty Boots Challenges
• CCH #186: Christmas @ The Crazy Challenge
• December: Anything Goes for Christmas @ Crafting By Designs
• December Challenge #10: Winter Holidays @ Naughty or Nice Challenge
• December: Anything Goes w/Loose Glitter, Embossing Powder and/or Flocking @ Sparkle N Sprinkle*
• December: Christmas / New Year @ Ching-Chou Kuik Inspiration and Challenge Blog
• December: Christmas @ Seemacrafts
• December: Merry Christmas @ Come and Get It Challenges
• Anything Goes w/a Handmade Bow @ Craft Dee BowZ
• RCS #84: Elf @ Red Carpet Studio
• December: Anything Goes Happy Holidays @ Scrapbook Blessings Club
• December: Anything Goes Christmas @ Sketches For All / Cheryl's Christmas Card Challenge Group
• Challenge #134: Anything Christmas @ A Gem Of A Challenge
• December: Use Ribbons and/or Bows @ Jellypark Friends Friday Challenges
• December: Christmas (Modern Look) @ Without Words Challenge Blog
• Challenge #162: Anything Goes @ Word Art Wednesday
• Challenge #78: Anything Goes @ Whimsy Stamps Inspirations Challenge
• Challenge #351: Bells and Bows @ Cute Card Thursday
• Challenge #59: Pink Christmas @ In The Pink
• Christmas with Non Traditional Colors @ Milk Coffee Challenges
• Challenge #21: Anything Goes @ Art By Miran Challenge Blog
• Challenge #80: Christmas @ Chocolate, Coffee & Cards Challenges
• R #206: Christmas @ Crafts 4 Eternity Recipe Challenge
• Challenge #259: Last Minute Christmas @ Crafty Catz
• Challenge #60: Anything Goes @ Creative Fingers Challenge Blog
• Week #50: Festive Wishes @ Graph'It Colour Challenge
• FFC #69: Happy Holidays @ Jo's Scrap Shack
• Challenge #87: Anything Goes @ Sister Act Card Challenge
• Challenge #144: Merry Christmas @ Wags 'n Whiskers
• DSC #118: Non-Tradtional Christmas Colours @ Digitally Sweet Challenges
• Challenge #207: Urgently Needed Christmas Creations @ Crafty Hazelnuts Christmas Challenge

Copics

Getting into scrapbooking again, the one new thing that has really stood out to me are the Copic Markers. Wow! I have seen some amazing coloring done with these markers. And I'm like a little kid;  I LOVE coloring! Looking at how great everyone's items turn out I have set out on a quest to get some Copic Markers and learn how to color with them. Yesterday, I colored my first piece with Copic. I was unable to find the greens that I wanted so the greens were colored with a different marker, Spectrum Noir. These are alcohol based markers that are suppose to be pretty good equals to Copic. I'm not sold on that though. I need to play around with them more, but I don't feel like them blended as well as the Copic. There are not enough shades of each color to really find what you are looking for to blend together. Again, I've only used them once so I will have to play around with them a little more, but my first time playing around with both I felt the Copic were better suited for my artistic abilities. The one thing I did like better on the Spectrum Noir is that they have the Broad tip and a fine tip which I find easier to color with. I find it more difficult to color with the brush tip that is on the Copic.

Here are the flowers that I colored. I found something online that said to heat set your printed image and the black will not bleed. It really works and I have found a use for my iron that sits in the closet and NEVER gets used. I HATE ironing!! LOL So I heat set the image by ironing with dry heat iron on the paper. The flowers themselves and the vase were all colored with Copic. The leaves and stems were colored with the Spectrum Noir.The flowers were from Beccy's Place Here. Now I need to make a card to put these on.

My day did not go as I planned. I didn't get anything done! I did my little bit of shopping in the morning. I came home and unloaded the groceries. I had an incident a couple of weeks back with little bugs in some opened up potato flakes. It REALLY made me want to spew; I hate bugs! So the cupboard was completely cleaned out and everything and anything that was opened or they could have gotten into was tossed. Then I invested in more lock and lock containers and everything in my closet is in containers now. I even bought bread containers so all of my bread is locked away. The point of that since I got off track LOL is that when I came home from the grocery store I took everything out of their containers and put them in my lock and locks. 

After visiting Archiver's and Michael's and not finding the shades of Copic that I wanted they sent me to a rubber stamping store not far from here that I didn't even know existed. It is called Rubber Stamping Fantasy. Apparently, they have been there for 18 years, they are about 5 minutes from home and I had no idea they were there! So, I went in there looking for the Copic greens that I couldn't find. They didn't have them either and they sent me to the Spectrum Noir.

After that I came home to make dinner, color my flowers and that was it. Not how my day was suppose to go. Oh! And my youngest, she is 10 years old, decided she wanted to make some cards. My dining room table is still full of the stuff she was using. She was having a good time though. I enrolled us in a class at Archiver's for next Saturday. She is so excited! We will be making a little mini album. I think she is counting down the days.

Now, I will see if I can get some pages finished and maybe even a card for those flowers. We will see!! I hope you all have a great day!