Pink Cat Teaser

It seems like forever since we had a digital release for Pink Cat Studio, but you'll only have to wait 7 more days until we get back to our weekly release schedule! I PROMISE it will be worth the wait. Until then, here's a little teaser for you... Have a great New Years!

A sketch challenge...

Welcome back! Did everyone survive the holidays? We had a great Christmas and Santa was soooo good to me. I guess I was a good girl this year :-) I got a Hello Kitty Sizzix Big Shot and tons of dies to go with it. I'm such a happy girl! I know, I know.....I'm the last person on the planet to get a Big Shot, but now I'm all set. I'm hoping that my new Big Shot and some new cartridges for my Cricut will help me get a jump start on my scrapbooking in the new year. I feel like my scrapbooking has taken a back seat to stamping over the last year, and I'm really excited about keeping up with it in 2010. I thought I might start using some sketches to get me started again. Do any of you know of any good sources for scrapbook sketches?? If you have any suggestions, I'd LOVE to hear from you!

Speaking of sketches, today is the 30th of the month and that means a new sketch challenge from the Hambo Challenge Blog! And guess what? This month I got to create the sketch! Here's what I came up with for you to play with...
So what do you think? I really hope you'll play along with us! The best part of the Hambo challenge is that you have an ENTIRE month to play and you can enter multiple times! Plus there's FREE STAMPS involved...need I say more?

Here's what I came up with for my sketch... I just adore this chubby little caterpillar! And can you believe that not a single Copic touched this card?! I decided to use the paper piecing technique on my plump little friend and his leaf.
I think he came out really cute.

To finish it off, I added some turquoise ribbon and tied a corduroy button to the bow.
I really hope my sketch inspires you to create something fabulous that you'll share with us! Be sure to leave a link on the challenge post for your chance to win.

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday surrounded by the people you love. I'm taking a couple more days off from the blog, but I'll be back on Wednesday with a new Hambo sketch challenge for you!

One last card and a free digi!

I'm sure everyone is crazy busy these last couple of days before Christmas, but I thought I'd post one last card for the week. I've never made a New Year's card before, but when I came across this adorable FREE image by The Greeting Farm, I couldn't resist. You can get your FREE image by clicking here.
I used Jen's sketch for the layout and embellished with a couple of glasses from the "Merry Christmas" set by My Favorite Things.

I'll be taking a break from the ol' blog for the next few days to enjoy the holiday with my family.
Until next time....

A very manly gift card holder

I'm sure there's at least one guy on everyones holiday list who is getting a gift card to Lowes or Home Depot this year. This year, that guy happens to be my father-in-law. He's got lots of projects around the house planned for the new year and we thought this would help him out a bit. I tried to come up with a clever way to present his gift card and decided to make it look like a toolbox. Here's how it turned out.... What do you think?
I was pretty happy with it. I did a tutorial here on how to make the gift card base. Once the base was done, I used some punches and lettering from my Cricut to personalize the gift.
Thanks for stopping by!

Quick and Easy teacher gifts

I always like to give my kids teachers a little something for Christmas. This year we have three teachers to spoil and we got movie tickets for them. I also included enough tickets for them to take their spouses and children. Here's how I packaged them up... I used a clear A2 card box, a little bit of cardstock and some ribbon. These are SO simple to make. Here's how I did it...
Take a 3 1/2 x 6 3/8 piece of cardstock and measure 1 inch in from each side and score. I used a scallop border punch on the long edge after I made the score marks.

Then assemble the clear card box and insert the scored piece of cardstock - no adhesive needed. After the cardstock was in place, I used some repositionable adhesive to attach the movie tickets together and to the back of the box.

Then just fill with plain popcorn.....If you're really lucky, your husband will pop it for you in his very own Hello Kitty popcorn popper. Maybe we should just keep that between us okay? Just be sure to NOT use oil, butter or salt on the popcorn, because it will stain the cardstock and tickets. Just keep it plain since it's just for packaging.

I finished it off with a gorgeous red polka dot ribbon and a sentiment punched out with a small oval punch. My kids presented these to their teachers on Friday and they were a HUGE hit!

Friday Faves!

Wow - jury duty can really cramp a gals style...
I only had a chance to blop hop for tiny bit today, but wanted to share these fantastic creations with you...
Kim made this amazing flip book with images from The Greeting Farm.

This girl scout card by Janna is just too cute!

Have a super weekend!

Pink Cat Thursday

As most of you know, Pink Cat Studio is done with digital releases for this year. But hang on to your seats because Melissa will be back with more new images in January and I promise that they're worth the wait!

Today I thought I'd share a quick little card I put together using an image called "Birds Make a Giant Cupcake".After I printed out the main image onto my white cardstock, I resized the image twice and cropped out everything except the cupcake. Then I colored, cut them out and popped them up next to the main image.
My kiddos have a special stash of cards that they can pick out of just for their friends. I kept the layout super simple on this one so they can add it to their stash for future birthday parties.

I'll be back tomorrow with my favorite picks from this week. If you've left me a comment on any post this week, then I'll be checking out your blog.
Soooo......who's going home on Survivor tonight??

Hambo Hump Day

A good friend of mine just celebrated her 50th birthday and here's a little peek at what I gave her. I gave her a bottle of my favorite champagne and adorned it with a cute little tag using images from Hambo.
Here's a close up of some of the details on the tag. I used a green polka dot pattern by Scenic Route and punched circles with a scrap of magenta colored cardstock. And no project of mine would be complete without some piercing, so I poked around the edges to finish it off.

Here's a close up of Hambo's grumpy little bug.

He's actually part of their Christmas line, but I just inked up the part that I needed so it would work for my project. I think he pairs perfectly with the sentiment don't you?

For the card, I used some more of that green pattern and magenta circles along with some shimmery paper from KI Memories. The shimmery paper is actually Christmas themed scrapbook paper, but I just punched out images of presents and turned it into a birthday card.

Instead of using a stamp for my main image, I used some chipboard numbers. I applied heat and stick powder to them and added black glitter to make it SPAR-KA-LAY!

Thanks for stopping by today. Be sure to check out the Hambo blog tomorrow for the "One & Done" digital auction. Happy bidding!

10 minute turtle

I just found out that my sons teacher has a birthday coming up. The kids are out of school soon for Winter break, so I had to come up with something quick and simple to deliver tomorrow.The image is by Whipper Snapper and the layout is from Karen's Sunday sketch. I used SU Bermuda Bay for the base and stamped one of the images from Circle Circus on the background. The main image is matted with Melon Mambo, which I paired up with a striped pattern from Memory Box.
To finish it off, I added some buttons. Not my favorite card, but I think my sons teacher will like it.

That's it for me today. So much to do and only 10 days until Christmas.
Yikes!

Club Anya blog hop!

Happy Monday to you and welcome to the Club Anya holiday blog hop! I promise to keep my post very brief because I know you've all got a lot more hoppin' to do today!

Last Tuesday I got a call from my good friend, who was just given two free tickets to the Metallica concert for that evening. I was lucky enough to go with her and it was so much fun! I thought Rock Star Anya would be the perfect way to thank her for inviting me to come along.I used some fun new patterns from BasicGreys Halloween collection and Jens Saturday sketch to get me started.
And paper pieced the guitar with the skull patterned paper.

Thanks for stopping by. Enjoy the rest of the hop!
I hope you all have a rockin' holiday!

Hanukkah Blog Candy Winner!

And the winner of my Hanukkah card give away is...........

DEBI!

E-mail me with your mailing address and I'll get these beauties out to you asap!

Friday Faves!

Pretty quiet in the blogging world right now, but I had a few moments to peek around and found a few great things that I wanted to share with you.

Here's a great Nestability tutorial by Pam. I've been wanting to do this for some time, but just couldn't figure out how.

This explanation to Santa book by Jen is hilarious!

Amy did a great tutorial on making your own glitter ornaments.

Jen made this adorable hair clip out of ribbon.

TGIF!

Dreidel Bears and Hanukkah Blog Candy

Happy Wednesday to you!
Today I have a Hanukkah card to share with you. Isn't this image cute?
It's a digital image from Hambo and you can find it right here.

To embellish my card I added some beautiful two-toned blue ribbon to each corner.
And some jewels around the scalloped edge. I tried a new technique for coloring the main panel. I colored the bears as usual with my Copic markers, but then took a blue Prismacolor pencil and colored a border around each bear. Then I blended it into the background with a blending stump and some odorless mineral spirits. I did the same thing with a black pencil along the bottom of the bears for a shadow effect.

When I had my card all finished, it still needed a little something. I decided to go back to my computer and print up the same image, only this time I enlarged it quite a bit and cropped out everything except the dreidel. I colored it, cut it out and attached it with dimensionals.

Now let's get to the BLOG CANDY part of this post!
I've had to make a few Hanukkah cards for design teams over the last couple of months, but sadly I have no one to give them to. That's where you come in! If you would like to have these three cards, leave me a comment on this post!

(Image by Pink Cat Studio)

(Image by Pink Cat Studio)

(Image by Hambo)

I'll leave this post here for a few days and choose a winner on Saturday!