Wonderland Checkers

Hi, hi, hi!  I'm kind of excited to share my project today.  Hehe.  I've been wanting to make something like this for a while now and finally completed it yesterday.  I started the project but got kind of stuck and had to rethink some parts.  Then got like an a-ha! moment yesterday which really pushed me through to finishing.  But first let's mention the challenges that inspired this:

TGF's Farm Fresh Challenge Retro-Fresh Blue/berry  Thank goodness this is a month long challenge cause I needed all that time since I got stuck in the process.

Wee Memories Challenge 78--Free for All

and Young Crafters Unite--use dies.

Here is my project.

I made a checkers board game using TGF's Wonderland digi set.  Digital stamps are great for this kind of project.  I thought the blue/berry colors would make a fun board game.  The board itself measures 12 by 12 inches.  I just cut the berry squares and glued them onto the blue cardstock.

I made a little pizza box (measures about 4 by 5.5 inches) to hold the checkers pieces.  The letters were made with PTI's alphabet die set  The digis are relatively small so I had to color carefully.

Inside of the box.  There are 24 pieces, 12 blue and 12 berry.  And yes, small rabbits to color as well.  But with digis it was easy to shrink them down to the size I needed. 

The pieces were made from the smallest Spellbinders lacey circles die.  I had thought about what to make the pieces from and at first I had planned to cut out lots of chipboard and layer them.  Yeah, sound crazy?  I've done crazy kind of cutting before but this time I really just did not feel like cutting out a gazillion little pieces so that's where I got kind of stuck.  So I pushed this project aside and thought I wouldn't get to finish it.  But the other day after I had made my tree stamp out of thick fun foam, I thought, hey, I should use FUN FOAM!  Yay, for FUN FOAM!  Even though the fun foam is thick (6 mm) it is still really easy to cut through in the Big Shot.  So I just had to cut 24 pieces out of fun foam.  Doable, yes!  And they are really light and still stackable if you want to king your pieces.

My game board was also glued on a piece of foam board that I had around the house.  I just traced my cardstock and used a metal ruler and blade to cut through the board.  It's light but sturdy.  You could make this more durable with lamination and even magnetic!  I thought about making the board and pieces magnetic--wouldn't that be fun?  But in the end I went with simple and preserving my sanity. 

Here are the pieces out on the board. 

I even thought about making a chess set.  Wouldn't that be neat too?  Like a Twilight chess set using all the Twilight inspired digis from TGF.  But who/what would all the pawns be?  That would take some thinking. 

Thanks so much for reading!

a wonderful Christmas

Hi!  Our Lego Robotics team participated in the state championship yesterday and they did so well!  Out of over 200 teams that participated in qualifiers, 56 teams were invited to the championships.  Out of the 56 teams that participated, our team placed 4th for robot performance and won a 2nd place Lego trophy for innovative solution.  I was so shocked!  Ha!  Not that I didn't have faith in our kids but the competition can be tough and we felt so lucky to have gotten so far.  I was even more impressed when the principal congratulated the kids and told them that was the best a team from their school had ever done at a Lego robotics state tournament.  Wow, what a proud moment!  The long day (waking up at 5:30 in the morning with the final awards done at 4 pm) was totally worth it!  Still feeling excited about it.  But I will finally share my card.  Hehe.

I made a card to be entered in the following challenges:  Paper Sundaes--Sundae Bar (color red and used die cuts), Wee Memories--Free for All, and Young Crafters Unite Challenge #4--use dies.

After Cheryl had posted her card using Sister Stamps Shimo-san, I wanted to use mine too!  I think I will make a bunch of these to give to the kids' Nihongo teachers.  I used Spellbinders rectangle die and the lattice rectangle that Cheryl gave me a little while ago.  Thanks!  I took this picture under our tree.  I actually wrapped some presents this morning!

The sentiment is from Wild Rose Studio.  I added some stickles to the snow on the ground and around the snowman.  Some liquid accents on his nose.  I also used a my black Prismacolor pencil and Copics for their hair.

Thanks for reading!

Papertrey November Blog Hop Challenge

Hi!  It's been a while since I participated in one of PTI's blog hop challenges.  But I had to play along this month.  Not only did I place an order on release night but I also got my goodies in about a week!  So I had some time to play around with my new stamps and dies.  Hehe.  Below is the inspiration photo.

I love the Christmas theme and the colors too so I went with that.

When I saw the newly released penguin stamp and die, I had to get them.  So cute!!  I thought this penguin would make a cute spinner card too.  Similar to the froggy one I made HERE.  I also used PTI's In the Meadow dies.  I used the die itself and my hobby blade to cut along the curved edge to create the little cut out for the penguin to slide.  I did that twice leaving a quarter inch space between them.

I layered the penguin with PTI's coasters.

I added a tiny bell to his hat.

He slides down.  The jingle all the way sentiment is from Tiny Treats Xmas.  Just traced the space with a pencil and curved the stamp to fit the curves of the opening.

He can spin all around.

I added lots of glitter.

I also got the new alphabet die!  These are so cute!  I layered the red jingle with PTI's coasters too.  I colored the edges of the coasters with my red Copic so it wouldn't look white.  I added some green bells so, you know, it would read jingle bells. 

I was happy with this card but then I realized the hop wasn't until Friday.  I don't know why but I thought it was on Thursday.  Anyway, I thought since I had a whole extra day, why not make something else too?

So I made a tag.  Well, I wanted it to look like a snow globe.  I used PTI's Tag Sale #4 die and added the little piece (Spellbinders Reverse Wonky Rectangles) below it for the base.  The front has clear cardstock.

There is flower soft in it to look like snow.  So if you shake it, it looks like it's snowing on the penguins.  It's similar to making a shaker card. 

So a spinner card and a snow globe tag.

Also will be entering these into Simon Says Stamp Challenge--Tag You're It! and Young Crafters Unite Challenge #4--Use dies.

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!  Can't wait to see if there are any good sales on crafty stuff.  Thanks for reading!

Just because

Hi!  I made a card to enter into a couple of challenges--Lily Pad Cards and the first challenge over at Young Crafters Unite!  It's the first time I'm entering their challenges. 

So YCU's first challenge is to color a stamped image.  I used my Copics to color in my image.  It's a month long challenge so still lots of time to enter.

Lily Pad Cards has a sketch challenge sponsored by The Greeting Farm so I had to participate since I love TGF stamps.

My card features TGF's Blush Babette.  I love her long, flowy hair.  Though if I had hair like that I'd probably wanna chop it off.  I haven't had long hair since I had my daughter and sometimes I miss it but I don't have the patience to grow it out.  The sentiment comes with the stamp though the banner is from Lawn Fawn.  I also used TGF's Blush Hello for the background on the lacey oval behind Babette.  I love the paper from Authentique.  I kind of splurged and got a whole bunch of papers from them--they are so pretty!  The little swirly die cut is from My Favorite Things.  I spritz that, the flowers and the black corners with some glitter, and added rhinestones.  Babette also has some stickles on her dress.  I like how this card came out and my hubby took such a nice photo of it.

It's back to school tomorrow for the kiddies and I'm wondering what I should do tomorrow.  Finish my 4 loads of laundry, I guess.

Thanks for reading and have a great week!

You're an angel

Hi!  I'm hoping this will be a quick post cause I want to sleep!  So let's get all the challenge info out of the way.  Pretty interesting and convenient that TGF and Young Crafters Unite would both have a No Coloring challenge.  It was a nice change of pace to not have to color.

Oh, I'm also using Veronica's Sketch from TGF's Saturday Sketch over at SCS.  I liked this sketch.  Pretty and manageable.

Here is my card.  I know I said I wouldn't photograph at night anymore but otherwise I might miss the TGF deadline.  I used TGF's Angel Anya and did a bit of heat embossing with her.  I made yet another cloudy background.  I'm addicted, I think. 

I added some stickles to her halo and wings and added a tiny pink bow.  The sentiment is also from TGF that I picked up during their Farmers Market sale.  I love those sales!

Okay, I think it's a record time for posting for me.  I'm gonna link up and then go to bed.  Thanks for reading!