Giveaway To See Betsy Bluebell Off!

I finally got the last of the Betsy Bluebell cards done! Well at least for now. I am sure I will use the stamps again. She was really easy and fast to color. I just seem to have a hard time getting back into the swing of crafting these days!

My friend Linda calls Betsy "that little straight haired girl". Not sure what Linda has against straight hair, but I think it is easy to color! HA HA HA

Supplies used:
Cricut Expression
Cricut cartrigdes - Stretch Your Imagination, balloons
EK Success Punch - Photo Corner
Printed Paper - American Crafts
Cardstock - various
Cat Eye - Chalk Ink
Stampin Up - sentiment stamp; Olive Green ink; Real Red marker (doodle dots)
Making Memories - ribbon tag
ProMarkers - various colors, see below
Spareparts - brads
Memento - Black Ink pad for stamping image
Ribbons and Bows Oh My - 3/8" grosgrain ribbon





I wanted to showcase a bit of the blending sets and I tried to use colors mainly from the "VIVID" set that ProMarker is offering in the Blending Sets.

COLORS USED:
Balloons - Crimson, Burgandy; Sunflower, Gold; Pear, Olive Green
Dress - China blue, Midnight Blue
Hair - Burnt Sienna, Burnt Umber
Face - Satin, Vanilla
Cheeks - Saffron
Hearts - Crimson, Poppy
Socks - China Blue, Artic Blue
Collar - Cool Gray 2
Shadow - Cool Gray 1



I once again made part of the image come off the card. I decided to have the balloons I made with the Cricut come off the top of the card. I coordinated the colors of the cardstock with the colors of the balloons on the image *once again okie rolls her eyes at herself for pointing out the obvious*.

Since the balloons were shadowed and layered it did give them enough "body" to be thick enough not to bend easily. I used my Scotch Quick Dry glue to put them together. I ordered 5 bottles not long ago from Joann's since Walmart stopped carrying it.



The sentiment is from Stampin Up's Curvy Verses set. I got this set a few years back and find that I still use it quite often. Of course most of my Stampin Up stamps are sentiment ones, can't ever have too many of those! I stamped it in Olive Green to match the card.

I had a few strips of the flag patterned paper left and just cut them in 1" strips to add to the inside. I think I will be doing more to the inside of my cards because I think it adds a little something extra and it's a good way to use up small scraps.










Okay now to celebrate the end of this series of using ProMarkers I will be giving away a set of 12 ProMarkers to one lucky winner!! All you need to do to enter is send me your banking account number, 2 credit cards, your paypal account balance and........*okie falls out chair laughin*. JUST KIDDIN! Just leave a comment on this blog about "why you think you would like the ProMarkers". The deadline to enter is Saturday April 2nd at midnight. And remember in order to keep porn and viagra commericals off my blog I have to approve comments so it might take a bit for your post to appear so please post only once.

Betsy Bluebell "thinking of you"

And I love this card...do you know why? Can you guess? HUH? HUH? Yep...THE LADYBUG! Okay Betsy is cute and all holding the flowers but come on...the ladybug is what makes this card awesome! HA HA HA

I tried to make the ladybug look like it was "thinking" of the girl holding the bouquet. Not sure it came out quite right, but I thought I would explain the green bubbles on the front of the card.



The sentiment was cut from Walk In My Garden. I remember how excited I was to get this cartridge because of all the flowers and insects. I have used it in the past quite a bit but it has been awhile since I have pulled out out and used it.

I used Core'dinations for the sentiment and sanded it like I did the ladybug to give it some distressed look. I so love Core'dinations for this reason! Plus it cuts great in the Cricut.

Oh I emailed Alyssa at CONSUMER CRAFTS about the stock of Core'dinations going down and she assured me that they will be restocking, which is good because I don't have ALL the colors yet! LOL


Supplies Used:
Cricut Expressions
Cricut cartridges - Walk In My Garden, Songbird
Betsy Bluebell stamp set
Making Memories patterned paper
Kraft and Core'dinations cardstock
Cat Eye chalk ink
Fiskars Zingers
Spareparts Brads
ProMarkers
Janome Sew Mini



You can see the Zinger thought bubble a little bit here on the image picture, I colored it with one of the ProMarkers since it was a yellow color and I wanted it to match the card better.

I think I have the colors for this card...
Dress - Cornflower, Blue Pearl
Flowers - Tulip Yellow, Buttercup, Amber
Butterfly - Antique Pink. Dusky Rose
Hair - Cinnamon *okie forgot other color*

I used the blender pen on the flowers and butterflies to get a softened coloring image.

Tomorrow will be the last image of this Betsy Bluebell series and will also be the day I post the giveaway for the set of 12 ProMarkers so be sure to come back to see the card and see how to enter the giveaway!

Betsy Bluebell CELEBRATE

Here is my second Betsy Bluebell card. Another birthday one *okie wonders why she so often points out the obvious*. One thing I like about the images is that they are different shapes when you trim around them so you can make the cards look differently. I think they would be a bit boring if they were all 3 inch squares.

I like the rectangular shape of this image. I do think all the images could fit on A2 size cards just fine but with the bigger card size I have a little more room to play with. I know my friend Carol with two hearts likes making the bigger cards just for this reason.



The inside sentiment and stamped image are from Stampin Up sets. I like the sentiments with the Betsy Bluebell sets but I wanted something different than what was available with the set. As you can see I also decorated the inside of this card. This might be a new trend for me! I am realizing it doesn't take much to add a few strips of paper and make the inside of the card almost as interesting as the outside of the card.

I just noticed that my sentiment is a little cockeyed, but I can live with it since I don't have to look at it all the time! *okie wonders if Whiteout would be very noticeable*.


I am still "sew" loving my Janome Sew Mini that my daughter got me for Mother's Day last year! I highly recommend one if you are wanting to get a small sewing machine to use for your paper crafting.

Cricut Expressions - Celebration cartridge
Betsy Bluebell stamp set
Little Yellow Bicycle patterned paper
Stampin Up and Prism cardstock
Stampin Up and Cat Eye chalk inks
Diamond Stickles
Prima flowers
Crafting thread
Spareparts Brads
ProMarkers
Janome Sew Mini


I so cheated and colored the image a lot like the example and I can't find my list of colors I used! But there was blues, oranges, greens, yellows and browns! *okie laughs at her smart azz comment* You can see where I added the Diamond Stickles to the ribbon parts on the presents. I wasn't sure how they would work over the ProMarkers but the Stickles did just fine and I noticed they didn't "run" the ink like they do with water based markers.

I still have two more Betsy cards to post so keep watching!

Introducing Betsy Bluebell!

I recently got a set of Penny Black's Betsy Bluebell stamps when Linda, aka LGuild, and I went to Norman for some retail therapy. I thought she was just the cutest thing so I actually paid full price for the set which was $15.50, but since there were 4 image and some sentiments I thought it was worth it.

Here is a picture of the set I got. I thought Betsy was such a cute image and would be great to color with the ProMarkers. And boy was I right! She is adorable! She was very easy to color also. Some places were a little tight to color but for the most part it was fairly simple to blend and make her look nice.

I will be posting card for the next few days with the images. And be sure to pay close attention because somewhere in the posts there will be a giveaway!

I chose to go with a bigger card than the A2 size. I got 288 envelopes for 25 cents right after Christmas. I was in my favorite bargain store and they said "anything you can fit in a bag for quarter". I immediately started snatching up these ugly azz Christmas cards knowing I only wanted them for the envelopes. I felt sorry *okie thinks for a split second* for the women wanting the Christmas cards, but ya know...ya snooze ya lose! These cards are 5 x 7.5 inches which means I had to use a full sheet of cardstock per card! *okie hears the gasps* I know, I know, I am usually too cheap for such things but I figured I would live on the edge!!

Supplies Used:
Cricut Expressions
Cricut cartridges - George, Freshly Picked
Betsy Bluebell stamp set
American Crafts patterned paper
Stampin Up cardstock
Stampin Up ink
Cat Eye chalk ink
Spareparts Brads
ProMarkers
Janome Sew Mini


I actually even decided to decorate the inside of the card! Another living on the edge moment for me! I am usually too lazy to do such things but I do think it made the card look better. The stamped sentiment is a Sugar Loaf stamp from a set I got years ago. I thought it went great with the image and I do think it is a little humorous.

By adding the layers on the inside of the card it also gave the card some more "body". For some reason the texture Stampin Up cardstock is not as thick as the smooth. I prefer the thickness of the smooth.

For the front of the card I wanted to try something going off the edge. Since the card was so large I could easily do this. Most of my cards are A2's and I find it difficult to make an image go off the card and fit in the envelope correctly.

I cut the circle at 4.25 and 4 inches. I used a corner rounder on the image after trimming it down, and then on the image mat.

The sentiment on the front was punched out with the Stampin Up Word Window Punch and then layered on the Stampin Up Modern Label punch.

Here is a close up of the image so you can see the coloring a little better. And yes, it did go out the lines a little! But that is okay, art is never perfect *okie keeps telling herself this so she doesn't shred the card and start over*.

Colors used:
Hair - Burnt Sienna, Burnt Umber
Dress - Cornflower, Blue Pearl
Flowers - Tulip Yellow
Watercan - Gold, Sunflower
Face - Blush, Ivory
Cheeks - Saffron

I think those are the colors. I went to find my list and found several and didn't label them! ACK!

Tomorrow will be another Betsy Bluebell so be sure to check back! I am trying to get back in the habit of crafting and posting again but I tell ya what...I keep dreaming of the crystal cool waters, white sands and sunshine of the Caribbean beaches so it is hard to do!