Happy Mother's Day to my Mommy :0)

Happy Mother's Day!

I'm sharing the card I made for my precious Mom today!
Happy Mom's Day to you Mom, I love you :0)

I used two of Free Dearie Dolls digi images which I combined in Photoshop CS6, printed out and then coloured with Copics.  The text and all the effects were done in Photoshop too.  The image was then layered on decorative paper and adhered to a white folded card blank and embellished with self-adhesive pearls.
 

 Free Dearie Doll images used:
A Girl and Her Kitty
Sunflower Girl

Happy Stamping!

 THE SHARPIE DOMINO QUEEN

I design for Smeared Ink * Lost Coast Designs * About Art Accents

"Hoppy Easter" Zentangle Vampire Bunny #2

Happy Easter Saturday Everyone!
I decided to share my 2nd Zentangle Bunny creation today instead of Sunday :0)

I used Smeared Ink's Vampire Bunny digi image again with a lot more Zentangle action this time!
Click here to check out "Little Miss Rose Toes" I shared yesterday!

I used my favourite matting tools of all time to cut the black and white mats - Perfect Paper Craftings newest Mini Perfect Layers tools and Perfect Cutting Mat.

Challenges entered:
Smudgy Antics Anything Goes at the Smeared and Smudged Forum

Have a eggtastic Easter weekend!
Happy Stamping!

 THE SHARPIE DOMINO QUEEN

I design for Smeared Ink * Lost Coast Designs * About Art Accents

"Little Miss Rose Toes" Zentangle Vampire Bunny #1

Woohoo, the Easter Bunny will soon be here with lots of chocolatey goodness and I'm celebrating in true Smeared Ink style and Zentangled up a storm with some Vampire Bunnies!

Say hello to Little Miss Rose Toes, isn't she the cutest Bunny you ever did see ;0)
I used Smeared Ink's Vampire Bunny digi image.
Stop by Easter Sunday to see my 2nd Zentangled bunny too!

I used my favourite matting tools of all time to cut the black and white mats - Perfect Paper Craftings newest Mini Perfect Layers tools and Perfect Cutting Mat.

 I'm taking a little break from the Smeared Ink design team until I've got all my surgeries behind me but I'll still be sharing my Smeared Ink creations until I'm back!

Challenges entered:
Smudgy Antics Anything Goes at the Smeared and Smudged Forum

Have a eggtastic Easter weekend!
Happy Stamping!

 THE SHARPIE DOMINO QUEEN

I design for Smeared Ink * Lost Coast Designs * About Art Accents

Perfect Papers Crafting Blog Hop & Smeared Ink DT project: Perfect Layers Mini Tools Introduction!

Howzit Everyone!
As a Perfect Paper Crafting Brand Embassador I'm excited to be participating in this blog hop introducing our newest tools the Perfect Layers Mini Border Tool set and Perfect Cutting Mat! 

The hop takes place today and is open for commenting from 9am PST, but you've got until April 4 midnight PST to hop your way through the blogs and comment on ALL of them to be in the running for some awesome prizes!  We are giving away a $50 gift certificate to our online store and Wendy Ramlakhan of SugarPea Designs is giving away a $25 gift certificate to her new online stamp store too.  Her stamps are super cute so be sure to check them out!!! We will announce the winner Sunday, April 6!

 

 If you're not familiar with these awesome tools you're going to want to hop with us and see what you've been missing out on!  You can now say goodbye to buying personal paper cutters and wasting your paper and cardstock to wonky cuts!  First Perfect Papers Layers tools blew our minds with how easy it is it to cut perfect sized mats time and time again without the need to measure and now we've got the new Minis which are the perfect travel companion too!  It's now easier than ever to take your favourite tools to a crop or a friends house to create!

 Perfect Paper Crafting also has a cutting mat too.  It's a nice workable size that works perfectly with the original Paper Layers and the Minis!  Have I said the word "perfect" enough yet, LOL!  Check out my project to see just how PERFECT these tools really are ;0)  Click the picture below to visit my Ambassador page and use my special coupon code Leigh5% to get 5% off your entire order!

NEW Mini Perfect Layers tools and Cutting Mat

The blog roll is below my project if you need to start the hop from the beginning or if you get lost along the way :0)

My project today is also my Smeared Ink design team project for this week!  I've created a bound loose page "Intellectual Musings" Journal and I hope you like it :0)

showing the front and back of the covers and pages

 I'm recovering from surgery at the moment that effects my right arm and I'm right handed so I started out my project by colouring 6 of Smeared Ink's Septem Liberalis digi images in Photoshop CS6.  I printed two out in full colour for the covers and then lightened all 6 images to create the pages of my journal.  The lightened ones are now perfect for writing on.  I cut all the images out with scissors and distressed the edges with Tim's Tonic Paper Distresser tool.  I used a Marvy punch to decorate all 4 corners of all the images and applied Black Soot Distress Ink to all the roughened edges.

please click to enlarge - sorry about the size!

I adhered all the images to black cardstock with Scotch Quick Dry Adhesive and used my Perfect Layers Mini tool to cut the 1/16" black mats.  The way these tools work is there's a a lip on the tool that corresponds to each border measurement.  The lip butts up to the edge of the stamped panel or photo and the stainless steal edge on the tool lets you cut with a craft knife perfectly every time.  There are 4 different size border measurements on each mini tool that allow you to create mats/borders for your projects ranging from 1/16 to 5/8 of an inch!  The original Perfect Layers tools start at 1/16 but go up 1 inch!  Now you can decide which tool set is best suited to your needs!

I then adhered the cover panels to DCWV Heirloom Stack decorative paper and cut 5/8" borders and did the same to all the pages.  I punched each corner with the Marvy punch again before adhering them all to black cardstock and cut 1/16" borders.  I punched a 1/16" hole with a punch into the cover and added a tiny brass Bead Landing Found Objects ruler charm with a tiny black brad before adhering the cover back to back with the first page.  All the remaining pages and back cover where adhered back to back to form the loose journal pages.

back and side view of the bound journal

 I then stacked them and bound them together with black cord tied in a bow.  I do plan to further decorate the cover with assorted embellishments but I need to wait a while until I can operate my Cuttlebug ;0)  Thank you for visiting with me today!  Now off you hop to Nancy!

BLOG ROLL
   Perfect Paper Crafting and Laura Lynn
   Wendy Ramlakhan
   Pam Sparks
   Roxie Glaza
   Jenny Gropp
  Susie Moore
   Kim O'Connell
Jeanie Witmer
Heather Hudson
Lori Brown
Kat Ancheta
Dana Joy
Kristie Maynard
Kim Bush
Diane Bove
Patti Gilliam
Linda Kaiser
Cathie Rigby
Linda McClain
Leigh Brunton -YOU ARE HERE!
Nancy Baier
Jenn Cocran
Lezlye Lauterbach
Faith Abigail Prado

  Happy Stamping!

 THE SHARPIE DOMINO QUEEN

I design for Smeared Ink * Lost Coast Designs * About Art Accents

Lost Coast Designs + StencilGirl Blog Hop starts NOW!

Howzit Everyone!

Today you're in for a special treat coz the Lost Coast Designs DT has teamed up with the StencilGirl DT for a ONE DAY blog hop with an awesome giveaway up for grabs!

April 2 update: The Winner is PK SEWS!  Congrats :0)

You've got ONE WEEK to hop to each blog and leave us some love to be eligible for the prize!  The more blogs you visit and leave comments on the better your chances are at winning it!  One lucky winner will receive Two 9" x 12" stencils from StencilGirl and a $25 gift certificate to Lost Coast Designs!  The giveaway will close on Sunday March 30 at 11:59pm Central Time so you've got plenty of time to join the fun ;0)  The winner will be announced soon after so stay tuned!

You should have arrived here from StencilGirl Talk and your next stop on the hop is Mary but don't worry if you get lost along the way coz the complete blog roll is below and will be included in all the posts along the way too!

UPDATE:  Thank you everyone for visiting and leaving me such wonderful comments, I truly appreciate them all :0)

I'm sharing 3 projects with you here today featuring Lost Coast Designs rubber stamps and StencilGirl stencils.  I'll be blogging each project in more detail over the next 2 weeks on the Lost Coaster's Review blog so please stop by if you'd like to find out more deets on each project ;0)

BEWARE THE GUARD CAT!

For this card I used 2 of Lost Coast Designs newest stamps - CityScape and the Devil in Disguise kitty makes the perfect guard cat don't you think ;0)  To give you the impression that the entire city is protected by a whole army of guard cats I used the 6 x 6 StencilGirl Cat stencil to create the cat shadow background and I hand wrote the sentiment with a black Micron marker.

INKY BIRD

For this card I used 2 of Lost Coast Designs new stamps - Feather Bird and Feathers for the background.  I also made my own decorative mat by using StencilGirl's 6 x 6 Feathers 6 stencil to create the feathery abstract pattern.

CATS ARE ENIGMAS

For more deets on this card please visit Lost Coaster's Review blog March 26, click HERE!

  For this card I used Lost Coast Designs Devil in Disguise kitty again and had a ball creating the three dimensional jigsaw puzzle background with StencilGirl's 6 x 6 Jigsaw Puzzle stencil with glue and Perfect Pearls :0)  The sentiment I designed myself and will be part of my new digi stamp line I'm going to launch this year once I'm recovered from the few surgeries I have to have done!  Yep, this is the first I'm mentioning that I've got a digi line in the works and I'm super excited ;0)

I also had the pleasure of using some awesome new tools to create the perfect mats for these projects!  Come back next Monday for our Perfect Paper Crafting Blog Hop for the scoop on the new Perfect Layers Minis!  In the meanwhile click the pic for tutorials and use my special code to get 5% off your entire order!

Thanks for visiting with me today!  I hope you've been inspired by what I did with stamps and stencils but I'm not done coz I've also got another treat for you on my DominoART blog later in the hop too :0)  Have a fabulous day and now off you hop to Mary!

BLOG HOP ROLL

StencilGirl Talk
LeighSBDesigns - U R HERE!
Mary Beth Shaw
Mary Nasser
Cherri Robb
Judy Shea
Bibiana Martinez-Ziegler
Linda Kittmer
Carolyn Dube
Leslie B. Turner
Janet Joehlin
Karen McAlpine
Leslie Tucker Jenison
DominoARTblog
Lindsay Weirich
Maria McGuire

Happy Stamping!

 THE SHARPIE DOMINO QUEEN

I design for Smeared Ink * Lost Coast Designs * About Art Accents

"MAMA" movie inspired digi creation for Smeared Ink!

Happy St. Patrick's Day Everyone!

Today I'm sharing a Smeared Ink Design Team digi creation which I also designed for the current Smeared and Smudged Forum "Oh the Horror" challenge.  This month is "Clean Grunge" inspired by the movie trailer for "Mama".  That's one spooky looking movie and I hope you like what I came up with ;0)

For this one I used Smeared Ink's "Specimen Jar Man" for the background and one of the butterlies for my "moth" and the girl is "Beyond".
All the colouring and digi designing was done in Photoshop CS6.

Come and join the fun over at the Smeared and Smudged Forum, membership is free and there's lots of things to do and see and prizes to win :0)
 

Happy Stamping!

 THE SHARPIE DOMINO QUEEN

I design for Smeared Ink * Lost Coast Designs * About Art Accents

"REDRUM" Smeared Ink Design Team Blog Hop #2

Howzit Everyone!
Today is our 2nd Smeared Ink Design Team "one day" blog hop!  So sit back and enjoy the awesome art created by my fabulous teamies!

For this hop I came up with the theme REDRUM!
Perfectly fitting for our Bloody Valentine February don't you think ;0)

Of course you all know that REDRUM is from Stephen King's "The Shining".  I'm a huge King fan and love the book and the movie was damn scary so I created this digi piece using the Twins from Smeared Ink's Toxic Ballerinas and the background is an altered photo I took of the eerie corridor on the Star Princess cruise ship in December last year!  I just LOVE that it looks just like those creepy corridors in the movies that stretch on forever!  I even changed the cabin number on the wall that you can just see behind the left ballerina to #217 and added the blood dripping down the walls!  I included the word REDRUM and the reflection MURDER and made the text look like they're on fire!  I love how it all turned out, it's so scary!  All my digi colouring and image manipulation was done in Photoshop CS6.

Closer look at the coloured toxic ballerinas

Now hop on over and see what my SI teamies picked as their favourite images :0)


Black Dragon
Fiona
Shell
Leigh - You're here
Kapree
Shoni
Ike
Rocio

Happy Stamping!

 THE SHARPIE DOMINO QUEEN

I design for Smeared Ink * Lost Coast Designs * About Art Accents

"Door of Her Soul" Keyhole series for Smeared Ink DT!

Howzit Everyone!
Happy Monday, I hope you all had a great weekend!
Today I'm sharing one of my Smeared Ink Design Team creations which is another one in my "Keyhole Art" series.

click on the photo to enlarge it!

This year I'm inspired to create a series of "Keyhole Art" using digitally altered photos of vintage door keyholes combined with digi or stamped images that give you a peek into a strange world beyond.   My piece for today has you peering through a keyhole that eerily looks like a face with two black eyes where you'll catch a of glimpse of something fearful happening beyond!  Eeeek!

For this one I used Smeared Ink's "It Could Be" girl digi image, the hearts all down the right side are one of their Poe Boy digi papers and also the heart with the text is one of their discontinued Heart Wings digis sans the wings (now available only as rubber in their Rubber Club).
All the colouring and digi designing was done in Photoshop CS6.
 

Happy Stamping!

 THE SHARPIE DOMINO QUEEN

I design for Smeared Ink * Lost Coast Designs * About Art Accents

Day 3: Bloody Valentine Blog Hop with Smeared & Smudged!

Welcome back Everyone!
It's Day 3 and the finale of our annual Bloody Valentine Blog Hop hosted by the Smeared and Smudged forum!  Thank you so much for hopping with me and leaving me all your wonderful comments, I truly appreciate them all and I've really enjoyed stopping by to see all your amazing art over the last 3 days too!

I've been having loads of fun creating with Smeared Ink's new digi set called The Keepers and today I used the Second Keeper, here's a closer look at her.

I used another Smeared Ink's digi paper from the Poe Boy pack for the background.  Then I worked with the digi image in Photoshop CS6.  I coloured her and played with various effects and added a lot of burning, dodging and erasing, etc.  The image was layered over the background and this time I also used one of the sentiments from The Keepers set!  I did more manual manipulation, colouring and shading and repeated the fun ghost effect with the number thirteen this time for Feb 13 ;0)

I've got another project for you to see over at DominoART which is your next stop on the hop, enjoy ;0)

SMEARED AND SMUDGED BLOODY VALENTINE BLOG HOP ROLL
Shell
Sue The Nanny
Susan
Julia
Black Dragon
Kristy
Maureen
Fiona
Leigh - U R HERE!
DominoART
Airless Chambers
Ike's World @ Quoth The Raven
Ike's World Challenges
Wendy
Shoni
Ike
Left Of Center Creative Challenges
Lisa
Violent Kitty
Lady Brayton
Samara

See you again next year, Bloody Valentine 2015 will be here before we know it...eeeek :0)

Happy Stamping!

 THE SHARPIE DOMINO QUEEN

I design for Smeared Ink * Lost Coast Designs * About Art Accents

Day 2: Bloody Valentine Blog Hop with Smeared & Smudged!

Howzit Everyone!
Welcome to Day 2 of our annual Bloody Valentine Blog Hop hosted by the Smeared and Smudged forum!  I appreciate all the comments you left for me yesterday and I enjoyed seeing all your fabulous dark and twisty art :0)

I'm currently enjoying playing with Smeared Ink's new digi set called The Keepers and today I used the Fifth Keeper, here's a closer look at her.

I started off by combining two of Smeared Ink's digi papers from the Poe Boy pack for the background...the Raven/Skull and the Red Feathers.  The digi image was coloured in Photoshop CS6 with a lot of effects applied.  The image was layered over the background and I did more manual manipulation, colouring and shading, etc.  I repeated the fun ghost effect with the number twelve this time for Feb 12 ;0)

Thanks for stopping by!  Your next stop on the hop is my other blog, DominoART, enjoy ;0)

SMEARED AND SMUDGED BLOODY VALENTINE BLOG HOP ROLL
Shell
Sue The Nanny
Susan
Julia
Black Dragon
Kristy
Maureen
Fiona
Leigh - U R HERE!
DominoART
Airless Chambers
Ike's World @ Quoth The Raven
Ike's World Challenges
Wendy
Shoni
Ike
Left Of Center Creative Challenges
Lisa
Violent Kitty
Lady Brayton
Samara

See you again tomorrow :0)

Happy Stamping!

 THE SHARPIE DOMINO QUEEN

I design for Smeared Ink * Lost Coast Designs * About Art Accents

Day 1: Bloody Valentine Blog Hop with Smeared & Smudged!

Howzit Everyone!
For the next 3 days we at the Smeared and Smudged forum are getting down right dark and twisty with our annual Bloody Valentine Blog Hop!  You probably arrived here from my teamie, Fiona, if not then start your hop at the beginning...the blog roll is below!

While I've been in the middle of a MAJOR art study clean out and tidy up I've been happily designing and creating in my Photoshop CS6 and here's my first digi project for the hop which is also one of my Smeared Ink design team projects for this week.

 Smeared Ink recently released a new gorgeous digi set called The Keepers and I used the First Keeper for today's project, here's a closer look at her.

The middle image and the Bloody Valentine sentiment are also SI digis from the Bloody Valentine set.  I started off with one of Smeared Ink's digi papers from the Slasher pack for the background.  I coloured the digi images in Photoshop and erased the backgrounds, added various effects filters and a lot of manual manipulation, colouring and shading, etc and and layered them both over the background.  I also created a fun ghost effect with the number eleven, which is a significant number that keeps coming up in my family AND is also for Feb 11, of course ;0)

Thanks for stopping by, your next stop on the hop is my other blog, DominoART, enjoy ;0)

SMEARED AND SMUDGED BLOODY VALENTINE BLOG HOP ROLL
Shell
Sue The Nanny
Susan
Julia
Black Dragon
Kristy
Maureen
Fiona
Leigh - U R HERE!
DominoART
Airless Chambers
Ike's World @ Quoth The Raven
Ike's World Challenges
Wendy
Shoni
Ike
Left Of Center Creative Challenges
Lisa
Violent Kitty
Lady Brayton
Samara

See you again tomorrow :0)

Happy Stamping!

 THE SHARPIE DOMINO QUEEN

I design for Smeared Ink * Lost Coast Designs * About Art Accents

"Alice of Hearts" Art Journal Page 7 for Smeared & Smudged!

Howzit Everyone!
Here's my 7th Art Journal page for the week long KICKSTART YOUR ART - Art Journal Every Day challenge with Smeared and Smudged and my Smeared Ink DT piece for this upcoming week!  It's been an intense 7 days but I thoroughly enjoyed expressing myself with my mostly digital j-pages :0)  Thanks to the AJED team for the fun challenges each day!  I'm thrilled with my Alice in Wonderland themed Art Journal and plan to add more pages over time and end up with a nice thick AIW Journal!

Day 7 of KICKSTART YOUR ART

Today's Challenge: 

Easy Water Blotting Background

"Alice of Hearts" Art Journal Page 7

The challenge this time is to create an easy water blotting background.  I simply took a piece of white printer paper and hand splashed water at it with my fingers, then took a photo of it with my iPhone, applied an effect filter directly in the iPhone camera app and viola...a really stunning watery background for my j-page!

The thought of water made me think about Alice Through the Looking Glass so I picked this Smeared Ink image of Alice looking at us through the mirror!  It's actually a partial of the Queen of Hearts image I used on Day 2.  A lot of image manipulation, erasing, altering and overlaying took place to create the overall effect and I'm really pleased with it...I think this is my favourite one so far.

In case you missed it, yesterday we also had a Smeared Ink New Image Release blog hop, stop by and check out all the new Smeared Ink digi images and eye candy!

Have a great weekend everyone!
Happy Stamping!

 THE SHARPIE DOMINO QUEEN

I design for Smeared Ink * Lost Coast Designs * About Art Accents

"Alice of Hearts" Art Journal Page 6 for Smeared & Smudged!

Howzit Everyone!
Here's my 6th Art Journal page for the week long KICKSTART YOUR ART - Art Journal Every Day challenge with Smeared and Smudged!  Can't believe tomorrow is the last day already!

Day 6 of KICKSTART YOUR ART

Today's Challenge: 

TEXTURE 

"Alice of Hearts" Art Journal Page 6

Well the j-page I made yesterday would have been perfect for this challenge LOL!  So I played with the same texturizing filter but this time I picked various elements from the design to apply it to.  This involved a lot of cutting, pasting, erasing, overlaying and a whole ton of other effects.  I added a 'pattern texutre' to the Mad Hatter's clothing too.  I also incorporated the word TEXTURE...did you spot it?

Still keeping with my Alice theme I used Smeared Ink's Mad Hatter image this time and the background is one of their web digi papers, Caught in my Web, with additional texturing and image manipulation and the same "A" and "heart" images used for all my previous j-pages to keep the playing card theme going too!   I use Photoshop CS6 for all my digi artwork.

In case you missed it we're also having a Smeared Ink New Image Release blog hop today, stop by and check out all the eye candy!

Have a great weekend everyone!
Happy Stamping!

 THE SHARPIE DOMINO QUEEN

I design for Smeared Ink * Lost Coast Designs * About Art Accents

"Join Me for Tea and Octopus Pie" Smeared Ink New Release Blog Hop

Happy Saturday!
Today the Smeared Ink Design Team + the Smeared and Smudged Art Journal Every Day DT + the Smeared and Smudged Mixed Media University DT are joining forces to whisk you away on a fabulous Smeared Ink "New Release" blog hop!  If you're already on the hop then you got here from my teamie, Shell!  The blog roll is below my project if you get lost or want another lookie ;0)

"Join Me for Tea and Octopus Pie"

Left: "The First Keeper" and "Join me for Tea and Octopus Pie", Right: "Octopus Girl Closeup"

 We all had the pleasure of creating with Smeared Ink's two new digi sets, The Keepers and Octopus Pie which are now available in the Smeared Ink store!

My mission this year is to finally use a bunch of junk goodies I've been hoarding and cluttering up my art studio for ages and in the process "tidy" my studio at the same time ;0)  So for this hop I upcycled one of two cardboard glove inserts and made this fun, very unique, rather quirky but still oh so pretty "glove dinner invitation"!  I also used some pink tulle and lace from my stash too!  I featured images from both of the new releases and also used winged heart rubber stamps from Smeared Ink's Rubber Club exclusive Heart Wings set which can be ordered from the Past Offerings section.

Upcycled glove insert stained with Aged Mahogany Distress Stain.  Winged hearts stamped with Black Soot Distress Ink.  Images printed and coloured with Spectrum Noir markers.  Spun Sugar Distress Ink applied to the images and distressed edges.  White gel pen used for all the detailing.

Thanks for hopping with us today, your next stop is my teamie, Kapree!

Blog Roll

Terra
Fiona

Shell
Leigh - U R Here

Kapree
Shoni
Ike

LauraB
Titbelsoeur

Susan

Julia

Have a fabulous weekend!

Happy Stamping!

 THE SHARPIE DOMINO QUEEN

I design for Smeared Ink * Lost Coast Designs * About Art Accents