LeighSBDesigns Winter Wonderland or Anything Goes Challenge!

After experiencing the largest snowfall in the Deep South in well over a hundred years, I am finally defrosting enough to get the old crafty bones moving again!  The SNOW limited my POE Appreciation Month Blog Hoping time at LeighSBDesigns!  Did you see what I did there? 😁. Luckily for me I can still share some Poe love in the monthly challenge which is Winter Wonderland of Anything Goes!

Leigh has added two brand new designs to her Poe design library and they are Raven Tree Silhouette and Raven Tree Slimline Silhouette!  Both are very Poe worthy and I used the Raven Tree Silhouette design for my project.

   I layered the image on top of a paper from the Classic Poe Grunge Digital Paper Pack fussy cutting it and layering on black cardstock.   I cut out the letters for POE using the “POE” Raven and Classic Font Word SVG and Cutz Set by LeighSBDesigns.   The background layer was cardboard painted with acrylic Quinacridone Gold Hue letting it almost dry before spraying with Distress Micra sprays.  I colored some white cardstock scrap with red markers and topped with a gloss gel medium for some shine for under the raven’s eyes.  I made a frame from orange glitter cardstock and made a flower sorta kinda out of vellum that I printed two pages from Edgar Allan Poe Forgotten Tales scored at a second hand bookstore.  I propped it up on the frame with a leftover “O” in the raven font.  Hopefully this will restore me in the eyes of the Poe fan club!!  Still time to play in the Winter Wonderland or Anything Goes Challenge at LeighSBDesigns!

Poe Blog Hop

 January 19, 1809 was Edgar Allan Poe’s birth date.  Each year we celebrate his birthday at LeighSBDesigns annual Edgar Allan Poe Appreciation Month and Mini Blog Hop!  It is a a much anticipated celebration of Poe and his literary works and this is the 10th year that Leigh has hosted the event!  A decade of Poe appreciation and fun!

Leigh has tons of Poe designs in her shop and has two brand new images added for 2025!  I used Raven Tree Slimline Silhouette on my little table top panel decoration!  I also used a paper from the Classic Poe Grunge Decorative Digi Paper Pack by Leigh for my background.  I added a strip of water color strokes behind the Raven Tree in Procreate to add my sentiment and added the background Poe Grunge paper enlarging it to get it to show the Raven Tree properly.  I used black soot Distress Ink on all the edges of the panel decoration before layering them up.  I borrowed Leigh’s POE-tastic hinge idea and cut mine out of the same black cardstock twice then attaching it to the back of the panel.  

Panel tabletop decoration all finished 

The back hinge stand

This photo was just me playing around with the flashing mode of my ring light 😝

There is still a wee bit of time to enter the blog hop for Edgar Allan Poe Appreciation Month and the monthly challenge Winter Wonderland or Anything Goes is open through January 31st at LeighSBDesigns Inspiration Blog!  So grab a sweater and finish this most chilly month with crafty friends!

The Outlawz Progressive/Freebie Challenge

 Happy New Year! 🎊🎆🥳   This month’s sponsor for our challenge is Sherry West Arts and we want to give a big thank you for our delightful image!   I fell in love with this little piggie immediately!  

I colored the little pig with colored pencils and added white gel pen accents.  I then added him to my background layers in Procreate.  I had fun adding some fireworks and the sentiment to brighten my digital card!  Now we would like to see how you had fun with this delightful image so drop off your projects at the Outlawz Progressive/Freebie Challenge!

Anything Goes in a Card Free Zone at The Outlawz!

Time for our first challenge of 2025 and it is Anything Goes with a theme of  Try Something New.  You have to follow the theme in order to qualify for any prizes and remember no cards!  My something new was to make a booklet out of some of my acrylic paintings.  The paintings aren’t new but binding my pages for a booklet this way was new for me!  This booklet is very special to me as I followed The Art Sherpa on YouTube for all of the paintings and Cinnamon Cooney, The Art Sherpa, passed away suddenly in the early part of this month.  My thoughts, prayers and love are for her husband, three children and her mother, Ginger Cook.  I had never painted a painting in any medium before I found Cinnamon’s YouTube videos sometime around 2016.  I know I would have never had the love I now have for acrylic painting if I had not found her!  She was an absolute joy as a teacher and cheerleader for everyone that followed her!  This little booklet is dedicated to her.

Each canvas is a little bigger than ATC size.  I originally painted these small versions of these paintings for zine I was planning on making.  The original paintings I had done on 8 x 10 canvases for the most part.

I plan on adding the original air dates of the tutorials on the opposite pages with any other information I want to include.

Here at the Outlawz Anything Goes in a Card Free Zone we hope you will join us and play along!

Monday Greetings Challenge for January!

Happy Happy New Year!  At the Outlawz Monday Greetings Challenge we are starting the new year off nice and easy with an Anything Goes Greeting and Anything Goes Optional Twist!  I had an AI image from Google (free version) using the prompts Christmas village, trees and train left over from some playing around a did in November.  And as my Christmas tree lights are still blazing nightly and Christmas movies and music can be heard from my house still!) I thought this cheery little winter scene was still absolutely valid for January!

I used the lighted trees for my back layer that came from Pixabay.  I will add the artist's link when I remember which notebook I added it to!  😱  I added the kitty at the window watching the train and the sentie is from Xmas Cat Tree Senties from the Festive Felines Loveleigh Kitties 2024 Christmas Collection by LeighSBDesigns!   Using Procreate on my iPad made it easy to add some snow flurries to the scene!  I hope you will all join us at the Outlawz Monday Greetings and help start our new year off the right way with lots of wonderful projects to comment on!

 

Creative Inspiration Challenges with All Dressed Up Stamps!

Happy New Year!   We are ready for a crafty new year at Creative Inspiration Challenges for January with our sponsor All Dressed Up Stamps!  Thanks so much to them for sponsoring us and their continued support of our challenge!  Please check out their shop at Etsy and see all the awesome images!  I had a play with Bushy Tail and and Birthday Monkey!  I love squirrels and have dozens jumping through the oak trees on my property all year round!  I spend hours just sitting on the front porch watching them be so industrious and calm at the same time!

I colored Bushy Tail with markers first then gave some texture and defining with my colored pencils.  I added some white gel pen for some highlights.  I made a hexagon pop up card following a tutorial at Beccy’s Place A - Z Cards.  This was such a fun fold card to do and I only had one mistake worth mentioning but I am remaining silent! 😉

Next up was Birthday Monkey!  What a hilarious little guy!  Still following Beccy’s Place card tutorials but this time a spring fold card!  I colored him the same way as the 🐿️ but encountered a problem when I decided to add green glitter tempura paint to my green panels after gluing them down!  I knew as I did it there was going to be some warping and bubbling but I kept right on going!  There is a moral to that story!  I still love the spring up element of the card and this adorable little monkey makes it fun!    

                   Now I am going to sit back and visit your blogs as you enter your FAB-tastic projects!  Join us at Creative Inspiration Challenges for January!