Little Strawberry

Good Wednesday morning and welcome to my blog.  Congratulations to our winner from last week and to our Top 3 cards.

This week Sweet Sketch Wednesday 2 design team were allowed to use their favourite rubber stamp or digital image.  Well where do I start as I have so many favourites!!!

I could have chosen from 100's but in the end I had to realistic and look what was going to work with this weeks sketch, and as it's spring here in New Zealand it won't be long before Strawberry season and I adore Strawberries one of my favourite fruit that's why I chose the image that I did.

Sketch #027
You can use either a Hexagon or Circle

Here's my card using a Clear Dollar Digital Stamp (which is now Clearly I Stamps) Little Strawberry.

As we don't have a sponsor this week Sally has kindly offered 

blog candy which is going to be a surprise  and our lucky recipient will receive  

Design Papers

Stamps 

and of course Embellishments which we all love.

So don't forget to get all those entries in and you can enter more than once so get crafting.

Don't forget to drop by the rest of the design team over at Sweet Sketch Wednesday 2 and see what the rest of the team and created using their favourite images.

Challenges I'm entering:

Crafting from the Heart Challenge # 35 Anything Goes

The Paper Nest Dolls Challenge #18 Anything Goes

Through The Craft Room Door Challenge Anything Goes

A Gem of A Challenge #127 It's Summer Time

Just Us Girls Challenge #257 Leaves (Spring here in New Zealand)

Glitter n Sparkle Challenge 101 Use a Digi

One stitch At A Time Challenge #219 Use a Die

Crafting At The Weekend Challenge #5 Anything Goes

Crafts Galore Encore Challenge #9 Make A Card Challenge

Card Recipe:

 1. Base: White SU

2. Coloured Card: American Craft Card Red and Green

3. Design Paper: K & Co Citronella Strawberry Limeade

 4. Image: Little Strawberry by Clear Dollar Stamps

 5. Colour Medium: Copics and Gold gel pen.

6. Tools: Cuttlebug, Spellbinders nestabilities hexagons, pop dots, glue dots and real tacky glue.  Embossing folder Moroccan squares. Glossy accents on the Strawberry.

7. Sentiment: PC generated

 8. Embellishments:
Red gems, red and white gingham ribbon and white gathered ribbon.

9. Inside my card which is the same as the outside with the image, gems and sentiment.

 10. The back of my card.

Take care everyone wishing you all a wonderful week, happy crafting and I can't wait to see what you all do this week and being so creative.

Sweet Sketch Wednesday Sketch #213 Sponsor Clearly Digi Stamps

Hello and welcome to another Sweet Sketch Wednesday.  Whilst I'm sitting typing this posting the temperature feels as though it's dropping my nose and fingers are cold and it's raining again.

Great news pop over to Sweet Sketch Wednesday and guess who's back that's right it's our very own

Arlana welcome back.

Congratulations to our winner and our Top 3 cards.  Great work ladies.  This week we have another lovely sketch from our very own Sally Dube.

Sketch #213

This sketch isn't hard and it's great for showing off those lovely design papers.

Here's my card using Tearrific Digi Cream and Sugar.

This image remind's me of a very old dinner set I have it's 

Royal Albert China Old Country Rose.

This week our sponsor is 

Clearly Digi Stamps (Formally Clear Dollar Stamps)

Clearly Digi Stamps (Clear Dollar Stamps) is a home-based business run by moms!  Located in Pleasant Hope, Missouri, we run the main operations out of Lori's (my) basement.  We have illustrators from all over the United States and join forces to bring you the a variety of styles and images at incredibly affordable prices.  We believe that the value we put in our Digi sets are above and beyond what you will find at many other stores....and we want it to be that way.  As moms, budgets are many times very limited, but we still need our creative outlet too!  Enjoy!

Clearly Digi Stamps has 6 artists that illustrate for us:  Laurie Wilson, Lisa Lara, Deedee Anderson, Austin Owens, Patrick Dunnegan and myself, Lori McCroskey.  We love what we do and love to create digis for you to play with!
If you have suggestions for Digi Sets, we would love to hear your suggestions....just send us an email at Lori@cleardollarstamps.com !
The parent company of Clearly Digi Stamps is Clear Dollar Stamps LLC.  You can learn how Clear Dollar Stamps got started below.

How Clear Dollar Stamps got started:

Motto: Where value and creativity meet!
Hi!  My name is Lori McCroskey and I am the founder and owner of Clear Dollar Stamps, LLC.  I started stamping in the summer of 2000 while I was pregnant with my first little girl.  I had a friend from church that kept asking me to go to stamping parties, and I just thought stamping party, how silly is that?  Finally, I relented.  I went to a stamping party, got hooked on scrapbooking AND found out there were inks that I could stamp on clothing!  I have a fashion design minor so I was hooked from that moment on!  Can you imagine?  Matching clothes and scrapbook pages?  I was in heaven.
After having my first child, my ideas of spare time quickly vanished.  There weren't many stamped dresses, but I found time to do some scrapbook pages, cards and gifts!  As my passion for stamping grew faster than the money in my billfold, I decided to start selling one of the lines of stamps, for an existing stamp company, shortly after my second little girl was born.  I would throw food on her high chair and run to my stamping table in the same room to see how much I could get done while she ate!  LOL, We've all been there!   As time went on, it became harder and harder to leave my little girlies crying in the hallway as mommy went off to do a stamp party.  It just broke my heart.  Thus, the dream of Clear Dollar Stamps began.
Why did I start my own stamp company?  Most stamp companies, at that time, would not let you sell their products on the internet, which is what I wanted to do..I wanted to be at home.   I also found it very hard to find unique Christian stamps.  I really wanted something that would convey my love for God in a whimsical, out of the ordinary sort of way.  As a stay at home mom, I wanted to create a line of stamps that other stay at home moms could afford to create beautiful cards, crafts, and scrapbook pages.  Why did I name my company Clear Dollar Stamps?  I wanted people to know they were affordable!  Why do I have a cross in the middle of my company name?  I want people to know that Christ is the center of my business and the center of my life!
I come from a very crafty and artistic family, and believe it or not, I have the least talent of them all!  My sister is the trained artist of our family, not me, so I decided to teach myself to draw.  I invested in a drawing program, enrolled in an online tutorial service, and prayed for the girls to take LONG NAPS!  After much internet cruising for suppliers and manufacturers, Clear Dollar Stamps introduced our first set of stamps on eBay in October of 2004.  The learning curve was huge and at times very painful, but God always blessed my brain at just the right time with the ability to take the next step.
I give God all the glory for the very existence of this company and thank everyone who has prayed for me along the way!

Lori is offering our very lucky winner this week

Prize: $25 Gift Certificate

 to the store for the Digi Section

You can check out Clearly Digi Stamps 

here:

http://cdstamps.com/

Don't forget to drop by our wonderful design team over at Sweet Sketch Wednesday and check out their amazing cards.

Challenges I'm entering:

Make It Monday Challenge # 147

Bearly-Mine Challenge #93 Anything Goes

Inky Chicks Challenge #7 Anything Goes

Papertake Weekly Challenge Anything Goes

Through The Craftroom Door Anything Goes

Crafty Ribbons Challenge #50 Anything Goes with a ribbon

Sweet Stampin Challenge Not Cute

2 Sisters Challenge #150 Stripes

Challenges 4 Everybody #23 Anything Goes

Sentimental Sundays Challenge #161 All things Digital

Card Recipe

1. Base: White SU

2. Coloured Card: Burgundy card from Kaisercraft

3. Design Papers: Precious Moments from Kaisercraft

4. Image: Tearrific Digi Cream and Sugar from Clearly Digi Stamps

5. Colour Medium: Copics, gold gel pen.

6. Tools: Cuttlebug, Classic Squares, Pop Dots, Glue Dots, Glossy Accents, Cheery Lynn Design leaves, Tacky glue.

 7. Embellishments: Crochet flower, roses and pearls all from my stash.

8. Embellishments: Lace, flat back pearls and velvet ribbon all from my stash.

Take care everyone wishing you all a wonderful 

week and happy crafting.

Hugs

Kathie

 xox