February Cookies -- We're Back !!

After a short break, we are back with our Cookie Challenge at If You Give a Crafter a Cookie .  We will not be having any sponsors, but we will be choosing our favorites among the entries. I hope that you are excited  we are back and will use our fun cookie photo as inspiration to play along with us. It's no surprise that our first photo is Valentine cookies. 

I loved this picture and especially the colors - using the blue with traditional red was a nice touch . And it seemed perfect to use a new digital set that I love from Polka Dot Orchard . 

• I started off with a Kraft card base and adhered a piece of striped paper from the Pebbles "Be Mine' paper pad , leaving a small edge of Kraft showing. 
• Before adhering the top area of the striped paper, I tied a piece of Maya Road "Sweet Candy" twine around the top area of the paper.
• A sentiment, also from the Be Mine paper pad, was popped up in the upper left corner of the card  ( positioned in between the twine ).
• From the Penguin Love digi set by Polka Dot Orchard, I printed the LOVE cup on a piece of Stardust White Neenah cardstock and then fussy-cut it.
• The cup was colored with some favorite markers - Brea Reese & Faber-Castell .
• I adhered a red heart doily on the striped paper and then placed the LOVE cup on top of that towards the bottom right side of the card.
• All items were adhered with Tombow Adhesives - Tombow MONO Aqua Liquid Glue & MONO Adhesive + Permanent Runner.

This was such a fun card to make and I've made several more to send to friends this year . Has the cute cookie photo inspired you ?? Do you send Valentines or maybe just make one for that special someone ?!?! We would love for you to link up a project of your own over at If You Give a Crafter a Cookie . Challenges run for 2 weeks so there will be a new inspiration photo on Feb. 21. I hope you will check out all of the projects from our Design Team members and let us know what you think . I would love you to follow my blog if you don't already do so.

Thank you for visiting Meticulosity. It's good to be back with these fun Cookie Challenges. Now please excuse me while I go get a cookie !!

Debra Davison / Meticulosity

Vera Lane Studio - Nov. Guest Designer

I have fallen in love with the digi designs at Vera Lane Studio . They are fun, quirky and one-of-a-kind !! Their digi stamps and collage sheets have found their way into many of my recent projects.  They have some fantastic coffee-themed stamps and you ALL should know by now that I am a lover of ALL things coffee !! So when I was asked to be their Guest Designer for the month of November, I didn't hesitate . I will be making something every Tuesday and will be blogging it as well as posting on Social Media. I might even sneak a few extra projects in too !!

For my first project, I am using a new release - Cocoa and Latte . I  am sure that their Design Team members will also have fun with these images. I wanted to make a Fall project and decided to do a fun tag with lots of dimension.

• I printed the larger Latte Fairy and sentiment on Neenah Stardust White cardstock. The fairy was also printed on a sheet of patterned paper  of Fall words and a sheet of whitish fur-patterned paper.
• On an oversized tag, I placed a layer of brown patterned paper. 
• I stenciled a floral pattern using Brea Reese Gold Metallic Texture Paste and then sprinkled a bit of glitter over the paste.
• A strip of Fall Polka-Dot patterned paper was placed along the Left side of the tag on top of a piece of gold mesh. I stapled the mesh onto the tag in areas that would be covered by the Latte Fairy.
• I paper-pieced the cup and the Latte foam after coloring the rest of the image with a variety of my favorite markers-Faber-Castell, Brea Reese & Akashiya SAI Brush Pens.
• A piece of orange/black twine was wrapped around the top of the tag several times. 
• A  strip of dark red glitter washi was placed down the Left side of the sentiment and adhered to the upper Right side of the tag. I also used a background stamp called Dirt on the sentiment.
• White Lightnin' Glitter from Double Trouble Scrapbooking  was applied to the Fairy wings.
• I made the eyes of the Fairy with a round pencil eraser dipped into a green stamp pad !!
• The completed Latte Fairy image was popped up at the bottom of the tag with Foam Tabs. All items were adhered with Tombow Adhesives, except for the tiny staples by Tim Holtz Idea-olo
• I placed several Prima "Amber Moon" crystals down the strip of Polka-Dot paper. 

Vera Lane Studio has a variety of fabulous digi stamps in their Etsy Shop. I am thrilled to be able to show you their fun styles this month !! They have a business page on Facebook , as well as a fun community of Vera Lane lovers  in a Closed Group .We share our projects and have monthly swaps. The theme of this month's swap is Coffee !! Stay tuned for more new releases.throughout the month amd projects from me.  And thank you so much again for visiting Meticulosity !!

Debra Davison / Meticulosity

Coffee & Cards With Deb & Celeste 3/25

Hello again and thanks for checking out our monthly blog collaboration . Celeste and I are happy to welcome Marilyn DeGroot as our guest blogger this month. You can find Marilyn at Mississippi-McGyver. I have known her since 2014 when we were on the Design Team of Mountain Plains Crafters. She is an amazing papercrafter and makes the most beautiful projects. I am in awe of her talent !! Earlier this month, Celeste was blessed with her second grandchild and that is our theme for this month -  babies !! 

I don't have many baby-themed stamps but I remembered that I had a few from Unity Stamp Company and decided to combine them in this card to celebrate the birth of Madelyn Celeste.

• I started with a scrap piece of pink paper that also had some yellow highlights. Using Memories India Black Ink, I stamped the Unity Stamp Company image Tickled Pink in the lower right hand corner. The stars are an older Unity stamp "Twinkle Twinkle". I stamped that in the upper right hand corner. 
• The baby carriage was also stamped on a piece of my hoarded Basic Grey paper from the "Out of Print" collection and I fussy-cut the image. I had  also stamped the stars on a piece of scrap pale yellow paper and also fussy-cut those. 
• I paper-punched the clouds, also using the "Out of Print" paper and stapled them to the pink background paper with silver staples. 
• A piece of gold star washi was placed along the top edge of the background paper.
• The stars were popped up on top of the stamped image using Tombow Foam Tabs . The carriage was adhered over the stamped image with Tombow MONO Aqua Liquid Glue.
• I wrote the baby's name and date of birth using Google Docs,cut them out and adhered them on the lower  right side of the card with Tombow MONO Adhesive+ .
• To finish the card, I adhered the background to a kraft base. 

I'm so excited to see what Marilyn made and hope you will visit her at Mississippi-McGyver to see her project. Celeste can be found at Crafting Junky . I'm happy to be celebrating the birth of Celeste's son's baby girl. Best wishes to Brian and his wife, Erika. 

Today, my coffee is Pecan Pie and I'm using a fun mug by Suzy Toronto that I found at Tuesday Morning.  It's bright, big and I absolutely LOVE it !!

Thank you for visiting Meticulosity.

Debra Davison/ Meticulosity

February Cookies - Take 1

Challenge #87 over at If You Give a Crafter a Cookie is all about hearts and love and red and white and Valentines. Our sponsor this time is My Besties . This challenge is open for 2 weeks starting Feb. 8 and I hope you will take a peek at all of the Design Team creations AND maybe even link up something of your own. 

I have had this wonderful AMOR stamp by Hero Arts for quite some time but had never inked it up !! So, the time was right to get creative with it. Along with a red and white Valentine theme, I used a non-traditional color card base.

• I stamped the AMOR image from Hero Arts on a piece of pale pink scrap paper, using  StazOn ink in the perfect color - St. Valentine.  
• The Frida image is from the Coyoacan Collection by Vera Lane Studio. I printed her on my favorite cardstock - Neenah Stardust White. 
• I fussy-cut Frida and colored her with my favorite Faber-Castell PITT Artist pens and Stampin Up markers. 
• The AMOR image was adhered to the card base with Tombow Mono Adhesive+ and Frida was popped up with Tombow Foam Tabs.

I hope you like my Frida Amor card !! I am a big fan of Frida and her work  - you can find out more about her here. Please leave a comment and let me know what you think of my card. Do you like  more "traditional" Valentines?? I love combining patterned papers & backgrounds with stamped images and this card was no exception. Be sure to check out the Challenge page for all of the team's designs. And if you'd like, you can link up a project -- we would love that !! 

Thank you for visiting Meticulosity.

And thank you again to our sponsor -  My Besties .

Debra Davison

Create - GIU Day 3

I love making tags. I love embossing paste and glitter. And I absolutely LOVE Susan K Weckesser and her stamp sets for Unity. So I combined all of those and came up with a project that showcases all of these.  Remember to comment on all of my posts this week for a chance to win a grab bag of 25 Unity stamps. There will be 2 winners chosen at random. This tag will hang in my craft studio and remind me that I am in there to CREATE - it feeds my spirit, tends to my soul and makes me happy. When I take care of ME, I am better able to take care of others !!

• I started with a Prima tag and applied Faber-Castell Whipped Spackle over a Tim Holtz Doily Layering Stencil down the Left side of the tag. I then sprinkled "Pralines and Cream" Fairy Dust Glitter over the spackle
• The house from Heart-Full Homes was stamped with Colorbox Color Pop Archival Dye ink by Susan K Weckesser - the color is Mystery. I stamped it on a scrap of paper with a word-patterned background, then fussy cut it . I also like to stamp on book pages. 
• The house was colored  with a combination of Distress Markers and Faber-Castell PITT Artist pens. I also adhered a glitter heart to the roof. 
• On a scrap of Live in Color paper  also by Susan K Weckesser, I stamped the word CREATE from the Painted Sentiments stamp set . The ink color was  Kiss. I placed a strip of double-sided tape on the bottom of the paper and sprinkled it with Tumbled Glass Distress Glitter .
• The fun in making these scenes with the houses is that you can use all of your scraps, favorite washi, punches and anything else on hand . I placed a piece of grass washi across the tag bottom, then built a flower with another piece of green washi, a paper-punched circle and a colored glass center . Several paper-punched clouds were placed above the house on the tag.
• I adhered the CREATE image and all of the other elements to the tag, using a combination of Tombow Adhesives - Xtreme Adhesive  Runner and MONO Aqua Liquid .
• Scraps of several favorite ribbons were tied at the top of the tag to add some more color.

I will see you again tomorrow for my 4th project this week as a GIU girl. It's been fun inking up old favorite Unity stamps, as well as some new favorites, like the Planner Gals. I hope you will sign up to follow my blog and continue with me on my creative journey.  Looking forward to sharing a few more posts with you !!

Debra Davison / Meticulosity

Let Your Dreams Bloom

Another installment of our blog collaboration is here and I guess you could say that we have gone International. Our March guest is my friend, Liz McGuire from Glasgow,Scotland. She is amazingly talented and has been on many Design Teams as well as being published in numerous paper-crafting magazines. We wanted Liz to choose our theme for this month's posts and she came up with this Inspiration Board. Don't you just love these colors, especially with Spring right around the corner ?!?!

As soon as I saw this, I immediately thought of a stamp set that I have had for awhile but have not gotten inky yet. I'm sure you have some of those in your stash,don't you ? I had fun paper-piecing on this card - one of the techniques that I love using, It allows me to combine 2 of my loves - stamps & patterned paper !!

• I started off with a patterned card base by My Mind's Eye that was a perfect color for this challenge. I kind of have a "thing" for boxes of patterned cards. 
• I stamped the succulents and sentiment from the Unity Stamp Company stamp kit Succulent Salutations, which was their June 2016 sentiment kit. It is an amazing kit with the main image, 14 sentiments, a flower and 2 cute birds. My ink pad was  Memories Black India Ink.
• The images/sentiment were stamped on Stardust cardstock and several pieces of scrap patterned paper that were luckily in the colors from this month's Inspiration Board. See, it helps to keep those scraps !! At least, that is what I have been telling myself all these years ...
• A yellow doily was folded and placed in the upper L corner. The sentiment was stamped, then punched out with my ever-faithful square paper-punch. I then stapled it to a contrasting square of patterned paper and attached it to the doily with a Pop-Up Glue Dot.
• On the main image of succulents, I paper-pieced the R and L vases and the middle succulent. I then colored the remaining areas with my Tim Holtz Distres Markers. For some shimmer, I used a Wink of Stella Clear Glitter Brush Pen. 
• A strip of glitter washi was placed at the bottom of the image as a shelf for the succulents. Tombow Adhesive was used to adhere the stamped images, paper-pieces and doily onto the card.

This month's card has been brought to you by an amazing cup of Jamaica Me Crazy coffee in my wonderfully colorful mag. I hope that you are inspired by our Inspiration Board chosen by Liz and that you liked the card I created. Now it's time for you to head over to  Crafting Junky to see what Celeste came up with. I hope you will also take a look at Liz's blog  Buttons for Brains - I am sure that she has outdone herself !! We welcome your comments on each of our blogs and also invite you to follow each of us. Thank you SO much to Liz for helping us broaden our horizons and taking this collaboration to another level !!

This is where I blog ....

Succulent Salutations

Debra Davison

Meticulosity.blogspot.com