Birds & Windows Challenge TD02

Greetings followers and new-comers!! It's time for the 2nd official Tiffany Doodles Challenge!!
The challenge starts today and lasts through the end of the month! You have 4 chances to win up to 7 digi stamps of your choice from Tiffany Doodles!

Giveaway Alert:

An extra note for today ....Happy Birthday to me! For my birthday, I would love love love to have 300 (or more) Google followers! If I reach 300 by the end of July, I will choose 7 random followers to win 1 digi each! Sound good?

Now, for my card this month, I used 2 Tiffany Doodles digi stamps!  The bluebird and shutters! I assembled the layout in Photoshop.  The background photo came from Windows vista (sample photos).  I added a generic window sill below the photo. Then added the left & right shutters on top of the photo.  If you have looked at my shutter stamp you will see that the shutters not angled and are straight across.  I changed the perspective of them by using "transform > perspective"  and nudging the inside corners upwards.  This made them look like they were open towards the outside.  I also added a drop shadow to add more dimension.  This is what my layout looked like in Photoshop before printing onto cardstock.  ▼

While I was printing,  I printed out an additional bird the same size so that I could place 1 on top of the flat one for extra dimension. After I got everything printed, I cut out the layout to fit onto my 4x5.5 card.  There was some space left at the bottom to add the wallpaper and sentiment.  I colored the shutters with my copics, I used G82 and BG11.  I tried to get a mix of blue and green for the old "peeled paint" effect.  I cut a piece of paper for the wallpaper and die-cut my small piece for the sentiment and colored it the same as the shutters.  Below the window sill I took Copic W3 and drew a line to make it look like a shadow below the sill.  I colored the flat bird and the top bird then cut it out and used a 3D glue zot to add dimension.  For the curtains, I used 2 pieces of fabric and hand-stitched them at the top with embroidery thread.  I tried to gather some pleats in them as I sewed.  Then tied them around the middle, then glued them at the bottom in a puffy way.  I added the fringe to the top and around mid section of each curtain.

I'd love to see what card you make! Please join us in this really fun challenge! Head over to Tiffany Doodles for all the details!

My Birthday Giveaway & More!

My Birthday is July 7

For my birthday I want to give YOU presents!!!  It is my birthday wish to have 300 (or more) Google Followers to both of my sites - Tiffany's Garden & Tiffany Doodles.  If I reach 300 or more by the end of July, I will choose 7 random followers to win 1 digi each of your choice.  Yay!!

July Sponsorships for Tiffany Doodles

I'd also like to note that Tiffany Doodles is proud to sponsor 2 challenges in July!

• Children's Challenge Corner - June 29 - July 11
• Copic Creations - July 1 - 14

I'm also delighted to tell you that I have been asked to be a Guest Designer for the Copic Creations "Bird" challenge!  The Design Team will be using my bird digi stamps exclusively for this event!  I'm so honored to have a project in the line up next to these seriously talented ladies!!  Thank you Mary!!

Tiffany Doodles July Challenge

Don't forget to swing by Tiffany Doodles on July 7 (next Wednesday) to join us for the 2nd ever TD Challenge. The Design Team and I have come up with a really fun challenge for you this month! Come over then to find out what it is! Each participant has 4 great chances to win up to 7 digis of their choice from my store!

Tiffany Doodles is now on Facebook & Twitter

Scroll Down to view my new Bird card!

Guess who's Guest Designer at Copic Creations?

Me! Not only am I the Guest Designer, but Tiffany Doodles is also the official sponsor for this July 1 challenge! The theme is "Birds" and each of their Team Members has chosen one of my bird digi stamps to create some beautiful and inspirational cards! Be sure to check out their blog for some inspiration!

For my card I chose the Warbler 2 stamp and colored this beautiful little guy true to life, bright yellow all over! This is a male yellow warbler and has a few brown streaks on his belly, the females have very faint brown streaks! Yellow warblers are so cute & are often mistaken for 'wild canaries'.  They make a beautiful fast chipping call/song that sounds like "sweet-sweet-sweet summer sweet".  You could say I'm a bird lover/watcher, and I really enjoy photographing them.  You'll find lots of bird digi stamps at Tiffany Doodles with tons more on the way!  The sentiment for my card was inspired by my trip to Bath & Body works this past weekend, they are having a "hello yellow" sale!  When you walk into the store instead of saying "hello" they say "yellow".  Cute.

Here are a few details about my card.  I created a 3.75" square document in Photoshop b/c I planned to use my Nestabilities Die Cut (standard large circle set) to cut out a circle around the sentiment.  (I used the 3.75" die cut).  In photoshop, I drew a circle path and typed my sentiment along the path.  Then drew another path and typed a long line of dots around that path.  Next, I brought in my digi and pasted it in the middle and resized to fit.  You'll notice a small touch of his tail is sticking out over the edge.  Before I die cut the circle shape I cut around the very edge of the tail and lifted it over the metal die cut so that the tail wouldn't cut off.

Next, I printed an additional bird in the same size so I could place it on top of the first one to add a little dimension.  I colored this bird and cut out with my sharp scissors and smeared on some yellow stickles with my finger.  While the birdie was drying his feathers, I did a little stitching with some light red embroidery thread.  After sewing the pretty paper to the die cut circle card stock I glued that onto a yellow piece of card stock .  Next I punched 1 1/2" circles on white card stock and then glued my pretty paper on top of those for sturdiness.   Here is my material list:

• Warbler Digi Stamp - TiffanyDoodles.com
• Copics: Y08, Y15, E55
• Yellow Stickles
• Nestabilities Standard Circle Small
• Paper - My Minds Eye - Bloom & Grow
• Gina K white card stock
• Embroidery Thread, Needle, Paper Peircer
• 1 1/2" Circle Punch

Hope you like this card and my little yellow warbler! Check out Tiffany Doodles for more photo realistic birds and drawings.

Easy As Pie!

Literally, this is that easy!! Just open 2 things, dump 'em in and bake it.
Get 2 cans of your favorite pie filling! You choose: cherry, peach, blueberry, strawberry, or apple (David's fav)! They all sound good to me! Next, get 2 boxes of the Jiffy Yellow Cake Mix. You'll also need a couple of pats of butter.

• 2 cans (your fav) Pie Filling
• 2 boxes Jiffy Yellow Cake Mix
• a few pats of butter

1. Dump your pie filling into a deep baking dish.
2. Pour dry cake mix right out of the box on top of pie filling.
3. Put a couple of pats of butter on top - spread out evenly.
By the way, don't cover with butter, it will be too rich. (tried that).
4. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes - until top is golden!
Enjoy the crunchy, crusty top with the warm fruit tucked inside! Top with Cool Whip or ICE CREAM!! I like to call this "too easy pie", it's too easy not to try!

A day with Owen!

One day last week I spent the day in Savannah with Gini & Owen! He is such a chunk and I just had to post these pics & video clip of him eating a pickle! Warning: This video contains scenes that may cause some serious "Cute Overload!"

River Boat Ride!

We live very close to the Ogeechee River and we spend a lot of time playing on it! The river has been very full this year and so our "usual" sandbar is still under water. So, we've spent a few weekends just riding in the boat! This past Saturday we went a looong ways!! What fun we had!

What a Cottonmouth (water moccasin) we saw!!  This was a big ol' boy!  Sorry I didn't get a better angle so you could see his head better, but after circling him 2 times he was getting agitated so I just said "the hell with that!"  And no, I didn't have my zoom on, I was actually this close! --- Okay, so my arms were extended as far as possible! ▼

This dragonfly really liked our styrofoam cooler and he traveled along with us for about 30 minutes, finally another dragonfly came along and they took off together.  I wonder if they have a "home" or if they just keep wandering ... ▼

Along the way we were so lucky to find this sandbar!!   We spent some time checking it out!  We saw some really big deer tracks, lots of racoon tracks.  You could see where they walked into the shallow water, probably to wash their food before they eat it.  ▼

We even saw some little baby tadpoles in the edge of the water!! ▼

My biddies are all grown up!

Many of you may remember I posted photos of my new 3 little baby biddies! I was so excited to watch them grow and to eventually get some EGGS!! Well, guess what? Turns out I have 3 roosters!! I've got to change their names from Buttercup, Daisy & Fern to something a little more manly! They are so funny to watch run around & chase bugs! As they started learning to crow it sounded so weak & pitiful, but they tried so hard. They are getting better at it these days as you can hear in the short video below. They follow me EVERYWHERE! I told David I was probably the only girl in the county that "walks" her chickens, AND the cat, all at the same time - in harmony!! Kitty also follows every move I make so he wasn't about to be left out!!

Playful Kitty!

I was looking for Cornbread and finally found him napping on top of our makeshift temporary chicken coop! David plans to build us a "chickaminium" very soon! Kitty was feeling very playful and tried to catch the string on my camera!! He's such a ham! We only had to explain to him 1 time in the very beginning when we got the chickens that he was not to hunt them. And he has been such a good boy! I don't even worry about it!

Tiffany Doodles Challenge

Here is the card I made for our first ever Tiffany Doodles Card challenge! The challenges will be every 7th of the month and last through the end of the month!! You have 4 chances to win up to 7 Digis from Tiffany Doodles!! Yeah!

I had so much fun making this cute little card for our first challenge! Here are a few details!

• Bluebird in Grass Digi Stamp - TiffanyDoodles.com
• Green Paper at the bottom - Basic Grey, Lime Ricky
• Dark Blue paper - Coordinations
• Turquoise card - Coordinations
• GinaK 80# paper - for printing the digi image
• White Ribbon - Hobby Lobby (colored with copics V15 & V06)
• Flower punch - Martha Stewart, Hydrangea
• Sentiment - Paper Studio
• Nestabilities Die Cut
• Silver dots - Mark Richards
  

On the digi stamp I erased (in photoshop) the grass that surrounded the bluebird, then I placed the black and white stamp image on top of a photograph of a field of little purple flowers. I then printed it from Photoshop onto Gina K paper and die cut the whole image.  Personally, I use photoshop for all things "digi", but this technique (of placing a digi stamp on top of a photo) can also be achieved in Word.  (Tutorial coming in just a couple of days).

The challenge this month is a sketch challenge.  Jenyfur at Torn Paper was so generous to make this awesome sketch just for us!! Thank you Jenyfur!!

Head over to Tiffany Doodles right now to join in the challenge!

Blog Candy winner for Whale digi!!

Our first blog hop was such a great success! Thank you all for being a part of it!

And the random winner is #3..... BARB
Barb said: "What a fun image! Love the way you've colored it! :)"
Email me to claim your prize!! Congratulations Barb!

Tiffany Doodles Blog Hop!

Hey Everybody! Welcome to the very FIRST Tiffany Doodles DT Blog Hop, you should have arrived here from the official Tiffany Doodles blog, if not, you’ll want start at the Tiffany Doodles blog so you don’t miss any of your chances to win or meet our new team! I am so happy to have found all of these talented ladies! And even happier that they decided to join my team!! Wow!! I'm so honored!! Today’s hop is to introduce the team, show off some of Tiffany’s Doodles Digis, and give YOU a chance to win FREE digital stamps! In order to win, you’ll need to leave a comment on each of the DT blogs as well as the Tiffany Doodles blog – each DT member will have a FREE Tiffany Doodle stamp to give away (winners chosen randomly) and I will have MORE goodies at the official TD blog. Leave some love – you might win a prize – easy as pie!!! If you get lost along the way, you can always refer back to the TD blog for the “map”. Ok…Ready…set…hop!

For the hop today I wanted to share a card with you that I made for Owen who just turned 1 year old! I love this little whale, he is so cute and was so much fun to color! I made sparkles on the water by sewing on little beads. I also beaded his water spout!

Would you like the chance to win this adorable little whale digi?

Easy, peasy!! Just leave a comment on this post and I'll randomly choose a winner on Thursday!

Thank ya'll so much for stopping by! Be sure to sign up to follow my blog! Your next stop is the incredibly talented CAMMY!!

• Official Site Tiffany Doodles
• Tiffany Richards Tiffany's Garden◄ You are Here!
• Cammy Wall Pink Room Therapy
• Cindy Lee My Lil Crafty Corner
• Deirdre Horgan Colour and Ink
• Donna Mikasa 3 Umbrellas
• Julie Masse Stampin' with Julie
• Kathy Racoosin The Daily Marker
• Kim Schofield Paperie Petals
• Lindsay Amrhein Note to Self
• Peet Roeven Scrap Album
• Ruby McGuire Ruby 2 Shoes Design
• Shannon Neparko Desert Design Studios
• Sunghee Chon Creativity in Progress
• Virginia Lu Yes, Virgina

Blog Updates Notice

I just wanted to let you know that if you already subscribe to my blog here and want to stay updated on all of my new digi stamp releases & FREEBIES you may want to head over to my other site at www.TiffanyDoodles.com and subscribe to that blog. Starting June 1 I will no longer be posting those digis on this site. This site will go back to a more personal blog along with all my paper crafting activities!! =) Thanks so much!

Also, join us at www.TiffanyDoodles.com (tomorrow) on Tuesday, June 1, for our first ever Blog Hop and meet the brand new Design Team! An international group of very talented ladies! There will be prizes on every blog! Plus, I'll be giving away 10 digis for the big blog candy!! Then, the following week on June 7, we will be holding our first ever Tiffany Doodles Challenge!! You don't want to miss it!! We have lots in store for you!

And finally, Happy Memorial Day! I'd like to thank every American soldier who has fought for this country to keep us free. Your sacrifice has not gone un-noticed, and I appreciate YOU! Thank you!

Thirsty Piggy!

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Ice Cream Cone - Freebie Thursday!

Enjoy this free image for personal use.
Click Here to download ZIP file.
Be sure to upload your creation to our Tiffany Doodles Flickr Group Gallery!
You are NOT allowed to share this file, but you may link to my blog.

Bluebird in Grass!

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Be sure to upload your creation to our Tiffany Doodles Flickr Group Gallery!

Hummingbird Branch!

2.50

Be sure to upload your creation to our Tiffany Doodles Flickr Group Gallery!

Warbler 2

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Be sure to upload your creation to our Tiffany Doodles Flickr Group Gallery!

Painted Bunting!

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Be sure to upload your creation to our Tiffany Doodles Flickr Group Gallery!

Water Pitcher - Freebie!

I made this special freebie for my wonderful members over at my Tiffany Doodles Paper Craft Planet Group!! My membership has increased to over 250! I do a knew freebie every time my membership increases by 50!! Tell your friends!!
Enjoy this free image for personal use.
Click Here to download ZIP file.
Be sure to upload your creation to our Tiffany Doodles Flickr Group Gallery!
You are NOT allowed to share this file, but you may link to my blog.

Whimsy Butterfly - Freebie Thursday!

Enjoy this free image for personal use.
Click Here to download ZIP file.
Be sure to upload your creation to our Tiffany Doodles Flickr Group Gallery!
You are NOT allowed to share this file, but you may link to my blog.

a fern, a birdhouse and a thingy...

I was taking this nice photo of my fern when I noticed something on that skinny little limb that you see sticking out....

It was a catepillar...... eek... so furry ... so squishy... You just stay right there little guy, I won't bother you if you don't bother me!!

Fresh Strawberry Butter!

I made my own strawberry butter!! Fun & Easy! First I went and picked a small bucket from my local farmer down the road! I set out a small tub of butter to soften. I added a little brown sugar and chopped the strawberries real fine. Then stirred it all together and put in my tupperware dish! And you wanna talk about good!! Spread this over a warm piece of toast or bagel!! Oh yeah!!

Strawberry Butter Recipe:

• 1 cup softened butter
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup fine chopped strawberries

Stir everything together then refrigerate.... TADA!!

Color in the Garden!

My flowers are looking so pretty this year!! It's such a joy tending to them and caring for them!! What an enjoyable thing to do..... care for a garden! And just look at the rewards...