Liebster Blog Award News and Thank You, Alison!

I was totally blown away by a very good friend of mine, the awesome & talented Alison, of 21st Century Pillow Book by giving me the Liebster Blog Award Saturday. In doing a little research, I learned that the name means little darling in German and is given to as yet, undiscovered blogs who have less than 200 followers.

These awards give small bloggers with less than 200 followers some well deserved recognition for their creations. Here are the rules:
* Thank your Liebster Blog Award presenter on your blog.
* Link back to the blogger who presented the award to you.
* Copy and paste the blog award on your blog.
* Present the Liebster Blog Award to 5 blogs of 200 followers or less who you feel deserve to be noticed.
* Let them know they have been chosen by leaving a comment at their blog.

Here are my choices:

Helen

Susan

Sara

Jane

Fiona

Please check out their blogs, give them some bloggy love, and become a follower!

Like Alison, I've "met and hung out" with these wonderful artists on the Smeared & Smudged Forum (link on the right), which is sponsored by the awesome owner/sisters at Smeared Ink . Everyone on the forum has been so very welcoming & supportive over the past year that I've known most of them. Some of us are alittle quirky, and our art pushes the envelope at times, but you couldn't ask for a better or kinder group of people to be in your life.

Once again, Thank YOU Alison for giving me this award. Like you said sometimes we little bloggers don't know if people notice what we post (they usually do). You are a sweetheart & I'm so grateful that you came into my life. Mwah!

Smudgy Antics Challenge - Red Hot

For the Challenge sponsored by Smeared Ink this week, the theme was Red Hot. I chose to do a tag in honor of Valentine's Day, with a hot blooded twist.

I took a shipping tag, colored it with Fired Brick & Rusty Hinge Distress Inks along the edge, then cut a piece of DCWV's "Street Lace" paper slightly smaller. The image is from Smeared Ink's new My Bloody Valentine digi set & I just love the nails digging into the heart . I colored the hand & heart with Derwent Inktense pencils, then used Ranger's Glossy Accents on the heart & blood. I punched 2 hearts of different sizes from foil, as well as 2 from Tacky Tape. I embossed the foil hearts, and added red micro beads & glitter to the tape hearts. I also added some drippy blood punched using Martha Stewart's Drippy Goo punch at the bottom, and a piece of wordy ribbon at the top.

Thanks for looking.

Oh no, she didn't ...

If someone had told me I would be making roses out of bacon this year for Valentine's Day, I would have thought them absolutely insane. But, I did make some - 7 to be exact as that is how many silk roses were in the bunch from Family Dollar. Being financially strapped, I offered to make my daughter a card to give to her boyfriend of 7 months. Then I suggested the Bacon Roses she'd shown me earlier that week, found a couple of blogs with instructions and off we went. Had to sacrifice my mini-muffin pan by drilling holes in it so the grease drains out, but the look on his face was priceless. He loved them!

Here they are:

The saying goes: For the girl who loves flowers, and the guy who wants a snack.

I'll be posting my final valentine blog hop project in a few. Did you know that you can hit a computer & sometimes it will work? There's always something.

Bloody Valentine Blog Hop - Day Two

What an awesome hop this is so far! Had to work Friday, but will be making rounds today to comment on everyone's superb projects. The list is to your right --> and you don't want to miss a thing.

Today's project is a little something I made to hang on the wall. Loving zombies the way I do, I don't think they get enough lovin. The main image is the Zombie from the Rick St. Denis digi sheet that I'd won last Halloween, and the cool Winged Hearts are from Smeared Ink's Heart Wings digi set. Both were colored with Derwent Inktense pencils & I added a little glitter to the wings of the hearts. For those that are curious about the pencils, they are an ink in a pencil form, used like watercolor pencils, but the main difference is that they are permanent on paper as well as fabric. Love 'em! The background paper is from DCWV's Street Lace 8X8 pad, on top of a piece of black patterned paper. The sticky lace tape is from 7 Gypsies. I wrote the senti on a piece of white cs, added glittered lips. Hope you like it! Thanks for looking!

Bloody Valentine Blog Hop - Day One!

Today is the first day out of 3 of the Smeared & Smudged Forum's Bloody Valentine Blog Hop brought to you by the wonderful artists at Smeared Ink. You should have arrived here from Emjay's blog. If not, start at the beginning of the list to your right so you don't miss any of the awesomely quirky, not your usual Valentines.

My project is a card using two images from Smeared Ink's new Valentine digi set which were printed on watercolor paper, colored with Derwent Inktense pencils, Promarker flesh colors, and finessed with Prismacolor colored pencils. I punched Martha Stewart's Drippy Goo punch from red cardstock, inked with Distress Ink in Black, Fired Brick and Walnut stain, then used clear UTEE over that. The mini hearts were punched from Tacky tape & covered with tiny beads in red. All was mounted on a scrap of skull paper over black alligator skin paper & then attached to a dark pink piece of Bazill CS. I also added some heart clips from Making Memories.

Thanks for looking & hopping with us!!!!
Happy V-Day