A Little Elf Told me...

That you need to RUN, not walk....RUN to the TGF blog to check THIS out!

This is it, folks....we have to apologize in advance if you miss it, but there is a HUGE Black Friday surprise planned so RUN...don't walk...RUN!!!  (ok, ok you get it :)

Well, I'll keep today's post short and sweet, but I want to wish ALL of you a VERY Happy Thanksgiving, and even if you don't live here in the US, know that we are thankful for you, too.

Marie and I wouldn't be where we are, not to mention having SO much fun doing it without our WONDERFUL friends of Club Anya and TGF., not to mention our AMAZING Design Teams.

So enjoy your day with family, friends, your stamps maybe even ?    Just know how GRATEFUL I truly am.

Love and Hugs,

Jessica, Anya, Ian, and the TGF Fam ;)

A Few Fun Formulas for Hair Color!

Hi All.....
Since one of the most important things in coloring Anya or Ian is choosing their hair color.....I thought it would be fun to show you a few favorites of the Club Anya Design Team.....
We all color differently and all the formulas given to me were different, even though there were actually four brunettes.  I really want to do a video of coloring hair but it might have to want until after Christmas as I have asked for a Flip from my hubby....

First up is my Formula for a medium brown.   I use this a lot as it is almost my own hair color.....

Colors used are E31,E25,E29 and just a touch of E49.

(I color over the little circles on my mermaid's hair as I cover them with gems or pearls. )

Next up is Amy...I just LOVE that RED!!!

colors used:  YR04,YR07,E09 & E18

Next is Pam

Pam used E33,E35,E37 and E53

Then we have Suzi who uses Promarkers  to Color

Suzi used Raw sienna, Mustard and Vanilla Promarkers.

Next up is Jessica's Brunette.....

She used E50,E31,E55,E57

And the final one today is Kim...who couldn't decide on a Favorite...so you get 4 from her!!

Kims colors are as follows....

Red  E08,E99,E97 and finished off with 00clear Atyou Spika Pen

Black 100, C3, C1

Blonde E53, E50 and a hint of E97

Brunette E79, E74, E71

Note: Kim uses the colorless blender in her highlighted areas on all.

I also wanted to show you one I was working on that I started as a blonde and then changed and ended up using 6 colors on the hair....I started out with Y11,Y21 and Y23....and then brought in E31,E33,and E35.

A few more colors than I like to use...I was just playing.

I hope these formulas will help you...remember it takes some practice and the more you color the better you become.

Have a Great Day!!  Hugs.....Kelly

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MYSTERY MONDAY...On ICE!...

Hello friends!

I am back with another Mystery Monday challenge for you....Yay!

This week, the wonderful KRIS has agreed to be our hostess!  Thanks Kris!  I just loved the frosty feel (albeit virtual because I actually dont' like the cold, LOL!) that I got from her SUPER sparkly Angel Anya card:

So we're hoping that this week's Mystery Monday challenge gives you the chills!!!

Here are the details:

1.) Create a card, project, etc. that GIVES US THE CHILLS!   You can use an all-blue theme, sparkle, bling,  icicles, snowflakes, ice, etc.  Just something that will have us singing "Ice Ice Baby" for sure!

2.) You MUST use Anya OR Ian (no Sprouts, H/G, etc.) on your card or project to qualify for this Club Anya challenge.   Winner will receive THEIR CHOICE of Anya or Ian Single stamp *in stock*

3.) You have until Sunday, November 29th at NOON CST to play. KRIS will choose her winner and it will be announced here on the Club Anya blog on Monday, November 30th.

4.) Please upload your creations to TGF Galleria>Club Anya>Contests/Challenges>Mystery Mondays> Ice Ice Baby

GOOD LUCK and have fun with this one!
~Jess ;)

Amy's altering... round 2

Happy Friday everyone!

Today I thought I would do a little show and tell about how I 'open eyes' with my Anya stamps. If you missed my Altering 101 post from last month you'll want to check it out here as today's technique picks up after steps 1-3 of that post.

Alrighty, here we go!
The nice thing about the Anya stamps is that they are all pretty much the same size and this makes it very easy to swap features from one to the other. So if you love Princess Anya but wish she could take a look around once in a while all you need is any of the open eyed Anya stamps, a light box or a nice bright window and a good drawing pen.
For my example I wanted to open up the eyes of Angel Anya (yep, I'm still working on Christmas cards) ;) so I grabbed the new Lolli Anya with her 'smiley eyes' because I thought they would look great on a joyous little angel.

Step 1: Stamp the Anya with the open eyes on one sheet of paper then stamp the Anya you'd like to alter (with her closed eyes wiped away) on another sheet of cardstock.

Step 2: Tape your open eyed Anya onto your light box or window.

Step 3: If you are using a light box turn off any other desk light you might have on... this will make it easier to see the image underneath as you lay the Anya your altering over the bottom one. When you've got their faces lined up just right add another piece of tape so she doesn't move around on you.

Step 4: Now it's time to grab your pen. I use a Copic multiliner 0.1 when I'm doing little things like eyes and mouths. Now all you are doing is tracing, which is not too hard at all. :)

Step 5: Once I traced her eyes on I decided to go ahead and trace the smiling mouth too.

After that all you have to do is carefully remove the tape and separate the two images. There you have it... a brand new take on any of your Anya stamps ready and waiting to be colored. Don't forget that the same technique can be used to close eyes as well. The more Anyas you have the more combinations of features you have to play around with, providing endless combinations of new attitudes and expressions to these amazing little gals!

And here's my finished card. On the inside I stamped 'rejoice, rejoice, rejoice' and I think she looks to fit the part really well now. :)

I hope this inspires some of you to look at your Anyas with new eyes (pun intended, LOL) and try your hand at mixing features. Be careful though, it can be quite addictive and you'll be wanting all those different Anyas more than ever!
Have a wonderful weekend everybody!

Christmas Presents

Hello and happy Thursday. Before I get started on today's post I want to remind everyone that today is the day that the digi Fairies are being released over at The Greeting Farm store. Have you been enjoying all the previews on The Greeting Farm's blog this week? I just adore these images and have really enjoyed everything that I have seen the DT come up with. If you haven't already done so go check them out. You are going to love them.

I have made a couple of Christmas presents that I would like to show you. The first one is a 4x6 photo album I made for my mother. I am an only child so my son is my mother's only grandchild so needless to say he is very spoiled by her. I made her this album to put some of her favorite pics of him from Christmas morning. I have several pics of the album and I will try to explain a little about the album at each picture. This first pic just shows the front of the album using Ian from the Xmas Sweeties stamp set.....

The next pic shows how I decorated the inside left cover of the album. The album is 2 pieces of cardstock joined together in the center with brads just like a post bound scrapbook album is. I used clear envelopes for my page protectors for the pics that go inside.....

The next pic shows how I decorated the back inside cover of the album.............

The last pic gives you a view of the complete album. I did use extra thick textured cardstock so that the album would be a little sturdier......

My next present is for Garrett's teacher. I decorated a candy bag with Xmas Sweeties Anya and put some Christmas candy on the inside.

Here is a close up pic of the colored Anya and the hand written name tag.

Both of these presents are decorated with the Merry Merry Patterned Paper pack from The Greeting Farm.

I hope you have enjoyed looking at these gifts today. They were a lot of fun to make and a very inexpensive gift, but something you would be proud to give as a present. If you have any questions about these projects that I did not explain then you can email me at stampingpam at catt dot com and I will be glad to help you.

Thanks so much for stopping by today. We will see you right back here tomorrow with another awesome post for you.

Hugs,

Pam

Flapper Anya in a Spin

Good morning everyone,

I just love to create a different dimension to a card and here flapper Anya is in a spin, tee hee. I have stamped Anya once then without re inking stamped again to give a faint outline. You will want it on two pieces of paper so that when you colour it won't bleed through to the front. Next it's time to use your light box (or window, empty picture frame over lamp) and your creative imagination to draw the back of Anya. Lay the faint image down and trace on the back...

The main differences is the hair and her hand, which will be behind the dress. I didn't do the feather on the back piece either, less fiddly the better hey? Next it's time to cut out both anya's, mine just about matched up you can trim till they do. I have adhered a little fishing line down the centre of Anya and sandwiched it between the two. Now Anya can spin in the circle aperture.

A totally fun thing to do is spin Anya round quite a few times before placing in the envelope then she will turn round and round when the recipient opens up the card... just magic LOL! Wanted to share something fun to try out when your new stamps arrive, I hope it inspires and thanks for stopping by today, HuGs Kim :)

note: I have made a little video of me colouring the hair. Ok I wanted to post it today too but I'm just struggling to get it to the computer. I'm hoping to sort it by the end of the day so bear with me it's my first EVER video.... thanks :)

Fun with Digis!!

Good Morning fellow Anya Addicts, Bet you gave in to temptation and bought more than one of the new releases this weekend, hard to resist an Anya stamp, doesn't matter if it's rubber or digi they are always so much fun to work with.

Today i thought i'd share with you a couple of creations using Digital Stamps.  I never thought i'd enjoy working with digital stamps, as i love rubberstamping, and to be honest i wa a bit of a 'rubber' snob, thinking rubber stamps were best.  I've since changed my mind, i still love rubber stamps, but digital stamps are great too, and you can do some great things with them that you can't do with a rubberstamp.

My favourite thing to do with digis is to flip the image, therefore giving you another digi for free.

You don't need to be a technical wizard to do this, or have an expensive graphics package, the easiest way of doing it is to go to the folder you keep your images in, right click on the image, select copy from the menu; then right click on a blank area in your folder and the menu will appear again, and select paste. 

Now you should have the original file and a copy of it, now to flip it; right click on your new file and select the edit option, this will open the file in your default graphics package.  For most computers the file opens up in 'Paint', all you need to do them is go to the 'Image' menu at the top of the screen, and select the Flip/Rotate option, you'll then get a little box giving you your options, select horizontal flip click the OK button, and the image will flip in front of your eyes.  Save the file before closing the 'Paint' package.

If you now go to the folder where you found the original image, you should have the original and next to it the flipped version.    I hope that all made sense, and helped, If you have any questions then leave a comment and i'll get back to you with an answer :)

If you like working with Digital files and fancy trying something a little more complicated, why not buy the 'Dirty Sugar' Digi Kit from The Greeting Farm, and have a go at creating your own digital pictures......

This is my new title picture for my blog, all elements came from the Digi Kit, and Marie has given us her permission to use it on our blogs, as long as we give proper credit and acknowledgement to The Greeting Farm; isn't that great, Thank You Marie.

Thanks for joining me today,

Suzi

xxx