Card Design: Digi Darla's Challenges #60--Let's Celebrate and Some Special Freebies

Welcome to my second post this wonderful Monday morning!  Hope you have all had a marvelous weekend.  Time for this week's challenge over at the dynamic Digi Darla's Challenges Blog. This week for Challenge #60 the theme is "Let's Celebrate".  It is time to show us your projects that cover any type of celebration, i.e. birthday, graduation, or the event that I am focussing on today, anniversary.

Now it just so happens that today's celebration challenge actually falls on our 24th wedding anniversary so it is fitting that I showcase the card I created for my husband.  On April 29th, 1989, at 2:30 pm I married my soul mate.  We have most definitely had our ups and downs.  Unfortunately, a lot of downs BUT we have stuck through it thick and thin only to emerge stronger out the other side.  I'd be nothing without this man by my side.

If you are reading this hubby, I'd recommend that if you would like your card to be a surprise, you might want to avoid reading any further and just come back to this post sometime tomorrow.

Don't forget one person will be the lucky winner of FIVE Digi Darla (DD) images!  AND any entries using a DD image get entered into a SECOND drawing for THREE images. So, you could technically win eight images! Imagine the fun you could have with all those digis!  If you do use one of Kim's fabulous images make sure you write DD after your name.

I've used the following digis:

• Digi Darla's Valentine Bears  
• Digi Darla's I Love You solid
• Digi Darla's I Love You open

Here is the front of my card...

Here is the inside...

Here are the card details, I hope I haven't forgotten anything...

General Information:

• Our wedding colours were peach and ivory so I though it fitting to use all the peachy coloured paper. 
• I have used this sketch from Tuesday Morning Sketches.

  Digital Image:

• Valentine Bears (front):  The image on the front of the card is Digi Darla's Valentine Bears.  It was coloured using Copic markers.  Bears:   E31, E33, E37, E39 (fur); R22 (ears); BG10, BG15, BG18 (bow).  Flowers:  Y11, Y13, Y15, Y17 (petals and stamen); YG61, YG63, YG67 (leaves).  Balloons:  YR000, YR00, YR02 YR04, YR07.  Clouds:  Colourless blender, N0, C1, C3.  The image was then fussy cut and adhered to the front.
• Now aren't those two of the cutest little bears you've ever seen?!  That's me there on the left and hubby on the right.  Now we're both quite a bit lighter in skin tone but the roundness definitely fits me.  The boy bear should have been slimmer though, but all in all, a pretty good representation of the two of us.  Kim has certainly captured the love in our expressions!
• The balloons were fussy cut and then I added charcoal cross stitch thread to act as balloon strings.  I duplicated the right balloon, coloured it up and used a 1/8th inch 3D adhesive dot to give it added dimension.  
• Clouds (front):  I came up with an ingenious idea for the two additional clouds I used.  I wanted them to have the same basic shape as the cloud "we're" sitting on.  So, you know how you can make conversation bubbles in a lot of graphics programs?  Well, in Microsoft Publisher I used this feature.  I made them the length and flatness I wanted and then created a white square to cover up the little circles that emanated from them so they'd look like clouds.  Then I fussy cut the shapes, coloured them up with the same colours I used on the main cloud and adhered them with three dimensional adhesive tabs to pop them up a bit.

Digital Sentiments:

• 'I Love You' sentiment (inside):  The first part of the sentiment on the inside of the card is a combination of two different Digi Darla images.  The first and third 'I Love You' solid word art can be found HERE, and the middle open word art can be found in the store HERE.
• The rest of the sentence, "Three words I will never get tired of saying!" is one I created and is available as a freebie below in honour of this special occasion.  I've also included the sentiment from inside the card I created for the San's design blog hop and a couple other treats too.  

Paper Products:

• Card base: Michael's Recollection's Cardstock, white.
• Designer Papers:  The cloud paper comes from the Recollection's All Seasons paper pad.  The rest of the DP paper comes from Recollection's Bright and Basic paper pad. 

Challenges I hope to enter include:

• Stamp 'n Doodle -- No Embellishments
• Word Art Wednesday -- Challenge #77:  Anything Goes
• 613 Avenue Create -- Anything Goes/Picture Inspiration Twist
• Creative Inspirations Paint -- Inspired by...Anything Goes
• Crafter's Digital Art Centre -- Anything Goes
• Paper Makeup Stamps Digi Makeover – Challenge #86:  Celebrations
   

Some more challenges may be added to this list later this week and/or month.

So, why not come and show us what you've got by entering in our current challenge this week over at Digi Darla's Challenges?  While you are there please check out the wonderful creations from the rest of the design team.  We always look forward to seeing the delightful creations you come up with.

  Now for the reason the other 300 of you are here...

Six freebie love related sentiments in honour of this special day:

 Please see below for font information, download instructions and usage summary.  Remember that I would love to see anything you create using one of my images.

Well that is it for this post.  Have a wonderful day everyone!

Thank you so much for stopping by.  As I've now added to my comment section, whether you are a regular, here for the first time or popping over in your official capacity as a DT member, please know how much I appreciate the words that you leave behind.  Your encouragement helps me to become a better designer.   I try my best to reply to your comments (when an email address is available) but that is getting more and more difficult as my plate fills up with new responsibilities, new roles, and new obligations.  If I don't get the opportunity to thank you personally, know that I don't take a single comment for granted. Thank you for your understanding.

Until next time,

Fonts Used: 

•  Virgin Love
• 2 Peas Heart's Delight 
• SK Summer Love 
• AEZ Hearts 
• Jenna Sue 
• JLR Simple Hearts 
• Luvable***

Click the font names to take you to a download location.  All fonts but Luvable are commercial use.  Luvable is unknown so be careful if you sell anything you create using this font.

If you are not sure how to copy the image, check out the download instructions page.   If you haven't already, please become familiar with my terms of use found in the copyright tab at the top of this page.  Quick summary of Terms of Use:   

• Do not claim the image as your own.
• Credit 'Decosse's Dynamite Doodles' somewhere on your creation.  You may sell handmade creations using one of these sentiments.  Just be sure to become familiar with my full terms of use.
• Do not share my images with family, friends, etc.  Additionally, do not post any images to file sharing services like Pinterest®, 4-Shared®, etc.  Instead, please direct people to my blog so they can grab the image for themselves.
• If I have signed an image, do not delete my signature.
• Leave a comment on my blog.  It is currently the only way for me to know if any of my freebies are being nabbed.  Additionally, it will help to inspire me to continue to create and offer future freebies.

Note: I apologize if there are any further formatting issues.  This is a scheduled post and we all know Blogger has a mind of it's own.  If it turns out that something looks wonky, i.e.--part of the sentence is a different size, font, or colour than the rest, I'll fix it as soon as I'm able to.