The Blues

This weeks theme at Digital Tuesday Challenge (where I am the Guest Designer this month, still happy dancing) is your favorite color. My favorite color is blue. But I am mostly in need of Easter cards right now so I wasn't sure how to make this work. I love this image from Pollycraft called Follow the Leader. I thought it would be wonderful with blues and a couple of little yellow duckies! I printed my image out on a piece of white cardstock 3 3/4" by 5 1/4". I extended the grass line right to the edge of the paper with a black marker. I colored the image using Prismacolor pencil crayons. And outlined it using my other Copic B00. I paper pieced the flower above and popped it off the page with pop dots to add a little dimension. I colored the flower underneath a dark gray. While I have seen this idea around I was inspired to try it by Amy's post from the DT for last weeks challenge. Be sure to check out all the DT posts, there's so much more inspiration there than just a picture! I used Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Broken China to color the sky. I think I maybe got a little carried away with it, but it does make for a blue card, lol!
Added a 3/8" Grosgrain ribbon in Island Blue as a border for under the image. The bubble border was a Silhouette image cut out of sparkly light blue/gray paper. I then cut just the outer edge of the same border from white cardstock to put in behind. I added Diamond Sparkles to the bubble accents. A thin strip of teal cardstock makes the top border. The clouds were also a Silhouette image cut from Dollar Store glitter paper and I cut and traced the sun from yellow felt. A piece of cardstock with my Happy Easter sentiment makes the sun's center. I used pop dots to lift the sun off the page too.
Be sure to join in this weeks challenge sponsored by Robyn's Fetish!
Thank-you for visiting!

Not Your Typical Wedding Card

This is a complete scraplift from Birds Cards. She offered a cut file and a tutorial on how to make this card. I customized mine to match the bikes of our 2 friends that are getting married. I also added the ribbon ties at the back with some eyelets tied on to look like tin cans and the Just Married signs. Other than that I just imported the cut file into my Silhouette, cut it out, and put it together. It was a little like putting together a ship in a bottle because of the small pieces. While it is time consuming, it creates a unique and personalized card for friends!
My lessons learned: I think I should have made it bigger. I made it to fit an 11" piece of cardstock, so each bike is 5 1/2" long. But bigger would have been better (and easier). I also wish I had used a heavier cardstock for my bike/card base. It does stand up on its own, and I didn't want it too thick with all the layers I knew I was adding, but it could have used a more solid base.

I would like to share my card at:
Love to Create anything goes, closes Mar. 25,
Cute Card Thursday anything goes, closes Mar. 28,
The Poodles Parlour anything goes, closes Mar. 30,
Crafty Purple Frog anything goes, closes Apr. 4,  *won 3rd prize*
Fussy and Fancy anything but square/rectangle, closes Apr. 6

Digital Tuesday Challenge Guest Designer (That's Me)

Hello all, and welcome to my new followers! I appreciate each and every one of you! I hope all the UK Mums had a wonderful Happy Mother's Day and were treated royally!
This week at Digital Tuesday Challenge the theme is 'Life is Peachy'. Now I didn't have a lot of peach paper, so I went with all the different tones of peach; pink, orange, yellow, tan and peach.....and blue, but just for the clouds :o) I decided to make a birthday card for my niece Marley. She turned 3 on March 18th. My image is Woodland Lucy from All That Scraps. Colored with Prismacolor pencils, Zig markers, and my Copic (E11). I used Diamond Sparkles on her lace and barrette. I embossed the background frame with Cuttlebug's Seeing Spots folder. Inked the edges of the pink mat and then used Distress Inks on the corners of the inside frame. I used the print and cut feature on my Silhouette to cut out my image and set her on the edge of the frame. The kite and clouds were a free Silhouette image this week. It even cut the kite tail perfectly. My goodness I love that machine. I added faux stitching and popdots to the kite and clouds. The little pink flowers were from Michael's dollar bin and the peach one is a rolled flower I made.
My lessons learned: my embossing folder is a 4x6 and my card was a 5x5. So I ran my cardstock through my Sizzix Texture Boutique (the one that looks like a purse) once then lined up the dots and ran it through again. This did create a bit of a seam where I overlapped them, but since this was the background frame, by the time I added all the layers it was barely noticeable. Another trick I've learned is to color the white parts of my image with a white pencil crayon. It just adds a nice bit of shine to your otherwise dull white cardstock.
Be sure to join in the challenge this week as the sponsor is Spesch Stamps! And thank-you for dropping by!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

I love St. Patrick's Day. It is almost my favorite holiday. So I made this card for my Grandma. You've heard me talk about her before, she is 97, still has her own apartment, and does the Seniors Home visits for the Church. She's a very special lady.

I used a doily lace Silhouette image for my card base. I ungrouped the image and then deleted the inside row of triangles from the doily so that my image could be bigger. I expanded the center section so that it just reached the new inside row of cuts. Cut out my layers and used my printer to put my image onto my white cardstock. My cutie digistamp is from Tiddly Inks new Wryn collection.  I cut the base out of green glitter cardstock, with a white back for my sentiment. I ran the base through the printer to add the Irish verse and then went over it with my green glitter gel pen. The overlay was cut out of regular green cardstock. I cut out the center piece from white cardstock and ran it through the printer to add the image. I colored her with a combination of Prismacolor pencil crayons and my E11 Copic. I also bought another Copic. Now I have 2. I used B00 (Frost Blue) to outline my image. That's going to take some practice, but I like the look. Green Imaginisce glam rocks set with my iRock are her hair barrettes. I used my Silhouette to cut out some very small shamrocks from 3 different colors of cardstock. I placed them over the flowers in the image to create a shamrock bouquet. The centers are some very small, self-adhesive rhinestone gems found at the Dollar Store. I used an orange Gingham ribbon for my bow. For my butterflies I cut 2 sizes of orange cardstock butterflies and the same 2 sizes of a checkered vellum to go over top.

My lessons learned: Don't press down too hard when outlining your image or your thin blue line turns into a thick blue line very quickly. The blue outline does cover up any bleeds from your coloring~bonus. I did have to replace some of the shamrocks because they absorbed the blue Copic color as well.

I would like to share my card at:

Pixie Dust Studio show us your Irish, closes Mar. 14,

Card Crafter's Circle orange and green and St. Patrick's Day, closes Mar. 15,
Card Makin Mamas let's see some green, closes Mar. 15,
Simply Create Too I'm sooo lucky, closes Mar. 15,
Kaboodle Doodles show green, closes Mar. 18,
Sassy Cheryl's wearin' of the green, closes Mar. 19,
Simon Says a bit o' green, closes Mar. 21,
The Squirrel and the Fox for someone you love (My Grandma Kay), closes Mar. 23,
Deep Ocean Challenge butterflies, closes Mar. 26

Guest Designer *Happy Dance*

I applied at Digital Tuesday Challenge for their Design Team. While I didn't make the design team, a very, very, lovely lady named Lora offered me a Guest Design spot for a month. I haven't even mentioned anything about it until today because I wanted to be sure it actually happened first (you know, one of those pinch me kind of moments). Anyway, here we are, my first card as Guest Designer. The theme this week is Think Spring. My image is Charlotte and Butterfly from Milk N Coffee Digital Stamps.
I colored my image with a combination of my Copic (E11), glitter gel pens, prismacolor pencils and Zig markers. I used the rounded lattice card template from my Silhouette images to make the lattice background. I used a rolled flower template from Birds Cards that I imported into my Silhouette and cut my flowers out of. She also provides an awesome rolled flower tutorial on her site too. I cut the daisy from a pastel patterned paper and placed a gem in the centre. I LOVE the way the patterened paper turned out. For the 2 smaller flowers I just used cardstock and a small half pearl in each centre. The bow is a fork bow made from my potato masher. I found the bows made with a regular fork are very small. When I googled "fork bow" and I selected 'images', I saw someone had used a potato masher, which works well to make a bigger bow. A flower brad makes the center of the bow.
My lessons learned: you can get away with doing most of the shaping for your rolled flower petals after you have rolled them. The inside ones get wound pretty tightly so it's really just the outside ones you'll want to bend and shape once you've rolled them.
Hope this has you thinking Spring, and better yet maybe even enjoying some Spring-like weather!

A Good Laugh

This one is funny. It's for one of the husband's best friends. First I ran my card through my printer to add the front page sentiment. I received this lovely (if not very practical in our good old Canadian climate) digistamp from Sassy Studio Designs. I imported the image into my Silhouette and flipped it horizontally. I followed the sketch at Inspirational Card Sketches. To make the background for my stamp I took an oval frame, rotated it 90 degrees and used the knife tool in my Silhouette to cut the bottom third off of it. Then I used the offset button to create a 1/4" mat. I used double sided tape to make the folds in the ribbon and added buttons tied with twine on each side of the ribbon. I colored my image using Prismacolor pencils and Zig markers and my Copic (E11). I paper pieced her bikini, with very small pieces of red gingham patterned paper. Very small. I printed the Stella image from Bugaboo Stamps right onto the inside of the card, along with the inside sentiment. That meant I couldn't use my Copic for her skin, so I just used the Prismacolor pencils and my markers for her. I used glossy accents on her name tag and glasses.
I hope he has a laugh!

Front page sentiment: At your age chasing younger women is bad for your health...
Inside sentiment: At least the healthcare is free!
I would like to share my card at:
Creative Card Crew humor, closes Mar. 11,
Charisma Cardz ribbon, closes Mar. 13,
Creative Craft Challenge boys will be boys,closes Mar. 13,
The Poodles Parlour birthday, closes Mar. 13,
Bugaboo Stamps show us your humor, closes Mar. 17, *2nd Prize Winner!*
Divas by Design favorite things (digi stamps), closes Mar. 21