A Girly Pastel Birthday Card... with a cherry on top!

I had a very crafty weekend (and I think, as a result, I had a good workday even on a MONDAY!)

One of the cards I got done was a birthday card for one of my nieces. Her birthday is coming up in July and she's a fan of pink and purple and fun girly bright pastels. So, after checking out some challenges, inspiration hit and this is what I made...

My first card with an interesting fold! Card Pattern Sketch #119 and the accordion fold challenge at Scrapalicious combined in my head and I knew exactly what I wanted to do!  The card actually looks better than I expected for my first try at lining up everything so it works both closed and open.  Cardstock is Colorbok textured pastels, sprinkles papers in pink and white are digis from Summertime Designs, and the solids and striped/swirled dps are all from a ProvoCraft Slab. [As a side note, I'd wondered how long I'd had this paper so I did some googling, and it looks like 2004 or 2005 at the absolute latest. Scary how much time can go by without you really noticing!]  Nesties, a Heather Ellis digi stamp - such a cutie! - a little gloss on the cherry, some Sizzix'ed letters and a few little epoxy sticker dots and ta-da!

Cute girly sweetness, even without flowers and frou frou. =) 

I'm entering this card in the following challenges:

Sweet Stampin - Food Glorious Food

Card Patterns Weekly Sketch Blog - Sketch 119

Stamp Something - Something Punched

Scrapalicious Challenge #6 - Accordion folds

This weekend was so much fun!  My carpet's rather hairy, there's dust on every shelf, but my soul is bright and cheery today, so it was definitely worth it. And I get to actually show these projects to my mom tonight in person! =)  

So, see you all soon... til then, Happy Crafting! =) 

Father's Day 2011

My dad is not a tie-wearing kind of guy, but I wanted to join in the fun at Hambo Stamps with their Hambo Hoedown. This week's image is one of three ties, combined for this challenge with a sketch:

Since my dad is also not big into cards and definitely not into a bunch of frills and doodads (much like my mom, see the relative 'plainness' of my Mother's Day card that she absolutely loved here), I feel a little less guilty about focusing on challenge requirements than my dad's tastes. Just a little. Hmmmm. A big bag of coffee nips or peanut butter blossoms to go with it, and I doubt he'll even remember I gave him a card. LOL

(Ok, Blogger, I give up. I've tried a half dozen times and it keeps rotating my card image from vertical to horizontal and I can't find any instructions on how to make it flip back, so... please don't get a crick in your neck turning your head to see my card! LOL)

Anyway, so I played with the color scheme from this week's Color Throwdown challenge... the colors match the Baja Breeze-So Saffron-Pear Pizzazz color combination better IRL than in my photos. The bit of argyle pattern, the green dots paper pieced into the tie and the green background dp are all from Summer Driggs' at Summertime Designs, color-altered in Word. I really love her stuff, and it color-alters so beautifully in Word. The "Dad" is a Word Art. A little textured cardstock, some oval Spellbinder Nesties and a few runs through the Big Kick and voila!  Simple, but bright and cheery.

So I'm entering this card in the following challenges:

Hambo Hoedown - Let's Tie One On!

Color Throwdown - #145: Baja Breeze, So Saffron & Pear Pizzazz

Creative Inspirations - #115 Card for Dad

Crafting For All Seasons - #2 Father's Day

Stamp, Scrap and Doodle - Father's Day

My last couple of cards have used a lot of (or mostly!) solid-color cardstock, but I have lots of dps and digital papers to work with in my stash, so now that Father's Day is over and challenges start focusing on more girly or kid themes again, I'm hoping to get into more interesting backgrounds and combining patterns. I'm amazed sometimes what combinations some of these crafty queens - and kings! - come up with... papers I never would have thought to put together, but their final cards are stunning. And flowers - ooooh, the things I see on Wild Orchid Crafts challenges...  ok, deep breath. Beginners have to start somewhere... LOL

So, I have a couple of birthday cards to work on this week... will be back with those... wish me luck! And Happy Crafting, everyone! =)

Summer Beach Monkey =)

Hi! Well, on to my 3rd project/card for an online challenge...  the pictures still suck. I know, I know.. it's nighttime and not the best for picture-taking, but I think my camera's got some scratches on the lens. I think it's 7 years old, and for a digital camera, just like a PC, that's ancient. LOL So the colors aren't the greatest in my photos, but they're as close as I'm going to get tonight.

I based this on Card Patterns sketch #118, but missed the deadline to get it finished for that challenge (it's been a loooooong week with few moments in the crafty space). The final size was larger than my (lately) normal 6"x6" card as I intend to use it as a decoration instead of a card.

I used one of my Bugaboo beach monkey digital stamps.  I used a die-cut scallop and tumbled glass distress ink to make the sky trying out a technique Bev Rochester posted on her site All the things I love. I really like the effect even on my first try, so with practice and a better cloud template, I think I'm going to be quite pleased with this technique in my arsenal. I used some faded jeans and broken china distress ink to paint in an ocean.



Colored my little monkey with Promarkers and added a touch of sand to his castle as well as to the curved beach. I used gold shimmer Mod Podge so there's a hint of golden shimmer between sand grains. Doesn't show on the photos, but IRL it's a nice effect. The sun was made in Word using a circle and a 12-point star shape both formatted in gradient shades of yellow and orange. A bit of twine to hide the bottom edge over a Martha Stewart punch and voila - summertime!  I used a striped sheet from a Provocraft Seasons & Celebrations paper pack I've had for a while (bought when I thought I might get papercrafty a few years ago and didn't). And the cardstock is cheapy Walmart stuff from about that same time period.  

Since I missed the Card Patterns entry deadline, this little guy is getting linked up to

Catch the Bug Challenge "June Anything Goes" and

Craft Your Passion challenge #61: "Anything Goes"

I must say, although it took me a while and things are still a little tight on time, I'm enjoying getting into the crafty spirit of cardmaking and papercrafting. It's nice to be able to work at something creative and have a finished product. So much of my "creativity" at work (if you want to call it that) is just problem-solving... which is nice, but there's not really a final product, a finished thing to look at or point to and say, "I did that."  Just new problems and more stuff to do in a never-ending to-do-list parade.  Sigh.

Well, thank goodness for crafting!  And blogs! =)  Happy crafting everyone!  'Til next time... 

Papertake Weekly Sketch & A Graduation Card

The oldest son of one of my friends graduates this year. I was debating about what to make when I saw the Papertake Weekly sketch for this week:

Papertake Weekly Sketch #56

 As soon as I saw it, my card design popped into my head and the IRL card is pretty much as I first imagined it. (And much better than it looks in these awful pics.  Please forgive these horrid cellphone pics. My digital camera has gone MIA. Eek!)

The green and gold are his school colors.  The gold and black papers are Colorbok and have a delightful pearlescent sheen to them and the green is textured cardstock also from Colorbok. I used some Stickles in Platinum and Lime Zest for some sparkle here and there and to add some interest to the plain sheer black ribbon I chose. (How is it possible to have spool after spool after spool of ribbon and STILL not have just the "right" one?!)

I used my Spellbinders Nesties to create my stars, using the largest for the gold star and the next two sizes down together to make the black outline star. I paired those together behind my Pink Cat Studio Billy Graduate digi stamp which I colored with Promarkers and cut out. I didn't get too involved in shading. I keep smearing the printer ink when I use light colors (faces!); after some poking about online, I think I should try using the draft setting and see if that helps.  I used two layers of pop dots for lots of dimension.

On the inside I cut around the negative created from making the front gold star and made more stars out of my scraps. The larger white star is only glued down on 8 edges so there's space to tuck a check into it (under the little gold star.)

I stayed really simple with my papers. He's not a dp and embellishments kind of boy, so I used the sparkle and sheen and textures and dimension for interest. And, of course, the check that gets tucked into the larger white star on the left is the REAL focus anyway, right?  LOL 

The next projects coming up are all Girl birthdays of various ages and interests so I'll get lots more practice with mixing dps and embellies in the next couple weeks. =) Bring on the frills, fairies and flowers! =)

Happy Crafting!