SAS4K Challenge: Spring/Easter Card for Kids - Over Da Wall Puppy

Good morning and happy Saturday! =)

Just popping in for our Send A Smile 4 Kids challenge post! It may be cold and dreary, at least at my house, but we're thinking SPRING! Our challenge is Easter/Spring cards for kids and we're sponsored by two great digi stamp sites,  Delicious Doodles and Robyn's Fetish. One lucky winner will receive 4 digis of their choice from Delicious Doodles and another will win 5 images of their choice from Robyn's Fetish!

Our sponsors generously provided a number of images for the DT to play with. Now, I have to be honest and admit the image I chose was not my first choice, but I was a bit of a late start and most of the DT had picked those delightful bunny images that they used on their wonderful Spring cards. I felt a little sorry for this poor little puppy, sitting there, forlorn and unchosen. Having caught my attention, she realized this was her chance and sent me the hint that she would be a perfect first try for 3D decoupage or paper tole that I've seen here and there in bloggyland. So I printed her out...again and again and again! After coloring and layering her up, I must admit, she was the perfect choice. Just goes to show what a difference a a pair of scissors, a bit of Copics and a touch of glitter plus time and crafty love can make. =)

 Isn't she a sweet pup? =)  I chose to layer in three sections. First I did the entire image as a back layer. This was my first attempt at coloring stones in a wall. In my trial-and-error practice I tried to blend some blue into a mix of gray and brown, but I wasn't quite getting it, and I was using a basic Georgia Pacific with a little less blending power than the smoother Heavenly Weight paper I've used. So, I went for a more simple look just using my ProMarker warm greys. I will say, too, that my favorite rocks got hidden under my sentiment and flowers, but sometimes you have to sacrifice for layout's sake. LOL The rest of the image was colored using Copics. I used a combination of scissors and an X-acto knife to cut all the fiddly bits out between the flower stems and leaves as I knew I was going to lay the image over a blue field.



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My next layer was the flowers, her entire head and the ledge with her paws. I used just a little Diamond Stickles on the flower centers and curved the petals a bit to give them a little more dimension. Then I attached the layers with 1/16" foam dots. Still working on hair and fur techniques, so she's not got too fancy a 'do, just a little shading.

The third layer was her muzzle and her paws. I used a bit of glossy accent over her nose to give it a little shine. These were also attached with the 1/16" foam dots.

I added a sentiment circle from Lili of the Valley which was originally white, but it was too stark, so I colored it over with an even coat of the lightest green I used in the leaves and stems. I cut two more flowers out of the extra layers and colored and Stickled them the same way as the others. I attached these with 1/8" foam squares so they would be about the same height as her paws and the nose.

I used papers from the DCWV Spring Stack. and some ivory and peach textured cardstock from DCWV and Colorbok, respectively.  I used a little Distress Ink in Pumice Stone for the edges as the cardstock was fading into the background papers. A few little flower crystals from Colorbok, and there you have it. One cute pup, ready for Spring!

If you're inspired to color up a pup of your own, you can find Over Da Wall Puppy here at Robyns Fetish!  Come join us over at Send A Smile 4 Kids and check out the rest of the DT's creations and then create a Spring or Easter masterpiece of your own! See you soon! 

Happy Crafting!
Christy 

PCJ DT Card: Make It Cute Challenge - Lily Valentine Ballerina

 Hello again, my bloggy friends!   It's Thursday morning and time again for another challenge over at Paper-Crafting Journey!

My mom had a bit of worry over me for the last challenge, as I pre-schedule my posts to release at the same time as the challenge. Our blog owner, Lisa, is in the UK while I'm here on the eastern coast of the US, so there's a 5-hour difference and I post at 3 a.m. to match her 8 a.m. post. My mom didn't know that and had a real bit of worry that I'd been up to the wee hours and would have a rough day at work. So... <whispering quietly> Mom, it's actually 9 on Wednesday night, shhhhhhh! =) Even as grownups we kids give our moms a rough time, eh? LOL

The card productivity has been light the past couple weeks as I'd been having some vision issues with painless migraines which made detailed crafty work a little difficult. I have, however, been practicing some techniques which will be showing up in the next month or so, and am now back to being able to get back to my regular crafty play. Yay! <insert moment of futterwacken>

 So... on to the challenge... 

This fortnightly challenge is Make It Cute! This challenge was a great fit for me as cute is my comfort zone and our sponsor is a fave of mine, Pink Cat Studios! Melissa has the cutest line of stamps which are available as digis on her site and in good old-fashioned rubbah at a number of retail locations worldwide (find a list here). For this challenge, the winner will pick up 5--yes, FIVE--of her images. =)

For my DT card I used Lily Valentine Ballerina to create this simple little valentine...

This was an interesting coloring experience... her face is darker than I intended as I have discovered the danger in having too many markers lying out at once on my desk. One of my blending passes was supposed to be E000 and ended up being E01. And I'm still having a maddening time getting consistent hair coloring, so half way through I ended up coloring it more or less solid. Hopefully I'll be able to log some practice time this weekend. =)

The red heart doily is a cheapie from my local grocery store. You never know where you might find a crafty item! Since it was a bit intricate, I stayed pretty simple in my paper choices, using only a red marbled paper from an old ProvoCraft slab and some textured black and cream cardstock from Colorbok and DCWV.  I didn't want to cover up too much of the doily so my usual image treatment (fussy cut with a bit of a white edge, popped up on foam dots) was perfect. =)

I used a lot of Glossy Accents on this one - I punched out two sizes of hearts from the red marbled paper and coated them with Glossy Accents, fixing them to my card after they'd hardened. I used Stardust Stickles on her sleeves and dress hem and her heart wand. After it dried, I used Glossy Accents over the Stickles on her wand. I really like how it looks, so that will definitely be showing up in future. =) The sentiment is a dollar Studio G stamp from either Michaels or Wal-Mart.

The three roses are from WOC and I tried to leave them plain, really I did. For all of an hour. Then the Stickles bottle was calling to me and my sparkle addiction kicked in and I just got all caught up in the glittery goodness. Sigh. I did, however, manage a tiny bit of restraint and it's just the merest hint along the very edges of the rose petals.

Hope you were inspired to craft yourself up a bit of cute and join us over at Paper-Crafting Journey and if you need more, come see the super cute creations from my fellow teamies! Good luck and happy crafting! =)

Christy

SAS4K DT Card - Anything Goes!

Happy Saturday! =)

I'm back with my first SAS4K DT card! Today's challenge at Send A Smile 4 Kids is an easy one: Anything Goes for Kids!  Even better, there are FOUR generous sponsors for our challenge and they are offfering you a chance to win some really great prizes:

One winner will receive $15 to spend at CropStop,

Krista at Saturated Canary will gift someone with 2 digis of their choice,

someone will get 3 digis of their choice from Karen's Doodles and

Susana at Susana's Custom Art and Card Design (SCACD) is offering this awesome Sylvia Zet stamp set:



See more details about the stamp set here

You can check out all the detils over at the Send A Smile 4 Kids Challenge Blog!

For my card, I chose one of the super cute Karen's Doodles images - Dragon Birthday. I knew the moment I saw him that he was meant to be red. It was fate! LOL

I colored my little dragon buddy first using the R20s series Copics, and then went paper shopping in my stash to coordinate the other colors. The papers are from two ProvoCraft slabs I've had for a while. The balloons paper is very likely to make an appearance again very soon... I love the colors and the sort of handpainted watercolor-and-pencil look to it. I found these cute little candles (another Jesse James Dress It Up item, I believe) hiding in a little drawer while I was looking for some button-y type of embellie. I layered it all up and added some red Offray grosgrain and the ever-present Stickles. <grin>  

I had a number six already cut and I thought it made the perfect addition in place of a sentiment (except for the fact that there are FIVE candles on the cake. shhhhhhh! Don't tell!), and glittered it up with the same Stickles I used on my dragon's belly and the Nestie circle mat around my image. As a final touch I added a few frosted gem buttons in the corners. My fingers itched to put a few more little doodads here and there, but I liked the relatively clean and simple look to this. For a six-year-old, glitter and bright colors and one cool red dragon breathing fire is high design. =)

So... are you inspired to whip up a card for a kid in your life? Hope so! Do come and join us over at the SAS4K Challenge Blog and check out the rest of the DT creations!

See you soon, my bloggy friends! Happy Crafting!

Christy 

PCJ DT Card: Fairies & Angels Challenge - Isabella

Hello, bloggy friends! It's that time again for another challenge at PaperCrafting Journey and this fortnight we're looking for your best fairy or angel creations! 

Our sponsor this week is The Emerald Faerie Garden, home to Linda Catchlove's line of whimsical little faeries and the winner will receive two digi images of their choice! Check out the details over at the Challenge. =)

I chose to use Isabella. Isn't she charming, sitting on her little hill with her flutterby buddy? 

My card this week is another experiment of sorts. I originally intended a very light pastel Spring-y flowery kind of creation, but when I was flipping through paper pads, I saw these K&Company's Jubilee Specialty Papers. Yummy! The colors in the butterfly inspired my color choices for coloring Isabella's outfit. I am normally not into yellow/gold or coral, so I'm finding it hard to decide whether I'm happy with my coloring or not. LOL

The sky behind her was originally a solid flat blue, but I wanted to create some clouds. I decided to try lifting some color out with the colorless blender and then used C00 to create shadow edges. My plain green grassy knoll wasn't too spiffy either, so this is my first attempt at grass blades. Can you tell I started on the left and was finally getting the hang of the flicking motion by the time I got over to the right side? LOL Her wings were lightly colored with the lightest yellow and coral colors before a nice coating of Fruit Punch Stickles which is a great combo of pinkish-coral and gold glitter. I trimmed around her wingtips and feet and the flutterby wings to be able to cut around the image with a circle Nestie and layered it up, using some Distress Inks on the edges. I bent all the wingtips out  little to give them added dimension and popped the decorative circle up on foam dots.

I added a number of Martha Stewart branch punches and some Wild Orchid Craft flowers which I glittered with Diamond and Fruit Punch Stickles. I used some of the Copics from my image to color some flatbacked pearls and as a final touch, I punched and layered a Martha Stewart butterfly cut from the same K&Co paper and added some small black pearls for accent.

Check out my teamies' cards over at PaperCrafting Journey and I'm sure you'll feel inspired to create a little fairy magic or angel goodness for yourself. Can't wait to see what you create!

In the meantime, I'll be heading off to enter my own card in these two challenges this week:

      Crafty Catz - #117 Things with Wings

      Glitter Geeks - Week 4: Myths and Legends

Happy crafting!
Christy