PCJ DT Card: Jellypark - Photo Inspiration

Greetings, crafters!  Yes, time is flying and it's already time for another challenge at Paper-Crafting Journey!

This week's challenge is a photo inspiration

Photo Source

and our sponsor is Jellypark, home of some really cute digital images!

Before I get to my card for this challenge, I want to mention Jellypark's special stamp collection. 100% of the proceeds from the 2012 sales of their special collection of Fundraising Stamps go to support Little Havens Children's Hospice in the UK. More details about this charitable project and Little Havens can be found at Jellypark here and you can visit the Litte Havens site here. Check them out - super cute stamps and a really great charity! =)

So... my card for this week. Jellypark provided a few images for the design team, but I thought they were so cute I went to check out their site and I fell in love with two of their images and was inspired to create this:

From the photo inspiration, I took the idea of cake (yum!) and originally the colors pink and blue as my main card colors. As my card developed, I ended up replacing the pink dp with a warm yellow, but I've got lots of pink touches, from the cupcake srapper to the pink pearls and the pink in the printed cardstock. All the printed cardstock is from the DCWV stack Sweet and I used a textured white cardstock as the 6"x6" card base.

I immediately saw this sweet little guy as baby brother to this darling little girl with her cupcake. He is part of the set Let's Fly Away that also includes a kite and a balloon. I flipped him in Word and sized him to stand next to his big sister. =) I also bought the Happy Birthday tag. The bunting is from this set.

I colored all my images with Copics. I wanted some texture to my cupcake icing, so I tried Adirondack acrylic paint dabber in Snow Cap. While it was wet I sprinkled a tiny bit of Doodleburg glitter in Bumblebee over it and I added Distress Stickles in Spun Sugar to what looks like a little gumdrop on top of the cupcake.

After I colored and fussy cut all my images, I tucked the birthday tag under the little boy's arm and tied a little bow on the tag with some twine. I did a little embossing, rubbing a large-balled stylus around the back to give a bit of a curve and dimension to the kids and popped them up on foam squares. Then I went a bit crazy with the pearls. I just got a bunch of Hero Arts pearls and I couldn't resist them! Last but not least I added a little silver "M" for Melissa, whose birthday was this week.

I also did a very simple inside using the bunting again and a small image of the Cake Shop. I did a quick coloring for the inside, not trying to be too careful or detailed, almost like an imcomplete watercolor. 

So, there's my Jellypark birthday card... I still love those two kids... so cute! I will definitely be visiting the Jellypark shop and creating some Jellypark magic again. =) 

In the meantime, why don't you head on over to Paper-Crafting Journey and see the other DT cards - they are FABULOUS! 

Have a great couple of days 'til the weekend and I'll see you soon!

Happy Crafting!

Christy  

SAS4K Challenge DT Card: Things with Wings - Dragon Tales & Tropical Ostrich

For my PCJ DT card, click here
For my Flutterby Wednesday Guest DT cards, click here

Time again for another Send A Smile 4 Kids challenge... and this fortnight it's Things with Wings! Birds, bees, butterflies, fairies, angels, flying insects... or dragons! If it has wings, we want to see it on a card made for a kid!

This week we are especially pleased to be linking up with Flutterby Wednesday to do a card drive. Fellow SAS4K teamie Hilde and I are both guest designers on this week's Inspiration post - check out the challenge details here, and guidelines for donating cards here!

Our prize sponsors for this challenge are the lovely Stamping Dragon Designs and Karen's Doodles - both are offering up a few of their digis as prizes. Check out the details on the SAS4K challenge post!

Our sponsors also offered the DT some images to play with... my first pick was SDD's Jiggy's Book. I know the world of reading is going electronic, and although I am a fan of all the conveniences of modern life, one thing I will never be able to give up is my love for "dead tree" books. There is something about the tactile experience of holding a book, turning the pages, flipping back to reread, carrying it around with your finger between the pages to mark your spot while you visit the fridge for a drink... the smell of books in a library... the feeling of knowing you've only got a fraction of an inch's pages to read til you get to the end and slowing down to savor every last page. None of that do I get from swiping my finger across a screen or tapping a button. And the smell of electronics is not very interesting. LOL Anyway, I decided to make a removable bookmark with my little dragon image to encourage the dead-tree book habit in a younger generation.

After I submitted my DT photo for the SAS4K page, I decided that my card and bookmark needed a little glitter. I was worried about ruining it, so I held off for as long as I could, but you know me and those bottles of Stickles just can't be kept apart for long. LOL

Here is the before...

And here's the after...  what do you think?

I love these papers... they are from the DCWV pack Once Upon A Time. Lovely ethereal castles in the fog... prints and colors that make me think of my favorite tales of medieval-based fantasy worlds where swordfighting and magic and dragons are part and parcel of everyday life. So Jiggy reading his book on Dragon Tales might find himself at one of those castles. I used a lot of Tea Dye and Walnut Distress Inks on the papers, inking the edges and sponging over my papers.  

The set comes with both black and white and a colored image. I chose to use the colored image as it was exactly the colors I wanted, if a little bright. I used Word to tone down the brightness and used the mosaic bubbles effect to give a little aging. I also lightly sponged a bit of Antique Linen and Walnut Distress Inks over the printed image.

My Once Upon a Time sentiment stamp is from Magnolia. I also used an Italian font stamp from Hero Arts and both stamps were printed using DI.

The stamps that I used at the bottom and top of the bookmark are Flourishes by Crafty Secrets I used Walnut DI and then stamped again randomly using Versamark and embossing with clear UTEE for some gloss and shine. I tied on a bit of chocolate brown ribbon around the top.

I used Versamark and platinum gold Perfect Pearls burnished in with my fingertip on the border around the center piece and stamped over it with a celtic knot in gold. I cut two of the emblem circles (and in the end glittered the top one) which form a little pocket together with the sentiment flag to hold my bookmark.

Here they are separated.

 And a few more gratuitous shots in case you haven't already overdosed on photos...  LOL

My second card, which ended up being quite challenging for some reason, was Ollie Ostrich from Karen's Doodles...

I had fun coloring up Ollie, and I used white Liquid Applique on his feathery ruff to give it some dimension. I was planning to use the image as a rectangular white piece and highlighted him in a light blue, but then decided he needed to be trimmed out. I used an embossing stylus to round him out a bit and popped him up off the black cardstock with foam dots, which is why he doesn't look like he fits the black trim around him, unless you look at him straight on. I was fighting like mad with my paper cutter to cut straight so my cuts are all a bit wonky and driving me crazy. I've since sussed out the problem, so I'll probably take this apart and recut the black pieces before sending him off. Drunk crafter was not the look I was going for. LOL  The flowers are WOC and the pink ribbon is Offray-Berwick. Not too many embellies as I wanted simple and colorful. =)

So... hope you are inspired. There are lots of fantastic creations over on the Send A Smile 4 Kids challenge blog from my teamies, so head on over there and do consider joining the card drive challenge at Flutterby Wednesday as well as the SAS4K challenge! Happy Crafting!

Christy

Guest DT Card: Flutterby Wednesday's Card Drive Challenge

For my Paper-Crafting Journey Pretty Pastels Challenge post, click here

This week Hilde and I are guest DTs over at Flutterby Wednesday challenge blog where they are doing a Card Drive for Send A Smile 4 Kids! You can check out the challenge details here and see all the Design Team's flutterby and fairy creations on their Inspiration Post! This week everyone who enters is encouraged to send their creations in to Send A Smile 4 Kids to be forwarded on to children in hospitals:

Send A Smile 4 Kids is a charitable blog created for the purpose of collecting donated handmade cards to be distributed to children while they are inpatient at Children’s Hospitals. Currently we are donating them to the Children’s Hospitals in Neenah and Milwaukee, WI, University of Iowa Children's Hospital, Iowa City, IA, Blank Children's Hospital, Des Moines, IA, Sandford Children's Hospital, Sioux Falls, SD, and to the B.C. Children’s Hospital in Vancouver, British Columbia and Stollery Children's Hospital in Edmonton, Alberta, in Canada.   On any given day, there are many children inpatient in these hospitals so we would love to receive as many cards as you can send to cheer them and their families. 

My first card is a fairy card, using Sweet November Josie's Cupcake, available from All That Scraps as both rubber and digi stamps.

I won this stamp - and nearly all of the supplies I used on the card, including the card base - from Amy over at A Thousand Sheets of Paper during the release bloghop a couple months ago. Josie is one of the Fairwees and they are ADORABLE! I can't wait to get them all. =)

 I used Copics to color my stamp, with a little Stardust Stickles for Josie's fairwee wings, Liquid Pearls for the icing decorations and some Perfect Pearls mixed with water for a shimmery icing.  

The papers are DCWV Sweet and I used some yellow dotted ribbon and aqua twine that was part of the kit Amy sent me. I used a Martha Stewart border punch and deckled oval Nesties from my own stash. I couldn't find a sentiment stamp that quite fit and I wasn't in the mood to create one in Word so I handwrote my sentiment in a dark purple metallic gel pen. The last accent were some of the flatbacked pearls Amy had also included. It was really nice having such a wonderful collection of papers, cardstock, ribbons, buttons, embellies and flowers to work with. I have enough to make lots of cards yet, so you'll be seeing more of these bits soon!

Challenges for this sweet treat: 

All That Scraps - Anything Goes

Stamping with the Dragon - Challenge #6 Things With Wings

My second card was this cute butterfly from a Paper Smooches set I picked up recently. I love the kid-friendly graphic look of Paper Smooches stamps and I always marvel at the stunning CAS creations she features on her blog... there are lots of her sets on my wishlist. =)  You can even pick up some great digi freebies here.

I started with these ProvoCraft papers and went for a very girly pink and purple scheme. I inked the edges of my papers with Dusty Concord Distress Ink and layered them up.  I used Copics to color my pretty little flutterby and used something new in my stash - White Picket Fence Distress Stickles - to give a subtle shimmer and glint to her wings.

I cut a cardstock circle and a Spellbinders Dahlia, inked the edges and stamped on a sentiment from the same Paper Smooches set, using Dusty Concord Distress Ink. After an errant water drop made the s bleed a bit, I recovered by using my purple metallic gel pen over the stamp lines and added some random dots.

I also used something new in my toolbox... this 5-point flower die from CC Designs, also available at All That Scraps. I cut two large, two medium and one small flower out of lavender cardstock and another dp from the same ProvoCraft slab and very lightly inked all the edges with Dusty Concord and Spun Sugar Distress Inks. I spent a bit of time playing around, bending petals back and forth to get some dimension to my flower. I popped through the middle with a tiny little brad from Making Memories and then glued it down over some sweet pink and white twine. I can see why everyone is falling in love with this stuff. =)

 I added a few pearls here and there then stood back and died of diabetic shock from the final sugary-sweet girly cuteness of it all. LOL  I do love this one. My inner crafty four-year-old doesn't want to give this one away. I may have to wait until she's asleep so my outer adult can get it into an envelope, address and mail it so that a 'real' child can enjoy it. <grin> 

I'm springing this card into these challenges:
Frosted Designs - Things with Wings
Penny Black and More @ Allsorts - Springtime
Let's Ink It Up - #21 Flowers
Crafty Sentiments - Things With Wings
Simply Create Too - #9 It's Spring

Don't forget to flutter on over to Flutterby Wednesday for inspiration and join us this week in the card drive for Send A Smile 4 Kids! You can find some simple guidelines for creating cards to donate HERE.


I'll be back soon with my DT post for our SAS4K challenge! See you soon - Happy Crafting!
Christy

I'm Late! PCJ DT Card: Kenny K - Pastels

I feel like Alice's white rabbit today... running around like a crazed neurotic exclaiming, "I'm late, I'm late, I'm terribly late" to myself every 5 minutes!

First, may I say that I do not condone violence generally. That said, when it comes to whoever made the decision to enact Daylight Savings Time, I will make a HUGE exception. Every year they disrupt my biorhythms to steal an hour from our lives. An hour doesn't seem like much... so why is it that it takes me more than a week to recover from the loss? Last year was better... I got up 15 minutes early every couple weeks between New Years until I was getting up an hour early and the time change didn't affect me so much... but this year? OMW. Lying in bed, cursing my brain for refusing to be tired and then watching as the clock ticked away until it was even after my normal bedtime from last week. Sigh. Let's just say my thought processes this week were challenged after only a few hours' sleep Monday and Tuesday nights.

To make things worse, Wednesday ... ah, Wednesday.  It was my mom's birthday (Hi, Mom! XO) and I headed over to her house after work and planned to come home and do my post for PCJ. Leaving her house though, I fell as the stones on the steeper part of their driveway rolled out from under my feet. Thank goodness Dad wasn't watching me leave or I'd never hear the end of it. LOL  So I came home, took some Advil and decided to lie down for few minutes to let it start working before sitting at the desk to do my post. Next thing I know, the emergency always-set alarm was going off and it was time for work! Lights on all over the house, the TV blaring in the other room... and the dogs. Loose in the house. All night. Bored. The kitchen trash was now kitchen, hallway, living room and dining room trash. Fun times.

I was late getting out of work Thursday, and when I got home I needed to clean up the doggie "party decorations" from the night before, get dinner and give the dogs some outdoor time before getting to my post. By the time I was done, I was so exhausted I could hardly keep my eyes open. So I figured I'd be ok to set my alarm early and get up Friday morning to do my posts. And yes, you know what happened. I slept through all FOUR alarms. I have yet to understand why I can wake up at 2 or 3 in the morning when I want to be sleeping, but can't manage to wake up enough to realize I'm turning off alarm clocks.

Anyway... here I finally am, and I'm not sure the wait (or reading through all that rambling) was worth it, but...
 WELCOME TO THIS FORTNIGHT'S CHALLENGE - PRETTY PASTELS! - AT PAPER-CRAFTING JOURNEY! Woohoo! =)

Our sponsor for this challenge is Kenny K who has a very recognizable style. As my coloring skills improve and I finally learn to color hair properly, I hope to be using more of his stamps! I got to try out a blonde combination on this beauty, Uptown Angel

I'm not altogether happy with my final card; it's more simple than I originally intended, but I do like how my Kenny K girl came out. I paper pieced and then used just a touch of Copics on her shirt and pants, using background digital papers from Bearly Mine, adding a little gold metallic gel pen on her cuffs and earring. I fussy cut her out and popped her up on foam dots. The papers are DCWV - Nana's Nursery Baby Girl, and I used the Spellbinder diamond dies. The flowers are Wild Orchid Crafts and the gems are Hero Arts. The flower is not quite as orange in person as in the photos, but a pinky orange that is somewhere between the orange flowers and pink diamonds on the bg paper. The hello stamp was a $1 Michaels find, using green chalk ink.

You can see the fantabulous pastel creations of my fellow teamies over at the Paper-Crafting Journey challenge blog. I hope you head on over and are inspired to create a pretty pastel pick of your own!

Happy Crafting! =)
Christy

SAS4K Challenge: CAS for Kids - Birthday cards

Happy Saturday!  Time again for a new Send A Smile 4 Kids Challenge and this time around it's Clean and Simple cards for Kids!

We've got three great prizes up for grabs:

a $15 gift certificate for the Doodle Pantry

3 sets of digis or cutting files from The Cutting Cafe

and 4 digis of the winner's choice from Sassy Studio Designs

The DT got some lovely digis to play with... first up is Harry from Sassy Studio Designs

I had a lot of struggles with this one. My first idea for a card used the entire digi. I can't tell you how many times I colored it... ok, I can. Four. Some of the areas were so small it was difficult for me to keep in the lines, but worse, even when I did, it would bleed. The fourth time I got pretty close, except for a bit of burgundy bleed on his hand and an unfortunately blue halo around his, well, let's say... behind him. LOL So I thought maybe I could salvage him if I fussy cut him out... and then, it happened. Oh, Harry. A broken wand. And no Elder Wand at the ready to magically repair it. Sigh.  I probably could have finagled some sort of Glossy Accents and toothpick support, but by that time I was too annoyed. I was going BIG on my next try! I sized Harry up to get his head and wand hand into a 5.5" square and added a sentiment in a Harry Potter font knockoff. I colored him up and added Glossy Accents to his glasses before layering it over a 6" black base card and adding some dark red gems. Clean and simple. And best of all? DONE! LOL

My next card went so much easier.... I saw Cowboy Birdie by the Doodle Pantry and I knew exactly what I wanted to do from the start...  

Cowboy Birdie comes in a set with both black and white line art and a colored version. I wechose colored, fussy cut and with a touch of diamond Stickles on his hat band and boot flames. =)  I created the main layer in Word, inserting a rectangle shape  with a bold black outline and filled with a red paisley digi paper from Summer Driggs' Freedom set at Summertime Designs. (LOVE her!) My sentiment is done in a font called Rustler. I popped Birdie boy and a little blue star I also Stickled to death (haha) on foam dots and then layered it up on black cardstock and added it to a 5x7 white card. A pop of bright color, plenty of white space and a touch of cute. =)

I'm itching to get crafting now! LOL Why don't you head on over to Send A Smile 4 Kids and check out my teamies' creations while I pull out a few Copics and a bottle of Stickles. I'll catch you later! 

Happy crafting!

Christy

PCJ DT Card: Anything Goes Challenge - The Most Adorable Panda

Greetings! I'm not really sure what happened to February, but I'm afraid it was one month I don't want to repeat. Life at work since my last DT posts have been a bit hectic and I'll admit more than not I've come home brain-fried, without the energy to craft or visit my bloggy friends. Bleah. =( 

Fortunately my DT responsibilities have forced me into the craft room --which is why I was interested in joining a DT in the first place, so good on me for planning ahead LOL -- and I've had some fun playing with pre-colored images the past two weeks. I felt like I was cheating, but it was so relaxing not to have to think too hard about my oh-so-still-developing coloring skills. And the image for my card today is so cute, who could stay in a gray and blah mood playing with The Paper Shelter's image The Most Adorable Panda? LOL

This fortnightly challenge at Paper-Crafting Journey is easy peasy.... it's ANYTHING GOES! The fabulous prize is a $20 gift certificate for our wonderful sponsor, The Paper Shelter, so you can go a little wild in the shop! =) 

As I mentioned, my pick of the digital images so generously offered to the DT by The Paper Shelter was The Most Adorable Panda, available in both black and white line image and pre-colored, and it also comes with a terrific turquoise digi paper. The set inspired this:

Adorable image, right? Now you see why I couldn't resist? LOL

I spent a little time searching for some kind of bamboo print and I found a free illustration image on Microsoft.com which I resized a bit in Word and printed on cardstock. With it trimmed up and popped up on foam dots, I love the look as a backdrop for the panda image, which I also cut out and layered on thinner foam dots. I wanted a touch of natural materials and I had this Chinese character in my stash that I knew I wanted to use. This character is roughly translated as health, as in wishing someone the blessing of good health, not just in body but also in spirit. Considering how many of my coworkers have succumbed over the past month to some really awful "upper respiratory viruses", OI'm thinking it would make a great inside joke to make it into a Get Well card of sorts. LOL For now the inside is sentiment-free until I decide. =)

After sizing and printing my digi paper, I added a strip of this really gorgeous cream-colored Curvacious Chamois ribbon from Berwick-Offray which is really soft to the touch and has a curling, twisting quality that looks great on three-dimensional projects like wreaths and bows. And I loved it against that soft turquoise color and in contrast to the jute mesh ribbon I paired it with... until I tried taping it down to secure it. Flattening it just killed that beautiful curviness, but after about 20 minutes I finally managed to wrestle it into submission! I braided a few strands of two shades of hemp twine, weaving in the Chinese health charm and adding that over the mesh ribbon. As a last touch a few Hero Arts pearls were dotted here and there.

I have to say that I love what my fellow teamie Jessie did with the same image. She combined the cartoon-like panda with a really lovely background. So inspiring, and it's always interesting to see how many different directions you can go with the same image! =)  You can see her card and get more inspiration from the rest of the Design Team's creations using other Paper Shelter images over at Paper-Crafting Journey... then get to crafting and link up your papercrafting projects! Can't wait to see what you create!

I'll be back Saturday with some cards for Send A Smile 4 Kids, so until then, happy crafting and best of health to you all! I'll try to get out to my bloggy friends soon, hopefully on the weekend if not sooner!
Christy