PCJ DT Card: Vintage - A (Shabby Chic) Tasty Read

Good morning!

Another (even more) super-quick DT post for me... I have been so distracted by everything going on the last week or so I even spelled "busy" wrong in my last post. (My mother noticed. LOL) I think I meant to type "crazy busy" and just made it one word. LOL  Anyway, it's time again for a new challenge at Paper-Crafting Journey.

The DT had a choice of two great Elizabeth Bell images... I picked A Tasty Read. And then our fearless leader Lisa S. chose VINTAGE as the theme for this challenge. If you remember my very first PCJ DT card, you might also remember that vintage is not really my cup of tea... so I rolled my eyes once (ok, maybe twice) to get it out of my system and got to crafting. My finished card is more in the realm of shabby chic I think...

Again, my original plan got lost in the moment, but the soft green and pink are pretty IRL. And I love that lace ribbon, not to mention a chance to get back to using flowers on my card. =)

Be sure to check out all the challenge details and my teamies' fabulous Vintage/Shabby Chic creations at Paper-Crafting Journey and I will be back soon! And be prepared... after all these short posts, I have lots of chatter all bottled up! LOL

Happy Crafting!
Christy

SAS4K DT Card: For the Boys - Super Kid & Summer Monkey

Hey, everyone! This is going to be a shorter post than my usual... wait, who just yelled "woohoo!"???  Shush!  As I was saying... short post. I'll fill you in later on my buzy week, but I have about 30 minutes to get this done, so to the point I go...

It's time for a new challenge at Send A Smile 4 Kids! This challenge is all about cards FOR THE BOYS. Snips, snails, puppy dog tails...  or in my case a cape and the ol' undies-over-tights outfit and a monkey splish-splashing his way into summer. LOL Our sponsors this week are Karen's Doodles - offering 3 digis, Bugaboo Stamps - 7 digis, and the Stamp Shoppe - a $15 gift certificate.

My first card is a Karen's Doodle image.

I colored first and then fussed forever to find patterned papers. I finally came up with creating the black and white rays in Word. This is third attempt at coloring black and I really like how his outfit came out, at least the real life version (the pic is a little lighter than it looks IRL). Not perfect, but better than I expected, which is always a nice surprise. LOL Elements on this one are Star Nestabilities, EK Success Sticko glitter star and dot stickers, Christmas Red Stickles and a sentiment done on the computer. And my ever-present foam dots.

My second card was not what I started with for this challenge. A last-minute disaster as I was taking photographs on Wednesday involving a cup of tea and a rather large furry doofus I might have mentioned recently who has taken to popping her head out from under the craft table at random moments during my crafting. So... I had to color up a new Bugaboo image and create a whole new card at the last minute! Here's my second card...

I know, I just did a Christmas/winter card with a snowflake, crying over missing the best bits of winter. Ah, well, blame that on my Gemini horoscope as well. haha  If I had to do it over again, I might make the image bigger, but it still is cute! Elements for this one are a Bugaboo image (love this monkey!), an EK Success beachy border punch, I think the wave border punch is also EK Success, more of those EK Success Sticko dots, a blue foot paperclip from the Walmart office supply aisle, papers from DCWV, foam dots (for the image and under the sentiment (which was done in Word) and the painted wooden umbrella from my stash.

I will say I've been experimenting with my coloring a bit more and had a lot of fun with both these images this week. If your mojo isn't chomping at the bit to get started yet, click on over to the SAS4K blog and see what my teamies were up to and get your creative juices flowin'!

Th-Th-Th-Th-That's all, folks!  See you soon and 'til then...

Happy crafting!

Christy

PCJ Challenge DT Card: 3 or More Patterned Papers - Blue Winter

Ok, so it's still Thursday so I'm not technically late to post my Paper-Crafting Journey Challenge DT card... technically. LOL

I was tired last night and so I thought go to bed early, get up early! Noooooo problem. Um, yeah. Total state of denial. Once upon a time I might have gone the way of my father, for whom the crack of dawn is an actual sound... but after nearly four decades, I am clearly my mother's daughter when it comes to sleeping patterns. At least one of my older brothers is the same way. 2 a.m. is prime time. Our brains are hopping, our energy is up and... the rest of the world is dead asleep. Sigh. My brother did the smart thing long ago and moved to NYC, the infamous city that never sleeps. I, however, live in a small town where they roll up the sidewalks at dark. These days supermarkets and Wal-Mart stay open 24 hours while they stock shelves, but it's not like those are really happening places to hang out. Thank goodness for the internet. So getting up in the morning makes no sense to my biological clock. None whatsoever. And I still haven't recovered from the time change when they stole my hour! Even having gone to bed early, I slept through all the early alarms. The last alarm finally managed to wake me and I had no time to spare. Made it to work on time though! LOL Anyway... on to the challenge...

First up, our challenge has moved! The new address is http://papercraftbliss.com/thejourney! Check out the fresh green color and the funky font Lisa has used on the new site. =) And don't forget to follow using either Linky Followers or RSS feed to your Google Reader or other feed manager!

This fortnight our challenge is any paper craft using 3 or more patterned papers! Our sponsor is Robyn's Fetish and they are generously offering our winner FIVE digital stamp images!

I worked on a few different projects, but none of them were really coming together the way I wanted. I was a bit frustrated until I realized what the problem was... I miss glittery snowflakes! There, I said it. We had a blah winter with no snow, no snowmen, no happy days stuck inside during a mini-blizzard drinking hot cocoa and snuggled down with friends and family or at least the fur-kids watching movies, safe and warm at home. And I miss the fun of pre-Christmas crafting with all those glittered snowflakes everywhere. So... here is my first winter/Christmas card for 2012! LOL

I kept it super simple. The papers are all DCWV Winter Stack.  I used a lovely die cut set from Clear Dollar Stamps and layered my snowflake with foam dots over it. The snowflakes are Martha Stewart punches, liberally coated with Stardust and Waterfall Stickles and the gems are Recollections.

Very simple, but very satisfying. And I love blue. It's the color of happy skies and cool waters.  

My other teamies were much more focused this week and they have some really colorful inspiration for you. I particularly love Lisa W's creation this week. Such a great scene made out of patterned papers! You can check them all out at the new site here. Then get busy crafting and show us what you've got! =)

See you soon - happy crafting!

Christy

Doctors Day Card & My Furry Doofus

For my SAS4K DT cards, scroll down to the next post! =)

Hi! Hope everyone had a delightful Easter! I had a lovely lunch with my parents and my youngest brother. I love those warm family moments where nothing is particular notable about the conversation or the meal and it's not necessarily a big event like a birthday or Christmas, but you still get a comfortable warm, fuzzy feeling that stays with you long afterwards. =)

Just popping in to share a card that I mass produced last month. March 30th was Doctors Day and I had 30 of these to create that were signed and given to them by our admin/transcription/secretarial group!

Since I was mass producing, I kept it pretty simple. I noticed when I was done that my proportions ended up a little different on some of the cards. On this one the black ribbon is about in the middle, but the original intent was that the ribbon and border strip were lower so there was a two-thirds to one-third ratio going. Ah, well. Cramming thirty of these things into about a week's "free" time didn't leave a lot of room for ultra-perfection. Not that you ever get that from me anyway. LOL

I used Hero Art's Flower Dot Pattern that is one of their BasicGrey coordinating stamps. I saw Jennifer McGuire using it all the time and finally had to get it for myself. I love using all the images, but I do like cards like she does where the focal point is not a cute little girl or bunny or bear. Maybe it's my Gemini nature - I have a hard time settling for one style of anything. LOL The star border is a Martha Stewart punch, the big star is a Nestie, the black ribbon is from Berwick-Offray and the gem is Recollections. Pearlescent silver cardstock is Colorbok and the black is Recollections. WHite cardstock is Georgia Pacific and it's The star is popped up on foam dots. Even going simple I couldn't stray from that bit of dimension. =)

I know for sure that I will not be mass-producing any cards for a while if I can help it. With do-overs for the stamp images and the occasional crooked border punch and accidental ink-swipes, I am really sick of that stamp image at the moment. LOL

I haven't really posted pics of my fur-kids before, but I had to share this one....  the backstory? My Lab, Zoe, is a sneaky trash collector. She usually eats--or at least rips, chews and spits out bits--of paper plates, napkins, TV dinner boxes. Drives me insane some days! The dogs and I had been slowly eating our way through this container of white cheddar cheese puffs that were on special for Easter ("Cottontails" har dee har har). We finished it up and I tossed the container last Sunday.  Monday night there was a ruckus under the craft table and I looked and saw this:

She would freak out for a moment sort of hopping about frantically, then suddenly stop and lick the cheesy bits, then remember she was stuck and freak out a bit more, then stop and lick.  It was hysterical. "Aaaaack, I'm stuck, I'm stu-ooooh, tasty! lick lick.... Oh, aaaaack, I'm stuck, I'm... oooooh, tasty! lick lick...."  LOL   My friend Lisa says maybe I should have named her Homer Simpson. =D  I did stop giggling long enough - and after a few photos - to pry it off her ears. She's definitely my big furry doofus. My other dog 'Liss was rolling her eyes, well, at least the doggie version. They play together well most of the time, but everyone once in a while I can tell 'Liss is saying, "You are such an idiot, Zoe" in doggie body language. LOL Poor Zoe.

Speaking of mutts, they're doing the 'Hey, Mom, let's go out" dance so I'm off...

Have a crafty week, everyone!
Christy

SAS4K DT Card: Mother's & Father's Day - Bears and Roses

Good morning!  Sorry I'm a little late to the party this morning but Blogger is, well... the software gremlins are up and about today. Need to add some anti-glitchy gremlin spray to my shopping list. =)

It's the first Saturday of the month... time for another great challenge at Send A Smile 4 Kids! This fortnight our challenge is Mother's and Father's Day cards for kids to give to their parents. And we have FOUR terrific prizes from our sponsors:

* 5 digis of your choice from  Whimsy Stamps *

* Digi Doodle Shop is offering a $10 gift voucher *

* $15 towards a purchase at the Crop Stop *

* 5 quid to spend at Cuddly Buddly *

Prizes are picked randomly, so anyone can win! And better yet, you can send in your cards to be donated to children in one of seven hospitals. See here for more details!

Digi Doodle Shop and Cuddly Buddly generously offered the DT some images... I knew right away when I saw this little guy that I wanted to paper piece him. And I knew just what papers I was going to use...

Except for the dark blue cardstock, this card is entirely digital papers and paper-piecing! I used Summertime Designs' Fathers and Fedoras Kit and Vintage Oreos. She has some fabulous, fabulous kits... and free! I used several prints from the Fathers kit for the layers and for my bear's little hat and coat. I still don't like my fur coloring yet, so I used the lighter and darker damask papers in her Oreos set, tweaked just a bit for color temperature in Word, for the bear's fur and the Hedgehog's prickles.

 I started by printing my digi on white cardstock for the base layer before printing all my designer papers out on 20-lb printer paper and running them back through to print my bear image over them. I layered them up one at a time starting with the bear's fur; since the paper is so thin, there's not as much dimension as using cardstock and burnishing it in the style of Mariska (LOVE!), but it still adds a little something in person.  I used a black pen to add in some more spiky detail on the hedgie and colored his face, hands and feet with Copics, too.  I added some Copics grays on the bear fur and his little plaid outfit in an attempt to achieve a little more dimension. Plus (of course!) I popped him them up on foam dots. I admit my addictions. LOL

My sentiment was created Word, using the old style Word Art and filling the "Dad" with one of the digi papers. The finishing touch on my clean and simple card were two gray screw-head brads I picked up at Michael's. I see this morning that my teamie Karen had similar ideas with paper piecing and used similar brads. Great minds! LOL 

  

For my Digi Doodle card, I looked through the website a few times to let something 'speak' to me. Lots of images were shouting, so it was a hard decision! I finally settled on this lovely floral heart.

I colored my image with Copics, sticking with the R30s for the roses to get a coral color that would match my digi papers, which this time are from Nitwit Collections - Thimbles and Threads. I spent some time burnishing my floral heart image with a large-balled stylus so it would have that great dimensional curviness when I popped it up on foam dots.

 Again, I went thin and printed on basic printer paper, except I printed a bit of the quilted coral on cardstock to punch my Martha Stewart butterflies. I kept seeing these teeny tiny beauties on other cards, so I finally located a punch and bought it. I keep resisting the urge to punch butterflies out of everything I see. LOL I took some light orange and yellow pearls which I touched up with R35 Copics to more closely match my papers.  

To finish, I added some peachy-pink sheer wired ribbon. I had it the way I liked it for about 60 seconds, before a nosy dog peeked up from under the craft table, knocking it out of my hands. The bow went wonky and I ended up fussing and faffing about with that darn bow forEVER. So much so that looking at it now, I see I forgot to add the tails. No wonder it doesn't look right. LOL  Well, I can always give up bows like my friend Squirrel (although between you and me, I think she's a right bit harder on herself than she needs to be). I added one of the punched butterflies with some pearls to the bow as my last touch. The finished card isn't exactly what I pictured, but it's pretty... and each card is a learning experience for the next one. (Bows with tails, Christy... bows with tails.)

 

My teamies have whipped up some fantastic creations of their own... click on over to the Send A Smile 4 Kids challenge blog and get inspired!



See you soon, and until then... happy crafting!
Christy