The Party Continues... on the Pony Express!

Hello, hello, helloooooooo! Back again, with another birthday card as threatened, er, promised. This one was created for my friend's grandson who is turning 1 this month. I know the card is more for his mama than for him, but I kept it cute, colorful and simple anyway. After all, it will end up smooshed in a baby book or a box of mementos, right? LOL

I had fun coloring up this Party Pony image from Whipper Snapper Designs, by the same artist who created last week's Party Kitties...

Isn't he just the sweetest? =)

I colored him with my Copics, adding shimmer, shine and sparkle details with Glaze pens (hat, pressie and saddle), Stardust Stickles (hat pom) and clear Wink of Stella (saddle, pressie and sweet little posies).  The clouds, most of which got cut off/out of the image when I die cut it, were made with a combination of colorless blender, C0, and a bit of a white Souffle pen, so they have just a little texture and rise off the image.

I used a combination of dies - Spellbinders scalloped and standard circles and MFT Blueprints 15.. My papers are from the new Hip Hip Hooray pad from Doodlebug. I foresee an addiction to Doodlebug pads coming my way shortly! =D  My sentiment is from Simon Says Stamp's Handwritten Borders. I admit I held my breath while I stamped it! Thank goodness my stamping skills have improved. =)   I popped up my image for just a teensy bit of dimension (considering its future storage haha), and added a few epoxy stickers here and there. The final touch was the number 1 from the MFT die set By The Numbers. Cut from the same paper as the scalloped circle, it was coated in clear Wink of Stella and smothered in Glossy Accents. All I can say is "oooooooooh, shiiiiiiny!" ;)

I was going to duplicate the layout of the front on the inside of the card, but... ok, I'll be honest. I would have had to cut into the second sheets of these papers and I couldn't bring myself to do it.

Yes, thank you, I AM scheduled for my first Paper Hoarders Anonymous meeting next week.

So to avoid the dreaded second sheets, I used MFT's Fishtail Flag Stax and the remaining strips, and I sacrificed a different orange sheet in the pad for the scalloped circle.

A few more epoxy dots here and there and done!

The Pony Express will be stopping at these challenges on its way to the birthday boy...

     Crafting When We Can Challenges - #82 Use Your Markers (Copics for me!)
     Fab'n'Funky Challenges - Happy Birthday
     Crafting for All Seasons - #90 Birthdays
     Addicted to Stamps and More - #122 Make Your Mark
     Tip Top Tuesday - 3 or More Papers

And tha'ts it for today!  I'll be back soon - yes, another birthday card, but soooooon, Christmas and Snow and all things winter! LOL  Til then, happy crafting! =)
Christy

These Kitties Are Ready to Party!

Greetings, fellow crafty folks!

Just stopping in to show you another birthday card, this one full of the cutest darn kitties you've ever seen... who are TOTALLY ready to PARTY!!! =)  LOL

This is the Party Kitties stamp from Whipper Snapper Designs, and one from my favorite of their artists. I broke out the Copics and actually enjoyed coming up with different ways to color each of them and keep it visually interesting... although I might try doing this image in all black/white/gray cats sometime. After I did a test run for color, I stamped the image three times so I could fussy cut and layer them up....

For a bit of interest, I used Glaze pens to color in their noses and hats.  It's hard to see on the photos, but there's a lovely sheen on their noses as I used a thin coat of clear over Copics.  I used the colored Glaze pens on their festive hats and gave them a thicker coat for real shine and added a bit of Stardust Stickles (I should start buying it in bulk lots haha) on the pompoms for sparkle. So fun! =)  On the background I added some dots with a Viva Decor pearl pen.   

I trimmed up the image with a Spellbinders Reverse Wonky Rectangle die and layered on my kitties before adhering the panel to a cute striped paper from a Glitz Color Me Happy paper pack which is nearly 2 years old, but still available. I love the current rainbow phenomenon going on and since I was away from crafting, I'm just getting into the whole chevron thing... but since I'm no trendy crafter, who cares?! =)  LOL

I added a bit of Doodlebug twine in Ladybug red and Stickled the heck out of that bow. For the inside, I added the leftover snipped from the striped paper. I created and printed my sentiment from Word and cut with the same Spellbinders die and running a Copics marker around the embossed edge, followed by a coat of Wink of Stella. Simple, but purrrfect. haha =)

The birthday girl is a cat lover, so I'm sure this one will go over well. I certainly had a good time creating it! =) 

One of the best things about blogging again is getting to participate in challenges, so I'm popping over to these blogs to enter my little party felines:

     Fab 'N' Funky Challenge - Challenge #237 Birthday

     Seize the Birthday - Birthday - Optional Topping of Monochromatic Orange (my 2nd entry)

     Crafting for All Seasons - Challenge #90 Birthdays

     Papertake Weekly Challenge - 2 or 4 Legs (Kitties have 4! LOL)

     Inky Impressions Challenge - Challenge #185 Animals
     Eureka Stamps Challenge - Challenge #114 4-Legged Friends
     Addicted to Stamps Challenge - Challenge #121 Anything Goes
     Creative Moments - Challenge #55 Anything Goes/Celebration  (my 2nd entry)

So, that's it for today... til the next card, happy crafting!

Christy

Sweetly Shaking It Up on Your Birthday!

November is turning in to a challenging month to get back into the swing of crafting regularly... I've got six birthday cards to make for coworkers and friends this month!

So I'm back again (I know, twice on the same day! haha), this time with a birthday card that I had lots of fun creating! I love the recent wave of shaker cards so I decided to create one of my own for a coworker's birthday card this week featuring a Birdie Brown stamp from My Favorite Things:

Looking at it on this screen, the colors are kind of blah.  Here's another photo with more accurate color...

Aahhh, much better. Anyway, bad pics aside, This one is going to be one of my all-time favorites I think. I love the colors of this DCWV paper from their old Celebrations stack. And I really like my coloring on the image on this one. I have finally started to convince my inner cheapskate that the only way I am going to get good at coloring is to practice, even if it's "wasting" supplies. LOL  Another thing I will have to remember is that I have to recreate my light tent and take proper photos. =\

I used two sizes of a Spellbinders die to cut my window and a piece of acetate from some Spellbinders packaging. My image is part of this lovely Birdie Brown Sweet Birthday wishes stamp set. I absolutely loved coloring her - the hair turned out exactly as I wanted and that skirt... I actually managed to get a hint of the ruffles in her skirt. Yay!  I wanted to add white polkadots, but the white Signo pen I bought two years ago has thoroughly dried up, so I went for black, using a Glaze pen. I also used purple Wink of Stella on the bottom ruffle of her skirt and a mix of clear and purple on her dress and hair bows. I gave her patent leather shoes with the Glaze pen, too. I know, no self respecting girl wears a skirt and patent leather shoes together, but since she's a drawing, I figure no boys will be able to see any reflection up her skirt. LOL    Last, I glittered the top of her cupcake with my favorite Stardust Stickles. The color is off on these pictures as well, but they show you the shine and glitter. =)

For my shaker, I used the image of the cupcakes on a tiered stand that is included in the set. I colored up the top two tiers where the cupcakes didn't overlap each other with Copics to match the colors in the DCWV banners cardstock and cut them out before coating their icing in Stardust Stickles.  I used two layers of foam adhesive to make a pocket and threw in some purple and lime sequins and pink and blue glitter (all from Doodlebug Designs and with fun names like limeade, bubblegum and swimming pool) together with the cupcakes. Then I sat here at my crafting table and played with it for the next 15 minutes. =)

To finish off the front of the card, I used a Copic marker to get the right shade of purple on my little sentiment flag and heat embossed a sentiment from the stamp set in white.

For the inside of the card I used the leftover scalloped die cuts, a few more sequins and a larger cupcake and sentiment from the stamp set. Simple, but oh so cute!

This one was so fun, I may find myself making more shaker cards soon. I do know I had a hard time giving this particular card away. Do you ever have that problem?  Make a card you absolutely love and then have to send it on to another home? LOL  I suppose I'd be surrounded by cards eventually and have no room to make any more, so better to have crafted and given away then never to be able to craft at all. hee hee

For some more fun, I'll be shaking my way over to these challenge sites to enter this sweet birthday shaker card:
Artistic Inspirations - Challenge #116 Anything Goes/Happy Birthday
Craft Your Passions - Challenge #238 Bright and Sparkly
Crafty Sentiments Designs - Challenge #11 Make it Sparkle
Loves Rubberstamps Challenge - Challenge #125 Anything Goes
Creative Moments - Challenge #55 Anything Goes/Celebrations
Moving Along With the Times - Sparkle and/or Shine
Seize the Birthday - Birthday (Topping choice: Monochromatic Orange)
 Challenge Up Your Life - Challenge #1 Anything Goes
ShowCASe Your Style - Challenge #1 Tic-Tac-Toe  I used Emboss-Sequin-Sparkle, plus there's White, Diecut and Sentiment, too!
Addicted to Stamping - Challenge #91 Bling, Bling!
Papertake Weekly Challenge - Anything Goes

Then one more finished birthday to post... and four more to craft this month, so I'll be back soon!  Til then, happy crafting!

Christy

Retiring to a Rose Garden

Hello, fellow crafty folks! =)

I have been a busy stamper the past two weeks and have officially made more cards in the last two weeks than in the 6 months before that. Which feels good, but whew!

Here's the first... which is also the one with the most time invested. Our department VP retired after 40 years and is an avid gardener. She's been talking about looking forward to building a rose garden now that she'll have the time, so a group of us gathered together and got a rather hefty gift card for a local garden shop. My task was to create a card with enough space for 30 or so people to write messages and to 'package' the gift card. As soon as they said "roses", I knew this one had to be a Magnolia stamp. This little Tilda is one of the first stamps I bought when I officially discovered cardmaking online two years ago, and my coloring has most definitely improved since the last time I used her...

Isn't she sweet?

The rose paper from which I took my color inspiration is from a rather inexpensive Colorbok packet I was given as a gift last Christmas. I loved the deep burgundy and dusty pink together with the slightly shabby distressed look.  I cut them with stitched panel dies from My Favorite Things. Love the effect of that little bit of stitch detail! I used a bit of Walnut Distress Ink to age the edges of all my papers and the Spellbinders diecut I used for my image.   I colored Tilda, the Magnolia leaves die cuts, the largest rose, and the four little rosebuds with Copics so that they all matched.  On the image I used a bit of Liquid Pearl around her and some Lemon Ice Stickles on the rose centers.
 On the Wild Orchid Crafts flowers, just  a touch of Wink of Stella on the large rose and Stardust Stickles on some of the smaller pink roses gave them a bit of sparkle. A bit of creamy lace, a few pearls, and a little Magnolia dragonfly die finished off the front panel.



Now, for the really fun part...  again, there were about 30 people to sign the card, so I had to find a way to make the card a lot bigger... so I went for an accordion fold that goes on and on for about 7 more panels!

I had to glue together a number of burgundy card bases. I colored six sets of these Magnolia rose stamps, then fussy cut them before shimmering them up with some clear Wink of Stella.

Each panel is a triple layer of the Colorbok rose paper, a piece of white cardstock colored with the same YG95 that I used on the rose stamps, and another piece from the same Colorbok paper pad. All the edges are inked with either Walnut or Peeled Paint Distress Ink.

(The pages look slightly different colors here because there was daylight on the right panel but not the left when I photographed the panels. Oops!)

For the final page, I searched the internet for quotes about gardens. I loved this one:

"I sit in my garden, gazing upon a beauty that cannot gaze upon itself. 

And I find sufficient purpose for my day. - Robert Brault"

...so I typed it up on the computer, added my own note below it and printed directly onto the Colorbok paper. This panel was also going to hold the gift card, so I cut a notch out of it using the bottom bit of a Magnolia tag. I used the same tag to cut a tag from white cardstock, colored it with YG95 and coated it with clear Wink of Stella.
When everyone had signed, the tag was attached to a little envelope that held the gift card. Another little dragon fly perches on the the bottom of this panel as well.

To finish off the project, I created a 1" thick box out of gold metallic paper and created a little label for the front.  The box was done envelope style, with a little velcro closure on the back.

Everyone loved it... it even made her cry - in a good way, of course! =)  I won't be doing something so elaborate again for a while... it took at least 2 hours just to color and cut out all those roses for the panels. But it was well worth it in the end. A special card for a special event!

I'll be popping over to a few challenges to link my little Tilda creation...
Tilda's Town Challenges - Challenge #129 Anything Goes
Lovely hAnglar or Sweet Magnolia Challenge - Challenge #106 Sparkle
Midweek Magnolias Challenge - Challenge #101 Glitter, Lace and Pearls
Crafting When We Can Challenge - Challenge #82 Use Your Markers

My next two posts will be all about birthdays! Woohoo! Til then, happy crafting!
Christy

A Chummy Boss's Day Party

Ahhhhhhhh!  I feel like a bear coming out of winter hibernation… my short-lived excitement in Spring gave way to the realization that I had a few nuts and berries that I needed to inventory and get straight before I could go running off in the crafty forest to sniff and color the flowers, bother the bees for their honey to glue my papers together, and capture a few fairies for some fairy dust… because who can make a card without a liberal sprinkling of glitter and magic?  So I retreated to my cave and got to the business of me for a bit. I missed crafting, but I knew if I focused on one thing at a time, when I did pick up a stamp again, I could really enjoy it. Health issues now in check, off meds, and nuts and berries mostly inventoried and organized (LOL), now it’s time to get out into the creative wilderness!

My first foray was, appropriately, on World Cardmaking Day last weekend. My coworkers had asked me to make our group card for Boss’s Day, which is October 16^th here in the States. I’m not even sure other countries celebrate Boss’s Day. The American commercial card industry has made just about everything a card-celebrated event by now. LOL  But I digress…  so, group card.  I was thinking through my stamp stash, trying to remember what group images I might have. I didn’t want to go the classy, floral route this year. First card back in 6 months, I wanted fun and “pop”. I remembered I had two Paper Smooches sets that I could use together to make my own crowd… and, hey, what’s a party without balloons?  So out came my recently purchased Simon SaysStamp balloon dies. (I must mention, to keep my sanity, I still ordered crafty supplies during my hiatus. I think it kept alive the belief that I would, indeed, be back in the craft room eventually!)

So this is the party I created…  (and please forgive the not-so-great cellphone pics. Took the card to work and almost forgot to take any photos!)

I stamped each of the Chubby Chums and Chubby Chum Pals with MFT Hybrid Ink and colored ‘em up with my Copics, who were quite pleased to be brought out into the light of day again. They weren’t so pleased that I was using a cardstock not really intended for Copics. My blending leaves something to be desired, but hey… this card is for non-crafters. If I have learned anything, it’s that non-crafters are too amazed by the artistry to notice the imperfections that cardcrafters immediately see… not to mention, they don’t ogle and drool over the works of artists like “The League of Supercardcrafters” –Jennifer McGuire, Kathy Racoosin, Kristina Werner, Sandy Allnock, Lauren Bassen, Heidi Crowl– or some of my faves Squirrel, Delphine, Lisa, Faye and Annette.

But again, I digress…  I fussy cut my little chummies and used black marker to clean up the edges and gave their eyes a bit of shine with some Glossy Accents.  I colored in the balloons with my Copics as well and then gave them a good sparkly emboss with Judikins Iridescent Sparkle powder. Then I spent the next half hour playing them in the light, and exclaiming, “Ooooh, sparkles!” over and over again. LOL  I fixed my front and inside white panels on a pretty sheet of blue raspberry cardstock from MFT and added a dotty border with Glossy Accents (inspired by Lauren Bassen), leaving it overnight to dry completely.  

I originally planned to fold my 8.5x11 paper in half lengthwise, but decided I liked a final 5.5x8.5 size better, so my little group had to budge up closer to each other than I had planned. I used foam tape to pop up two levels of chummies and did the same with their balloons, using a light thread to tie the balloons and give my chummies something to hold on to. I especially love that Pup on the end chose to tie his to his tail. =)  Since the front panel had gotten a bit crowded, Bear had decided to hang out on the inside of the card with a few small balloons and have a party of his own.

So, I’m off to gather some more materials and hit the craft room. My fingers are itching to get into some more stamps and I still have a crafty haul that has been sitting there waiting to be put away for a couple of months. Then I can wander out and have a good poke at the beehive and gather up some flowers and fairies. I’ve given myself a baby-step goal of at least a card a week… and Christmas is coming, so I’d better get cracking. =)

I might stop by and link this party up to the Paper Smooches Sparks challenge where it’s Anything Goes this week. I know the balloons are SSS, but it’s those adorable little Chums that steal the show. =)  You can find their challenge HERE: 

Til next time, happy crafting!

Christy

Party Time with Mo Manning

Hey! Back with my first Copics card in ages. Like, seriously, ages... 16 months, maybe?

When one of my coworkers saw the Doctors Day cards and especially the PowerPoint I had projecting on the wall (see my last post), she asked if I could make her daughter a birthday card using the same colors. Her daughter's on the school band and plays the saxophone, so she wanted anything with music. I had the perfect image in mind...

The image is So Jazzed by Mo Manning. I still had bits of cardstock and the watercolored paper I'd made for the Doctors Day cards, so I pulled this together. She only gave me a night's notice, and I ran out of time, so I had to assemble everything quickly at home and finish coloring the image at work during my lunch. I have never glued together a card before finishing the image, and I think I held my breath the larger part of lunch. I still went a bit out of the lines, but I was rather pleased by the end. Especially since it's been so long since I colored. I did well capturing the red shade of her daughter's hair too!  The photo is, unfortunately, another on the fly by cellphone; the richness of the colors in the real-life card is really pretty. I added some Stardust Stickles to the heart on her coat and swirls on her skirt and a teeny dot on the heart attached to the dog's collar. Some Golden Rod Stickles made the sax super sparkly.

As the image is the focus and I didn't want to detract from the watercolored background, I stayed really CAS with this one. I didn't have a piece of the purple cardstock big enough to back my image, so I used two pieces that didn't quite come together so I hid the seams with the little gem up top and a purple heart coated in glossy accents on the bottom. The sentiment is a Paper Smooches sentiment from the Birthday Sampler embossed in white and I used a Happy Birthday from the same set inside along with a strip of the watercolor (no pic, sorry).

I'm entering this sweet girly in a couple of challenges:

Crafting When We Can - #66 for a Child
Charisma Cardz Challenge - #7 Clean & Simple
Pixie's Snippets Playground - Week #118
.
So that's it for now... hope to see you all again soon! Until then, best wishes and happy crafting!
Christy

Mythical Creatures Challenge at PCJ

My goodness, seems like forever and a day since my last post! Computer problems had me offline for quite a while and things have been a bit crazy the last two weeks trying to get caught up with hundreds of emails and more than 3000 Followed posts. I gave up on that last item. LOL Since I hadn't been able to print my digi stamps for my DT cards, I've spent my free time this past week getting some coloring done. Next week my schedule will open back up again and I'll be 'round to visit my crafty friends.

For today, it's a midchallenge post for Paper-Crafting Journey! One more week left in our Mythical Creatures challenge. Fairies, elves, unicorns, dragons... and the winner will receive 5 images from our challenge sponsor, Digi Stamps 4 Joy.

I used this lovely fairy image...

I colored my imge with Copics except for the wings which I did with a beautiful pearlized watercolor paint from Yasutomo.  Lovely sheen. The colors are a lot more intense in real life than this photo. (still more work to do with practicing camera settings! Sigh.).  I am still challenged by getting the flicking just right, but I enjoyed coloring her hair. =) I've been coming back to this very mermaid-y color combination of ocean blue, blue-green and purple for a lot of crafting this summer. Guess I needed to get it out of my system now that it's Fall and time for rich harvest colors. LOL My card layout is super-simple, focusing on the image. Since I spent this week getting back into the coloring groove, the cards themselves are mostly white on white with the color pop of the image. I used the Copics to perfectly color match the layers to my image and added some flat-backed pearls. Simple, simple!

My Teamies did some really gorgeous work... head on over and check them all out on the Paper-Crafting Journey blog! 

Will be round to visit soon and will see you all back here on Saturday! Til then, happy crafting!
Christy

Anything Goes for Kids @ SAS4K: Saturated Canary Violet

Happy Saturday! We made it to the weekend - woot! woot! 

It's Send A Smile 4 Kids challenge day and another end-of-summer easy-peasy challenge for you... Anything Goes!  This challenge is also a bit special as we say goodbye and best wishes to teamie Shelby who is moving on to other adventures. Her fun style and super coloring will be missed... but we do have a new teamie waiting in the wings for her debut coming up soon! =) Our sponsors for this challenge are Robyns Fetish (5 digis to the winner) and Saturated Canary (2 digis for our second winner) and the DT had the difficult decision of picking which image to color up for today's DT post. That was a challenge in itself! LOL

I finally landed on Violet... and to be honest, I had intended to go with some lovely violet Copic colors, but when I was riffling through my papers, this pink and blue-green combination from the Glam Gal DCWV stack caught my eye. So violet is now dressed  pink and blue-green! =)

Oops, bit wonky, that photo.... LOL

I colored Violet with my Copics.. the BG70 series was a little too dark and cold than I needed so I ended up using a technique of scribbling BG11 and BG13 onto an acrylic block and then picking up those colors with my BG70 and BG72 markers to get a brighter blue-green that matched my background papers. Her hair's a bit of a mess... got a little carried away trying to get the streaky look I wanted. Too much fun flicking and feathering! LOL If you squint your eyes while looking at the card though, it looks pretty good. LOL I added Viva Decor pen pearly dots in silver (on the skirt) and opal everywhere else.

I added a nice coating of Crystal Stickles with its green and yellowy-pink glitter for her underskirt and the rosette in her hair and bit of Stardust Stickles on the second rosette that I printed and cut out for the top corner of the card. The heart border is an older Martha Stewart punch. I used a bit of pink grosgrain ribbon to cover the seam and added three of the punched out hearts with a dot of the pearl pen to the bottom corner.

So now it's your turn... read up on all the challenge details and see the super cards for kids my teamies have created over on the Send A Smile 4 Kids challenge blog, then go get creative! Can't wait to see what you come up with! =)

Til my next post, happy crafting!
Christy

Card Mania Challenges: Anything Goes - A Sassy Graduation

Sometimes it amazes me how crafting can bring together people from all over the whole wide world. I was a college student in the 1990s when chatrooms first became popular. Back then they were so much more friendly and spambots hadn't really been invented yet. You had the occasional jerk (we didn't yet call them trolls) or a 12-year-old pretending to be an adult and insulting people just because he could... but mostly they were a lot of fun. I particularly loved and spent most of my chat time in a chatroom ruled by the Kiwis and Ozzies (New Zealanders and Australians). I loved being able to talk to people on the other side of the Earth and as there were a good number of regulars, it was like hanging out at your favorite pub, except without beer, drunken crowds or smokers. LOL Finding the online crafting community has been much like falling back into those years... a warm and friendly sort of family and spread across the globe! So imagine my glee when, a few weeks ago, a delightful crafty blogger named Ani from Bulgaria sent me an email and asked me to be part of a new biweekly challenge blog! My first reaction? Someone in BULGARIA is looking at MY cards?! Who would have thought it possible 20 years ago? I was very honored and couldn't pass up the opportunity to get to play with my new group of talented teamies who are also mostly from Bulgaria. I'm not sure I'll learn any Bulgarian, but it looks to be a fun new adventure! My first step was learning the quickest way to turn on my Google Bar Translate function! LOL

So, today is our very first challenge, and we open with an easy one... Anything Goes! You can read up on all the challenge details on the Card Mania Challenges Blog.  Our challenges will be sponsored by the Bulgarian online craft shop, Naborsata, who are also opening their first showroom today in Sofia. You can check them out here! We'll also have a prize each challenge offered by a second sponsor... and for this challenge we have Sassy Studio Designs who generously provided the DT with lots of very sassy images to work with.

I had a difficult time choosing which image and what kind of card to create... I finally decided to go simple and let the image do all the work. I chose this lovely graduate...

One sassy graduate! That hair, those lips, that pose, those BOOTS! LOL

I colored her with my Copics and added a little metallic gold using a gel pen to the medallion on the diploma, her tassel and the buttons on her boots. Although I kept the layout so simple, I went with pearlized papers so the gold oval and the pearly white have a gorgeous sheen to them in person. I tried to capture some of that sheen in these photos, which also show that I've fussy cut my image and popped her up on foam dots. A few black and red flat-backed pearls and the red ribbon are my only embellishments. Even my sentiment is hidden inside!

My teamies have come up with some really gorgeous work so I hope you can stop by to see them all at the Card Mania Challenges Blog. Get crafty and come join in the fun with

Ani

Addii

Delyana

Dilyana

Goldie

Iva

Louise

Mila

Miss Emerald

Paulina

Sue

Tracy

Vili

and me!

Until next time... happy crafting! =)

Christy