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

PCJ DT: Pearls & Swirls - Saturated Canary

Greetings, my bloggy friends and an extra-special big hello to my new Followers! Thanks for joining me on my crafty travels and for spreading the news of my Christmas in July Cash Candy! =)   I will be 'round to visit you soon! I meant to do it this week, but the days have zoomed by much faster than expected... I started attending an aquarobics class last week and the trip every night is now eating up 2 or 2.5 hours of my evenings. I'm starting to fall into a routine, but it was a big adjustment at first.

I have been trying to get just a little bit of crafty time in each night and did a lot of coloring over the last week... Nothing more relaxing than getting into a coloring groove. =)  One of the images I really enjoyed coloring up was for this fortnight's challenge at Paper-Crafting Journey of Pearls and Swirls, sponsored by Saturated Canary! One randomly chosen winner will receive two Saturated Canary digital images! Krista generously offered an image to each of the DT members and I was drawn to Honey, who reminds me of my friend Nancy's granddaughter. There's just something about that girly tutu and heart t-shirt with those big boots together. And that bunny! Love! It was just the perfect image for a card for Nancy.

And a side view...

I'm very happy with how this one turned out... My coloring came out nearly exactly as I pictured it (especially considering I pictured it based on my own skills, not the fantastic examples that populate my Google Reader every day! LOL)... not perfect, but my coloring is getting better! I had problems with the dark grays/black bleeding around the boot and it took ages to keep adding blender to push the ink back where it belonged.  But imperfections aside, I had such a good time coloring her up! =) I wanted to add a bit of shadowing around her, but I was afraid of ruining my image after all that work, so I left it plain and colored in just a bit of ground beneath her. I definitely need to do some practice images to see what shadow colors look good with which image colors. Sigh. More practice. Always the answer. LOL 

I did add a bit of girly glitter with a little Stardust Stickles on the underlayers of the tutu and a metallic silver pen for her shoelaces and the pull at the back of her left boot.

For my card I started with an 8.5x11 pearlized black cardstock with the matte side folded in. I took a blank embossed and pearlized wedding invitation card - I've had a box of these for 8 or 9 years - which was a little too big. I cut a strip out of the middle and ended up cutting too much! I 'fixed' that by adding some light gray satin ribbon and creating an accent strip across the middle. I added a gray swirl digi paper from Pink Petticoat, trimmed to fit inside the invitation's inside border and a pink paper cut with the largest Romantic Rectangle die from Spellbinders was layered under my image with a bit of corner rounding and a lot of pink and white pearls to accent. I added a few more teeny tiny pearls on the bare strip of pearlized black cardstock... love those itsy bitsy pearls! No sentiment, as tends to happen with my 'just because' cards. I didn't photograph the inside, but I used the matching RSVP card on the inside with a few more teeny pearls. Kind of elegant. =) 

Here's a closeup of the top corner. I took it at the last minute, so the lighting isn't as white as on the other photos, sorry!

I thought about adding a bow or a swirl die cut, but in person the pearlized and embossed swirl pattern on the wedding card really stands out and my coworker is not really into bows and flowers and froufrou, so I kept it simple. It gives it a sort of white-on-white effect with the pop of pink of that girly tutu and pink lacey edge from the die! =)

 So if this doesn't get you in the mood for pearls and swirls, check out my teamies' creations over at Paper-Crafting Journey and catch all the details for the challenge!  And if you haven't entered my Christmas in July Cash candy going on HERE, make sure you come back and check it out -- $40 gift certificate for my existing Followers, $25 for new or existing Followers, and $15 for anyone, regardless of whether they Follow or not! =)

In the meantime, I'm entering my card in the following challenges and link-ups:

ATCs and Cards with Attitude - #18 Anything Goes

Dream Valley - #36 Anything but Square

Whoopsie Daisy - Use Up Your Stash  (used my 8-year-old invitation paper!)

Simon Says Stamp & Show - No Rules!

Make It Monday - Link Up

Lexi's Creations - #69 For a Friend

Papertake Weekly  - All Things Girlie

Creative Craft Challenges 2 - Pink and Black

Wishcraft Waste Not Wednesdays - Wk 27 Neglected Stash (I think 8 years qualifies as neglected! LOL)

The Paper Shelter - #73 Anything Goes

Divas By Design - #44 Anything Goes
Moving Along with the Times - Pink, Pearly & Pretty

I will be back tomorrow with some CHRISTMAS CARDS! Woohoo! =)  Til then, happy crafting!

Christy

PCJ DT Card: Feelin' Krafty - Fairy Daisy

Hello, my bloggy friends and followers! Happy blankity-blank FRIDAY! 

I am soooooooooooooooooooo glad and maybe surprised that I finally made it to the weekend. I'm already a day late and a dollar short for the current Paper-Crafting Journey Challenge, but I'm feeling krafty now, so we're all good. LOL

PCJ is looking for new Design Team members! Having lost some of our crafty ladies (sigh), we're looking for some new happy crafters to join our team. Wendy is holding a DT call for the month of July and you can read all about it and link up if you're interested here. PLUS we've moved back to our original site here! What? It's a woman's prerogative to change her mind. Often. And for no reason. =P As the new blog owner Wendy has given the site a fresh coat of paint and a new look, so check it out!

On to this fortnightly challenge...  FEELIN' KRAFTY! We want to see you use kraft cardstock somewhere on your paper craft! Don't forget that PCJ is not just a card challenge - it's open to all sorts of crafting---as long as it's made with paper! Up for grabs this challenge is a $10 gift certificate from our digi-delightful sponsor DIGI DOODLE SHOP. Although they were kind enough to provide some images for the DT, I had fallen in love with this fairy while shopping around for (ahem) my other DT and I had to buy her! She's just been sitting in my harddrive, waiting for me to print her out. =)

My new camera and I have not yet come to an understanding. What is supposed to be automatic and easy is persistently frustrating right now. The camera is so automatic that some of the settings I used on my old camera are missing. Or hiding. Or something. So adjusting my lighting after the fact is not quite working. I will persevere! I would have read the manual, but apparently paper is just so un-2012. They aren't cool enough that they sent it on a memory stick, but they did send it on a CD... so I guess I will have to load up and do some reading this weekend.

Sorry... back to business...  here is my krafty little creation for this challenge:

This image made me wonder... she's smiling, not pouting, so she's not in a fairy time out. Maybe she's just sitting, eyes closed, breathing in the morning air and enjoying the moment. Sounds so refreshing and relaxing. Hmmmm, wonder if I can find a daisy big enough for me? LOL Anyway, I colored her up with Copics.  I glittered her wings with Stardust Stickles and a bit of lavender Liquid Pearls. I also added a touch of yellow Stickles on the daisy center.

I embossed a piece of white cardstock and layered that over a lovely lemony yellow. I cut the yellow cardstock a little longer so that I could use this oh-so-cute daisy ribbon trim that I've had for a few years. The centers were already yellow, but I used a bit more of the yellow Stickles on them to tie in to the daisy image. Then I added my image, popping my little fairy up on foam dots because, well, as you know, I am obsessed with popping things up with foam dots. I am sure I have mentioned this at least once. Per post.  LOL

So... there's my fairy. It's simple, but a pretty little card IRL... not very photogenic, but she's sparkly and sweet and I think I know just the person who needs a little lift. I think her butterfly wings will be just the trick.

Though the ranks are a bit empty at the moment, my remaining teamies have krafted up (har har) some great cards for you that you can find over at Paper-Crafting Journey! Hope you are inspired to get a little krafty with us! 

Have a fantastic weekend wherever you are and happy crafting!
Christy

(Psssst... Before I go... just a quick tease that July will be an exciting month around I Never Went to Kindergarten-land...  be sure to stop by in a few weeks when Santa's Elves stop by with some yummy Christmas-in-July candy! See you soon!)

A Sunny Day For Squirrel

Isn't he the cutest widdle squirrel ever?!  Squee!

Hello, my crafty friends! Back with another card I had to wait a few days to post as it needed to make a short hop over the Pond before I could share it. =)  For this one I went for a sort of  uber cute with a nice pop of color but a grown-up touch. Sort of pleasing the inner child and the outer adult all at the same time. LOL Anyway, here's my clean and simple sunny day card that I made for my best bloggy buddy, Squirrel -

Sorry he pictures are a little wonky and a bit fuzzy... I didn't have much time and the batteries in my camera were going dead. But the postman doesn't wait around. LOL

The red swirl paper has been in my stash a very long time, maybe even as long as decade. Scary. I'm not even sure what I originally planned to do with it, but I thought it was pretty and I loved it. LOL Sad when you have a paper addiction before you ever become a card crafter. =)  The blue sky background paper is a new purchase from Nitwit Collections, part of the At the Park set. Love! It was perfect for my Pink Cat Studio digi squirrel and his heart-full branch. The sun is also from PCS... a freebie sentiment stamp, but I masked off the sentiment before I printed it.

I colored the three stamp images with Copics and then used the large-balled end of an embossing stylus to round out the images a bit. I focused on the squirrel's tail tip, his eyes, his cheeks, his little acorn, the branch, and the center of the sun are all popped out just a bit more.  I also cut a second layer of hearts for the branch which I embossed and then smothered in Glossy Accents. I attached everything with different heights of foam dots. Here are some angled pics that kind of show the dimension...

 

I also glittered up the center of the sun with some beautiful yellow Stickles and punched out my computer-generated sentiment on two cloud punches (Fiskars) which I touched up with a bit of Copics - a light grey on the top edges and a pale blue on the bottom. As a last touch I added a few small gems, one on the cloud and three teensy tiny ones in the bottom corner.  

I'm entering my Sunny Squirrel card in the following challenges:

Craft Your Days Away - All Creatures Great and Small

Moving Along With The Times - Keep It Real!

Cardmadfairy Digi Days - Clean and Simple

Crafty Sentiments - Bingo: Patterned Paper, Colored Image, Punches or Die Cuts

Top Tip Tuesday - Clean and Simple

Kaboodle Doodles - Clean and Simple

Simon Says Stamp and Show - Anything Goes

That's all for now... back soon! 'Til then, happy crafting!

Christy

Magical Winter Wishes in Pink & Brown

Happy New Year!  Woot! Woot!

I hope all of you had an absolutely lovely holiday. Mine was quiet after a week spent with Mom, who is recovering quite nicely, thanks to all of you who sent well wishes! =)  As my grandfather always told my mom, be careful what you do on the 1st as you'll be doing it all year, so I was extra super careful to spend time doing all the things I want to do this year. I listened to music, read a little, cleaned (a very little), balanced my checkbook and was oh-so-financially responsible, crafted a bit, watched a movie, talked to my Mom, checked in on Facebook, read blogs, did some tidying up and redesigning bits and planning my blog, wrote a letter, ate healthy foods, and exercised a bit. A very full day indeed. But I rather enjoyed myself. I missed a few activities, but we can't have everything. LOL

So... one of the crafty bits I worked on was the first Christmas card for 2012. Christmas All Year Round is on Non-traditional Christmas colors this month and I thought perhaps a bit of a stretch might be good for me, so my card is in pink and brown - a color combo I've never used before (...and only ever worn once!) - and follows this week's sketch challenge at Card Patterns...

 

I used one of the images and a sentiment from my brand new Wonderful Winter Wishes clear stamp set designed by Torico for There She Goes. The whole set is totally sweet!

I used another new item in my arsenal, picot edge nestie circle, to layer my image. (Forgive my photos, but my card is a little wonky as the Stickles dried a little tight.A few months in an envelope or in a stack of cards and it should be fine. I hope!) My image is colored with Copics - I tried for a sort of suede or fleecy texture to the girl's bear poncho. Got a little too inky - still not patiently waiting for my Copics layers to dry, but I'll keep practicing! =)

I used white enamel for snow falling and Stardust Stickles for the snowy ground. I used liquid applique for her ruff and pom-poms. That was the first time I'd used the product ... and I'm here to say, enamel, glossy accents, stickles, applique... this stuff is addictingly FUN! =) I originally intended to work with some digital papers, but my printer suggested I buy a new color ink cartridge, so on to Plan B. I embossed textured white cardstock, then used Spun Sugar and Walnut Distress Inks to match up with a pink sheet I'd had from an earlier project. The brown bit is from Recollections' The Ballet pad. I punched a Martha Stewart snowflake and sparkled it up with Cinnamon Stickles and added a button I've had from back in the needlepointing days of old and some DMC pink floss. A few brown and pink pearls around the corners and twas done.

So, for the Challenges...

Craft Your Days Away - #35 Snowmen (Even though he's only a wee one! ha!)

Glitter Geek - #30 Brand Spanking New (Nestie and Stamp)

Card Patterns - Sketch #146

One Stop Crafting - #163 Winter Wishes

Hiding In My Craft Room - #27 Freestyle

Christmas Cards All Year Round - January Non Traditional Colors (Card #1)

Paper Sundaes - #101 Something Old & Something New  (Old = Button  Floss, New = Stamp, Nestie)

That's it for tonight... I look forward to a great year of crafting with all my blogland friends. =) See you soon!

Christy

Embossing, embossing, embossing...

Greetings! Here's a card I've been working on the last couple nights... mostly waiting. Waiting for glue to dry. Waiting for ink to dry. Waiting for Stickles to dry. Next time, I'm pulling out the heat gun. LOL

The main inspiration for this wintry holiday card was all the gorgeous embossing I've seen this season on the blogs and challenges I've been following combined with a glue-embossing Fiskars project I'd seen last Spring.

To start, I sprinkled a lot of Glamour Dust in Crystal over a Sizzix embossing Texture plate and brushed most of it into the snowflakes.Then I poured a liberal amount of Elmer's basic white School Glue over the lot and set it aside to dry. It took two days for it to dry completely so I could peel it off the embossing plate. Then I cut it down to a square and adhered it to a really pretty royal blue cardstock. My lousy winter nighttime photos are not doing it justice. Sigh.

Anyway, I embossed a square of white plain white cardstock and some plain cardstock cut with a Labels 18 Nestie, running a silver metallic gel pen over the edges of the Label diecut. You can see those details best in some of the angle photos. (Warning, this post will be photo-full as I kept trying to capture the really pretty in-real-life sparkle of the embossed glue panel!)  I lightly sponged some Chipped Sapphire Distress Ink over several Martha Stewart snowflakes cut from textured white cardstock, added Stickles to the largest and one smaller flake I left white.

I added some bling, popped up both the middle snowflake and the Label diecut with foam dots, and put it all together over a square of pearlescent silver paper. It's pretty simple, but there's lots of texture and sparkle, so hopefully it's not too boring. LOL

Here are some more angle photos...

 

A close up of the lovely sparkles =)





These two I tried to play with the lighting, so the color's awfully yellow, but I think you can see the Glamour Dust better...

Or not... lol =)

Challenges for this project...

1 Simply Create Too - #2 Embossing

2 Christmas All Year Round - Card #4 for December

3 ABC Challenge - F is for Frosty

4 Papertake Weekly - Last Christmas Card of the Year

5 Creative Inspirations - #143 Anything Goes

6 Colour Create - #86 Blue, Silver & White

7 Paper Play Challenge - #50 Christmas

8 Glitter Geeks - #28 Anything Goes

9 Hiding In My Craft Room - #25 Embossing

10 One Stop Crafting - #162 Christmas Sparkle

So, that's it for tonight... have a few more works of art underway, but I probably won't post them until tomorrow or perhaps Saturday... crazy busy with only a couple more sleeps left! =)

Happy Crafting!

Christy

White on White... a first attempt

Hi! Scooted out from behind the craft desk to post the pics of the card I finished last night. My mom is recovering super-fast from her knee replacement but she wasn't quite up to the challenge of the 12 dozen cookies for an exchange she signed up for at Church, so I spent a few hours at her house yesterday baking up my favorite standby... chewy chocolate cookies. I'm not a death by chocolate girl, but these I love. The batter tastes like good chocolate cake, and the cookies are chewy like a good brownie. Yum! Anyway, didn't get as much time in the craft room this weekend so this is the only thing I have completely finished so far. Of course, there's still a few hours left to the day! =)

This is my first attempt at White on White. I've seen so many really pretty WoW cards that I figured I had to have a try.

I do like how I've colored my little Pure Innocence digi, but lesson learned about Liquid Pearls. I did that first, figuring that if I messed up, I'd toss it in the bin and start over. Then I colored my image. THEN I decided I wanted to use a deckle-edged Nestie to cut her out... surprise, surprise - embossing with a Nestie will flatten out Liquid Pearl dots. LOL Oops! They still look ok, but it's funny -the back of the image has all these little humps now. Fortunately no one but me will see that!

I used Frosted Lace Stickles on the snow (since my fave Stardust has colored bits), pearlized white paper for the snowflakes (Martha Stewart) and two embossing plates from Sizzix - winter wishes and snowflakes. A bit of white grosgrain to hide the seam and a couple of pearls to center on the snowflakes.

I like the image, but I'm not sure I like the rest of it. Maybe it's too simple. I didn't want to hide all the embossing, but I might try a flourish cut-out or swirl or something when I make another one. I also missed inking all my edges... I think I'm addicted to that now. LOL

This one's just going in the Crafting for 4 All Seasons - Challenge #14 White on White. 

That's it for now - happy crafting, everyone, and see you soon!
Christy