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

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

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

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

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

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

 So... on to the challenge... 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Christy

Hambo Puppy Bailey & the newest SAS4K DT member!

Happy Saturday, my bloggy friends!  Considering patience is not a virtue high on my list of personal attributes--maybe it's something to do with my inner 4-year-old--I've done a good job of keeping some surprise news to myself. Karen Hasheck and the DT at Send a Smile 4 Kids have asked me to become their newest Design Team member! The focus at SAS4K is not just making cards for kids, but also collecting handmade cards for children in hospital, either for them to receive or to be able to give to their families and friends.  You can read more about it here.
I was excited and honored to be picked for the Paper Crafting Journey DT, but I never expected to be asked to be on one! Over Christmas I fell in love with making cards for kids - colorful, bright and FUN (and less challenging than vintage hahahaha), so I'm eager to get started!

This week's sponsor for the Anything Goes challenge over at SAS4K is Hambo Stamps. Their latest digital stamp is an adorable puppy based on their new furbaby, Bailey. My own Zoe is also a yellow Lab, so I couldn't resist.

Isn't their Bailey stamp sweet? I was rather pleased with my coloring and I love these papers from DCWV (The Pet Stack). The glittery hearts are cut out from one of the papers and I popped the little yellow heart and the image up with foam dots. I added just a few gems and these cute bones and puppy paw from the Jesse James line Dress It Up! line. The Puppy Love stamp is from a clear set, Simple Thoughts-Dog from Cloud 9 Design.

So, look forward to lots more kids cards from me for the bimonthly SAS4K challenges along with my DT cards for the great challenges coming up this year for Paper Crafting Journey! Can't wait to get started playing with my new DT crafting buddies! =)

Happy Crafting!
Christy

Bugaboo Valentine Puppy

Good morning! Up early, so I’m posting my card from last night. I intended to do some crafting the night before, but my body’s desire for sleep and my brain’s desire to craft were not compatible and I ended up going to bed early. I’m a night owl, so anytime I voluntarily go to bed early is a clear sign that the world is off-kilter. LOL

So… inspired by the oh-so-cuteness of this Bugaboo digi which I recently won, the color combo challenge from Enfys at Going Buggy, the sketch at CPS, and the Valentines for Kids at Send a Smile 4  Kids challenge, I came up with this:

I was practicing coloring “black” on Sunday… this was my 3rd try. I now understand why you have to use dark grays and not actual black. It’s still a bit dark on the paws, but you can still see the digi stamp lines, so I’m calling it a win. =)

The two heart papers and the plaid are digi papers from Stamp Fairy and the image can be found here at Bugaboo Stamps. There’s a little series of him and totally cute! After I colored with Copics, I used Glossy Accents to fill in his nose and his heart balloon. I sprinkled some Glamour Dust on the heart for just a hint of sparkle. My die cuts are the Nestabilities Square Hearts and a heart Sizzlit. I added some grosgrain ribbon layered up, inked the edges with Soot and Barn Door DIs and scattered about a little bling here and there for the finishing touches.

Challenges I’m entering:

Catch the Bug – January Anything Goes

Send A Smile 4 Kids - Valentines for Kids

Going Buggy – Grey or Black, White and Red

CPS – Sketch #250

Digital Tuesday – #142 Punch It Out

Papertake Weekly – Die Cute Special

7 Kids College Fund – #38 Try Something New (coloring black with alcohol markers)

Cupcake Crafts - #174 New (new Digi, new Copics coloring choice)

Lollipop Crafts – #62 Anything New Goes

Crafty Cardmakers – #59 No floral embellishments

That’s it for now. I’ll be back soon… and maaaaaybe with some exciting news! Stay tuned! ;)

Happy Crafting!

Christy