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

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