Hello You!

When I was at the very impressive Impressive Ideas grand opening the other day I came across an interactive die by My Favorite Things Die-Namics.  It is called the Interactive Trio card and when cut on your handy dandy die cutting machine makes a little 3 window panel...but instead of having full cut outs of the "panes" it creates a score line so you really get a cute little flap.

So cool!

I spent way too much time making this card but it was very fun to do.  I CASEd (copy and steal everything) one by Stephanie Klauck at MFT but mine is a bit different...mostly because I didn't have all the stamps she used in her card.

Here is mine:

I used Things With Wings stamps by My Favorite Things

as well as the Scripty Sayings sentiment, "hello you", by Lawn Fawn.

 I stamped the sentiment with VersaFine ink and then heat embossed it with clear embossing powder (a favorite technique!).  The butterfly and ladybug were colored with Copics and the little flowers were colored with Wink of Stella Pens.  I also added a layer of Clear Wink of Stella to the butterfly and ladybug.  Can't have enough shine now, can you?!

So when you open the little flaps you see a little scene with oh-so-cute owls. I didn't have a tree stamp that would work (yes, I have tree stamps but none that would work for this scene) so I drew the little tree limb.

I love the little owls...they are actually two separate stamps...and they are looking at each other.  Too cute!

I used some Distress Ink to sponge around them to get a bit of a sky look....and I added Wink of Stella to nearly everything!

Lastly, layered the scene and windows on top of a piece of green cardstock and mounted onto white Neenah for a finished A2 sized card.

This took a while to do...but I'm not giving up on it...want to play with these little windows and flaps again soon! Maybe today! ;)

Happy Crafting!

Happy Easter, Ya'all!

Happy Easter from Atlanta, Georgia! 

My grandkids went to see the Easter Bunny the other day and it was a total #FAIL! But oh so cute anyway....

I'm not sure it was an improvement over 2014 or not...

HAHA...I think the Easter Bunny is signaling...HELP!

Kids will be kids...and it is difficult to get 3 tiny people all on the same page when it comes to photographing them! That's why many of my Project Life photos are blurry or missing body parts.  But even the parts can tell a story can't they?

I did make a few other Easter cards to send...and this was not my own design but rather one created by the fabulous Impressive Ideas stamp store in my area.  They did a make and take one day and I loved the card so bought the stamps to duplicate. Using MISTI helped me crank out quite a few cards in no time at all!

This was done with Impression Obsession stamps.  The teeny gingham paper was actually created with a stamp.  Love it! Oh la la...just think of the possibilities! And I got a great image using my MISTI and reinking!
The little bunny peeps were colored with Copics...and some Wink of Stella clear glitter was painted over one of the bunnies.
See?
Probably not... but it's there, I promise!

So Happy Easter to all of you...time to get in the kitchen and make some deviled eggs!

And Happy Crafting!

A New Love Affair!

I have had a very open love affair with Hero Arts for many years now.  It began when I went to a CKU (Creating Keepsakes University) Convention many years ago...like 10? I had signed up for a class taught by Jennifer McGuire...had no idea who she was...and she used Hero Arts stamps and we learned kiss stamping.  It was so much fun and I began a wild affair with HA!

It's been a great 10 plus years and although I have an new love...I will remain loyal to HA, as well.  There is plenty of room in my heart for HA and my new love.

What or who is my new love?  Mama Elephant!  Oh my gosh...how I love those stamps and dies!  So darned cute and it is taking great restraint to NOT buy out the whole store! 
Check out a card I made with Mama Elephant's Tiny Heroes Set:

Is this not the cutest little card?  I just love that tiny super hero...and the super hero doggie!
Here is the stamp set:

and the coordinating dies:

and lastly, a set of some miscellaneous dies called Sew Fancy that can be used for matting or borders, etc.:

The little x's on the card base above are actually little debossed x's from the die.  Too cute!

I am away from home right now so my supplies here are limited...I used Salty Ocean Distress Ink to make my background and ink up a messy sky and clouds.  I colored the little girl and the dog in with my Copics. I had no foam tape on hand so I used a couple of stacked glue dots.  They didn't work great but did add a tad of dimension.

I'm in love...I think Mama Elephant has a winner on her hands!

Happy Crafting!

Happy Baath-day!

Well, hello, blogland!

Hope things are well with all of you!  I had a great day today...my tennis team took 5 out of 5 points and we played the second place team.  So woohoo!  Yay, us!  I did play with a new partner today which can always be a bit "iffy" but we played great together and prevailed against some very able opponents.  OK, Atlanta has a huge tennis league...tennis is big here and probably 90% of the people you play are nice and considerate opponents.  But every now and then you run into someone who is rude and obviously thinks this "social" tennis is way more than it is.  It's not like we win prize money or anything like that.  If you make it through your regular season in first place you get a freakin' plastic tag to put on your bag that says you are a division winner.  Probably a nickel's worth goes into that plastic.  I mean, c'mon!

Anyway, today we played a woman who was just so rude to us as well as her own partner.  Terrible.  Too bad for her...SHE LOST! LOL!!!  HAHA! She thought she was "all that" but SHE LOST!

OK, enough of my rantings but she was just such a good example of very poor sportsmanship!

On to birthdays.  Someone special to me is having a birthday later in the week and I made this cute little Paper Smooches card with a window for her:

 I used some My Mind's Eye papers.  The circle dies were cut from My Favorite Things Blueprint 16 as was the little mat for the sentiment.

I colored the little lamb with some Copic markers after stamping it with black Versafine ink and throwing some clear embossing powder on it and heat embossing it with my new Stampin' Up Heat tool.  Love that tool...paper warp is less than my old one, I think.  I added some googly eyes and some sheen with my Wink of Stella clear pen and slapped some foam tape on it to give it some dimension.

Here you can see the inside of the card:

And that's it for today!

Happy Crafting!!!

You're So Cool-Take Two!

Oh my....a second post for today!  I don't usually post twice in one day!  If you are here to see Project Life...scroll on down!

I posted a card the other day with the Ice Cream Dream stamp set from Simon Says Stamp.  It's such a cute set...filled with all kinds of frozen novelties.  I love frozen novelties...my favorite?  The Outshine Pineapple Bars.  80 calories of goodness.  Chunks of pineapple.  Yum.  I eat them. All. The. Time.  Like.Two.A.Day....  HAHA!
Here's a card I made which I colored in with Copics....cut out and mounted on some foam tape.  I love the "you're so cool" sentiment...love that hand drawn look.  Anyway, I cut the white mat and the burlap mat with a Spellbinder die.  The burlap is the paper back burlap from DCWV which I picked up on sale (yay!) at Joann.  It cuts so well....burlap side up or burlap side down.  And I thought it gave a fun look to my card.  Something different, you know?

The background paper is BoBunny Lemonade Stand papers...so cute!
Here is another view!

 

And I added some Wink of Stella Glitter to the cone which apparently isn't showing up in my photo!  But maybe that's why the cone colors look sort of streaky...they don't look that way in real life.  At least not to my eye.

:)

Happy Saturday and Happy Creating!

More Valentine Fun!

Here are two more Valentine's cards made at Archiver's last week.  I made a whole bunch of Valentine cards this year and guess what?  I actually sent most of them off! LOL!!!

Here is the first:

That cute little Cupid image is an Art Impressions image...he looks so mischievous!  Reminds me of my 3 year old grandson, David, who most of the time is an angel but has a good dose of DEVIL in him, too! LOL!
I colored him in with some Copics and then used some Flower Soft for his little diaper.  The border punch was a Martha Stewart punch and some ribbon and glittery heart stickers popped up on some foam finished it off!
Here's a little closeup:

 And here is the second card:

This is Tina....isn't she hilarious!  I love these Art Impression Stamps...they are just so funny! Lots of fun to color in with Copics!
I paper pieced her dress and put some foam tape just under the "hem" of the dress but secured it up near her bosom so she wouldn't be showing too much cleavage!  This is a family friendly site, for goodness sakes!
I also added a few gems to her dress because a girl hanging from a balloon has gotta have a little bling!

Happy Crafting!

RATTOONS!

When I was actively doing speech therapy with preschoolers a few years back I had a precious little boy named Ryan who could NOT get the "k" sound.  All "k's" came out as "t's".  Hence a "car" was a "tar", a "cat" was a "tat" and a "raccoon" was a "rattoon".  He loved to play "rattoons" with me.  He was very imaginative in his play and his rattoons had magic powers and were always stronger than the poor little rattoons he gave me to play with.

I miss little Ryan but I am happy to say that after a LOT of hard work....that little guy FINALLY picked up the "k" sound....and is now a happy little all boy 3rd grader.

Here's my Rattoon...er, Raccoon card:

Raccoons2Love is the new stamp of the month set from the Stamps of Life.  It's a cute little set.  My friend Melissa at Created by Sunshine Honeybee has a plethora of "favorites"....she has favorite wild animals, favorite domestic animals, favorite Snoopy characters, favorite Disney characters, etc.  I'm not a favorite sort of gal but I do kind of like raccoons especially when they take me back to days of Rattoons in the Jungle! :)

Here is the card I made using Papertrey Ink cards stock, a whole lot of embossing folders (3...count 'em), some dye inks from various sources, PTI ribbon, a DieNamic die for the little pennant and I think that's about it!  Whoops...oh, the frame behind the raccoon is also a PTI die.  And I used PTI cardstock and some Kraft cardstock I had purchased at Joann's.  The racoon and tree stump were stamped on Neenah Solar Crest with Memento ink and I colored the raccoon and the trunk with Copics.

Don't you love the way I "man-tied" that ribbon? 

 I popped ol' Rattoon Boy up on some foam dots.

 And here is the sentiment for the inside:

And that's my wish for you....that your day is just a little wild!

Update:  I entered this in the following challenges:
A Blog Named Hero: Challenge 10: A Krafty Crafter 
Paper Pretties Monday PPMC 52: Anything Goes 
Fresh Brewed Blog: FBC #109 - No Digis! Rubber Stamps Only
Simon Says Stamp and Show: Animal Antics
Simon Says Stamp and Show: Favorite Technique (my new is coloring with Copics)
TotallyPaperCrafts Challenge #130: Inspired by a Song (mine is WILD THING!)
Wags 'n Whiskers Stamp Challenge: Favorite Color Combination (I love blues and browns)


 Happy Crafting!

Oooo la la!

I spent a little (well, a lot) of time yesterday playing with my Copics.  It was a lot of fun and without further ado here is the card I made using Penny Black's Mimi in Paris set.

I used some My Mind's Eye printed paper for the mat.  I cut the frame out with a Spellbinder's die and inked it with some Distress Ink and cut the little banner with a Die-Namics die.  The little butterflies were done with a Martha Stewart punch.

I added a little glossy accents here and there.  And my favorite thing other than my very impressive coloring (LOL!) is that I used some Liquid Applique for the little poodle's fur!  I've had that bottle for probably 7 or 8 years and it still worked and flowed!

 I pieced little Mimi together and just glued her flat to the frame but then decided to cut another frame and mount use some foam tape to lift it off the page a bit.

And that is it.  I think Mimi turned out so cute and I love this cheerful card.  But my blending has a long way to go! :)  Off to buy more markers!!!

I'm entering this in the following challenges:

Digi Doodles: Challenge 120 Things with Wings 

Simple Salutations Challenge 6 Butterfly

Crafting for all Seasons Challenge #33: Bright Colours 

Simon Says Stamp and Show: Challenge: Favorite Technique (my new favorite technique for the moment is coloring and shading with Copics)  

That Craft Place Challenge Blog: Things With Wings

Happy Crafting!

Sending Love

I finally went to a local stamp store (about 30 minutes from me) on Saturday with a friend.  We were just overwhelmed by this great little store!  It is called Impressive Ideas and is located in Roswell, GA (north metro Atlanta) if you're in the area!  (Kim, if you read this....I'm still up for a meet-up!)
It was so much fun looking around...and the store owner was there and she was helpful and friendly.

I bought a stamp from a new line to me...There She Goes Clear Stamps.  This line has the very cutest stamp sets and I bought this one called Branching Out because it was so different to me.

I loved this stamp set!

One thing that is so nice about this stamping company is that the website has a gallery for each stamp set they have so it is so easy to get inspiration!

Here is my card...the frame is a Spellbinder frame cut out on my Cuttlebug and the paper is My Mind's Eye Stella Rose as well as cardstock from Papertrey Ink.

I did a little messy stitching on the bottom. I did color the envelopes out with Copics and then cut them out and paper pieced them to the stamped base.  And lastly I added a little Glossy Accents to the little envelopes.

Simple but sweet, I think....what a great set.  So many possibilities!

Happy Crafting!

Coloring with Copics

As I mentioned in a previous post I had bought some Copic markers recently.  I swore I wouldn't get into buying them because of their price but then I just saw such cute things done with them on all of your blogs so they became a "have to have".  I bought a few...not many...I really wanted some do do faces with so I bought a set of skin colored markers...then I bought some others...and then a few others...and...and...
LOL!
Here is my first attempt at some blending. 

I watched a few tutorials (well, really only 1) and thought...well, what can be so tough about coloring?  I've been coloring as long as I can remember!  I've taken a few art classes so get the idea of highlights and shading so figured it would be about the same.  Well, it's not as easy as it looks!  HAHA...so now I will be watching more videos and tutorials!  
I used the cute little digital image from Whimsie Doodles and just colored away.
Since I had some "bleed" above her head I just ended up cutting the cute little girl out and mounting her on a frame cut out with a Spellbinder die which was inked with some Stampin' Up ink (can we say run on sentence?).  I used some pretty paper from K and Company for the card base and added a bit of seam binding for a bow which I tied with my great little handmade BOW MAKER seen HERE. I put a couple of little pearls on her hair bows and used a little white Signo pen work.

She's cute...I can live with her but will be trying to improve those coloring skills! :)

Happy Sunday and Happy Crafting!