Birthdays, Birthdays!

This is a week for birthdays for us. Tomorrow my sweet little, adorable and a little goofy granddaughter turns 4.  These last 4 years have gone by so quickly...scary how the time flies!
I made her this little card with a Penny Black stamp set called "Mimi in Paris".  Taylor loves animals so I thought she'd like this little one with a puppy on it.

I stamped the images on white cardstock and then masked them so that I could use some distress inks to make the background. I also punched some clouds out with masking tape and used those on my sky.

I used mostly my new Chameleon pens to color with a little Copic coloring thrown in.  I find the Copics challenging to get nice blending like the pros but the Chameleons which are supposed to be much easier to use were not for me! LOL! I need lots of practice.  But I don't think Taylor will notice my less than perfect coloring.
And then I used some liquid applique for the puffy stuff on the little poodle.  I finished off with some clear Wink of Stella to add a little fun and glittery sheen.

Happy Birthday, Taylor!
And Happy Crafting!

Oh, and I entered this in the Simon Says Stamp Anything Goes Challenge which you can read about HERE.

Happy Birthday!

And whose birthday is today you ask? Well, it happens to be the birthday of my very special daughter in law, D'Ann. She's the cute young lady who married my son last April. Remember?

So, I made her a card and we will all be meeting up for dinner tonight.

I used papers by Alison Kreft (Echo Park) called Everyday Eclectic. I thought the double sided papers worked perfectly.  The cardstock base is from Stampin' Up. The card was cut with a design by Lori Whitlock with my Silhouette Cameo. Simple, easy and fun!

It has more dimension than showing in the above photo so here is another view of the side:

It was so easy that as I was cutting it I made extras for a duplicate card.

The sentiment was done with stamps from Penny Black. 

And that's it for today...time to get ready for our feast tonight!

Happy Crafting and Happy Birthday!

Happy Father's Day

Father's Day is right around the corner.  Although my own father, whom I adored, has been gone a long time I am surrounded by really great dads.  My son in law is a wonderful and very involved father to his 3 little ones.  I think he gets a little overwhelmed with them sometimes but he plugs through it!  He is a hands on, diaper changing, story reading, juice fixing, fort building, tickling, rough housing, baseball coach,  "you can ride on my back" sort of dad.  When he walks in and sees Taylor he always says "Hello, Beautiful!" to her.  So sweet.  He loves his children and his family and I know his kids will grow up with a great role model. Here he is with 2 of his 3.  :)

I made this card using a cut file from the Silhouette store which was designed by Jennifer Lane (Jenni Cripps).  She does some amazing stuff!

Simple card here....just cut the front out and backed it with some foam adhesive and some printed paper.  The word "dad" has a little Wink of Stella clear on it to give a bit of a sheen.  I stamped "You're the best" with a Papertrey Ink stamp and "Ever" is a Penny Black stamp.  I heat embossed with some clear embossing powder over some black versafine ink.

And here it is:

I love how simple this is....and I love the tools.  They cut so well!

Happy Crafting and Keep Creating!

Make a Wish!

I got about 15 minutes of mojo going today and made this card:

Someone special in our lives is having a birthday next week and I made this card for her.  I used Penny Black stamps and embossed with Zing white embossing powder.  The blue paper and ribbon is Papertrey Ink.  The scalloped punch is a Fiskars punch but did you really need to know that?  Probably not. 
I do love this stamp set though...it comes with lots of little circle thingies and some sentiments as well.  So pretty and there is something about a dandelion that makes you want to make a wish!

I used the Swiss Dots embossing folder for a little more texture.  And oh yes.... I guess you can see I corner rounded 3 of the 4 corners.  Whoopie!  LOL...I just get such a kick when people give so much detail on how they make things.  "I took white paper from Walmart and cut it down to 4.73560 inches by 5.0286750 inches and used my Fiskars punch purchased in 2000 to cut a 1.84692 circle"  LOL!
Of course, sometimes people create these great things and don't give you any clue how they made it! LOL!  I don't know which is worse!



And that my friends, is it for today!

Happy Crafting!

More Copic Coloring

I love the cute little Mimi stamps from Penny Black.  They make me think of my little granddaughter, Taylor.  Although she's not quite as "big" as Mimi is....I can see a lot of Taylor's sweetness in cute little Mimi.
This is a wood block stamp....I don't usually buy woodblocks anymore because of the storage space they require but I couldn't resist this cute one.
After stamping with Memento Tuxedo Black ink on Neenah Solar Crest cardstock I colored with lots of different Copics.

 I actually stamped her and then cut her out.  I don't know why....probably could have saved myself that step but initially I was going to mount her on some colored paper.  That just didn't look right so I went back to putting this cute little gal on white to make her stand out.  I cut the mat out with a Spellbinders die.  The printed paper is from Imaginisce and I also used an embossing border from Cuttlebug.

I added a little Scattered Straw Stickles on the little bluebirds beaks and the flower centers. The sentiment was From Papertrey Ink's Fillable Frames #6.  The rickrack border was cut with a Papertrey Ink die.
And 4 hours later she was done!  OK, she didn't really take that long!  LOL!  And every second spent was total fun! :)
I heart Copics.
I hate Copics.
It's a love/hate relationship.  A definite learning curve which I am still at the bottom of! LOL!

I'm entering this in the following challenges:
Simon Says Stamp Challenge: Simon Says Put a Stamp on It
Perfect Sentiments Challenge: PSC48: All Creatures Great and Small
Simple Salutations Challenge 10: Animal

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!

Three at a Time

I usually just make one card at a time because as I'm creating it I'm heavily into the "design" process and it just doesn't occur to me to create more than one at the same time.  I make a huge mess just making ONE 4 1/4 by 5 1/2 inch card....I can't image what my desk would look like if I were to make more than one!

But I went against my rule on this one.  I used this very cute Penny Black set called ...wishes and instead of just embossing one of the circles at a time I did several.   Here's the set:

Here is my card:

 I simply embossed the little circle images with some Adirondack Embossing Powders, punched them out with a circle punch and then topped them onto a scalloped circle.  Slapped those babies on some black cardstock with some foam tape, embossed a sentiment and taaaaa daaaaa....DRUM ROLL PLEASE.....

 .....FINISHED CARD....er.....THREE!

These will work great for my Operation Write Home contribution!

I'm entering this in the following challenges:
 Cute Card Thursday: Challenge 228 Clean and Simple
DLART: Happy Birthday - Linky Party - Anything Goes 
A Blog Named Hero Challenge #9 Freestyle

Happy Crafting!

Flat and Little!

I don't usually do flat and I don't usually do little.  I like buttons and ribbons and lace...and all those things that make sending a card by mail virtually impossible!  Is that why I make cards but keep them?  I probably have a card sitting here for you I never mailed! LOL!

I don't do little either.  I don't like when cards don't fit into envelopes perfectly.  And square cards cost more to send than A2 or more standard sized things.  I'm frugal....why should I pay more to send a square envelope?  Wah, wah, wah.....

It must be the rain here in Atlanta today .... we need it but it makes me cranky!!!

Anyway, here is a little 4x4 card I did with some various stamps....I used a Hero Arts stamp to make the background....inked a piece of paper with some Broken China Distress Ink and then stamped it with the same color ink.  The cute little images are by Penny Black.  I colored with Copics and added a little Glossy Accents to her glass of Lemonade.

I cut the images out and then put them on some foam tape to add a little dimension.

We celebrated Taylor's birthday with a party yesterday and it was also her mother's birthday who happens to be my daughter (are you following that?).
Here are some photos from the day...first the cake and table that my friend Kelly made for us (to match the one from Saturday when we did her photoshoot)...It was absolutely gorgeous....and the inside was four layers and the bottom layer started with a darker pink...and each layer got lighter.  So gorgeous!

And the table:

And a photo of the 2 birthday girls:

 Happy Crafting!