Ahoy Maties!

 

Gosh, it's been an awfully long time since I was able to be on here! We had to move my office, which included my craft room. So sadly, all my supplies have been packed up for the last several months. They still are, but I'm hoping to have my Craft Room back in order some time with in the next week or two. In the mean time, I just couldn't stand it any longer--I managed to find a few essentials and made a card for this week's Sketch Saturday Challenge.  


This week's challenge wasn't that much of a challenge--it was "Pick a Sketch"! So I found a Digital Stamp I liked from this week's sponsor, Paper Nesting Dolls, then found a sketch that would go great with it! I went with sketch #465, and turned it on its side.





Of course, I didn't use just an oval for the middle, or include a sentiment. But it's very similar otherwise! 




I first used Stampin Up Daffodil Delight to lay down a nice bright background, slightly darker at the bottom. Then laid the Tim Holtz "Rays" stencil over the piece, and sponged on Stampin Up Blush Blossom (a retired color) to make the red-ish rays.

The waves were cut with Simon Says Stamp Border Waves Wafer Dies. I admit, I should've put a sentiment in the lower left hand corner, but I didn't have one that said anything like "Ahoy Matey!" so I just went without a sentiment.

The image was colored using Copic Markers. I looked at several YouTube videos to get a better idea of how to color wood--this one seems pretty helpful! My ScanNCut is still packed up, so I had to fussy cut the image myself. I also touched up the metal parts with yellow Wink of Stella.



 And, because that just wasn't enough, I made this a hidden slider card! I had watched this tutorial from Jennifer McGuire a while back, and it was very informative!

As I said, I didn't have any related sentiment stamps, so I printed the card sentiment on my printer. I seem to do this a lot, and it works well for me.

Again, I'm hoping to be back on track here now, so please come check back again soon to see what else I've got brewing!! And of course, don't forget to play along with me and the other DT Girls on Sketch Saturday! 

Flower Power Chickie

Today's challenge at Scrapndipity was Flower Power! I envisioned this card where the stamped image was actually on the inside of the card, but seen from the outside. 

I used a circle die to cut the yellow flower-center, and 1-1/2" punch to cut the smaller pink circles from scrap pink patterned papers. I hand drew the leaf on the green paper and cut the stem with the paper-trimmer. The hardest part was lining everything up, including the small piece of acetate to hold the stem in place. All were attached using scor-tape.

 

The chickie is from ScrapnDipity and was colored with Copic Markers. Staying in those little lines was QUITE the challenge! Thank goodness for the blender pen working like an eraser!  I colored the center of the chickie's flower with a yellow Wink of Stella, and added Accent Essentials to the glasses.

The sentiment stamp, which is a little high and to the left of the page to keep it hidden behind the flower, was an older wood-block stamp from Hobby Lobby, and stamped with Memento Black.

I am working on a small GIVEAWAY for the end of this month, so keep a watch out if you like retired Close To My Heart stamp sets!

Let's Catch Up!

Today over at Sketch Saturday check out the fun Sketch # 454! I'm not 100% pleased with the way my card turned out, but it was still fun and I think, cute!

The cute Floating Kitty digital stamp that I used is from SamiStamps.   I colored it with Copic Markers, and used a white gel pen to move where the eyes were looking, so I could move the little birdie to more accurately match the sketch. Then used masking paper to make the circles, and inked around them to create a bit of a sky-like background.

The interior sentiment was given to me from a friend.

Thanks for looking and don't forget to check out Sketch Saturday!

Random Acts of Mail Scrap Cards

For this Scrap Challenge, instead of choosing my papers first, I decided on a simple sketch then chose papers that I could use with the sketch. I belong to a Facebook group that sends well wishes to people in need, so I use a lot of Cheer, Encouragement and Get Well cards; making most all of the cards with the same sentiment made the process easier.

Most of the cards I printed on the printer with ""Sometimes it helps to know that people are thinking of you--Hope it does the same for you!" on an ivory card base.

 

However, one of the papers I chose seemed to go better on a white base, making 2 cards with this pattern. Since I doing it with a different paper, I decided to go ahead and do a different sentiment as well.

I think this one is my favorite of all 10 of the cards. I really like the way the flower, which was just a corner of the whole page looks here. All the stamps used were Stampin Up! and stamped with Versafine ink--brown for the ivory cards, black for the white cards, then heat embossed with clear powder.

So that made 10 cards all ready to send for my RAOM, and all out of scraps, accept the card bases, and one sheet of mint green card stock.

Every Bunny Card

 I love the way this card turned out! This image is from A Day for Daisies and for the Blog Challenge over at Cards And More for the "Friendship" them.  

The watercoloring isn't perfect, but that's one of the things I like about watercoloring--it seems perfectly acceptable for it to not be perfect!  I think the blades of grass really completed the look of the image. 

I'm still working on my splattering technique as well, so it's a bit more "splattery" than I'd like.  Then the ink I used chose not to dry very quickly, and it got a little smeared. Grrr! Sequens to the rescue--they at least hid SOME of the smears.

 The card base was one I had on hand and found that it looked so adorable with the image! Then the ribbon matched with that--at least one thing went right on this card!

Just to make me completely frustrated with my abilities as a crafter today, the sentiment I used on the interior of the card left a little edge smudge. Geesh--I'm on a roll!


Let me know if you think the "mistakes" are too noticeable, and I should re-work it!  Also, head on over to the Cards And More Blog challenge to see what others came up with for the "Friendship" theme challenge.

Monsterous Birthday Card

Fun and simple sketch over at Sketch Saturday today! Very versatile and easy to customize.  I chose to make a horizontal card rather than a vertical, the stripes on the top, and flipped so they run vertical rather than horizontal!  Confused yet? Pretty simple, really, just sounds complicated.

This fun stamp is a digital from Bugaboo Stamps. Of course, the benefit I find in digi's is that you can print them to whatever size works best for you! I probably should've actually made this a little smaller, but it would've been harder to color that way. So it takes up a larger portion of my card-front than I'd like, but still cute!

The coloring was done with a combination of Copics and Spectrum Noir markers.

The inside sentiment was stamped with Memento Black.

Thanks again for looking and for playing along over at Sketch Saturday!

Train-Ride Birthday

 How cute is this little train set from ScrapNDiptiy?? It also comes in a girl figure, rather than a boy. I made this card for the ScrapNDipity Design Blog Spotlight--please check it out over there, as well!

I thought this train set was the perfect chance to make a regular envelope sized card, which I'd been dying to try for a while now. 

I will admit, I had a terrible time finishing the coloring on these critters! I cut each with my Scan N Cut 2, and always go around the edges with a black marker to make them look complete, and remove any stray white around the border. For some reason, every time I did this, it bled into the coloring of the critter! GRR! I re-did the little boy at least 3 times, and STILL have a little bit of bleed. And totally gave up on the bunny--she is what she is!

When I finally got a boy that I was willing to live with, I attached him with foam tape, so he was a bit of a focal point on the card.

The "Birthday Boy" on the cover, and the "It's all about you today" sentiment on the inside were stamped with the Stampin Up set, "Hooray Its Your Birthday". It just didn't seem to make sense to place the sentiment in the middle of a long card like this, and I think the off-to-the-side placement worked out great.

Thanks for checking it out! Have a great day!