Birthday card #2

Hello.  I made another card for the TGF Farm Fresh Challenge Monday Fun-Day #12 which was to use kraft cardstock, buttons and twine.  And I used the Deconstructed Sketch #31, although I turned it sideways and moved the center rectangle over.

Anyhow, here is the birthday card using Later Skater Ian.  Maybe he's still too young for a 41 year old's birthday card, but oh well.  (Maybe I should have added some gray to his hair).  Used some Tim Holtz paper (I always seem to use this paper pad for boy cards but everything matches so well); Papertrey ink kraft, rustic cream, and enchanted evening cardstock, buttons and sentiment.  The 41 is cut from some sizzix dies.  Tried to make his skin tone a little darker with E13 for some shadows at his hairline, but still can't quite get the hang of blending without going too crazy and coloring out of the lines either.

Well, hopefully I can make 2 more Christmas cards before Christmas.  Eva gave me some cute stamps that I have colored, but haven't stuck them onto cards yet.  In case I don't have time to post anything else before Christmas, have a Merry Christmas!

merry kiss-mas

Hi!  Wow, 8 kids plus our own 3 for lego robotics practice can get pretty wild.  After hanging out with all the kids, you can really see how great each one is.  But after about 4 hours of robotics, you really need a break!  And boy, can the kids eat! 

Anyway, I wanted to make a card after seeing the current sketch over at the Deconstructed Sketch no. 22. 

The triangle in the middle reminded me of Christmas trees so I flipped it and made a Christmas card.

The trees are made from PTI's tree die.  The little tag plus the sentiment is also from PTI and the snowflake is an MFT die.  I embossed the cardstock with a snowflake folder from Sizzix and the red DP is embossed with another Sizzix folder.

I chose TGF's A Cheeky Xmas and colored her in with pencils.  Can you tell I'm slightly addicted to pencils now?  Though I thought her hat was kind of difficult to color.  I outlined the fluffy parts with a light blue copic pen.  There is a small pompom at the end of her hat and I added flower soft too.

Some seam binding ribbon and a pin which totally remind me of snowmen. 

Also plan to enter this into All that Scraps Challenge--anything goes.

It's back to the school routine tomorrow!

Thanks for reading!

Thank you

Hi!  I made a simple card to share.  It's a Thank you for my son's preschool teacher's aide.  Her last day is this Friday so even though my son has only known her for a couple months, I thought we could at least make her a couple of thank you cards.  Why do preschool teacher's aides have such a high turnover rate?  It makes it so difficult for children.

My card was inspired by the Deconstructed Sketch #21, PTI's Make It Monday #35--custom washi tape, and Lawn Fawn's WCMD challenge--thank you cards.

I liked the sketch and I wanted to keep my card really simple just to show the custom washi tape.  Cardstock and sentiment is from PTI.  Paper doily is from Martha Stewart.

The widest width scor tape I have is half an inch so I taped 3 strips edge to edge on the tissue paper to make a wider one.  I stamped Lawn Fawn's hearts from Teeny Tiny Backdrops.  Then taped it onto a piece of clear cardstock (PTI) before cutting it with PTI's butterfly die.  The clear cardstock makes it strong enough to keep its shape and is just a bit transparent.  The longer strip is the half inch washi tape.  This is such a neat way to make washi tape!

Also wanted to share the thank you card my son made for his teacher.  He liked the card I had made with TGF's Birthday Ian so wanted to copy it.  His says thank you instead of love you.

I'm off to take the kiddies out for lunch. 

Thanks for reading!

Another birthday card

Well I'm back with my sporadic cardmaking.  September is a pretty busy month for birthdays around here so I figure I should get started on some now.  I tried the Deconstructed Sketch for the first time.

Finally broke out my Sweet and Toxic boy stamp.  And colored him with distress inks.  This was my 2nd time trying to use distress inks.  It gets a bit messy with all the water, and sometimes I feel like I can't control the brush nicely or stay within the lines or blend nicely.  Which is why sometimes doing artsy things gets me a little uptight...

Anyhow, used some Oliver paper from Basic Grey, and a leftover round piece from the card kit.  Stamped the sentiment and cake from PTI's tag series.  I used some tiny attacher staples for the side, I guess I should have used regular size staples so it would show up better.  I guess you can't really see the row of staples at the bottom either.  I couldn't really think of what to use for boy embellishments so just did a line of staples at the bottom that ended up blending into the paper! Oh well.

Well, it's getting ready for back to school around here too.  Hopefully it won't get too crazy the first week.  It might take me a whole month to get readjusted to the school schedule now.  Bye!

aloha

Hi!  Aloha kakahiaka means good morning to you.  Do you know that song?  It's like a little preschool song that my kids used to sing.  The Greeting Farm's Sing stamp reminds me of that song. 

I think this may be the first time I colored her up entirely.  She's sweet, isn't she?  I selectively stamped the musical notes from Lawn Fawn's Teeny Tiny Backdrops.  The sentiment is PTI felt and alphabet dies.

Masked some clouds in the background.

Followed the current DS sketch #55.  I know I left out that vertical piece cause I just couldn't make it work.

Today was a holiday for us here.  Spent most of it doing chores.  We also celebrated my youngest one's 4th birthday this weekend.  Cake, ice cream and a yummy lunch!

Thanks so much for reading!

Cheeky Geeky and Some News!!!

Hi!  I have some exciting news to share today!  Cheryl and I are now Brand Ambassadors for Perfect Layers!  Click the link or the banner on the right or bottom of this blog to see what Perfect Layers are about if you are unfamiliar with them.  There is a video which can explain how these rulers work much better than I can.  I just tried out my new set of rulers last night to create mats/layers for today's card.  

Sorry if the pictures are a bit dark.  I really wanted to try the rulers out!  Each ruler creates different size mats.

I usually mat my papers one sixteenth of an inch all around.

I had cut some paper to size and glued it to the cardstock I wanted to use.

Then I placed my ruler so that my paper would catch in the lip of the ruler and I cut the excess cardstock off with my xacto knife.  

I did that for all the sides and came out with a nice mat for my paper.

This is how I had my papers positioned without any mats.  It's still pretty cute but I love how adding some layers really make the card/papers and images pop.  Layers can also create some cohesiveness too. 

This is my final card with all the mats I created using the Perfect Layers rulers.  I'm also so happy that I got The Greeting Farm's Cheeky Geeky!  I hope they come out with an Anya with glasses too.  Anyway, I colored her up in purple shades with Copics.  The sentiment is from Lawn Fawn and I thought I'd give this to one of my kids' teachers at the end of the school year.  I added some purple crocheted lace on the bottom to tie in the purple color a bit more since I couldn't really find purple paper.

I added some black pearls around the image and bling on her glasses.  Also added glossy accents on her glasses and ponytail holders.

Used the Deconstructed Sketch 51 for this card.  I love Jen's sketches!

Also entering this card into All That Scraps Challenge -- Anything Goes, 7 Kids College Fund Challenge #47 --  Color Me Purple! and Anyone For Anya? -- Something Lacy.

I know this was a bit of a long post but just wanted to share our new tools!  And if you're interested we do have a coupon code which is this&that5% that you can enter at checkout.  There is a facebook page you can check out too!

Thanks so much for reading!

musical movies

Hi!  Hmmm, this may be a longer than usual post as I think I may have gone a little overboard participating in The Greeting Farm's April Customer Challenge over on SCS.  I think because I had a little crafting mini break that I tried to make up for it by making 3 cards over the weekend.  I'll be sharing all 3 in this post since the deadline for this challenge is Monday.  The challenge is create a card inspired by a Musical Play or a Musical Movie.  

For the first card, I followed sketch #47 at The Deconstructed Sketch. 

When I was a kid, I loved the movie Annie!  I loved the songs and everything.  So this is my version of it.  I used TGF's Stella (body) and Nahla's head.  

I'm thinking she looks kind of sad but maybe hopeful too?  I ended up cutting off her little pigtails and wiping away Stella's envelope in her hands.

It's hard to tell but I did sponge on some clouds behind her but the lighting makes it look like a plain piece of white cardstock.

Can you guess this one?  High School Musical!  My kids loved those movies.  I'm sure we'll re-watch these movies when my youngest gets into them.  My older son loved the songs and tried to imitate the dance moves.  Ha!  Still cracks me up when I think about it.  I think he likes singing and so next school year, I'm having him sign up for the school chorus.  

So Troy is a mix of TGF's Paul and Dylan.  I wiped away the original number that was on the shirt and put Troy's number instead.  And Gabriella is a mix of Odette and Miko.  

The paper is some older school themed stack that I had.  Simple card.  I added some musical note die cuts from My Favorite Things. 

The last card I made was inspired by Grease, one of my favorite movies and really, the original High School Musical.  I love the end of the movie and that's what I wanted to portray in the card. 

This altering took some doing!  I wasn't sure if I could pull it off but in the end I love how it turned out.  Sandy is a combination of Miss Anya Love (head and shirt), part of the pants from Miss Anya Autumn and the shoes were from another Miss Anya from the Love set.  I used my light box to trace the pants and make the pants longer actually.  Danny is from My Guy Ian.  I just traced in the outline of his shirt using my light box instead of having the original patterned shirt.  I was worried it would look weird but since I had to color them in black anyway, it hid a lot of the mistakes!

I added in the first couple of lines to the song, You're the One That I Want.

I didn't spend the whole weekend making these cards though.  I actually had time to do the usual amount of laundry and then some since I cleaned out my kids' rooms and did some vacuuming too.  Plus I have 2 sick kiddos.  My oldest seems okay but my youngest has a super high fever so I think I'll be heading to the doctor's tomorrow.  He has already peed in his bed twice since being sick so that has added to my laundry load as well.  

Thanks for reading!

Bella's birthday

Hi!  Ready for another Wild Rose Studio Bella card?  I know lots of you fell in love with the one I made HERE.  I bought my Bella stamps from All That Scraps but they are selling out pretty quickly.  iCopic is another place I know sells them but they may be selling out as well.  Oh, check out Stamp and Create too.  Really, who can resist cute, chubby little Bella?  Love her!  Every time I write Bella, it reminds me Edward's Bella from Twilight, hahaha.  Bella the elephant is way cuter!

I followed the current sketch at The Deconstructed Sketch #46.

Okay, so everyone say it with me, awwwww, she's so cute!  This image is called Bella's Birthday, hence my post title.  I know, I'm so witty like that.  Bella is so quick to color up too since I just made her gray but now I'm thinking she could be a lot of fun whimsical colors like blue and pink and purple.

I colored in the dots of her balloon with my white gel pen and then added stickles to them.  The tiny tag and sentiment are from Papertrey Ink.  I wanna pinch her cheeks and hug her belly!  Hahaha.  She makes me happy!  Think I will stare at her for a while.

The papers are from the Bella paper pad.  Adorable!  And the scalloped doily die cut is from Magnolia.

Thanks for reading!

Best Mates

Hi!  I decided to use yet another retired and neglected stamp set from The Greeting Farm called Best Mates to make more home decor.  I wasn't sure who I could give this to if I made it into a card so I thought I'd put it in my room next to the other one I made HERE.  Plus it was the perfect time to use this set since the challenge over at Anyone for Anya was to create a pirate themed card.  I used The Deconstructed Sketch #45 for help in the layout.

I like that quote.  And I think those are monkeys, right?  But what is that one on the right eating?  Cheese, pizza, or something else?  I made it into cheese.  

I added some swirly rhinestones and black pearls all around too.  The pirate ship is heat embossed with some glitter too.  I wanna add something heat embossed to everything I make now.  Hehe. 

I added some seam binding too.  I like using seam binding.  It's easier to tie a bow with and doesn't have to look perfect.

I also want to enter this in TGF's Retro Fresh Challenge -- Spring Cleaning.  But it would be my second entry.  Can I do that?  I don't know if there are rules to multiple entries in the same challenge.  I hope it's okay. 

Thanks for reading!