Paper Sundae's Challenge#3

Happy Sunday!


Time for another Paper Sundae!  If you haven't already, check out this weeks challenge at Paper Sundae's, it's timed perfectly with a Valentine theme.


This week, again, we have a sponsor!  Yay!!!  It's so exciting that some of these great companies are willing to help out our fledgling challenge blog :-)
Paperworks Co is providing a $25 gift card to their store to one randomly selected participant of the challenge, and they have the cutest rubber stamps imaginable!


Here is a card made with an image from their store:

Isn't he darling?!  My DH really liked this card :-) and that's always a good thing!  I used my copic airgun to get the blue sky in, coloured Cupid with my copics and his wings with a clear glittery spica pen.  The hearts were made with a new punch my MIL gave me at Christmas. {THANK YOU AGAIN MIL!!}  And don't you love this lace?  I was so excited to find it at the fabric store for 29 cents a meter!!!  I only bought 4 meters and now regret it, should have bought like 40 LOL!

I hope you'll join us in this weeks challenge, making a Valentines gift for your sweetheart, and also a chance to win a gift card you can use for this or other similar images from Paperworks Co

Have a great Sunday!

Sugar Creek Hollow Preview

I am so excited to be able to share this card with you today!!! The Sugar Creek Hollow Design Team and I have been working hard behind the scene creating cards to share with you for the Grand Opening. We couldn't resist holding back!! We want to share with you just a preview of what is to come. 

I made this card using two of the images, inserting and sizing them in Word and then printed onto cardstock.  I cut out the teacup and then coloured both the teapot and cup with copics.  The gold rims are coloured with Spica pens, and the green design is using SU markers (boy, I wish you could get those fine tips on the copics!).  I antiqued the edges with creamy caramel ink and added some lace and robins nest dew drops, and "presto!" it's done :-)  

Want to earn this digi for FREE? Become a Sugar Creek Hollow Follower. Be the 150th or 200th follower and you will receive a FREE digi of your choice!!!
Deadline is February 7th at 10pm eastern time. The winner will be announced on
February 8th Preview Week! 

Please visit the rest of our lovely team by clicking on their links listed here:

Design Team Coordinator:      Joseline     http://stampinwithsimplicity.blogspot.com/

Kristina      http://reflectionsofahappycrafter.blogspot.com/
Cheri      http://thepaperfreak.blogspot.com/
Cassandra      http://www.altered-for-him.blogspot.com/
Cassie      http://fortheartofit.blogspot.com/
Joan      http://j-jcreations.blogspot.com/
Stephanie      http://stephaniesstampinspot.blogspot.com/
Marsha      http://stampingdownsouth.blogspot.com/
Dani      http://countyourbeautifulblessings.blogspot.com/
Suzi      http://mrsweyremaster.blogspot.com/
Loretta      http://lovetocreate.blogspot.com/
Donna     http://myartisticrelease.blogspot.com/
Sarah     http://creationsbysarah.blogspot.com/
Tracy      http://primitivepaper.blogspot.com

Guest Designers
Kelly      http://sandcastlestamper.blogspot.com/
Linda      http://thefunkiejunkie.blogspot.com/

Chinese New Year!

Chinese New Year is almost here!





 This year it coincides with Valentines day.






There are a lot of Valentine's cards around, but how many Chinese New Year cards have YOU seen?!

Many of my friends and colleagues celebrate Chinese New Years, and this year I decided to give them cards for the occasion, and you will get to see a few of them posted here between now and February 14th!

This is the first Chinese New Year card I made.  Firstly, I had no images that were really appropriate, and secondly, I wanted to showcase these gorgeous postage stamps.  What to do?  I decided to use the little red money envelopes.

First of all, I needed to get some.  They come in various sizes, shapes and designs.  Some have pictures of flowers or the characters representing the year or other items representing good fortune.  Here is one of the more "plain" ones, so it was easier to work with.  Thank you to my friend Kim for this and many other ones!

Since I didn't have any little red envelopes of my own, I sent an email around to my friends and they all brought me a bunch of different ones.  No two cards will be alike!

In my next couple of Chinese New Years posts I'll share with you more about the history, celebration and tradition of it.  Wait till you see my next card!

New Store! Paper Jewels Stamps open now (Yay!)

I'm excited to announce the opening of a new online store here in Canada selling Bildmalarna rubber stamps.  Have you seen these before?  Check them out here:

Paper Jewels online store - your Canadian source for Bildmalarna rubber stamps link

These stamps are nice and easy to use and the images so fun to work with.  Check out this first card I made using one of their images:

This image is called Mimosa Ice Christmas.  I wanted to experiment with my Copic airgun, to do a North Pole type sky, as well as to create snow banks, and decided to do this by layering paper.  You can't see it well in the picture, but the snow banks are sprayed with Pearl Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist and sparkle and there is glitter on the edges too.  Finally, to add some colour I added a bit of blue DP that matched her coat and hat and some matching blue wool.

I'm super excited about his new store that's been started by one of my fellow bloggers and crafters here in Canada, who is now going to enable us to shop some more LOL!

Paper Sundae's Challenge#2

It's Paper Sundae time again!  And what does this weeks challenge have in store for us?

Pink, brown, lace and flowers is the theme.

Now if you are planning on joining in and are missing something, like lace or flowers, remember you can always use substitutes.  Here's my take on the theme, substituting since I had no lace handy:

Since I had no lace, I tried to add all kinds of "lacy" type things, like the Martha Stewart lacy doily edge, the lacy ribbon, and the crochet flowers.

The flowers are handmade by my SIL and her daughter, and were given to me at Christmas....I sure do love them!  The image is called Cuddles Kuma Plushie and is a digi stamp from Ildi Co., who just happens to be this weeks sponsor.

I haven't put a sentiment as I think it could be used for a number of things, and will wait till I'm ready to give it to someone to put one on.  Likely a birthday, in a pinch could be used for a baby girl.

Will you join us in this weeks challenge?

Ildi Co Colour Challenge -> Pink Red+White

This month the 2nd Ildi Co challenge is a colour challenge, with the colours Pink Red and White.  Pretty nice and easy challenge with Valentines lurking around the corner!

Aren't these smooching Snowpals (Ildi Co. digi image) sweet!  and so easy to colour {big grin}....  The DP is SU from my stash as is the sentiment and hardware.  Used circle nesties.  Don't need much more!  Got to love these quick and easy cards.

Now, what am I going to do with all these Valentines cards--only one DH!  I've seen a lot of folks here in blog-land making lots of Valentines cards, so my question to you is, what do you do with your Valentines cards?

Shabby chic & a sneak peak!

Todays card was made using the first Sugar Creek Hollow image.  I was thrilled when I saw it, and extra happy since it is so easy to work with.  For the first card using it, I thought the Vintage style would be perfect to combine with this weeks Simon Says challenge, which is Shabby chic.

I decided to keep it really simple, and nice and small--a love note that can be tucked into DH's lunch bag :-)

The fabulous paper is handmade and, would you believe, I got it at Costco (?!)...a few years back.  The whole bundle of papers are so beautiful that I never use them, LOL!, since I want to save them.  Part of my new years resolutions was to use the stuff I had, so I dug it out.  The edges are distressed in line with the "Shabby Chic" theme.

The main image, from  Sugar Creek Hollow, was printed and coloured in with copics.  I then filled the heart area in with Glossy Accents, which is like Crystal Effects only WAY thicker.  On the edges, and spread over all the white areas, to enhance the Vintage and also "Shabby Chic" theme, I used rub on metalic paint from Gina K, in a copper tone to coordinate with the handmade paper.  To finish it off there are Basic Grey rhinestones in the edges of the Spellbinders Fleur de Lis Pendant.

Here's another look at it where you can see the metalic rub ons stuff a bit better.

I've got lots of ideas buzzing in my head now of other cards to make with this versatile image, watch for more in the next few weeks :-)

Paper Sundae's First Challenge

It's another Paper Sundae Sunday!

After last weeks blog hop and all the kind comments on my first attempt using the Copic Airgun, I figured you'd like to see another project using is.

Like the little sneak peak on the side here?  Wait till you see the finished card (below) :-)

This weeks debut challenge at Paper Sundae's  is a sketch challenge.  You can find the sketch here.  This week's sketch is sponsored by Stamp & Create.

Participate in the challenge and upload a link to your card on the Challenge site and be entered into a draw to win a gift certificate to Stamp & Create.  Not only do you get to stretch the creative muscles, but we can all use some extra crafting money!

Back to my card... For starters, I wanted to keep going with the soft look of last weeks card, and also the quiet Asian style.  So many of you commented on liking that, have to keep you, my readers, happy!

I have a background stamp of bamboo that I realized would go perfectly with the main image of the bird (shown above).  Since I wanted a background showing the sky and forest in the background, I sprayed blue on the top, orange and yellows in the centre and greens and browns on the bottom.  I've been having some problems since I only have about 12 of the sketch markers and all my other ones are ciaos, and I haven't figured out how to shim the airgun to accommodate the round markers--I've just been holding them there at an angle, but the results are subpar.  This really limits what can be done.  I'll let you know once I figure this out and what worked!  So here's the background before I started layering:

Then I heat embossed the background image using a dark green embossing powder.  Unfortunately I hadn't put enough versamark on the stamp before doing this and didn't get a great impression, so I reversed the sketch so I could hide this with the main image.

Now, ladies (and gentlemen?), my words of wisdom to you are to look CAREFULLY at a sketch before cutting everything up.  Let me say I wasted a lot of paper (and time and effort) since I "kind of" went from memory, and then looked at the sketch before adhering it all together, and then had to recut, reorganize and redo a lot of stuff here, LOL!

The end result, in real life, is very soft, and the colours in the background look great--very hard to photograph well.  For the main image, I used the metalic fingerpaint stuff from Gina K's on the edges to give it a bit of an antiqued look.  The stamp is in the current SU catalogue, and the papers and ribbon are also SU.  To finish it off (and follow the sketch!) there are three robins nest dew drops in the corner.

To see other cards made using this sketch check out the links at Paper Sundae's , or better yet, see what you can create using this sketch!

To the Beach!

At this time of year lots of folks are heading on vacations to sunny destinations....Mexico, the Caribbean...so many great places to visit!  While I sit here staring at grey skies and unending rain, it picks me up a bit to think of the sun, sand and surf, so today I decided to play with this great image by Ildi Co, called Cuddles Kuma at the Beach.

And here's the final product:

There's no sentiment at the moment, but I left the top right hand corner empty so one can be added on there, once I decide who to give this to :-)

The background was made with the Copic air brush system, using just three colours--light blue for the sky, beige for the sand, and a darker blue just at the ocean line.  It's getting easier to create with this toy!  The main image is coloured with copics as usual.  The sea shell was created with a spellbinders die.

So what do you think, is this making you smile thinking of the beach?

Rock in the New Year!

Today's post is part of the SASSY STUDIOS ROCKIN HOP!  

So here she is, all dolled up and pretty hot!

The image is called "I'm Every Woman - Cosmopolitan" and it is, of course, available at Sassy Studio Designs.  Don't you just wished you were that Cosmopolitan now and then?!


And here's the full card:

As usual, the image is coloured using copics.  The patterned paper is from a big pack purchased at Micheals a few years back, and the ribbon was a gift from my SIL.  I stamped the swirly thing using gold Encore ink, and then dressed it up with a few Basic Grey Rhinestones.


I've been having fun with square cards lately.  My family gave me packages of square envelopes at Christmas, so I've been going wild with square--it's fun to have a different shape to work with :-)


What do you think?  If you'd like to see more of these Rockin' cards, check out the party at Paper Craft Planet at the below link, Friday evening between 5 and 8 pm Pacific Standard time.

Sassy Studio Designs at Paper Craft Planet - Link

Great News!

Yippee!!  I'm thrilled to announce that I've been accepted on the Design Team for a brand spanking new digi stamp company called Sugar Creek Hollow.  I've had a sneek peak at the artwork and am super excited as it is fabulous...what were the words they used?  "Vintage and Primitive digi stamp designs".  They'll be having a grand opening March 1st, but you just might see some previews of what is to come here on my blog over the next few weeks.

Check out their site -- you can see bios and links for the other members of the design team (all super talented, don't know how I managed to be included as one of them!) and you can also become a follower which will make it easier for you to watch for updates, plus that will get you entered into a draw for a $50 gift certificate.  Here's the link to the site:

Sugar Creek Hollow Link

I can't wait to be able to show you a card made with the first digi stamp, I'll be working on it this weekend :-)

Valentine Bunny

Valentines is around the corner, and there are so many cute images and ideas to use for Valentines cards! This card was designed and inspired for a new challenge (Challenge #1!) at Clearly Delightful. I saw a card made using a delightful bunny on a blog as I was surfing about, and they had a link back to the Clearly Delightful site, where they are giving an adorable free bunny digi away to all participants in this challenge....but it is a real challenge because to participate you have to use a bunny image on your card! Off to my craft room, digging through drawers of rubber and finally to the boxes of snagged images, and finally I found this bunny that is so perfectly suited for a Valentines card.

The mulberry paper with the red rosses pattern, in the background, was received as gift wrapping in a gift exchange over two years ago. It's been gathering dust in my stash since then, and I thought it would match well with the roses in the image. The hearts I decorated with stickles and liquid pearls, and the sentiment is from a little known SU set (and it's the first time I'm using it !).

Thank you and Welcome!

Before getting into today's post, I'd like to thank everyone for their wonderful comments on my last posting during the Blog Hop, and say welcome to all of you who are new to my blog!  I am thrilled to see, having gone to see each of your blogs (for those of you who had left links) that most of you are pretty experienced and/or talented ladies, and the fact that you would take time to comment on my humble work is just thrilling!  I feel like I have to step up my crafting a notch to meet up to your expectations LOL!

Anyway, I wanted to put a post up but haven't got my camera in order (dead battery) and bedtime is approaching, so I'm going to share with you one of my "back up" posts, of a couple cards I made in November.  Newer creations will be posted soon :-)

Moving Day!

It seems there's always someone in our lives, whether a neighbour, colleague, or friend, who is moving - I guess that is the cycle of life, and I like to be prepared.  Here are two cards I made for a swap a while back.  The exciting thing is I only had to come up with ideas for 2 different cards, make a bunch of duplicates, and then get 10 totally different ones for my stash -- yay!

So here's the first one, my favorite of the two.   I liked the crisp feel of it and the warm colours.   

 This is my hubby's favorite of the two, I guess it's a bit more "homey":

 

Both of them used the same technique of creating a window and then sponging the background (and if I did them today I could use my Airgun! wonder how that would look?  Will have to try!).  On to the surface of that I then stamped the image without colouring it.  The images are both from the same retired SU set called Right at Home.

So I'm interested, which is your favorite, and why?

Paper Sundae's Blog Hop

Welcome to the first ever Paper Sundaes Blog Hop!  If you have arrived here from Danielle's blog then you are on the right track!  If not, please go back to the start at Christine so you don't miss any of the beautiful inspiring cards or blog candy!  Remember to check all the stops so as to not miss any candy and finish at Paper Sundaes blog for the big candy.

And here's the card I created to share with you for this blog hop ~ a very special card ~ my first card using the Copic ABS system!

DH gave me the Copic ABS system as an Xmas gift, but I've just been intimidated by it and didn't know where to start.  Finally this weekend I wanted a FABULOUS card to share with you on the blog hop, and decided to challenge myself to use the airgun (in line with the idea of a challenge blog LOL!) and was thrilled at how easy it was to use and how much the airbrushed background contributed to the card.  I dug into my stash and pulled out some precious velum paper as an overlay, and used Staz on ink so it wouldn't smear.  The dragonfly is coloured using sparkly Spica pens, and the stamp set is from the current SU catalogue.

Here's a photo of how the airbrushed sheet looks without the overlay so you can see the airbrushing:

So what do you think?  I'll surely have more samples for you to see using this new toy in the weeks to come!


The next stop on our blog hop is Shanna, make sure you check out her beautiful card! Don't forget to keep your eye out for candy along the way. And make sure you join us on January 17th at Paper Sundaes for our first challenge and the announcement of the blog candy winners. 

Ildi Co Challenge Blog - First Challenge of 2010!

It's the first Ildi Co challenge of 2010, and they've given us a fun challenge, here's the card I made:

Valentines is coming up, and so is my wedding anniversary, so my thoughts were towards hearts and kisses, and I used this Clownkins image from Ildi Co -- isn't it adorable!  The challenge is to use scraps and metal, so I dug through my bin and found some pink paper and red cardstock and a tiny bit of ribbon, and this cute metal heart, and put it all together.

The Clownkins are coloured with copics and the background with the small hearts cuttlebug folder.

New Years Cards

Every year I slave over Christmas cards, and this is the second year in a row I didn't get around to mailing them all out....Arg!  This year, I decided to send New Years cards instead, but wasn't sure what image to use.  Thank you Carla for the link to the wonderful Greeting Farm freebie!  I printed these off Saturday and they just "flew off the press" so to speak.  Still haven't written in them or mailed them yet....
ps. here's the link for the freebie, which is on the right hand bar: http://splendidstamping.blogspot.com/

I made 9 cards with it (obviously had my mojo then!), and here is one of the ones I like best.

The image is coloured with copics, and was super easy to colour.  What I like best is that the illustrator put shading in the areas that needs it, so you don't really have to think about it all that much LOL!

Here's another one:

And here's a third, I made them all pretty similar, but used slightly different layouts so that each is unique

As a card maker everyone expects cards, so I better make sure to write in these and mail them off!