Bright Birthday

Happy Sunday!


Today I'm sharing with you a bright birthday card, using an image from Stamp and Create, as part of this weeks Paper Sundae challenge.  This certainly was a challenge for me as I usually work with neutral and light or earthy colours, and the colouring especially was a bit tricky for me using colours that I don't usually use.

I combined two digis on this card, and then used my sewing machine that we recently dug out of the crawl space (since it's still sitting on the kitchen table LOL!).


I hope you are all having a lovely weekend!

Vintage balloon

Friday is here again, and this one is a bit sad as it's the end of my term with Sugar Creek Hollow, and I've got my last SCH Design team card to share with you today...though this surely isn't my last SCH card!

Today's card is using a new release called Vintage Balloon, as well as a vintage ticket that is a freebie at the SCH site.

Our challenge this week was to make a card with no designer paper.  This wasn't a problem since I've got my handy dandy cuttlebug, lots of folders, some coordinations paper and ink, so I was able to make my own background.

Left it pretty simple, with a fabulous image like this, more wasn't needed.

Check out the rest of the design team, our last week together, they've all come up with beautiful cards to wind things down with.

Stephanie   ~   Loretta   ~   Cheri   ~   Sarah   ~   Dani  

Tracy-Owner   ~   Kelly   ~   Linda   ~   Marsha   ~   Joan   ~   Nancy     

 Donna   ~   Cassie   ~   Joseline   

Rain dragon

Morning folks!

Today I've got a fun card for you using an image I got from Paper Jewels, one of the new Sweat Pea stamps by Lisa Victoria, called Rain Dragon.  I just finished reading a series of books with dragons in them, and so they were on my mind.

Quick and easy to colour--of coure used Copics--and I had fun adding little bits of this and that as decoration.

For those of you using Copics, you might like this little review of paper types that was prepared by one of my classmates from the Copic Certification class.  I agree with her findings, from my results too, and really liked the little photos of the different samples she provides, as well as some good tips for colouring on the velum.  The link is http://markerguru.blogspot.com/2010/06/paper-comparison.html

I hope you have a lovely Thursday, remember the weekend is almost here!

Airbrushing scene and some copic colouring tips

Hi folks,

Today I want to share with you a card I made recently that I just love.  It's using a Cornish Heritage Farm image that I snagged an image of at my Copic Certification class in May (this stamp is definitely on my wish list now!).  I used a few of the new techniques I learned, and experimented a bit, and am really happy with the result.

Firstly, I started out by colouring the sail.  I put a lot of shading on the edges and in the corners to bring to life the shadows, and then I used one of the new techniques which is to spray the blending solution onto a piece of fabric, then press the fabric against the image to get a pattern.

Then, after letting it dry, I coloured the rest of the image.  I used the tip to tip technique for a lot of the areas to give depth, and followed the instructions to try to use 3 colours when blending (ofen I'm lazy and use 2, but it really does seem to work better with 3.

Also, I've coloured my colour chart and have been picking the colours based on that, rather than eyeing up my pen lids and choosing colours that way--it works much better using the colour chart since the lids aren't always a great indication of how the colour will look on paper.

After colouring the main image, I realized I needed to do the background (which I usually do first).  I figured I should use a mask but didn't have an extra stamped image I was willing to cut up.  Then I realized I could photocopy the image, cut the boat/people out, and then layer it over the image and adhere it with non permanent double sided tape.

Once the main image was covered up, I was ready to work on the background.  I asked my hubby what he thought I should do with the background, and he searched online and came up with a picture of the ocean and the sun coming up or down (not sure which).  So using that as inspiration, I sprayed away with my yellows and reds and purples and blues.

I used a piece of scrap paper to mask the ocean area when spraying the sky, then did the reverse for the ocean.  Afterwards, I decided the ocean was too "even" (one of the problems I sometimes have with the airgun effect) so I took a cotton swab, applied blender solution, and then swished over it in circular motions.

In other news, I was very excited to win a prize on a challenge blog!  When I opened my email from Laurie of Clearly Delightful I was floored--my first time winning on a challenge blog!  So goes to show that not only is it fun to play the challenges but there can be fun surprises too :-)

Princess background

Hi folks,

I see lots of folks have asked about the background for my Princess card.

Despite how cool it looks--and in real life looks even better than in the pic--it is really easy!

First, on the white card stock, I stamped the trees, added a bit of colour to the trunks and grass beneath them, and then used the air gun to spray in a dirt path, grass, and sky--but this could have been done with sponging or direct medium to paper.

Then, I added a layer of velum which is adhered only at the top by the brads, so it fans out a bit.  Charlotte is stamped on a separate piece of card stock, coloured and cut out, and then glued on top of the velum, and the sentiment and swirl are stamped using staz on directly to the velum.

Got to love velum, so many cool things you can do with it!

Pretty as a princess

Morning folks!

Sunday's rolled around again, and we have a fun challenge at Paper Sundaes--to make a card following the theme "Pretty as a Princess".

For my card I went my own way on this--never one to follow the road most travelled LOL!

I used the WOJ Rogue Charlotte image that Simon Says (this weeks sponsor) carries, and my card is for empowered princesses :-)

When I was a girl I refused to wear pink or ruffles, and was enchanted with the idea of princesses who would sneak out of the castle and dress as commoners for adventures, so to celebrate my ideal of a princess, here you go :-)

And did you see--we dug the sewing machine out of the crawl space, cleaned it off, read the manual, threaded it (that took a while to figure out!  and I managed a bit of (not so perfect) sewing!  Yay!  I have been inspired by all the sewing I'm seeing here in blogland on cards, and finally decided I had to join in.

I'm very open to suggestions as to how to use my sewing machine-- it is a Singer and there are a lot of knobs and things that I am afraid to touch.  One problem is that it skips spots here and there, as you can see on the left hand side about mid way up.  Why is it doing that?  Also, what do you do on the corners so it doesn't look all gimped?  PLEASE give me some pointers!

Anyway, I hope you are all having a wonderful weekend.  If you have time to play along with us we'd like to see your version of a Pretty as a Princess card :-)

Pile it on with SCH

Happy Friday!

I sure am glad the weekends almost here, it has been a crazy week, with work and life piling on top of me...to match that theme, LOL!  our challenge at Sugar Creek Hollow this week was to Pile it on, and so I dug through all my embellishments and created this to share with you:

For those of you who have been faithfully leaving comments here on my blog but have noticed I've been pretty quiet this past week, I have to apologize--family from out of town, exams and work have been consuming.  Now life looks back to normal and I'm looking forward to checking out what you all have created the last week or two that I've missed :-)

Paper Sundae!

Hi all! 

Another Paper Sundae is here again!  I hope you've had a great weekend.

This week we've got a sketch challenge.

Friday with SCH

Happy Friday!

For most of you this is the start of the weekend--for me, mine started Wednesday evening as I've got some days off to spend with out of town visitors.

Here I've got a card for you using an image from Sugar Creek Hollow.  I used some of the new blending techniques I learned at the Copic Certification class and like how the colouring came out.

I've used a fabulous sketch from Clearly delightful, sure makes it easy to follow along when there's a good sketch!

Happy Sunday!

I hope you've all been having a great weekend!

Today we have another challenge for you at Paper Sundaes--this one is to create a summertime fun card.

I made this card earlier in the week when I was taking a break from cramming for my exam, so be kind LOL!  I used a free digi you can get from this weeks sponsor, Sassy Cheryls.

Unfortunately, I'm not done with school for the summer.  For some reason I, in a moment of crazyness, signed up for a summer course (arg!).  My first assignment is due on Tusday!!  I'm taking the day off today though, for a bit of "summertime fun" working in my garden.

Have a great day, and I hope you'll join us in this weeks challenge at Paper Sundaes!

Blog hop with Sugar Creek Hollow

Hi all! 

This weekend we've got a fun blog hop happening for Sugar Creek Hollow, I hope you'll join us and enjoy the variety of cards we've prepared for you.

For my card, I used the new Vintage Graduation set, and my letter in the game is T.

The cap is popped up and the top (darker) part of it is coloured with black Spica pen so has a subdued glittery shine to it. The cord is that SU hemp twine they discontinued in red a few years back but for which I've got some left, and I just unravelled the end and distressed it to flare out. 

The next stop along the blog hop is Donna.
If you are just starting and would like to go back to the beginning see Joan.