Card drive for Spina Bifida

Morning folks!

This week I needed a card for a little guy for a card drive.  Immediately I thought of Paper Jewels and all the cute stamps they carry, and decided to use this fun and cheery Lisa Victoria Rain Dragon stamp.

It's such a fun image, and I decided to pair it up with cheery colours and a simple layout (somehow little guys don't normally appreciate all those flowers and lace LOL!).  The colouring is with copics, and the image is popped up on both levels.  Apart from that it's pretty straightforward.

There is a card drive on for two kids to encourage Spina Bifida awareness.  This is the first of the two cards I've made.  Please check out the link and I'm sure these kids would be thrilled if you'd play along too.  Link for card drive:   A place to praise and craft

Have a great Saturday! 

Halloween Sweet Pea

Hi folks,

I hope you are all enjoying the long weekend!

Today is the last day of the Back to School sale at Paper Jewels to buy 2 and get the 3rd off, so I thought I'd give you all a little reminder and share this card with you at the same time, using one of the images they currently carry.  

I felt like doing something feminine and also felt like doing a Halloween card--I've seen so many of them lately here in blogland!

The main image is a Sweet Pea image.  It's coloured with copics, and then I made the night sky by spreading rub on metalic paste with my fingers.  The lace ribbon was gathered and taped on the back.

Tonight I've got a driving lesson...got to learn how to be a bit more aggressive on the road, apparently.  And my re-exam is next week, so I'll have time for another lesson or two before then.

Today's card matches up with a bunch of different challenges:

Paper Jewels:  Evening scene

Paper Sundaes:  Mixed mediums:  The colouring is done with copics and background done with rub on metalic paste.

Stamptacular Sunday:  Distress it

Stampin for the weekend:  Shabby or vintage

Tuesday Throwdown:  Use ribbon in a different way (I ruffled my lace ribbon)

Sweet Pea Masterpiece

Another day, another card, LOL!

Today I have a little masterpiece created using a Sweet Pea image from the Paper Jewels store, part of the Ching-Chou Kiuks Sheet #14.  As you can see I'm still in my garden mood :-)

The image is coloured with copics, and since I didn't feel like fussing I cut off a lot of the swirls that are normally part of the image.  The cardstock on the bottom right is Co-ordinations paper that I've sanded down.  

What do you think of the flower?  I was visiting my friend Christine last week and she graciously let me hog her die cutting machine and dies for most of the time and I got to cut out a bunch of these flowers.  They've since been coloured with the Copic Airbrush, spritzed with Peal Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist, and then the edges rolled around a wood skewer, before being assembled.  

I've been very grateful to my Mother-in-law since she gave me a huge bunch of assorted buttons, including some absolutely fabulous vintagy ones.  They've been organized and touched and yet I haven't been using them since they are too "precious" {grin}, so today I pulled out one of them to use in the centre of the flower.

Anyway, I was going through my blog and updating the keywords and started reading some old posts, and I have to say some are pretty boring and others pretty interesting...I found my favourite post of my own was last fall, a post about a visit to the farmers market.  I thought I'd ask you to share your favourite post from your blog, if you have one.  If you share a link we can go take a look :-)  

Believe in Fairytales

Good morning all!  Today I have a fun and whimsical card for you using an image I got from the Paper Jewels store, one of the newer Lisa Victoria Sweet Pea images, called Storytime.

This image captured my heart when I first saw it, I was always a girl who loved fairy tales, and I love the little touches like the dragon holding a teddy bear :-)

I used stickles on the velum with the sentiment and on the fairy wings.  The image is coloured with Copics.  There's Tattered Angels glimmer mist on the background sheet, and the lace on the edge was coloured using my airgun.

Old romance novel

Good morning all!  

Today I've got a card made for you using a Sweet Pea image from Paper Jewels, called Come Softly.

My goal was to come up with something dramatic and with a bit of Victorian flavour--perhaps what might have been the cover of one of those ancient romance novels.  I dug out lace and pearls and tissue paper and satin ribbon, and this is the outcome.

I coloured the main image more dramatically than normal, with lots of blusher and silver eye shadow, and the butterfly and swirls are coloured with glittery Spica pens, though you can't see that well in the pic.

Used my new Bow-Easy, sure do love it!

Hope you are having a great week--and remember, the weekend is almost here!

Dramatic Red Hearts

We're past "hump day" and the weekend is almost in sight.  To celebrate I've got a dramatic and feminine card for you today, using another image from Paper Jewels, a Sweet Pea one called  Red Hearts.

Oh yes, and if you are in a shopping mood, (as I seem to have been lately) there is a sale right now at Paper Jewels--perfect time to stock up on Sweet Pea and Bildmalarna images.

She's coloured with copics, and then I used my sewing machine to add detail around the image and then around the outside.  Accented with some ribbon and brads, and that was it, quick and easy and so fun to make!

For her hair, I started off with the lightest colours, and left some parts white where I wanted the "sun to glint" when I started, then added the darker ones, then came back and added the lighter ones.  The technique is described at Sherrie's website, Card Creme.

I hope you are having a great week, and I'll be back here Sunday with a fun summery card for you :-)

Red hearts

It's Thursday and the weekend will be here soon!

The card features a Sweet Pea image in the Ching-Chou collection called Red Hearts which is from the Paper Jewels store.  If you've played with any of these images you know how addicting they are to colour, they just seem to come to life under your pen tip.

The image is coloured with copics, and while it looks like there's a lot of detail, it's mainly large spaces so colouring was pretty quick.  I've decorated this one simply not to take away from the image.  For her eye shadow and cheeks I used the pen tip to pen tip technique since it gives a softer blending when there isn't a lot of room for error.  Around the edge of the background you can see the stitching from my sewing machine, and some flowers and brads finished it off.

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!

Paper Jewels Nostalgia

Here's another card I made this month using the Nostalgia image from Paper Jewels.

It's been a tough week, with a cold/flu sucking up all my energy, so glad the long weekend is here, hopefully some rest and recuperation will happen.  Enjoy your long weekend too!

Romantic Nostalgia

Happy Tuesday again!  I'm happy to get a chance to share another Paper Jewels card with you today.  This weeks card is using a Sweet Pea image called Nostalgia.

The image is coloured with copics, and then I embellished it with lace and flowers etc.  I really liked how easily it came together.

Go with all your heart

Hubby deserted me tonight to go to the hockey game, so I decided to be productive and create something pretty.  I planned to post it tomorrow after I'd photographed it in the morning light, but was so happy with it and so impatient (shocking, I know LOL!) that I had to post it now....please forgive the bad lighting of the photo...

This card was created using a Sweet Pea stamp from Paper Jewels called Bamboo Seranade.  The sentiment is from an SU set, the background I clear embossed using a very old background stamp from SU, and the bug thing I cut out of velum cardstock with a spellbinder die cut and coloured using my copics with an airgun.  The image is coloured with copics too, using direct to paper as well as airbrush.

The weekend is here, and the weathers been good, so I'm planning some gardening for tomorrow, wish me luck that the weeds pull easily and the spiders and insects hide :-)

Feature the main image

On Sunday I featured a Sweet Pea image from Paper Jewels.  Today I have another one, the first one I coloured of this stamp line.  It was so fun to colour, I knew I'd have to make more!!  You can see I had fun blending lots of different colours and the results are stunning (especially in real life).  More importantly, the image was surprisingly easy to colour, and that always makes me happy :-)

The image is a Sweet Pea called Purple Woods.  I loved the image so much that I wanted to make a card that would totally feature it and where there were no distractions, so Voila!  Here we go:

This card was so simple and easy to make, stunningly beautiful (I think) and guess what?  That thing we never talk about.....it was CHEAP to make!  Focusing on the main image and using simple papers to accent it is FRUGAL since all those embellishments we normally layer on are usually the things we pay the most for.  Got to love it {grin}.

Photo Inspiration

Happy Sunday everyone!

Today we have another fun challenge at Paper Sundaes, this one is a photo inspiration challenge.  Our sponsor this week is Paper Jewels.  I'm happy to showcase one of the fabulous Sweet Pea stamps that Paper Jewels now carries.

Isn't she gorgeous?!  

Anyway, back to our challenge: I was given the below picture and asked to use that as inspiration for my card:

I had fun with this challenge, the field of flowers and the soft colours and feel of it appealed to me, so this is what I wound up making:

So I chose the image because of the butterfly--looking at that field of flowers made me think of butterflies.  Then, to keep going with the idea of the inspiration challenge, used colours from the picture to guide the colouring.  

At this point I had a great main image, but what next?  Dug through my stash of DP till I found this SU Tea Party DP with a floral background in similar colours--perfect!  Next, decided that some swaying grass in the background went well with the idea of the field of wildflowers, so stamp that on an acetate sheet and layered that overtop of the DP.  

Next, layered the main image, but it still was missing something, so overlayed it with velum and to tie into the swirls in her hair added a flourish overtop of the velum.  

It is so beautiful in real life, one of those cards I'm going to have trouble giving away as I love the finished effect.  The only thing I would do different is not adhered the velum at both top and bottom, because when you look at it you want to lift the sheet and look underneath, and you can't.

What do you think?

I hope you'll join us with this inspiration challenge at Paper Sundaes this week, I'd love to see how you interpret the challenge and what you come up with, and you'll get  a chance to win a Sweet Pea stamp of your own to play with too :-)