Box Car(d) Penguin Birthday

A cross between Up! and Madagascar with a cupcake would probably be the best way to describe this card!

I decided I wanted to make one of these box cards that I had seen on SCS and that it would be penguin and birthday themed... well the penguin theme probably came first to be honest. So I looked at my cute as a button penguin by Gina K and thought wouldn't he be cute holding a birthday cake of some kind... I wanted to keep this all Gina K but didn't have the right sized cupcake in my Gina K stamps so I went with the Technique Tuesday ones. Instead of paper piecing I cut inserts to slip the cupcake behind his flippers and then backed the stamped image with another fussy cut penguin, which also helped with stability when I adhered him to the card.

The balloons are an old QuicKutz die and loads of cheerful colored cardstock. Some were scraps.

Ingredients

Card size - 8.5 in. x 5.5 in. folded flat;

Cardstock - The Paper Studio: black, white, striped;

Stamps - Gina K Designs: Melt my Heart, Sweet Tweets; Technique Tuesday: Icing on the Cake;

Ink - Gina K Designs Color Companions: black onyx, white; Versamark;

Color - Copics; Sakura metallic silver;

Accessories - gel-a-tins scented embossing powder chocolate bliss

Brrrrrother... Happy Birrrrrrthday!

This card was created for my eldest who is away at university.  His university colors are brown and orange and he loves penguins. The 2 penquins represent him and his little brother.  I knitted them hats in those colors for Christmas.  I love it when there is no plan but it comes together anyway!

The Stampendous set comes with a stencil so I used  that and sponged my Gina K Color Companion white ink on the blue cardstock and stamped and colored over that. 

Ingredients

Card size - 8.5 in x 5.5 in

Cardstock - Recollections 110 lbs white, 65 lb light blue & blue, Monsters and Robots

Stamps - Stampendous Jumbo Penquins;  Gina K Designs Lots of Letters;

Ink - Gina K Designs white, black onyx;

Color - Copics

Accessories - Stickles, Paint pen white

Prismacolor Pencils Peony Party*

*well birthday really, but that didn't roll off the tongue as easily.

Anyway, I made this card for my mother-in-law for her birthday next week.  I took another lesson from Lindsay the Frugalcrafter and just kept working my pencils rather than relying on any solvent based blender (like this video). I LOVE how it all turned out. Now if I had been clever I would have told you how this was all planned out. Honestly I was playing with my Prismacolors after not getting the results I wanted with my normal watercolor pencils. It wasn't necessarily bad just not what I wanted. 

Also what I didn't want was my flower floating in the middle of the page or to die cut or fussy cut it so I cut a mask and stamped around it. It was definitely out of my comfort zone but I think it works. 

Full disclosure! Here's the watercolor attempt! I think I like more water than cardstock will allow so watercolor paper from now on. Also I was trying to do the whole invisible stamping thing...need to get working on that some more.

Ingredients
Card size - 8.5 in x 5.5 in
Cardstock - Recollections white 65lb & 110lb for base, blue;
Stamps - Stampendous - Jumbo Peony; Cornish Heritage Farms - grid paper; Kitchen Sink Stamps - Whole Family;
Ink - Gina K Designs - black onyx; Memento - pear tart, bamboo leaves, bahama blue, danube blue, rose bud;
Color - Prismacolor pencils

Crafting with Lindsay the Frugalcrafter - Daffodils watercolor

Yet another great video tutorial from Lindsay! And I'm doing these in no particular order. Just as a tutorial or technique peaks my imagination. Here is a link to Lindsay's tutorial.

Anyway here is my 1st attempt at these daffodils.

I learnt how to draw a daffodil.  WooHoo!  Also that I wanted to clean up my drawn lines more before applying watercolor pencil. Also that it takes deft skill to make that background look effortless. Still I'm happy with my first attempt and I think I might try again with my inktense.

Ingredients
Size - 5.5 in x 8.5 in
Cardstock - Canson watercolor paper 100lb
Color - Derwent watercolor pencils

So it is later and I tried it with the Inktense and cleaning up my sketch... getting there.  Night time lighting not helping.

Sew it's your birthday!

This is part of trying to use what I have and so I made this for my cousin who has started sewing in the last year when her grandmother gave her a sewing box and some material.   Now I don't know about you, but when I think Tim Holtz I don't think bright, white, and cheery. Don't get me wrong. I love all the vintage, bygone era, distressed look of Tim Holtz and his fans. It just wasn't going to work for a sassy preteen with a love of zebra print and purple. So on went my thinking cap and this is what I created with what I had.

I cut 1/2 inch strips of paper and adhered them to thin cardstock, making certain to tape in the middle to keep from gumming up my sewing machine. I did this for a large 11 1/2 x 8 1/2 sheet of cardstock which I cut into two panels and then sewed the panels. I did both in case I had an issue with one.

I stamped the "happy birthday" sentiment on cardstock and hoped to machine stitch it as well. Haha! That was a hot mess... so I pierced the sentiment and hand stitched it. 



The dressform was stamped with Versamark and embossed with a metallic purple embossing powder.  As for the envelope I made it to match but the paper cracked so I used other stamps in the set and made faux washi tape for the edges of the envelope and a tab to hold the flap down with some printer paper.

Ingredients
Card size - 8.5 in x 5.5 in
Cardstock - The Paper Studio: classic collection, cardstock; Recollections 65lb and 110lb;
Stamps - Tim Holtz- Seamless Experience; Stampendous - Happy Messages;
Ink - Versamark; GKD Color Companion - white;
Accessories - Zing! Purple metallic embossing powder; Sewing Machine; Thread and needle; Dimensional tape; WRMK envelope punch board.

Crafting with Lindsay the Frugalcrafter - Bird of Paradise

I get so inspired by Lindsay the Frugalcrafter that I'm planning on crafting to her videos to practice my owns skills.  So this may be a series if everything goes as planned. I watched the video first and then I played it again pausing as necessary as I am much much much slower at drawing than she is. In all, this probably took me around an hour and 15 minutes.

Lindsay's post and video. I changed things up by using black Recollections cardstock and Prismacolor Pastels. Also my pastel is 8.5 inches by 5.5 inches as I wanted the option of making it a card front.

I'm pleased with the result but obviously need more practice.  I may even try it again with my Prismacolor pencils as I don't have Artstix.

Christmas Roundup - the disasters...

So part of the reason I started this blog is to share my crafting journey and every journey has those memorable incidents that makes the rest of the journey look like smooth sailing... thus, we come to the Christmas disasters.

All year I collected our soup tins that had a pop top lid carefully opening them with my special can opener and cleaning them and saving them to make santa tins to fill. As Christmas approached I filled them with a bag containing of chocolate nuggets, kisses and those soft peppermints you only seem to see at Christmas.  Then I glued them with E6000. Now I did this in a well ventilated area and was sure this was going to be the cutest novelty gift ever for our friends' kids.

So of course I test them on my kids first. They open them and the strong glue smell is inside the can. Oh no! Then the youngest eats some chocolate and complains it tastes funny.  I had a bit and immediately realized that the glue smell had permeated the chocolate.  Thank goodness I hadn't distributed them further than my own kids. I threw them away. My husband pit.them in the recycling bin. I didn't care as I was devastated and greatful at the same time.

My other disaster this Christmas were my Santa/Grinch (or elf) ornaments. I had a brain blip and painted the black of the belts with acrylic paint which dried flat and scraped off as I was doing the buckles. I thought I could touch them up but um let's just leave it at that didn't work either. So they are on a shelf to see if I can salvage them.  At least I didn't wax the insides...I've read that fails after a year...why wait a year when it can be in real time! LOL