2010 - Penguin sleigh party

The last of my last year's Christmas cards well not quite - would you believe I have a whole group of "winter cards sat here that haven't been mounted to send to some special people in my life? Yeah, I didn't think I was stretching your imagination too much with that one!  Maybe its something to do with publishing photos of my work 2-3 months after I have sent it out!  Still I love to share even if its only with a few people.

So here it is and a bit blurry too!  Bet you would believe that I take most of my pictures just as I'm stuffing that envelope to get my cards out the door too... hmmmm I think I might be giving away all my closely guarded secrets!

Anyway I like how this ended up and hope you do to.

Recipe

Card size -  8.5 in x 5.5 in

Cardstock -  Neenah, Bazzill, Recollections

Stamps -  High Hopes (I think)

Ink - Memento

Color - Copics

Accessories - Grosgrain ribbon, Cuttlebug dots embossing folder.

2010 Ski bear Snow Wishes

I decided early on that I wanted this card to use non-traditional christmas colors. 

I think it works even though I didn't have quite the right color cardstock and ribbon to match the blues in the coloring.  Sometimes I think we can get too hung up on things matching.  When Helena Bonham Carter was questioned by Jay Leno recently about her oddly paired shoes at the Golden Globes she said perfection is overrated and she is happy being herself. 

I think she had a point.  I know many card makers that can drive themselves to distraction trying to perfectly match items rather than enjoying the "flaw" or even glorying in it - so here's a shout out for non-matching blues - don't let them get ya down!

Recipe

Card size - 8.5 in x 5.5 in

Cardstock - Neenah, Bazzill

Stamps -  High Hopes

Ink -  Memento

Color-  Copics

Accessories - Ribbon from Michaels, Spellbinders snowflake background die.

PS - the color matching police haven't found me yet!

2010 Merry Kiss Moose!

Maybe I should have published this warm little kiss earlier this winter!  Definitely a cute idea for a winter warmer.  I sent this little card kiss to my BIL and SIL.  I tried a few patterns and embossing folders for the background and I was happier with the less is more approach, almost like that old saying about taking off one piece of jewelry before you walk out the door, however as I normally only wear earrings I think I would look a bit odd with only one earring so maybe I will just stick with I planned this card to be clean and simple!  It will be a secret just between us right?

Recipe

Card size - 8.5 in x 5.5 in

Cardstock - Neenah, Bazzill

Stamps - High Hopes

Ink - Memento

Color - Copics

Accessories - ribbon from Michaels. Corner rounder.

Totally Tiger

I made this card for a tiger lover.  I bet you never would have guessed!  I attempted to use flocking on the background... I know its kinda faded but I like it.  I think it looks more realistic that way.

Recipe
Card size - 8.5 in x 5.5in
Cardstock - Neenah, The Paper Source, Bazzill
Stamps - High Hopes, Cornish Heritage Farms
Ink - Memento, Versamark
Color - Copic, American Craft
Accessories - Nestabilities,  Fun Flock

A boy and his catapult/slingshot - for UK Mothering Sunday

Yes, there is definitely a story behind this card. Firstly, this card is for my MIL for Mothering Sunday, March 14th. She is the mother of boys and my husband is her youngest so by the time he came along they had already done it with the eldest. He still has ongoing stories about not having pets, toys, etc because his brother had them. One such item he never had was a catapult until his older brother became an apprentice welder and made him one. The catapult was then worked on by both them and they found a bit of tubing and proper density elastic to make it work. Of course, no self respecting boy would leave his catapult lying around without ensuring it could work. There in lies the story of my husband deciding the best thing to aim at was the neighbour's telly aerial. He had had a few goes and missed, that was until his father came out to see what he was up to. He told his father right away he was aiming at the neighbour's aerial and took another shot. Well as luck would have it he hit and in the same breath his father confiscated his catapult never to be seen again until they were clearing out the garage a couple of years later.

I saw these easel cards on SCS - I didn't really read the directions - I just had a go at my craft table. I like the way it turned out. Again this is another card that I'm trying to use up some of my paper stash - this is from a Basic Grey pad.

Ingredients -

Card Size - 8.5in x 5.5in

Stamps - High Hopes, Kitchen Sink Stamps

Cardstock - Neenah, Bazzill

Ink - Memento - Rhubarb, Tuxedo, Rich Cocoa; Ranger - Distress Inks

Paper - Basic Grey Archive

Color - Copics - B000, B93, B95, B97, G21, G28, E02, E04, E08, E31, E33, E35, R35, R37, R46, R59

Accessories - Prima flowers, Making Memories Brads, dimensional tape

Purple Pansy Petal Power!

I love this card - it turned out so much better than my brain imagined it - I just went with the creative flow and it all worked out this time!

I bought this Clear Dollar Stamp sets specifically to use for my MIL's birthday. She is a gardener at heart. She actually worked with disabled gardeners until her retirement and then continued to run a monthly club for them to attend.

If you haven't seen these flower of the month and flower sets at Clear Dollar Stamps then check them out - they have so much punch and variety within them.

I started this card out by using my Pansy set and coloring it with my copics - well actually that's not quite what happened. I started out this card with the intent on using my twinkling H2O's to create a luminous card that I knew my MIL would love. I painstakingly colored my main image and all the while not truly liking how it was turning out... Yikes! This really wasn't speaking to me. So knowing I was up against it and really needed to get this done I changed course and went back to my trusted copics and stamped and colored again - oh, yes! that really is much better. So the flower was colored and a nice sky halo of blue added to help it "pop".

Oh dear, now what. I looked at my Flower of the month set... I want to use the script... hmmm do I mask the image and use it? That doesn't seem quite right for what I am wanting. So I decided to create a background with the set using the script. On thinking it out I thought the script alone would be "too" masculine so I added the flowers, playing about with the placement using the stamps and the projected image in my head (no image available - just clutter in there!) and decided to stamp the image in a row of three and working out that if I turned the stamp 180 that it would fit together in the middle of the page rather nicely. Then I added another row of script stamping. I used the London Fog grey because I just wanted a softened reference to the original image. I colored in the pansies on my background just using the lightest of the colors I had used with my original image. I looked at my background and thought it needed something. There is just something about "script" that always screams antique to me - so I dug out my Distressed Ink inkpads and found Faded Linen and a sponge and just sponged over the entire background.

Afterwards I was playing with a layout idea and thought I would need a sentiment - I decided to use Brilliance Victorian purple and clear embossing on my sentiment to match the mounts of the image and the card. I wanted it to have a different sheen to it to stand out slightly from the background itself. Then I used the Swiss dots embossing folder for the entire background - that took three passes - I was thinking about using another folder but I wasn't certain I could get the pattern to match. I set my background aside to work some more on my main image.

I had stamped and colored my main imaged on a 4.25 in x 5.5 in sheet of cardstock. I wanted to use one of my Nestability sets - so after going through them all! I decided on one and used the next size for the mount...hmmm... I decided to embossing the image layer... now what? It doesn't really pop like I want - so out came the Distress Inks and sponge again and I used the die as a mask. On the mount layer it just seemed to need something to tie it together a bit more so I used the inside of the die as a guide to put down some faux stitching.

I decided to make the effort to match up the inside of the card too -

I decided I wanted to repeat the usage of my stamps again to mirror the front of the card. I first stamped the main image pansy in the center of the back of the card and the the sentiment in purple then I used the FotM pansies for the bottom corner and the script stamp across the bottom. It just felt like it still needed something so I softly colored in the pansies to match the front! It was then I decided to stop.

Ingredients

Card Size - 8.5 in x 5.5 in

Cardstock - Bazzill, Neenah

Stamps - Clear Dollar Stamps Pansy and Pansy Flower of the Month; Kitchen Sink Stamps Whole Family

Ink - Memento Tuxedo Black, London Fog, Grape Jelly; Brilliance Victorian purple; Distress Inks Antique Linen

Copics - BV00, BV02, BV04, BV08, Gooo, Goo, G14, G17, Y11, Y15, Y17

Cuttlebug Swiss Dots

Nestabilities

Owl thank you!

I love this cuttlebug folder - its not new but its such a great way to get a sentiment on a card without it taking over the image. I just embossed the front and then adhered it to the card base and edged the front in a purple ink that matched the mount for the owl image.

The image is from Clear Dollar Stamps colored in with copics. I love their images and have made a vow to use them more (which probably isn't too difficult as they may make up the majority of my stamping collection these days!)

I'm trying to get caught up as I have the disease of procrastination. These are for my children to send thank you's to my DH's aunties who send them gifts at Christmas. Now the hard part - getting them to write them!

Ingredients
Card Size - 4.25 in x 5.5 in

Cardstock - Neenah, Bazzill

Ink - Memento Tuxedo Black, Grape Jelly

Clear Dollar Stamps - What a Hoot

Copics - E31,E33, E35, E37, B000, YR04

Cuttlebug Folder - Thanks

Nestabilities

Autumnal Birthday greetings

This is one of the cards I made for my mother's birthday in November. I think it is kind of unisex and doesn't automatically scream that the recipient is male or female.

I was hoping that the ink would bead (and it did) for the tree trunk just to create some bark texture. I think just played with the leaf stamps from the set and kept over stamping in different autumnal Memento inks.

The one thing I would absolutely change on this card is that I would have had the exact match memento ink pen for the brown lines on the kraft card base.

The layers are done so that the brown echoes the size of the image and the green the dimensions of the card base.

Ingredients
Card size - 8.5in x 5.5in
Cardstock - Archivers Kraft, Bazzill, Neenah
Stamps - Clear Dollar Stamps
Ink - Versamark, Memento - Summer Sky, Canteloupe, Desert Sand, New Sprout, Bamboo Leaves, Rhubard Stalk, Rich Cocoa.

Belated birthday "sweet" friend

I just love these images from High Hopes stamps and was determined to use them for a dear friend's very belated birthday card. I hated it being late but knew just that I was thinking of her would brighten her day whenever it arrived!

I colored in the little girl with the melon first and decided that the three main colors should be the pinky reds, greens and yellows of the melon. That made me decide the little girl would have brown hair and the sky would be a nice blue - I carried all these colors through the project but the main ones moreso.

I also wanted to use stitching on my card but I didn't want to ruin it so I went with faux stitching to keep the card fresh and clean.

I created the background paper with a nod to a checked picnic blanket but by using the main colors of the image the pinks and green and the chisel ends of my copics. For the sentiment image I just quickly colored in the rind and inside of the watermelon - and used one of my newly aquired punchesI thought this punch really picked up on the lace of the dress of the image. What do you think? and truthfully the cut around was a "save". I had stamped the two watermelon images for the inside and outside of the card on the same 1/4 sheet of cardstock and with the edging I had to either cut through the image or around it. I like the way my mistake turned out.

Now the nitty gritty -

Ingredients
Card size - 8.5 x 5.5 inches
Cardstock - Neenah, Bazzill
Ink - Memento tuxedo black
Stamps - High Hopes Stamps
Copics - 0, B000, B00, E00, E02, E31,E33, E35, G000, G14, G17, R20, R22, R32, R35, R37, Y11, Y15, Y17, C5, C7
Accessories - EK success punch, Nestabilities, Sakura gel pen

Hi! Ho! Sheffield Wednesday Superstar!

Another guy card but truthfully I think it is more important that it is a football (soccer) card for a friend of ours. He supports Sheffield Wednesday or The Owls for those not in the know. The secondary theme is that my family call our friend "Superstar" . So you see between football, Owls, stars and team colors I had a lot to work with.

I used my Clear Dollar Stamps for my owl and coloured him in with my Copics and then put glossy accents on his eyes. (and one of these days I will get a good close up picture I promise!!!)


I think the idea of the background almost worked but didn't quite. I didn't want it so regimented but I wonder if that would have been better.

Ingredients
Card Size - 8.5in x 5.5in
Cardstock - Neenah, Bazzill
Stamps - Clear Dollar Stamps, See D's, Stampology
Ink - Memento Tuxedo Black, Summer Sky
Copics - 0, 110, B000, B00, YR20, YR23, W1, W3, W5, W7, E31, E33, E35, E37
Accessories - Nestabilities

Just in case you wondered what the Hi Ho is about http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6PXSRsaloo&feature=related Please be warned that it is not my posting on youtube and I can't be accountable for comments people make on such footage.

Hipp O'Birthday!

I love this image I got from High Hopes! I never thought of myself as cutesy but I guess I am. I tend toward young images rather than overt realism. I guess I like the fun fantasy of them and the kick toward being young at heart. I do love the effects I get with my copics in coloring in our purple hippo. I decided to take a nod from the High Hopes Stamps though made my hippo more purple than theirs. Theirs has more pink tones but I shyed away from the pink tones as this is for a boy.

I also like the color combo of orange and blue and wanted to use up some of my patterned cardstock stash - so pretty but I struggle to use it!

With my critical eye I think there are two things I could have changed about this to just make it pop that much more. Use a co-ordinating green in the image itself and vary the grounding color from the shadow.

Ingredients
Card Size - 5.5 in x 8.5 in
Cardstock - Neenah, Bazzill, DCWV
Stamps - High Hopes Stamps, Stampendous
Ink - Palette Noir
Color - Copics - BV00, BV02, BV04, BV06, BV08, YR02, YR04, YR07, B000, B00, B02, B05, R27, R29

Stephen King's Christine for your birthday? Are you scared yet?

The recipient of this card (the Dear hubs) opened it and looked at me and somberly said, "What have I done to you?" I looked at him rather blankly and said "What you don't like the card?" He replied "You've given me Christine! What are you telling me?" and gave me a big wink... I burst out laughing. All day I kept being ribbed about giving the gift that keeps on giving like Christine did in the Stephen King movie/book.

Honestly I just liked how the color combo went together but if it keeps him worried then that isn't a bad thing. Right? LOL!

I particularly tried to pay attention to shading and how the sky would be clearer behind the windshield but there would still be a tint of color.

Ingredients

Card Size - 8.5in x 5.5 in

Card - Neenah, DCWV, Bazzill

Stamps - Clear Dollar Stamps - Cruisin Classic

Ink - Memento Tuxedo Black

Color - Copics 0, C1, C3, C5, C7, R32, R35, R37, Y00, Y06, Y08, B000, B00, B02

Accessories - grosgrain ribbon.

Graduations are like buses...

you seem to wait forever then three come at once . Yes, I know it is graduation season however, I didn't know "I" needed to make any graduation cards until last week. How do I miss these things. So anyone this one for my mother to send my cousin from "the family".


My thinking behind the card is that college graduations tend toward black mortar boards and tassels and then I used the school's colors which are supposed to be deep purple and gold... well this is my take on that.


I just want to know one thing... when will I ever learn to leave well enough alone. I was going for the nice crisp look but then I somehow decided that the embossing needed to be "highlighted" I wish I had stopped before I did it but I didn't and definitely didn't have time for a re-do - so lesson hopefully learnt this time. I'm not upset at what the card looks like just that I didn't stop to get the look I wanted to achieve. On a positive note, I have two more graduation cards to practice "stopping" at the right time.


Ingredients

• Card size - 5.5in x 8.5in
• Cardstock - Bazzill, Neenah,
• Stamps - Kitchen Sink Stamps
• Ink - Memento, Brilliance
• Cuttlebug and Scor-Pal embossing

You Quack me up Birthday Girl!

We got the invite to the party in the late morning for a party that evening so I had to think/create/panic/think quick. If you know me, then you know that isn't my usual style at all. I think it came together ok, though I wish I could have just found some solid cardstock in the blue. I didn't want to run the risk of the blue on the orange looking horrible as I didn't have time for a "re-do" and wanted it to look fresh rather than distressed.

All the stamps are Clear Dollar Stamps. I just had a play with some of the images that were speaking to me and I thought I could put together quickly.

Hope you like.

Ingredients

• Size - 5.5 in x 8.5 in
• Stamps - Clear Dollar Stamps
• Ink - Memento, Palette (black)
• Color - Copics
• Cardstock- Neenah Classic Crest Solar White, Georgia Pacific, Bazzill
• Ribbon - Michael's

Inkadinkado flowers (and fairy)

I did this for the Inkadinkado contest. I wanted a really light, fresh spring feel as if I were lying down in the grass and looking up on the card and I think I got it.

I used Marvy le Plume pens direct to stamps and then I covered the stamping with Versamark pen and clear embossed them. So I could wipe away the ink on the layer. Though, I did go ahead and do this with all of the flowers for consistency.

I colored the sentiment stamp with the same green marker for consistency and I just wanted the hint that this was a clear spring day on went the shimmery chalks to give a hint of blue sky in the background.

I think this technique really suits this stamp set.

Ingredients

• Card size - 4.25 x 5.5 in
• Stamps - Inkadinkado
• Cardstock - Bazill, Georgia Pacific
• Ink - Marvy le Plume markers, Versamark
• Color - Pebbles Inc chalks

I'm not going to bother with a separate blog for this fair card as she is pretty much my tester piece for the first fair card I did .

I liked this enough to use it but it made me to decide to not outline the other card's fairy as darkly.

Ingredients

• Card size 4.25 x 5.5 in
• Cardstock - Bazzill, Georgia Pacific
• Color -as listed in previous fairy card
• Threading Water punch, Nestabilities

Jumping or rather smashing Jukeboxes....

I made this card for a dear friend in England who enables the collecting of jukeboxes. I think at last count she told me they had three!!

When I think of jukeboxes, besides of her, I think of the 1950's so that was cue I took for my color scheme. I colored in my VivaLasVegastamps jukebox with copics in blues, reds and greys and and then put glossy accents on it and left it to dry. When I got back to it, it was bowed so I thought VOILA! I would put it through my cuttlebug to flatten it a bit...I really should have taken a before and after picture of that LOL, because the blob that came out the other end of the cuttlebug bore no resemblence to the lovely jukebox I had colored in. So I started again with my VivaLasVegastamps jukebox and colored it in with blues and reds and greys, though not too many greys as I wanted it to be cheerful, not depressing! then I clear embossed to get a shiny image staying well away from the mind bending experience of the glossy accents! LOL

I then thought whats a jukebox without some sparkle so I found out some of my holographic cardstock and cut it down and ran it through the cuttlebug with the Allegro folder (don't worry its even difficult to see in real life) and used my musical notes dies with black cardstock. I then used Nestabilities to cut out the apetures on the black and pink cardstock and ran the pink cardstock through the Cuttlebug with the Swiss dots embossing folder (twice to get the whole thing) and decide to run the paper through once on its own to knock back the dots so it looked more "retro". The frame and jukebox are 3D'd off the cardstock base.

On the inside I used a Martha Stewart punch to give a checkerboard effect to put the greeting on. and then did a white layer using the negative of the double note die and stencil through for a background for the sentiment.

Critical eye - I think I should have carried over the blue from the jukebox with the frame more and with a thin blue layer frame. I also think maybe I should have found a way to make those swiss dots black (I'm not great at brayering and wanted a very neat look) before I mashed them back down

Ingredients

• Card size - 5.5 x 8.5
• Cardstock - Bazzill, Hobby Lobby, Holographic unknown, Georgia Pacific
• Ink - Palette
• Color - Copics
• Embossing folders - Allegro, Swiss dots

Fairy belated... Edited to add list of copics used

Well you know I told you about my trip to Nomojoland, which is a very scary place to be indeed. Well this was another friend who suffered not being remembered on her special day because of the scary monsters in Nomojoland.

Well this cardie friend loves rather funky fairies so when I saw the new(ish) Fairy stamps from Inkadinkado I knew that I had to buy them and do a card for her with them.

I colored the fairy first with my Copics. Then with my Sakura clear stardust pen over her wings. I don't know what it is with fairies but I nearly always tend toward purples, blues, greens and pinks for them - so I think I might need to do this image again a few times and ban myself from those colors! (can you just see the subtle sparkle on the wings? --------->>>>)

I decided that as she is flying I would just "pop" her away from the background with a little shading and I wanted the added contrast of the white around all that color in the image so she really stood out on the card.

The circles were inspired from the K&Co paper that I have had for about five years. The butterfly is from the same stamp set and the greeting is from a Brenda Walton Inkadinkado set.

I did use a new tool on this card which is the Martha Stewart Circle Cutter - I like it because of the variety of circle sizes you can get with one tool and cutter. There is a bit of a learning curve with it however, what I did in the end to keep the paper from slipping was just tack it down to the cutting mat in a few places with temporary glue stick - worked like a charm!

Ingredients

• Card size - 8.5in x 5.5in
• Stamps - Inkadinkado
• Ink - Palette
• Cardstock - Georgia Pacific, K&Co, Bazzill
• Color - Copics, Sakura clear stardust pen
• Tools - Martha Stewart circle cutter

Copics Used

• 0
• Skin - E00, E02
• Hair - E31, E33, E35, E37, E47
• Dress, shoes, wings - V000, V04, V06, B00, B23, B24
• Flower and dots on wings - RV02, RV04, RV06
• Wand - Y00, Y02, Y06, Y08
• Shadowing - C1, C3

Subtle inspiration....

I belong to a very special group of ladies and this was a belated (read embarrassingly very belated) birthday card for one that LOVES frogs... so frogs were the theme... I think it is rather subtle, don't you? LOL

This is kinda how my thought process went with this card - hope you enjoy -

So I started with Frogs. Frogs are green and in my mind bumpy, now you toad enthusiasts don't get all technical on me! Oh I have just the stamps set from Clear Dollar Stamps and that sticker from Imaginisce I bought just for this card... but what safe place did I put them in?. Hmmmm.... now I need to decide on colour combos... oh the toadstool would be red... um no... her birthday is next to Christmas, no green and red together (remember I told you this was v.v.belated) - oh Pink that's nearly red but not so the toadstool will pass... and White will keep things crips and fresh... I want to use my threading water punch... oh and my swiss dots folder... oh, why don't I just have a secondary theme about the bumps I mean circles yes circles ;)

And yes when I'm in the "zone" that is pretty much what my internal conversations are like though I think I left out a squee or two.

As it was so late I thought it would be a bit "naff" to put a greeting on it.

On the mojo loss bit, I had never lost my mojo like that before. I really didn't want to look at anything creative at all and its a quite scary place to be. I don't want to go back to nomojoland anytime soon that is for certain.

Ingredients

• Card size 8.5 in x 5.5 in
• Cardstock - Bazzill, Georgia pacific, Michaels
• Stamps - Clear Dollar Stamps
• Ink - Palette
• Color - Copics
• Sticker - Imaginisce
• Tools - Threading Water Punch, Nestabilities, Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder.

I really love those tiger feet...

I guess I can go old school on my singing - That's neat,that's neat, that's neat, that's neat I really love your tiger feet... Glam rock at its best - gotta love a bit of Mud LOL! Come on and dance along, you know you want to!

This is another card I posted in my SCS gallery. Its about my third or forth attempt with my Copics. All the inspiration for this card is my son's High School - colors and mascot.

Looking back at the image I can see things that I would change but I am generally happy with a good percentage of the coloring and the layout is fine - there is only so much you can do for non-frilly boy cards!

I love the High Hopes Tiger image and bought it specifically to use over and over and over again over the next few years! This card really is a hodge podge of brands so here we go and I hope you like it -

Ingredients

• card size - 5.5in x 8.5 in
• stamps - High Hopes Stamps; Kitchen Sink Stamps
• paper - Georgia Pacific, Bazzill, Michael's value pack, Hobby Lobby black textured.
• Color - Copics (low & middle E numbers and warm neutrals from the Ciaos - yes I have all the Ciaos where is that embarrassed smilie - but I do love them!)
• Ink - palette, versachalk (highlighting the embossing)
• Embossing folder - Provocraft

Let it Rock, let it rock, let it rock...

Because when I'm alive, I can feel the fire. Make you come alive...

oh wait...

this is supposed to be a card blog, not a group sing-a-long! LOL! Someone out there in bloggieland knows what I mean and yes Treacle, darling, we are in the Naughties not the 80's. ;)Another card I did for my son's birthday. I took him to his first concert, Live8 in Hyde Park 2005. We are still deciding if we need to do another gig soon, Franz Ferdinand is pretty near and then there are rumors that Kaiser Chiefs are supporting Green Day, ah but I digress again. I scanned the card so you can't really tell from the picture that the guitar is popped up.

Hope you like because I know people struggle with "guy" cards.

Ingredients

• Card size - 5.5 in x 8.5 in
• Cardstock - Georgia Pacific, Bazzill, DCWV Rockstar
• Stamps - Inkadinkado
• Ink - Palette, Memento, Brilliance
• Color - Copics