Clara's 3rd birthday

This week, Tuesday to be precise, was my niece Clara's 3rd birthday. The big party is tomorrow, the theme is Disney princesses and will feature a real live princess! On Tuesday however, we had just family for dinner, so I gave Clara her bday card then.

I really love this little image, you'll have seen it a few days ago when I posted my practice one. It is by C.C. Designs, and it's called Swiss Pixies Birthday Gretel. I had so much fun coloring it! I'm also entering it in the C.C. Designs CAS sketch challenge.

I still have to figure out this whole photo thing, as you can see the colors are different between the two pictures. Granted, I was in a hurry, I was already late and almost forgot to take pictures! The top picture was after I remembered to open the blinds to get some natural light, so those colors are truer to the real deal I think.

Cat's Birthday - 2015

Today is my baby sister Cat's birthday, she turned 29! This is the card I made for her:

I was a little short on time after making her birthday cupcakes last night (of course I'm a procrastinator) and was lacking inspiration, so I used the C.C. Designs April challenge sketch, I just flipped it horizontally.

If you saw my last post, you'll have seen the cute C.C. Designs Swiss Pixie Birthday Gretel that I colored as a practice run for my niece Clara's birthday... that's tomorrow! I had initially intended to use this sketch for my niece, along with Birthday Gretel, and enter that one in the challenge. I suppose I could use the same design just flip it another direction perhaps.

CC Designs Swiss Pixie Birthday Gretel

I've fallen in love with some of CC Designs stamps, particularly the Swiss Pixie ones. I only have two of their stamps so far, but I'm always on the lookout when people are destashing on SplitCoast!

I spent the day Thursday crafting with two of my sisters in Vancouver, making decorations for my niece's 3rd birthday party. Truth is, I sat at my die cutting machine and cranked out circles... all... afternoon... long... but it was still fun! I think I must have cut 150-200 circles! When I was getting ready to leave, one of my sister's disappeared and reappeared with a ziploc bag full of Copic markers. She said she didn't have time for art anymore, and did I want them. Did I want them? Did I want them?? HECK YEAH! I think there were about a couple dozen, mostly Sketch with a handful of Ciaos, and there were only 3 that I had already (not including a colorless blender, but you can never have too many, right?)

Anyhow, I sat down with my newest CC Designs stamp tonight (last night? It's 3 am, lol) and decided to color it and hopefully use it for my niece's birthday card. I don't have any Memento Tuxedo Black ink yet, which I desperately need to buy... so I used Versafine Onyx black. I didn't heat set it, but I let it sit for 24 hours, but it still bled. Booo. Oh well, it really was a practice run anyhow.

So here is the end result. I'm pretty pleased, considering this is only my 2nd attempt at coloring with alcohol markers. And I'm not really artistic in that sense to begin with, so I feel like I have a lot of catching up to do, compared to others who have been coloring/painting/drawing their whole lives, you know?

I was looking for inspiration to color it, and I found a neat video tutorial for the balloons, using this very stamp! I think I did a pretty good job with the balloons, the video showed how to make them 'see through'.

One of the big challenges for me was figuring out the color scheme. Although I now have a good selection in some color families, others I have pretty much nothing. I have zero yellow Copics, and just one Shin Han Touch. I also don't really have any greens, just one Copic Ciao and one Shin Han Touch.

I applied some Perfect Pearls on the wings, and I think the shimmer is perfect for them. I was worried about the candle at first, it was looking too dingy grey, but I think I fixed it okay.

As always, I love feedback so please, positive and not-so-positive is welcome. :)

Um... Thank You? - TCPTUES288

Just a real quick post which I may come back and edit... I just feel as though if I don't post now, it could be awhile! ;)

I made this card for TCPTUES288 - The Cat's Pajamas Color Challenge: Saffron Celery Tangerine. This was good for me, helped me to step out of my color comfort zone!

I had some great Bo Bunny paper, and I used The Cat's Pajamas 'Official Grinch' stamp set.

I don't know how visible it is, but I used some Glossy Accents on some of the smaller 'bubbles' that were in the challenge colors. I was tempted to put Glossy Accents on Sprinkle The Cat's eyes... but I thought that might be just a little spooky when it's not even Halloween, lol!

 

The 'Official Grinch' set was released during Winter 2014 as a Christmas set, but it's fantastic and can be used all year round. Although it's spring time, it's still cold in a lot of places, so I loved that Sprinkle is bundled up in the um, tacky oversized sweater somebody lovingly gifted her. ;) I can't even recommend this stamp set enough, it was first on my list during that release!

 



All Scotties Go To Heaven

There isn't much to say about this card, I think it speaks for itself. The stamp is from The Cat's Pajamas, it's a retired set which I've been chasing down from the moment I saw Poochie with wings. It's a Valentine's set, but that particular stamp has a whole different meaning for me. I hope that Alma doesn't mind the context that I've used it in, especially since I made this card with a lot of love and reverence for all the tears my friends and I have shed for our beautiful lost Scotties. Again today there was sad news. Right after I made this card I learned that Shamus, my friend Julie's boy is nearing the end of his battle with cancer. He was diagnosed with Transitional Cell Carcinoma (TCC) just a few short months after they lost Doughall, one of their other boys, to TCC also. TCC is canine bladder cancer, but it has now gone into his bones. I don't want this card to be for Shamus. I don't want it to be for any of our babies really. I just hope that it will bring comfort to whoever ends up being the recipient.

The 'rainbow' paper was hand colored using distress inks. It represents the Rainbow Bridge. 

I'm entering this card in The Cat's Pajamas' Spring Blog Hop. A little last minute, but I've been planning this card for weeks... just had to get some other cards done first. :) I'm also entering it in the Simon Says Stamps Monday Challenge: In the Middle. The middle is the center... and Scotties are the center of my life. I wish that cancer wasn't a part of that, but it will always be right there at the center too...

SplitCoastStampers - Canadian Card Swap

I recently participated in a card swap via SplitCoastStampers. It was a 7+1, meaning I'm sending 7 cards, and the +1 is the one I keep for myself. I thought I'd clarify, since that always confuses me... maybe there are others like me out there, haha.

I decided to make a masculine birthday card. I think generally speaking cardmakers struggle with masculine cards, and I thought it would be nice for people to have one on hand. It was also a good opportunity to use the Jackson paper from Close To My Heart's Seasonal Expressions which just came out on April 1st. I really don't do much in those colors (lots of browns, some teal, etc) so this was perfect. This is what I came up with.

The Jackson paper is the brown patterned stripe towards the left side of my card (bottom in the paper packet picture below). You can see it under the button in the middle as well.

 

The big strip of beige-y colored stuff is Core'dinations, the rest is just plain old Recollections that I had on hand. 

The stamp is also from a new CTMH set, super versatile, it's called Finding the Words (D1646).

The button is from an old Sizzix Embosslit, and the twine is literally from some burlap I bought last fall. I just pulled out a few 'threads' to use. :) Oh and the distress ink is Vintage Photo. That was the first color of distress ink I bought, and I don't regret one bit. I use it all the time!

A couple of the swap ladies are local to me, one of them being the organizer, so we met up at a Starbucks and swapped cards. It was lovely meeting them both for the first time. We agreed we should get together more often, card swap or not!

Scottie notecards

It's been awhile... I was procrastinating a set of notecards for a Scottie gift exchange. I don't know why, it's just in my nature? I felt guilty about making anything else till the notecards were done, so I haven't made anything!

I wanted to make something simple, a basic blank notecard. Several weeks ago I was playing with my distress inks and made what hubby referred to as 'cotton candy looking' paper. :) When I first received my Top Dog Dies 'Dog Days #2' set in the mail, I used that 'cotton candy' paper to die cut a bunch of Scottie dogs, just for fun. Today I decided to use my Top Dog Dies Scottie die to die cut a negative shape into the notecards. I then used some glue dots to glue the 'cotton candy' Scottie die cuts to the inside of the cards, so that it would pop through the Scottie 'window.

I don't know if I'm explaining myself very well, but as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. So here are my pictures. :)

The colors also fit in really well with the SplitCoastStampers Free For All 'baby pinks and blues' challenge.