Friday, April 29, 2011

Mario birthday

The kids went to a birthday party last weekend where the theme was Mario Kart. Of course I had to make a Mario birthday card and party bag for the birthday boy!
I found a bunch of Mario images on the internet and printed them off onto glossy photo paper. For the gift bag, I just cut the images out and then layered them onto the bag. According to the kids, Yoshi (the green dinosaur creature) is the favourite so I used him for the card. I was thrilled to find a picture of Yoshi holding a crayon - a bit of Photoshopping allowed me to add the sentiment so that it looked like Yoshi was writing it himself. I used papers from Basic Grey for the backing and last week's sketch from Eat, Sleep, Stamp for the design.
Challenges:


Wednesday, April 27, 2011

ABC Christmas Challenge Profile

This week Feline Playful (and me as the team lead) is being profiled on the ABC Christmas Challenge blog! Please check it out and leave a comment!

As part of the guest profile I was asked to make a card for this week's challenge - "I" is for "indigo" and "ice". I've been wanting to use this new Dreamweavers stencil and after seeing the inspiration picture (see below) I had the idea of gluing dewdrops onto some of the embossed berries. I'm loving my clean & simple Christmas card!

Challenges:
ABC Christmas Challenge - "I" is for "indigo" and "ice"
Claudia & Co - Clean & simple
Totally Gorjuss - bling it on (glitter on patterned paper, dewdrops)

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Tattered heart

Every once in awhile I come across a card design that I absolutely MUST scrap-lift and today's card is one of those special designs. I found the design in the latest issue of "Papercraft Essentials" magazine. The designer is Kim Dellow and this is just one of several cards that she designed showing how much can be done with a simple heart punch.
I made this card for my BFF Jacqui and it was really important to me that it be done in "her" style so I had to stretch myself somewhat. I started with some Basic Grey patterned paper which I stamped over randomly with a couple of small fern-type stamps (also Basic Grey). Next I sponged blue and red ink across the page. The last step - and the hardest for me - was tearing the paper into strips and inking the edges. I can be a bit of a perfectionist and anything free-form (like paper tearing) is almost painful for me. I'm pleased that this only took 4 tries before I was satisfied with the result!

The hearts were cut using scalloped heart Spellbinders. I love the way the cardboard heart turned out - I used a piece of an old box, roughly tore off the cover layer of paper and then sanded and inked to bring out the ridges. The smaller heart really pops up although it isn't apparent in this picture. To make it, I actually cut 3 hearts in all. Two are folded in half and then adhered to the front heart for a springy pop-up.

All in all, a striking card with just a touch of Tim Holtz (I used his distress inks, of course).

Challenges:
Craft Your Passion - show us your layers
Creative Craft Challenges - something recycled (the cardboard)
Fashionista Friday - recycle
Just Add Ink - friendship
Partytime Tuesdays - anything goes

 

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Have a super birthday

The kids have 3 birthday parties to attend over the next 2 weeks so I'm tasked with making a stack of boy birthday cards this week. Here is the first one.
I just love the Bugaboo digital stamp line "A Kids View" - they are so striking and fun. I went very primary with the colours on this card so I kept the embellishments to a minimum. I was thrilled to find this scrap of patterned paper with wonderful bold stars that quite coincidentally matched the shape of a small punch in my drawer. I punched the small stars from scraps of the pattered paper so the colours matched.

Challenges:

Monday, April 18, 2011

Monochromatic Easter

I love the colour orange when other people use it, but rarely do I find orange on my own cards. So why, then, did I decide to go monchromatic orange on this Easter card? I guess I must've been feeling a bit under-challenged or something.
Digital stamp - Sliekje's Digi Stamps (Sliekje has 100's of free digi images that are too, too cute)
Papers - We R Memory Keepers "Peep" collection 
Sentiment - Create with TLC
Spellbinders die cut, Copic markers, Distress ink
Challenges:

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Hurrying to wish you a happy Easter

It's almost here ... can you hear the hippity hop of the Easter bunny's feet as he gathers all those Easter goodies for kids (both young & old)?
Today's card uses a Doodle Dragon image that was offered as a freebie a short time ago. Dustin Pike is always so incredibly generous with his freebies, although, honestly, his stamps are so inexpensive it's like he's giving them all away!

I coloured this cute bunny with my Copics and then matted it on some bright patterned paper from by scrap box. The finishing touch was 3 love heart stickers. I used a card sketch from I {heart} 2 Stamp.

Challenges:

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Spring has sprung

Driving home from the store this afternoon I saw the most incredible thing - flowers! Yes, my neighbour has a yard full of crocus, larkspur and daffodils. Now, I suspect some of these were transplanted because I'm pretty positive they weren't there yesterday, but nonetheless, it's a sign of Spring. In honour of this wonderful sign of better weather to come, I created the following card:
 The image is a long-time freebie from Doodle Pantry (isn't the bird just too, too cute doing his happy dance?) and I used a sketch from Card Patterns.
Hope you, too, are seeing the signs of Spring all about you!

Challenges:

Monday, April 11, 2011

Easter bunny

Is it really only a week & a half until Easter? I imagine the Easter Bunny is busily making chocolate impressions of himself and pooping out jelly beans by the hundreds (hey, I can't be the only one who has been forced by their kids to watch the movie "Hop"). Well, I haven't used the ideas from the movie for my cards (yet) instead doing up a couple of pretty cards with lots of Spring colours.
The image is a freebie digi from Simply Cards & Papercraft magazine. I love this magazine - most issues include 2-pages of images drawn by David Parkins to photocopy or scan as digi stamps! I used my Copic markers to colour the bunny. Is it OK to complement myself? Because I'm just loving the way the roses worked out!

I should also mention that the cute sign sentiment in the first card came from Create with TLC. If you don't already follow this site then you really should as there are so many freebies offered not to mention a tonne of wonderful images & sentiment sets for sale.

Challenges I'm Entering:

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Winning is Ezee Pzee!


Hello everyone! I just thought I would post about a contest that Kathy (our Ezee Pzee creator) is having:

IT"S TIME FOR A NEW CONTEST!! To enter it is simple. Send a picture of ANY project using Ezee Pzee to engravit at albertacom.com. If you received Ezee Pzee at a recent retreat or crop you can use that as your creation. Enter as many times as you wish!!! WANNA KNOW WHAT YOU'RE PLAYIN' FOR??? You are playing for a chance to create your own collection! You will work with me to make a collection named after YOU that will be featured on our website! Your prize will include 3 packs of your collection, 3 other collections of your choice and a personalized shopping bag! Your local Scrapbooking Store even wins! They get 3 packs of your collection too! We LOVE our LSS's. Deadline for submissions - April 15.

I won the last contest and got to design my very own set of borders. So, what are you waiting for? Get crafting, and email a pic of your creations to Kathy!!

Friday, April 1, 2011

Altered birdcage

Today I am finally able to share my latest design team project for Ezee Pzee Embellishments. Anyone who reads my blog knows that I've been involved with Ezee Pzee since the beginning and it's just so excitingto see the company grow and its product lines expand! This month our design team was challenged to use a selection of silhouette flower die cuts along with a box (a planter?) for our projects.

This was a very challenging project for me! I found a decorative birdcage in the clearance section at Michaels and planned to put the flower box inside with a mixture of the chipboard flowers and silk flowers. One little problem ... I am not an artist and I couldn't make the die cuts look like real flowers. Thank goodness Ezee Pzee chipboard is so durable because I must have coloured, painted, stained each piece at least 3 times over!

I was ready to pound my head against a wall when I had the (brilliant) idea to see if I could find inspiration on the internet. I did a Google search for altered birdcages and came across a couple of sites where birdcages were used as message boards. I looked at those ideas, remembered the wonderful Kathy saying that we could do anything we wanted with the materials we were provided, and like lightening flashing in the sky, I suddenly realized that I didn't have to make the flowers look real!

In the end, I simply hot glued several of the chipboard flowers to the birdcage and then painted the entire thing using Sophisticated Finishes blackened brass paint. I found a few round magnets which I also painted with the same paint and "voila" - instant picture holder. The project took less that an hour (plus drying time) once I actually got down to work.

I couldn't let the planter go to waste though, so I made a special holder for my spritzes and favourite paints. I covered the box in Basic Grey paper and then created four legs by folding and painting some scrap cardboard. Kathy included a chipboard die cut of my name in the design package so I adhered it to the front of the box after painting it with the blackened brass paint. The box is a great addition to my craft table.

Now, hop on over to the other Dezign Team member blogs and see what they've done with these items:

Challenges I'm entering these projects into: