Welcome baby card

Today's cards is a re-do of a baby card I made a while ago - unfortunately the cat spilled iced tea all over the earlier version of the card. Luckily the image was pretty much unaffected because I really love how the colouring worked out. I chose a sketch from Fetch a Sketch and I'm quite pleased with the new design. The top edge of the image was stained but a handmade flower fixed that flaw (the flower is made from fabric petals pulled off an inexpensive flower stem bought at Walmart last year).

Supplies:

• Scalloped circle, Spellbinders
• Digital stamp, Mo's Digital Pencil Too
• Copic markers
• Patterned paper, Jillybean
• Patterned paper, Basic Grey
• Flower, made from petal stash
• Button, stash

Challenges:

Colour Me Creative - anything goes with girly twist
Cute Card Thursday - fairy inspired
Fab n Funky - make your own flower
Fetch a Sketch - sketch
Mema's Crafts - anything goes
Mo's Digital Challenge - hugs & kisses
Papertake Weekly - girlie
Tuesday Alchemy - buttons

Embellishments can be found anywhere

Are you always looking for interesting (and inexpensive) items to use for embellishments? I know that I always have my eyes open when I'm out & about and I stumbled across a great source of cheap embellies this past week. I was shopping with my 11-year old niece and found myself trapped in Ardene's (for those of you who aren't familiar with this store, it's a mecca for young girls but pretty much irrelevant for anyone over the age of 20). Looking around though I found a great selection of hairbands that could be dissassembled for their individual bits.

Today's card isn't very fancy but I wanted to share it just to show the flowers which cost a grand total of about 40 cents - the hairband was $2 and contained 20 individual flowers. Deal!!!

Challenges:

Cupcake Craftroom - lots of layers
Papertake Weekly - girlie
Sweet Sketch - sketch
Totally Papercrafts - lots of layers
Truly Madly Crafty - animals

Awesome recycling

Last weekend I was in a crafting class where we used lots of Dylusions' ink sprays and did lots of blotting to remove colour (to create lovely soft effects). I crumpled the paper towel I used and tossed it in my bag - when I removed it, I realized that the result was a bee-u-ti-ful background. Waste not, want not, right? It took some experimentation to get the paper towel cut evenly (one pointer - using a straight-edge cutter does NOT work, it just tears the towel even if it's glued onto cardstock). I just love the way it looks behind the monkey digi (from Mo's Digital Pencil) though!

Challenges:

• 4 Crafty Chicks - school's out
• Chocolate, Coffee & Cards - anything goes
• Digital Tuesday - amazing animals
• Fetch a Sketch - sketch
• Oldie but Goodie - summer holidays (monkey digi has been sitting coloured in my drawer for a year!)
• Totally Papercrafts - use a digi

School's out!

A very simple card that I think is totally fun and appropriate for the end of the school year. The card is based on a sketch from C.P.S. and the papers are from Basic Grey. I created the wordart sentiment using Word and the image is just a digital colouring page I found online.

The only challenging part of this card was choosing the colour for the schoolhouse. My red Copics were too red and the oranges weren't red enough so I ended up blending  a colours until I was happy with the match. Truly the best part of using Copic markers! I added blue trim/roof to give a bit more colour (and you can't really tell in the picture but the background is light blue/green Copic and really light green).

Challenges:

• Card Positioning Systems - sketch
• Card Makin' Mamas - red, white & blue (I hope there's enough blue - I know it's small but it is the only other colour)
• Totally Papercrafts - use a digi

Thank you teacher

Last day of the school year and the kids are completely excited! I had fun teasing my youngest (just finished grade 1) about the final day being filled with lots of tests but his brother took pity and told him the truth pretty quickly. Poor me, couldn't have fun for long at all. I guess I shouldn't complain though because I did get to make a bunch of cards for the boys' teachers (2 teachers for each boy!) so I had a busy week of creating. Here is the first card (and my favourite):

The papers are all Basic Grey and the digi is Jan Brett, coloured with Copic markers. I chose a sketch from Papertake Weekly as my starting point - honestly, I can't survive without sketches! I modified the sketch a bit by making the border punched strip larger and then not extending the middle strip (the ruler paper) to the bottom of the card. And, of course, I didn't add the sentiment separately since it was incorporated into the image itself.

Challenges:

• 2 Sisters - anything goes
• 4 Crafty Chicks - school's out
• Charisma Cardz - anything goes
• D.L.Art Thankful - use "thank you" as your sentiment
• Digital Tuesday - amazing animals
• Love to Create - anything goes
• Paper Playtime - anything goes with a sentiment
• Papertake Weekly - sketch
• Partytime Tuesdays - anything goes

Fishing boy

Today's card is based on the current sketch at Stella Says Sketch and uses an adorable Bugaboo digital stamp. I coloured him using Copic markers and the background was created using Dylusions ink sprays (aren't the colours gorgeous!). I love the blues on the bottom of the paper (suggests water) coupled with the browns/reds & green on the top (reminds me of the woods in Autumn). I chose an embossing folder from Cuttlebug for the kraft card base - I think the folder is supposed to be a space design but I thought it was suggestive of ripples in water. I plan to use the card as a thank you for my Dad (he recently helped me with a whole bunch of work around my house). He's an avid fisherman so I think he'll like this little guy.

Challenges:

• Little Red Wagon - kraft
• Paper Crafting Journey - kraft
• Pause Dream Enjoy - 3 of something (3 brads)
• Simon Says Stamp & Show - a bit of brown
• Stella Says Sketch - sketch 

Tags, tags, tags

Debi from Country Lane taught us not to waste ink in last weekend's class. When we were creating our backgrounds for the main project, she encouraged us to capture the extra ink by blotting onto manilla tags. I was pleasantly surprised at how gorgeous the tag backgrounds ended up looking and decided to use them for some additional projects. Debi also taught using magazine pictures as part of interesting collages (wow, didn't we do this in elementary school?) and I LOVED this idea. I have to pay more attention to the crafts my boys are doing in school as there are clearly some great ideas that I've forgotten! Here are the tags that I ended up with...

All 3 tags use Dylusions stamp elements that are coloured with Tombow and Copic markers. The tag backgrounds are all Dylusions spray inks combined with Dylusions stamps. I suspect that I'll end up adapting these tags into cards for Send A Smile 4 Kids but we'll see...
Challenges:

• 2 Sisters - anything goes
• ATC's & Cards with Attitude - anything goes
• Crafts & Me - anything goes
• Creative Belli - anything but a card
• Fat Pages & Cards with Attitudes - anything goes