Sharing popcorn ... for life

A month to go and already everyone is thinking Valentine's Day. I was at the mall today and there were hearts and cupids and mushy cards everywhere. But, do not be misled by the hearts on today's card. This is not a Valentine's Day card! In fact, my husband's nephew announced his engagement and this card is actually in recognition of that wonderful event.

The image is a favourite of mine from Karen's Doodles; I bought it ages ago and have used it for other engagement cards. I purchased the boy & girl separately and merged them in Photoshop for this card. The colouring is done with Copics and the papers are from a brand-new paper pack I picked up this past week from Basic Grey. I'm not entering it into their card challenge since I'm not using a Christmas theme, but I used sketch from Christmas Card Challenges.

Challenges:
Karber Monthly Challenge - digi and movies
Basic Grey - dots & spots
Crafty Calendar - new beginnings
Elephantastic - new beginnings
Southern Girls - lovey dovey
Crafty Creations - new beginnings
Scrap-Creations - love is in the air
Gingerloft Challenge - celebrations
Crafty Pad - something new (a new marriage)
Copic Creations - anything new (the paper pack)

Candy Cane Bear

I have a very simple card to share today. This one uses a digital stamp from one of my favourite digi designers Dustin Pike (Doodle Dragon Studios). This guy puts out literally hundreds of images each year and his prices are unbelievable.

For this card I coloured the bear using Copic markers and then matted him on a selection of traditionally coloured papers. The largest red panel is embossed with a candy-cane stripe folder. In order to keep the card from looking too plain, and to mimic the rounding of the candy cane, I used my corner punch on the two outside edges of the card front. Like I said, super easy but I think this will be great for so many people this coming Christmas.

Challenges:

Christmas All Year Round - anything goes (Christmas)

Fuzzy Wuzzy - anything goes (include an animal)

Stamp Something - use a digi

Karber Christmas - use a digi and anything goes

ABC Christmas - "A" is for anything Christmas

Paper Crafting Journey - use a digi

Some Odd Girl - embossing

3 monkeys & a cupcake

I had a super productive evening last night and completed a total of 4 cards for Cards for Kids (which provides hand-made cards to Children's Hospitals for distribution to hospitalized kids on their birthdays and other holidays). 

These cards were pretty quick to put together as the images were already coloured and I used card sketches from a couple of challenge sites for the designs. All that was left was the selection of papers (Basic Grey, of course) and embellishments (buttons). All of these papers came from the Basic Grey "Wander" collection. All of the images are from Bugaboo.


Challenges:
Sisterhood of Crafters - birthday
The Crazy Challenge - animals
Crafty Pad - birthday
Pile it On - cute kids (card #4)
Basic Grey - dots & spots (cards #2, 3)
Catch the Bug - anything goes
Crafty Emma - all creatures great & small
One Stop Craft - card for a child
Crafty Catz - food or drink (card #4 is a cupcake)
Sew Many Cards - flags (pirate flag in cards #1, 3)
Stamp Something - use a digi
Fuzzy Wuzzy - anything goes (with an animal)
Charisma Cardz - birthdays
Delightful Challenges - buttons
Corrosive Challenge - sketch (cards #2, 3)

Friday Sketchers - sketch (cards #1, 4)

Cards for kids

I've recently decided to start collecting and then donating handmade cards to the B.C. Children's Hospital. I'm calling the project "Cards for Kids" and am working to get the first batch of cards to the hospital by the first week of February. These cards will be given to the nurses and staff at the hospital to give to sick kids at appropriate times (like birthdays and holidays).

This card is the first that I've made specifically for "Cards for Kids" and I'm quite pleased with it. I think it will be just great for a boy's birthday.

The image is from Tiddly Inks and I think it's just perfect for a boy's birthday. I raided the kids' craft stash for the paper (it's from a Crayola pack) and used alphabet stickers for the sentiment. The ribbon started out white but was coloured using Copics to match the boy's shirt.

Challenges:
Crafty Pad - happy birthday
One Stop Craft Challenge - for a child
Stamp Something - use a digi
Charisma Cardz - birthdays & celebrations
Paper Play - clean & simple

Gift bags

Christmas may be long over but that doesn't mean I'm not still giving out gifts (nothing like being organized!). I finally dropped off my last couple of Christmas presents and so I can share the gift bags that I created for them.

The bags were super quick and easy to make. I used a couple of House Mouse stamped images that I had pre-coloured, matted them on some plain cardstock, and then added a shiny ribbon. The decorative border along the top of each bag was made with Martha Stewart's pine branch border punch and a strip of Sookwang double-sided tape with red glitter added. 

Challenges:

House Mouse & Friends - celebrate

Crafty Emma - all creatures great & small

Fuzzy Wuzzy - anything goes (with an animal)

Crafty Sentiments - anything but a card

ABC Christmas - anything Christmas

Fab n Funky - anything goes

Anything Goes Challenge - something "C" (I chose "C" for Christmas)

Portfolio notepad project

Today's project is a portfolio note pad that I made as a teacher gift. I started with a small size note pad (9 x 6") that I purchased at my local Staples and then made a decorated portfolio cover using coordinating papers.

 To make the portfolio cover, I cut two pieces of a nice heavy double-sided cardstock to form the front & back covers. I then attached them with a coordinating piece of cardstock that I scored and folded to create a 1/2" spine. I then cut another strip of cardstock (1" by 6") and adhered it to the top of the notepad. I decorated the front of the portfolio with more of the paper and then embellished it with a flower made using the Tim Holtz "Tattered Flowers" die cut. And then the entire thing is finished off with some "antique photo" distress ink.

I'm not happy with the flower (although it looks much better in real life than in the photo) as I couldn't make it as full as I wanted (after all, this needs to be a usable item) and think next time I would use a stamped image instead of a 3-D embellishment. But that's the way of crafting, right? Create, criticize, improve.

Challenges:
Crafty Sentiments - anything goes or anything but a card
Craft Your Passion - anything goes

Happy birthday you old dog

I know it isn't particularly respectful calling my Dad an old dog, but I don't think he'll mind (and it is pretty fitting) so I made this card for Dad's upcoming birthday. The inside sentiment reads "Happy birthday, you old dog".

The image is "Best seat in the house" from Just Inklined. I had such fun colouring this image, especially getting the colour of the chair just right. Now my Mom would never have allowed a chair that looked this rough sit in the house but if it was up to my Dad this type of chair would definitely have been in a place of honour, not to mention the old smelly dog. I used a mix of Basic Grey papers and cardstock stickers from the Pyrus collection. I love the eyelets on either side of the card - I punched holes through the one paper layer and then inserted copper eyelets so that the cream background paper would show through. I still think this card is too plain but Dad likes simple so I held back on embellishing further. The great benefit of making cards is that each card can be taylored to match the recipient's likes/dislikes.

That's it for today. Hope you are having a great one!

Challenges:
Fab 'n Funky - anything goes
Stampin' Royalty - birthday
Crafty Emma - anything goes
Paper Sundaes - use something new (the Basic Grey paper/embellies)
Creative Inspirations - use something new
Top Tip Tuesday - metal (the brads)
Sketch and Stash - sketch (my forgotten stash are the eyelets)