[DYSU] Challenge #66 - Friendly Critters

Good morning, everyone! I've fallen on radio silence here because I and the BF caught the flu. I came home sick from my training course on Friday and was in bed with a fever until Monday. Tuesday I still felt sick and queasy and was not able to move much. The boy decided to follow suit and we were lying in bed or on the couch like two helpless little kidlets. We played a lot of "Rock Paper Scissors" to see whose turn it was to go cook up another batch of tea. Then again, it could be worst, such as being sick by myself ;) I guess they are right when they say "Misery loves company." But we're slowly back onto our slow feet and hope that I get to catch up on all things crafty and good this weekend.

In the meantime, I'm glad I got this challenge done ahead of time. We're celebrating spring with Friendly Critters. Since I have a slew of baby cards to get done, I decided to pull a cute animal favorite out for this...

Isn't this giraffe not cute?


Stamps: (Snag 'em Stamps - Baby Powder Collection: Giraffe) imaginesce; (Compact Sentiments, Free Spirit) Waltzingmouse Stamps
Paper: (Paper Basics Card Stock - Kraft, Lemon Zest) Papertrey Ink; (Polka Dot) Scrap
Ink: (Jenni Bowlin No. 11 - Brown Sugar) Ranger
Embellishments: (Border Punch - Treading Water) Fiskars; (Nestabilities - Label No. 18) Spellbinders; (Soft-core Color Pencils) Prismacolor

Decided this CSA card needed to be less CSA and stamped the bubbles from the Free Spirit Waltzingmouse Stamps... They would make a good background for the giraffe to pop.



So that's all I have for you today; go check out the amazing creations by the talented DT. And I look forward to seeing your creations!

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[Scrap Our Stash] November Challenge - Recipe Challenge

Lots of things have been going on at the office, including one of the co-workers becoming a new parent. So in honor of the new daddy role, I madde a couple of baby cards. For inspiration I used the Scrap Our Stash's November Challenge where we are using a Recipe. Kathy has challenged us with:

5 embellishments
4 words or letters
3 pictures
2 pattern paper
1 solid papers

This card is to welcome a little baby into the world and give the parents three cheers!


Stamps: (Sewing Box Hugs) Waltzingmouse Stamps; (Mega Mixed Messages, Just for You) Papertrey Ink; (Snag 'em Stamps - Baby Powder Collection: Giraffe)
Paper: (Paper Basics Card Stock - Lemon Tart) Papertrey Ink; (Basic Card Stock - Cream) Recollections; (Hometown Summer) Pink Paislee
Ink: (Jenni Bowlin - No. 6 Candy Stick, No. 8 Soap Powder, No. 11 Brown Sugar) Ranger; (Pigment Ink - Gold) Recollections
Embellishments: (Inkssentials - Glossy Accents; Stickles - Diamond) Ranger; (Rhinestones) Recollections; (Double-tipped Marker) Prismacolor; (Value Ribbon) Target; (Yellow Rope) Recycled

I managed to cramp the whole recipe onto this little card ;) Yep - go ahead and check :D



This giraffe is so cute, isn't it? I thought the Glossy Accents would be able to give the little guy a little special something to "shine" without sparkling light a Christmas tree. The blue & green color scheme is a great palette to make the yellow really stand out. This card has a recycled element from a bag that I saved (the yellow rope). And the blue rhinestone is a great accent, and so are the clear, sparkly Stickles...

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Check out the Scrap Our Stash's November Challenge. You have until the end of the month to finish up. Perhaps some time over Thanksgiving, while the other are out shopping in madness ;)

Felt Like Saying Happy Birthday

I have been dragging my feet with the next Embellish Challenge. Yours truly has been in love with the idea of felt on cards, but never ventured out to purchase any. And between many business trips and visitors coming, I haven't had a chance to stop by my local Michael's. I already gave up and decided this was one of those inevitable challenges that I will have to skip. And aren't the colors fun and bright?

Then last night I was thinking of all my work-in-progress projects and how I should really dig a few out and finish, preferably before the end of the year. My running list includes unfinished applique stockings, a scarf (oh wait - two scarfs!), three baby blankets, two afghans, a skirt, and several cross-stitching projects. Here is one of those items that needs finishing:



I was perusing through blogs in the comfort my bed, when I jumped out and ran over to my applique bag. It was not the sudden will to finish a WIP - it can wait 'til tomorrow. The applique bag that was stashed and shoved behind a mountain of yarn contained precious glorious felt - yes the same stuff that was in the next Embellish challenge!

So I was eager to leave work on time to knock out a card. Especially with this tweet that came into my feed today

"You still have ALL day to create something and submit it for the Felt Color Challenge! Embellish your creativity..."

It's like one of those fortune cookie messages taunting you ... I had an inspiration to create a bird tweeting "happy birthday!" and using the brown with my woodgrain impression plate. So from that idea, this little darling birdie was born:



The bird is composed of yellow felt, red ink, red floss, a little red sequin with a clear bead, and a little pink wing. Here the card in full:


Stamps: Snag 'em - For Peep's Sake (imaginisce); Musical Backgrounds, Half-pint Heroes (Waltzingmouse Stamps)
Paper: Paper Basics Card Stock - Dark Chocolate (Papertrey Ink)
Ink: Pigment - Red (Recollections); Versamark, Brilliance - Pearlescent Yellow (Tsukineko)
Embellishments: Impression Plate - Woodgrain (Papertrey Ink); Stamp 'n Stuff Embossing Powder - White, Detail Clear (Stampendous!); Red Floss, Felt, Red Sequin, Clear Bead, Pink Felt (Stash)

I could not get the woodgrain texture to photograph too well, but here is a different angle. The musical note is actually embossed in clear and stamped with Brilliance ink to give it that little shimmer. I like the effect, but I am too fond where I placed the musical notes.



So what items were you able to dig out of your stash to "Save the day"?

Good Luck

I'm on a business trip and had the biggest crafting withdrawal symptom. Since CHA I haven't had touched a paper cutter, glue or gotten my fingers inked up. The addiction to craft was quickly creating an annoying itch. And CHA was almost like a terrible tease -- all the great people, all the great products, so many materials and tools to swoon over, but very limited time to play with anything.

So yesterday, I was invited over to Nicole's place and a newly acquired friend, Sandra, came along. Last time the three of us met, we told her so much about paper crafting, that she was intrigued enough to express a polite interest but had a healthy dose of skepticism if she would get into it as a hobby. If I ever get a link to the first card that she made, I will have to post a re-direct to her and you (loyal readership) need to run over there and cheer her on.

Her card was AWESOME! It was a gorgeous wedding card - one where I would consider running out to find the next available bachelor so that I'd get that card as a gift ;) Just kidding...but the card was amazing. The design elements were just wonderful, her composition and color well thought out, and just sheer elegant. The best part -- she really loved paper crafting and we heard reluctant admittance that she could see herself considering a new hobby. (Score!) Heehee...Nicole & I infected her with the paper crafting bug!

While Sandra made her card, I was digging through Nicole's generous stash to create a quick card for a co-worker that is leaving the current project. His delegation is over and I thought I'd send him and his family off with a fun, fun card. I used as inspiration next Sweet Stop Sketch Challenge:

Forgive the pictures, but they were taken in different lighting at a ad-hoc setup in my hotel room.

Stamps: Snag 'em Stamps - Plane (imaginisce), Itty Bitty Backgrounds (Stamping Up!), Good Neighbors (Stamping Up!), Süße Sprüche (Stamping Up!)
Paper: Passports - Canada (reminisce), Basic Card Stock - Kraft (Stamping Up!), Basic Card Stock - Chocolate Chip (Stamping Up!)
Ink: VersaMark - Watermark (Tsukineko), Chocolate Chip (Stamping Up!)
Embellishments: Twill Tape (Stamping Up!), Tag Punch (EK Success), 1/2" Circle Punch (EK Success), 3/8" Eyelets - Metallic (Making Memories), 1/2" Corner Rounder Punch (EK Success), Top Note Big Die (Stamping Up!)

The scalloped border and the text circle tend to be girlier elements; therefore these sketch elements were substituted by small circles and a tag. The twill ribbon was a nice neutral/manly element, but needed some dots and brown ink to tone down the stark contrast. In addition, to give the card a little umph, the circles are raised at different heights. Perhaps this picture shows it better:


My co-worker was really surprised by this little random RAK and promptly displayed it on his desk. I'll interpret that as a win!

By the way, many of these elements are credited to brainstoming with Nicole. I can understand why crops with a table full of creative ladies are so much fun. It gets the creative juices flowing! Not to mention, I really have to give her a big shout-out here for preparing her wonderful home by laying out all the tools and papers, putting up samples as aids to explain to Sandra, and offering up her entire stash for us to use! Absolutely generous. Not only did I satisfy my crafting urges, but I really enjoyed a quality evening of great conversation & fun with Nicole & Sandra.

It's a Girl!

I had so much fun playing in my first Embellish challenge, I could not resist to try for this next one! Not to mention, the talented Ashley Cannon Newell always is on the lookout on what's currently hot & trendy. Here are the deets for the challenge:

This card came pretty quickly together, since I had a good idea what my layout was going to look like, as inspired by the Waltzingmouse Sketch Challenge #4.

Here is the card, not created on the last minute deadline rush on a Thursday night -- aren't you proud of my non-procrastination?

Stamps: Snag 'em Stamps - Giraffe (imaginisce), Wonderfully Whimsical (Papertrey Ink)

Paper: Basic Card Stock - Cream  (Recollections), Boxer (Basic Grey), Urban Prairie (Basic Grey), Oasis (sei)

Ink: Brilliance - Pearlescent Orange (Tsukineko)

Embellishments: Nestabilities - Cassic Small Ovals (Spellbinders), Nestabilities - Classic Scallop Ovals Small (Spellbinders), Vintage Button Collection - Spring Mix (Papertrey Ink), Taylor's Tiny Twinkles - Multicolors (Taylored Expressions), Hemp Cord (Darice), Ribbon - Coral (Michael's), General Purpose Thread - Pewter (Coats & Clark)

So this marks my first baby card. The four bows is a lose interpretation of the circle in the sketch. I used one of Claire's tips to ink up the card stock with the nestability frame still on. There is also clear embossing on the giraffe to add a little definition to the image.

Baby cards might be my new favorite kind of card to make. They are so adorable. What are yours?

[Swapping Sisters] December Swap

If you already saw the other Swapping Sister posts and were wondering where mine went...they posted early! Can you believe them?! Just kidding. I ran late creating my card and was struggling to balance my holiday prep, work, and guest hosting from China. But, dear Swapping Sisters, it is my new year's resolution to try harder to be on-time.

So for the Swapping Sister's second card swap I actually made a card (more like three, but who is counting?) To top it all, this is my first time creating cards solo. Stamping Around and crafting with an instructor doesn't really count, since there is always a teacher to tell me what to do next, and there is a prototype card to show me what it should have been.

Just a quick disclaimer: this post contains three cards and it's quite long. If you just want to see the pics, just scroll on through or head over to my flickr page for more pics. If you want to re-live my n00by card-making journey, read on.



This time Swap Sister Laurie sent out supplies which included a few fun items: Bazzill's Blue Swiss Dot paper, Quick Quotes' Pink Striped paper, Making Memories' Polka Dot paper, ribbons from Martha Stewart and Michaels, blue brads, pink buttons and a fun metal flower.

To make matters sweeter, I was visiting Belinda for a very extended weekend. And being at Belinda's is like being in stamping/crafting heaven. It means that I got to play with hardware and learn new technique. Let me just say that after this long weekend, my Christmas wish list just grew a few feet... ;)

The first card is a simple "thank you" card. I knew I wanted to use the pink ribbon as my sentiment. From there everything kind of fell in place: pink pairs well with black, and the polka dot paper had some nice shades to match the whole get-up. So out came the 3/4" circle punch to pull out the perfect shades of dots from the polka dot paper for the card. I also ran the black cardstock through Belinda's Cuttlebug to emboss the "Spots & Dots" design on the card to tie the dots and circle theme together. My "cherry ontop" was the metal flower embellishment.


Paper: Black (Recollections), Polka Dot (Making Memories)
Embellishments: Pink Thank-You Ribbon (Martha Stewart), Metal Embellishment Flower (Making Memories), Dots and Spots Embossing Folder (Provo Craft)

I quickly found an assembly problem when the ribbon went down onto the black cardstock. It was too sheer for the sentiment to really stand out, so I cut a piece of white cardstock strip to match the width of the ribbon and backed the ribbon onto it. And voilà, the ribbon is able to convey it's message.

The second card is an ode to the Quick Quotes pink paper and my Swapping Sisters. I have been dying to ink up my "Trendy Girl" set from Sweet & Sassy Stamps, and Belinda generously shared a stack of pattern paper that she had. I used various select regions parts of the paper to design three of the purses that I pulled from the set, leaving her with funny-shaped holes in the most random parts of the paper ;) Additionally, the border punch adds a nice "girl" touch. At that point, the black card stock felt too much, and I corner-punched the bottom edge to trim a bit of black away. I also knew I wanted to use the white ribbon to create the winning pink-black-white classy color combo and went about to create a fun non-tying ribbon. (Ha, just ask Belinda how horrified I get when tying ribbons -- they always look lopsided and sad!)



For the sentiment, I tried stamping it with a cream color pigment ink onto the pink, but that didn't show very well, since this pink has loads of white stripes. So I decided to stamp it with black and punch it out using a 1 3/4" circle punch. On a side note, I chose to rotate the paper for the sentiment, so that the white stripes were horizontal, rather than vertical. This allows the sentiment to stand out more from the background pattern.

Incidentally, the previous night, Belinda and I played with the Glimmer Mist that she picked up and we tried it on black paper. That stuff is awesome and created a nice subtle shimmer effect, and since I didn't want to "waste" that piece of paper, I punched out a scallop to back the pink circle, so that I could add a layer between the pink background and the pink circle. The shimmer gives it an extra dimension without actually adding another paper layer.

The card needed some "white" to balance, and since I discovered the awesome-ness of eyelets and I need to make use of my newly acquired crop-a-dile, I decided to "frame" the sentiment with some white eyelets. I like how it gives it a little playful touch. At this point I thought I was done, but the polka dot paper looked so neglected, and I liked how the dots had different patterns and textures printed on it. So I punched out the dark pink ones, and created a background paper. This of course meant that I was able to use the whole and non-whole circles.  Yeah -- I like to do things backwards ;)


Stamps: Trendy Girl (Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps)
Paper: Black (Recollections), Pink Striped (Quick Quotes), Polka Dot (Making Memories), various pattern paper
Ink: Black (Staz-On)
Embellishments: White Ribbon (Michael's), Floral Lace Edge Punch (Martha Stewart), Corner Punch (EK Success), 2" Scallop (Marvy Uchida), 1 3/4" Circle (Stamping Up!), Gold Glimmer Mist (Tattered Angels), White Eyelets (Making Memories)

My stay in Pittsburgh made me miss the warmer weathers. I drove in a snowstorm, walked around in the cold to run errands, and when I was inside staying warm, I watched it snow. This was probably why I avoided the Bazzill blue swiss dots paper. However, while I was working on another paper craft project, the little penguins from the imaginisce "A Shore Thing" line kept looking so happy. So the inspiration to make a fun summer card (in the middle of December) starting coming together.

I secretly had so much fun embossing the first card, I wanted to find any excuse to play with the Cuttlebug some more. I love love the d'vine design and decided it mimics the water waves at the beach. I knew I wanted to use the white ribbon to separate the swirl and non-swirl part of the paper, which became my base.

Pepé and Pia (yes -- I gave my penguins names) were stamped onto white cardstock and colored with pencils. Belinda happened to show me the neat blending trick with odor-less mineral spirits, which I immediately put into use :) Just don't try to watch TV and blend at the same time! The penguins were my only chance to give the card some bold, warm colors to offset the cool color background. So their swim gear and accessories were colored in yellow, reds, oranges, and pinks.

To give it a whimsical take, the penguins needed to be positioned so that they pop off the card. The perfect way to create that effect is to pull out some nesties to provide a "frame" for the penguins to leap of. I liked the large scallop nestability and then happily pulled out the Cuttlebug again. I felt that the penguins needed another layer or so and my eyes strayed to the chalk paints that Belinda pulled out for me to play with. Penguins, fun background, and chalks! The shade of blues in the box were perfect and I set out to look for swirl stamps among Belinda's collection to create that background, so I could emboss the stamp onto white paper and run the chalk over the design. The penguins looked happy, and to make them look warm, I added a little sun (yep, it was punched out from the polka dot paper!).

The card needed a cute sentiment to tie it together and would be perfect in conveying a "just sayin' hello" message. I found two sentiments "hello" and "friends," where I masked out the "s" on the latter word. In addition, I drew in the comma and exclamation point, trying to mimic the style as much as possible. Did I fake it well? I tried a little paper piercing to emphasize the word "friend," but could have just as easily left it out. To tie it all up together, Laurie's blue brads were the last perfect "blue" addition to the card.


Stamps: Penguin Dude (imaginisce Snag 'em Stamps), Penguin Chick (imaginisce Snag 'em Stamps), Swirl (?), Doodle Flower for Sentiments (Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps)
Paper: Black (Recollections), Light Blue Swiss Dots (Bazzill), White (The Paper Company), Polka Dot (Making Memories)
Ink: Black (Staz-On)
Embellishments: White Ribbon (Michael's), Square Blue Brads (Making Memories), Scallop Nestabilities (Spellbinders), d'vine Swirl Embossing Folder (Provo Craft)

Now that you have made it through my long post, I really want to add one more quick thing: i owe a big thanks to my girl Belinda! Without her toys and her quick techique demos, I would not have been able to create three fun cards. I had a blast hanging out and playing, and because of that, I know exactly what new hardware I want to acquire :)

To help me feel less bad for posting late, do me a favor and hop back to these awesome posts to see what these creative girls have created:

Belinda

Laurie

Stephanie 

Interesting take on the same supplies, right? I love how everyone uses and emphasizes the colors of the paper differently!