Patio Lanterns

You know you're Canadian when the first thought that pops through your mind upon seeing a card like this is the song "Patio Lanterns" by Kim Mitchell.  I don't even like the song but that's where the mind went.

Don't you just love the little lanterns.  DH bought me these mini dies for my birthday.  I love how they turned out.  They are perfect for this week's Speedy Fox and Friends challenge to use baker's twine.  I used the sentiment from MFP's Animal Birthday's set.  This week's card was inspired by the layout on Happy Little Stampers. I just love the little bunting layout.  I keep meaning to make some for birthdays but haven't gotten around to it yet.

Staring at the Sun

I had never heard of this technique before but I really like it.  It's called a panel card and it's the challenge for this week's Speedy Fox and Friends challenge.  I will so have to do it again.  I love the hint of dimension on such a clean layout.  I used up a strip of old yellow dp and the image is from "Sun and Moon" and my favourite sentiment is from "Hydrangeas".  You can't see it in this picture but I used my Wink Stella pen on the stars, ribbons and centres of the sun's rays just to give it that hint of sparkle.

Now hopefully, Mr. Sun will come out for everyone to have a wonderful Easter weekend.  It bucketed on us this afternoon while we were out but I'm looking forward to our egg hunts.  Fingers crossed!

Love the Beach

I'll be honest this week's challenge on MFP's Simple Salutations was well, challenging.  The theme is "beach" and I have nothing beachy.  After digging wildly, I found some DP that had been given to me a couple of years ago.  The sentiment at the bottom is from MFP's Lanterns set.  I thought it was appropriate since that's what I feel when I get to go on my beach holiday.

Patio Lanterns

This week's challenge is to make a one layer card on MFP's Sketch with a Twist.  I love the challenge of one layers and knew exactly what I wanted to do as soon as I opened this set of stamps.  It's this month's release, Chinese Lanterns and I really love it.  I think it's my third set of lanterns that I own.  Unfortunately, I botched 5 cards before I got this right.  I was trying a new, very juicy ink pad and inky fingers were a problem.  When I went back to my tried and true Momento ink, I was fine.

One-layer often has many interpretations, I say it is one piece of card stock folded in half.  This week the sketch is asking for no embellishments.  Now I did use some gold Smooch on my card but I'm going to call it ink and therefore still okay.  My personal definition of one layer often cheats with bling or other small embellishments but what can I say, I'm a rebel that way.

Challenges this Card Meets:
Craft Your Passions - No Designer Paper
Love to Scrap - Anything Goes
Challenges for Everybody - Anything Goes
All Sorts - No Flowers
Word Play Saturday - Anything Goes
Brown Sugar - Clean and Simple
Jo's Scrap Shack - Anything Goes
Sister Act - Anything Goes

Come Sail Away

Sometimes simple is the way to go.  I wanted to make waves for the sailboat and layer them.  I don't have a wave punch or a digital cutter though.  After over an hour of mangling paper, I tried to draw waves over some streaked Baja Breeze and decided I liked the simple look better.  I love the simplistic sunset with all the bright colours.  I showed my scientifically bent DH and his response was that the boat was floating and that wasn't right.  *Sigh*

Stamps:  SU Toybox (retired) for the boat, Say Anything by Freshly Squeezed Stamps for the sentiment.
Inks: Baja Breeze, Daffodil Delight, Only Orange, Ruby Red

Challenges this Card Meets:
Sentimental Sundays - Cards for a Boy or a Man
Paula Holifield Crafts - Are We There Yet?  Transportation Theme
Speedy Fox and Friends - Oldie's Birthday
Sweet Stampin' - Be Inspired by a book or song  (Styx - Come Sail Away)

My Big Shot Bit It!

This is my second card for this week's Sketch with a Twist.  I used the new Lotus Blossom stamp and sentiment.  I really like that sentiment.  Anyways, the twist is to use distressing and I was worried that many of you wouldn't notice that I distressed the edges of white panel that I had stamped with MFP's Background Fun set.  It doesn't get much more clean and simple than this unless you go one layer.  I used Pacific Point and clear, heat embossed the image.  It looks so watery in real life.  I just coloured the lilypad leaf and the lotus blossom seeds with my Copics.  My secondary colour is Wild Wasabi, which currently seems to be my favourite colour but that might be because of all the wedding cards I've been doing recently.

By the way, I want you to appreciate the die cutting on the card.  My Big Shot has finally bit it.  It completely froze.  The handle will not turn. It's 5 years old, well past the warranty and used ALOT.  I've gone through two sets of plates.  Please remember that as a teacher and parent, I make over 100 Valentine's a year at an average of 3 diecuts per Valentine.  I've done 4 sets of wedding stationary, school calendar sets, and practically every card I make uses a die cut.  To make a long story short, I took the entire machine apart.  Cleaned out the rollers, oiled the cogs and the handle, reassembled it and I just barely got this card made.  DH, who is truely amazing, ran out to the LSS and ordered me a new one the next day.  Another customer was shocked.  She told him that: 1) her husband didn't know this store existed; 2) wouldn't know what to call the machine to ask for it; 3) wouldn't know what a wonderful gift it was; 4) would struggle with the expense.  I am so blessed.  I didn't even ask.  I was going to try and fix the one I have.

Like a Chica Cherry Cola

Wow, I actually broke out my Copics for this and did some real colouring.  It's been months since I coloured.  I was digging through my stash for "animal" images and found this gorgeous one by Heartfelt Creations which I've always enjoyed.  I was so upset that they didn't follow up on the fruit theme.  This release had so many beautiful cherry images and I was praying for an apple release since they do such beautiful work but a year later and I'm still waiting...

The sentiment is from SU's retired Bliss set, which is also new to me.  The card is 5.5 * 5.5 because I really wanted to use this die cut at this angle, it just seems made for the image.  Hope you enjoy!

Challenges this Card Meets:
Everybody Art - Summer
Creatalicious - Anything Goes
Cute Card Thursday - Gardener's World
Papertake Weekly - Anything Goes
Speedy TV's Simple Salutations - Use an Animal
That Craft Place - Anything Goes
The Crafty Blogger's Network - Anything Goes
Friends of Speedy TV - "Vacation Time" is when I go cherry picking.

Bowl Full of Cherries

I was at the pharmacy without children last night so picked up Paper Crafts Card Creations Volume 10.  I was going to put it back until I got to the Holiday section.  Then I was inspired!  I loved the red striped card on page 117 by Jacqueline Nimrichter  (see below).  Since I am always looking for fantastic ways to use scraps, I had to try it.  I decided to use green since I rarely have much red scraps.  My stripes are wider - 3/4 of an inch rather than 1/2.  I'd love to try it thinner but even with 3 paper cutters, none of them do 1/2 inch well.  If you have one that does, please let me know the brand!

My green seemed more spring or summer than Christmasy so I thought I'd make some teacher thank you cards with an apple but I think every teacher gets tired of apples.  I wanted to celebrate summer and cherries always mean summer.  The set is Stamping Up's retired Tart and Tangy set.  Interestingly, I could not get my SU Real Red to give me good coverage no matter what type of conditioning I did on the stamp so I pulled out TH Barn Door and it was perfect!  Has anyone else had trouble with Real Red?

I couldn't decide whether I like the red boarder or not.  It does give the card a bit more oomph but I love how the eye is drawn the smaller amount of red in the first card.  What do you think?  Either way, what a fantastic way to make your own DP and both cards were made completely from my scrap bin, including the bases.  I think I'm going to challenge myself to try this with different colours and see what other effects I can create.

Challenges this Card Meets:
MilkCoffee - Use those Diecuts (Circle and Scalloped Circle)
Oldie but Goodie - Anything Goes  (Stamp is 2011 Sale-abration. Green paper is over 2 years, left over from cousin's wedding invites.)
Simon Says - Anything Goes

Simply Thanks

I was lucky enough to win some Smooch from Susan, aka LateBlossom, and wanted to send a thank you note for enabling me. I loved the gold so much, I ran out and bought red, green and blue for Christmas cards.

If you follow Susan's blog, you know that she is the queen of CAS and one-layer cards. I wanted something that hopefully she would like. I found it really intimidating actually since I love following her blog, before I realized that anyone would prefer a thank you card to nothing at all!

The base is Gina K's luxury white and the sentiment is from her Fancifal Tags set. The image is from Flourishes Mix and Match Mugs set. I masked the mug to add the flowers. I really need to use this set more often. I really do like it. The image was then coloured with Copics.

Challenges this Card Meets:

Challenge Up Your Life - no patterned paper

Charisma Cardz - Negative (or white) space

Do You Stack Up - Thank You

Summer ANTics

When I found out that this week's challenge at For Fun Challenges was watermelon, I was so excited to pull out this image. I don't use it enough. It's Stamping Up's Ladybug Picnic (retired). Actually, I'd had it for years and had never used it until this summer. But it was just perfect, especially when I saw this framed image from our sponsor at Meljen's. Don't they go perfectly? I did print the frame a bit smaller than the standard 4.25 * 5.5 inches but decided to run with it since it was such a nice size for the stamps. I wanted the stars in the corners to really look like buttons so I put a very thick layer of Diamond Glaze on top and left it to dry overnight with markers across the paper to try and prevent it from curling up. That seemed to work.

The winner this week will receive 4 images of their choice from Meljen's. There is a freebie from Meljen's if you don't have a watermelon image and you want to play that you can find here.

Hope you'll join us.

Itsy Bitsy Spider

Just a couple more of my buggy thank you cards. The top one was looking a bit silly floating in the middle of the frame so I free hand drew in some cobwebs for him to stand on. Again they are coloured with copics. The heart and the body of the spider are covered with Diamond Glaze to give them a bit of dimension and interest. Sentiments by Gina K.

Challenges these Cards Meets:

Less is More - Single Layer and use a Frame

Saturday Challenge - Going Buggy

Moving Along with the Times - Inspired by Song (Itsy Bitsy Spider)

Delightful Sketches - Anything Goes

Buggy Summer

Summer is coming and I need a bunch of simple notecards for my year end. I just love how these turned out. The images are from Stampin' Up's Cute as A Bug (retired) and Lady Bug Picnic (retired). I bought both of these probably five years ago just for this purpose and am embarrassed to say this is the first time I've gotten around to my end of year cards with them.

The cards are made on Gina K.'s luxury white cardstock and the images were coloured with copics. I'm so impressed that the colour didn't bleed through. I just love how these turned out! Then sentiment is also from Gina K.'s tag set. The frame was hand drawn with a ruler and a 0.2 Copic fineliner. I will so have to use this technique again.

You'll see the next two in the set Thursday. Have a great day!

Challenges these cards meet:

Less is More - Single Layer and use a Frame

Saturday Challenge - Going Buggy

Serendipitous Summer Crafting

Wow, sometimes things really do just fall together. I was given all the DP this week at work because it had come in a donation box and no one knew what to do with it. Score! Most of it was in masculine colours. As soon as I saw this tropical theme I knew it would be perfect with this Soft Pencil image I was given. I needed the perfect embellishment though and didn't want to use a flower. I don't like to add "extras" unless they actually fit the image and since I don't usually have daisies at the beach I can't seem to make them go together the way others seem able to do. So I was scrambling at the back of my drawers looking so something, anything to embellish it with and found this plastic sun that matches both the colours of the paper and the happy sun in the image. How lucky is that? The sun came as the weight on a helium balloon given to us when DS #1 was born. So how many years is that? I didn't even want to keep it at the time but DH thought it would be great with my cards and I have long ago learned that he is ALWAYS right when it comes to these things.

The So Saffron ribbon and bow at the bottom are to cover some wavy lines on the DP that seemed a bit out of place.

You should be aware that this card is ginormous. It's a full 6.5 by 6.5 inches. Normally I would never make a card this large but I wasn't willing to give up any of the elements. Besides, as a teacher, I can always use this as one of the staff cards (where lots of signatures are used) for either a going away card at the end of June or a retirement card.

In terms of the sketch, I did move the sun over to the other side so he wasn't blocking the little sun in the image. I liked the repetition it provided. I also didn't and a seconardy sentiment since I had carefully used the "Take a Break Hang Ten" on the DP. I hope you'll forgive my creative license.


Additional Challenges this card meets:
Joan's Garden: 1) blue and green, 2) use a lady (mine is a very young lady), 3) include a large embellishment (my sun) 4) attach a bow. I was so impressed. I found this and only needed to add the bow. I had all the other elements already.
Sentimental Sunday - Anything Goes