Happy Spring, with Penny Black

Mom sent me a bunch of Prima wood embellishments, including this cute little plane, as well as this adorable stamp by Mo Manning (from Penny Black), and putting them together on a card seemed like a great idea. Come on, who could resist this sweet face‽

The image is stamped on Hammermill with Tuxedo Black ink (Memento) and colored with Copics. I added the tiny flowers with a stamp from a Candi Stamps set (Craftwork Cards) and orange pigment ink (VersaColor). I blinged him up by using a silver pen on his front pin, a clear glaze pen on the rubber parts of his shoes, and Glossy Accents on his goggles.

The light blue background paper (Jo-Ann's) was embossed half-way with clouds in my BigShot with an embossing folder (Darice), and then I inked the clouds with SU! Whisper White Craft ink using a finger dauber. 

I stamped the dandelions in a row, plus a few little flyaways (both stamps from Clear Art Stamps' Wildflowers set), and colored them with shiny, yellow and green glaze pens (Sakura). The stems are filled with a green glitter pen (Elmer's).  

I added just a touch of color with a ribbon from my stash. The background piece is edged with deckle scissors, and I backed the whole thing with a glittered, flower-themed DP (Colorbök).

The wood plane was colored just a bit with gray Copics, and then heat-embossed in Translucent Yellow (Stampendous).

I heat-embossed the sentiment (from a Penny Black set) in white after lining up the little plane.

Inspiration/Challenges:
Crafty Ribbons: Anything goes with a Ribbon
Mo's Digital Challenge #174: Bling (it's a little difficult to see, but there's a lot of shine & glimmer on this card)
Penny Black Saturday March Challenge: Spring
Sparkle & Glitter, a Rick St. Dennis Challenge: Spring is in the Air
Stampin With The Dragon: Anything goes
Sweet Stampin: Embossing + stamping

Thank you for visiting,

Hippo Birthday to you!

We're doing something a little different at Pile It On this week: the challenge theme and sponsor coordinates with the current Sunshine Mail Foundation Challenge. I'm on the Sunshine Mail Design Team and am the sponsor coordinator for Pile It On, so this was my clever idea... hoping to get lots of cards for the kids!


I used 2 Cute Ink's Birthday Hippo digi stamp, which also is offered as a rubber stamp at Whimsy Stamps:

This is pretty simple card; I embossed the background with my Darice embossing folder, cut the sentiment with an amuse studio die, and deckled the edges of the  image with decorative scissors. The buttons were made by adhering silk ribbon to white cardstock and cutting/embossing with an SU! Embosslit. The "ribbon" behind the DP strip is Dry Wall Tape, my current favorite embellishment!

Digi Sketch Challenge

Inspiration/Challenges:

1. Bearly Mine #75: Anything Goes
2. Di's Digis Designs: All about Children
3. Digi Sketch Challenge: Sketch
4. Digistamps 4 Joy: Birthdays are fun
5. Digital Tuesday #199: Birthdays
6. Creative Card Crew #31: Birthday
7. Simon Says Stamp: Anything Goes
8. Paper Shelter Challenge #101: Animal Magic
9. The Pink Elephant Monday Card Challenge: Anything Goes
10. Sisterhood of Crafters: Birthdays
    

Update: This card was a random runner-up for Digistamps 4 Joy Challenge #61.

Thank you for visiting & hope you'll join us for the Pile It On challenge,

Happy Dr. Seuss Day!

Not only is today (March 2) Mr Geisel's birthday, it's Read Across America Day. I don't have any children here to read to, but maybe my husband would listen to a poem or two (actually, I love it when he reads to me...)!

My sister-in-law posted the cutest photo on FaceBook of our niece celebrating Dr Seuss's birthday at school, eating green eggs and ham (green-colored scrambled eggs and cut-up ham slices... so clever!), so when I saw the Inspired By...Dr Seuss challenge, I just had to make a card.

 
The quote image is by TLC Creations; she gave it out as a freebie last year and I had to go through her whole March 2012 archive to find it! So worth it though! I was naughty and darkened the yellow in Photoshop... sorry, I just couldn't see it in the print-out! Speaking of being naughty, I grabbed the Dr Seuss images from coloring pages available on the web. What can I say, I colored them!

I colored the "Truffula trees" and then added FlowerSoft to them for texture. It's difficult to see in this photo, but I colored the background for the trees with Copics and texturized it with Blender solution and Aida fabric. I cut out "Horton" with deckle scissors and colored him with Copic B60, Pale Blue Gray. He's attached with an Action Wobble, so he bounces really nicely on the card!

Inspiration/Challenges:
Art Impressions Challenge 102: Use a Wobble
Inspired By #64: Dr. Seuss
The Sketch File: February Sketch




Update: This won the "Wobble" challenge at Art Impressions, as well as Inspired By #64!

Thank you for visiting,

Arizona colors

I was really intrigued by this week's "Your State" challenge at Speedy Fox and Friends, so I tried my hand at an idea my friend had while he was visiting. I have some cut-out masks from a cityscape project, and I used that to make a mountain like you see in Arizona. Although I now live in Maryland, I consider Arizona my other home... that's where my folks live, and where I was living when I met my friend. I used the same wood-stamping technique that I used on my Portlandia card to make the little "quail".

Inks: SU! Barely Banana, ColorBox, Versamark watermark ink, Versamark chalk ink
Wood bird used as stamp: Prima
Stamps: sentiment from Verve's Let It Shine set, cactus from My Favorite Things' Fred Bear Out West set, bubble border by Annabelle Stamps
Papers: SU! Whisper White, Core'Dinations
Embossing Powders: ZING! Brown Sugar, Lemonade Scentz by ColorBox  
Dies/Cutting Files: Card frame and Cityscape/Mountains designed in SCAL and cut on my Cricut, Banner die from a•muse studio, Button from SU! Embosslit, scallop scissors for corner rounding

Inspiration/Challenges:
Annabelle Stamps Challenge #157: Sketch
Color Throwdown #231: Melon Mambo, So Saffron, Crumb Cake, Lucky Limeade
CAS-ual Fridays #92: Stamp your own background
Speedy Fox and Friends Challenge 148: Your State

Thank you for visiting,

Happy Birthday wishes with Sunshine Mail

Happy March! Today begins a new 2-week Sunshine Mail Foundation Challenge. The only real rule is that you send in at least one card (Donation guidelines here). We usually like to collect "Happy Mail," but Sunshine Mail does provide Birthday Cards for a homeless shelter, so our theme is Happy Birthday in hopes we'll get some great cards for the kids!

We're sponsored again by 2 Cute Ink, and I loved their Birthday Dino so much that I made two cards:

Design-wise, the cards are pretty much identical:

I'm entering these cards into the following Challenges (both or either!):
Created With Love: Bright and Cheery
Deep Ocean Challenge #46: For A Boy
Digi Makeover Challenge: Stripes
Melonheadz Friends Challenge: Child related

Thank you for visiting & hope you'll join us for the Sunshine Mail Foundation Challenge,