Sweet Pea

Who could resist such a cute little stamp?! I had to get the Baby Bella Pea for the occasional baby card I make, and also just for random cuteness! Afterall, my mother used to call me Sweetpea.

This is a card for the daughter of my parents' friends. This will be her (and her hubby's) 2nd baby, the first was a girl and this one is a boy. A matched set! I sang at this woman's wedding so making a baby card definitely seems appropriate. I had made a card previously based on a design I'd seen in a mag (sorry I don't remember who did it or which mag) that was a square card with the front cut diagonally and a medallion in the center. So I wanted to do a variation on it. I cut a regular square card then measured out all the lines to make it concentric squares. The base card is the yellow cardstock. Then I drew the diagonal line and cut off the edge of the yellow cardstock on the top right side.

I grabbed some pretty green paper I got JUST for this card and used the piece I cut off as a template to layer it on the front bottom left corner. The inside of the card is covered in the green paper so it peeks out. Another square in the middle, but I had to rotate it. Alas I hadn't totally thought out the corner rounding before I cut out the green edge on the front, but it still looks cute. I used the baby stamp to cover up one square corner. The baby was coloured with watercolour pencil crayons then put on dimensionals. I freehanded "sweetpea" on more yellow cardstock and put it on dimensionals also. The blue ribbon I also got just for this card (and now I have it for lots of other cards!). I cut two slits so I could loop it through and tie a bow. And voila! A relatively simple card (other than my having to measure things which is somewhat risky!) but there is just nothing I want to mess with on it.

Recipe:

Stamps: Baby Bella Pea

Ink: Dark green by ColorBox

Paper: Mint Dot by BoBunny, yellow cardstock

Other: Watercolour pencil crayons, dimensionals, spring ribbon by American Crafts, green fineliner

Hooray for Friday, even if the weather is pretty grey here!

Bellas!

Things have been very busy here for me and I just had the last night of class of my degree! Whoohoo! Moreover, I finally have my Bellas! The ice under my car finally melted so yesterday I charged up the battery with a wonderful little Black&Decker booster I bought and away I went. If you are one of those people who has a bad habit of leaving lights on or is nervous about winter time stuff, this thing is worth it. It fits in most glove compartments and you do not have to open up the hood and stand outside to charge the battery! You just plug it into the 12v power outlet (the cigarette lighter outlets). Super easy.

So with a charged up battery I finally made it to Scrapbook Centrale. This was, of course, a dangerous expedition for my credit card. But so many yummy things to go with my new Bella stamps!

This card is my mom's card for Mother's Day. My mum was a reference librarian and it is thanks to her that I am a total bookworm, so this was the perfect Bella for me! And for her! I used colours I happen to love for the Bella's clothes and discovered I'd bought new paper and glittery flowers and little bubbles that matched perfectly! Yum. I pulled out some of my glitter glue to spice up the top edge of the bottom paper with the sentiment. I also used my Stardust pen on the work, the flower on the Bella's shirt, and the flowers on her glasses. My mother is not notably a glittery person, but it was just too much fun!

Recipe:

Stamps: Bookwormabella

Ink: black by ColorBox

Papers: MME Spirit "Bright Electric Glow/Lime, blue and white cardstock

Other: blue glitter glue, Heidi Grace designs glittered flowers, Hannah's Story Rain Dots by Cloud 9 Design, watercolour pencil crayons, Stardust glitter pen, black fineliner

Can't wait to play more with Kittycattabella, Jammiebella, and Sweet Baby Pea Bella! Not to mention my new owl stamps by Sassafrass Lass. And all the new papers! And decorate my new card box. So much fun stuff to play with, so much time that I should devote to a paper. Oh well, the paper will get done but so will some cards!

Hope everyone is having a great week!

Sunshine!

It is a lovely sunny day outside and the temperature is quite nice, even if there is still a large section of ice on one side of my car and a large snowbank outside my appartment. It feels like spring.

My mother mentioned to me that my father had found her quilled Easter card quite adorable and seemed rather taken with it. The suggestion was that I see if I could think of something small to make for my dad involving quilling. His Father's Day card was made ages ago, as was his present (before I discovered blogging and found lots of excuses to make cards and crafts). I had, however, bought a mini easel and canvas at the art store because I was sure I would find some use for them. The canvas is only 2 -3/4 inches on each side. I had thought perhaps of a fish, as I have a cute pattern for that, but then I thought of a sun and remembered the ribbon I have. When I was young my dad always used to sing "You Are My Sunshine" with me. I admit I got a bit tired of the song, but the sentiment is sweet. So it is sort of "our" song. So a lovely sun seemed just right.

I used a nice yellow, tangerine, and dark orange variety of quilling strips and voila! The canvas I coloured with a blue chalk cat's eye stamp pad. Too lazy to pull out my paints and mix the right colour then wait for it to dry! ;) The ribbon is just long enough to reach to the back of the canvas and the words curl around a bit, but I wanted to keep enough to do a scrapbook page some day. I used plain old white glue to attach the sun to the canvas, and gluegun to attach the ribbon.

Hope everyone is having a lovely day and is getting some sunshine!

Sundae card!

Looking through all the stickers I have I found a set I'd found at Dollarama of ice cream cones and sundaes. I couldn't resist! The sundae was great because it had coloured ice cream, plus chocolate, whipped cream, and a cherry (made with a little red rhinestone!). Yum! Then I thought of some great paper I have that is just pictures of chocolate chips! How sweet! ;)

I decided to try a flap card so I pulled out a piece of double sided plain paper from a pack I'd gotten at Walmart. It was the perfect colour to go with the blue in the sundae. Then pink paper for the same reason. I covered the chocolate chip paper with plain white vellum to tone it down a bit, which allowed me to write the sentiment right there. I used a brown fineliner then went over it with clear Sakura gel pen. I was excited that I could even get my shimmer brads to match! It was a card that was meant to be!

I repeated the chocolate chip paper, vellum, and then a piece of pink cardstock inside. I pulled out a doodlebug stamp I have of an ice cream cone and stamped it in brown in each corner, then used my glaze pen again to go over the ice cream. Just nicely muted but tying everything together.

Recipe:
Stamps: Doodlebug ice cream cone (not pictured)

Edit: no more double "s" on Stamps. I am not Gollum! Oops!
Ink: dark brown by ColorBox
Paper: Chocolate chips, card brown and pink cardstock, blue paper from Walmart
Other: sundae sticker, pink, blue and clear Sakura glaze pens, blue and pink shimmer brads, scalloped edge scissors

This is definitely making me crave ice cream! I must resist!

WSC42

Today was less than stellar weather-wise. Although they predicted rain we got snow. Big, fat, fluffy flakes of snow all day. Yuck! It melted as it hit the ground, but I was still very disgusted. Luckily I had some card ideas to cheer me up!

I really liked the samples people had done for Beate's Weekend Sketch Challenge this week and I finally felt inspiration hit me on it! I pulled out two papers I have from LilyKate line by BG. I just love BG papers! The colours work much better in person. I should stop taking pictures at night in my appartment because the light is just not conducive to it, but I was too excited to wait! The colours are paler than they appear, more muted. I pulled the green from the bamboo paper to use as a mat for the two pieces.

The birds are by Jolees Boutique and were just too perfect. I was trying to figure out if there was going to be ribbon and then I remembered some old lace I have. It worked great. I used a pink safety pin to gather it a little bit to put on the little message tag. The primas were a last minute add but they just added what I was looking for. I love how the card turned out!

Recipe:
Paper: Bamboo and Chenille from LilyKate by BG, cream and green cardstock
Other: pale pink/lavender primas, tiny yellow button brads, birds by Jolees Boutique, old lace, pink safety pin, antique gold eyelet

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Celestial birthday

I had to pull out some old stamps for this one. I stamped the sun and moon in black on white cardstock, pulled out my watercolour pencil crayons, and went to work. Good thing I had some Robin Hood episodes to watch because this sure took a while. I love the detail though and it was totally worth it. I also used my Sakura Stardust glitter pen to accent the faces and the outer corners. I used thin dimensionals to mount the images on plain cardstock, then put those on thicker dimensionals.

The background paper does actually have hints of blue, although it doesn't show well in this photo. I used some edge stamps in silver to make the lines, then embossed them with clear EP. The sentiment was written in silver ink. Overall, I like it, although I am a little iffy on the background paper. It does look better in person though. My camera is not great at night with the lights in my appartment.

Hope everyone has a great day tomorrow!

Tiara!

Well I'm still working on the cards for my friend. This is the last of the cat birthday cards. Don't you love cat people? So glad she has so many friends and family members who are also cat people!

This particular card was inspired by a card I found that is a photo of a female persian wearing a tiara. How perfect?! A cat in a tiara is definitely the ultimate in queen imagery. Book the wonder cat agrees.

I was inspired by the CPS #58 sketch. I just really liked the idea of it. There are some fab examples up there!

Recipe:
Paper: Basic Grey Romani, purple, blue, white and orange cardstock
Other: teal ribbon from Michael's, Prima polkadot daisies, rhinestone brads, pink fineliner, watercolour pencil crayons, green ColorBox chalk ink, dimensionals, Sakura Stardust pen, Glossy Accents.

King Percival

This is a quick sketch I did of my mom's cat Percival, done from a picture and imagination. I found a card today that is a picture of a female Persian wearing a tiara and it made me think of Percy in a crown. It is mostly pencil with a bit of added colour from watercolour pencil crayons. I have since added a bit of colour in the background to make the kitty stand out a bit more. I pondered making this into a card but I think I'm going to frame it for my mother in May.

I have definitely missed drawing! Hopefully I keep finding enough creativity for that AND cards! I'm sure I'll manage. ;)

Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend!

Circles, Circles Everywhere!

I have seen a couple cards ( here and here ) that include an arrangement of 4 circles (although Taylor's includes one square instead) and I liked the look of it. Of course, that meant I had to try it out myself!

I punched out 4 1.5" circles from cream cardstock and immediately knew I was going to use more brown polkadot paper. I love this stuff and will have to get more when I run out. I also wanted some brown cardstock underneath although I did not quite have the shade I wanted. Not sure exactly what I did want, but I never seem to have quite the right shade of brown. Oh well. The corners of the polkadot paper were cut using my circle punch. Not perfect, but not too awful. That will take some practice.

For the stamps I grabbed a VERY old set I have from All Night Media. It is one of those sets of numerous small stamps that were rubber mounted on foam and you put a sticker on top to identify the stamp. Needless to say all the stickers have fallen off. I love that there are multiple cat stamps in the bunch! This sleeping kitty was just too darn cute! And the paw print too appropriate. I stamped them both in brown ink, then put a bow in one circle and then just a plain greeting in the other. I finished it off with some scalloped edges and shimmery yellow brads.

For some reason the finished product reminds me of old men's dress shoes, or even women's saddle shoes. I think it's just the cream and brown together. But I like that edge of retro feel.

Recipe:
Stamps: sleeping cat and paw print by All Night Media
Ink: dark brown by ColorBox
Papers: brown polkadot, brown and cream cardstock
Other: 1.5" circle punch, brown polkadot ribbon, brown fineliner, yellow shimmer brads, scalloped edge scissors, white gel pen

Lauren's sketch

I also found Lauren Meader's Saturday Sketch and liked that layout. I too pulled the colours together from some ribbon I had. I love this ribbon and I don't use it nearly enough so it was fun to try to find paper that would work. I had to colour the orange with a brown pencil crayon because I had no paper that was more pumpkin than bright.

I adore these cat peel and sticks. Just so cute! This one was coloured in with Sakura Stardust pen (I just got it so it is going on everything it seems!). All in all a fairly simple card, but I'm happy.

Recipe:

Paper: dark red, orange, blue, white, and dark brown cardstock

Other: striped ribbon from Michael's, peel and stick cat, Sakura Stardust pen, birthday rubon, black fineliner.