Woohoo!

Well, no new cards to share today. I was a little busy as I did the language exam for my degree today. I was assured time and again by the Graduate Program Assistant that it was no big deal, easy to pass. Basically you get a page with an excerpt from some text in French on the religion you study. My supervisor, for the record, gives the most to translate. 5 paragraphs may not sound like much, but it takes a while if it is a relatively sophisticated text and your vocab is only so so. I love my monster french/english dictionary. Anyway, 2.5 hours later I handed in my handwritten pages and called it good enough. Most of it actually made sense! I won't hear anything for a couple weeks as my supervisor is away.

On a side note, I hope I get at least one more card in but I am going on vacation starting Friday. I'm going to visit my parents and all my friends back home for a couple weeks. Also getting my wisdom teeth removed so I'll get nice pain pills and everything! So hopefully I get another card done and posted, but if not, I'll be back after May 18th! My blog surfing will also be non-existent because there are just too many things to do in 2 weeks with people I am away from too much! Looking forward to moving home next year!

Cheers to all!

Martinis for Jen's SFYTT!

I love Jen del Muro's SFYTT! Always makes Saturdays so much fun, even if I don't have time to do the sketch. But I did this week!

I've had this martini paper for a while and I knew I wanted to make a congrats card, probably for the day my friend finally finishes her MA thesis. When I saw Jen's sketch this weekend this seemed perfect! I also bought Sandylion Essentials martini stickers a while back from a dollar store and knew they were going with this. The clear glass is difficult to see, but I did add some shading around it on the cardstock to help it stand out a bit more. The shaker is silver, hence the little reflection on it.

The blue cardstock seemed too plain so I added some hand-drawn flourishes. The white paper I'm not sure of. I used red ink around the edges but not sure I totally love it. It will be ok though. Overall I really like the card. Lots of room inside to write nice things or find something silly to put inside!

Recipe:

Paper: "Cheers" by Karen Foster, white, blue and green cardstock

Ink: light green and red from ColorBox Primary colour wheel

Accessories: Martini stickers by Sandylion Essentials, red ric rak by Offray, black pen

So cheers to all of you!

Party Owls for Lauren's Sketch

Still digging the owls! Today I pulled out both Oliver and Olivia sets to find the perfect owls for Lauren Meader's Saturday sketch. I thought her samples were lots of fun and I just love the 4 circle arrangement.

The owls I picked just looked totally perfect. The one in the upper left looks like she's flying high in excitement! Or jumping. And the little boy in top right looks a little shocked. As does the little girl below him! And the bigger one in the bottom left definitely looks interested and surprised! It is a bit of an owl party. So a congratulations card seemed perfect!

It is hard to see, but there is a little glitter blue on some of the blue circles on the bottom pp. I had to add a little sparkle to it! I also cut a small slit in the fold of the card and threaded the ribbon through so it is still visible inside.

Recipe:

Stamps: Olivia and Pals and Oliver and Friends by Sassafras Lass

Ink: Brilliance coffee bean

Paper: beach design by EK Success, blue cardstock, green paper (Walmart pack)

Accessories: seafoam polkadot from Michael's, congratulations rubon, blue glitter glue

More Cute Owls!

Did I mention I love owls? hehe. They are just so cute and so "in" this season. So I stocked up. This is from Olivia and Friends by Sassafras Lass. I like that some of the stamps look like kids' doodles and some are like this, just so sweet! The two sets, Oliver and Olivia, work together great because you get a branch and cloud with Oliver and two versions of "hoo!" with Olivia. Yummy!

So I've been posting that I was going to CASE a card by Dawn McVey. Well, this is it. You can see Dawn's card on her blog. I loved it. I was scrolling back through her blog, trying to figure out which card I wanted to case. I'd seen a few that I thought were just too much fun but some of them were going to be a pain (lots of circles in different sizes when one only has a single circle punch means lots of cutting down and drawing circles by hand and ick!). I looked at this one again and it hit me that I could use owls!

I put together the base card and the layer of blue design paper, then looked in my ribbon to see what would go. Yummy teal with the yellow! I used it previously here with Jammybella, just ruching it by pulling the yellow strand that comes threaded through it.

The owls were stamped in pink chalk ink on yellow paper and turned out a cute orange. The same with the "hoo!" stamp. I played around with how I was going to sit the owls but this worked best since I didn't quite draw my line at 1/3 of the card. When I got them on I stared at the card and was feeling all squirmy about all that plain orange paper. It just looked so bare, especially with the pattern at the bottom. Something had to happen. So I confined myself to adding 4 dew drops. I am still getting used to placing Dew Drops and the Glossy Accents I used as glue smeared just a little. I think I need to buy some craft tweezers because these things stick to my fingers just enough.

Amazingly enough, I actually think it turned out finished. I am resisting the urge to do anything more to the top. I will definitely have to play around more with this sort of clean style. Of course, I am not giving up all my layering and decorating and adding just a few more bits. But I'm going to try to push myself a bit to do less occasionally.

Recipe:

Stamps: Olivia and Friends by Sassafras Lass

Ink: Orchid Pastel chalk by ColorBox

Paper: blue daisies by K&Co, sunrise cardstock

Accessories: teal and yellow ribbon from Michael's, Flame Dew Drops, orange shimmer brad

ETA: So I couldn't help bringing this up... Have you ever found the perfect pair of shoes, tried them on, felt so comfortable, bought them, brought them home, only to discover they are half a size too large? I was stupidly wearing jeans when I bought them and didn't realize that the heel sticks out too far. They're a pair of cork wedges with cute straps and are super comfortable. The straps are shammi-soft gold and won't dig in or anything. I usually wear flats and I was wanting to find a pair of heels or something heel-like that would actually be wearable during the summer. These were at Winners (Canadian T.J. Maxx) and so were not too expensive. But I just don't think I can keep these shoes. So disappointing. I have an awful time finding shoes I like and will wear. I even found another store that had the same style (for $40 more!) and discovered they don't make half sizes and the next size down was too small and wouldn't even go on my foot. There is no hope of finding this particular shoe in a size that will fit. :( I did, however, get a cute pair of gold heels for very cheap. With reason, since none of the shoe is leather, but they are cute and wearable. But not nearly as great as the wedges. Alas, my search continues.

Gift for Dad

I know it is very early to be posting things for Father's Day, but I have seen some cute stuff and thought I would share what I put together. My dad isn't much for collecting photos. He took videos, but he was more likely to be in the photographs. I had some photos on my computer of my childhood and realized that a large number of them were of me and my dad. I've always been Daddy's little girl so this seemed like a great way to say thanks and give him a reminder of all the stuff we've done together.

I started off with baby stuff. My parents adopted me so I wrote about that and had a cute picture of getting a bath in the sink. It's been a long time since I fit in there!

I also had a picture of my baptism with my dad holding me. How perfect?

Halloween has always been big with my dad. He loves dressing up in costumes and was always excited to get me dressed up and go trick-or-treating with me. One picture is of me when I was little, one when I was a teenager.

There were many road trips in my life, and dad was on almost all of them. We did trips to the cottage and we stopped to take pictures of a Prairie Lily on one. I also had to mention my cute little beetle that my dad helped me get.

Then there was graduation. Proud papa was there the day I got my first degree.

The last picture is from the drive my dad did helping me move. We drove across the country and happened to find the town where Winnie came from. Winnie would be the live bear that a Canadian soldier donated to the London Zoo. That bear later inspired A. A. Milne to write Winnie-The-Pooh. Disney endorsed a statue there and there is a cute little local museum. Winnie the Pooh is special to myself and my dad and has been. So it was just too perfect.


All in all, I am very happy with how the little book turned out. The ribbon is also special. I'm looking forward to sharing it with him! He'll be getting it early as I won't be home for Father's Day but I will be for Mother's Day. We'll just have to merge the two in our family this year!

The outside edges of the book were painted with gold paint to finish off the project.

Card Box

I love my new card box. The box I had made last was just too small to hold all the cards I make. It wasn't wide enough to do two stacks of smaller cards so there was lots of empty space. Moreover, I needed something to hold all the cards I had made for my friend. The box I had made previously was perfect for that so I was in need of something new. I found a great undecorated "recipe box" at my LSS and bought it. It was just perfect, obviously sized for potentially putting cards in it since it would fit a regular card you could buy in a store. It will never see any, but I am happy with it.

I bought all the matterials at my LSS. Patterned paper, a sheet of coordinating pieces by My Mind's Eye, flowers, Dew Drops, letters and ribbon. Yum! I like how it came together although it might be too "busy" for some people. But it's just so bright and fun!

I used Mod Podge to glue on the paper covering the box except for the central pieces on the top. Those were attached using Teriffically Tacky Tape to avoid messing them up. I realized in the end that I got the very center red piece a little crooked but I couldn't fix it and it isn't too bad. The brackets are from the coordinating sheet by My Mind's Eye, the letters are Thickers. The Dew Drops and flowers were attached using Glossy Accents (got that tip from a blog although I forget whose, sorry for that). The ribbon went on with Terrifically Tacky Tape.

All in all, I'm stoked. I still have to decorate the 6 chipboard dividers that came in the box, but I need to see if I can find some cardstock that will go with the patterned paper. That's right, I didn't get it all properly planned out even on my 2nd trip to the LSS. Hopefully DeSerres will have some that will match. The colours I have are all just a bit off. Very frustrating, but not too unexpected.



Recipe:
Papers: Star Brigth Dotty Dude, Day Dream Check Her Out, and Day Dream Accessories Sheet from the Just Dreamy line by MME, Organic Poppy from Bo-Bunny's Back to Backs.
Accessories: Poolside Thickers, flame and water Dew Drops, Heidi Grace Aqua common flowers, blue and yellow checked ribbon from my LSS, Glossy Accents, Terifically Tacky Tape, Mod Podge.


As soon as I get the dividers decorated I will post them also. Could be a couple days. The next project is probably a card inspired by Dawn McVey. If you don't know her then you should definitely check out her blog. She does such beautiful cards and her style is so simple and clean and classy. Plus she's just such a sweetie! I always love posting comments on her blog because she writes me such cute emails back! That, and making her laugh is just fun! So now that she's heard time and again how envious I am of her style and how difficult I find it to just leave a card alone I have to try. If I fail and have to clutter up a card then she'll get a good laugh out of it. So hopefully I can do that perhaps this afternoon!

And I will be praying for a thunderstorm. It is humid and sticky here and I do not like it! Plus I miss thunderstorms. I grew up on the prairies where you could watch the storm coming and enjoy the thunder and lightning. Here in Montreal there isn't much of that and it is a bit disappointing. So here's hoping!

SFYTT with Jammybella!

I finally got a card done for Jen's SFYTT. A bit late, but I was busy with school stuff. I had this image stamped and coloured ages ago but I hadn't come up with a card for it to go with yet. I just love Jammybella and her teddy bear!

The flowers on her pants and shirt have been coloured with a Stardust pen to add a bit of glitter. The flourish on the yellow is actually yellow glitter from the We R Memory Keepers "Foil Glitter Flock" rub on kit. I love this stuff. Makes it so easy and minimally messy. Admittedly sometimes there isn't quite enough glue or it doesn't quite transfer, but I'm pretty sure that's more to do with my error than the product.

Recipe:

Stamps: jammybella by Stamping Bellas

Ink: black by ColorBox

Paper: purple bazzil cardstock, metallic teal (maybe bazzil?), pale yellow and white cardstock

Other: We R Memory Keepers Glitter Foil Flock rubons, ribbon from Michael's, MM epoxy button, "Friends" rubon, black pen, watercolour pencil crayons, Sakura Stardust pen, primas, MM brads

And a special hooray for having completed the last course of my degree! Now on to the big exams. I'm actually kinda excited about them honestly.

Keeping my LSS in business...

Not that Scrapbook Centrale needs my help. From reading their forums it's clear I am not the only one who goes in and comes out trying not to think about the credit card bill. But definitely worth it. I got Dew Drops! "Water" and "Flame." Between the two it should cover most of what I was wanting them for. I also picked up supplies for my new card box (a Be Creative blank recipe box) so I can get it decorated in the next little while! My Mind's Eye and BoBunny papers, some letters, gorgeous ribbon, and some Heidi Grace flowers. Can't wait!

I also had to grab the Olivia and Pals clear stamps by Sassafras Lass. Now I have both sets, boy and girl owls! Maybe a couple for my box? And definitely more cute cards and fun projects! Love my owls!

Hopefully I'll manage something tonight. Trying to finish up last minute research for my paper which is due tomorrow by email. Hard to believe this is the last paper of my coursework for my PhD. Once I email it in my coursework will be complete! Sure, I'll still have 3 years' worth of work to go before I'm all done, but it is very exciting!

And I'm loving the gorgeous weather outside! Cheers to all!

Tool Time Got Inked!

When I saw the sneak peeks of the Hanna Stamps set Tool Time at first I wasn't sure what I thought. Then I looked at it again and I realized it would be perfect. My dad is a handy man. He has always been a jack-of-all-trades, building me a 2 story playhouse and putting electrical wiring in it, fixing stuff that goes wrong at the house, repairing his machinery when he farmed, etc. He grew up that way. Being Daddy's little girl, I went to the farm with him and he and my grandpa amused me by giving me tools to play with, setting up blocks of wood with nails started for me to hammer in. Those nails spelled out my name, by the way, and my dad still has those blocks on his desk at home. As I got older dad got me to help with projects. When I moved out on my own I requested tools for Christmas from my dad. Afterall, he knew what I would need. Then I requested some tools to put in my car after growing up with dad's truck being the moveable tool kit. Most recently I requested a drill which he helped me pick out. So tools definitely make me think of my dad.

At the same time, I feel relatively competent with at least some tools these days. Not big power tools, and only somewhat with my drill, but still. So a set with a girl and tools seemed just right.

I got my set on Thursday in the mail but hadn't had a chance to play with it much until yesterday. I stamped everything. Didn't use it all on this card (although the envelope still needs decorating) but I just had to see it all. The quality is awesome. I coloured in Hanna and the tools with watercolour pencil crayons. I chose to give Hanna short hair since my hair hasn't been long for years, but it was easy since it just meant cutting out a few pieces that I didn't think to mask. Then I went over all the tools with my Stardust glitter pen and glossy accents to make them stand out. Cut everything out and voila! The base card was stamped with a paisley design in a light brown which just barely shows but reminds me of a faded hanky. The blue paper is Bazzil cardstock and with the texture it reminds me a bit of faded denim. I love how it turned out!

Recipe:

Stamps: Tool Time by Hannah Stamps, paisley by Inkadinkado

Ink: black and light brown by ColorBox

Paper: faded blue cardstock by Bazzil, wood grain dp, and red cardstock, Measurement paper by 7gypsies

Other: dimensionals, watercolour pencil crayons, Glossy Accents, Sakura Stardust pen, brushed pewter brads, white Sakura gel pen, black Sakura glaze pen

Loving the gorgeous day here today. Time to get lots of work done on my paper and hopefully get around to a couple sketches (Jen's and Beate's). I might even challenge myself to try something in the style of the fab Dawn McVey since I keep saying how much I love her style and how incapable I seem of managing anything that clean.

Lack of posting

It has definitely been a while since I posted anything and I don't have much to post now. School is keeping me busy. This week was a mess, with a sinus headache hitting for 2 days and making me useless. Now I'm trying to finish up my last paper of my last course. And to top it all off my ipod appears to have broken. I am sans music for paper writing. Quite depressing, actually, but I hate listening to music on my computer while typing at it. This is the second time since January that my ipod has made bad noises that indicate a hardware problem. As it is nearing the end of the 3 year service plan I bought for it I am actually hoping it is dead and I will get a replacement of a much newer variety. Last time they fixed it, but obviously something is wrong again. Going to have to drop it off sometime. Bad timing since it is 2 weeks until I go on vacation for 2 weeks. Then again last time it took them 3 weeks to get it back to me.

I'll leave you with a picture of the box I decorated for my friend's upcoming birthday. It was a plain old box that I bought at DeSerres, ready to be decorated. Some paint, ribbon, bling, chipboard shapes, metal letters, and flowers and voila. All personalized. I'm quite proud of it and I hope she'll love it.

Happy Friday!

Hoot!

I love owls. I have owl mittens for winter that I got for Christmas. I was talking about it with my mom last night and was reminded that I come by it honestly as my grandmother also loves owls and had various pictures and crafts up at her house as well as having some homemade puzzles for me with owl pictures. Not to mention Owl (Wol) from Winnie the Pooh and Wise Old Owl from Mr. Dressup.

When I kept seeing owl stamps out this year I got excited. I tried to figure out how I could justify buying some, but unfortunately most of the suppliers were American and not ones with friendly Canadian shipping. Then I went to my LSS finally and discovered they actually HAD the owl stamps from Sassafras Lass. I had to get them. The set is Oliver & Friends. You get 5 different owls, an adorable tree branch, and a cute little cloud. And they are clear so I can see exactly where I am putting my stamp. Yay! Sadly they did not have the matching paper, but maybe I will have to look again.

I wanted to make a thank you card for my boss, the prof I have been working for all semester as his Teaching Assistant. It has been a great experience and I just really wanted to thank him for that. An owl card seemed perfect since I had no particular Confucian ideas. I was inspired by Jen's SFYTT. Didn't quite get it done over the weekend or anything, but I had a blast anyway.

I started with the idea of having the three stripes being trees and my little owl. The owl was stamped on cardstock that actually looks like cheap cardboard with all the little flecks. I used a dark brown ink but eventually discovered I would have to outline him because the ink just wasn't quite dark enough. I coloured in his beak with an orange pencil crayon. I think punched him out with my circle punch. The white matting was a later addition, but helps him stand out more.

I grabbed a great piece of fibered paper in dark green and made my card base from it. The fibers give it a nice feel of nature. The "trees" were purposely placed slightly crooked as trees do not always grow straight. I think pulled out the branch stamp from my set and inked it up with light brown to stamp on the trees. Most of the time it did not reach the background, but I was ok with that. It was intended to be somewhat subtle, just add pattern. I put the little owl on a good gap on a branch. I used the same paper as for the owl for the sentiment. I free handed it with my black Sakura Glaze pen. Some orange ribbon and a bronze brad finished that off.

Recipe:

Stamps: owl from "Oliver & Friends" by sassafras lass, branch from the same set

Ink: light brown and chocolate by ColorBox

Paper: dark brown cardstock by Bazzil, dark green fiber paper by The Paper Company, brown cardstock

Other: sakura glaze pen, orange ribbon by offray and someone else, bronze brad, brown fineliner, orange pencil crayon

Loving the spring weather, even if it does mean snow mould! I think a walk will be in order this afternoon!

Another Kittycattabella

I couldn't resist doing a couple Kittycattabella cards. I love cats and quite a few people I know do as well. I had done this one with a particular friend in mind, originally thinking of putting it in the pile of birthday cards I'd made for her to give. Now, however, I'm pondering keeping it to give to her for her birthday next year. The two cats are coloured to look like her cats, as much as I could manage. The colours are all ones she likes. So tempting. I will have to think about it. It would be perfect if I had masked out the long braid as she has short hair and has had pretty much forever.

I added a bit of sparkle with my Stardust glitter pen on her shirt, outlining her pants, the bow in her hair, and the ribbon on her presents. I used my Sakura glaze pens to help outline the presents a little bit and colour in the red present and the green dots. A little crystal for the dot on the "i" of birthday and it was set.

Recipe:

Stamps: Kittycattabella, happy and birthday by studio G

Ink: black by Colorbox, white by ColorBox

Papers: heart design by K & Co., cream, red and white cardstock

Other: Sakura stardust and glaze pens, watercolour pencil crayons, white EP, dimensionals, brown fineliner, white gel pen by Sakura

I may be pretty scarce for the next week. I have my last assigned paper of my degree due a week from today and needless to say it is not finished. Also have a few other things on the go school-wise, so there will be less card making while my brain is busy keeping a bunch of things going. But I will be enjoying all this wonderful sunshine and nice weather we are getting again!

Purrfect for Grandma

Can you tell I was waiting anxiously for my Bella stamps? I already knew which ones I was using for which cards and everything.

This card is for my grandma for Mother's Day. Although my grandma has never had cats she has always appreciated the ones my mother and I have had. She thinks Book is just quite adorable and always tries to interest Book in some play time when they are together. She sent me a very adorable kitty card for Valentine's Day this year too. All that leads to the fact that a kitty card for my grandma worked just great.

I stamped the image on plain white cardstock and coloured it in with watercolour pencil crayons. Then I went over the shirt, shoes, and bow in her hair with my Stardust glitter pen. After looking at the cats they really didn't seem to stand out enough, so I stamped the image again and coloured the cats, one to look like Book and one to look like my mom's cat Percy. I cut out those cats with my fine scissors and put them on thin dimensionals. They stand out much better now, at least on the actual card. I decided that book should be sitting off the edge of the mat for visual interest and simply because it looked odd with all that extra white space.

I picked up this fab DCWV paper during my excursion to the LSS. The hearts are very shiny and glittery, hence the reflection, the base paper is creamy. A nice contrast. I punched out two scallops with my circle punch, one at the top and one at the bottom, then covered the rest with the matted Bella. Felt hearts from DeSerres finished it off, stuck on with Terrifically Tacky Tape, and a little sentiment in dark brown pen.

Recipe:

Stamps: Kittycattabella

Ink: black by ColorBox

Papers: Hearts and Paws by DCWV, blue and white cardstock

Other: watercolour pencil crayons, Sakura Stardust pen, dimensionals, felt hearts from DeSerres, brown fineliner

The day here is decidedly grey and dreary, but hopefully I can get some work done on my research paper and maybe some cards too! Yay for Saturday!

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!