Not Your Usual Grad Card

This is not what you're used to seeing for a graduation card, right? I colored this adorable dragon from Victoria Case Art Designs and have been waiting to put it together. This week I added the pink background from PTI (Berry Sorbet), and then the DP's from Basic Grey's Euphoria. I had need of a graduation card for this week-end and I brought out this sentiment from PTI's Pond Life Sentiments that I decided would be perfect with a graduation card and my "fairy dragon". I do have a stamp with the cap and diploma that says Congratulations Graduate which I stamped on the inside of the card. It just happened that the hat, cut out, fit my dragon's head perfectly. Now this is no ordinary dragon. Her wings are colored in Atyou Spica glitter pens and her belly is alternately Stickles and Flower Soft. She's one smart, diva dragon, and don't you just love those eyes! Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have a wonderful week-end.

Happy Blooms

I am just loving these flower pot stamps from Lockhart Stamps from Ellen Hutson. I have one other one that I haven't done yet, but I couldn't wait to finish these and post them. They're quick and easy to color and I think they're just bright and happy. The papers I used for the Petunias, as well as the ribbon on both cards, are from PTI. They're part of their Perfect Match products. The daisy card uses SU papers. I ran the bottom panel of both cards through my Cuttlebug with Swiss Dots, and the green and purple with Divine Swirl. The flowers are a MS punch that I love with a SU circle-punch center. The "Hello Friend" and "Thank You" came from the Sweet Violets set from Flourishes and were mounted on dimensionals. (I do mix and match, don't I.) I used SU's orange CS for the back of the Petunias, but I sponged it first in Chocolate Chip and then Riding Hood Red. The edges are sponged with Chocolate Chip as well. I wanted to try to bring out the flower pot colors. These went together pretty quickly and I'm really liking them, so I'd like to finish the 3rd one ("Heather") and then make some of these as sets. Hope you like them and I hope your day is a good one.

Relax with a Cup of Tea

A few posts ago I shared a card done with a great craft stamp from the "Stamps Happen" line by Janlynn. Today I am featuring another one of their stamps called "Pot and Cup." I decided to color this in one of my favorite color combos which is yellow and blue. I used my gold pen to "etch" it in gold. The sentiment is from PTI's "Tea for Two". The DP is from Basic Grey's Urban Prairie and I made my own little version of a tea bag for an additional embellishment. My blue papers and brads are SU's Not Quite Navy. I can't wait to stamp the rest of the stamps I got from them. I'm really liking them and can't wait to show you the skaters! Thanks for stopping by. I think I'll go have a cup of tea. Care to join me?

Copic Creations Challenge #5

Happy Monday to you and can you believe we're on our 5th challenge with Copic Creations. The theme this time is transparencies. We are being sponsored by Gina K Designs, and we were graciously provided with a stamp set from Gina K to color. It's a beautiful set called Friendship Blooms with 3 images and 5 sentiments, but the one I used was the only one of the 3 that really lent itself to being transparent. I used Copic markers N1, YG91 and my blender for the water in the pitcher. I also added stems in the pitcher because the Gina K image does not include them inside the pitcher. I used my new Marrakech DP from Basic Grey, and "Vintage" Cuttlebug die cuts, cut in half, for the fancy background behind the image. I decided to keep the sentiment for the inside of the card because I thought it might take away from the image. I hope you like it. If you have Copics, check out the tutorials and play along. It's a great way to sharpen those coloring skills. Be sure to check out the cards the rest of the DT made. They're quite impressive. Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have a wonderful day and week.

HM Birthday Challenge

Well, this isn't last minute, but it is last day. This week's challenge on HM is a birthday challenge. Anything Birthday-themed. I chose to use one of the images I won from the HM challenge awhile back and I love the image. It's a smaller one so I think it could be used for a lot. I love the idea that they're popping pop-corn over the candle flames. Only a little mousie could think of that. They look like they're celebrating in grand style. I colored this with my Copic markers. The balloons are from Crafty Secrets "Birthday Kids" enhanced with SU's Crystal Effects, the DP's are from Basic Grey's "Cupcake". The ribbon and ribbon slide are SU, as are the main two pieces of CS. The corners are adorned with red Kaiser half-pearls and the sentiment is from PTI's "Year-Round Puns". Thanks for looking at my close-to-the-last-minute entry and have a wonderful Sunday. Tomorrow launches our 5th Copic Creations challenge, so please join us if you can.

Sweet Violets

I love this set from Flourishes called Sweet Violets. I've always loved violets anyway, and this image really captures them in my opinion. I colored them with my Copics and I'm learning to be VERY careful with reds and purples combined with my blender. That is why there is a cute yellow bow in the midst of the bouquet. I spread too much violet color on one of the flowers and in my attempt to "blend it away" I ended up spreading green from the stems. I managed to get most of it back to normal after several rounds with the blender pen, but I decided I would still add the bow. I think it brightens it up, though, and I'm very pleased with how it turned out. I used my argyle embossing folder for my Cuttlebug and my half-pearls and that seemed quite sufficient. Thanks for stopping by and have a lovely week-end.

Birthday Wishes

Today is my grandson's birthday - he's 13 today -and I made him this card. The image is from Victoria Case Art Designs and it is called Boy Gamer. They have some great new stamps, both digital and rubber and I know I'll have to add some to my collection. The sentiment is another one in the group that America sent me. I sure am getting use out of those. I colored this with my Copic markers. There are just a few days left to get in on our Copic Challenge #4 with the prize being 3 Magnolia stamps. June 1 starts our next challenge so hope you'll join us. Thanks for stopping by and happy Friday.

Memorial Day wishes

I hope you all have a wonderful day with family and friends and remembering those who sacrificed that we might enjoy the freedoms that we have. I was inspired to make a card for today and I pondered the idea for some time before coming up with this. I incorporated a fun technique that we learned at our last SU stampin' class which was to make a "quilt" by punching squares and adhering them to CS, then cutting it out with the Top Note Sizzix die. With this idea I had to improvise because I wanted to add the words in the corners. That was a bit tricky so if I do another like this I'll go about it differently. At any rate, I got it to work. The star squares are from the "Try It" sheet from PTI in their DP section. They were too small for my punch so I had to print it out, scan it, enlarge the sheet and then print it again. Then they were just right. The eagle and sentiment are from Our Daily Bread Designs called "In God We Trust". I experimented with a technique using VersaMark and ink/markers, but I forgot the step of "blotting" it before re-applying the VersaMark. I still was pleased with it overall. I designed the sentiment in Adobe Photoshop and printed it out on the CS before adhering the main design. I think I will frame it somehow and display it since we usually have people over for a cook-out. Stay safe and enjoy your day and as always, thank you so much for stopping by my little "korner."

Sketch and a Bubble Bath

Once again I'm posting at the last minute, but such is life lately for me. I think I need to do what this card says, but I don't have time. Sigh..... I did this for this week's sketch challenge at House Mouse and I still love sketch challenges. I used my Basic Grey "Porcelain" papers for all of the DP's and Sahara Sand for the main CS. I colored my image with Copics and tried my new Shimmerz on the bubbles. I plan to send this to a friend who hosted a huge but lovely party for mutual friends. She deserves the bubble bath, but knowing her, she doesn't have time for one either. Hope you like my cute little mousie and I'll be back tomorrow with a Memorial Day post. Have a wonderful holiday tomorrow.

"Celebrate"

I am not only celebrating Memorial Day and a long week-end, but I'm also celebrating getting to play with some fabulous new craft stamps from Janlynn called "Stamps Happen." She carries some awesome images and this is one I fell in love with. It's called Dancing Bunnies and I thought they looked like they were having the best time celebrating. I decided this would work for a number of occasions so it would be pretty versatile. They come with a colored image so for this first one I decided to color it pretty much per their suggestion. I cut it out with a Long Rectangle Nestie and then sponged it with Bashful Blue and Pink Pirouette. The papers are a combination of Stampin' Up, Basic Grey and the green plaid is from DCWV Nursery from Michael's. The flowers are Martha Stewart and the sentiment is from Flourishes' "Summer on the Patio." I hope you'll check out this great line of stamps....there is sure to be at least one you'll fall in love with. I have more to stamp and post for you including some adorable winter images to get you jump-started on Christmas. Hope you have a wonderful week-end. I have a patriotic card coming for Memorial Day, so "stay tuned." Thanks for stopping by.

Great idea with Flower Soft

I'm featuring a card today that I CASED from Leslie Miller using Flower Soft. I love how it turned out, and as you can see I did two versions of it.....one was for a birthday, the other I used for a young man we know who graduated. If you check out Leslie's versions, she did "His and Hers" cards and by switching things a bit you can do a lovely feminine card as well. My papers are all SU! and the tree is from SU's "Lovely as a Tree". I also used my Kaiser half-pearls which are still one of my favorite embellishments. I hope you have a lovely day. The weather here is absolutely gorgeous....wish we could have lots more of this. I'm off to work but wanted to get this posted. Thanks so much for stopping by. I love reading your comments.

Sharing a cute project

I just had to share this cute project with you that I got from Carolyn's post a few days ago. She made a card and backpack and I flipped over both. She has the link to the backpack tutorial, which was pretty easy, for the most part. I took a side picture, but I was working on creasing mine and this one side got a little messy. The picture on Carolyn's blog will be much more appealing. I wanted you to see that the back has ribbon for the straps, held on with large eyelets. At any rate, I made this for my granddaughter's pre-school graduation yesterday and I filled it with crayons, mechanical pencils, some small markers, and in the front pocket I enclosed some stamped images for her to color. She loves asking if she can stamp, which pretty much means "would you stamp something for me to color, Grandma?" She's getting very good with her coloring and I do trust her to stamp with supervision, but she seems to love to color. Anyway, I hope you like this and don't be afraid to try it if you're liking it as much as I did. Happy Monday and thanks for stopping by!

Copic Creations Challenge #4

Wow, it is the 15th and time for the Copic Creations Challenge #4. The theme of this challenge is "Blonde Hair" and it is sponsored by Magnolia-licious. They are offering 3 stamps to the winner of the pick....what fun! I had fun with this one, and I colored the flowers and butterflies in the background with my Spica glitter pens, although I'm not sure if you can see that. Those pens really make it sparkle. The hair colors that I used are Y000, Y00, and E53. I like that color combo and tend to use it a lot. The sentiment was sent to me by my friend America as a bonus along with the stamps I won from the House-Mouse challenge a few weeks back. Thank you, America, for including those stamped sentiments. They'll come in handy, as this one already did. Be sure to check out the great cards the rest of the team did and play along if you can. You do not need to use Magnolia images and you have two weeks, so pull out those Copics and find some hair to color blonde. Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have a wonderful week-end.

Quick and Easy

This is a quick and easy wedding card done with Flourishes Ornamental Elements and my Just Rite Harmony Classic Circle Stamper II. It was stamped in Memento Tuxedo Black ink. The black circle was cut with a circle Nestie, the ribbon is from Flourishes and the silver embellies came from Michael's. The card measures 5 x 5. That's it. I think it makes an elegant card and goes together very quickly. The inside was "lined" with white CS and stamped on the left with the other image included in the Flourishes set. Just thought I'd share this simple idea. Thanks for taking a look.

House Mouse Gate-Fold Challenge

This week's challenge at HM was to make a gate fold card. While the card itself was extremely simple to make per the link to the instructions, it didn't address keeping the card closed, and as you can see I put my prong on the wrong side of the card......DUH! Now that would have worked if I had applied the adhesive to the right side (as you're facing the card) of the image, but I didn't, so I'm still pondering a way to close it without having to attach a velcro shape on there. I decided to make it a Mother's Day card as I still have people I need cards for. Since it will be used for that, there will be more added as a sentiment, but I'm not going to finish it for the recipient to see on my blog (in case they even look.) The image is one of the ones I won from the challenge that America sponsored a few weeks back. I'm so tickled that I got this one. It was fun to color and I think it's adorable. Be sure to stop by and see the other cards that the DT did. They always make the cutest cards. Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful week-end.