Dino-Mite

Today’s card was made for the current “anything goes” linky party going on over at Anya, Oddies, and Others. This crafty group has allowed me to join their design team, so this is my first card and I hope you will come by upload your challenge creations.

The panel front on this card was made using the die from MFT-Blueprints 18.  Once that was done it was time to stamp and mask.  I’ll admit I did a mock up last night so I could wrap my head around what I wanted to do.  After everything was masked off I pulled out my air compressor and airbrushed my sky and ground.  I unmasked my images and colored them up.  On a piece of scrap paper I stamped the baby dinosaur, colored him up and then used the matching dies to cut him out.  Before I placed him on the panel I put some brown flocking powder in the center of my leaves to mimic dirt in the nest and put the baby on top.  I then stamped my sentiment using my just delivered MISTI tool and I can see that I will be using it a lot.  The completed panel was put on an A2 card front created out of Gina K Grass Green cardstock.   

Supplies used:

Paper: Gina K Grass Green Cardstock, Hammermill #100 for focal image;

Stamps and Dies: My Favorite Things Blueprint 18, Lawn Fawn Critters from the Past and matching die

Inks: Memento Tuxedo Black, Bamboo Leaves and Cottage Ivy, Versafine Black;

Copics: Sky: Y15, YR18   Ground:  YG93, YG95 

              Tree: E44,E47,E49 and YG23, YG25, YG17

               Large Dinosaur: V20, V22, V25, V17

               Egg and baby: E41, E43, RV10, RV06, RV04, RV02

                          

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have a great weekend.

Owl days are the best

Today’s card was made for submission to this week’s Freshly Made Sketch and The Paper Players Challenge of featuring one of our feathered friends on it.  

The card is on a top fold A2.  It is pretty much a one layer except for the owl who is raised up on the clear ½” pop-dots.  I stamped his hat on a piece of the same patterned paper used on the stripe and pieced it on top of the base.  I added some hot pink flocking powder because every birthday hat must have some fluffy.  The owl was colored up using the Copics listed below and then my colorless blender was used to make some small dots for texture on him.  Once he was all colored up I originally colored his eyes in black, but they looked a little flat.  I then remembered I had some wiggly eyes in my stash so I found some that would complement his colors and glued them in place using some multi-medium matte. 

Next I cut my DP stripe and the mat.  Now, I don’t know about you but I am terrible about gauging how much paper I will need.  To make sure I only had to cut my DP once I grabbed some scrap paper and played with it to make sure I had the correct measurements for my DP.  When I had the correct size it was glued to the mat and the finished piece was glued to the card front and I put the finished owl in place.  With everything in place it looked a little plain, so I grabbed my trusty Copics, colored up some Hammermill then used Mama Elephant’s Confetti Cuts die.  Once I had enough die cuts I placed them around the card and used Lawn Fawn’s Birthday tags to stamp a little using Mama Elephant’s pigment ink.

Challenges Entered:

Supplies used:

Paper: #110 Neenah Solar White for base, Hammermill #100 for focal image, Recollections Black and Hampton Art Color Crush;

Stamps and Dies: Some Odd Girl Happy Owl Days, Lawn Fawn Birthday Tags, Mama Elephant Confetti;

Inks: Memento Tuxedo Black, Versafine Black, Mama Elephant Tutti Frutti and Eggplant;

Copics:  Owl: E50, E51, and E53                                  

                         G12, G24, G43

                         RV04, RV14, RV34           

                          

Thanks for stopping by and I hope your week is going well.

My Mother, My Hero

My mother turns 67 this coming Saturday, so I made her this card to tell her just how special she is to me.  She has always been there for me even when I was dead wrong she stood by me.  The only condition to that was I could not end up in jail.  If that happened I was on my own, needless to say I made sure that is not where I ended up.  When I had to deploy for military assignments she took care of my oldest son for months at a time.  She has had health struggles for the last couple of years and no matter what I know that she is okay if she is cracking jokes, so that is how I gauge her health is by her being able to laugh.

 I’m sure I pulled some design elements off of the Mama Elephant’s design team blog unintentionally, so I apologize in advance if I have.

The front panel was done by placing a circle die in the approximate center and cutting.  Then I placed the cityscape die cuts where I wanted them and cut off any that was hanging from the sides.  I cut a piece of fun foam slightly smaller and used the next size up circle die to add some dimension to that panel.  For the sky I used an A2 size panel and airbrushed it first with B32, then took B39 starting at the edges working my way in so that I would have some darkness within my circle area.

I next took my two superhero’s and pierced a small hole on each and ran some gold thread that I have because we cannot have our pets out sans leash, even if they are a super hero.  I figured out where they would be placed and then took my white gel pen and made some stars in my sky.  I put all of my pieces together and dreaded having the front panel all white, so I colored up some scrap paper using the same colors in the project and cut some stars using the Mama Elephant Lots of Stars die and placed them throughout the front panel and skyline. You cannot see in the picture but I added some clear Wink of Stella pen to the stars before I topped them with glossy accents.

Supplies used:

Paper: #110 Neenah Solar White for base, Recollections Black and gray for buildings;

Stamps and Dies: Mama Elephant Tiny Hero with matching dies; Mama Elephant Cityscape and Lots of Stars; Lifestyle Crafts Nesting Circles

Inks: Memento Tuxedo Black, Versafine Black and Archival Red Geranium;

Copics:  Skin: E11, E15                                     Sky: B32, B39

              Hair: W1, W3, W5, S7

              Outfit: Y11, Y13

                          YG11, YG13

                          RV14, RV17

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have a great Monday.

So Grateful

This weekend I have been making Thank you cards for my co-workers.  Thursday was my last day at my job and in a little more than a week I will be starting a new position.  I had actually started making the cards a few months ago when I had originally accepted the new job (back in October), but it was taking so long to get through the background check that I stopped.  So the Friday before last  I finally got a call that I could transfer to the new position and then it was a mad rush to finish up the last of the Thank you’s.  I will admit two of them ended up being store bought.  I am going to share one of the cards made using the brayering technique.  I have such a hard time finding images to use for male cards, but this one worked really well.

Supplies used:

Paper: #110 Neenah Solar White for base, Recollections Black for mat, Ranger specialty paper;

Stamps: Technique Tuesday Appreciated

Inks: Gina K Sweet Corn, Grass Green, and Versafine for sentiment

American Crafts Twine

Thanks for stopping by and I hope your weekend is going well.

Come On Spring

    Hello Thursday and we are one step closer to Friday.  How has your week been going so far?  Are you ready for the weather to change?  I am sure residents on the East Coast are since some of them have been getting more than their normal share of snow this season.  Living out here in Texas it may snow one day a year and the cold doesn’t sting as much as on the East Coast. 

Today my card is a greeting to the season that we are all waiting for “SPRING”.  I used the sketch for this week’s Freshly Made Sketch Challenge#173 and the color palette from this week’s color throwdown #329.  Don’t you just love those colors? 

Since I knew my duck was going to be colored in shades of yellow I stamped him with Memento Dandelion ink so I could work on my no line coloring and I placed my umbrella in a way to make it appear as though my duck is carrying it using Tuxedo Black.  After he was colored up I cut him out using partial die-cutting so I could keep him and the umbrella as one piece.  When I finished I was left with small sections of where the die did not cut and I finished it using my detail scissors.  I stamped the top portion of the umbrella on the red pattern paper and pieced it on top of the original cut. 

Next, it was time to create the tag background.  Using my airbrush system I created the grass by airbrushing green copic marker over a stencil I cut using my Silhouette Cameo.  Once I was satisfied with that it was on to the sky.  For the sky I used the airbrush again and followed the Sea and Sky tutorial that Jennifer Dove provided on her site a few weeks ago.  During assembly of the tag I noticed a small flower stamp, so I decided to place a few on my tag to pull it all together, in addition to placing some foam adhesive on my duck and umbrella to raise him from the background. 

Supplies used:

Paper: #110 Neenah Solar White for base and focal tag, Recollections Black, Citrus Green, and Purple Passion, Simple Stories Sn@p Color Vibe for DP;

Stamps: Lawn Fawn Hello Baby and Inky Antics Tulip Duck for the word spring;

Dies: Little B Tags;

Embossing Folder: Lifestyle Crafts Linear;

Inks: Memento Tuxedo Black, Dandelion, and Grape Jelly

Ribbon: The Paper Studio

Thanks for stopping by and I hope your week is going well.

Happy Birthday!!

I’m back.  Last week I was able to travel to Phoenix, AZ to participate in the Copic Certification classes taught by Ms. Debbie Olson.  Wow, so much knowledge and such a wonderful person.  While I have been learning on-line through Kit and Clowder,

It was nice to sit face to face with someone and find out if what you are doing is right.  Enough about that, I am sharing a card that I created for a co-workers birthday this week using the newly gained skills acquired over the weekend.  The image is a digital one from Saturated Canary called Ana who was colored using Copic markers.  I started trying to use this image for the Mojo Monday Challenge but I just could not make it work.  However, I do like the finished product.

Supplies used:

Paper: #110 Neenah Solar White for base, and Recollections Jewel Red, Feathered Greens, and Purple Passion;

Stamps: Saturated Canary Ana;

Dies: Lifestyle Crafts Rectangle, Simon Says Stamp Balloons, and Mama Elephant Sew Fancy;

Thanks for stopping by and I hope your week is going well.

Falling Leaves

How has your weekend been going so far?  Today is the Super Bowl here in the states and that means I will have my crafting space entirely to myself since all the men folk in my house will be watching the game.  I treasure the time I am allowed in here alone since I share the space with my husband who is an avid computer gamer and my youngest fur baby who is a dog but gets in the window like a cat.

Yesterday on SCS the inspiration challenge was to review a Pintrest board and design a card inspired by it.  This board had some amazing items pinned on it and this is the one I chose:

and here is the card that resulted:

It is a very clean and simple one.  In fact it is too clean for my husband who does not care for all of the white space.  I found a scrap piece of #80 Neenah Solar White and placed some double sided adhesive on the back, swiped it with the three ink colors, and heat embossed it with clear embossing powder.  Once the piece cooled I cut the sentiment out, peeled the backing off to reveal the adhesive and then placed it on my panel.

Supplies used:

Paper: #110 Neenah Solar White for base, #80 Neenah Solar White for focal panel;

Stamps: Penny Black Fancy Foliage;

Dies: Penny Black Wishes

Inks:  Mama Elephant Lollipop, Lemongrass, and Orangeade;