Happy birdie to you

My daughter is going to another birthday party tomorrow (fourth one this month!) so I needed a card for the birthday girl. I hadn't inked up my new stamps from Stamping Bella so I went for those first. I had gotten the sentiment "happy birdie to you" to go with the owl I bought, but the owl didn't seem quite right for what I had in mind so I went for the Sunshine Designs bird instead. I coloured it to match the colour scheme for my card, which was drawn from coordinating papers from BasicGrey's LilyKate collection.

The layout inspiration came from this week's sketch challenge on splitcoast, but I didn't follow the sketch to the letter. Instead I used my 3/4" square punch and some scraps from four different patterns in the pack. I glued them down with Tombow liquid glue (great for this job because you get a lot of drying time to wiggle them around and get them spaced right). The bird is stamped in palette black noir and coloured with Tombow and Stampin' Up markers and blended with a paintbrush. I've accented with some stickles and glitter pen on the words. I tried various configurations for the sentiment, but settled on this one.

I have more Stamping Bella stamps to try and I can't wait to get to those. As much as I like the Bellas, I just find that they're not the kind of images I need for the cards I like to give. When I discovered that Stamping Bella has a whole bunch of other types of images, I put in a very nice order, and I only made a dent in my wish list. Can't wait to play with those!

Thanks for stopping by!

ETA: Turns out this week's Ways to use it challenge on splitcoast is to use birds! How serendipitous :D

Supplies: Bird - Sunshine Designs, sentiment - Stamping Bella; Ink: Palette black noir, close to cocoa; Paper: watercolour, LilyKate - BasicGrey, Lemon Tart - Papertrey Ink, close to cocoa and bashful blue - Stampin' Up; Other: Tombow and Stampin' Up markers, stickles (waterfall and lime green), Sakura glitter pen.

Glimmering Painted Pears

The weekend before last friends had us over for dinner. They are Chinese and they prepared the most amazing feast for us. It was absolutely sensational. I am a bit delinquent in sending my bread-and-butter note, but I hope they'll forgive me. I really do want to thank them for the best meal I've had in a very long time.

I wanted to use my new pear stamp (Sunshine Designs), which I stamped in palette ink and coloured with Tombow markers, blending with a paintbrush. It's mounted on old olive and night of navy cardstock on a silver fleck periwinkle cardbase. The olive strip needed a bit of oomph and I remembered my bottle of Olive Vine Glimmer Mist that's been neglected lately. So neglected in fact, that the hole had plugged up so when I shook it to get the glimmer up off the bottom, big drops started to fly around and I had to suspend card-making-operations to clean green Glimmer Mist off my cream carpet. (It mostly came out.) The good news is that the hole can be rinsed clean and the Glimmer Mist will mist instead of blob.

Back to the card - the periwinkle base has a little floral sprig (also SD) stamped in almost amethyst and the sentiment is in night of navy. I added a scalloped edge with my corner rounder (man, I cannot wait for the new scalloped border punch in the new catty!). There's a little strip of more glimmer-misted-olive-paper behind the scalloped border. Now that I've scanned it, I'll add some Stickles for highlights. They really finish it off.

Thanks for looking!

Supplies: Stamps: Sunshine Designs (The Stamp Barn) and Hero Arts; Ink: Palette black noir, almost amethyst; Paper: watercolour, old olive, night of navy, perwinkle sparkle fleck; Other: Tombow markers, paintbrush, corner rounder, Glimmer Mist.

Bugling Bug

Well I'm not sure if it's actually a bugle, but it is some kind of instrument that you blow into! I love this whimsical cube from Sunshine Designs. It's one of the new releases and the other sides are just as cute - a snail and two different ladybugs.

I needed two quick cards for a double-header birthday party run tomorrow. These look cute enough for two little girls turning 6. I debated getting out the princess stamp, but this stamp just tootled at me too loudly to resist.

The ant is stamped in black palette and coloured with Tombows. The quickie background is just stamped and a strip of pomegranate cardstock (I'm going to have to stockpile that one!).

I'll add some stickles but I wanted to scan this in first. I see there is actually quite a bit of glitter on the scanner already....sigh....

I'd better close this and get to bed. I have a big team building day tomorrow where we're going to do an outdoor navigation exercise in the woods. I hope there's someone on my team who can read a compass!

Thanks for stopping by.

Supplies: Stamps: Sunshine Designs (The Stamp Barn), Polka Dots and Petals (SU), Amazing to Zany (SU); Ink: Palette black noir, taken with teal, cool caribbean, purely pomegranate; Paper: watercolour, bright pink (SU bold brights), taken with teal, cool caribbean.

Bad, bad blogger

I am such a bad blogger. I neglect my faithful readers (my apologies to both of you!) for ages, and when I finally post, I frighten you with a title like "Farewell Card", conjuring thoughts of my imminent retirement from stamping. Bad, bad blogger! And now I'm going to add to my list of crimes by telling you that I've been stamping feverishly all week and haven't taken any pictures. Gasp. What was I thinking! I can only tell you that these creations were unlike any hitherto seen on splitcoast or blog land. They were amazingly beautiful, stunning in their composition, flawless in their execution, and inspired in their symphony of colours and textures. I'm so sorry you won't get to see them, but you'll have to take my word for it that they would have been front page material. [snort!]

I made an On Board Journal and matching survival kit for my team member who's deploying. I had to give it to her on her last day of work and going away lunch and if I had made it earlier than the night before said lunch, I could have taken pictures. I used the Porcelain Prints paper for both and she really liked them.

I also made a couple of horse-y cards for a friend of mine in exchange for lending me her horse stamp set (Bareback). Those were fun to do. One card was a great use of scraps (but you can't tell it from looking) and the other was a self-indulgent use of as much stamping gear as I could cram into the card. I'll have to make another card like it and post it because I made the most fabulous paper with Perfect Pearls. It made me swoon, but then I do tend to get a bit carried away when admiring my own work. Or at least when I'm not throwing it out and starting again! (Don't believe the bit about me throwing things out. That's a metaphor for me putting it in my scrap box until some unspecified future time when I want to use old, ugly, dogeared, stamped-on paper for a card instead of new, fresh, smooth, clean paper.)

Well, before I get booed out of blog land for trying to be as funny as Jan TInk and Joan B, I'll say good night and leave you with the mental images of my fabulous cards. I'll have my stamp club projects to post soon, but I don't want to spoil the surprise for them in case they pop in for a look.

I was casting about in my mind for a picture to post here in lieu of a card, some sort of pleasant scenery or something, and all I could think of was the cyclist I saw today, and I didn't get a picture of him either. On that note, have a good night and happy stamping!

Farewell card

One of my team is a Reservist who is going on a six-month deployment. I wanted to make her a card to wish her well and this is the result. I needed a fairly large card because there will be a lot of people to sign it so I made it 5x7. The stamped panel is correspondingly smaller to accommodate the mats.

I started with a sheet of Papertrey Ink white and stamped it with the Penny Black flower in Versamark and heat embossed it. (To be truthful, I started several cards ago but they didn't pass muster.) Then I took my Colorbox stylus and foam tips and a variety of chalk inks and went to work applying the background colour. (I was good at this part having practiced it several times this evening....) Then I removed the clear embossing powder with my iron and some scrap paper and stamped the flower again, this time in black, and heat embossed it. I did the same thing with the dragonfly. The stamped panel is mounted on black and teal cardstock. Using my computer, I printed this inside: " Wheresoever you go - go with all your heart. Confucius" I didn't have an appropriate pre-deployment well wishes stamp in my collection. (There had to be at least one stamp I don't have!) The finishing touch was a nice hank of eyelash yarn that I had in my stash (sorry T! I know you hate fluffy fibres on cards!). What a happy coincidence that it had the purple, blue and yellow-green in it. The sad part is that it just reinforces my reluctance to get rid of anything. Ever. After I scanned it in, I decided it needed some shimmer/sparkle so I added some twinklings to the dragonfly wings. I don't know if this was a good idea, but it's too late now. It doesn't ruin it, I just don't know if it adds anything.

Thanks for looking!

Supplies: Stamps: Pastoral and Brush Dragonfly - Penny Black; Ink: versamark, black pigment ink, colorbox chalk inks: wisteria, warm violet, lime green, azurite, Prussian blue; Paper: PTI white, basic black, taken with teal; Other: eyelash yarn, clear embossing powder, black embossing powder, stylus and foam tips.