Honey Bunny

I made this card for a friend, who wanted a pink bunny card for a 3-year-old girl. I hope this paper isn't too grown up, but I really liked the fresh take with an old-fasioned feel. It's designer paper from the 6x6 Urban Prairie pack and I just love it, as you can tell by the 4 different papers on this one card! I don't think it's too many since the focal image is fairly clean with lots of white space and I used some black matting to separate the patterns.

I coloured this image with Prismacolor pencil crayons, blending with odourless mineral spirits. I still need to practice that technique. I used some stickles on the tail and nose for accents.

This bunny was the fifth or sixth attempt, mostly because the ink kept smudging. I tried stazon, versafine, palette, brilliance, and memories, all on whisper white (but not at the same time). Any tips from experienced Prisma-users? I wasn't heat setting the ink - could that have been my problem?

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies: Honey bunny - Sunshine Designs, name plate - those funky letter stamps that click together like lego, whose name totally escapes me; Ink: stazon, taken with teal; Paper: whisper white, basic black, baja breeze, pink pirouette, Urban Prairie - BasicGrey; Other: silver hodgepodge hardware, waterfall and mermaid stickles, Prismacolor pencil crayons.

Wedding card

Recently someone commissioned a wedding card, for a young, modern couple so I didn't want to make something too fussy or traditional. I tuned my vibe to hip and happenin' and tried to channel studiono8. I don't know how successful I was at it, but I do like how this card turned out. I did try to use some Valet ribbon, but it just took away from the simplicity. I'll try again on another card.

I used a go-to stamp, the Stampendous agapanthus cluster, and the Mr & Mrs sentiment from All Holidays. When I was mentally making this card, I was sure I had the bigger Mr & Mrs stamp, but it turns out that's from another set and I only felt like I had it from over-exposure to the catalogue. (I believe this could be another symptom of Stamper's Syndrome, first documented by the inimitable Jan TInk.) Anyway, the little one was nice in the oval frame from the silver hardware box. I stamped the agapanthus in Baja Breeze twice without reinking, and then again in chocolate chip craft, which I embossed. I tried a version that I embossed in espresso, but I liked this one better with the darker brown. A little swatch of the gorgeous stripe from Parisian Breeze, and this card was done. It doesn't show, but inside I stamped (to perfection with my stamp-a-majig, why don't I use that thing more?!? because the imaging sheet is always lost on my desk, but not now that I vowed to put it away *every* time. And I'm doing much better at putting it in the same spot so I can find it again *every* time too!) "congratulations: welcome to the wedded bliss club". (Now if only I had a stamp that said "congratulations: you made it to the end of another grammatically tortured blog post!)

Thanks for looking!

Supplies: Stamps: Agapanthus - Stampendous, sentiment - Stampin' Up; Ink: chocolate chip, Baja breeze, rich chocolate memento; Paper: whisper white, Parisian breeze, Baja breeze, chocolate chip; Other: clear embossing powder, silver hardware, small oval punch.

The Good Kind of Mullet or How To Make a Manly Card

I thought I'd let you know right up front in the title that this isn't going to be a post about scary 80's hair styles. Nope, it's about the best mullet around, Fred B. Mullet and his stamps. I've been a fan of his stamps ever since I saw images in magazines and books. (And you should check out his website - it's fantastic! Great images and a good read too.) I've never seen the stamps at my local LSS, but when I was in Victoria at Stampers, I gave a small (I hope) shriek of delight when I saw a whole display of them. It was really hard to choose just one (of these, there were numerous other stamps in my basket, don't worry), but I chose this spadefish. I thought it was a good size, had lots of potential for colouring and didn't look too tricky for a first-time user.

I made this card for DH's friend who's having a milestone birthday this weekend. I hunted through my stamps for something "manly" or at least suitable for a masculine card. And what's more masculine than a spadefish???? It's hard to think of a single thing. I upped the testosterone factor by using ultra-manly colours like red, orange and yellow, and I felt that the feathered edge of the mulberry paper gave a sort of "whisker-burn" mystique to the whole thing. The cranberry panel is inked with a few shades of pigment ink, including gold, as well as my ginko leaf from Old Island. The ginko is the oldest tree in the fossil record, and fossilized attitudes are often characteristic of the masculine world view, so that echoes the theme here too. I debated about the button and string, since it was reminding me somewhat of a "little swimmer". That clinched it! It stays - how could I take off an embellishment that reinforces not only the fishy theme, but the masculine one to boot! {snort} The only thing that might deviate from the theme here is the Kanji character, which means "wisdom". It's not fishy at all. {double snort}

Thanks for stopping by!

P.S. AP, I hope seeing this stamp "in action" brings back some happy stamping memories from this fall - I know it does for me!

Supplies: Stamps: Spadefish - Fred B. Mullet, Ginko leaf - Old Island Stamp Company, speckle - Stampin' Up, Itty Bitty Backgrounds, Wisdom - SU, Kanji; Ink: versamark, Colorbox pigment ink (terra cotta, burnt copper, and a bunch of other colours that I couldn't hope to remember!), Encore gold, riding hood red, Memories art print brown; Paper: very vanilla, bravo burgundy, cranberry crisp, kraft, rust mulberry; Other: button from my stash, hemp twine, clear detail embossing powder.

Bellarific Friday in green

I think all the green from yesterday must have been on my mind when I used this picture for my colour inspiration for the Bellarific Friday challenge this week.

Raise your hand if you're surprised that I didn't go with an orange theme instead! LOL. Actually I love these warm colours, it's just that I wanted the card base to be green, and there just be a hit of orange on the colouring. Should I confess that the butterfly started off pink and yellow and I had to redo it so it was orangey-red? Yep. I'm just not an orange gal. And this card also stretched my creativity because it used a lot of Bold Bright colours (gable green and green galore) and even (gasp!) yo yo yellow ink.

I also managed to incorporate ribbon. I cut one piece, tied it once and that was it. This is a first for me as I usually cut several pieces, try it six ways to Sunday and then take it off. Also, I couldn't have made that polka dot lie on top of the knot if I'd tried. And there it is. I think I should go and buy a lottery ticket or something. It must be my lucky day. Either that or the ribbon was making up for the stray flecks of Polished Pigment that got on the springtini piece (grr!).

This was a fun card to make - lots of colouring (my favourite) and I inked up 3 virgin stamps, and got to do some direct-to-paper ink smooshing, my current favourite technique. All in all this was a fun one, despite the potential for a high orange quotient.

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies: Stamps: Stamping Bella (springtini, 3 daisies, have a fairy happy birthday); Ink: Memento greens and yellows, Versamark champagne dazzle, Memories black; Paper: watercolour, gable green, green galore, whisper white, bazzill yellow; Other: Tombow markers, Swarovski crystal, stickles, glaze pen, glitter pen, ribbon, word window punch, pinked-edge decorative scissors.

Moonlit willow

I made this card for a class at Heather's on April 11th so I won't be giving the details here. (You'll need to sign up for the class for that!)

I used a palette of my favourite colours of fluid chalk ink and a willow tree silhouette stamp (Cornish Heritage Farms). The swirl is by Sunshine Designs. I love the peaceful look of this card! I wound up adding a shimmery sheer ribbon to the left side, but not till after this was scanned in. You'll have to take my word for it that it looked better with the ribbon :-)

This afternoon I got to play with some stamps. I was experimenting with Polished Pigments. They're a lovely pigment powder, but boy-oh-boy, does that powder get everywhere. I will need to do a big clean up because my next experimenting was with watercolouring and misting and all the little flecks of pigment powder were dissolving in the water and spoiling my projects. The flecks are too small to see until you mist them with water. I usually avoid cleaning up my stamping area too thoroughly because (1) it never stays clean and (2) it cuts into my free stamping time. It's probably time for a big tidy up since my working space is getting smaller and smaller, and we want to swap the craft area and the tv area in the basement.

Tomorrow DD1 and I are going to see the Wizard of Oz at the National Arts Centre. We've been madly reading the novel in advance. I remember loving that book as a little girl. DD1 has been enjoying it, but she has also frequently let me know that she prefers non-fiction, because it's about real things and she learns something. It's funny because in so many other ways she's a lot like me, but not in this one. I really love a good story and don't often read non-fiction. (Unless you count stamping magazines!!!!! lol)

Have a great weekend.

Thanks for stopping by.

Blast off!

We were invited to a birthday party at a friend's, whose son just turned 4. I wanted to make a card for him, but didn't have time to make something with my Little Trucks set. I remembered my felt shapes that bailed me out last time, and made this card with the rocket ship. I used more paper from my Recess pack, because I loved the dark turquoise-y blue, and the swirly pattern just make a wonderful space background. I added some felt stars and jazzed the whole thing up with some yellow and orange stickles on the flame. It turned out really cute, I thought, and came together really quickly. I was a bit aghast that there was no stamping involved whatsoever, so I stamped "brightest birthday wishes" inside and embossed in gold. I did ink the edges of the patterned paper, so ink did touch the card front. And I embellished the rocket with some pen dots (don't the "rivets" make it look just like a real rocket! lol). For how quickly this card pulled together, I really liked it and it was a hard one to give away, despite the high orange quotient.

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies: Fancy Pants felt, BasicGrey paper (Recess), SU paper: Pumpkin Pie, Not Quite Navy; Other: signo gold gel pen, micron black pen, orange and yellow stickles.