Spider Mouse

If you’ve followed my blog for long you know that I make cards for my sisters Sunday school class.  She teaches the 3 year olds so they are turning 4 when they get my card.  I love making the girl cards the most, but this year she has mostly boys!

Since most boys like Spiderman, I use this cute digi stamp from Whiff of Joy.  Plus, I bought this fun vintage Rocket Age paper from October Afternoon mostly for these Spider Mouse cards.  She needs a card for this week but I’ll be making 2 more later in the week so she has what she needs for the rest of the year.

That’s about it!  It’s been cooling down just a bit—happy about that and will probably continue to cool down now the August is almost over!  Yay!!!  I love the fall weather.  After this VERY hot summer, I’m really looking forward to long sleeves and cool weather!!! 

We have 3 major wild fires in Idaho right now and they say that they probably won’t be able to get them under control until the weather cools, maybe not even until the snow flies.  We have one fire that could come to a town tomorrow.  There are 600 permanent residence and another 1400 summer homes.  Our governor even has a home up there.  I pray that the firefighters are able to keep it away from the homes. 

Blessings,

Christine

Spider Mouse

This is the other card I made for my sister’s Sunday school class.  I use this cute Whiff of Joy digi image quite often for her because it seems that a lot of four year old boys love Spiderman!!!

Very simple card here—colored with Copics and used cardstock and string from my stash.  I added a red button (PTI) and it’s simple as that!

I hope you’ve had a wonderful weekend and that you are ready to start a brand new week!  I know I did and am!!!

Blessings,

Christine

Challenge:
Card Patterns--sketch

Spider Mouse

Quite a while ago, I downloaded this free digi from Whiff of Joy quite awhile ago knowing that I would need one for my sisters 3 year old Sunday School class.  All the boys LOVE super heroes.

Don’t you just love him!!!  He’s quite the guy.  I colored another one and I will be making up another card because she has two little boy birthdays in a row!

I’m up very early for me today.  I actually woke up at about 7:30 and  got up by 8:00.  Since I’m a late sleeper and don’t get much morning light, I took my camera outside and took some pictures of my garden.  I’ll post those later today.  Since the weather is going to be nice and cool, I plan to get some more gardening done in the evenings when I have shade.  Plus, I still have that sprinkler hole to fix.  Sis is coming over tomorrow for that.  And I have some painting to do for a shelving system in my studio.  Can’t wait!!!

My sis Rose and my mom will be coming over today to finish up our “Good Things Couture Art” (my version of Christy Tomlinson’s “She Art”).  I’ll try to remember to take pictures before they leave.

That’s my plans for today.  I’ve decided that I need to start managing my pain better so I’ve already taken something and hope to get through my days relatively pain free.

What are you doing today?  I hope you have wonderful plans.  For my friends that are in the middle of the heat wave, stay inside in the air conditioning.  If you don’t have air conditioning, go hang out at the mall!!!  Or find some water and jump in!!!

Blessings,

Christine

Deets:
Medium-Copics; Image-Whiff of Joy; Sentiment-Papertrey Ink; Ink-Epson Inkjet, Papertrey Ink White; Paper-DCWV, Papertrey Ink, stash; Buttons-Papertrey Ink, Cuttlebug-Nestabillities, Misc.-Pebble Inc. chalk.

Challenges:
Mojo Monday--sketch
Creative Card Crew--Animal antics
Papertake Weekly--Getting cute
Allsorts--Free and easy

Willow’s Book

I love this image—loved it the first time I saw it, ordered it and hadn’t used it since.  I worked on organizing stamps a bit yesterday and came across it and set it to the side so I could ink her up for my next card.  As of I’ve said a few times, and as you’ve probably noticed, my art has moved into a more vintage/shabby chic style but I still love some of my cute stamps.  Elizabeth Bell, Magnolias, Paper Makeup Stamps and The Greeting Farm.  I really have narrowed it down to those companies.  And, come to think of it, just about any of those images would work for a shabby chic card! 

So, here’s my card for today.  Pretty straight forward.  Same things I do with most cards, colored her with Copics, added pearls and flowers colored with the Copics to match.  I need to get a few more Copics in the kind of peach color family.  I only have one color so it’s hard to do much shading but I got it done!  But this time, I did some paper piecing.  Where, you ask?  Her apron, I say!  I cut it out with the kinda’ solid Basic Grey paper.  After I put it on, I thought it needed some shading so I did some shading with C1.  It looked much better!!!

I had kind of a lazy weekend.  I haven’t been feeling very motivated but I did get a couple of artsy things going.  Including coloring this little girl last night.  Not very productive but a nice one anyway!!!

I hope you had a great Monday!!!  I have lots to do tomorrow and I’m getting up early to get started.  I’m going to run my errands and get my ABC book finished so that I can package it up and send it in the mail on Wednesday!  Phew!

Blessings,

Christine

Deets:
Medium-Copics; Image-Whiff of Joy; Ink-Momento; Paper-Basic Grey; Flowers-Wild Orchid Crafts; Pearls-KaiserCraft; Punch-Martha Stewart, EK Success.

Challenges:
Etsy Inspired--
Whoopsi Daisy--Pile of the flowers
The Pink Elephant--Back to school
ABC Challenge--charms
Creative Belli--Old stamps
Whiff of Joy Challenge--layers
C.R.A.F.T. Challenge--
Basic Grey Challenge--paper piecing
Card Patterns--sketch

Fantabulous Umbrellas

Our Fantabulous Cricut challenge this week is appropriate for the middle of April.  Can you guess?  It’s April showers—use rain or water (think a rain hat, umbrella, life preservers, etc.) on your creation as well as at least one Cricut cut.  Where is my Cricut cut, you ask?  Does this give you a hint?  I used Design Studio to create a border kind of like a border punch.  This is the first time I’ve done this so I kept it quite simple.  Plus, I need to get the Cricut Jukebox before I can get to fancy with them.  I have to stick to using just one cartridge for now.  I have been seeing these scallops in all sizes and now I can do them as I wish. 

I hope you get a chance to play along with the Fantabulous Cricut challenge.  It is really fun and don’t you think you should be using  your Cricut more?  Go on over to the FCC blog and look at the other amazingly talented design team creations.  I hope you find some time to play along this week!

Blessings,

Christine

Deets:
Medium-watercolor; Image-Whiff of Joy; Ink-Stazon; Paper-DCWV; Ribbon-Bazzil; Pearls-American Crafts; Cricut Cartridges-George.

Willow’s Birds

Katharina at Whiff of Joy is having a guest designer and I just thought, what the heck.  You won’t get it if you don’t try.  And I’ll be trying and trying and trying again if i have to.  I love the Whiff of Joy images and would love to have the chance to be her guest designer for a month or two!!!

She issued a challenge for her guest designer call.  It’s to use one cardstock, 2 design papers, 1 ribbon and 1 button.  Easy peasy for me!!!

I used one of my favorite new mediums, Twinkling H2os.  I got them while I was in Utah last time and now I just need some more colors!!!  They were on clearance so I sure hope they still have some!

My sister and I spent some more time in the yard today!  We now have almost everything ready for spring.  I’m going to keep spraying the little weeds that come out so that when I’m ready to plant, everything will be pretty and clean!!!  I can’t wait to start eating fresh tomatoes, lettuce, eggplant and peppers.  That’s about all I plant; I don’t have much space.  I do have some strawberries as well and the plants really multiplied this year.  Maybe I’ll even have enough strawberries to make myself a strawberry shortcake or two!!! 

That’s it for now!  I hope you have a great Sunday.  The weather has been so beautiful here.  I hope yours is as well!

Blessings,

Christine

Deets:
Medium-Twinkling H20s; Image-Whiff of Joy; Ink-Stazon; Paper-DCWV; Punch-EK Success, Martha Stewart; Pearl Swirls-Basic Grey, Buttons-Papertrey Ink; Flowers-Wild Orchid Crafts (colored with Twinkling H20s; Cuttlebug-used Nesties; Additional from stash-ribbon, charm.

Challenges:
Inspirational Card Sketches-sketch
Daring Cardmakers-Tweetie pie
Allsorts-Spring is in the air
Crazy 4 Challenges-Spring
Secret Crafter-Spring has sprung

Lilacs and Lemons at Papertake Weekly

It’s my last week as guest designer for Papertake Weekly.  It’s been great this past four weeks and what a great pleasure to work with these ladies.  The challenge this week is to use lilac and lemon on your creation. 

When I first thought of this color combination I didn’t really know what I would do with it.  So I pulled out some lemon tart and lavender moon Papertrey Ink paper and decided I didn’t need anything else.  I almost ALWAYS use DP but I’m really happy how this turned out!

I used my brand new Willow image from Whiff of Joy and my Copics!!!  I picked up a skin toned Copic the other day so that I could use the Copics to color people as well.  I still do love my watercolors but Copics give a completely different look and they are a lot quicker.  And they are a lot of fun to play with!!!  I won’t be using them all the time yet.  I don’t have enough colors to do much shading.

Come back tomorrow for Flutterby Wednesday.  It’s going to be another great week!!!

Blessings,

Christine

Deets:
Medium-Copics; Image-Whiff of Joy; Paper, ribbon-Papertrey Ink; Cuttlebug folder; Additional from stash-pearls.

Challenges:
Cute Daisy May-Anything goes
The Pink Elephant-spring
Cute Card Thursday-Celebration
Whiff of Joy-join Cute Card Thursday challenge
Pile it On-Pastel colors

Joyful Spring

I made this card for the Whiff of Joy challenge which is a sketch. It also fits the Crafty Frog challenge which is spring flowers.

I used water color paints for the image. I'm not shaking today so it was a good day to bring out the paints! The DP is DCWV Nana's Nursery stack.

That's about it. I guess I'm not very talkative today, huh?

Blessings,

If you haven't entered for my giveaway, you still have time. Click on the Martha Stewart book above and it will take you to the candy with a challenge post!!!

Chocolate Bookmark

In my previous post, I told you about the bookmark tutorial on Aud's blog. I got one made!













The weather in Idaho has been in the 80s for the last few days and today it's a high of 55. Doesn't this Whiff of Joy image make you want to put on a warm sweater, make a cup of hot chocolate and read a book?













I painted "chocolate girl" with water colors. I distressed all of the edges with chalk ink (except the second triangle on the back because the gremlins came and took my stamp pad-hehe). I also used chalk ink to distress the oval behind her. The flourishes were cut with the Cricut Caligraphy cartridge. I didn't distress those edges because they are so delicate that I was afraid they would tear. All of the DP is Basic Grey Blush.

I really had fun with this one and I really like the idea of the corner bookmark. Lucky me, it fits three challenges.

I started out with the Crafty Creations challenge which is to make a bookmark. Lucky me! Not only did I find a tutorial I wanted to make, but that's the theme of my giveaway!!!

Crafts 4 Eternity has a sketch plus a challenge of using pink, brown, and green. I had this paper in mind when I was painting the image. When I realized it was the same colors as Crafts 4 Eternity's challenge, I followed their sketch. I'm sure glad it was a simple sketch because I only had a 3-1/2 in square on which to fit it. The little tiny dots on the background paper are green (you can believe me). There's much more green on the paper I used for the back.

The Cute Card Thursday challenge is to either tear, sand, distress or sew the edges of your card. As I said before, I distressed all of the edges with a chalk ink pad.

By the way, the book is one I got at a thrift store on my trip to Shoshone Falls a couple of weeks ago. It is called "Watching Europe Grow" published in 1930. The title page states that it's "profusely illustrated" which is why I bought it. There are wonderful images of old Europe on almost half of the pages. I have been wanting to try my hand at altered art for some time and I think the pages in this book would make wonderful backgrounds for collages.

If you haven't entered for my giveaway, you still have time. Click on the Martha Stewart book above and it will take you to the candy with a challenge post!!!

Blessings,