Happy Birthday Eleanore! - Bunny Birthday card

Today is my daughter's 5th birthday, so my post will be short and sweet so I can spend time with her. We have Carmel Apple cupcakes to make for her and her friends to share this evening as they watch their favorite movie. (She doesn't know she is getting Tinker bell and the Pirate Fairy for a present yet.) What celebration is not complete without cupcakes?  Her birthday invites were made with Mama Elephant's Carnival Cupcakes set.

Eleanore's invites

She helped water color the background paper, she picked the colors herself too. After it dried we sent it through the Cricut machine and cut the design from the Art Philosophy cartridge from Close to My Heart. The frosting was embossed with silver Hero Arts embossing powder and then water colored. The cupcake wrapper was stamped in Lagoon ink (dye ink from Close to My Heart.) We put it all together and then added a few iridescent sequins for a little sparkle.

Happy Birthday Bunny Cupcakes

Here is Eleanore's birthday card. I used the Carnival Cupcake set again, and the Sentimental Borders set for the background. The cupcakes were watercolored and the bunny was colored with Copic  markers. The frosting on the pink cupcake was done with texture paste and then painted with water colors. The cherry and the sprinkles were embellished glossy accents, and the sentiment and words inside were heat embossed with Hero Arts silver emboss powder. Time to go and celebrate the birthday girl. Hope you have a great day and you enjoyed my work. 

Thanks Beary Much - Mama Elephant

   I wanted to make another card for the September challenge over on Mama Elephant Challenge blog. So, I was looking at my three Mama Elephant stamp sets, and I knew I had to make another pun thank you card. The bears were just right for this card. I used the larger teddy bear from the Carnival Cupcake stamp set.  

Thanks Beary Much

  My bears were stamped on scraps of printed paper, then I added a little grey with Copic markers. The pun part of the sentiment was embossed in hero arts silver embossing powder. Thanks, was die cut from black glitter fun foam. I colored a background for my bears to sit on and popped the bears up on foam squares. The printed paper I used for the bears reminds me of bears my mother made for me and my sisters out of her grandmother's quilt. It is a wonderful keepsake that she made with lots of loving care and then we could each a part of our great grandmother's quilt. I hope that you enjoyed my card today, and if you could please leave me some feedback I'd love that.

Critters fall football card

  So, my second card for the Lawnscaping Challenge #90 Critters Galore was inspired by a whole list of things.
1. Lawn Fawn Critters
2. The Wish You Where Here stamp set and the pennet flag, I hadn't used it yet on a card.
3.The Robertson family and their love of ducks and football. The normally yellow ducks from the Hello Baby stamp turned into mallard ducks. (Partly because I only have a limit amount of Copic colors.)
4. A business card on Pintrest with a football field, for my background idea. (random huh?)
5. Fall football season. The leaf die cut from the Into the Woods die cut turned into the perfect little football with the aid of my white gel pen.

  Normally I am not a football person. But it might grow on me, my husband and father aren't football fans either. That is till my father moved out of state, now he loves it and always watches the Colts when they play now that he doesn't live in there. But I thought this card might be the perfect twist on a fall theme that might not normally be used. I love the way it turned out, and I hope that you enjoy it too.

Sunrise on the Savanna and Navajo design

  Recently, Navajo designs have been catching my eye when I get the chance to surf Pintrest. Some of the designs that I have found that I like the most have been on bedding, pillows, clothes, and rugs. I haven't found a stamp set that I like that has what I am looking for to make the design that I envision. I really wish that Tim Holtz would tackle that for a stamp and stencil. That would be awesome, but I doubt that will happen. Any way the only thing I could come up with to try to make a design even close to what I want was a little triangle. So, this was my attempt.

Navajo design

  This is a little modern, but it was fun, it's not perfect but some times I have not be so hard on myself. I have seen that in my daughter already and I want her to be confident not a perfectionist. 

  Today's card was my  first entry for Lawnscape's Challenge #90 Critters challenge. Lawn Fawn is know for their adorable critters. That is why most people love Lawn Fawn. So, I hope that I am able to create an original twist on this theme. I wanted to create a card that was the sunrise on the African Savanna.

Sunrise on the Savanna

Rhino's grazing at sun rise getting ready to have their breakfast, the sun is just coming up. I made this card with a mixture of distress inks, and copic markers on water color paper. Just a little bit of pattern paper peeks out on the edges. (There is a wink of stella on the sun that the camera just doesn't do justice.) I just couldn't find a sentiment that would go good with this card. After digging through my stamps I finally found this on a valentine kind of a stamp set and it was just right. Hope you liked my cards and hope you have day filled with sunshine too.

Sunset Giraffe

   I was thinking of the sun set when I made this card. Those sunsets that go from a golden glow, brillant orange, and then a molten red; they just make you stop and stare. I love the giraffe from the critters on the savanna stamp set (from Lawn Fawn.) He was just the thing for this beautiful sunset, but I didn't want him all alone so I added a bird for his friend.

Giraffe Sunset card

  For my background I used a hand writting patterned paper and some scrap of a tribal looking print in browns. I could just image this as a journal page from a African Safari trip. (The orange and yellow sequins just didn't photograph very well, they are better in person.) I thinking I will contribute this to the  Virginia's View Challenge #7 patterned paper and see what other inspiring projects that every one has there.

Little lion - thinking of you card

  I love the little lion on Mama Elephant's Carnival Cupcakes. He is so cute, he reminds me of my son's stuffed lion.  I stamped him and colored him with some Copic markers. He needed a background, so I kept it simple. So, grass and blue sky. Then I used some patterned paper on the back ground, kind of shabby chic colors, but I kept the patterns masculine.

Little Lion - Just sittin' here

  For a little trim I added faux stitching to the top the lion panel and wooden buttons, with embroidery floss. So, the little lion says, just sitting here... (inside) thinking of you. Just a sweet simple little card, with a cute lion.

Happy Birthday to You - water color cards

 Busy busy, things get busy and I don't get creative time as much as I want. But yesterday I got to watercolor two backgrounds for cards I have just been waiting to make. My Hero arts embossing powders came in the mail yesterday, hurray for fun mail. I was just waiting for these to come for this project. ( I must say that I like this embossing powder so much better than the Zing powder I had.) Yesterday I watercolored two different wash backgrounds. One with warm colors and one with cool colors. Those dried till I got back to them today. I stamped my sentiment with versamark put the powder on shook off the extra and heated it. Oh, how I love watching the powder try from grey powder to shiny silver emboss. : )

Now I could kick myself for not ordering the gold too. Not sure what I was thinking, must have been tired and wasn't thinking very well. I was inspired by a card I had seen on Pintrest, I am not sure who's card it was I would give them credit. But I put my own little twist on it. Here are the finished results. 

Cool colors Happy Birthday card

Warm colors Happy Birthday card

I think they came out great. The results pleased me very much. I love this swirly sentiment from the Make a Wish set from Mama Elephant. I had thought about matting them on colored card stock but the black just made it look better. I thought I would put these on the Word Art Wednesday blog, I think that they have a great blog. I love it because it points people to the word of God.  Reminds me of the bible verse my girls learned at Vacation Bible School this year. Even my two year old memorized it. 1 Peter 3:15 "Always be ready to tell what you know about Jesus."

You Mean the World to Me

  It seems to be extra difficult to get creative time on the weekends. There is places to go, house work, some thing that the kids need, and lesson plans to be completed for the up coming week.  A card that I started and brain stormed Friday morning is just now getting finished Sunday evening. I am sure that I am not the only one that has that happen to them.  Hopefully my teething ten month old will play happily while I tell you about the card I worked on this weekend for Lawnscaping Challenge blog.
  I have been really mulling over this challenge. One layer.... The first thing that would come to mind is a card that is colored with Copic markers, but since I am have a limited number of those yet, that wasn't going to work for me. I also wanted to try and think out side of the box. Which I hope I achieved with my some bunny is on the way card. My card with the arrows seem to cover the clean and simple look. Now what was left? Hmmm...Ok, distress inks? But I didn't want to go with animals, I know that is a Lawn Fawn trade mark, but I want to try and be a little bit different but still use their products that I have. For some reason I seem to do my best thinking in the wee hours of the morning when I can't go to sleep. Maybe its because, it gives me lots of time to think it over before I create.

I decided to use distress inks and glimmer mist on the background. I masked off my area for the sentiment, stars, and globe. The negative space was saved for doing the stars and the globe later.  First I blended the peacock feathers and dusty concord inks. Then I sprayed the it with black glimmer mist. After that had dried completely I pulled the masks off. I stamped my sentiment next, then colored in my stars. Finally I stamped the globe and colored it.

Strawberry cupcake card

   I decide to try Virginia's View Challenge #7. Her challenge blog is show casing patterned paper. I had a card base that was the perfect size for this mini birthday card. Mini cards are great to go with gifts. I had a scrap in my stash from doing the Stretch Your Stamps 2 online card classes and trying a new technique that I learned there. The water colored paper with the embossed dots echos the colors in the irridescent white sequins. My newspaper print was from Close to My Heart's Lucy paper pack.

   I stamped the swirly cupcake from Mama Elephant's Carnival Cupcakes stamp and then fuss cut it. Then I put a wink of stella over my pink icing. I popped my cupcake up on foam tape. After that I grabbed some pink plaid washi tape for some trim. I stamped my sentiment from the Mama Elephant's Make a Wish stamp set, in pansy purple ink on pearl vellum.  I also rounded the corners on my vellum piece on all but one corner.  For a finally touched I sprinkled some white sequins on my card.
   Later on this month I will show you a water color card I am working on for my almost 5 year old daughter. She loves to see what Mama is doing and loves to make things too, so I have to work on it a little bit at a time after she goes to bed. Water colors are very trendy and beautiful and I wanted to try my hand at it. So, that's an up coming project.

Thank Ewe - Mama Elephant

   I got my three stamps that I ordered from Mama Elephant! I get so excited when I go to the mailbox and new card making supplies are there. The stamp sets that I ordered are: Make a Wish; Carnival Cupcakes; and Sentimental Borders.

   There are lots of exciting things that I can create with these stamp sets. Mama Elephant has some really cute stuff. Today I was working on a card for Mama Elephant Challenge blog. The theme for their challenge this month is patterned paper and thank you cards. The first thing I thought of was a pun with the sheep from the Carnival Cupcakes. You got to love that fluffy little sheep, makes you just want to squeeze her, she is so cute.

Thank Ewe card

I started with some water color paper and blended some tumbled glass and tattered rose distress ink, with a round foam blending tool. I stamped the thank you from the sentimental borders in a baby pink ink on the blended background. Then I took my patterned paper and die cut the circles out of them for my window openings. After that I stamped my larger sheep on a piece of scrap card stock in grey wool ink. (I die cut my letters out of grey wool card stock too.) My fluffy sheep was colored with a marker on her feet, face, and ears. I put my layers together and applied them to my card base. After that I heat embossed the word ewe for my sentiment on some pearl vellum and notched the end. Fluffy was ready to put in her window on some foam tape. Then I glued down my sentiment and added some clear sequins. For a final touch I put a wink of stella on Fluffy's wool to give her some glam.

One layer cards Challenge #89

 Here I am with another challenge from Lawnscaping Challenge blog, this is challenge number #89. The theme for this challenge is flat; a one layer card with no dimension what so ever. This was a challenge for sure, especially with limited supplies. But I am determined to rise to the occasion and give it my best shot.

(Too bad the wink of stella doesn't show up in the picture.)

I am still thinking of an idea for another one layer card. Not sure what direction I want to go with it yet.

Bright and bold

  So, on my last post I showed you a little bit of my works in progress.  I had a little bit of creative time this evening. When you are a busy mom you just have to squeeze in the creative time whenever you can get it. The rectangle piece that I did some color background wash the other day had dried now it was time to turn it into something. I decided it should to be an anniversary card because I can never fit the die cut letters for "anniversary" on a regular size card.  I had some black glitter fun foam that I was waiting to use on something that had a bright and bold background.
   I die cut my letters and placed them. I had a piece of lawn trimming that was blue, green, and white that came with my last lawn fawn order. (I thought it that was very sweet of them to package my stamps in a bundle and tie some trim around it that I was able to reuse later.) I also had Tim Holtz washi tape that I picked up on the clearance rack. (What can I say I love getting a good deal.) What I liked about this washi tape was when you put it on colored paper your can see the color through the letters printed on it. It was like the effect of looking through a frosted window. Then I applied my washi tape to somes scrap paper and die cut some little hearts and arrows from Lawn Fawn's Wish You Where Here set.  After I die cut them I peeled the scrap paper off the back and applied the washi tape shapes to my water  color piece. They need just a little something more to make them not blend into the back ground, so I decide to cover them with glossy accents to make them look like custom embellishments. I mounted my water color panel to some black card stock for a mat and cut and scored my card base.

Bright and bold challenge

Of course this was a great card for Simon Say Stamp Monday BOLD Challenge. So, wish me luck as I enter this card for their challenge. They also have a great new Stamp-tember release with all kinds of amazing products, that I would just love to try.