Fox is Finished!

Hi There!

Just thought I'd pop in to share the fox that I just finished today. 

While I was initially disappointed that I couldn't get the same soft and smooth look as the colorist who inspired me to color the picture, I decided to not let that bother me too much any more. I just enjoyed the coloring. 

In The Enchanted Forest the squirrel page is on the left page and this fox is on the right. It's like the fox is looking at the squirrel. Maybe a bit hungrily?? I hope not!!

Hope you like. Thanks for all the encouraging comments on my coloring. They mean so much to me and make me smile really big! :)

Thanks so much for stopping by.

I hope you have a fantastic weekend!

Hugs,

Jeanne

Vacation Pictures & Coloring Challenge

Hi There!

Hope you are having a great day. Last weekend we loaded up the family van and headed out for a road trip to Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Steve's family lives there. While I had computer access, I didn't keep up with emails and blogs and stuff, so I am a bit behind on commenting. Just in case you were wondering where I was. 

Hope you don't mind a few vacation pictures. 

On July 4th we headed into downtown Sioux Falls to check out their sculpture walk. On the main street in downtown there are many sculptures to take in and buy, if you had the inclination and the money. We did this a couple of years ago and had a great time. They change the sculptures each year. I thought this one was really neat. Those are cat faces made from boat motor cases! Jessica is partial to kitties and she was enamored with this display. If you check out the link above, the picture on the main page is a bunch of books. Jessica really liked that one, too. :) You can scroll through the photos if you like to see sculptures. They were pretty cool. 

On the 5th, we drove to Walnut Grove, Minnesota. For those of you who may wonder why in the world we would do that,Walnut Grove is one of the places where Laura Ingalls Wilder (of Little House fame) lived. My girls are standing on the bank of Plum Creek! We also saw the indentation where the dugout  they lived in was. The roof has long since caved in. We toured the museum, which had a couple of rooms dedicated to the television series. While fun, any resemblance to her life in the series was purely coincidental. The center area outside the museum is planted with plants that would have grown back when she lived there. So pretty. There were several buildings to tour, although not all of them had items directly related to her. There were a few other locations in town we could have gone to, but we were running out of time and it was really hot and humid.  I can now state that I have visited three of the towns where Laura lived. I've also toured De Smet, South Dakota and Rocky Ridge Farm in Mansfield, Missouri. Happy Sigh!

We also visited the Sertoma Butterfly House and Marine Cove. Steve is the only one who got a hitchhiker this time. I just love how active the butterflies are in this place. Much more so than the butterflies in the Butterfly Pavilion here. 

And here I am. They had these "selfie stations" set up. Only, if you did a selfie with one of these signs the saying would show up backwards. Hrm...so one of the girls took this one of me. 

And that concludes the vacation picture portion of this post. Hopefully I didn't bore you. 

 We had a good time, but it's always good to be home. 

There is a 30 Day Coloring Challenge going on thanks to Kathy R of The Daily Marker blog. I love the idea of the challenge, but haven't really participated before. Today I made sure to sit down and do some coloring. 

Here's the first thing I worked on. It's not finished, but this is as far as I got. I just got this stamp set from Simon Says Stamp. I was inspired to make this from Suzy Plantamura. If you've not checked her blog, Living My Dream out, you should. She does a series of using one stamp set at least five ways. She also creates great coloring card fronts and sells them at Simon Says stamps. Anyway, I loved the series she did with this stamp set. I used Artist Loft watercolors. Artist Loft is the house brand Michaels sells. 

The goal of this coloring challenge is to do some coloring every day, it doesn't matter if you finish a project. I like that no pressure approach. 

I also started this page in a coloring book I've had for months. I bought it at Hobby Lobby, but I'm sure you can find it at other craft stores or online. Here's a link to the artist who drew the images. 

That's it from me today. I'm sure that this is quite enough. :)

Thanks so much for stopping by. I hope you have a great start to your week!

Hugs,

Jeanne

I've Been Coloring!

 Hi There!

I hope this finds you doing well on this Friday before Valentine's Day. I've managed to sneak in some coloring time. Not only coloring, but I created two cards to boot! *Ü*

 I was inspired by cards I saw on the internet. And I tweaked the ideas to become more my own.

Here's the inspiration for this first card.

I pretty well followed the same idea. As you can see, the heart color changed and I chose to use hugs instead of love. I cut that hugs out of glittered fun foam. It's hard to see in the photo, but I ran my Wink of Stella pen around the outside edge of the heart because I felt it needed something. All the stamps are Lawn Fawn. The coral/pink cardstock pretty well matches the heart on the envelope. It's from DCWV. The images are colored with pencils and blended with odorless mineral spirits. The heart is inked with Spun Sugar Distress Ink. I die cut a Spellbinders heart to use as a stencil. Gosh, I think those bunnies are so darn sweet!

Here's the inspiration for this second card. My card evolved into something quite different from the inspiration card. Mainly I really liked the colors this cardmaker used on the monsters. I tried to see how close I could get using my pencils. I'm pretty happy with how they turned out. Then I started playing. Not too long ago I got these Stitched Border dies by My Favorite Things from my local scrapbook store. I hadn't used them yet and was itching to play around. I thought the angle of this one was interesting. I heat embossed the sentiment and the hearts onto the black background piece. I originally did the two surrounding the sentiment, but the other side looked too bare, so I added the three, but there was a smidge too much space open, so I added a bit bigger heart at the corner. I liked that look. I used a striped background stamp in yellow just to be very non traditional. I picked Close To My Heart ink colors that I felt looked pretty close to the colored images and random stamped the little hearts on the bottom piece. There are some white gel dots  and some Wink of Stella on them, too.  This card makes me smile like the first one. 

Thanks so very much for stopping by! 

I hope you have a great day and a happy weekend.

Hugs,

Tank You, Dad and a Watercolored Flower

Hi Friends!

Long post alert. 

Did you see Kristina Werner's Tank you, Dad shaker card here? I thought she did a great job with it and I was inspired to make a version. I don't own the letters or the Lawn Fawn stamp set she used, but I didn't let that stop me! I found a similar style of lettering on the Artiste cartridge for my Cricut (cut at 3/4 inch) and I own the Paper Smooches version of fish stamps called Surf and Turf. 

And here is my version of the card. Mine is 4 1/4 by 5 1/2.  I think that is called standard size?

Close up so you can see some of the sequins I used. I also used Wink of Stella on the white space of the letters, but the camera didn't pick it up. I almost wanted to add something to the white frame, but was too afraid I would mess it up and didn't want to have to start that over again.

It was a fun card to make. I took my time and let it dry before adding to the background('m learning patience with watercolor techniques). I used the freezer paper method of masking that Kristina showed and it worked very well, I think. I will have to remember that!

The images are colored with Prismacolor Pencils. I didn't used odorless mineral spirits to blend this time.  Even though I used two layers of foam tape, the loose fish pieces still stick. Might be smart to add a third layer. Oh well. I think Steve will like this card that will be from the girls next weekend.

And here is my second card. I keep seeing these card where the image is heat embossed and then watercolored inside the lines. My friend, Barb's work really inspires me. So I sat down to play a bit yesterday. I heat embossed the stamps from an old June, 2013 Stamp of the Month Close To My Heart flower set called A Flowering Bunch with Versamark Dazzle Champagne ink and clear embossing powder. I might try this again with white embossing powder. Then I used Pear ink for the leaves and Vineyard Berry for the flower. I squeezed the ink onto the inside of the lid and picked up the color with a wet brush. I like the variations in color I was able to get. I originally was going to try to use different colors of pink, but in the end liked the variations of the single color best. 

I tried to get a close up to show the Wink of Stella I added to the images, but my darn camera didn't pick up the sparkle. 

The background stencil is one I picked up at Joann. I used Blush ink . The thank you is from Lawn Fawn and the die is Spellbinders. 

The sparkling sequins are a super happy mail surprise from my friend Alanna. 

Thank you SO much, sweet friend! Made my day!

:)

That's it from me today. 

Thanks so much for stopping by. I hope you are having a happy day.

Hugs,

Jeanne

Trying the Coloring Challenge for a Minute

Hi Friends,

My friend, Barb, is participating in a 30 day coloring challenge being hosted by The Daily Marker. She is sharing her projects each day and I have found it very inspiring.

So, today I sat down to color an image called Fluttering By to Say Hi that I picked up at Tiddly Inks the other day. I was inspired to get that from this post on Handmade by Christine.

This is as far as I got.  I didn't even notice the hair on the paper until I was editing the photo. Oops.

We'll see if this ever makes it into a card, but even if it doesn't, it was fun coloring. 

Thanks for the inspiration Barb and The Daily Marker blog!

Have a great rest of your week. 

*Ü*

Hugs,

Jeanne