Sparkly Butterflies

Hi There!

On Wednesday, I came across a beautiful butterfly card created by Michelle Lupton for A Blog Named Hero. Okay, she had me at butterfly as many of you know I love butterflies. :) I was also struck by the rainbow of color on the single butterfly against the rest being white. I thought the butterfly looked familiar, but I didn't own the set she used. Well, I discovered I DO own the same butterfly stamp. I have a different set called Stamp and Cuts Butterfly sold at Joann's. Yay!

I cased her card and added a few twists to make it my own.

I colored the butterfly using my Koh-i-noor colored pencils. I blended with odorless mineral spirits. 

A twist I added was to not only sparkle up the colored butterfly, but also the rest of the butterflies I stamped. I really like the look. I also added some little butterflies instead of the hearts Michelle used. 

I used MFT's Make a Wish set for the sentiment and went over the Wish (as well as those little butterflies) with my black Wink of Stella. The sentiment is all on one line. I inked just the Wish first. Then I cleaned the stamp really well and inked Make a and covered the Wish with some post it note to make sure no stray stamping showed up. 

I even stamped decorated the inside just a bit.

The sentiment is from a Penny Black set called Sprinkles and Smiles

I always forget to do that. :)

I'm very happy with the final card. 

Thanks so much for the visit. I hope you are having a happy day!

Edited to add: Carol encouraged me to enter this card in a challenge at Happy Little Stampers, here. :)

Hugs,

Jeanne

Channeling My "Inner Kay" :) Hey Gillfriend!

Hi There!

I've got a card to share with you today that was completely cased from my good friend Kay Miller. Here's the one she made and below is my version. I can't ever hope to blend as well as she does, but I did try to channel my "inner Kay" as I created this. I got a huge assist from my stamping buddy, Jessica. :) She did all the coloring of the critters.   I think she did an awesome job. 

I did the fussy cutting.

I thought I'd share that I listened to people who say if you watercolor something, don't immediately trash it if it doesn't work for the project you are working on. I had a background done for months that'd I'd keep seeing and thinking, should I trash this? Well, I never did and when I was working on this card, I wondered if I cut that piece up, would it look good as the sea water? I think it worked pretty well and it's finally used up. ;) And, while you can't tell in the photo, unless maybe it you enlarge it, the white piece is glittered cardstock. Adding the purple fish is my last attempt at doing something a bit different-even if it might be a fish that doesn't belong in the sea. It's my fantasy world and I think it'd be just fine. Ha, ha! The rest of the design is all her creative genius. 

I also finished coloring the seahorse picture. Go me! 

Now the tricky part is trying to decide what to work on next. 

I have many books to choose from!

Thanks so much for stopping by!

I hope you are having a wonderful day. 

Hugs!

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,

Valentine Cards

Hi There!

Happy Day After the Super Bowl. I cannot lie, I'm pretty dang happy that the Broncos got the big win! It was pretty satisfying, actually. I watched the commercials, too, but wasn't as impressed with those. And the half time show? Not that anyone really cares, but I couldn't hear the lead singer from Coldplay sing. Lady Gaga singing the National Anthem. That was beautiful. All in all a great way to end the weekend. :) This was after Amy had a basketball doubleheader on Saturday and we all went to the Father/Daughter Dance for Girl Scouts on Saturday night. The girls and their dad danced the night away while Mom helped at the snack table. Um, I felt like I was working another shift. Ha, ha

I also managed to get two cards made! Go me! I got the image I colored in my last post put onto a card and I futzed around with a second one.

Does inking up a background count as coloring for the 30 Day Coloring Challenge? If so, I did in a little bit of coloring. I think that's stretching it a bit, though. I was trying to channel Kay Miller with the inking of that background. I might have to leave that to the professional that is Kay! I tried it with Picked Raspberries and Festive Berries Distress Inks. The heart shaped sequins I found at Michaels in the kids Valentine section. The other sequins are sparkling clear from Pretty Pink Posh. Sentiment is from Close To My Heart. That little girl is fussy cut. The background paper is Doodlebug Sweet Things.  

My original thought with the little girl was that I wanted to make a shaker card. Only, I couldn't get it to look right. I had die-cut that heart, but the size of the heart with the size of the girl image just didn't mesh well. So I gave up on that idea and opted to put it on its own card. I found a blue glitter paper in my DCWV glitter stack that looked a lot like the blue hearts in the paper. I know you can't tell the scallop heart is glittered, but it is. I pulled out a Memory Box Heart flower die and cut it with glittered white foam. I snipped it off a bit to get it to fit. The blue sequins are from Hobby Lobby and the little iridescent hearts are Martha Stewart. The inking on the background is Peacock Feathers distress ink. The background paper is also Doodlebug Sweet Things. 

Thanks so much for stopping by! I hope you have a great week. :)

Coloring Challenge!

Hi There!

We got a snow day off from school today. Whoo hooo! We've done our shoveling for now. That meant I had some free time today to actually participate in The Daily Marker's 30 Day Coloring Challenge. This is the 4th challenge that Kathy has hosted. My friend, Barb, participates faithfully and I always look forward to her posts about what she is coloring. Makes me happy! I know there is no stress involved and if you can only color 5 minutes, that is good enough. But somehow I feel bad if I only do a couple of minutes. 

I don't have a card, but I just finished coloring a Whimsie Doodles image called Heart Strings. I took a quick picture for you. I added a bunch of Stickles so I can't do anything with this until it dries. I was inspired by this card here.

That's it from me for now. 

Thanks so much for stopping by! I hope you are having a good day!

Hugs,

A Couple of Birthday Cards

Hi There!

We are on the downward slide to the weekend now! Whoo hooo. Thanks for the lovely comments on my last post. So nice to know that people still visit even though I am so sporadic about posting anymore. I do have a couple of cards to share. I have to apologize as both needed to get sent and the only time I could take the pictures was when it was dark out, so the pictures are a bit dark even with lots of editing. Both are CASEs with my little tweaks. :) Of course!

Remember that card from my previous post where I was trying to get a certain look for the background of the card? Well this is the card. Here is the original card that struck my fancy. I really liked the watecolor background and think those cupcakes are so adorable. I first thought the watercolor was done with distress inks, but the colors I had didn't come out right, especially the purple. When I read the text again, I noted she used Artist Loft watercolors from Michaels. I had that set. Yay! The images are colored with pencils and I added those little hearts, die cutting them out of glitter cardstock. The shaker bottle has Stickles on it. This was a fun card to make.

This card is a CASE of my friend, Alanna's card here. I loved the rainbow of color! Alanna has been having fun with her distress inks and inspiring me to keep playing with them as well. You can see I went a different way for the sentiment using Lawn Fawn's Scripty Sayings. I decided to add the little sequin stars individually. Then I added the sequins. I'm pretty sure there was a smudge or something some where and I wanted to cover it up. Thanks for the inspiration, Alanna! Hope I did it justice. :)

That's it from me this time around. 

Thanks so much for stopping by.

Hope you are having a good week. 

Hugs,

Wintery Thanks and Snowpeople, too!

 Hi there!

Oh golly, it's hard to believe we are at the end of January, 2016! Happy New Year just a tad bit late. I hope it's treating you well so far. Life hasn't slowed down much since our Winter Break ended. From time to time I've managed to get a card or two made, but my computer is giving me fits these days and getting them edited has been problematic. Sometimes just navigating the internet has been an issue as well. I had some time today and edited them all at one time. I hope I don't have any problems posting this. We've tried a couple of fixes, but the issue remains so obviously those weren't actually fixes. Sigh. Gotta love technology.

Anyway, onto the cards. They are copies of cards that I have seen in blogland and liked. I've added my own little tweaks.

Here's the card I copied. (sorry it's so dark, I tried my best to lighten it up)

My tweaks: colored with colored pencils and the pattern paper. I sent this is in the mail and could hear the beads shaking. Wasn't sure if the post office would get all worried at the noise, but it got to the recipient, so all is good. :)

Here's the card that inspired these two cards.

My tweak: I used glitter paper from DCWV. The snowflakes and thanks die-cut are sparkly even if you can't tell in the photos. I softened the stripes big time on the top card. The second one, I was playing around with the color combo for a different card, but I didn't like the end result for that card, so I used it here and felt it worked really well. 

The new year has been pretty good to us. I never mentioned it here on the blog, but my husband got laid off from his job way back in April of last year. Anyway, after all these months, he recently  accepted a job offer. Yay! While he hasn't started just yet, he should be back to work soon.  The girls are as busy as ever. Amy's Winterguard had an evaluation performance last weekend. They got positive and encouraging comments from the judges on their show so far. We also worked Bingo last weekend. Jessica has been busy with clubs and is going to a dinner theater tonight with one of them. This week has been filled with Girl Scout meetings as well. It's always something. This mom is doing her best to keep up! 

:)

That's a very brief update on us. I thank you very much for continuing to stop by from time to time. 

I so appreciate the visit! 

See you again soon!

Hugs.

Best Buds~Thanks a Lot

Hello friends!

I'm back with another card using Paper Smooches Best Buds stamp set. Eek! 

I had an idea of a card I wanted to create that used the banner image in the set. Terrific cardmakers have been using those single word dies to span a die cut circle and I think that looks really neat. So I thought I'd try my hand at it using the banner image. I thought I'd die cut a circle out of the top of the card and use a negative space of the die cut to act as a stencil and I would blend some colors like Kay Miller or Laura Bassen does. That was the look I was going for. But not what I ended up with!

So I start by taking a few attempts to die cut the circle on the main panel of my card, because, you know, the die kept shifting and going off center. My tape wasn't strong enough. Got that right. Okay, so I start blending using a negative space circle. I got a couple of hard lines, even though I thought I was being super careful, but liked the look by the time I was done. Picked up the stencil and realized that the "stencil" didn't cover the whole inside of the card and....I got ink on the inside panel of the card. Grr again. So, I start over and messed up the blending a.gain. Oy! I had a mini hissy fit and just about threw it all into the garbage can. But I took a couple of deep breaths and changed my plan. 

Instead of  doing the blended ink circle on the inside panel of the card, I used the same size panel and attached it with foam tape to the top piece with the die cut circle. Okay, I'm sure that doesn't make any sense. 

Here's the card I ended up with:

Originally, my idea was to have that blue inked circle be what you see on the inside when you open up the card. Now it's attached with foam tape to that embossed panel and when you open up the card you have the full white panel to write your note or stamp your sentiment. Would you believe that when I attached the embossed piece that was covered with foam tape to the card base, I did it crooked? Oh my gosh, it was just about the last straw for me today. But I carefully cut it off the card base and attached it to a new one. 

I took a close up of the circle because I liked what I decided to do here. I used my clear Wink of Stella pen and covered the blue inked circle. I love how sparkly it is! Then I added some Stickles to the center of the flowers and used a Gelly Stardust pen on the leaves. I also added some foam under the banner to help keep it from bending in the open space behind it. 

That embossing folder is a Darice brand and I colored the images with pencils and blended with odorless mineral spirits. 

Thanks so much for stopping by! 

I so appreciate the visit!

Floating Along...

Hello!

Thanks so much for stopping by. Things have been a little quiet here on the old blog recently. That is because my dad flew in for a week long visit. It's our summer ritual. One I'm very happy to be a part of. This year's visit was extra special as he celebrated his 85th birthday while here! Yay! My oldest brother was able to sneak away from where he lives in Idaho to be here as well. We had a little party for him and pampered him as much as he'd let us. To look at him, you would be hard pressed to believe he is 85. He is slowing down a bit, and suffers from diminishing eyesight due to macular degeneration, but he is always ready to go shopping! He lives in drought stricken southern California and aside from the joy he got from seeing his granddaughters, his next biggest joy was experiencing a few pretty loud thunderstorms. *Ü* He saw more rain in his week here than he has in a couple of years back home! Sure wish I could have sent some rain home with him, that is for sure.

Not long after he left, we got word that our good friend and neighbor took a fall and broke her ankle. :( Not only that, she messed up her big toe on the other foot! So not good! She's going to have a hard time getting around for the next month or two. I wanted to make her a card and thought this image might help her dream of where she'd like to be over where she has to be right now. I picked the image up at Tiddly Inks and colored it with my Prismacolor pencils and blended with odorless mineral spirits. My coloring is completely inspired by one of the samples shown with the digital stamp.

I was thinking if she could think about floating along on the water maybe she could imagine away any discomfort she is feeling. And while the drink may look like lemonade...it could have a little sumthin' sumthin' in it to help take away the pain, too, right? 

Anyway, that's it from me today. I hope you are having a great day!

Twofer :)

Hi Friends!

Hope you had a great weekend. My family met up with some friends and took a very enjoyable walk to a city park and watched fireworks burst almost right above us. It was pretty cool. When we got home and went to bed, we couldn't sleep. Someone in the neighborhood decided to host their own show for a couple of hours(!) and it was way loud. Not so cool. 

But they finally stopped around 1:30 am or so.

Thank goodness.

Anyway, I got a couple of cards made. Which are inspired (okay, cased) by cards I saw online. 

This first one was inspired by this one.  I really liked the blue and the orange. I did tweak it a bit. :)

I don't have any diagonal stripes! Oh my! But I did have some old Close To My Heart pattern paper that worked. I also chose to random stamp the bubble stamp all over the large strip to give additional interest. The images are colored with pencil and blended with odorless mineral spirits. 

And here's the other part of the twofer...

I have been following a blog called Just Me: c and Carol is one of the nicest bloggers around. Her blog is simply a delight and so is she. She's also a pretty good enabler, so be forewarned if you've never been to her blog before. :) I just bought Ripe Persimmon distress ink thanks to her wonderful use of that color.

Anyway, the minute I saw this card I was smitten. I had a Spellbinders die that is so similar to the one Carol used, I knew I could case her card once I got delivery of Ripe Persimmon. Here's my version. Thanks for the inspiration, Carol!!

I used a Hero Arts butterfly die and Lawn Fawn hugs die. (I'm working on adding a few single word dies to my stash). 

That's it from me today. Thanks so much for stopping by. I hope you have a great week.

Hello You

Hi Friends!

I wanted to first say thank you all so much for your sweet comments on the cards I've posted recently. They do mean so much to me. Thank you as well for being so encouraging of my daughter's work, too. You are so very kind! :)

I've got another CASED card for you. I know. I've said it before and I will say it again(and again and again), I'm a total copycat. I'm not like my other crafty friends who can come up with fabulous card designs out of the top of my head. When I see a card that appeals to me, I want to try to mimic it and maybe add a tweak or two to make it my own(or because I don't own all the same supplies). That's what I did on the card I'm sharing today. I had seen and admired this card before, but it wasn't until this post that I understood how the gal created/masked it. She made a video tutorial. Love that!

I didn't have the sentiment stamp she used, but I did have a Lawn Fawn Scripty Sayings that I thought would be fun to try it out with. And awhile ago, my dear friend Kay, was kind enough to send me some requested Mama Elephant stamped images. Some of them were of the very same sweet little girl! Squeal! :) I didn't have the pigment inks that Laura used, but I did have one of the newer distress ink colors (thank you Hobby Lobby for getting in some new colors). A search through my stamps brought me to a Close To My Heart set called Have a Happy Day. 

And here is my version of the card:

Makes me smile to be perfectly honest. 

Wasn't sure I was going to get to the smile at first. I thought for sure I messed up the inking with Cracked Pistachio and Squeezed Lemonade Distress inks. I kept pressing down too hard with the blending tool and getting hard lines. But the ink seemed to blend into itself over some time. Whew. I colored that sweet girl with pencils and odorless mineral spirits and cut the white border away. I just really like this look! 

Thanks so very much for stopping by.

I hope you have a happy day!

Hugs, 

Birthday Fishes

Hi Friends!

Yesterday was my daughter Amy's birthday. I'm feeling old, I must admit. She's getting ready to enter high school this year. And she is already getting involved. She's had marching band practice once a week. Only this week, she has it three days. Yesterday was one of the three. Yep, welcome to real life sweetheart. Sometimes you gotta work on your birthday. She really didn't mind, as she has been thoroughly enjoying the experience so far. 

(But we aren't into the heat of summer yet, that could change). 

Anyway, the fact that she was gone a good chunk of the day allowed me to get to work on her birthday card. Then my sweet sidekick asked to help! Double the fun. :) Amy just bought herself some new fish for her fish tank, which sparked the theme for the card.  I caved and got the new Lawn Fawn Fintastic Friends stamp set(gotta love Scrapbook Pal). That also helped set the theme. Here's what we came up with:

Pretty fun, eh? 

We also used a few images from Party Animal, too. Did you notice the little cake tucked in the tank? Jessica's idea! We were going to tuck it into the hermit crab's claws, but it was just a bit too big and Jessica didn't want to trim the size of the stamped image. So she tucked it by some of the grass/plant. (The little cake and the birthday are from Party Animal; the rest are Fintastic Friends). 

Initially, I was going to watercolor the images. but Jessica wanted to color and there is a learning curve to watercoloring. When you need to get a card made is not the time to start the learning process. She opted to use pencils and odorless mineral spirits. All the coloring is hers.

Did you notice the heart shape? I saw the idea here on the Lawn Fawn blog.  I decided to add a little heart to the image with the bubbles. I used a Spellbinders heart and cut it out of cardstock the same size as my cardfront. I held it down and stamped inside the opening. Then I decided to fill in the hearts and used a Sakura Gelly Roll glittery gel pen with the Stardust color. 

Amy was very happy with her card.

Success!

Thanks so much for stopping by!

I hope you have a happy day. 

Jeanne

Wryn the Mermaid

Hi Friends!

Way back in April, I saw this card on Handmade by Christine and was smitten with the way Christine colored the mermaid. I adored the purple hair! And I wanted to see if I could color the hair with pencils to look somewhat similar. So I picked up the digi image here at Tiddly Inks and started coloring. My crafting time has been so limited recently that I had to put the image aside. Well, yesterday I finished with the hair and added some sparkle. Today I fussy cut her and played around with some distress inks (Salty Ocean, Peacock Feathers, Tumbled Glass and a bit of Seedless Preserves). I added some misting of water mixed with Perfect Pearls and at the last minute decided it needed a few sequins. Oh and I embossed the Cuttlebug swirls onto the background piece. Thought they would mimic water, sorta, kinda. 

Here's how the card turned out. 

Feel free to enlarge if you want. I brushed on some Diamond Dust Stickles here, there and everywhere. 

And a close up, just because.

I have to admit I'm pretty happy with the final result. 

:)

Yay for summer break!

I can sneak away a bit more.

Eeek! 

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Have a happy day.

Hugs,

Jeanne

Sidekicks and Shakers

 Hello Friends!

I'm back to share a couple of cards. Yippee!

Both of them are shakers. So fun!

The first one is a case of one I saw here on the Lawn Fawn blog. I had a sidekick who wanted to help. She hadn't done a shaker before so it was fun showing that technique. She tried and tried to get the sentiment stamped just so, but in the end I stamped it. We had to do two lines as the sentiment was too long to fit across the stitched rectangle. I came thisclose to snipping the stamp apart, but my sidekick didn't want me to do that. She did all the coloring of the image (with my pencils and blending with odorless mineral spirits). Then she added some Stickles for some extra sparkle. I had her use a paintbrush to paint on the Stickles, so it wouldn't look too globby. 

I love the look of using sequins, but I haven't jumped on  ordering them from Pretty Pink Posh yet.  I don't know which colors would be best to get. These we picked up at the craft store. Oh and I showed Jess some beads I had and she decided we needed to use some. :) 

Training her up right, aren't I? LOL

We did this card in shifts and just put the finishing touches on it today. I think she did a great job!

She decided she was done for today, so I pulled out this Paper Smooches set I picked up in early May when my local scrapbook store had a sale. Had to take advantage, right? Anyway, I was inspired by this card by Mellymoo and wondered what it would look like as a shaker. 

Not too shabby, huh? I added some iridescent sequins and some tiny microbeads I've had in my stash for practically forever. Those microbeads were a last minute thought and had I planned it better, they wouldn't cover up the crab so much. I figured maybe it is okay, because crabs don't want to get caught and he could be hiding a bit. Shrugs. Works for me anyway.

These are colored with pencils and blended with odorless mineral spirits. 

And with that, I've sort of participated in the second Coloring Challenge that is going on this month. Thanks, for inspiring me to do it, Barb. Barb is an enthusiastic participant and shares what she colors on her blog. It encouraged me to get something colored, anyway. Yay! You don't have to complete a card, but I managed to this time. 

That's it from me today. 

Thanks ever so much for stopping by. 

I hope you are having a great day.

Hugs,

Jeanne

Flower Fairy Hello

Hi There!

Last month I saw this card and was smitten with the image and the colors Christine used to color this sweet fairy. Christine's coloring is terrific and I enjoy looking at what she shares. You might want to take a peek. I've added a few blogs to my Feedly over the past few months where the blogger is a fantastic colorist and seeing what they have created makes me want to color, too. Thanks for the inspiration, Christine (in case she ever stops by to read my little blog)! 

I had fun using my Prismacolor pencils and odorless mineral spirits to color this. I don't know if anyone is interested in what colors I use, so I don't keep track. If you are interested, please let me know. The pinks were colors I hadn't necessarily pulled out before and I liked how they looked. 

A heads up for those who like to use Wink of Stella pens and to color digital images. I honestly don't know what the liquid is in the pen (I've never investigated that) but whatever it is, it sure doesn't play well with printed digital images. It smears the ink. Remember when I mentioned something on that card that Jessica made. That's why she had to color another image I smeared the ink. So I forgot about that when I started to put some WOS on the wings of this little gal (after I had colored everything). I just barely started when I remembered. Thankfully it didn't ruin the work I had done(I'd have been so very sad to have to start coloring  the image again because of that). I ended up using lots of Stickles instead. 

I wanted to add a little more of something and I know sequins are popular. I've not gotten colored sequins, but I did like how these iridescent sequins(from Hobby Lobby) looked, so added a few for interest. Hopefully they don't detract from the image. 

The hello is from the Gingham Backgrounds set from Lawn Fawn. I just love that font! It's stamped in Watermelon ink from Close To My Heart. I also used their Stitched Rectangle die. 

That is all from me right now. I thank you very much for stopping by! I hope you have a great day. 

Hugs,

Jeanne

Feel Better and Hello Cards

Hi There!

Don't faint. I've got a couple of cards for you to see. 

:)

We are on Spring Break in my neck of the woods and after running a couple of errands this morning, I shooed the girls outside for a bit and got to work on a card. Sneaky, huh? 

Actually, this first card I have to share was made by my daughter, Jessica. 

My husband contacted me yesterday to say that one of his co-workers has been fighting some kind of bug or illness that the doctors haven't been able to diagnose. He thought it might be nice if Jessica made a card for her. You see, Jessica has gone to Take Your Child to Work Day with him for the past several years and she's gotten to know some of my husband's co-workers. She and this gal have developed a nice relationship. She was happy to get to work last night, with a little assistance from me (and even one instance where I messed up her image enough that she had to start over with coloring. Oy, Wink of Stella does not always play nicely, I found out. Jessica was not happy with me over that, but gamely colored one more image). Hopefully this card will help her friend feel a little bit better.

I had to take the photo at night, so the lighting was not very good. But I think you can see what she did.  She likes to color with my pencils and odorless mineral spirits and I think she is pretty darn good with them (I'm probably a wee bit biased). The stamps are from Lawn Fawn's set called On the Mend and the paper is from Doodlebug's Hello Sunshine 6x6 pad. The white flowers are from Making Memories...I've had the set of ribbons wrapped on a tall card for years! It's nice to use a little of it. 

Below is the card I worked on today. Yes, I pretty much cased it. I was inspired by the card featured here on the Lawn Fawn blog.

I only have one set of stitched rectangles, so my frame came out a bit wider than the one she showed in the video. The gingham paper in the background is from the same Doodlebug pad (Hello Sunshine). The clouds I inked myself. I stamped a cloud image using the cloud stamp from the set called of all things, Hello Sunshine. I cut out the cloud and used Sky ink (from Close To My Heart) and a sponge to create the cloud/sky background. The flowers and bird are colored with my pencils and odorless mineral spirits. Unfortunately you can't really see the line of glitter pen I added to the chest of the bird and the edge of the flower centers. (I was afraid to use the Wink of Stella, especially after my little mishap last night using it). I popped up the frame with foam squares to give it a little dimension. The hello stamp is from Lawn Fawn's Gingham Backgrounds set. 

Anyway, I'm happy with how this turned out. Makes me think of a field of daisies on a summer's day. 

That's it from me today!

Thanks so much for stopping by.

I appreciate the visit and hope you are having a good day.

:)

Jeanne

Oh Happy Day...Two Cards to Share! :)

Hi!

We are having a lovely day here in my neck of the woods. I went out to start cleaning up our backyard so that the new growth can begin in earnest. Spring has just sprung over here. I made some good progress and was enjoying the fresh air and sunshine. Then I ran out of lawn bags and my girls had a Girl Scout event to attend. I ran some errands while they were gone and once all that was done, I managed to sit down and actually finish not one, but two cards. I know. I couldn't believe it either!

I had done the coloring before today, so it was just a matter of deciding how I wanted to finish them up. They are colored with my trusty Prismacolor pencils and blended with odorless mineral spirits. There's also some Wink of Stella glitter and something a little bit new. 

This is the finished card from the image I colored and shared here.

 I picked up some Perfect Pearls and dotted it on this image. I've seen this done on some blogs recently (like this card)and liked the subtle detail it adds. I need a little practice to get the touch right, but I like how it turned out. 

You really should check out that link. I recently started following Pop's blog and her coloring is fabulous. I also really like all the details she adds to her cards. 

The camera unfortunately did not pick up the lovely shimmer in the background papers I used. I picked up a pad of shimmer cardstock from Michaels. There is a new Recollections series out right now called the Sophia Collection. It's all pastels and shimmery. It looks very pretty in real life! There is also a pad of laser cuts as well with butterflies and flowers and lots of loveliness. I just haven't had a chance to play with it much. I really wanted to color first. :)

You might have also noticed the stitched edge on the one mat. Yep, I finally jumped onto the bandwagon and ordered me a set of stitched rectangles from Lawn Fawn (via Scrapbook Pal.com). And I also got Lawn Fawn's newer stamp set and dies called Gleeful Gardens and got to play with them. Below is the card I made with that super cute set. Oh and the gingham background was stamped with the newer Lawn Fawn Gingham Backgrounds set. I need some practice with that to line it up better, but I love me some gingham. In fact, the hello on my first card today is from this same set. Love that font. 

That little snail gets me. It's so flipping cute! I also remembered to try something my friend, Barb, does on her die cuts. I kept the circle in the die(taping it down with post it tape to keep it in place) and inked some distress inks on the background (Tumbled Grass and Mowed Lawn) That's how I got the white edge. Thanks for sharing that tip/technique, Barb! 

I think that does it for now. 

Thanks ever so much for stopping by. 

I hope you have a lovely weekend!

Hugs,

Jeanne

Sending Hugs

Hello and Happy New Year! Hope you had fun celebrating New Year's Eve. Party animal that I am, we played video games for a while and went to bed well before midnight. And then I got woken up by the revelers in the neighborhood who were clanging pots and yelling and the ones who shot off fireworks. Hrm...maybe I should have just tried to stay awake! LOL I managed to fall back asleep before too long though, so it's all good. :) I'm such an early bird that forcing myself to stay awake til midnight doesn't sound appealing at all. Greeting the day at 5am is not a problem though! Ha, ha!

Hey, I have a card to share! Whooo hoooo! Starting 2015 with a crafty bang! How about that?! Actually I have two cards to share. One was completely made by me and the other one got a huge assist from my crafty co-hort, Jessica. I recently picked up some new stampy goodness at a local scrapbook store (and on sale to boot, whooo hooo) and have been itching to play, but didn't find my way into the crafty mode until the other day when I started stamping and die cutting the images. It took another few days before I could sit down to put the card idea I had together. (I know I saw the idea somewhere, but couldn't find it again, so this is from my very hazy memory). Jessica wandered by as I was getting started and asked if she could color, too. :) Sure!

This is my card.

This is the one Jessica worked on.

Looks pretty awesome to me!

A nice side by side. 

I used distress inks (Picked Raspberry, Salty Ocean, Chipped Sapphire and Seedless Preserves) to sponge the sky.  We used colored pencils and odorless mineral spirits to color. I tried to add some Wink of Stella here and there, but you can't really see it. I also added some Icicle Stickles under the trees for some sparkle. 

Stamp sets are Lawn Fawn: Snow Day and Making Frosty Friends, along with the dies for each set. Sentiment is from another Lawn  Fawn set  called So Much To Say.

Thanks so much for stopping by. 

I hope you have a spectacular day.

*Ü*

Jeanne