Mojo Monday with Christian

Hi folks!

Long time - no card! But I do have one tonight! If you are a frequent visitor, then you know that my dearly beloved plays D&D (Dungeons and Dragons). Well, in their little group, one of the players is actually second generation. Yes, nerds beget nerds. Dad and son both play. Well, son turns SIXTEEN tomorrow and I thought I should make a card to celebrate (his younger sister will be fifteen next week and she does NOT play - I'll be working on her card sometime this week).

For his card, I decided I needed to use Christian from Simply Betty Stamps. I just thought he would be a cool image on a birthday card for a teenager.

I hope he likes it!

The image is coloured with Copic Markers (E00, E000, E25, YG63, YG67, G21, E35, E37, E39, C1, C3, C5, C7, T2, YR04, YR02). Not sure how well you can see it in the photo, but I added a little shadow around Christian with the C1 and on the ground with C1 and C3. In my list of markers, you might see that I used T2 (toner). I added that to the left side of his hat to give the colour a little more depth. I think I should have used T1 though. For the shading on his clothing I stuck with simply blending two (or three) marker colours from the same family. I was trying out my shading skills for this week's challenge over at the Copic Creations Blog - Shading on and around your images.

I used this week's sketch from Mojo Monday for the layout. I switched out the ribbon/bow treatment in the sketch for a simple sequence of brads to match the CTMH outdoor denim cardstock. I figured this was a LITTLE more appropriate for a teenage boy.

Notice how I offset the image and the two cardstock mats for the image? I should do this more often as I really like the look. In this case, though, I did it to accomodate the biggest of the brads I wanted to use. If the image and the mats had been centred I would not have been able to squeeze them into the border.

Oh, the sentiment is from one of my sets from The Greeting Farm (I think it's from My Guy Ian) and the patterned papers are CTMH You Rock. I'm beginning to think that someone should do an intervention - or at least confiscate the last of my "You Rock" paper pack. I can't help using it whenever I have to make a masculine card! And ---- I STILL haven't used up the entire paper pack - I still have one or two sheets uncut and several half sheets ....and tons of scraps. Maybe I need to do a marathon use up the "You Rock" paper session just to get rid of it all.

You will probably see another card featuring Christian showing up on my blog soon - I coloured up a second image of him using the same colours tonight - but switched up the shirt and hat. So, I have an image on hand already to play!

Hope you are all having a fabulous week - I can't wait for the weekend!

StarvingArtistamps Week Two Blog Candy Alert

Hi folks,

just a reminder that this is week two celebrating the new release over at StarvingArtistamps and this week you could win the Doodlefactory Gourds and Pumpkin set! Just check out this post over at the StarvingArtistamps blog to see how!

I think this is a lovely autumnal set - great for making thank you cards if you get invited out to Thanksgiving dinner!


Hope you are all having a lovely week!

Party Princess by Sunghee

Hi folks, just relaxing tonight after my second Booty Camp workout (we narrowly missed a thunderstorm by the way) and I just HAD to send you over to Sunghee's blog to check out this post :  Party Princess

trust me you won't be disappointed if you click through. Now I want a princes party of my own (tee hee hee)

Woo hoo!

I was very excited to see that PaperWorksCo has another Rachelle Anne Miller Release coming up this week! Yay! All this week, the design time has sneak peeks going up their blogs. You can find all the details over at the PaperWorksCo Blog.

And I do believe that on release night (Friday, September 17th) there is going to be a chat over at the PWCO blog.

Sorry there is no card share from me today. I've been nursing a massive headache all day today - and not because I partied too hard at the bachelorette party last night. Quite the opposite - I was an iced tea totaller only. I've spent my Sunday sleeping, cuddling with my kittehs (they seemed to know mama wasn't feeling well), watching movies and popping Tylenol and Advil.  NOT what I had in mind for today. I DID feel well enough this morning though to place an order for some new stamps from Sparkle Creations Rubber Stamps.
Sparkle's new release was available for purchase this weekend and I had a few on my list that I wanted from both this release and the previous one - AND I was a lucky winner of one of the new stamps to boot. Can't wait!

Hope everyone else has had a terrific weekend...

A Corset Bachelorette Card

Hi folks,

Well tonight I am off to a bachelorette party - I'm not taking part in all the festivities - just the dinner and bowling. The pre-dinner burlesque lesson and after bowling bar hopping aren't really my cup of tea.

I did come up with this card though - that I thought was in the spirit of the evening celebrating the bride-to-be.

The corset (a Cuttlebug die cut) holds a gift card ....fittingly for a local lingerie store.

And this is a photo of it without the gift card...

The corset is die cut from a paper that is somewhat translucent with a starbust pattern embossed on it. The black lacy ribbon is actually from an old choker I had lying around that I had figured I would one day use on a card such as this. The sentiment is from the Wild Sprouts collection from The Greeting Farm.

I used this week's Sketch for you to try for the layout. I really like how this card turned out and I hope the bride-to-be enjoys it as well. Very girlie - very dramatic.

Hope you are all having a lovely weekend!

Something old, something new - with Verve!

Hi folks,

well after my crazy Hallowe'en spurt of card-making on the holiday weekend (what's up with that? Two months early?), I finally sat down on Monday night try to make one of those "quilted" cards I've seen around for months now. You know what I mean - they are made with either little squares of paper or stripes (for the log-cabin effect - ooops, sorry for you non-quilters out there who don't know what a log cabin is).

Anyways, there WERE four card fronts made but my first one had to be tossed. My original sentiment panel was WAY TOO BIG and covered up too much of the "quilt" for my liking. Of course, I didn't figure that out until I had stuck it to the front with sticky foam squares. Say hello to the recycling bin Mr Card Front....grrrr.

So here are the three cards that DID make the cut......

The papers are CTMH Emporium (Level II paperpack and Creative Basics).

The stamp sets I used for the sentiment and frame are:
something new - Verve Love Story (swirly frame around the sentiment)
something old - Verve Birthday Surprise and Verve Wishful Elegance


Making these cards perfect for this month's Verve project parade challenge - something old, something new.

I used Spellbinders Label Eight (the biggest one) for the front panel and layered two of the second smallest Label Eight die cuts to back the stamped Swirly Frame.

I have been really wanting to make one of these quilted cards for some time now - quilting is a common hobby in my family and one of my very talented Aunt's has a birthday next week. So one of these birthday cards will be hers.

You will probably see more of this type of card showing up on my blog - maybe even some Bargello inspired patterns if I am feeling really creative - maybe even with instructions on how to do it yourself!

Thanks for stopping by, hope you all have a lovely weekend!

Rock Star Anya - Rockin the holiday

Hi folks,

Well, I decided to play along with another of the extra images I had stamped up for the image exchange - this time I went with RockStar Anya to give you all a break from my Hallowe'en-y cards. But you don't get a break from the orange! (technically it's CTMH Goldrush to match the You Rock papers)

I coloured RockStar Anya with Copics (YR00, YR02, YR04, YR14, E15, Y17, E000, E00, E02, R20, R83, BV11, BV13, V15, YG11, YG63, G21). And I added a little glimmer to her hair and guitar with some colour matched sparkly gel pens. Her headband got the once over with a clear sparkle pen.

I embossed the star panel using a Cuttlebug folder and then added a distress look by sanding the paper to expose the white core of the card stock.

Challenges for this card:

• Club Anya - Mystery Monday: Case of Peggy Meyer. I tried to stick as close to the inspiration photo but I had to drop the extra embellies. I originally had some cuttlebug die cut stars on the card but I felt they just made it too busy with all the patterned papers and embossing already going on.
• Practical Scrappers - white/color core cardstock. I sanded my embossed CTMH Goldrush so you could see the inner white core.
• Stamptacular Sunday Challenge - distress it. As I said before, I distressed the embossed panel by sanding it.

Hope you are having a lovely day - my plans to go for a little motorcycle ride this afternoon got squashed by the rain so....here I am in the craft room!