Now in Technicolor! ... mostly

Paper Smooches images and sentiment. 

Hello! Happy Wednesday to you! Well, I don't know if it was an overload of Netflix or a mild case of West Nile, but I suddenly decided to thinly slice pieces of Basics paper to create a rainbow background... and then hacked at another sheet to make that purple rectangle on the side. It was so much color that when I went to color the images, I decided against it a la Wizard of Oz - at the beginning. Oh, speaking of Wizard of Oz, this week's challenge at Songbird Challenges is "Over the Rainbow." The Crafting When We Can challenge is also rainbow this week. Between the two, I stumped for quite some time... I just didn't know what to do with that until it hit me suddenly while looking at the Paper Smooches challenge, which is inspired by this image:

I don't know... I thought those thin lines of lighter color in the paper were reminiscent of the square, pixilated look on the sofa. I feel like the card is missing something, but I'm not sure what... That silver "sunflower" in the corner makes me happy, though. All the flowers are from the Recollections collection. They have a Recollections pearl inside them and are held together with glue dots. You might not be able to tell, but the fluffy creature is popped and I colored it with glitter pen.

Ok, hope you have a lovely day ... and keep it crafty!

Fancy Photo

Saturated Canary Fancy!

Here's the inside, too

Update: I realized that my pictures were horrible, so here's a better one (hopefully). You miss the lace along the bottom, but the image of her is much better.

Well, this week was a bit of a doozy, so my crafting was kept to a minimum. I did get to play with the fantastic Fancy from Saturated Canary. I've wanted to craft with her for awhile but wasn't sure what to do. The color scheme is from the Saturated Canary photo inspiration and the sketch is from Feeling Sketchy.

This week's sketch. 

With her dress, I was going for more of a champagne color, but it ended up a bit pink. Her bodice top and ribbon are more along the lines of what I'd had in mind. The sticker on the side is ki memories, but I added some of the pearls that coordinated with the ones in her hair. They're Recollections; the blue ones on the lacy ribbon are Martha Stewart pearls. Those purple orchids are from a ... I don't know what they're called ... it's one of those fake flower stem things. I just cut the flowers and "buds" off and stuck them on there with some glue dots. The background paper is my current fave - that Twitterpated paper and the small blue flowers are from an Elysee ribbon that I cut up. For the inside, I found some pink paper that I'd had for awhile and lightly copied the sketch by putting the Twitterpated paper along the bottom.

Many thanks to the super sweet gals at Feeling Sketchy. My whole goal for blogging is to use my time by doing something constructive - get better at crafting. Gumdar made top four; getting online after a tough week and seeing that really made my day. Thanks!

Sketch and Spring!

Rachelle Anne Miller Magic Fairy Stamp colored with
Copics and Tombows.
Papers: Imaginisce - Twitterpated and ki - Bloom

Thursday!! Oh, you tease of a day. So close to Friday... but not.

Oh well!

This week, the universe aligned with me. For years I have coveted this lovely acrylic stamp by Rachelle Anne Miller. I just found her on sale and snapped her up. Yep. I put my desire for a printer and camera on hold to spend a few pesos on this fantastic specimen of a stamp. Oh, universe ... I would like to submit her to Flutter by Wednesday's butterfly or fairy challenge and Fab'n'Funky's angels and fairies challenge. See?! The universe aligned! Fairies are popular this week!

Actually, I bought her with what was left of a rebate after I made a donation at Saturated Canary for the Give Big thing. I knew there was instant karma associated with that!

To complete her, observe the awesomeness of the sketch over at The Sweetest Thing! Cool, right? I think I might have picked some rather busy papers to go with, but I just couldn't pass up the opportunity  to save some paper. Each of these lovely pieces are double-sided, so it was a personal challenge to minimize paper use. Even those flowers are cut from the double-sided papers!

On another note, my technologically challenged self has figured out how to add those blinky things! Talk about a pain in the patootie! ... but I do feel rather accomplished now that it's there... and I've managed to turn off the mysterious and abominable word verification doo-hickey.

Go me!

Enjoy what's left of the teasing-est day of the week and keep it crafty!

Gum-dar!

Whimsey Doodles Pencil Pixie with Inkadinkadoo stamps (Mindscapes and Birthday Cupcake)
Paper is from The Basics stack by the Paper Studio. It's actually grey... 

Happy Tuesday!! You know when you fall asleep and dream about work ... I blame Pencil Pixie for it.

Oh, that's ok, Miss Pixie. I forgive you. You're entirely too cute and sad about school to stay mad it.

This card is going to my BFF, a music teacher in a tiny little school district in central Texas. Oh how I love her. I remember when she first started teaching - she hated it. Now it's ok because she's learned how to stop other people's children from beating each other with recorders and has thoroughly convinced the both of us that breeding is a horrible thing to engage in. Thank you, BFF. Now, I sit happily drinking my Texas Martini and watching Futurama while crafting ... all in my living room. Oh, I have a special room for crafting, but there's no need to go that far away from the fridge. =)

Sadly, not much of my sparkly pen has shown up. I went around the oval for Miss Pixie, the oval for the sentiment (which I hand wrote - my 2nd grade teacher would be proud!) and added to the flower, stars, and pixie wings. Also, the grey has magically appeared an unusual greenish color. I use my cell phone to take pictures... perhaps I should invest in an actual camera? As usual the printer is less-than-willing so all the black lines were hand traced over faint grey printer ink. Maybe I should get a printer, too... Oh, my job is *sooo* close to paying for my crafting addiction!

In any case, I would like to submit Madame Pixie to:

Love to Create - Sparkle!!
The Pink Elephant - TPE161 Back to School!!
Feeling Sketchy - Week 20!!

 Enjoy your Tuesday and keep it crafty!!

Colors!

Saturated Canary Balloon Wishes 

Happy Sunday!

Here is Saturated Canary's digi, created to inspire us to Give Big! Isn't she a doll?! I've wanted to play with her since she was first announced, but only just got some time today. She comes with a couple of different balloons at the end of her string - balloons that are shaped like balloons - but I felt a heart-shaped balloon today so I cut one of the round ones out, folded it in half and made it a heart. Otherwise, I never would've felt confident in balloon's the size. Little Miss Wishes is colored with my usual mixing of Copics and Tombows and I added some sparkle to her light pink spots. The printer is still no bueno so I darkened her frames, heart patch, and leg button thingies. I cut the the sparkly strip from a piece of paper.

Today's less-chaotic-than-usual card is inspired by the Willow Sketchie. I didn't use the colors (red, orange, and yellow) but I stuck the sketch.

The other challenges I would like to enter are:

Our Craft Lounge - Ribbon!
Crafting for All Seasons - Bright Colors!
One Stitch at a Time - Anything Goes!
Divas by Design - For a Female!

Ok, that's all for now. Keep it crafty!

Songs and Ribbons

Dance floor tiger lady - pumping everything she has

Tigers are Inkadinkadoo with Copic faces. I used pop dots on them to help them stand out a bit.
The tree is yarn; the leaves and grass are pieces of ribbon I cut up.
It's all on more of the eco paper. I thought it looked like it could be the Forest of Moccasin Breath!!
The lyric words were just printed out and put on green paper, then put on pop dots.

She wore the tightest of pants!!

The scroll and fancy design are computer images that I printed some more
verses and award-y things on. It's the green award in the bottom right corner that I'm proud of.
The center is a button that I hot glued ribbon onto. I found a tutorial and went from there!

Stop! Collaborate and listen... to this awesome song by Leslie Hall. Use caution!! If you listen to it once, you might be ok, but if you listen to it twice, its joyful message will be stuck in your head all day. (Oh no! It's set me to rhyming!) I used her song to inspire my friend's birthday card. We watch such things and enjoy each other's company.

So, what's with all the ribbons, you may ask. The ribbons are inspired by The Pink Elephant's Challenge-TPE160 Ribbon Galore!! The opportunity to utilize one of the world's catchiest songs is related to Songbird's First Ever Challenge!! I hope you play along with these challenges - I had fun!!

Keep it crafty!

Survive Summer... In Pink!

It says "Survive Summer" - something I aspire to do in this 100 degree (plus) weather!
 

It might be too small to read, but the inside says "Everything else is seasonal." In Texas, nothing could be more true! Summers last too long and make everything else seem temporary... It's like something out of Game of Thrones.

This weekend was a challenging weekend (pun intended). The theme is inspired by Saturated Canary, Challenge #23 - the great outdoors. I've been wanting to use one of the super cute digis supplied by Krista (of Saturated Canary) and knew that Canary Love was the gal for me - she is just too cute!! She originally comes with a lovable canary at the end of her string, but I was feeling a kite and took some liberties. I added some string (embroidery floss??) to the end. It was laying around so I tied some bows in it and made the  thingy (<- technical term) that comes off the end of the kite.

For a little more inspiration, I searched around and found Totally Paper Craft's Challenge #128. The challenge is monotone - it was harder than it sounds!! I actually started out with green (one of my fave colors) but it felt wrong so I changed to pink, which made the challenges even more challenging because I don't own a lot of pink crafty things.

The pink flower(s), paisley sticker (Momenta) and ribbon were laying around near the mystery string, so I figured I'd utilize them, too. That was pretty much the extent of pink things I own, so I went to Michael's and Hobby Lobby to hunt up some girly stuff. The round bubble things were on clearance (yippee!!) - 12 pieces in 4 different colors for 99 cents - and are from jolee's Boutique... something about Inspiration Francaise. The card's main paper is by Lost and Found, but I don't know the name because I cut the strip with the name off and flipped it over. If you look at the inside of the card, you can see it running up the right and left sides. I thought it was clever until I realized that I was missing some information. The other papers are from The Paper Studio's Basics collection. How fantastically simplifying!!

Oh, I also got two new Copic pens (I now have 4!): RV00 and RV02. {News Flash: Hobby Lobby sells their Copics for a WHOLE dollar LESS than Michael's!! PLUS!!! You still get 40% off. Major excitement on my part.} I mixed them with the light and hot pink Tombow markers I already owned. I really committed to the pink, so even her eyes are pink, which is a little creepy. The printer is acting up, so the outline of Canary Love is a little light. I used the .01 black Copic pen to darken her eyes and polka dots, which lessened the creepy-factor of her pink eyes.

The challenges are really inspiring for me because I struggle with being artistic. It's a bit overwhelming and I don't really know where to start. If you could measure artistic ability the way you measure a child's growth, I may have added an inch just by trying to make everything pink. Seriously, I think I made a wrinkle in my brain this weekend!

As a side note - and solely for the purpose of supporting kindness and generosity (I'm not being compensated for support) - Krista of Saturated Canary is on a one-woman crusade to make the world a little more giving. Sometimes we forget to give - as if, like everything but summer in Texas, giving is seasonal. Need doesn't know seasons, so please join Krista and support St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital. Besides, when you give, you get... and in this case, you'll get a special digi just for giving through her charity project. It's like an immediate karmic payback!

Enjoy your Monday and keep it crafty!

Mix and Match

For some reason, my friends all seem to have been born in August so I need to get moving on making my birthday cards. Here's one that took a little too long to make. The gal stamp is Rachelle Anne Miller The background tree and tiny cupcakes are Deadbeat Designs. I love that the cupcakes are so cute in the tree, but they were a pain to cut out! The leaves are just splotches I made with my Copic and Tombow markers. The big cupcakes and sentiment are from an Inkadinkado set. Well, good morning and keep it crafty!