Thursday, July 28, 2011

My best friend's birthday and a sad day

Everything seems to conspire at once, doesn't it?  Almost immediately after my last post I found out that a friend from high school had passed away.  It seems so strange - here we're not even 40 yet and already death has visited. :(  I guess we try to prepare ourselves for the deaths of our (older) loved ones, but it rarely crosses our minds to prepare for it to happen to someone our own age (or younger).  Rest in peace, Tricia.
In much happier news, my best friend (born a mere 6 days after me) came over to celebrate our birthdays with me last weekend.  She is a true delight!  Smart, funny, honest - I could go on for hours! :)
Here's the card I made for her:
I got the idea from a card at Archivers that I saw recently.  They used a different Pixie stamp but didn't have it in stock.  This is Paisley Pixie from Stamping Bella - isn't she cute?  My girlfriend has brown curly hair (well, me too just not as dark) which is why I chose to color her with dark hair. :)  I stamped Paisley on a piece of nice white card stock and masked the flowers.  After blending in a little DI in the center I removed the mask and colored the flowers and pixie with a mix of Copics, Smooch, colored pencil, Perfect Pearls mist, Stickles and Spica pen.  Whew!
Once the image was fully colored I used the TJ technique called Out of the Box to cut her out with my Nesties and Cuttlebug.  If you'd like to see a tutorial on this technique you can find it here on SCS.  After it was cut out I edged it with more DI (being very careful not to bend the overhanging pieces).  Paisley was popped up over a piece of Basic Grey paper and a simple white ribbon (which I added some stickles to!).
Here's a close up look at Paisley - you can get a good idea of the shine IRL:

Thanks for dropping by!  Hopefully the card I'm working on now will come together in the next day or so - posting twice in one week, can you imagine?? :D

Thursday, July 14, 2011

It's time for a little reflection

Mostly because it's my birthday today! :)
At just over half way through the year (and how did *that* happen, anyway?) I took a little while to reflect on the things that I wanted to do this year.  Just to take stock.  So far, I think I've done OK.  Not great, there are some spots that could use some improvement, but there have been some personal goals that I made definite strides toward.  As long as I'm moving forward, it's still good - right? :)
One of the things that I haven't been so good at is posting as often as I wanted to.  Now, I could give you the whole song and dance, but it seems unimportant.  *You* didn't come here for that!  I had to look down my sidebar and remind myself Blog Without Obligation!  After all, I do this for fun! :)
Just a few days ago I received a goody from my good blogging friend Lauren.  Yup, I won the blog candy!  I must say, I've been drooling over her cute Ami's since the beginning - so of course I fell in love with this adorable little guy and whined so much that Lauren took pity on me and sent me a beginners set of fabulous stuff to try my hand at it. (note to self: stick to stamping)  Let's just say that the results were, um, not pretty!
The other cool thing was that the annual stamping show (the "biggest" one, but that isn't saying much) came last weekend.  Just in time for me to pick up a few cool things.  I only bought one new stamp (bummer!) but loved it so much that I made a card right away.  Here, lookee:
It's a bit hard to tell in this pic, but the purple stamped panels (Lost Coast) were popped up and then the blue panel was double popped up. (Is that how you'd say it?)  I used a ton of coloring mediums on these - Distress Inks, Copics, Smooch, Starburst Stains, white chalk pen, white gel pen, black and white Enamel Accents, Glossy Accents... you name it!  Unfortunately, the white circles in the pic just look like glaring white circles.  IRL some of them are soft (chalk pen) and some are shiny (smooch) and a very few are opaque (gel pen).  On top of that, some of the circles were colored with Starburst Stains (which have mica and dye) and look AMAZING in person - but here they just look black. *sigh*
Same thing with some of the circles on the purple panels. *double sigh*
Anyway, I just want to say thanks today and everyday.
Thanks for dropping by.  Thanks for commenting.  And thanks for letting me share what I love to do... with you!

Sunday, July 3, 2011

She's a tease!

My mojo, that is!  I'm positive that she's at someone else' house, laughing her head off and eating cookies!  Dang it! ;D
Anyway, I *do* have a couple of cards to share today.  The first is this wintry card (wishful thinking?) that doesn't qualify for the OLW challenge (over at Simplicity) because I did both masking AND sponging.  Ah well, it does make me a bit happy:
The sentiment was a freebie digital image from Raindrop Echo Designs that I found some time ago.  I was inspired by a card I saw recently that had a cute image softly colored inside a pierced circle - I just took it a little farther.  I printed the sentiment on a regular sized piece of card stock & cut it down to card size.  The panel and the circle were measured then masked.  The snowflakes (Katzelkraft) were stamped with VersaMark then embossed with iridescent ep.  I sponged Tumbled Glass DI in the masked area then removed the masks and pierced around the circle.  Finally I lined up a clear ruler and outlined the main portion with a black pen.
This next card is nearly painful.  I took me (literally) eight days to complete!  First I printed the freebie digital fairy (Ike's) on the same piece of paper from the previous card.  I colored the fairy with copic markers and smooch, then trimmed her out (she was originally sitting on a cloud).  Unfortunately, this is when my laughing mojo took to the road again....
For several days I tried to fit the fairy together with another digital sentiment.  It never did work out. *sigh*  Then I happened to place her over this card looking for some color inspiration.  I loved it!  On the other hand, I just don't like to make the same card more than once, so I thought I would change it up a bit.  Then as I was floundering (yet again) I ran across this sketch from the Lily Pad July CCC.  If you've followed me for a while you know that I'm not usually good with sketches.  This time however, everything just fell into place!
I used a brayer and the Hydrangea pad from Ranger to create the background panel.  The flowers (Hero Arts) were stamped using Pearl Paint Dabber from Ranger.  The moon (Rubber Baby Buggy Bumpers) was stamped in gold paint dabber, then covered in white smooch, then coated with Sugar Cane Glimmer Glaze (nothing like being decisive, right?).  It looks a lot more dimensional IRL.  I dotted some "stars" around the base card and the colored panel for added interest - then added a tiny gem for one more star.
The two bottom panels were cut from some leftover paper that was brayered and edged with paint dabber.  The sentiment (Rubber Stampede) was stamped in Versafine - I didn't notice until I used my last long enough piece of colored paper that the rubber was wonky on the block.  Grr!  I couldn't handle even *one* more delay, so I just left it as is!  After assembling all the pieces, I edged the oval with black spica pen and outlined the rectangles and oval with the same.
Finally! :D
Thanks for sticking with me... and thanks for dropping by!