Category: Animals

M is for Mythical

Hello and happy Friday to you friends!  Welcome to the month of October!  We’re still having some unseasonably warm weather right now, but next week it’s supposed to cool down a bit along with maybe some rain which we really need right now.  Hope that wherever you are that things are going well for you!

Today is a new challenge over at the Alphabet Challenge Blog!  Our next letter is “M”, and our hostess, Tee, has chosen “M is for MYTHICAL CREATURE(s)” (fairies, gnomes, unicorns, dragons, vampires, zombies, etc.)   I think this will be a fun one for Halloween!  *Please remember that this is a bi-weekly challenge, so you have two weeks to enter.*  I hope you’ll join in the fun with us.  Here’s the project I’ve made for this challenge:

These little grumpy guys from Taylored Expressions always make me giggle and I fell in love with this set a few years back and had to snatch it up!  I pull it out sometimes to make a funny card to send someone.  There are other characters from this set called “Mythical Grumplings” (looks to be a retired set) that are super cute!

Because he’s a grumpy dragon, I mainly used green colors to color him up and for the base/background design.  I used a heart stencil with green ink and overlayed some translucent sparkle paste over it.  I die cut a cloud for the dragon to stand on as well as die cut a heart from shimmer vellum for the dragon to stand out a bit over all of that green color.  I popped both the cloud and dragon up over the vellum heart and added to the background.

I layered it over a scallop white layer and a green A2 top folding card base.  I also white heat embossed the punny sentiment and die cut it out with a stitched banner die.  Sponged the edges with green ink and attached to the top right of the heart panel.

  • I hope you’ve enjoyed my mythical creature card today and that you’ll consider hopping on over the to the challenge blog to see the inspiration from the rest of the team and join in the fun to play along too!

Thanks so much for stopping by today!  Wishing you a happy weekend ahead!

Challenges:

  1. Try it On Tuesday – Animals (real or imaginary)
  2. The Divas That Cut…Paper! – Anything Goes
  3. Crafts Galore Encore – Anything Goes
  4. CRAFT – Grandparents/Anything Goes
  5. As You Like It – Square card or Not & why?  (I most usually make A2 sized cards because it’s what fits best with my envelopes and I can get 2 card bases from one sheet of 8.5″11″ cardstock.  It makes crafting cards more simple with this size.)

K is for Keep It Simple (CAS)

Hello friends and happy Friday!  The weather has decided to cool down quite a bit over the last couple of days and it’s been very nice to have the windows open for a change!  I think we’re supposed to have another spell of warm weather, but I’ll take the cool down for now!

Today is a new challenge over at the Alphabet Challenge Blog!  Our next letter is “K”, and the hostess has chosen “K is for KEEP IT SIMPLE” (CAS style)   *Please remember that this is a bi-weekly challenge, so you have two weeks to enter.*  I hope you’ll join in the fun with us.  Here’s the project I’ve made for this challenge:

That cat is not a fan of winter! LOL  I do love me some snark for the Holidays, so I thought this stamp set called “Holiday Grumplings” (retired stamp set) from Taylored Expressions would be great for a simple Holiday card.

I also think that CAS style cards are great for pulling out those left over scraps from your papers for little strips to create a simple layout, so that’s what I did here.  I stamped, colored with Copics the kitty and popped him/her up with foam tape over the snowflake strip.

Lastly, I just added a light brush with pink ink to the left of the kitty and then gold heat embossed the sentiment over it.  Placed the white panel over a pink A2 sized top folding card base and done.

  • I’m happy to report that I’ve spent some time going through my stash of cards and realized that I have several already finished and ready for sending out Christmas cards!  So I’m basically DONE for Christmas cards!  Yay!  The first time ever that I’m ready ahead of time!  NOW…hopefully I’ll send them out on time too! LOL

Hope you’ve enjoyed my card today and helped to inspire you to “KEEP YOUR CRAFTING SIMPLE” and join us for the challenge!  Look forward to seeing what you make!  Thanks so much for stopping in today! 

Challenges:

  1. Critter Crazy – Anything Goes with Featured Critter
  2. Crafty Animals – Anything Goes including Animal
  3. Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2535 Anything Goes
  4. Merry Little Christmas – Anything Christmas Goes
  5. Creative Inspirations – Christmas in September

J is for JUMP

Happy Friday friends! 🎉 I see that we are nearing the end of August and that it’s time for kids to get back to school, which means, Autumn is heading our way!  I think I’m ready for cooler weather right now!  I just love all things Fall as it’s my favorite time of the year!  What is your favorite season?

Today starts up a new challenge over at the Alphabet Challenge Blog!  Our next letter is “J”, and the hostess has chosen “J is for JUMP” (this can be anything that jumps!)   *Please remember that this is a bi-weekly challenge, so you have two weeks to enter.*  I hope you’ll join in the fun with us.  Here’s the project I’ve made for this challenge:

I knew when I saw the theme for this challenge that I had to use a pile of leaves for “jump“!  I also think the best critters for that would come from Lawn Fawn of course!  Can you see the little “wee” mouse jumping out from the pile?!

I started with a white card front by blending some blue inks in the background for the sky.  I also used the Lawn Fawn Leafy Tree Backdrop: Portrait die to go over my ink blended sky background.  The frame and tree were cut out from dark brown woodgrain texture cardstock.  I used some green cardstock to cut the circle from the die set to place behind the tree as well as the LF Grassy Hillside Border die behind the tree and frame as well.

For the Autumn leaves pile and sentiment, I used the LF Jump for Joy stamp set/dies.  All images were colored with Copics and I white heat embossed the sentiment over the ink blended sky.  For the mice critters, I used the LF You Autumn Know stamp set/dies.  For the little bunny, I used the LF Butterfly Kisses stamp set/dies.  Some of the die cut images were just attached and others were popped up with foam tape for dimension.  I actually wanted my pile of leaves to be larger, so I stamped, colored and die cut two of them.  (I needed that little mouse on the right to be jumping out from the pile too!)

This was a fun one to make because I kept pulling out different sets to figure out which critters I wanted to use, but these cute mice get me every time.  It makes me look forward to seeing the colors, sights, smells and sounds of Autumn coming.  I hope you’ve enjoyed it too and I look forward to seeing all of the “jumping” that will appear in the gallery!

Thanks so much for stopping in today!  Have a great weekend!

Challenges:

  1. Ally’s Angels – Anything Goes
  2. The Creative Crafters – Anything Goes
  3. Sweet Stampin’ – Animals
  4. Lil’ Patch of Crafty Friends – Anything Goes
  5. Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2533 Anything Goes
  6. Creative Inspirations – Anything Goes
  7. Craft Rocket – Animals

I is for Ink Blending

Hello friends and happy August!  Hope you’ve been having a good start to your month so far.  I thought it was supposed to be the “lazy days of Summer”, but it sure isn’t feeling that way lately! LOL Now it seems like we’re getting ready for “back to school” time!  Where is this year going?!

Just wanted to share a new challenge up today over at the Alphabet Challenge Blog!  Our next letter is “I” and the hostess has chosen “I is for Ink Blending”   *Please remember that this is a bi-weekly challenge, so you have two weeks to enter.*  I hope you’ll join in the fun with us.  Here’s the project I’ve made for this challenge:

I sure love to do some ink blending!  I love doing the dark to light with a watermark effect especially for ocean scenes.  So I started with a regular blend of blue ink colors starting light at the top and then working my way down to darker blues.  I think the colors used were Tumbled Glass, Salty Ocean, Blueprint Sketch and Blue Saphire Distress Oxide inks.  I then added the “Ray of Light” stencil (MFT store closed) over and ink blended with the same colors.  It was then spritzed with water and dabbed with paper towel for the bubbly look.

BEFORE I started any ink blending at all, I had an “Under the Sea” border die cut (MFT store closed) that I used to create a mask with labeling tape so that I could leave the border at the bottom for sand.  After the ink blending was finished, I ink blended some Antique Linen and Frayed Burlap Oxide inks to create the sand.  I didn’t worry about it getting into the blue area because the colors are much lighter in tone.  After ink blending was done, I cut the panel out with a “Wavy Pierced Rectangle dies” From Whimsy Stamps.

For the rest of the scene, I pulled out these cute ocean critters from Doodlebug called “Sea Life” (purchased from Scrapbook.com) that I stamped, colored with Copics and then fussy cut.  Even though I had the coordinating dies (no longer available), I didn’t want the white border to distract from the ocean scene.  It did come with an extra “seaweed” die in the set that I just cut out in white cardstock and then ink blended some green colors over it to add to the scene.  I also used a white gel pen for highlights and dots in the sand along with a brown marker and glitter gel pen for more details to the sand.

Here’s a closer view of some of the details. I tried tilting it slightly, but it’s hard to capture the sparkle from the sand with the glitter gel pen.

I know this looks really similar to my last post with the mermaid AJ page, but I think I was having some fun with these underwater projects, and I just sat and had a playing session with it.  I do hope you’ve enjoyed my card today and will join us in the challenge for some ink blending fun too!

Thanks so much for dropping by today! Have a great weekend!

Challenges:

  1. Four Season – Anything Goes Summer
  2. Critter Crazy – Anything Goes with Featured Critter
  3. Pearly Sparkles – Under the Sea
  4. Sweet Stampin’ – Use a Stencil + stamping
  5. Try it On Tuesday – Summer
  6. Cardz for Galz – Create a Scene
  7. Crafty Animals – Anything Goes with Animal(s)
  8. Allsorts – Animals/Anything Goes (various products mentioned and linked throughout the post)

Summer Days

Hello friends!  I hope that you’re staying cool during these Summer days!  For the most part, it’s too warm, humid or both outside, so I spend most days in the air condition.  Trying to organize things is what I’m attempting, but I end up crafting instead! LOL

I’m stopping by today to share that we have a new challenge over at Sparkles Monthly and we have the theme of “SUMMER DAYS”  this month.  This seems rather appropriate right now, so I hope you’ll join us.  Here’s what I came up with: 

I have used these penguins many times and I just love them!  This is an older set called “Penguins in Paradise” from My Favorite Things (store closed).  I thought they’d be perfect to use for this theme and I wanted to make a scene for them to do all of those fun Summer things that we do!

I started with another My Favorite Things die set called “Beach Scene Starter” that cuts out the sand/water/palm tree/shells/sun/clouds/land and then I used inks to ink blend them in various colors.  For the sand, I splattered several different watercolor colors and Copic Opaque White.

After placing my scene together, I stamped, colored (with Copics) and die cut the three penguins and beach ball that I added to my beach scene and popped up with thin foam tape.

I used a white gel pen to add highlights to the images as well as details to the water shore area, coconuts, beach ball and the shells.  I also took a glitter brush pen and went over the sun as well as the penguin’s shades for some shimmer.  The sentiment is from the  Taylored Expressions Mini Strips-Hello Summer that was white heat embossed over dark blue cardstock and cut out with the mini sentiment strips die.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my card today and will join us for the challenge this month!  Please be sure to stop by the blog to check out the inspiration from the rest of the team!

Thanks for stopping in and I’ll see you soon!

Challenges:

  1. Four Seasons – Summer
  2. Love to Craft – Anything Goes
  3. Love to Scrap – Anything Goes
  4. Crafty Animals – Anything Goes + Critter
  5. Creative Moments – Use Die Cut (I used several)
  6. We Love Stamping – Sun/Sea/Sand or Anything Goes (within post details)
  7. A Cut Above – Anything Goes with a Die Cut
  8. Cupcake Inspirations – For the Birds (penguins)

F is for Feather(s)

Hello friends and happy Friday to you!  It’s been so crazy warm over my way and I’m hoping this day finds us with a bit of a break in temperatures.

Today starts a new challenge over at the Alphabet Challenge Blog!   Our next letter is F and it was my turn to choose a theme for this letter, so I  have chosen “F” is for Feather(s)  *Remember that this is a bi-weekly challenge, so you have two weeks to enter*  I hope you will find some time to play along!  Here’s what I’ve created:

I thought this would be a fun theme to play around with as you could just add a bird or anything with feathers.  I look forward to seeing the projects for this one!  I was happy to have this chance to pull out some things in my stash that I hadn’t used yet.

I’ve used the Taylored Expressions “The Thing With Feathers” stamp set and long with the “Wings of Love” stamp set for this card.

I started with a kraft colored cardstock cut with a scallop rectangle die and masked off the edges to ink blend and stamp a smaller feather around the edges with brown ink.  I then took the flying birds image from the “Wings of Love” stamp set and stamped it in white ink.  I also decided to add some white splatter over that.  This panel was then attached to an A2 top folding white card base.

For the large feather at the bottom: I used my VersaMark ink pad to just ink up the edges of the feather, then I silver heat embossed just the edges of the feather.  Without removing the feather stamp from my MISTI, I inked up the entire feather with VersaMark ink and then used a white opal embossing powder over the entire image.  Since this embossing powder is translucent, the silver edges that I embossed still showed through.  I die cut it out with the coordinating die and popped it up with foam tape at the bottom of the card.

The sentiment was stamped with grey ink and cut out with a coordinating die that I attached with thin foam tape at the top of the kraft panel.  I added some clear sequins to finish it off.

Thanks so much for stopping in today!  I hope you will grab your feather(s) and play along with us!  I’ll see you tomorrow for a new Art Journal Page!

Challenges:

  1. Gem of a Craft Challenge – Anything Goes
  2. Ally’s Angels – Anything Goes
  3. The Creative Crafters – Anything Goes
  4. Crafter’s Cafe – Anything Goes optional: masculine
  5. Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2525 Anything Goes

Penny’s Guest-UnFROGettable

Hello friends!  Welcome to June!  The “lazy days” of Summer are here!  I’m hoping I can be lazy this Summer, but not sure about that! LOL

I’m very happy to share my project with you today as a guest design spot I won from challenge at Penny’s Paper-Crafty Challenge Blog!  This is a fortnight (bi-weekly) challenge starting today and the theme is always Anything Goes Using Paper!  Hope you will stop by the blog to see the team’s inspiration and play along!  Here’s the project I made for the challenge:

They gave me this super cute image called “Frogtini” by Pattie’s Creations to use, so I colored him up with Copics and added some stenciled waves at the bottom along with some blending of yellows and blues above him to create this relaxing scene.  I cut him out with a stitched circle die and layered him onto a silver mirror scalloped die cut circle.

I used a fun card sketch I found along with pulling some papers and a sentiment out from an older card kit I had in my stash to complete the card.  For the A2 sized top folding card base, I used a corner chomper to round the edges and then I used some more of the yellow ink over the background where the circle image was going to be for a bit of softness and color.

I embossed a strip of the silver mirror cardstock with a 3D embossing folder and rounded the edges of that strip along with the green paper strip to create my layout.  I popped up the circle image with foam tape over top.

Lastly, I white heat embossed the “unfrogettable” sentiment and cut it out with a coordinating die and placed it at the bottom of the circle with foam strips behind it.  I used the other part of the sentiment and stamped it directly above the frog’s head.

For some more finishing touches, I attached some green sequins, used a glitter brush pen for the frog’s sunglasses and covered the martini glass with Stardust Stickles along with some green Stickles for the centers of the green sequins.

  • Hope you’ve enjoyed my card today!  I had fun coloring him up!  Thanks so much for stopping in and I wish you a very hoppy and relaxing day!🐸

Challenges:

  1. Hand Stamped Sentiments – Sketch
  2. As You Like It – Favorite Type of Embossing & why? (I really like both, but my all time favorite is the heat embossing because it’s so magical!)
  3. Crafty Catz – Anything Goes with twist: “make us smile”
  4. Creative Fingers – Anything Goes
  5. Daring Card Makers – Tic Tac Toe (I used across middle row)
  6. Cut It Up – Anything Goes with a die cut (used two circle and coordinating sentiment dies)
  7. Gem of a Craft – Anything Goes Cardmaking/Papercrafts

Who Let the Dogs Out?

Hello friends!  Hope that you’re doing well and enjoying the month of May so far!  As I’ve mentioned in my previous post, I’ve been very busy working on projects “behind the scenes” that I will be sharing at a later date.  The next couple of posts are scheduled as I will be away until next week.  But I need to catch you up on the new challenge for now…

Today starts a new challenge over at the Alphabet Challenge Blog!   We are now onto the letter “D” and the hostess has chosen “D” is for Dogs  *Remember that this is a bi-weekly challenge, so you have two weeks to enter*  I hope you will find some time to play along!  Here’s what I’ve created:

I’ve pulled out this adorable stamp from my stash by Newton’s Nook called Birthday Barks and I’ve colored the stack of dogs along with a few extra balloon and gift images with Copic markers and cut them all out with the coordinating dies. (I’ve used a white gel pen for highlights and a silver gel pen for the bottom dog’s collar.)  Some of the balloons and gift images were glued on the blue background, but the stack of dogs and a few of the other images were popped up with foam tape.

I’ve used some papers from the Newton’s Nook Birthday Woofs Paper Pad and the blue background was made using a solid balloon image from my stash and stamping it with white ink.  I’ve black heat embossed the sentiment from the Birthday Barks stamp set and added a few clear sequins to the background.

This will make a great birthday card for a guy or girl!  (I’m sure I’ve probably missed someone’s birthday somewhere! LOL)  Hope you’ve enjoyed my card today and will stop by the challenge blog to see what the rest of the team has come up with.  Pull out those dog stamps and come join in the fun!

Thanks so much for stopping in today and I’ll be back with another post tomorrow!

Challenges:

  1. Allsorts – Anything Goes (Happy Birthday!)
  2. Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2521 Anything Goes
  3. Passion for Markers – 4 legged Friends (colored with Copics)
  4. Simon Says Stamp Wednesday – Anything Goes
  5. Krafty Chicks – Anything Goes

April Art Journal Page-Recycled Spring

Hello friends!  I hope you all had a wonderful Easter and have been enjoying the wonderful Spring weather outside!  We have all sorts of blooms and buds everywhere which is really exciting to see!  I think I need to trim some lilacs from my bush to put in a jar and enjoy the lovely smell from them!

Today is our monthly AJ page with my crafty friend Carol (from Crafty-Stamper) who is collaborating with me to “SMASH OUR STASH”! We get creative trying to use up our never-ending stash piles along with a prompt for each month.  I know she always has great inspiration to share, so please check out her blog too! Here’s my AJ page with the “SMASH OUR STASH” April prompt of “RECYCLE/UPCYCLE”: 

Flowers are everywhere, so I thought I’d place them all over my page today too!

For my “recycled” elements, I have used a floral napkin in the background which gives it some wonderful texture and I’ve also painted some white paint over it for a “wash” so that it wasn’t so bright and vibrant and too busy for the background.  I splattered some black and gold watercolor over it as well.

I found a darling image with these gorgeous Spring birds perched on the fence, cut it out and popped it up at the bottom with foam tape.

I thought that a strip of gold cardstock (left over from a project) would make a nice bright accent to go with my gold embossed “HELLO SPRING” sentiment and gold splatter.

I’ve also “recycled” an old part of an ATC project and half of a doily to add on the side with the sentiment and I’ve tied some old twine around that ATC panel.

Lastly, I’ve added some flowers and a butterfly from my old collection of ephemera pieces left over from years ago!

  • I hope that you’ve enjoyed my art journal page today and it gives you all the feels of Spring in the air!  I had fun putting this one together!  Thanks so much for dropping in!

(Feeling a little bit under the weather this week and I’ll catch up as I can!  Thanks for understanding!)

Challenges:

  1. Art Journal Journey – Spring Birds
  2. Anything Goes in a Card Free Zone – April No Cards
  3. Creative Artiste – Mixed Media projects
  4. Neglected Stuff – April (doily, Tim Holtz ephemera)
  5. Simon Says Stamp Monday – Blooming Blooms

A is for Alphabet

Hello and happy Friday!  It’s not only “Good Friday”, but it’s Easter weekend here for us, so plans to enjoy the time we have together with food and laughter.  At least that’s the plan anyway!  I hope that whatever plans you have that you enjoy yourself.

Today starts up a new challenge over at the Alphabet Challenge Blog!  We have finished up the entire alphabet round and starting back up again for the 14th round which began in 2011! WOW! So beginning with the alphabet, the hostess has chosen “A” is for Alphabet (choose your own letter of the alphabet and a theme that begins with that chosen letter.)  *Remember that this is a bi-weekly challenge, so you have two weeks to enter*  I hope you will find some time to join us in the gallery!  Here’s what I’ve created:

The alphabet letter that I have chosen is “C” is for Chickens!  I needed a card for someone and so I thought of these Spring Chickens Stencil from Taylored Expressions.  I used that, plus the coordinating die to cut out the chickens. Along with that, I used the Yard House die set, Chicken Wire BG and the Just Chicken In sentiment set.

The quirky chickens and for an inside joke were sent to help cheer someone up not feeling well.

I started with a separate panel to stamp and stencil the chickens on.  I cut them out from the stenciled panel.  On another piece of cardstock, I stamped the Wire BG and ink blended around the edges.  I placed this onto a top folding A2 sized gray panel.  I wanted the area with the chickens to be the focus, so I took the TE Rounded Rectangle Stacklets and cut a piece of vellum that I used to create my scene on with the Yard House die set.  I centered the “hen house” and then used the placement of that to adhere the vellum panel to the center of the card front.

Lastly, I added the other chickens to the scene and the stamped/die cut sentiment which was popped up with foam tape at the bottom right of card.

Thanks so much for stopping by today!  I hope you’ve enjoyed my card and it gave you a smile! 😊  Have a wonderful Easter weekend my friends!

Challenges:

  1. Creative Friday – Humorous 
  2. Allsorts – Stencils & Masks/AG (chicken stencils/die cut bundle)
  3. Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2515 Anything Goes
  4. Ally’s Angels – Anything Goes
  5. The Creative Crafters – Anything Goes
  6. Dragonfly Dreams – Animals