It’s a Fairytale/Storybook Time at Sparkles Monthly

Hello friends and Happy Father’s Day to all of those in the U.S. that celebrate this day!  Our usual is to cook out on the grill and spend time together.  So I hope whatever your plans are, you have a great day!  (I made a card for hubby, but forgot to take a photo…so I’ll share later.)

I’m stopping by today to share that we have a new challenge over at Sparkles Monthly and we have the theme of “Fairytale/Storybook  this month.  Would love to see your take with this theme on your projects, so I hope you’ll join us.  Here’s what I came up with: 

Since, I had lots of “Winnie the Pooh” on my mind with the baby shower, I thought it would be appropriate to create something using the stash that I already had out and was thinking of when this challenge theme came time to do!  I think most of us grew up with this storybook and know who this is!  And I had purchased some of these items from Echo Park several months ago, so it was great to be using more of it up!

FRONT of CARD:  It doesn’t really look to appealing on the front, but I thought I’d share what I did anyway.  I used a stamp set from Echo Park and stamped the tree (and colored it) with the sentiment on the white panel and die cut it out.  I also used some of the Winnie the Pooh papers and layered behind it.  The green paper was stamped with the sentiment from the stamp set.  I added some matching enamel dots all over it.

Since this is a special Fun Fold design, I needed to help it stay closed, so I tied some twine around the right side of the card.

When you open the card, this is what the inside looks like!  You see the center fold pops out like a book!  So this is called a “Fun Fold Book Card” and the design was cut out with my Cricut machine using the papers and stamps from Echo Park Designs.  This way I knew it would all match up on the design.  I did stamp the Pooh with balloon and the other side with the sentiment and bee were also stamped.  I blended some blue ink around the edges.

I thought this would be such a cute card for a kid!

Thank you so much for stopping in today and I hope you like my fun fold card!  Please stop by the challenge blog to see more inspiration and join in to play!  See you soon!

Challenges:

  1. Creative Fingers Anything Goes
  2. Crafts Galore Encore Anything Goes
  3. Aud Sentiments Fun Fold &/or Summer Sentiment
  4. Creative Creases Anything Goes with fun fold card

Alice in Wonderland for Sparkles Monthly

Hello friends!  Hope you’re doing well and have had a great start to September!  It’s hard to believe we’re almost into Autumn already!  I’ve been enjoying the outdoors for as long as I can and Autumn around my area is so pretty, so I need to go out in it!  Crafting will be waiting for me soon!

Today starts a new challenge for Sparkles Monthly with the theme of: Alice in Wonderland!  So I hope that you will stop by the blog to check out the inspiration and join us this month!  Here’s what I’ve come up with:

This was really fun to put together!  I have always loved the Alice in Wonderland stuff and I actually have quite a bit of it for crafting, but this stamp set by Visible Image was new to me and something that I had gotten from a win for a challenge I entered a few months back.  I also used the Supernova Stencil for the background from the same company.

For the background:  I ink blended several colored and then spritzed with water for the watermark effect.  I went over it with the stencil in a darker blue ink and spritzed it again.  I then added some gold and white ink splatters over top for more texture.  It was cut out with the wonky stitch rectangle die and layered over mirror gold cardstock.

I had some Alice in Wonderland papers and used s strip of the blue checks to cut out a wavy border and attached it to the bottom of the stenciled panel.  I added these layers to an A2 top folding blue card base.  I had some old-fashioned looking stamps which I had for years and stamped a few on the background in blue ink.

I colored “Alice” with Copic markers along with the piece of cake and key and then used the coordinating die to cut them out and attach to the card front.  I added some pink glitter to Alice’s drink in her hand and the filling in the cake.  I also added some gold sequins over the card.  The sentiment was cut out with a banner die which I thought would make for a fun birthday card.

Thanks for stopping by to check out my card and I hope you’ve got some inspiration with it!  (I’m a bit behind with so many things, so I will be checking out to see what you’re up to!)

Challenges: 

  1. Crafter’s Cafe – Clothing Styles for Children
  2. Lil’ Patch of Crafty Friends – Anything Goes
  3. Alphabet – ‘L’ is for Literature (inspired by a book) Alice in Wonderland
  4. Creative Fingers – Anything Goes
  5. Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – Anything Goes
  6. Penny’s Paper-Crafty – Anything Goes using Paper
  7. Love to Craft – Anything Goes

October AJ Page-Believe in Fairytales

Hello friends!  It’s almost Halloween, can you believe?!  Today is actually hubby & my 23rd wedding anniversary that we are out celebrating and hanging out having fun right now.  So the theme of my page was designed to fit with this in mind today.

Hard to believe that the end of the month is here and also time for a monthly Art Journal page and collaboration with my crafty friend, Carol (from Crafty-Stamper), so please check out her blog for more inspiration too!🥰  We’re trying to get creative by using up our never-ending stash piles!  So here’s my Art Journal inspiration with the “SMASH OUR STASH” October prompt of “UNUSED MEDIA from stash” :

As I was thinking of this month’s prompt, I was checking through my media to see if there was something that I had NOT used at all yet, but for the most part, I have. So, then my thoughts turned to what I haven’t used in quite a while.  So, after going through bottles and bottles of liquid watercolor…and throwing several away that were no good…I used some colors to create the background on my page using a 6″x9″ sheet of Bristol Smooth Watercolor paper with pre-punched holes.  I added drops of the watercolor on my glass mat, sprayed with water and “smooshed” the paper to create the look I wanted and let dry.  I wanted the smooth texture because I knew I was going to stamp over top.

Another media I haven’t used in a while is the Faber Castel Gelatos, which was used to create the moon.  I took a circle scrap, traced around it and then scribbled on a white and shimmer white gelato with my finger and rubbed into the areas I wanted.  I also pulled out several of the Lavina Stamps which were all used to create the scene over my watercolor background.  I had these stamps for quite some time but have never used any of these images.  So, I stamped stars at the top, the moon, the castle, the stagecoach and the tall grasses.  BEFORE all the stamping, I did use some gold paint to create splatters at the top.

After stamping the images, I took some torn scrap paper and sponged in the “ground” areas for my images.

For the quote, I printed out the “in fairytales” on my computer, added a die cut “Believe” sentiment cut from some gold glitter cardstock and attached it above the computer-generated wording.  I tore around this sentiment and sponged in some dark blue around it.  I finished off the page with some gold Stickles around the edges and drops randomly over the star areas.  I also took a glitter brush pen to add some sparkly highlights to the castle, ground areas and stagecoach.

Hope you’ve enjoyed my AJ page today & been inspired in some way.  Thanks so much for dropping in!

Challenges:

Art Journal Journey – Fairytales, Folklore and Fables (Mine is based on the Fairytale Cinderella)

Flying Dragon for 2 Crafty Critter Crazies

Hello friends!  Welcome to May!  Yay!  I’m so happy that my flowers are finally up and blooming!  It always brings a smile to face when I see the colorful blooms!

Today is the 1st of the month which also means the start of a new monthly challenge over the 2 Crafty Critter Crazies challenge blog!  All you have to remember is that you need to use a critter somewhere on your creation…that’s it!  The sponsor we have for this month is Fabrika Fantasy:

Vicki-2CCCMay

I have used this adorable digital image kindly provided to us from our sponsor called Flying Elf.  I love how that dragon is looking up at her! 🙂

After coloring her in, I’ve taken a cloud stencil and sponged in some clouds behind her to give the appearance of being in the air!  I’ve used the ink foam blending tool and distress inks for that.  I then cut out the image panel with a cross-stitch rectangle die from Lawn Fawn and then used a cloud border die also from LF to cut out along the bottom that also adds to the “cloudy” feel of the design.  I stamped a sentiment from a My Favorite Things stamp set.

I wanted to add a “magical” element to my design, so I found some really cool cosmos looking papers from my stash and added that as a layer underneath the image panel which I popped up a bit with foam tape.  I then added a purple shimmer ribbon with a bow around the bottom portion and layered it over a piece of gold mirror cardstock and then an additional piece of black cardstock that was layered over a white A2 sized top folding card base.  Lastly, I added some black pearls in the upper right of the image panel.

Vicki-2CCCMay-close

Here you can see a closer view of the coloring I did on the image.  I’ve colored it in with my Copic markers.  Then on her belt, the trim on her boot and the middle of the dragon bridle, I colored those in with a gold gel pen.  Such a cute image!

Vicki-2cccMay-flat

Here’s a better view where you can see the shine from the gold mirror cardstock.  It helps to add a “magical” feel to the design, I think.

Thanks so much for dropping by!  I appreciate you being here with me!  Hope to catch up with you all at the end of this week to see what you’re up to!