Super Girl Starla Flying By!

Hello friends! Happy Tuesday and I hope you’re having a wonderful week so far! I actually can’t believe that September is already flying through this quickly!

Speaking of “flying”, I have this really cute card to share with you using another Whimsy Stamps image:

Vicki-WSStarla-Sept17

This little digital cutie is called Starla from Whimsy Stamps. She has her arms out and so I thought it would be cute to have her appear as if she’s smiling while flying up through the clouds at us! I also thought this would be a really nice encouragement card for a child and I’ll be sending it out to hopefully share some smiles.

I stenciled some clouds in behind her, cut the image out with a stitched square die and layered a piece of purple cardstock behind her. I ran a piece of green colored cardstock through a star embossing folder, wrapped a silver ribbon around it and then attached it to a purple 5″ square top folding card base.

I die cut some stitched cloud borders for the bottom of the card design but sponged them with some Broken China Distress Ink before attaching them with foam tape. I also die cut some stars to add for accents on the design with both silver glitter stock and a piece of purple to paper piece in the center of one of the silver outline stars. I also added a rhinestone star to the center of the bow.

Here’s a closer look at Starla with the coloring I’ve done on her. I’ve colored her up with Copic markers and added some details with gel pens. I’ve also covered her headband with a glitter brush pen and also added some extra glitter over the stars at the top of her head band. You can also see where I’ve added some “strokes” to show that she’s zooming through the clouds. I also covered that area with a bit of shimmer with the glitter brush pen as well. The “little girl” in me had to color some purple!

Vicki-WSStarla-Sept17-flat

The sentiment at the bottom was stamped with a sentiment from my stash with some black ink.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my card today and it’s brought you a smile or inspired you in some way! Thanks so much for stopping in! See you soon!

Challenges:

The House That Stamps Built – S1119 TicTacToe
Daring Cardmakers – Special Thoughts
QKR Stampede – #363 Anything Goes
Sweet Stampin’ – Cards for Kids
Addicted to Stamps – For a Lady/Girl
Splitcoast Stampers Teapot challenge – Put a Smile on their face

Never Fear, Super Penguin is Here!

Hello friends! You ever have that certain someone in your life whenever you feel that things are falling apart, that there’s one individual that makes you feel everything is going to be alright? It’s nice to know that you can always depend on that person to come when you call, right? They deserve special recognition like a hand-made card that I’ve made today:

Vicki-PenguinSH-Aug20

Isn’t he adorable?! This is the Penguin Superhero digital stamp released this month (previously released in red rubber) from Whimsy Stamps. I have combined some older (retired) stamps from Whimsy Stamps along with some fun ink blending and coloring to come up with this design.

I’ve used some kraft colored ink to stamp the buildings on the panel behind penguin and then used some ink blending and distress inks for the little “sidewalk strip” the penguin is standing on along with the city scape sky. I took a stencil to go over top of the the sky background. I popped the fussy cut penguin over top of that with some foam tape. This was mounted over a black cardstock layer that was mounted over the card front base and popped up with foam tape.

To make the card front, I randomly stamped some images with white ink over a kraft colored card base that I matted onto a white layer which was then mounted over a black A2 sized top folding card base. I took a strip of red cardstock and made my own banner with it using scissors. I did the same for the sentiment banner in black cardstock that I white heat embossed over it. Lastly, I took some silver stars and glued them on the design.

Here’s a good close look at the coloring that I’ve done on this cutie. Something different that I’ve done here is to color with both Copics and pencils on this one. Basically the reasoning for doing this was because a couple of my Copic markers are running out of ink and it was hard to get the blend that I wanted…so I finished it off with Prisma colored pencils. (I’m waiting for refills to arrive! LOL) Here are the Copics that I used on my coloring:

Penguin body – C8, C5, C3, C1, C0, R00, YR27, YR24, Y21
Cape, letters – R39, R37, R35, R32
Shirt – B39, B37, B34
Letter outline – Y38, Y35
blended with Prisma colored pencils on penguin body, cape and shirt

The penguin was fussy cut with scissors and popped up over the scene with foam tape. I also gave the penguin’s shirt initials a bit of shimmer with the Wink of Stella Glitter Brush Pen.

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I hope you’ve enjoyed my card with this sweet Whimsy Stamps Penguin!

Thanks so much for stopping in and I’ll be posting again shortly…stay tuned!

Challenges I’d like to enter this card for:

Krafty Chicks – #468 masculine
The Creative Crafters – Anything Goes
Sheepski Designs – Animal Madness
QKR Stampede – #359 Anything Goes

I’m back! It’s Been a Rough Patch!

Hello friends! 🙂 Are you still with me out there? (This is a bit of a long post to catch you up with what’s happened.)

Wow! It sure has been a while since I’ve been able to even TRY to get back into things. This was a really abrupt and rude unplanned disappearance from me and I was getting worried for a while about how I would even begin to start up again! I actually feel pretty “rusty” and unpracticed from my absence and I have a few things to share with you too!

Firstly, I want to thank you ALL from the very bottom of my heart for your wonderful comments, personal e-mail, cards and social media contact that I’ve heard from many of you. There were days that I just went to tears hearing from my fellow crafty friends as it came on a few days that I REALLY needed it the most! I thank you SO MUCH for that and it really helped to get me though some difficult pain days.

So what happened was a worsening of something that I believed to be a minor back issue that I thought would resolve on it’s own, but the issue grew worse and more painful to the point that I couldn’t sit, stand, walk or even getting out of bed was painful enough that I had a procedure to try and control the nerve pain. With this done, along with physical therapy and adjustments to my life style, I am feeling better now. It’s not COMPLETELY pain free, but it’s tolerable enough to do normal tasks for a period of time until I need to move around again. It’s just a life style adjustment that I can live with and hopefully fit in with what I love to do which is crafting! It really bothered me to just “walk away”, but sometimes when your health is in trouble, you just have to do what you have to do and heal. I have just learned that SEVERAL small breaks a day are better than none at all and I will pay for it later if I don’t! 🙂 Thanks for sticking it out with me!

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And so with that, I would like to share a couple of things that actually took way longer to complete than what I would normally take the time to complete and it was actually the very last little bit that I had accomplished before I had to completely step out of my room for a while. My husband wouldn’t let me go back in there until he was sure that I could tolerate my pain ok. Still working through the exercises until my follow up Dr. appointment, but I think I’ll be fine from here…I sure hope so as I’m ready to ROCK N ROLL!!! LOL

I had made a couple of masculine cards:

Vicki-Brutus Monroe-Rock ON

Although I don’t have a black light, if you hold up the card to a black light, the watercolor background that I made will glow! It’s a pretty cool affect!

I took one of the foilable image panels from the kit and took several of the Neon Aqua Pigments and smooshed them over the background until I was happy. I tried to foil over it, but it didn’t completely get all of it. I added the strip of holographic paper at the bottom and the stamped elements along with the stars over it. For the sentiment, I heat embossed it with the EP that came in the kit and popped it up with foam tape. My bro seemed to like it and I think those neon watercolors turned out pretty cool! 🙂

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This is probably one of my all time faves from Newton’s Nook called Winston’s BBQ. I think they have had this set for a while, but It’s a great one for masculine themed designs!

I’ve used a kraft cardstock background and stamped several of the images from the set all over the background with the same color of ink. For the main panel, I stamped Winston, the grill and sentiment together and colored with my Copic markers. I also sponged some blue ink around the edges of it for a “sky” looking appearance.

I’ve taken a strip of silver foil cardstock and ran an embossing folder through it to place across the center of the card. I used some foam tape to pop up the image panel over top. All of these layers were placed over an A2 sized white top folding card base.

Of course, last but not least, I wanted to share a card I had completed for a guest design card meant for June and that was completed at the end of May, but I was unable to share it before I had to leave for a while. This is the card I gave to my husband for Father’s Day and he really does feel like my super hero! 🙂

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Isn’t this just the cutest?! I made this card using the adorable Paper Nest Dolls Superboy Owen and his sweet companion Superpuppy too! I had so much fun blending the background in the different colors! I added some blue stars stamped in the background. the city scape behind him was made with a city scape die cut layered a couple of times. I used some yellow cardstock behind the building for a lighted building affect. The wall was made using some gray colored cardstock and then a brick stencil with some red ink colored embossing paste to over it with. Then I just added the sentiment by white heat embossing it over a black strip that I die cut out.

Here’s a closer view of the coloring I’ve done on the images. I’ve used a silver gel pen to color in the buckle on his outfit. I fussy cut the images out after coloring.

Here you can also see the splattering that I’ve done with some white shimmer paint in the background with the blue stars.

Other news

I actually got a bit of really cool news while I was down and thanks to a lovely craft friend, she tagged me and let me know about this, but my set of Whimsy Stamps “Bee cards” were shown in the Making Cards & Papercraft Magazine for August 2019! Chosen as a “top spot” editor’s pick right inside the front cover! I was very surprised and to see what was said about it along with my blog address was pretty cool! So go get your copy of this magazine! It’s my first time having a peek at it and they’ve got some pretty neat inspiration in there!

Although I have been in a great deal of pain and mainly dealing with what came with it, of course my husband was great at trying to “distract” me from it and trying to get me to smile as much as possible. He knew first hand how I was feeling each day and like I mentioned above, he’s my super hero! So there were a few fun or smiling moments here and there while I was being patient with myself as much as I could anyway.

Vicki-backyard fireworks

I wasn’t able to do much to celebrate 4th of July, but going out in my backyard, my neighborhood seemed to have a pretty cool display! You can see the half moon at the bottom underneath the left side of the firework. Needed bug spray, but it was a nice night!

Vicki-Styx Concert

Back in April, hubby and I had gotten some Styx concert tickets and I was worried about going due to the problems I was having. Of course hubby said not to worry about it as our seats were great with no one behind us so I could sit, stand or whatever I needed to do! It was loud enough with the music and it took my mind off things plus I could always clap and sing the songs! 🙂 We took a good break in the middle of it so I could move around away from the seat too. It was a great concert!

Vicki-Black Eyed Susans

In my backyard, I have different flowers and I really enjoy going out in nature to see the flowers, birds, bees, etc. The flowers this Summer really helped me relax, smile and just enjoy the beauty that is around.

Some days were absolutely horrible, but there are also these days too…

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Vicki-Iris

Vicki-red Iris

Vicki-orange Iris

Vicki-Yellow Iris

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I’m soooo happy to finally be able to write up a post and now that I’m able to start getting back into my stamp room, I’m very excited to be able to come back to my design teams (who were ALL so absolutely wonderful with letting me have the time to heal and recover! It meant so much!) and I will be along again soon to share new creations now! Yay! Hope everyone is doing well and I’ve missed you!

Crafty hugs