Whirlpool of Imagination

It's a Birthday Bella

I have a couple of birthdays that needed cards and it's been a while since I made a bella card so I figured it was time.

 

I started off by stamping my image (from Stamping Bella) in tuxedo black ink (memento). Bella is colored with copic and prismacolor markers.

Copic: E00. RV02

Prismacolor: crimson red, black

The cake also uses lots of spica markers: lemon (#5), blossom (#14) and lipstick (#21) as well as some stickles (worn lipstick).

The sentiment is from Verve and stamped with tuxedo black ink. (Yes, I know the 'wishing you' is crooked - or rather, I know that NOW).

The patterned paper is from Basic Grey - Bittersweet/Meltaway.

These long cards measure 3.5 x 7 inches. I chose that size because those are the envelopes I've stocked up on. I'd like to play around with different sized cards just to shake things up a bit. I'm very much stuck in the A2 rut!

Hope your week is treating you right - have a great day!

I'm Back With a Turkey

Thank you everyone for the well wishes. Except for a leftover cough, I am feeling much better. Meg was sick with me by the middle of last week but the girls are no longer spreading germs here in our household.

If you are into cute digi's, have you been checking the weekly releases from Pink Cat Studio? Every Thursday she releases new digi's and one of the first things I do on Thursdays is check out the new ones. I am really liking these "stamps" (as you will be able to tell as we get closer to Christmas). I don't have a lot of Thanksgiving stamps so I picked up one of the cute turkey's she is selling.

 

The turkey is printed on an hp Laserjet 4200 printer and colored with prismacolor markers.

Prismacolor: terra cotta, tuscan red, spanish orange, crimson red, pale vermillion, walnut, light tan, light walnut, eggshell

The layout is from one of Splitcoast's weekly sketch challenges and the patterned paper is from Papertrey. Clearly, the most labor intensive part of this card is the coloring....otherwise the layout is pretty simple.

Are you getting ready for turkey day? We ordered our turkey today - all 20 pounds of it. I guess that makes it all that more real that the holidays are fast approaching. Can't wait - love this time of year. Have a great night!

It Got Me

It's official, I have the flu. I went in for the test today and sure enough, positive. Since I'm supposed to spend the next few days drinking lots of liquids and resting, I'm hoping I may get a bit of stamping in. Or maybe coloring, that's pretty low-key. Maybe my flu-ish brain will come up with all sorts of fantastic projects! I'll be back soon.

Pumpkin Basket

I'm sick again. The germs are swirling over at the kid's school (about a 20% absentee rate) and after going in on Friday to help out, I think some of those pesky germs attached themselves to me! I'm hoping I can fight this off a bit better this time - fingers crossed!

I decided to give myself a color challenge. I laid out some colors and challenged myself to make a card with those colors. Here they are...

 

Here is the card......

 

The image is from Papertrey Ink, tamped with memento tuxedo black ink and colored with copic markers.

Copics: YR68, YG97, YG93, E33, E35, E37

The sentiment is from Gina K and stamped with old olive ink (Stampin' Up).

I used my nesties to cut out the shapes and added a bit extra with Swarovski crystals (adhered crookedly it seems - it did NOT look like that when I held the finished card in my hand!!!!)

Hope your day is a good one (and the germs are jumping on you!).

A Sweet Tree For Halloween

Happy Halloween! It's a "dark and stormy" night right now but luckily the trick or treaters got some candy before the rains came. Today we are talking lollipops. The kids had their Halloween parties at school yesterday so I made lollipop trees for the class treats. These are super easy, make great centerpieces and look fun when finished.

I first worked on the lollipops. The lollipop itself is from Oriental Trading. They usually have nice flat lollipops for the various holidays so I always look there first when I want to make lollipop covers.

 

Here is the first of two lollipop cover designs. The circle words and pumpkin are two different stamps, both from Elzybell Stamps. I first stamped the words with Memento tuxedo black ink. The pumpkin was then stamped in the center with the tuxedo black and colored with copic markers. I cannot seem to find my marker notes so I can't give you the copic numbers I used. If I find the notes, I'll come back and edit this. The white layer was punched out as well as the orange scallop layer. The back of the lollipops just contains an orange scallop layer to finish out the look.

 

Here are the second set of covers, again using Elzybell stamps and tuxedo black ink. The vampire is colored with prismacolor black marker, copic E00 marker, and his teeth have just a touch of lipstick spica (#21). They are put together exactly the same as the pumpkin pops.

Now for a way to present them.....

 

Here are your two basic supplies, a styrofoam cone and a terra cotta plate. Using spray paint, I painted the cone black. The styrofoam will soak up the paint so I usually reapply about 4 coats of paint. I decided to brush on acrylic paint for the plate although I could have spray painted that too. The plate is painted both inside and out. The only part I didn't bother with is the bottom. Once both parts are completely dry, I used a glue gun to adhere the cone to the plate. Once it was in there securely, I used shredded paper all around the bottom of the cone to fill in that area.

 

Here is the finished tree. The lollipops are placed at angle all around the tree. I've found that around 21 pops fit comfortably without mashing them together too much. Luckily, that's how many kids are in both classes. The tree needed something for the top so I painted two wooden bat shapes black front and back, as well as along the edges. Then I "stamped" the shape in a glue pad and dumped glitter all over the front. Using my glue gun, I adhered both shapes to a plain lollipop stick. The bat is then stuck into the top of the tree to finish off the look.

This is one of my favorite ways to display decorated lollipops. It's fun and festive and relatively easy.

Hope your Halloween was loads of fun - have a great weekend!

Digi Treat Witch

Ah, this is the week of witches and ghosts and goblins. The spooky excitement is building.....

This is the first of the Pink Cat Studio digi stamps that I have tried (although I have bought more than one!). The image was printed on a hp laserjet 4200 printed and colored with copic and prismacolor markers.

Copic: YR68, E00, E37, B02, E35, E31, G07, E29

Prismacolor: black

The sentiment is from The Greeting Farm and stamped with memento tuxedo black ink. Around the image I sponged dusty durango (stampin' up) ink.

The patterned paper is from Little Yellow Bicycle (Frightful - Midnight Dot). 

I will have the apples posted tomorrow (Lisa!)- hope your day is a wee bit less soggy than mine!

Blue Home

I am heaving a sigh of relief now that I have a refrigerator again. It's amazing how long four days without one feels. Now that the fridge is back, we're dealing with ladybugs. If having ladybugs is good luck, then we are covered for months!

I thought I'd spare you today and veer a little off from Halloween. Mind you, it's one of the few non Halloween projects I have at the moment so it'll be back to the witches and such tomorrow.

 

I had to make a new home card for a client and pulled out this set from Papertrey. I've had it for a while and it hasn't seen ink. I figured it was time. All elements are stamped with Memento tuxedo black ink. The house is colored with copic and prismacolor markers.

Copic: R59, Y0000

Prismacolor: cool grey 80%, cool grey 50%, brick white, cool grey 20%

Fairly simple and straightforward. I need to start looking more closely at house colors, doors and roofs so I can mix these colors up a bit. I walk the kids to school every day but never pay any attention to the houses we pass. Being observant is not one of my best traits!

Hope you have a great night!

Sparkly Spiders

Happy Monday!We had a crazy busy weekend! On Friday night our refrigerator died and we've been squeezing in shopping trips in between all the weekend activities. I've got my fingers crossed that the new fridge will be in tomorrow.

I'm still stuck on Halloween here. You have definitely not seen the last of that holiday yet - be prepared! I bet you've never seen a sparkly spider before. Today I have some sparkly spider notecards.

 

The spider stamp is a digi stamp from Whimsie Doodle. I created the text box within Word to the size I wanted and then placed the stamp where I wanted it to go. This one is colored will with spica pens. The web is colored with a silver (#12) pen and the spider with a black (#10) pen. I think the picture does justice to the sparkles.

 

Here's a little offering of the group of sparkly spiders. 

This weekend was Meg's Halloween party and I made sure I took some pictures of the apples Meg and Conor did up with the chocolate and caramel. I haven't uploaded them yet but I promise to do so soon. Have a great night!

Pink Bauble

The day got away from me yesterday and before I could blog, Mo had shut off the computer. I figured I would post first thing this morning so that wouldn't happen to me again!

Today I am posting with a stamp company that is brand new to me - Sugar Nellie. I know, I know, they've been around for a while but I'm slow to catch the trends sometimes. I saw some of these Home Grown stamps and just had to give them a try. Please meet Baubles......

 

Baubles is this cute little Christmas girl. She is stamped with Memento tuxedo black ink and colored with copic and prismacolor markers.

Copic: E37. E00, BV00, RV17, RV11

Prismacolor: Jet black

It's tough to pick up but I used a gold (11) spica pen for the tops of the ornaments and a Sakura glaze pen for small sections on the ornaments.

The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink and also stamped in tuxedo black. The ribbon and button are raspberry fizz (PTI color).

These stamps ink up and stamp nicely. I was able to get good crisp images well. I am really getting into that manga style of drawing so that's what first drew me to these. I've been coloring some others but haven't made cards with them yet - it's a project for another day.

I promise that after we make the chocolate caramel apples on Saturday, I will post pictures. I'm good with the games we are playing that night but I'm still deciding on the craft yet so I need to nail that one down. I think I need to meander over to the Martha Stewart website - she always has great ideas.

Have a great day!

Witch Party

I'm back! Thank you for all the well wishes and for checking on me - it means a lot! I'm still gooky (I'm all about the technical terms) but have it much more under control and finally had the desire to sit down and write tonight.

Last year we let Meghan invite 6 friends and threw a little Halloween party. These are great girls - very fun but also really well behaved and kind so they all mesh well together. I remember it as being fun rather than being WORK, which says a lot about kids' parties (they haven't all felt that way). Since I do remember it as being fun, I told Meghan she could have another one this year.

Right now Meg is into everything Harry Potter. This obsession has been going on since the beginning of the year and as much as they are fabulous books, I am ready for this to pass. But as of yet, it's still going strong and I bet you can guess what my two are going to be for Halloween - Harry and Hermione. Can you tell this from the invite?

 

I am loving the trend of anime stamps and as soon as Gina K released these, I picked them up. Please meet my version of Hermione. She is stamped with memento tuxedo black ink and colored with markers.

Copics: YR68, E00, E37, R59,

Prismacolor: black, cool grey 10%

In the spirit of Gryffindor, my little witch wears black and maroon and her belt buckle is gold (gold spica pen-11).

The sentiment is also from Gina K and stamped with tuxedo black ink.

The background is first dry embossed with the cuttlebug spiderweb folder. I then dry brushed gold glitter paint over the web (Decoart Craft Twinkles Brush On Glitter Paint) for a bit of sparkle.

Now I'm getting into party mode. Luckily, the girls really liked several of the games/activities so I figure why reinvent the wheel and we'll be doing some of the same things again (really, will making caramel chocolate apples ever get old???). 

I have a week's worth of projects to show you so even while I'm prepping for the party this weekend, I will have fun stuff to show off. See you soon!