Heart Balloons at The Outlawz

     Today's card uses Sandi Huggert's image for The Outlaws Creative Freebie Challenge here. You can find Sandi's blog and images here. I decided to make this for a friend's daughter who didn't go away to college, so she doesn't usually get cards when I do my mailings to those away at college. I decided she could use a card too ;- ) My original vision was to paint the whole image with glitter and early on, I did some tests on that, but put it aside (which is never a good thing with me.) So here I am coloring in PhotoShop (which I would have done anyway so there would be color under the glitter ;- ) I tried to stay true to my vision/inspiration and went over the part I had planned to use silver glitter on with the Stardust glitter pen by Sakura. I did paint the red hearts with Martha Stewart glitter. I used black gel pen on the purple balloon. I added red Martha Stewart twine for the balloon strings. The circle and scalloped circle were cut with the Quick Kuts die set made to go with some of the Hero Arts stamps. The sentiment is from Hero Arts Sweet Wonderful You and was embossed with Red Dragon embossing powder from Stampendous. I inked it with Dusty Concord Distress ink. The rick rack was cut with a die from The Scrapping Cottage. Those of you with keen eyes will notice that I put the border on upside down >.< Just shows how things are going in my current state of craziness. I also should have rounded the corners.

     Thanks for stopping by two days in a row. I've have another progressive due on Mon. So I better get to work ;- ) Have a great rest of your weekend!

A Second Penguin Waddles Out.

     A friend of mine came over t make a card for her niece's 2nd birthday and her niece likes penguins. I had already used the gypsy to make the file for a shaped card of a penguin using the Create a Critter cartridge. She said she thought the penguin would look cute with a hat, so we added a hat from the Everyday Paper Dolls cartridge. It is the headwear for the winter girl. We cut the hat twice in both pink and white and paper pieced it and added Martha Stewart glitter. My friend had brought the paper, so I'm not sure what we used. We added wiggle eyes to the face. We hid all contours on the cuts on the Gypsy.

     By the time we got to the inside, we were really pressed for time if we were going to go to lunch and she was going to make it to school on time to pick up her son (ok we were pressed for time throughout it all ;- ) We had some Church website things to work on before we were able to work on the card to begin with.   Sooo, we cut out the body again as a mat for the sentiment. We used Printshop to create a sentiment using  Calibri and NewWGL4 as the fonts. Then, I test cut another body piece in order to get the placement and lined up the piece with the sentiment on it and put it on the mat and by a wondrous act of God, my sentiment was cut in the cent of the body ;- ) We also cut a balloon from Create a Critter (it's the shift of the snake) and the number 2, because she's advanced and can recognize her numbers according to her dotting Auntie (from Birthday Bash.) 

     I thought of a few things I might change or enhance as we went, but we didn't have time, so I might have to CASE myself soon, ha ha. I think a know a young boy who likes penguins, at least he did last year. You may be seeing the updated version of this card in a month or so ;- ) If you'd like the Gypsy file for this, just let me know (with a way to get in touch with you) and I'd be happy to send it to you.


     Thanks for stopping by. Your comments mean so much to me, so if you have time, please leave me one. Have a great weekend!

Two posts in one day ;- )

     Ha! bet you thought I wouldn't be back, well here I am and I will be posting twice because I have 2 challenge deadlines today (did I hear someone say, ahhh, that's why... hmmm.) Well, I've been busy playing scrabble and monopoly and going to the movies and just spending time with my family and friends, while my son was home. Then, there is always a let down after he returns to college. I'm suppose to use this blog and the card making to help me get past that, but I didn't fee like it, so there! I actually have been busy editing photos in Photoshop and I do have another card and a gift holder I made to show you, but I will keep those for maybe tomorrow. We don't want to overload you all in one day ;- )

     The first challenge is CDAC (Creative Digital Art Center). You'll find us here. I used the snow globe image from Crafty Ann's (only, wait, you can't see that yet.) They had provided a number of other nice images that you could pair with it, but since I have a friend whose birthday is coming up and she loves penguins (her name is Gwyn and that is how she explains to people how to pronounce her name correctly, not Gwen), I figured I'd use Meljen's Penguin's Little Letter image to go with it. This will fit her challenge "Anything Goes" so I'll enter it there too ;- ) The images were colored in Photoshop. The black card stock is Core'dinations Black Magic and is embossed with Sizzix's snowflakes. I cut the hole with Martha's circle cutter. I set up the words and the heart on the Gypsy. The letters, except for birthday, are from the Cricut Plantin Schoolbook cartridge and "birthday" is an element from the Cricut Sweet Treats cartridge. The heart was cut from card stock from the Peppermint Forest pack.

front

     I wanted the inside of the card to have a surprise, so that is where the snow globe image can be seen. The sentiment is my own, done in Print Shop. The fonts are LD dabble from Lettering Delights,  Kauffman (the script) and wm Christmas3 for the  skating penguin. You can get it as a freebie here. I added glitter pen to the base of the snow globe and Martha Stewart fine crystal glitter to the snow at the base of the penguin.

 inside card

close-up of image inside card

     This would also make a nice Valentine card. Please leave a comment, because I love to hear from you.  I'm also entering this into the challenge at Going Buggy here for grey (black)/ red/ white. Read the next post for the challenge from The Outlawz.

Finally, a card with a new technique.

     I mentioned in the post from January 24th, that I started one way with this card ended up somewhere else and here is the story. I started with one idea,  then I ran across some vellum sentiments that I liked, so that started pushing the card in a very black and white way. Then I found some paper which was very graphic. I'm writing this from downstairs and without going upstairs to my craft room, the memory has gotten a bit hazy already of all the elements, but when  showed the total to DH he really didn't like the main paper, which had become a focus for me. I had even tried to force the vellum sentiment to fit into one of the rounded black rectangle shapes with a white inside. Basically, the paper was all rectangles in black and white. Very bold. I stepped back and realized this wasn't where I'd meant to go in the beginning at all and now I was forcing it.
     That evening, going through blogs, I saw the main, original idea sparked again on Lucy Abrams blog. Now, the next morning, when I confidently went to execute this great idea, it dawned on me, I think I used those elements on her daughters wedding card, this past summer :- ( I went to check my photo library and there was no photo of her daughters card. It is one of the 3 or 4 that I forgot to photograph.   >.<   Well, I can't chance that, so time for a new idea. Looking around my table there is a stamp I've wanted to use, but haven't had the time to really play with, with some techniques that I wanted to try. AHA!
     So here goes. I took the Hero Arts Starry Night stamp and inked it with all Ranger Inks in Dusty Concord, Chipped Sapphire, Faded Jeans,  Spiced Marmalade, Scattered Straw, Fired Brick and Worn Lipstick. I then spritzed the stamp with some water and added Perfect Pearls. The first example, was my first try, and I didn't think I had used quite enough water, because my mini mister was running out, so the edges didn't blend as much as I would have liked. In the second one you can see, I overcompensated ;- ) Then I got better in the third, but I had used too much Perfect Pearls (might have had something to do with opening it upside down and not wanting to waste any) and so it blocked the transfer of the ink in spots, especially on the setting sun. On trying to repair that, I smeared it. I can recover it by cutting off the snow and adding that part separate or backing it in white. I decided I liked the effect of the first one after all and will hold on to the other two for something else (probably use the second one to punch something out of or as backing paper). You can't see the pearls in the photos, but it gave it a nice iridescence.

Here is the front.

  
     Both the blue and grey papers are from Core'dinations Super Assortment from Hobby Lobby. I used Viva Decor's Holo Iridescent Glitter Liner on the snow and some of the branches, as well as Gelly Roll Clear Star pen on the stars. The font is the Word Art from Gypsy Wanderings and it has a shadow. I had difficulty deciding on the size because it's shown with the Happy over Birthday, but they are not attached and I needed them side by side. I started an 1.25 inches and I believe I finally cut it at 2 inches. Trial and error all the way. I used a pearl to dot the I. Another thing you can't see is I ran the white sentiment through my Xyron and added Martha Stewart Crystal Fine Glitter.

     The inside is the same papers with a digital sentiment. I used Snell bd Bold for the main font and Snowcaps for the "B"'s and "P". I then added Glitter Liner to the tops of the capitol B's and P. The embellishments are Silver Holographic Snowflakes, but the top of the envelope was gone, so I'm not sure whose they are. What would I do differently? I'd probably put the Happy and the Birthday closer together on the front. Otherwise, I'm pretty happy with this card. Let me know what you think. Thanks for spending some of you very precious time with me.