Baby Girl Card

If you read my earlier post, you know that I don't scrapbook. I also don't make baby cards. I just never have had the need for one for some reason - until now. A few weeks ago, I posted some samples of baby announcements that I am making for a friend at work and his wife who are expecting a baby girl next month. As luck would have it, two of my favorite challenge blogs have baby themes this week, so what better time to get a card made for them too. By the way, they chose an announcement style and I am working on those now. I will post one of the final versions soon.
I am submitting this card for the following challenges:
Cute Card Thursday - New Beginnings
Stampin' for the Weekend - Babies
Stamp Something - Animal Somethings

The image I chose for this card is In a Nutshell by Penny Black. I wanted to use an image that I don't see very often. I wasn't sure if this little hedgie was supposed to be a baby or not, but it looks like a baby image to me so that's what I went with. The sentiment is from a vellum sheet that I have had since my son was a baby. I think I bought it for those scrapbooks I never got around to. It has several baby quotes and sentiments on it.

I also tried something for the first time on this card - hand-stitching. If you saw my post a few days ago, you know my sewing machine and I don't get along, but I do like the look of stitching on cards, so I decided to try using some embroidery floss and stitching by hand. It was a bit time-consuming, but I really like the way it turned out. I used a zig zag stitch around the outside of the card and a straight stitch around the image and sentiment.

Supplies
Image: In a Nutshell (Penny Black); preprinted vellum sentiment
Paper: Pink and green cardstock (Bazzill); DP - Baby Girl Flowers (Heidi Grace Designs)
Tools: Square, scalloped square, rectangle, scalloped rectangle Nestabilities (Spellbinders)
Embellishments: Ribbon, flowers, button, pearls, pink floss
Techniques: Prismacolor pencil blended with mineral spirits; hand-stitching
Finished card size: A7 (5" x 7")

Kindergarten Scrapbook

I am not a scrapbooker. I tried for awhile, but I think I just didn't have the patience and found those big pages a little bit overwhelming. However, I do enjoy doing theme scrapbook projects on a smaller scale from time to time. My son started Kindergarten this year, and I wanted some way to document his first year of school. This is what I came up with. There aren't any pages yet. I kind of ran out of steam. That image took me just about forever to color.


I'm also submitting this project for three different challenges:
Simon Says Challenge - Back to School
Friday Sketchers - Sketch shown below
Pile it On - Round + multiple challenges - there are circular shapes in two of the papers, the circle at the bottom right, Swiss Dots Cuttlebug folder and round brads

The album is a plain chipboard album that I covered and embellished. I chose the House Mouse image Teacher's Pet for the back to school theme. I received the image in a swap, and unfortunately, it's not the most neatly stamped image, but it's the only one I had. I distressed the papers to help tie everything together. I colored the image with Prismacolor pencils blended with mineral spirits. I rubbed some white artist pastel over the chalkboard to give it a chalky appearance. I'm not sure that shows up very well in the photo. I covered the chipboard letter with paper and added the brads and the star button. The button was actually white. I used my alcohol inks to change the color. I also used the alcohol inks on the brads to make them the right shade of green as I didn't have any the right color. The words were printed on the computer, torn out and distressed.

Supplies

Stamp: House Mouse - Teacher's Pet (Stampabilities)

Ink: Old Paper and Frayed Burlap Distress Inks (Ranger); Lettuce Alcohol Ink (Ranger)

Paper: K&Co.

Tools: Circle and Labels 1 Nestabilities (Spellbinders); Swiss Dots embossing folder (Cuttlebug)

Embellishments: Ribbon (Bo Bunny); Notebook paper tag (K&Co. Tag Pad); chipboard letter (Making Memories); metal photo corners (Oriental Trading); button, twine, brads

Technique: Prismacolor pencils blended with mineral spirits; distressing

Happy Little Piggy

Hello all! I created this card for two challenges this week - Penny Black Saturday Challenge and Scrap and Paper Corner's PaperCrafts forum challenge.

The theme for the Penny Black Saturday Challenge is stitching. I remember now why I never do stitching on my cards. UGH! Maybe I'm too much of a perfectionist, but I am not at all happy with that part. Now that being said, I do enjoy embroidery and cross stitch and I think I would enjoy trying hand-stitching on my cards one day. If I had planned ahead, I would have done that. But alas, I never plan ahead (drives my husband crazy :) I also think I might have liked it better if I had used a zig-zag stitch instead of a straight one. But just to show you how sewing machine challenged I am, I could not get my zig to zag. I turned every dial on that machine in every direction and it wouldn't work. :( And of course, I can't seem to find the instruction manual.

Kari/Heppster is hosting this week's challenge on the PaperCrafts forum at Scrap and Paper Corner. Her challenge was to use an image of a barnyard animal, at least one embellishment and a sentiment. For my image I chose Pinky Joy by Penny Black. I adore piggies and this is one of my favorite stamps. For embellishing I used a ribbon and photo corners, which I ran through my big Kick with my D'Vine Swirls embossing folder. One final note - I was able to make this card all from scraps.

Supplies
Stamps: Pinky Joy (Penny Black); sentiment (Hero Arts)
Ink: Onyx Black (VersaFine); Rouge Chalk Ink (Colorbox)
Paper: light pink cardstock (unknown); dark pink cardstock (Club Scrap); DP - Bohemia (My Mind's Eye) and Blush (Basic Grey) - all scraps from my stash
Tools: 1 1/2" square punch and 1 1/2" circle punch (Creative Memories); classic square and scalloped square Nestabilities (Spellbinders); 1 7/8" scalloped circle punch (Paper Studio); photo corner die (Quikutz); D'Vine Swirls embossing folder (Cuttlebug) sewing machine
Embellishments: ribbon
Techniques: Prismacolor pencil blended with mineral spirits; sewing
Finished card size: A7 (5" x 7")

Baking Tilda for Three Challenges

This sweet little Tilda is for three different challenges:

Just Magnolia - sketch by Rach (shown below). I moved the circle on the bottom left to the top left to suit my preferences and used a flower for the circle on the bottom right. For the circle on the left, I used my new Victorian Cuttlebug embossing folder. I really like some of the new designs that are out now. I added glitter to Tilda's wings and cookies.

Stampin' for the Weekend - pink and gray color challenge. This was tougher than I thought it would be. I have virtually no DP that is pink and gray. I do have pink and I have a limited amount of gray, so I put them together. The mats in the photo might look black, but they are actually dark gray.

Stamp Something - birthday somethings. I added the little Happy Birthday tag to fit this challenge.

Supplies

Stamps: Baking Tilda (Magnolia); Happy Birthday (My Sentiments Exactly)

Ink: Onyx Black (VersaFine)

Paper: Pink cardstock (DCWV); gray cardstock (unknown); gray polka dot DP (Paper Pizazz); dark pink DP (Kay & Co.)

Tools: Rectangle, scalloped rectangle, circle and scalloped circle Nestabilities (Spellbinders); Victorian embossing folder (Cuttlebug); Tiny Tags die (Cuttlebug)

Embellishments: Small flower (Prima); larger flower - silk from my stash; jewelry spacer, pearl, rhinestone brad, glitter

Technique: Prismacolor pencils blended with mineral spirits

Finished card size: 6" square

Couple of Gruffies

These are the last two cards I needed to complete for the House Mouse Merry Go Round swap I am hosting. Participants could send any House Mouse, Happy Hoppers or Gruffies image. Each of the other participants made a card with the image, the the cards were returned to the person who originally sent the image in.


The image on this firs card was sent by Barbara and is called Bear of an Appetite. I also used the sketch that Barbara is challenging us with on the Scrap and Paper Corner PaperCrafts message board. I colored the image with Prismacolor pencils blended with mineral spirits. The papers are all from My Mind's Eye. I added buttons/twine and brads for embellishments.


The image above, Bearied in Paperwork, was sent by Traci. This was definitely the most difficult image for me to work with in the whole swap, but I am pretty pleased with how the card turned out. Again, the image was colored with Prismas. The sentiment "Are we having fun yet?" was printed on the computer. I cut it out with my Nesties and used the Labels 1 Nestie as the mat. I added a spiral clip with some ribbon. The papers are all from a Kay and Co. scrap pack that I got ages ago and has just been sitting in my closet. I don't know why. There are some cool papers in there.

Thanks for stopping by!

Just Magnolia and Sketch Saturday Challenges

Time for one more quick post before the weekend comes to an end. This card is for this week's Just Magnolia Challenge using the Sketch Saturday Challenge sketch.


The theme for Just Magnolia is Friendship and I chose Tilda with Bee as the image. I colored her with Prismacolor pencils/mineral spirits and popped her on top the oval for dimension. I replaced the bee's antennae with little wires and added Stickles to his wings.

The Sketch Saturday sketch is shown above and I think I followed it pretty much to the letter. I used a bit of a different color scheme for me. All the papers are from Deja Views Fresh Print Blue Raspberry Paper and Punch Out Tablet, which I got free at Archiver's last weekend. Gotta love a freebie :). The tag where I stamped the sentiment and the Delight tag in the top flower are also from the tablet. It was kind of cool to be able to easily coordinate everything.

I finished off the card with some Prima flowers and gem brads. The finished card size is 6" square.

Bonjour

This is my entry for this week's Stampin' for the Weekend and Penny Black Saturday challenges.

The theme for Stampin' for the Weekend is Days Gone By. I used to do a lot of vintage style cards, but haven't done any for quite awhile, so I enjoyed this challenge. To get the vintage look, I used the faux linen technique on the script background. I stamped the background on glossy cardstock, then sanded in more or less straight lines both horizontally and vertically. To make the scratches pop so that it looks like linen, I used a sponge brayer to apply Antique Linen Distress Ink over the whole thing. I also inked the edges of my image and sentiment with the same Distress Ink. For the flowers, I inked the edges of the cream color flowers. For the center of the large flower, I used a jewelry spacer and pearl. The center of the smaller flower is a "stud" that is supposed to be used to make designs on clothing. There are little prongs on the back to go through the fabric and an indentation on the front for a rhinestone to be placed. I got several packages of these on clearance super cheap and I thought the design was pretty. I just flattened the little prongs and added a pearl on this one. Finally, I completed the vintage look with a sheer ribbon and little hat pin, which I made myself.

In addition to using at least one Penny Black stamp, the requirement for this week's Penny Black Saturday is a color challenge - blue, tan and cream. The Eiffel Tower image and the little flower with the sentiment are from the Penny Black "Thinking of You" clear set. I realized that I must really love the Eiffel Tower because I have four Eiffel Tower stamps. LOL! They are all different sizes and styles so that's okay. I stamped everything in blue pigment ink then embossed with clear EP. I popped the tower image and sentiment with foam squares.

I hope everyone is enjoying their weekend. I hope to see you again soon!

Supplies

Stamps: Eiffel Tower, small flower (Penny Black); Bonjour (Stamabilities)

Ink: Blue pigment ink (Colorbox); Tim Holtz Antique Linen Distress Ink (Ranger)

Paper: Cream cardstock, glossy cardstock (unknown); Blue pattern cardstock (Club Scrap)

Tools: Square, scalloped square, oval and scalloped oval Nestabilities (Spellbinders); clear embossing powder (Ranger)

Embellishments: flowers (Prima); jewelry spacers, pearls, handmade hat pin, ribbon

Techniques: Heat embossing, distressing, faux linen

Finished Card Size: 5" x 6 1/2"