Welcome To Motherhood!

     Here is another wonderful image from Pixie Dust Studios. I am getting so much more comfortable with my Copic markers. I loved this image when I first saw it and thankfully I had an occasion to make a card.

     We have some wonderful friends whose daughter is pregnant with her first child and is due in a few weeks. She is just like one of my daughters so I had to make a really special card for her. She has blonde hair so this was fun to color.

     I used the following colors to do her hair:

Y00,Y11,Y21,Y23 and Y28 for shading. 

     When you do hair it is more like laying down colors rather than blending so you get individual strands of hair. I just kept feathering in colors until I got the right effect. Believe it or not the Y28 is a wonderful color color to use for blonde hair. It seems to make the other colors pop.

     I am still practicing on the facial tones but, for now, these are the colors I used:

E000,E00,E01 and R20 for blush

     Since Becca wants to be surprised, she and John have opted not to find out what they are having so I colored the clothing with a pink top and blue jeans.

Shirt: R81,R83, R85

Jeans: B91,B93,B95,B97

Shoes: E25,E27,E29

Heart: R22,R24,R27

     I added some liquid pearls to the bracelet. The background card is from a stack I have. I also added some  flowers I spritzed with Glimmer Mist and added leaves from a Martha Stewart punch.

     Once the image was colored, I hand cut around the edge and mounted on ovals I cut with Spellbinders. Easy peasy!!! I'll be back later with the same image as a brunette.   

     As always I would love to hear what you think. Hugs for now. 

Stroll With Me

     Happy Hump Day in July. I love the middle of the week in the summer because the week end can't be far behind.Wednesday is WYEGW over at My Cricut Craft Room. What is that you ask? Well it means the Design Team uses the feature keys from any cricut cart we choose. This is a great way to explore all the possibilities the carts have to offer without using the main images.Today I am going to show a baby card I made using Baby Steps.

      Boy was it ever hard to photograph this card! I love to make my own backgrounds so for this card I used glossy card stock and some ranger alcohol inks. I used purple twilight, wild plum and silver and lots of alcohol blending solution. I started by adding my colors and then kept going over it with solution until I got a softer color back ground. This REALLY shines, lol.
     I used the image on page 42 and cut it at 2.75" with the phrase+, (glitter paper) + phrase layer. The edges were inked with Spun Sugar and Milled Lavender. Thistle stickles really make the phrase stand out.

     I decided to use the Inkadinkado flourishes stamp with memento Sweet Plum ink. I added a touch of Opal liquid pearls and some crystals from Say It In Crystals. Just a word about these crystals: they are awesome! All of the embellishments (including the buttons by Doodlebug Designs Inc. for the wheels!) were a gift from Erica. She is the most supportive person I know and love designing for her team. You can find these embellishments in her store Here.

     I also used a corner punch by Fiskar and finished the front with some vintage crochet lace and bakers twine on the wheels. After adding a small satin bow, I called it complete!!!

     The inside sentiment is by Cloud 9 Design "Simple Thoughts-Girl. I used the Spellbinders Nestabilities Lattice Rectangles. That's it for today. I hope you will go back over to My Cricut Craft Room and see what the rest of the team has to inspire you.

     

The Three Wisemen Card

     As you can see I am on a roll with my Christmas cards this year. The more I do the more intricate I am getting. This is my new favorite for the week, lol. Fortunately I had cut these out in anticipation of our possibly losing power. It is truly a miracle that THIS time we didn't. However you can still see the snow that is left over and this is 5 days later.
     This time I went with a 5x7" card base. The card stock is a cream with a nice sheen to it. The image was cut using the Inspired Heart image @ 3" and the background is from a pale blue glossy card stock.I really love using embossing of all kinds on my cards and this has both dry and heat embossing.The background is Swiss dots whereas I used heat embossing for the stars in the upper right hand corner as well as the sentiment "Unto us a child is born".  The embossing powder is a detail silver and really makes a statement! Both stamps are from Inkadinkado.

     The flower was cut from Flower Shoppe cart by ProvoCraft.  I cut them @ various sizes: 1 3/4" and 1- 1/2". I used a DCWV stack and Donna Salazar's technique with the tulle and added some of her Pixie Dust Glitter. I assembled the card by using silver thread to sew the image and background together before adhering it to the card base.

     I thought the flower would balance the stars off and the colors just seemed to fit.It gives it a quiet elegance don't ya think?

     I also added a sentiment on the inside and used a rich blue ink. It says: "Peace on earth will come to stay, when we live Christmas everyday." I just love this sentiment. It would be wonderful if we could have that warm feeling year round, don't you agree?

Nativity Card

     This is one of the religious cards I made for this upcoming Christmas season. I just love the simplicity of it. The green cardstock has a nice sheen to it as well as the cream background. I decided to emboss the cream card stock with the swiss dots cuttlebug folder to add a little texture to the card. (I love texture!)
     The Nativity image is from Cricut "Inspired Heart" cartridge. This cart is amazing! I also made another Christmas card from this cart but I'll have to show you when it's finished (it's still a work in progress, lol).The cartridge has some great cuts especially for sympathy. I have a lot of ideas for those.
     I also added a gold card stock star but can't remember which cart I cut that one from. (guess I'm going senile!). I wanted a somewhat primitive look so that's why I chose the brown background paper but it needed to be dressed up a bit. I happen to have a lot of this textured ribbon so it just finished it off nicely.

     I have been adding sentiment inside some of my cards lately and found this one in a book i recently purchased.Say It With Style is a great book of quotes and it is great for card makers. I bought mine through Annies Attic. Hope you like this latest offering. I have some new photo emulsion I am trying on my Yudu Cardmaker screens. I am getting ready for when my Word Collage cart arrives because I have big plans for this cartridge, lol.

Creative Charms Design Team Call

     The people who follow my blog know how much I rave about the quality of  Creative Charms embellishments. That is why I have decided to try out for their design team. I figure since they are my go to company for their gradient gems , brads, jewels etc. I might as well show them what I have been sharing with you guys. Diane Campbell Payne @ Capadia Designs shared these kits of the month with me through her blog and I have to admit I am hooked.

    
       This really is a simple A2 card (4.25" x 5.50"). The pink card stock is matted with white card stock followed by a plum print and is stitched with a beautiful metallic thread. I used Provo Craft's New Arrival to cut the "baby" scalloped squares. These were cut at 1" and included the shadow feature.  The distressed ink in milled lavender really helps to make the squares pop.
     Now for the fun part! I used a stamp from Inkadinkado and decided to emboss it. I used a flourish stamp with versmark's Dazzle Frost and Zing's metallic finish in silver. Before I adhered all this together I punched two ribbon slots on the fold side and threaded some ribbon so I could make a nice bow to add some interest to the side.
     Here's the exciting "pazzas" part. One of the kits I bought from Creative Charms was the Blooming Garden which had these sparkly pink flowers as well as some felt embellishments. They really brought the card to life. In order to make my silver "stem" show up more I pulled out another kit I had and added some green gradient jewels as well along the stem. Since I wanted to finish the side with my bow a little more I added a clear gradient gem to either corner on this side. Voila, there you have a beautiful baby card fit for the newest princess!
     Wait until you see what I've come up with for the kids table for Easter. Can I just say it has to do with a Blooming Garden, lol.

Welcome baby!

     I'm having a hard time keeping up with all the cards I need to make, lol! We've had 2 birthdays  in the last 2 weeks and 1 more next week before I start on Mothers' Day cards now that the Easter cards are done, whew. However I have been remiss because one nephew and niece have both had babies in the last few months and I still haven't made a card let alone bought a gift! ( I am hanging my head in shame). I am glad they both had boys so I didn't have to think so hard to come up with these.
     First of all I had intended to use this as a color challenge for simply scrapping group but one of the colors was rose/pink so that would not have been appropriate. When doing something for the baby boys I usually do the typical blues and yellows but decided on a peachy color, kraft and blues instead.
     Once again I fall back on my scraps. Believe it or not the background paper was left over from a mini album I did a while ago and I had just enough for the 2 cards! Also, I get so upset with myself that I have small pieces of card stock hanging around that I cut out these baby monograms for boys and girls along time ago and put them in my embellishment box. I'm sure glad I did! I know they were cut from the Mini Monograms and I think it was 1". Next I took a scrap of peach color card stock and ran that through the cuttle bug with the tags die.
     The cute bunny is from Nursery Tails on the Imagine @ 2". I kept all the layers combined and printed the image however I really wanted a shadow on this. This particular image did not have a shadow so I used the background layer and chose a background print that would set it all off by cutting it @ 2.25". Its not quite perfect but I was satisfied enough to apply it to the card with pop dots. I even added a beautiful gradient gem to the flower center as well as the 4 corners of the card. Finished it off with some ribbon and a cute stamped sentiment.
     Now all I have to do is buy the gifts to go with the cards and I'm all set. Thanks for stopping by and be sure to leave a comment and say hi!