Flutter By Wednesday #143, Anything Goes!

It's an open challenge today at Flutter By Wednesday. Means you just need to include a butterfly, fairy or angel on your card. I hope you all will play along with us at Flutter By Wednesday and link your creation up at the blog. Don't forget to peak at what the other designers made. You can get to their blogs by clicking on their names to the right, or by going to the Flutter By Wednesday blog.
I pulled out neglected Pink Cat Studio Enchanted Lily, colored her with copics, cut her out and added some stickles. Followed the sketch off My Favorite Things Wednesday Sketch Challenge.
Thanks for stopping by! Hope you play along!
Other supplies: Nesties, Basic Grey Green at Heart pack, primas, stickles, SU Rich Razzleberry ink, SU cardstock, PTI die.

Subdued Sympathy

I always struggle with making sympathy cards. I'm pretty pleased with this one. Nice and soft tones, and the image is very calming. My friend's Mom passed away Sunday after a long battle with cancer. I followed a sketch at Diva Coffee Break Designs. It's a nice layout, that went very well with not over doing a sympathy card. I used a paper pack sent to my by my sweet friend, Tammi. I even decorated the inside of the card. Not something I normally do, but it really does look nice. I used a stamp set from SU for the main image. The sentiments are from Paper Trey Ink's sympathy set, as well as the butterflies, and grass. I used Tim Holtz ink pads, vintage photo, and tea.

Supplies: nesties, copics, stickles, SU cardstock, SU Peace Within, PTI With Sympathy.

Thanks for stopping by.

World Card Making Day.

I made three cards today! Two were the same designs, though. I finally got around to making my Just Magnolia card. I've been dying to play, because I got in some new Magnolias that I haven't had time to ink yet! They had a fun challenge with making your own flowers. They have a tutorial up, so if you need help with that, they got it! I had remembered seeing a tutorial using the scallop punch from Stamp Happy with Sgt. Stamper a few months back and decided to try it. Mine is not nearly as pretty as hers, but it looks good enough to be a flower, so I'm happy! I also did the sketch off Friday Sketchers. I really enjoyed this layout! I think I still had some challenges in my mind from yesterday, because the colors are so alike! On top of that, two holiday cards in a row! Today's paper line was the new Basic Grey line Eskimo Kisses. Such fun paper!Than I needed two sympathy cards. I've been putting them off for awhile, because those are just no fun to make. I grabbed my With Sympathy set from PTI. I kept these simple, and clean. I do like how they turned out, but I wish I would have used blue with the sponging instead of the creamy caramel. The sentiment is from SU. PTI's set is a lovely set for this occasion. The sentiments are so nice.

Supplies: copics, nesties, glimmer mist, Martha punch, SU rose red, creamy caramel, close to cocoa, cranberry crisp, SU cranberry crisp, regal rose cardstocks, PTI white cardstock, stickles,

Mrs. Day's Teacher Gift Book

Here is the other teacher gift I was working on this week. We made a questionnaire for Gabi's teacher, sent it home with the kids for them to fill out. Than they sent it back in with a photo. I went in on Friday to get hand prints from them, and turned those hand prints into an animal of some kind.

I didn't come up with idea on my own. A parent in Trey's class saw it at our local amusement park, and copied the idea. I saw the book, and thought it was darling, and had to make it for Gabi's teacher. The first graders had such funny answers for their teacher. The third graders were super smart and really knew their teacher well!

I was planning on using my bind it all to bind it, but couldn't get it to work well. I think my binding was too thin. But on top of that, I had an awful time matching up a letter size page. I had to bind 24 pages laminated pages. I heard the new pink one was easier for lining up like I needed to do today. Anyone have the pink one? I was planning to have ribbons all over the left side, and instead I had to tie it all together. Wasn't happy about part, but as I told Paul, the prize is inside. I just think it would have looked cuter with the wire binding, and ribbons. I may try to alter that part after we give her the book on Friday. I'd have to get some bigger rings to put on there.

The scissors are covering the children's photos, so not part of the final product! These are just a few of the animals we made. We also had a butterfly, a fish, and a turtle. I added the faces and stuff. Don't I do great artwork?! Looks just like something a third grader would make!

The cover was made with PTI's stamp set. The sentiment reads, To Teach is to touch the future. I went with greens because sage green was her teacher's favorite color. Greens are Wild Wasabi, garden green, and sage shadow. Naturally, had to top off the apples with some stickles.

I felt the heart print on the cover followed the theme in the book well, and the sentiment about touching the future was perfect with the hand prints as well. On top of that, the other moms are making a big tote bag, with her name engraved on it, and covered with the kids hand prints! Everything tied in so nicely!

Sparkle Mouse

I was able to sit down last night while the in laws and Paul were watching the race. I'm not much of a race fan, so I snuck up to the bonus room to stamp. I had picked up this cute mouse image at a local Stamp store when I was looking for Memento black ink pad. They didn't have it, so my friend Amanda in TX, was nice enough to go to her Hobby Lobby and pick one up and mail it to me! Such a sweet thing to do, thanks, Amanda! The ink pad arrived yesterday, and I was dying to see how it would work with the copics. Wonderfully! Now I know why everyone who loves Copics uses that pad!

Anyhow, it's Sparkle's Christmas card challenge. I didn't have time to check to see if she had another challenge up, since I have company. So, my card is the normal A2 size card. This sucker is covered in glitter. I was playing with the Art Institute glue again. That's some cool stuff. I think that metal little tip gets into the small spaces. I used SU's diamond dust, Martha Stewart glitter, and the red is from a 6 kit jar. It wasn't fine enough. Martha has a cool pack of glitter at Walmart and Michaels. I'm thinking I'll be picking that up in a month or two! Cuz who doesn't love some bling?!

Oh, good news! It didn't rain on us yesterday! So, Trey played yesterday. His team is looking like a real team. One little boy had his first out, like he got the kid out, he was so proud! It was so cute to watch! Neat seeing them come together! Today is rainy, so we're trying to come up with something to do, because there are no kids movies out right now!

Supplies: nesties, WOJ sentiment, PTI Pure Poppy cardstock, DCWV Christmas stack, glitter, Copic glitter pen-green, buttons.

Editted to add: You all know I love the images that Elisabeth Bell designs for WOJ, and Sugar Nellies. She's got some blog candy you might want to check out too! Click on here to go see it, and enter to win! She makes the most darling images!

Mojo Greeting

The Mojo Monday sketch is a fun one this week! I pulled out a Greeting Farm set I recently picked up at Rachel Hope's store. Such a cute fun set! Grabbed that DCWV paper stack that I had to have, and whipped up this cutie of a card. I believe the paper stack was Animal Crackers. The cardstock base is PTI Pure Poppy. I think this is becoming a favorite red of mine! I'm not digging my coloring so much on here. I think I didn't have my pen wet enough or something. I didn't go with the copics, because I wasn't sure I had enough browns to color all the animals. I topped it off with some stickles, ribbon and brads.

Moo, CFA!

I worked feverishly last night on making gift cards for the teachers last night. Why do I leave things for the last minute? I was planning on making these all week! Waited til the day before I'm handing them out!

Than, ever have one of those crafting days where you know what you want to do, but something keeps it from being a smooth process? I have made these before, love making them, but man, it wasn't easy last night. From the start I messed up by cutting my carstock wrong!

These are made for holding gift cards. I fill them with a few Be Our Guest cards, BOG's from CFA, for a free sandwich or meal, depending on the BOG coupon. (My husband has a CFA.) These coupons are the size of a business card, and thick carstock. So, they work wonderfully inside of the pocket.

I went for my high quality cardstock, and grabbed my PTI cardstock. I do not recommend using this paper for this project. It's super thick, great paper, but too thick when doubled for the punching of the centers with the word punch window and circle punch, and even harder when I layered on top of that with more papers, I couldn't even get the nesties to cut thru. That caused some issues for me. Than make sure you use the thin the red tape, because the thicker takes up some space inside where the gift cards go, and that made them stick too far out. But you can find a tutorial on SCS, TLC165. Great project, fun, easy, usually anyways, and wonderful way to give a gift card. I made five last night, was planning on making six, but all the little bumps, made it so I couldn't. I couldn't even really concentrate on Lost because I was so involved with them! It was all worth it though, because all the teachers who the kids gave one too, where super happy to get them, and I had waves of compliments from them this morning.

The inside sentiment is from PTI's Teacher set, and says we appreciate you. It also fits so perfectly in the word punch window! I love to use TAC's An'Udder Birthday because CFA has it's way fun cows that tell you to eat more chicken, so that set is perfect to put on the front of the gift card.

Other supplies: Scrappers floss, stickes, nesties, DCWV spring stack, TAC Uptown Girl, felt flowers-found at Rachel's store, buck fifty, scor-pal, TAC retired paper line, lyra water color crayons.

Teacher Tin

It's Teacher Appreciation this week, so I made a small tin filled with Starbucks Chocolates for Gabi's teacher. I used my last little bit of Basic Grey papers Urban Prairie. I'm just about all out of it now! Than I sent my WOJ card with it with kind thoughts since it matched perfectly. I used my nesties to cut out the top circles. The top scallop part was hard, as I didn't have any perfect sizes. I had found the tins at Michael's forever ago for a buck. I lapped the scallop part over, which created a perfect little touch on the side. It took a little bit of hot glue as well as Modge Podge to get it to stick. Than I topped it with a different sheet from the BG line, and flowers. I hot glued the clip on the side, with the sentiment from PTI. I'm so glad they made that set. Works perfectly for adding the right touch on projects like this.

I used a flower from TAC's Beautiful Day set for the shadow on the sentiment sheet.

Paper Mojo

I made this card last night, and really struggled with it. Not sure why, the layout at Mojo Monday was perfect, and I had that part come together so nicely. Than I went to add my images and was lost! I pulled out a Paper Trey Ink set, and got ready to go. But than I struggled getting it to work the way I was hoping. I think it's because I saw so many awesome cards on the blog with the swirly flower and I should have used that part of the PTI set, instead of the part I did use. So, I can see me trying this layout challenge again. I worked on it so long, and it got too late to switch gears. I even left at one point, but found hubby in the shower, which stopped me from taking a bath. (That's not where this post is going!) There would be no hot water for me to take a bath! Instead of relaxing in the tub, I returned to the card, and finished it. I wasn't sure I was happy with it last night. But this morning, looking over it, it's a pretty card. It's just what I was hoping for. If that makes sense!

Supplies: Basic Grey pattern papers, SU Carr. blue, wild wasabi, pretty in pink, SU ink wild wasabi, regal rose, cert. celery, shimmerz blue and pink, gems, primas, TAC Swirly, PTI With Sympathy, nesties.

Lily's Sparkle Christmas Challenge

It's Sunday, and that means Sparkle's Christmas Challenge. Today was a fun one! You should try it out! It was to have a snowman, and bonus if you used pink. Lily is totally perfect for this challenge! I hadn't created a card yet with this image so I was glad to use it! My card got two thumbs up from Gabi when she saw the finished product! Even more exciting because my blog won the new Lily Beach set! That set is so stinking cute, so I can't wait to play with it! Thanks so much for it, Melissa!

For this card, I used the Christmas stack from DCWV. That stack had a few sheets with pink and black, so totally perfect for Sparkle's challenge to use pink today. Better yet, I found it on clearance! The cardstock is PTI Raspberry Fizz. I added black shimmerz to the hat, and buttons on the snowman. Lily is covered in pink shimmerz, and fun flock. I used some glitters from Martha Stewart that I found on clearance for the snow. I colored in the image with copics.

Copic Lily Ladybug

So, my friend Jeannie came over today. She was bringing me some stamps we had ordered together. Got some Sugar in the house today! She also brought over her Copics and let me try them for the first time. I grabbed an old image, that wasn't the best impression when I stamped it-not enough ink coverage, but figuring I just wanted to try them out I wasn't worried about the end result, this stamped image would be fine. Dudes, I had so much fun coloring it in. It's not perfect by any means, the mushrooms need more practice. But I thought the dress came out wonderful, and my skin tones weren't too shabby. Her copic collection were ones that matched PTI's colors, so I just played with random colors that she had, like I said, not paying attention to any final product. After she left, I was happy with how nice and bright the colors were, decided I had to see what I could do with her. I went upstairs, looking at my papers, and found that TAC Genevieve matched my oddball colors perfectly! How cool was that? Than I had to outline the thing with black marker because of the quality of my image. So, my first copic card! LOL! I feel so proud!

Supplies: PTI Raspberry Fizz, TAC Genevieve FWIC, TAC Swirlies-top right, Rachel Anne Miller stamp, dew drops, copics, prima flowers, stickles, Nesties

Bye Bye Dear Friend

My neighbor had to put her dog down this weekend. He's been around for 16 years, so you can image the grief she's feelings. I made a simple card for her. So hard to know what's the right amount of stuff on a sympathy card. I had gotten PTI's With Sympathy set, and the Pet set when my ILS cat died. My sentiment is off, I hate when that happens. I didn't notice until I was too far into the card. I used TAC's Penelope SWIC and DCWV cardstock. And it's made with all scraps! Another one down on Barb's Challenge to use scraps! It's hard to see in the scan, but I used TAC's swirlies on the background, stamped in haystack. The doggie is a GWP stamp from last year's catty. Other supplies: EK punch, stickles, ribbon from Michaels.

Two more quick notes: The blog hop is tomorrow AM, I was confused on some midnight thing. So, be sure to check for links to that tomorrow morning.
And Trey wasn't sick, I forgot to post about that! Thanks for the concerns and well wishes for him!

Lily is Stinking Cute!

Goodness, got to play today with Lily from Pink Cat Studio. I love this Fairy set! So stinking cute! I went a little over board from what I normally do on a card. I love how it turned out! I used the Spring Stack from DCWV. The cardstock base is PTI's Raspberry Fizz. I found the ribbon at Joann's. They have this end cap thing full of it, and it's all of a dollar. They have loads of different colors, sheer, satin, some have plaids, dots, I just love this ribbon, and for a buck, ya can't beat it!

I am a little disappointed that my lilly pad is off center. I ran it thru the nestie trying to crop out part of her head, and I guess I didn't line it up well enough. Oh, well, the joys of handmade! I added Pixie Dust Glimmerz to her wings, Pink Shimmerz to her dress, and some stickles to the ribbon on her dress, and the flower. Layout is based on a Monday Mojo Challenge, but I never seem to leave room for sentiments on the front of my cards. I need help with that!

I popped up part of the lilly, the froggie's head, flower, and part of her arm is up, and the other end is glued down. I also layered the flowers on her headband, but they're glued on, not popped out.

Supplies: Enchanted Lily from Pink Cat Studio, DCWV Spring Stack, PTI Raspberry Fizz cardstock, nesties, glimmerz, shimmerz, stickles, lyra water color crayons, nesties,

Edited to add: You all need to go peak at this link! TAC is holding a contest open to all paper crafters, but you must use their products! So, be sure to click on that link to find out more. Could win $100 worth of TAC stamps!

Simple and clean

One of my sets of in laws lost their pet this past week. Taz was a big boy. He weighted 28 pounds! He was greatly loved, and lived 14 fab years being spoiled by them. He was my FIL's baby. It was a little sudden, as he got sick on Sunday, had surgery to fix what looked like a cyst, poor thing didn't make it thru the recovery after surgery. I had seen the With Sympathy set from Paper Trey Ink, and being a pet lover, I knew I wanted the set for pets as well. I sat down tonight to make them a card letting them know we're thinking about them. It's so hard to lose someone you love, and fur babies touch your lives in ways that can surprise you sometimes. I thought this cat from TAC's Playful Kittens made for a sweet cat to put with the nice sentiments from PTI. I used Sand's of Time paper line from TAC.

Trey had a birthday party on Sat for a fellow classmate. I love this boy set from Elzybells. Trey loves skateboarding. Makes for perfect cards for little boys. I didn't put a lot of bling on there, because I have yet to find a male in my world who appreciates that! LOL! The paper is from a K&Co set that I haven't seen at Michael's recently. The sentiment is from a retired TAC set called Hang loose. Solid cardstock is from SU, Ballet Blue, and Tangerine In color.

Both images where colored with Koh-i-noor and primsa colored pencils and rectangle nesties.

Teacher's Valentines

I had some left over mailboxes from Target last year, so I put together more Valentine mailboxes filled with candies for the kids teachers. I made these for their teachers last year too, and they all loved them. So, I knew they'd be a big hit again this year. Nothing new and fab on that end, but always a favorite crafting project! Busy time of the year for me with the school yearbook. But I will be posting some TAC Butterfly bit cards by this weekend as part of that blog hop I signed up for. Not much free time this week!

The most difficult part about making these was finding my hot glue gun. Which is still missing! This reminds me of a story about my son from last year. They joked at school to look for it in the son's room. Last year he got into it, plugged it in, put it on the carpet, and I discovered it two days later melting on the carpet! YIKES! Sadly, I kept smelling burning stuff while I was at my crafting table, and kept looking for something that was burning, and didn't notice it! The other joke was to see if he was trying to use it to glue the fur back on the cat! Cuz he tried to shave our cat last year too, about the same time he tried to burn down the house! Sigh! That child of mine! LOL! Got sidetracked, I used my embossing gun to melt the gun sticks to attach the flowers and the buttons.

I used two TAC sets I got during the 50% off promotion. The heart is from Forever Family, I trimmed the scroll under the heart off, so they're two pieces instead of one stamp. They fit nice together still, so I can use it that way too, if I want too. The others are from Sweet goodies. I had fun with that set, putting it together with the nesties. They worked great together! Don't you love how you can stamp on just about anything with Palette ink pads? Gosh, they rock!

Supplies: TAC's Forever family, sweet goodies, Palette ink Moulin Rouge, and PTI Berry Bliss ink pad, PTI Berry Bliss card stock, DCWV cardstock, glitter pen, stickles, embossing powder, modge podge, nesties, scrappers floss, misc flowers, and buttons on hand.

Circle yourself with the holidays!

For Sparkle's Christmas challenge this week, she challenged us to use circles on our card. I started thinking about this yesterday, and decided I wanted to try to make a circle card. I thought the largest scallop nestie would work well for the shape of the card. It worked great, but the card is a bit smaller than I expected, but I'm so pleased with the results. I than did the embossing with other nesties around the opening, and around the snowmen on the inside. I love how this turned out! It's not exactly how I envisioned, but I think it looks so stinking cute! I forgot before I took the photo, that I wanted to add fun flock to the sheep.

Supplies: TAC snowman nativity, nesties, stickles, shimmerz, stickers from Target, lyra water color crayons.

For my CC Design card, my friend Tammi sent me the image for my birthday. Gosh, such a fun image! Keep with the challenge of using circles, grabbed my CB folder, and some DCWV paper that had circles on it. I cut the image out, and put it in the circle. I love that look when people do that on cards, so I had to try it out. I love the bright colors of this card! For the brim on her hat, I used fun flock, with added glitter to it for a little more sparkle.

Supplies: CC Designs, PTI Pure Poppy cardstock, DCWV Christmas glitter slab, fun flock, stickles, SU pretty in pink, nesties.

Merry and Bright

My sweet friend Tammi sent me some surprise Hangler images in a card recently. I wasn't sure I was up to the challenge on coloring them. The cards I've seen with this style of stamp are created by such great colorers (is that a word?), I thought I'd ruin the poor images she sent! But they are so cute, they were calling to me today when I had time to create. I should have been wrapping gifts, I totally pulled it out instead of the wrapping paper. I also pulled out a fab gift Kim gave me during a LSS round that had sketches to find a layout. As perfect as this is, I found one of Tammi's she'd listed in the book, so I went with that layout. Than I went digging thru my stash of papers. I just love this retired set of Christmas papers from TAC, the sentiment is a stamp set they had last year at Christmas time too. Than I sat down to color her in with gamsol and primsacolored pencils. I think she turned out super cute! Now I just know I'm gonna have to buy some of my own! Dang, they're too cute! I tried a new product on the wings too, that shimmerz stuff, I used silver bells color on her wings. The card base is my first sheet of cardstock from PTI. This is the poppy color. Very nice cardstock! I was impressed with how sturdy it was! The button brad was colored over with a palette ink pad, followed up with embossing powder, and heat set to match her outfit better. I used different colors of stickles on the hearts. I can see Kim cutting out the basket and popping it out!

Two stamp companies were tried in the making of this project!

I've been super busy this week. I was working on finishing up my teachers gifts, and Gabi's very busy with dance stuff. She dances in the Nutcracker tomorrow. Here she is in her costume from the parade. I will follow up with a sweet photo of her in her Nutcracker outfit later. I didn't get a good shot tonight. I got a photo of her in it, but man, she was a mess in it! Put 1 ADHD kid in a white costume + 3 hours of dance time=1 messy looking little girl! Girl had me in stitches when she started telling me what she thought of men in tights!

Back to the crafting....I instantly fell in love with Teacher's apples at Paper Trey. Got it the second I saw it. I had been wanting a set for teachers stuff that wasn't kiddy in nature. The sentiments with this set are perfect! Than the mind started to work, and I came up with a perfect idea for Gabi's teacher. Using the sentiments in this set, I pictured hall passes on coasters, so they would hold up well to the kids little hands. I help with the PTA so I thought, cool, I can even get them laminated too! I didn't want to use the apples for the whole thing, and thought a teacher image with the apples would work well. On the front I wanted to use teacher Bella. I don't know about you all, but I have a local LSS store that sells bellas, so I headed there the next morning to get it. She didn't have her. Bummer!

So, than my next thought went to my friend, Tammi, who had used her in a calendar she made for my pie guru friend for a Lostie swap. I called Kim, had her look at Tammi's blog while chatting with me, Tammi got the image from Danni. Now Danni doesn't know me well, so she's not familiar with my um, bold crazy self! I get in touch with her, asking to trade some images. Isn't it nice to know that crafters are that nice you can just email someone like that?! Anyhow, sweet Danni had gotten the image of a wish list, she didn't have the stamp. I needed so many of them, I didn't want to bother a complete stranger for the images. I than checked to see if I could get it from Bella in time. No such luck-mental note, start earlier next year. Than I start to think about who all makes teacher images. I finally remembered there was one at MFT. Two new stamp companies were tried in the making of this project! LOL! I'm spreading the love around!

Enclosed with the hall passes, I made her a monogrammed set of cards. PTI had the cool the clear boxes that I had almost ordered at another site. Those made the monogrammed cards look so pretty! Plus, it saved me some time making the outer box I had made for the other cards. Than at PTI they had this super cool teacher questionnaire thingie to tell their story thru a journal. I put a nice journal inside for her to write. I printed off that, it even comes with a cool letter explaining it! I cut them, curled them, put them in a little jar I had floating around, decorated it to match the monogrammed cards, and there was a beautiful set for Gabi's teacher. All nice and personalized too! I didn't get to see her open it, but I really hope she enjoyed it!

I used more of the K&Co paper, SU scallop punch, stamps from MFT, CTMH, PTI, Palette ink pads, Lyra water color crayons, clear box from PTI, little jars from Michaels, and scrappers floss in brown.