My Favorite Things "Bitty Bears" Wednesday Sketch Challenge

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you're having a great day.

So remember back in June when my part-time job went full-time? One of the other part-time people got a full-time job so we've had to hire a replacement for her. So far, I gotta say she's pretty awesome. Anyway, because she also has a full-time job, her training has to happen after hours, so on Tuesdays and Thursdays I'm at work until 9:00pm, but it kinda works out because I get to start later so I have some extra crafty time during the week! YAY!!!

For today's card I'm working off the MFT Wednesday Sketch Challenge; each week they provide you with an inspiration sketch and you use your stuff to make a card, then enter it in the challenge. If you click on over to the Recognition page, or have been following my blog for a while, you'll know that I used to participate in challenges all the time, like dozens a month. But since going full-time I haven't really done as many because there just doesn't seem to be any time left in my day. This morning, I put together this card and will be submitting it to the challenge.

Hopefully this productivity continues.

To begin, I used Mermaid Lagoon, Peacock Feathers and Cracked Pistachio Distress inks along with my Lori blending brushes to create an ombre background.

I set that aside to dry then stamped the greeting and three of these adorable little bears from MFT's "Bitty Bears" stamp set with Memento Tuxedo Black ink on 110lb Copic-friendly cardstock and coloured them with Copic Markers.

I then used a stitched square die to cut out the little guys and one of the banner dies from MFT's Die-namics Blueprint #27 to cut my banner.

Once the background panel was completely dry, I adhered it to the front of my standard A2 sized card base and used foam tape to pop up the squares. The banner was adhered with 1/4" Scor tape to lay flat.

To finish off the card, I added a bit of sparkle to their noses and used a black gel pen over the eyes of each bear to make them stand out.

I hope you like today's card and are inspired to create something of your own. If you haven't already, please follow me on the right side bar, over on Facebook and on YouTube. Drop me a line in the comments section below and let me know what you think!


This card is for:

Lawn Fawn "Butterfly Kisses" Happy Spring Slider

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you're having a great day.

Today, I have a super cute spring slider card featuring Lawn Fawn's "Butterfly Kisses" stamp set, along with the Slide on Over die set. As soon as I saw this set the idea for this card flew into my head and I couldn't wait to get it out and on to paper (literally).

I stamped all the images with Memento Tuxedo Black ink on 110lb Copic-friendly paper and coloured them in with Copic markers. I then fussy cut them out.

I used my homemade cloud stencil and Tumbled Glass Distress inks with the Lori blending brushes to create the sky. I cut down two pieces of cardstock with the grassy border dies and used Mowed Lawn and Cracked Pistachio Distress Inks to create the ground.

Once the ink was dry, I used one of the Slide on Over dies to cut my track. To make the butterflies appear to be floating I adhered them to a small piece of acetate. I placed the fox over the track and used a small piece of foam tape to attach him to a penny. Next I adhered the background grassy piece with additional foam tap to ensure that the penny will slide smoothly.

The bunny and the bear are adhered directly to the foreground grassy piece and that was attached to the panel as well.

The entire piece was adhered to the front of as standard A2 sized card base.

I hope you like today's card and are inspired to create something of your own. If you haven't already, please follow me on the right side bar, over on Facebook and on YouTube. Drop me a line in the comments section below and let me know what you think.

This card is for:

Back to School | ft. MFT's "Class Act"

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you are having a great day.

Today I have a card that I made for a dear friend who decided to go back to school. I cannot say how much I admire her for taking this plunge and I wanted something to do something to let her know how proud I am. I know it sounds corny, but it's the truth. I've thought about it for a long time, and never had the courage to reapply - I'm not even sure what I would go back for.

To begin, I stamped the small pencil from MFT's "Class Act" down the left side, using Memento Tuxedo black ink on 110lb Copic-friendly cardstock. I then stamped the girl and the greeting, all from the same set (I love this set).

I coloured all the images in with Copic markers. I used Spectrum Noir Sparkling Clear Sparkling overlay to the silver parts of the pencils, her boots and bag as well as her bows (If you are interested in seeing the difference between the Spectrum Noir and the Wink of Stella, please click here.)

I then adhered the panel to a piece of red cardstock for a fun border and then mounted the entire piece to a standard A2 sized card base.

To finish it off, I used glossy accents over the silver on the pencils and added a few sequins over the right of the girl.

I hope you like today's card and are inspired to create something of your own. If you haven't all ready, please follow me over on the right side bar, if you are viewing this via mobile device, scroll down to the bottom and click "View web version" first. You can also follow me over on Facebook. Toss me a line in the comments section below and let me know what you think.

This card is for: 

Simon says Stamp Wednesday Challenge

Back to School

Product Review Series | Tombow Mono Sand Eraser 512A

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you are having a great day.

I don't know about you, but I have been hearing a lot about the Tombow Mono Sand Eraser, everyone is using it and it honestly seemed to be too good to be true. Like one of those things where we all like the rest of Tombow's products so why wouldn't this one fall in line as well?

Dimensions of the Tombow Mono Sand Eraser 512A

So naturally, I had to get one and test if for myself. I purchased the "Tombow Mono Sand Eraser 512A for Ink". I tested this using my 8 most frequently used mediums for card making. I will post the before and after photos and then I will go through each and discuss what I found.

Below, on the left is my tester sheet. I used 110lb Copic-friendly cardstock. I chose this cardstock because it my primary choice for card making and felt that since I would be using this the majority of the time it should also be the one that I use for testing. On the right, I have the exact same sheet after using the eraser. I attempted to make each of the marks as though it were "accidentally" done through regular use.

1. Ball Point Pen: An accidental scuff with a regular blue ball point pen should pose no problems. The sand eraser takes the light scuff right off with very little damage to the paper.

2. Pencil: Comes right off. I'm not sure why you would choose to use the sand eraser over a regular white eraser when it comes to getting pencil off, but you never know, so I thought I'd include it.

3. Zig Clean Color Real Brush Marker: (Deep Green) This took a lot of effort. A very light scuff should be no problem but if you drop the marker tip down (we've all done it) you may have to cover it or start again.

4. Tim Holtz Distress Marker: (peacock feathers) This eraser won't help you. As you can see above I was unable to get much of this marker off the page at all. There was substantial damage to the page and the results were not worth it.

5. Memento Tuxedo Black ink: We've all scuffed a stamp or gotten ink on our fingers. Provided you didn't drop the entire ink pad face down on the paper, this eraser should help you. I was able to get the light scuffs off, with very little effort and very little damage to the paper.

6. Copic: There's no hope. Because of the way Copic markers work, I didn't expect the eraser to yield any results.

7. Black Glaze Pen: Will remove the light smear with very little damage to the paper. And honestly, who hasn't smeared an eye at least once?

8. Pigment Liner: (Staedtler Pigment liner 0.3) medium damage, removes tail.

Overall, I'm rather impressed with this product. It also removes most coloured pencil provided you are working with decent quality paper, it also removed glitter pen from my clear Gelly Roll Stardust pen.

Pros:

• Quality vs. Cost is very good
• Widely available, in art stores or online
• Works on a huge variety of mediums
• Requires very little pressure
• Very little to moderate damage to paper, depending on the pressure you apply

Cons:

• Very Crumbly/Breakable
• Leave a lot of dust during use

I found it worked best when I held it upright and only used a tiny bit of pressure, working in small circles. That reduced the amount of damage to the paper. Because of the amount of dust the eraser leaves behind during use, I found that wiping it away won't help the situation, use a loose brush or tip and tap the piece over a garbage to remove the grit.

I hope you liked today's review. If you haven't all ready, please follow me over on the right side bar so you don't miss any future reviews or projects. If you are viewing this via mobile device, scroll to the bottom and click "View Web Version" first. You can also follow me over on Facebook. If you have any questions about this review, or have a suggestion for a future review, toss me a line in the comments section below and let me know. I would love to hear from you.

*Disclaimer: I am not sent products for review, nor am I paid to review them. I review the products that I find interesting and that I purchase myself, with my own money and I receive no incentive, reward or payment to do so.

Valentine's Day 2016 Series - Card 11

Hi everyone, thank you for stopping by. I hope you are all having a great day.

Today I have the eleventh card in my 2016 Valentine's Day Series. I honestly didn't think I would get the last couple up, everyone has been super sick the last couple weeks so it has been really difficult to get the creative gears going.

To create this card, I used the negative space from a heart die cut that was used on another project. I then took the small gears from Lawn Fawn's "Beep Boop Birthday" stamp set and stamped them randomly in different colours. I used the tiny little heart to fill in some of the blank spaces.

I had to do a bit of masking to make it look as though the robots were holding hands. I coloured them with copics, added some clear wink of stella and covered them with glossy accents. I don't have the coordinating dies for this set, so I fussy cut them out. Which I guess I would have had to do anyway since I changed the arm positions and had them touching. Both robots are raised on 1/8" foam squares.

I used a black gel pen to add some stitching detail around the heart. 

For the greeting I used a small CTMH alphabet stamp set and then banner cut the strip. To finish it off I matted both the greeting strip and the front panel on some deep red cardstock.

I hope you all enjoyed this card and are inspired to create something of your own.

This card is for the Lawnscaping Challenge: #123 Sending Love, sponsored by Ellen Hutson

Don't forget you can follow my blog using the blue button in the right sidebar.

Valentine's Day 2016 Series - Card 5

Hello everyone, I hope you are having a great day. Thanks for stopping by.

I created this card using the MFT mime from their Pure Innocence lineup. It wasn't until I had her stamped out and a basic idea for a layout that I realized I had no idea how a mime was really coloured, I knew they wore black and white, but not really how the outfit was put together. TG for google, right?

I coloured the mime with copics and used clear Wink of Stella on her hat and pants to add a bit of shimmer, because why wouldn't they sparkle?

The background panel was created with Lawn Fawn's "A Birdie told me" speech bubble stamp set. Given the sentiment that I chose from the MFT set, I thought the empty speech bubbles were a perfect compliment for the card. The panel was then put on a piece of heart patterned paper. And finished it off with enamel hearts from CTMH.

The sentiment inside says "No Words. Just Love." Sometimes there aren't words to express how you feel, not only is this super cute, it's also quite clever.

Stinkin' Cute Shaker

Okay, so this doesn't really count as a card, but it's so "stinkin' cute" I just couldn't resist.

Oh, right and WELCOME TO VALENTINE'S DAY 2016 SERIES!

I created this with the Ready, Set, Snow die cuts from Lawn Fawn and the Stinkin' Cute skunk. I will warn you now; I love this little guy. I promise you can expect to see him in many future posts. 

I used distress inks to colour the background as well as the shaker frame and I popped up the front on a piece of fun foam that I die cut. I'm going to have to play around with the glue because this did not stick together as well as I would have hoped. Strange that it never happened on any of my other shakers, just this one. 

Copic coloured (adorable) skunk in heart sequin shaker with heat embossed greeting. 

Christmas Caroling Critters

Hi everyone, thank you so much for stopping by today! Not only could I not resist one more Christmas card, this card is for the Lawnscaping Challenge #120 "Merry Christmas" sponsored by Lawn Fawn.

After doing so many snowflake themed cards and winter scene cards, I thought it might be nice to mix it up a bit. Today's card features five adorable Lawn Fawn critters out Christmas caroling. 

Supplies used:

• Distress Inks
• Chipped Sapphire
• Dusty Concord
• Seedless Preserves 
• Mowed Lawn 
• Shabby Shutters 
• Lawn Fawn Stamps
• Party Animal
• Holiday Party Animal
• Stinkin' Cute
• Memento Tuxedo Black Ink
• Copic Markers
• Black Gel pen
• Strathmore 140lb Watercolour paper
• Recollections Sparkling Cardstock
• Random Green Cardstock from my stash
• Music Note accents

Update: January 2 2016




Honorable Gnome for the Lawnscaping Challenge! WOOHOO!!!
Thank you all so much for your support and encouragement. I'm so happy to be part of this community.

Winter and Holiday Card Series 2015 - Card 23

This set was also from my sister and again it was too cute to set aside. Despite having dozens of other cards to make, it was really great to sit and just let this card fall into place.

Images like this one and the penguins from the previous post, are wonderful for practicing colouring. No matter what your colouring medium may be, having simple but interesting designs to colour are inspiring. You can easily stamp half a dozen of these and try any number of techniques and colour combinations until you find what works best for you.

Copic coloured snowman and penguins with poinsettia patterned paper boarder. I used two shades for the penguins, their hats and scarves as well as the snowman's scarf, and three shades for the snowman's jacket and hat.

Winter and Holiday Card Series 2015 - Card 22

My sister found this adorable stamps set for me a couple weeks ago while she was shopping and I couldn't wait to use it.

I had a lot of trouble trying to find something that would compliment it without taking away from them. In the end I couldn't find anything that wasn't overly distracting so I left it as is. To avoid having the penguins floating about on nothing, I used a W1 marker to ground them, subtle but effective.

Copic Coloured Joy Penguins with poinsettia patterned paper boarder. I used a glitter pen to go over the "Joy", but the camera didn't pick it up well.

Winter and Holiday Card Series 2015 - Card 13

In making this card I wanted to capture a little bit of the fun that comes with winter. The winter season can last up to six months in Alberta so winter activities are as much a part of our lives as summer walks and flowering gardens. Even spring bunnies need to find something to amuse themselves for the rest of the year.

This bunny is making the best of his time while wishing you all a very Merry Christmas.

Shimmering "Merry Christmas" background with stitched hillside boarder snowbanks and copic coloured winter rabbit.

Winter and Holiday Card Series 2015 - Card 12

Warm scenes make for a warm heart.

I made this card with a couple different stamp sets. One of the best things about Lawn Fawn is most of their sets are incredibly compatible with each other. It makes creating unique scenes so much easier to do.

Glittered snowbank with snowflake background, Copic coloured trees and house with raised winter fox.