Every sip of the way!

Somehow I missed posting this back in January when I made it, so here she is! That's another of the great frogs from My Favorite Things' Toad-ally Awesome, a wineglass cut from vellum from last year's "Wine Service", and a sentiment from MFT's "Good Time to Wine".

Bonus, the inside sentiment is also from "Good Time to Wine".

Scream! It's Valentine's Day!

Can you tell I have a bad attitude about this? I still have a bunch of stuff in that Simon Says Stamp kit from a year ago, but I am sick of lovey cards. And it's not even February yet. I'm going to give them away, of course, but still, I'm tired of them.

So, I decided to make cards that just say "Happy Valentine's Day". Well, the only sentiments in my stash that say that are mixed sets that cover everything.  I decided to go snarky and pulled out more of these My Favorite Things' "Monster Sized" and I cut up the sentiment that said "Scream! It's your birthday" and cobbled this one together.

It's missing something. More hearts, maybe? I'm still working out if I'll decorate the inside or not.

Work those Polychromos! Just work them better, please!

Why yes, I am going to use those frogs I colored with my Polychromos pencils, even if they are not colored well.

These frogs are from My Favorite Things' Toad-ally Awesome set. I colored some green ones and some red ones.  While I am not happy with the results, I'm going to use them on cards, anyway.

The sentiments for the pink card are from Hero Arts, a really ancient set. Ancient by card making standards these days, that is.

The plaid backgrounds are from MFT also.  These were supposed to be for a sketch challenge, but I missed the deadline, again. Good grief.

Deck the Howls

Today, 2 new cards featuring the cute Christmas dogs from My Favorite Things' Deck the Howls set. The dogs are so cute, but I learned this time that when using Copic markers, the paper REALLY matters. For these cute dogs, I stamped them with MFT's Extreme Black ink on MFT's Smooth White card stock. It came in the flamingo kit, and it feels wonderful. But, I won't do that again as the Copic colors bled, a lot. I  had stamped them 2 times, so the next group will be some other color medium, like pencils. This card stock will make great bases, though.

Anyway, for the red card, I die cut the word Joy from 3 different fonts, and had the dogs (and a bone) coming through the "O"s.  On the green card, I used the new free word die, and added a couple of dogs. I will stamp an appropriate dog-themed sentiment on the inside.

Yes, another flamingo card! This flamingo is colored with my Polychromos pencils on some very inexpensive children's watercolor paper from Walmart. I like it because it has a pretty good texture for colored pencils.

Let's ink up a book!

I took a page from an old book, and inked it up with Distress Oxide inks and a stencil, then cut out a raggedy panel with a die.

I really love the look of text backgrounds, but sometimes I find myself trying to read them. What's up with that?  It's like always noticing the tune in the elevator and trying to identify it.

The butterfly, dragonfly, and botanicals are from My Favorite Things' Fluttering Friends, and are colored with my Polychromos pencils and cut with my Brother Scan N Cut 2. I finished it off with a circle die cut and some Nuvo drops in gold.

Now, back to more Christmas cards when no one is looking.  I'll share them all in November/December.

Here come the Valentines! Almost.

Yes, I have climbed up onto the Valentine wagon, sort of. Although I'm kind of wondering why. I presume I'll mail a small amount of these and donate the rest, somewhere.

The monsters above are from My Favorite Things' Monster Sized, again. Yes, I DO have a lot of them already colored with Prismacolor or Polychromos pencils, all cut up with my Brother Scan N Cut 2, ready to go, so why not?  A strip of black and white striped paper, a couple of die cuts, some ink, and it's good to go!

The cat below is from Tim Holt's Crazy Cats collection. A bright pink cat? Why not? He is colored with my Spectrum Noir markers, and mounted on double stitched hearts (diecuts from Gina Marie Designs), The sentiment, and striped paper accents are from My Favorite Things. 

Are these really Valentines? Probably not, but what the heck. They will have an appropriate "Happy Valentines' Day" greeting inside, to redeem them.

Monster greetings

I was too late for the sketch challenge, and I couldn't decide whether to share this one or not. But, keeping it real, here goes.

I had colored up an entire 8.5 by 11 sheet of card stock with these cool monsters from My Favorite Things. They are called Monster Sized, and they are very cute.

While I followed the sketch to the letter, I felt that the card was lacking something. I drew in some black stitching lines around the center panel, but it still doesn't please me.

My goal last week was to color a lot with my Prismacolor Pencils, and I did do that. I also ordered a set of Polychromos pencils and used them for a bunch of the monsters, too. While I couldn't tell much difference in the results, I will say coloring with the Polychromos was more pleasant. They blend nicely, of course, but I used the Gamsol anyway. 

I showed some of these over on Instagram (@cardsanddogs) for the Daily Marker's 30 day color challenge.

The dark purple one on the end of the 3rd row was done with my Zig Clean Color real brush markers. This is totally the wrong paper to do that on, so he'll hit the can.

I also discovered that my Scan and Cut was seeing things that are not there. 

The nice expert on Facebook told me that my machine needs re calibrating. I sure hope that helps. I just got a new blade and cutting mat for this .