It's your hippo day!

Today's card is a simple card with lavender hippos. Why not? The hippos are colored with a combination of Copic markers and Spectrum Noir markers. I really don't like the Spectrum Noir purples. They are very hard to blend.

The hippos are My Favorite Things' Happy Hippos. The yellow dots are Tonic Nuvo drops. I've never had issues with the bottles before, but I guess you need to start somewhere. I think lumpy dots give the card character, don't you?  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
 

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.

Bear and frog thank you

Here's a simple card I made for a young friend who lives in Arizona. He doesn't get back to Florida very often, and of course, I miss him.

The bear is from My Favorite Things' Warm and Fuzzy Friends, and the frog is from MFT's Witch Way is the Candy. The sentiment is from the Warm and Fuzzy set, too. The bear was colored with my Spectrum Noir markers, and the frog was colored with my Zig Clean Color Real Brush markers.  Both images were attached flat onto die cuts that have been on my desk for months. 

I miss my friend a lot, but this card is really all about checking his address. I don't know if he's moved since last Christmas, and I want to know for sure before I send out my holiday cards. 

Christmas cards, going to the dogs!

I have the cutest stamps from My Favorite Things called "Happy Pawlidays". The dog images are the best! I made all three cards with the "Merry and Bright" sentiment from last year's "Hand Lettered Christmas". I heat embossed them in red, copper, and green.

By the way, this is what happens when too much is going on on the desk and I grab a card right in the wet Nuvo drop. I sort of fixed it later, but boy was I mad at myself.

These black pups are colored similarly to my sister-in-law's newest addition. He's mostly black with a few tan highlights, most noticeably over his eyes. I used my Spectrum Noir markers for the pups. The copper metallic paper is hard to photograph, but is shiny and bright in real life.

Lastly, for today, is this tan puppy in a dotted scarf. The holly berries are made from Nuvo drops, and once again they kind of spread and 2 became 1. I'm not even going to try to fix that one.

Starting early on Christmas, for once.

Yes, for once I'm going to have at least some of my Christmas cards done before Thanksgiving. That last minute scramble may mean cool things coming out of the craft room, but it also means the cards go out the week before Christmas. That in turn means they will spend less time on refrigerators and get trashed even sooner. I'm realistic enough to know they don't get saved like precious works of art, so there you have it.

These cards have very little coloring and no fussy cutting, so they go together quickly. I did several of each design.

The green card features the dog from Avery Elle's "Happy Howidays" set. 

The red card below features the snowman from The Alley Way Stamps' Melt Your Heart Out" set from a a couple of years ago.

Both also feature My Favorite Stamps' "Hand Lettered Christmas" greeting in gold embossing. 

Believe it or not, my new Halloween stamp is coming via FedEx later today, so I may even get a few of those done before the spooky holiday, too. Shh, don't tell anyone, I only bought it for the frog and the pumpkins. 

Unicorns or Pegasus?

I discovered, to my amazement, that I didn't have any unicorn stamps. None except the toy pony with a tied on horn and wings.

I went a little crazy and got several unicorn products, including this Avery Elle "Pegasus Pair".  Expect more unicorn cards from me in the future!

These cuties were colored with Spectrum Noir markers, coated with Spectrum Noir sparkle pen, and  cut with my Brother Scan and Cut. I took a white rectangle panel and smeared on some Distress Oxide Inks. Gosh, I love working with that stuff! I then put the whole thing on a plaid background paper from My Favorite Things and added a sentiment strip that is white embossed on black cardstock. I finished the whole thing off with some Nuvo Jewel drops in coordinating colors.

So, if it has wings that makes it a Pegasus? I'm still calling these guys unicorns though.

Cold nose, warm heart

Today's card is in answer to 2 new challenges this week. The Color Throwdown challenge this week is Hot Pink, Lime Green and Yellow. (CTD456)

I colored my My Favorite Things'  "Top Dog" dogs with Spectrum Noir markers, and arranged them on a circular panel that's stenciled with Twisted Citron Distress Oxide ink, on another panel that has Fossilized Amber, Picked Raspberry and Twisted Citron Distress Oxide ink blended on and sprinkled.

In order to follow the My Favorite Things sketch challenge (mftwsc346), I needed to add a vertical element under the left side of the circle, but I kind of forgot until it was glued down. Vellum to the rescue! It's over, not under, but I'm going to call that artistic license.

Challenges are a challenge, alright.

So, I decided to do a challenge this afternoon,  and ended up doing 2 of them. One was a sketch challenge from My Favorite Things, and another was a color challenge.

This was my 2nd attempt at the sketch. It turned out OK, but my first attempt, below, is not my finest work, and I probably won't be putting my name on the back of it.

Things actually started to go very sideways when I edited the photos, however. I was using PhotoShop Elements 11 and got an error message when I attempted to type in my blog address on the photo.  The interwebs told me to uninstall any fonts that came with the program, so I did. Now none of the drop down menus have any text and I have to go find the fonts I uninstalled.

I went back to PSE 2 in the mean time to finish what I had started. I've had that program for about 13 years.

I'll save my Brother Scan and Cut mat story for another time.

Flippin' awesome!

I have been experimenting with brick backgrounds this week, and here's my latest.

The brick background is from a cheap embossing folder (maybe Darice?) that I've had for a while, and I lightly went over it with Distress Oxide in Iced Spruce.

The fat chef is from My Favorite Things' Recipe for Happiness, and the red frame is from MFT's Blueprints 27. The blue background panel is cut with my new rectangle die from Gina Marie Designs' limited run of double stitched inside and outside shapes.

The shapes mostly cut well enough, but I get better results if I use my precision cutting plate in my Big Shot. Also, one end embosses the stitching better than the other, so I put a shim on one end to try to equalize things.

I am getting a little smarter, though. I've started to mark the end of the die that needs the shim so I won't have to test it each time. Live and learn, right?

Mr Chef and his kitchen tools were colored with Spectrum Noir markers.

And now, my random craft room thought: Where can I have put that BIG pad of Bristol Smooth cardstock? It's too big to be so hidden.

Happy shark week!

Yes, it's a shark popping up to say, "Hi".  The inside reads:

The shark and front sentiment are from Avery Elle's "Hello Chum". The wood grained panel is cut with Avery Elle's Wonky Rectangles, as is the wavy banner.

The cup is an older die from My Favorite Things.

The inside sentiment was created from The Alley Way Stamp's "Gabfest" and Lawn Fawn "Milo's ABCs".

This card was a mess. I actually dragged the back of it through my Versafine ink and had to use a sand eraser on it. I didn't notice the smears inside until I was editing this photo.

Birds love tea, too!

I'm loving these adorable birds from Your Next Stamp's Love Birds set. They are colored with Spectrum Noir Markers, and high lighted with Distress Oxide ink splattered die cuts.

Pawsome in every way!

More fun and funky cats from My Favorite Things' Catitude set. I still have a few more to use, so this isn't the end, my friends!

I stenciled the brick wall and setting sun with stencils from MFT and Distress inks, onto Bristol smooth card stock. The cats had been colored previously with Spectrum Noir markers.

I may go and get a little bird for the top of the fence. Maybe.

You're kinda pawsome!

I thought I'd try my hand at a challenge today. In fact, two challenges from My Favorite Things and one challenge from myself.

I'm doing the MFT Color Challenge # 71, and the Wednesday Sketch Challenge.

The colors from the color challenge are Orange Fizz, Daffodil, Blu Raspberry, and Pure Plum.

I struggled with these colors. I only had one card stock that was even close to Pure Plum, and I didn't like it with any orange in my stash. Just, no.

Oh, the challenge I put upon myself? Well, I wanted to use an image I had already colored and cut out. I have quite a few of them in a little bowl on the top of my desk, and quite a lot more in a plastic box under my desk. 

This little kitty is from MFT's Purrfect Friends set, and yes, I did him in turquoise deliberately. That's as close to the Blu Raspberry I could get.

My reaction to this card? Meh.  Oh well, I have plenty more cats to go. And seagulls. And dogs. And fish, sharks, dinosaurs, and lots and lots of quirky birds.

Paws and take a moment

OK, just one more from My Favorite Things' Cat-itude, then I'll stop. For a while, anyway, since I have a lot of cat images colored and cut, they will be coming back at a later date.

I'm still loving my custom handmade stamp, too:

Happy purrthday.

Another card from My Favorite Things' Cat-itude set.

Having the right catitude helps!

Having the right cat-itude really helps!

These quirky cats are from My Favorite Things' Cat-itude set. They are actually bigger than I thought they would be.

I colored a full page of them with Spectrum Noir markers, and cut them with the Brother Scan N Cut. I used a lighter weight paper than I usually do and the markers actually bleed outside the lines in a few places.

The cat images are new, but the soft peach patterned paper is from my old pile, so I'm still working on it.

My favorite story

Today's card was completely built around the "Roses All Over" patterned paper on the bottom of the card. The colors in the images and the trim paper are built around the almost navy blue of the print.

The little girl, reading a book, and the sleeping dog are from My Favorite Things' "Our Story" stamp set. The little dragon is from MFT's "Magical Dragons". The sentiment is from an old Jilllibean set called "Typewriter".  By the time I got to the sentiment, I didn't have room for the one I really wanted.

I also used a bunch of different dies on this card. The white, navy and print layers were all first cut from the largest stitched rectangle from Lawn Fawn, The 2 circles were cut from an inside/outside stitched circle set from Simon Says Stamp, and the stitched point and scalloped stitched point are from MFT.

The images were all colored with Spectrum Noir pens and fussy cut. I guess I could have done them with the Brother Scan N Cut, but the scissors were there, and so was I, and the Scan and Cut is in another room.

Last week I bought 72 new Spectrum Noir markers that were on sale, now I had to go back and buy new layers for my marker tower. I wonder how high I can go and still have it stable? My craft room is seriously overcrowded and I just keep getting more stuff. Can I help it if I want ALL the colors? Of everything???

It is time to challenge myself to use stuff from the archaeology pile.  You know, stuff that I bought over a year ago and never used. So that's my next goal. Only this time I won't go through the depressing count of how much fits into that category. The sentiment from the Typewriter set fits that category.  Only, I suspect it doesn't count if I only did it by necessity.