Have a tweet birthday!

Today I'm back with the outline that was cut of the 2 birds I had painted last week. This die, from Concord and 9th, cuts 2 birds on a branch and their outline. Love it!

I put the bird outlines, top and bottom, on a piece of dark brown card-stock that I had stamped with the Romantic Script background stamp from MFT. I added a white zigzag border and an abstract orange print on the bottom, then die cut some sprigs of greenery (Paper Smooches Foliage 2). The sentiment is from MFT's Birds of Paradise stamp set.

Thankful flowers

Today I took my inspiration from Stephanie Klauck from the My Favorite Things design team. I liked her card so much I practically copied it. Honestly, I suck at grouping flower stamps into a great arrangement, so I copied Stephanie's. I also liked her coloring on Kraft colored paper, so I copied that too. Thanks, Stephanie for the wonderful idea. Totally not mine.

As you can see, I did one with white embossed images, and the other I stamped in black ink.  These flowers are My Favorite Things' Funky Flowers set. The sentiments are from MFT's Grateful die and stamp set. I die cut the "grateful' word in black and purple, and put the black one slightly offset behind the purple one, to give it a shadow.

One thing I really appreciated about Stephanie's arrangement is that none of the images touch each other, so no masking was needed. Yay! 

Both were colored with my Prismacolor pencils. It's funny, I don't use them very often, so most of them are almost full length. But that dark olive green kept breaking, so I kept on sharpening it. It is now less than half length and looks odd in the tray. Plus I Googled broken colored pencils and found out I was doing it ALL WRONG. You turn the sharpener, not the pencil. I just ordered the electric pencil sharpener that was recommended by Sandy Allnock. Oh, and I may put that one in my car to soften it up and heal the core. My car can get up to 120 degrees in the sun, no kidding. Florida. Sigh.

Hello, birds!

I recently won a gift certificate to Concord and 9th, for participation in the Summer Coffee Lover's Blog Hop. I was SO excited, because I have had my eye on this bird die for a bit. This is "By Your Side". I also got another die and set of card bases which I haven't used yet.

You can't tell by looking at this picture, but the die not only cuts the 2 birds on the branch, but it also cuts a thin outline of paper above and below the birds. I can use the thin outlines to create another "picture", and you will see the results of that, soon!

I cut the birds from water color paper and quickly colored them with my Zig Clean Color Real Brush Markers. I then tried to figure out which color to mount them to. I probably should have picked the paper and then the bird colors, but live and learn, right?

I used the Romantic Script background stamp from My Favorite Things, then cut the "Hello" from a MFT word die (Hello There). That panel was mounted on a very old piece of patterned paper, then the whole thing was attached to the front of a top folding card base. I popped their little wings up with a tiny bit of clear foam tape.

Now, back to nonstop mayhem on the news. I'm shaking my head.

Sending lizard love!

OK, here's my last of the lizard card series. Once again, this cute little fellow is part of Pretty Cute Stamps' Leapin Lizard collection. He is colored with my Zig Real Brush Clean Color markers, fussy cut, and added to a background that includes the Simon Says Stamp Rolling Hills die.

It's summer and the gnats are out. Thank you lizards, for eating them.

Iguana wish you

More of the lizards I colored this week with my Zig Real Brush Color markers. I love this guy, even if everybody knows iguanas are bright green! He's coming, I promise!

The iguana and the sentiment are from Pretty Cute Stamps' Leapin' Lizards set. The background is an old experiment I had in my scrap box, blended with Distress Inks and a Tim Holtz stencil. 

Now, just keeping it real. this is what my work desk really looks like. 100% a mess. If you look carefully you can see the green iguana I colored, kind of southeast of the actual card. LOL. 

Happy 4th of July, everyone!

For anyone who is still reading, wow, thanks! My question for you all is, does the size of the photo matter to you? I keep them less than 600 pixels in either direction so I won't go over my limit for Blogger. I also put most of my photos on Flickr at the same size. I think Flickr's size limits are a lot more generous. Should I make larger versions of the photos for Flickr? Does anyone care?

Let's do Lunch!

In honor of the giant lizard I saw last week, I've been coloring these chameleons and iguanas from Pretty Cute Stamps. The stamp set, an older one, is called Leapin' Lizards.

I colored both the chameleon (PCS), and the bird (from My Favorite Thing's Tropical Birds set) with my Zig Real Brush Water Color markers. I really wanted them to be looking up at the bug (lunch?), but that would have required some masking that I didn't really want to do today. I MAY go back and do some surgery on the chameleon's eyes. Maybe.

I also used the bee from Spellbinder's Bee and Laurel die, a zigzag border die from Lawn Fawn, the sentiment from Avery Elle's Hello Chum, and did some background stamping with leaves from MFT's Blissful Blooms (Versamark on the grass) and the diagonal striped sky.

I am linking this to My Favorite Things color challenge # 48. This is the 3rd one for this challenge. I really like the colors!

I'm also putting this in the Pretty Cute Stamps' summer challenge.