Magazine Monday

Today's card was created with a special friend in mind. MaryLou is a sweet lady whom has been going through so many medical and personal issues of the past several years. She is the sister-in-law of my dear friend, Soni, whom I've introduced you on here in the past year with trials of her own. To say this entire family has been bombarded is an understatement. I just wanted to send a little cheer MaryLou's way.

MaryLou and I connected several years ago during a visit she and her husband, Bill, made to Soni and Wally's. We discovered we both love and collect bears. So I know when I began this card for her, it had to include a bear. All of my cards for MaryLou have included bears. LOL We agree you can never have too many!

The design for this layout came from the Spring 2006 issue of Paper Creations Magazine. Designer Rhonda Palmer created a square card. She chose 3 coordinating colors of DP from Scissor Sisters for the panels. Her senter mat was a SU flower as well as the sentiment on the tag (Thank You!). Rhonda used a black gingham ribbon knotted at the top of the mat and a button for the flower center.

Where Rhonda positioned her panels vertically, I chose to flip the card and run them horizontal. I selected DP pieces from my scrap drawer to coordinate with that soft, cuddly Ted E. Bear from RubberStampede. The peachy/ brown stripe is from S.E.I and the green flourish is from. Ted E. is stamped in Memento Brown and accented with Derwent WC pencils. I colored him first very lightly in ORANGE then went back over him with DK. BROWN. When I took the water-brush to him, the two colors blended beautifully to create the soft caramel tones with a perfect shading. I matted him with SU Chocolate Chip. The ribbon is from Ribbon Trends. Although the flower brad looks orange in the picture, in real life it comes very close to that peachy stripe in the DP.

I hope this very special bear brings a smile to MaryLou, if even for a moment.

Creative Blessings!

Magazine Monday

Good afternoon!

The weather here today was gorgeous, so instead of going down into the 'dungeon' studio, I got outside. When I did come back in to play, I found two challenges which I could use on today's Magazine Monday.

1) I knew I wanted to use one of the images from Sandie Huggett over at The Outlawz Creative Freebie Challenge. I never seem to get my cards in over there in time. I'm surprised they still let me play.

2) S2S12C - The Stamp 2 Spend Challenge at Splitcoast Stampers - Use our favorite pizza as inspiration - and make it round. I'm a garbage pizza person. You'll notice I've picked up the green pepper colors in her socks, Italian sausage on in her shoes color and her dress the color of warm tomato sauce swirled with melted Mozzarella. Her hair also brings in the extra cheese.

3) While cruising for a magazine with an inspiration card, I found a dreams card in the February 2012 issue of Crafts n Things magazine. It is a design by Sue Czosek. Sue was inspired by a design of a Borders gift card holder. She used it and a sheet of newsprint to create a beautiful round card. Sue's card was a 5.5" circle. I used a 4.5" circle and then a 4" oval mat.

4) And lastly, since Valentine's Day is approaching, I might need one or two more cards to share so I went with the heart theme. Where I have used hearts (Sizzix Sizzlet), Sue punched flowers from news print and inked them to coordinate with her color scheme.

On Sandie's original image, there was a halo above the faerie an where I have the puffy hearts going off to the side off of her hand, they were actually a print part of the image. I chose to cut them away to give a cleaner cut to the main image then added the puffy hearts in their place.

I used SU Real Red CS and DP (inside covers), My Minds Eye Candy Stripe and DCWV - sentiment The image was colored with Derwent watercolor pencils. I added EK Succss puffy heart stickers.

I love how she turned out and I hope you do to.

Friday Frenzy!

Friday Frenzy can be anything from a current project I'm working on to a Challenge(s) card.

Today I'm showcasing a Challenge card for The OutLawz Creative Freebie challenge. The ballerina figurine under glass was created by Sandi Huggett. This was such a pretty image to work with. I want to mess with it again at some point and try for some dimension with the globe.

I printed the image out on GP white and rounded the corners to complement the globe. I used Derwent watercolor pencils for the image. For the top of the wooden base, I didn't add any extra color, just the 'wash' that was left on the end of my water brush.

I used SU Concord Crush matted against a SU Lavender Lace (retired) base. The letter stamps are Antique Alphabet by EK Success. Two Lavender brads help draw the image out of the globe. Dance and girly must have some frill so I chose this feather fiber in the darker purple.

I've already downloaded the 2 new freebie images from Sandi for the next challenge round. They are Valentine themed. I'm looking forward to working with them.

Blessings for a Great Weekend!

Magazine Monday

This week’s card covers Magazine Monday and the September challenge from the Paper Bloggers Unite! Thread at SU.

I chose Elizabeth Allen’s card from Crafts n Things Oct. 2009. You can see another of her cards at Penny Black. I also hope you’ll take time to check out their website and browse their catalog. I liked Elizabeth’s LO, though I did eliminate 1 layer from hers to create mine. Where I have black stickles, she used black brads.

I used SU Very Vanilla and Old Olive and ValuCS Orange. The SU Seasons of Thanks images were stamped in Memento Rich Cocoa. Back to watercoloring with Derwent watercolor pencils and Crayola colored pencils. I used a rich chocolate velvet ribbon for some texture.

I'm still waiting on the call from my daughter. So as of now, we'll cross fingers I get to make the Teapot Tuesday post tomorrow. :-)

Creative Blessings!

Magazine Monday

Happy Monday, everyone!

Yep, I have a card and on time this week. I could say miracles happen but truth be told, I needed a card for my oldest sister's birthday last week so decided it was a good time to try and stay ahead of the game.

I'm still pulling from the 2005 issue of Take Ten Studios Volume 4. My card is done almost identical to Kathy Skinner's God Bless America (pg 70-71) She used a stripe stencil as her template to roll the stars and stripe wheel over to create image-stamped stripes on her white background. Would never have thought of that. (I'll have to do a card using that in the near future) She cut her red panel ribbon from CS, sponged the edges of a Stars and Stripes image (SU) and matted it on blue as her focal image. It was very striking and I thought the layout would play well with other images.

I chose to dry emboss my Very Vanilla base with the Happy Birthday folder, I made the ribbon from Anna Griffin DP and stamped the flower basket (Memories of the Heart - SU) I love working with my Derwent water color pencils. For the flowers I chose Light Violet, Deep Cadmium, Copper Beach, Sap Green and Pink Madder Lake.

Bob leaves for his 3 weeks in Chicago tomorrow. My plan is to do the Tea Pot Tuesday before I outline the rest of my very long To Do list.

Creative Blessings!