Hippy B-Day Giraffe

I have been waking up early for the last couple of weeks and today is no exception. Shiu Di was playing with our bedroom blinds. Lay and Kutsu is still sick. Lay is feeling better, but Kutsu still have runny nose and nasal congestation. If he doesn't get better by tomorrow, I will have to take him to the vet to get some medication. It's funny how everybody talks about their children this way, but for me, I talk about my cats. They are my only children until I get pregnant again.

Since, I got up so early, I was able to do Artfully Ila's candy blog sketch challenge this morning. I have so much left over scrap papers, I decided to use up some of my scrap papers and since tonight is Gina K's 4 new set release and one of the new set is going to be "Hip-Hop Accessories", merger of the Hippy and Hoppy sets (baby hippies and hoppies); thus what a better way then to use my Hippy sets (Melanie Muenchinger is the designer for the "hippy & hoppy" set, so check out her wonderful and creative work). I got out the giraffe, the heart ballon, and the "Hippy Birthday" sentiment. I used the masking technique and stamp the ballon twice. I drew 2 lines (ballon string) with my black pen to make it look like the giraffe is holding them by his tail. I colored the giraffe and the ballons with prismacolor pencils, no gamsol this time, just color pencils. I just bought the dew drops from Nicolette at Stamp Works yesterday as well some new stamp sets. She had this stuff for a long while now, but never knew how to use them until I see everybody else using them on their cards. I added prima flowers on the corner and a yellow button in the middle of the flower.

Jim's been telling me my cards are more SOLID and he doesn't like it because it no longer looks like a card. I ask for explanation and what he meant is that my cards have too many layers, embellishments, and etc and that it no longer looks like a card where it is suppose to be simple... one or two layers and minimal embellishments if any. Jim did say my cards are getting better in coloring, color coordination, and overall presentation. That is a compliment from him. I have been challenging my creativity by doing a lot of challenges from SCS and other blogs.

TFL (thanks for looking) and I hope to get some more paper projects done today.