Flower Butterfly

I was at Stamp Works yesterday to find inspiration, see Nic, and buy a few things. I wanted to do some quick cards that I can give in packs as gifts. Nic showed me a sample card she did in one of her make n' take and I totally have to CASE'D it. It was so easy and fast. I am thinking of donating my handmade cards to our local no kill cat policy shelter, "Hope for Cats" for them to sale to get some funding. This is where we adopted Shui Di and Rusty. We have been donating dry cat food and liter every week to help, but I thought this may bring in extra money for all the vet bills, foods, and liter expenses.

During this week's stamping, I found the Brilliance Graphite Black ink comes off the acrylic, mounted, and unmounted stamps so easy unlike the Stazon Black or Memories Black dye ink which I have to really scrub the stamp to get it clean and I have to clean it right away otherwise the stamp is stained. I have a few stamps that are stained because I was too lazy to clean it right away. Before, I usually use the Versafine Onyx Black or the Stazon Black, but now I am always reaching for the Brilliance Graphite Black. For fine detail stamps, I would still use the Versafine. This is my two cents.

Recipe:

Stamp: Stampendous "Flower Butterfly", See D's sentiments

Ink: Brilliance Graphite Black.

Paper: White and Scarlet Red cs

Accessories: prismacolor pencils, diamond stickles, odorless mineral spirits, paper piercer, mat, and grey souffle sakura pen

Lots of Goodies to Show

Update, Lay and Kutsu is almost fully recovered, they are both back to doing their routine activities. Thank goodness. I am home for another day. Last night we locked our bedroom door, so the two younger cats can't come in and bother us. I got a long and restful sleep, no disturbance throughout the entire night.

I got lots of goodies for my Color Me Happy (CMH) swap Sister on SCS. I altered the Target mailbox to incorporate her colors and used my left over dp. I wouldn't tell you what her colors are otherwise she will know who she is. I made her a card also. The stamps are from A Muse. I am planning to use this set for my Asian ATC swap also. I really like the sentiment from this stamp set, "Roll with it", sometimes this is just how life is. I hope my CMH sister like what I got for her. I wanted to do this for awhile now and finally got around to doing it. I have been meaning to send out "Need a Lift" cards. Why not give others a lift and a smile for a day with cards. Today is SCS Sketch Challenge, SC173. This is what I made, I am sending this to Shelly. Her friend Tammy putted a request on the SCS Need a Lift forum. Shelly is battling breast cancer. The stamp is from Gina K "Make a Wish" Stamp for a Cause set. I purchase the handmade velvet dp papers from Costco for awhile now. Finally got around to using it. Love all that stickle, but you probably can't see it unless you enlarge the card.

TFL. I am off to making another "Need a Lift" card for a 70th B-day card. YuRee putted a request for her father's 70th birtday, to shower him with 70 cards.

Welcome Lil' Cutie

I did this card last night. I am so exhausted today. My two younger cats have been a tick for the last two nights. I kept waking up because Shui Di kept playing with the blinds until I finally kicked him out of the room then Rusty stepped on my body. Thus kicked both of them out of my room. Stupid me forgot to lock my room and Shui Di has this talent of opening doors, thus both of the cats came back in. Shui Di went and played with the blinds again. Finally, kicked him out and lock the door. After that, I haven't been able to go back to sleep and it is already 7:00AM, so time to wake up. I am still home today to keep an eye on Lay and Kutsu, they look better. This also means more time to stamp.

Ok, back to my card. This is for the Gina K's April Release Challenge #1 by Carolyn King on SCS. Did another baby cute with the Gina K's "Stamp for a Cause" set. I got to play with my Gina K stamps a lot more. I purchased 4 sets already and barely inked any of them. I am drooling over the new sets, but I already spent TOO... much in stamping supplies this month. I need some self control. I will have to wait till next month. I love the peace and comfort and the hip-hop accessories sets the most. I am not much of an owl person, but love the branches and flowers on the branches. I love their new bling (screw brads) also.

I think I am going to use my Gina K stamps all this week to celebrate their April's new release sets. Counting the days till next month...10 days and counting till I can buy the new stamp sets.

Recipe:

Stamps: Gina K's "Stamp for a Cause", Memory box for sentiment

Ink: Brilliance Graphite Black, French Blue Colorbox

Paper: white, light yellow bazzill, dp (purchased in Joann's), cirtus, light blue

Accessories: cuttlebug tag die cut, prima flower, drew drops, light blue velvet ribbon, Marvy Giga scalloped circle punch, white pen, piercing tool, prismacolor pencil, baby oil, and clear copic spica pen

Techniques: faux thread and gamsol technique

Baby Gift Card Holder

Happy Monday. I am home for today. Lay and Kutsu seems better, but still have runny nose. Still need to monitor them to make sure everything is ok. Finish running errands today and went to the public library to borrow some books. I have decided to use my public library again, its been awhile since I have been there. I need to use the resources that are available to me. Why buy books and waste money when I only read them once. The library is just so close to my house, so there isn't any excuse for me to not use my library.

Monday's new technique is to make a gift card holder, TLC165. I combined TLC165 with Gina K's April Release Challenge #2 (sketch) on SCS. The gift card holder turned out to be so CUTE. Jim and I are so behind in sending a gift to our friends who have their first baby in early February. I used Gina K's "How sweet it is", a Cause for a Cure set which the company donates a portion of the sale of this set to the diabetes foundations. Using my left over dp scrap paper which I have for over a year now. I stamped the image and sentiment with Brilliance Graphite Black ink and colored with prismacolor pencil and used the gamsol technique. Instead of using OMS, I used baby oil since it was ready available in my craft area. I used my clear copic spica pen to make the image glitter/shimmer. Wow, what a difference this pen makes. Love this pen! I have 4 other colors and still have to buy the other 8 colors. I putted dew drops on top of the baby blue velvet ribbon. The inside of the gift card is very simple, just added dp inside. This gift card was so easy to make.

TFL.

Card Holder Box

I am so productive today. I finished a card holder box which I am filling it with some cards I already made. I am planning to give it to a few people as gifts. I think I can put about 5 or 6 cards inside the box for other people to use for "Thank you" or "Birthday" or just a quick "Hi". I got the box template from A Muse Addict Message Borad by Geeta Sugg. She made it to hold A Amuse cards which is 41/2 x 4 1/2 but standard A2 cards are 41/4 x 5 1/2, so I change the measurements to fit my cards. I stamped the red cardstock with Brillance Black ink pad and embossed it with clear embossing powder (ep). The stamps are from Hero Arts BG Silhouette on the bottom half of the box and the cover is a stamp from Stampendous. I used the round corner punch. I added velcro so you can open and close the box and velcro was the cheapest way to make closers. This was actually quite easy. No embellishment on this one as this was my first one, maybe the next time.

I made this card to go into the card holder box. I decided to do some simple cards. I got this stamp yesterday at Stamp Works. The stamp is from Inkadinkado. Another silhouette stamp. The sihouette stamps are ready popular right now. Almost everything stamp company has a few that just came out. I just stamped the image 3 times in 3 different colors (Marvy ink pads), but 2 of the colors are so much similar, you probably can't see it here. I stamped the butterfly a couple of times, cutted them out, added rhinestones on them, and sticked them on the card. I also used my paper piercing tool to make some holes on the bottom where the birthday sentiment is, but you probably can see them, but as a butterfly trail.

This is all for today. I have some more cards I have to make on a few more challenges on SCS.

See you later this week. Have a good work week.

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.

Hugs to You

Yesterday night before going to bed, I was able to see SCS's Friday challenge, Limited Supplies (LS164-Long Tall Sally). This morning, my goal was to do this challenge and maybe incorporate other SCS's challenges from this week. When I am done with my card, I did challenges SC172 and WT62-Acrylics instead. My card is 4x81/2, but I added design pattern paper and maybe too much layers and embellishments, thus disqualify from completing LS164 challenge requirements. Most of the stamps are from Great Impressions April Month stamps (bird, nest and vine stamps). The sentiment "hugs to you" is from Hero Arts. I used my cuttlebug swirl folder. I added acrylic red gems and pink flower from Heidi Swapp. I added a button and thread in the middle. I pop up the bird and the eggs in the nest with foam. I colored in the leaves in the vine with green souffle gel pen. I colored the image with Twinkling H2O which gives it a little shimmer. I distress the edges. The dp is from DCVW, the Christmas dp slab.

I had problem uploading the baby shoes picture. I made this last weekend. The baby shoes template is from SCS's Barbra1224 . I wanted to do this for awhile now. I made this for Charlotte, my newest niece. I have to mail this out to her parents which I haven't have the time to do yet.