"Owliver" Owl Shaped Card / SU's Top Note Die / Punch Art

Just a quick post to share a cute owl card with you. The card is made using StampinUp's Top Note Die and some other punched shapes. Super easy to make and a cute card for all ages. I had made this for a challenge a couple of weeks ago and just realized that I hadn't shared it here with you all.

If you would like to make your own owl card...check out this tutorial HERE by Wendy Cranford. I had seen this on Pinterest, pinned it and finally got around to making it. Her tutorial is super easy to follow.

Thanks for stopping by!

Balloon Birthday Card

A quick and simple birthday card...but I think a cute one! Hope you agree. The balloons are a punch, the happy letters are dies by Sizzix and the birthday part of the sentiment is computer generated. Printed paper is by DCWV and cardstock by Bazzill. The border punch is by Fiskars.

Thanks for stopping by!

Birthday Wishes / Hero Arts and Sizzix Framelits Floral Stamp and Die Set

The current challenge over at ScrapZee.com is to make a card using a color that you do not like. I am not a fan of yellow...it is not a color I enjoy using. Much to my surprise though...I ended up liking my card. Would I make it again? Absolutely....but in another color other than yellow!

Flowers were made using the Hero Arts and Sizzix framelits floral set. Butterfly is made using two Martha Stewart punches. Scallop border is also a Martha Stewart punch and the trellis design is a Spellbinders die. Leaves are made using a Memory Box die.

Thank you for stopping by and happy crafting!

Starburst Card / It's Your Day

The challenge last week over at ScrapZee.com was to create a card using the starburst technique. I used paper by Cosmo Cricket to create a sun ray  / sky effect using this technique. The clouds were made using dies from Memory Box and the picket fence is a Martha Stewart punch.

Have you heard about ScrapZee.com? It is a new paper community for inspiration, challenges and sharing. It is just kicking off and getting started but it already is a fun place to share your love for paper crafting. Check it out!

Thanks for stopping by.

Starburst Cards

Hello! Have you tried making a card using the starburst pattern? I have seen it on many blogs and it was featured along with a tutorial on the Operation Write Home site. You can find that tutorial and samples HERE. Also my friend Judy sent me a Christmas card last year using this patter. You can see her gorgeous card HERE. So this pattern has been on my "to try" list for awhile. I finally chose to use it for a challenge a couple of weeks ago on the Card Swaps forum and also chose to send it to my friend Judy for her birthday last month.

It is such a fun and easy pattern / design to make. I had so much fun with it that I chose to make a second one to send to my mother in law for mother's day.

I'm sure I will be using this pattern again in the future. Check out the tutorial from OWH in the link above and give it a try if you haven't already.

Have a great weekend!

Minnie Mouse Disney Card

The challenge, week before last, over at Card Swaps on the CardMaker  site, was to make a card that was Disney inspired. Love, love, love Disney and all the Disney characters! Feeling in a pink mood, I chose to make a Minnie Mouse card. Cardstock used is by Bazzill. Embossing folder is by cuttlebug. Minnie Mouse images are digi images that I colored with Prismacolor color pencils.

Hope you're having a good week and thanks for stopping by!

Party Preparations / Gruffie - House Mouse

This must be a super Sunday because I'm posting twice today!

I am entering this card into the following two challenges:

House Mouse and Friends Monday Challenge: The challenge is to make a birthday card with the option of adding flowers. I chose not to use that option as I just couldn't seem to get flowers to looking right for me on this card. House Mouse and Friends is celebrating their 3rd year as a challenge blog with not only this challenge but also with prizes and a blog hop! You can check out all the fun HERE.

CardMakers CardSwaps Forum Weekly Challenge: The current weekly challenge is being hosted by Linda Jo and she challenged us to make a multi panel card using a pattern by Dawn's Stamping Studio. You can check out the challenge and other participant's creations HERE. To view the how to tutorial and video to make this multi panel card, click HERE.

The image used is a Gruffie by Stampabilities called Party Preparations. I colored it with Prismacolor color pencils. Designer paper is the Lime Rickey collection by Basic Grey. Cardstock is DCWV. Sentiment is by Studio G clear stamps. Below is a side view of how the card is folded.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have a fabulous week!

Balloon Journey / Happy Hoppers - House Mouse

Squeaking in a card at last minute for the weekly challenge over at the CardMakers CardSwap forum. The challenge is to make a square card. Ummmm...judging by my blog of mostly square cards.....it was an easy challenge to complete. :) Love square cards! I also completed my crafty resolution this month which is to use a stamp each month for this year that I have bought ages ago but never used. Can you believe I let this adorable stamp sit around and collect dust? The image is a Happy Hopper from the House Mouse Stampabilities line. It's called Balloon Journey. I colored it with Prismacolor colored pencils. I also used the Stardust clear gel pen over the balloons after coloring them to add sparkle. Designer paper is by Basic Grey and cardstock is by Bazzill.

While I have your attention....I would like to let you know about the upcoming crop over at CardMakers in the CardSwap forum. Beat The Blues Crop is February 9th - 12th. Four days of challenges and games to get your mojo juices flowing. Yours truly will be hosting one of the challenges on that Friday. I have picked what I think might be a fun and interesting challenge. So if your looking for some inspiration or maybe you would just like to hang out with others who share your passion of card making / paper crafting...then be sure to check the crop out!

Thanks for stopping by!

Birthday Clown - 2 Challenges

So this little cutie has been hanging around in my craft room all week just waiting to be made into a card. I got her colored, designer papers picked out, cardstock and embellishments picked out and then my son came home from school......then Thanksgiving happened....and well....there this cutie sat waiting. Finally found some time to put her together today. Had to do some quick cutting and putting everything together as one of the challenges I am entering this into is ending tonight. So I was working fast. Now my craft room looks like Edward Scissors Hands has been here! Here is the card I made:


I am entering this card in the following challenges:
Paper Sundaes Challenge Blog - a sketch - pictured below
A Spoonful of Sugar - Anything Goes

Supplies Used:
Image - KLM Digi Stamps
Printed Paper - Graphic 45
Cardstock - Bazzill
Cuttlebug Swiss Dot embossing folder
Image colored with Prismacolor colored pencils

A Birthday Card and 2 Challenges

November is a month jammed pack full of birthdays for me. It's probably my busiest month for making and sending out birthday cards. This one is going to someone special who is turning 21. Her birthday is not actually till December 4th but she currently is spending a semester in Spain studying so this needed to be mailed early to make it over there in time. She has discovered the discos while in Spain and loves to go dancing. So I thought dancing Rosie from Karen's Doodles was perfect for the image. Hope she likes it.

I am also entering this into the following challenges:
Stamp Something - Digi day- using something digital... image, paper etc. My image is digital
Cute Card Thursday - Anything Goes!

Supplies Used:
Designer Paper: Making Memories
Cardstock: Bazzill
Image: Rosie Dance by Karen's Doodles - you can find it HERE
Tools Used: Spellbinders Nestabilities, Paper Shapers flower punch, Cuttlebug embossing folder
Technique - Image colored with Prismacolor colored pencils

Thanks for stopping by!

I don't do masculine cards...Party Preparations / Gruffie

I should clarify my subject line....I don't think I can do masculine cards. My son is turning 21 next Friday and I fussed and stewed over making him a card. I am so use to girly, pink, ribbons, flowers and bling that when I sat down to make his card I was totally at a loss as to what to do. Last year when my son left for college he asked me to please not send him any cards with cute mice or funny looking kids with no mouths...LOL! I think he was referring to two of my favorites...House Mouse and Magnolia. This year when he left for school he told me he loves to get mail and I could send whatever kind of cards I wanted. Even funny looking kids or mice. Quite the different tune he was singing this time from last year.

So I started with picking a sketch that would be clean and simple. Then I went through my stamps and quickly realized that even though I had many that weren't cute mice and funny looking kids...most were still on the cute side. So cute it is! I'm telling you, it is very hard to make a card without flowers, ribbon, bling and other embellies. I started to add some buttons then I could see him rolling his eyes so I refrained from putting any buttons on. I satisfied my urge though with adding a bit of crystal Stickles. So my card for my son is done...he will be 21 in 6 days and I'm sitting here wondering where time went. Wasn't it just yesterday that we brought him home from the hospital? "Sigh" Happy Birthday Tommy!

I am entering this into 3 challenges. All three were inspirational in helping me make this card and without these challenges I would probably still be sitting at my workspace trying to figure out what to do.

Sketch and Stash: A Sketch plus neglected and new items from stash. DP is new from a Basic Grey pad that I just bought and my neglected is the image. Sadly I bought it ages ago and never used it. So I dusted it off and finally put it to good use. The sketch can be seen below.

Our Creative Corner: ABCs and 123s

Secret Crafter Saturday Challenge: Clean & Simple

Card Recipe:
Image: Party Preparations from the Gruffie line by Stampabilities (House Mouse)
Coloring: Prismacolor Color Pencils
DP: BasicGrey
Cardstock: Bazzill
Tools: Spellbinder's Nestabilities
Sketch Used:

Thanks for stopping by and for all your wonderful comments!

House Mouse Swap

I use to host and participate in a lot of card swaps. It was always fun to get that "manilla envie" (as us swappers call it) in the mail from a swap. I would open it up and ooooh and ahhh over all the cards all the participants made. Swapping eventually came to a stop for me as it was getting harder and harder for me to see due to an eye disease I have been battling for many years. I usually stick to the weekly challenges now where I only need to make one card and can take my time making it.

Recently though I was officially declared legally blind. So before I loose all eye sight completely I thought I would join a swap or two and have some fun. A paper crafting friend of mine is currently hosting a House Mouse swap that required you to make 5 cards. Couldn't resist joining it as I love House Mouse. I chose a simpler image to make it easier for me to color...went with a birthday theme AND used scraps from my over flowing scrap drawer.

I sure hope the other swappers enjoy my card. I know I am looking forward to seeing all their creations. If you have never tried a swap, you should! They are fun, addicting and a great way to learn new things from other card makers.

Thanks for stopping by!

Heartfelt Wishes For A Happy Birthday

Hi friends! Isn't this Tilda image cute? I thought she was perfect for the three challenges I'm entering this card into.
Sketch Saturday - A sketch which you can see below
A Spoon Full Of Sugar - Happy Birthday theme
Simon Says - Things with wings

Image is Tilda blowing hearts by Magnolia. I colored her with Prismacolor colored pencils. Printed paper is by Basic Grey and N2N Designs. Flowers were made with Paper Shapers flower retro flower punch and Crystal Stickles were used on Tilda's wings.

Inside of card above and sketch used is shown below.

I also tried something new...at least new for me. I have been seeing on a lot of blogs where part of the image is sticking out past the actual cut part of the Nestabilities shape. I love the look of that technique and also found it to be so super easy to do. If you haven't tried it yet and would like to then check out the how to tutorial that Splitcoast Stampers has. You can find it HERE
Thanks for stopping by!

A Little Birdie Told Me

"A little birdie told me (front)...It's your birthday! Have a fun day. (inside)" This sentiment is computer generated and seem to be perfect for this image. I am entering this into two challenges:
Cupcake Craft Challenge - Make your own flowers (challenge #85)
Friday Sketchers - A sketch, which you can see below

The image is by Stampavie, "My Little Friend by Rachelle Anne Miller" and is colored with Prismacolor color pencils. Printed paper is Cosmo Cricket's Earth Love collection. Cardstock is Bazzill. Flowers are made with using punches by EK Success.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Easter. Thanks for stopping by to check out my card.

Just Magnolia - A Sketch - Challenge #48

I'm entering this into the challenge this week for Just Magnolia. The challenge is a sketch which you can see below. Last week I missed posting my challenge card in time by 36 minutes so I made sure I watched my calendar and clock to make sure my card made it in time this week...LOL!

There are a lot of tutorials online especially on you tube for making your own lollipop flowers. I finally decided to try making some. I did a 3 layer flower with the middle layer having Stickles around the edges which is hard to see in the picture. These were the easiest and fastest flowers I have ever made. I think they kind of have a wacky whimsical look to them...don't you?

Image is Magnolia's balloon Tilda which I colored with Prismacolor color pencils. Added some Stickles to the balloons, wings and Tilda's ponytail holder. Hard to see in the picture though but in person it's sparkly! Cardstock is by Bazzill and printed paper is a scrap from my stash. Sentiment is by Inkadinkado and both the leaf and butterfly punches are by Martha Stewart.

Fancy Pants / Happy Hoppers - House Mouse

Coming in at the last minute...I am submitting this for the Sketch Saturday challenge #93. Love their sketches! You can see the sketch below as well as HERE.
This is also my 100 post. Can you believe it? When I started this blog I thought I would be forever getting 25 posts and here I am now at 100.

Above is the inside view of the card and below is the sketch for the challenge. Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have a fabulous weekend!

Supplies Used
Image: Happy Hoppers / Fancy Pants by Stampabilities
Sentiment: Computer generated
Printed Paper: The Paper Studio
Cardstock: Bazzill
Ink: Memories
Tools Used: Spellbinders Nestabilities, Martha Stewart leaf punch, photo corner punch by SU and Cuttlebug's swiss dot embossing folder
Embellishments: Pearls by Hero Arts, flowers by Prima and brads by Basic Grey
Techniques Used: Image colored with Prismacolor colored pencils and blended with Gamsol
Completed card size: 5 1/2" square

Birthday Card - 3 Challenges

I had a blast making this card! I found this tutorial on one of my favorite blogs that I follow for making a purse card. You can find the tutorial here on Belles N Whistles. I made my flap a little different and attached my ribbon handle slightly different but other than that I pretty much followed the tutorial which I found so easy to do. I made this for my daughter's birthday this month. I am also entering it into 3 challenges which are:

Creative Card Crew - "Celebrations"
Simon Says Stamp - "Mother's Day or Girly" I think I got the girly part down! :)
Stamp Something - "Something Girly" also required is a stamped image which I have inside the card. The cupcake image by Magnolia which I paper pieced part of it and colored the rest with Prismacolor colored pencils.

Side view of card

Back view

Top picture is close up of the bottom part of the inside of the card. The picture below is a full view of the inside of the card.

I hope you take some time to check out the 3 fantastic challenge blogs that I entered this card in. Be sure to check out the tutorial too as I truly enjoyed making this and I know I will be making more. Thanks for stopping by.

Supplies Used:
Image: Cupcake by Magnolia
Sentiments: Hero Arts and Happy Birthday is computer generated
Ink: Memories and Colorbox Pigment Ink (lilac)
Printed Paper: Plum Blossoms and Plum Stripes by DejaVu
Cardstock: From my stash so source unknown
Tools Used: Spellbinders Nestabilities (large butterfly, circles, and labels), Martha Stewart border punch and butterfly punch, BossKut swirls die
Embellishments: Ribbon by Offray and rhinestone from my stash
Techniques Used: Paper piecing and coloring with Prismacolor color pencils
Completed size: 5 1/2" square when closed

Just Magnolia Challenge / Ribbons and Bows

The Just Magnolia challenge called for ribbons and bows. I almost always grab some ribbon for my projects so the challenge seemed easy enough. I chose to use Magnolia's cross stitch Tilda which I colored with my Prismacolor colored pencils and blended with Gamsol. The cardstock is a Georgia Pacific base and the blue is Bazzill. The stripe paper is from my stash and sorry I do not know who makes it. I used my Nestabilities and a Martha Stewart scallop border punch for my tools. Ribbon is by Offray. The sentiment is computer generated. I found this really cute cross stitch font on dafont.com that I thought was perfect to use for this card.

I had a little bit of scraps left so instead of putting them into my scrap drawer I decided to use them on the inside. I used the same cross stitch font for the inside sentiment as the front. I hope you can see it....clicking on the picture to make it bigger might help if you can't. Completed card size is a 5 1/2" square.

Thanks for stopping by and don't forget to check out the Just Magnolia challenge blog!

Pizza Eating Gruffie!

I'm currently in a swap called Merry Go Round. There are 6 players and we were all to send in a House Mouse, Happy Hopper or Gruffie image (6) to the host. The host then sends one of every one's image to all the players to be made into a card. Once you have finished all your cards you send them back to he host who will then return your original image back to you that is now made into cards by 5 creative people. One of the images that was sent in was this Gruffie eating pizza. I fussed and stewed over this image not knowing what to do with it. It was looking masculine to me and as you can tell by my blog.......I'm not very good at making masculine cards. I finally came up with this and I am actually quite pleased after all my fussing and stewing over this image. The layout for the card was inspired by a recent sketch on the House Mouse & Friends challenge blog which you can find here.

Supplies Used:
Image Pizza Gruffie by Stampabilities
Cardstock: Bazzill
Printed Paper: Retro Christmas by Deja Views
Sentiment: Impression Obsession
Tools: Spellbinders Nestabilities and SU Photo Corner punch
Brads from my stash
Techniques: Image colored with Prismacolor Colored Pencils and blended with Gamsol.

Have a great weekend!

House Mouse Challenge 39 A Birthday Card & Simon Says Stamp Challenge / Animals

I have a two-fer....two challenges in one card. The first challenge is the House Mouse & Friends challenge #39 which is to make a birthday card for a boy or girl using a House Mouse or friends image. I thought at first that I would use one of my House Mouse birthday images and then as I was looking through my stamps I saw all these mice jumping around in joy as if they were celebrating and wishing someone a Happy Birthday. So I chose to use them. The House Mouse & Friends challenge blog is a favorite of mine to follow weekly.

The second challenge is for the Simon Says Stamp challenge blog which this week is "animals". I think I have that covered with my 3 happy jumping up and down mice! Simon Says Stamp is a fairly new challenge blog. I would recommend checking it out and I highly recommend their online store "Simon Says Stamp" for all your stamping needs. Not only do they have a great selection but their service is outstanding!

I also enjoy creating my own sketches and here is the one I created for this card. If you like it please feel free to use it!



Supplies Used:
Images: House Mouse by Stampabilities
Cardstock: Bazzill and Wausau
Printed Paper: BasicGrey from the Lime Rickey collection
Ink: Memento
Spellbinders Circle Nestabilities, Cuttlebug ribbon slider die
Brads & ribbon from "my stash"
Techniques: Images colored with Prismacolor colored pencils and blended with Gamsol.
Completed card size: 5 1/2" x 5 1/2" square

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have a chance to check out the great creations at House Mouse & Friends and Simon Says Stamp challenge blogs!