Whirlpool of Imagination

Fun Friday Challenge - Babies

Good Friday morning! It's that time of the week again.....the Fun Friday Challenge. As I was thinking about what to do this week, my thoughts were a but scattered. Since its Labor Day weekend, I was thinking something in relation to the word labor. Well, as a mom, what comes to mind for me is babies. And since I know several women who are expecting and will need baby cards, I decided that the challenge for this week would be BABIES.

Also, this week I've been working on my announcements order almost to the exclusion of everything else, so babies have been the dominant theme in the studio anyway. Your challenge is to make a baby card. It can be any color/any style you want. Please link to the comments so I can check out your work. I love seeing what you guys do with these challenges and you give me great ideas!

Here are the baby announcements I've been working on. A picture of the baby will be on the front of the tag and the pertinent baby info on the back of the tag. The feet are from River City Rubber Works and although you cannot see it well in the scan, the lighter blue block is stamped with the harlequin backgrounder from Cornish Heritage Farms (it looks good in person with the harlequin). Now, you know me, my style is clean and simple (and I'm making 100 of these!) but all styles can play - let me see what you can do.

So consider yourself challenged to create a baby card!

Another Quickie Card

This week my main project is an order for 100 baby announcements. In between that, I need a few other cards. Because of time constraints, they're quickie cards.

A neighbor just had a baby boy so I wanted to send a quick card out to their family. I have this gorgeous paper from Imagination Project that I have been itching to use. When I started to make the card, I realized that I really like the paper and couldn't stand to cover it up. So, I kept this card clean and simple to showcase the paper. The sentiment stamp is from Green Grass Stamps.

Today I attempted some school shopping. I'm not sure what happened to the apparel industry but I suspect its been infiltrated by people who do not have (or have never had) children. How in the world they think some of these designs are appropriate for a 6 year old girl is beyond me. In years past, I'd come home with bags and piles of clothes. Today, I struggled to find at least one nice outfit. Since I refuse to dress my child like a teenager, I'm struggling. Ah well, the good thing is she's petite and doesn't grow much each year. I'm off to go look at last years clothes......

Quick Birthday Boy

I needed to do up a quick card for a three year old boy. Once I decided on the basic elements/colors, this came together very quickly.

The truck is from CTMH and every time I use this sentiment, I try to figure out where its from and never seem to cite the correct company! I used the blue iris chalk ink which is a nice deep blue.

Since Conor's friends are all around the turning 4 age, I think I may have to make up a few more of these to have on hand!

Took the kids for a day trip today to the aquarium. Very cool - Conor really wanted to see the sharks and Meg really wanted to the touch the rays. Poor Meg is a bit under the weather but she was a trooper even though she wasn't herself ~ I'm sending "unstuffing" vibes to her nose this week so she'll be good to go for the start of school next week.

I have a few projects I'm working on but I hope to have new stuff all this week - stay tuned.

Fun Friday Challenge - Butterflies

As the end of summer rapidly approaches, I thought that this Friday's challenge could have a theme associated with summer. Your challenge is to make a card with BUTTERFLIES.

A couple of weeks ago I took the kids to a butterfly museum. The butterflies fly all around you within their controlled environment. It's a very cool experience. The butterflies will land on you if you're lucky and its really neat to see them up close. Here are a few butterflies to inspire you:

Now here's my card using the butterfly theme. The card is based on a sketch I found on Carrie's blog.

I couldn't decide how I wanted to color the butterfly so I used reinkers, alcohol and glossy cardstock to make a polished stone background. Then I could just stamp the butterfly (Spunky Stamps) and punch it out. I decided against black ink and went with the burnt umber palette ink. The little sentiment is from River City Rubber Works.

So now its YOUR turn. This Friday I challenge you to create a card with butterflies. Link it back here so we can all check out your creation. Have a Fun Friday!

What? Is that a red leaf??

I was driving to the grocery store yesterday when I saw the first few orange and red leaves. Yikes - that means autumn is around the corner. Autumn is a bittersweet season for me. I love the beauty of nature in the fall. The foliage here is gorgeous, I love the slight chill in the air and the chance to wear sweaters rather than shorts. But I mourn the loss of the long, bright days and the butterflies and hummingbirds and going outside without a jacket. And I dread my least favorite season of all, winter. I am not a fan of the cold, the wind, the sleet or the snow. I love Christmas but really, once that's gone, the next three/four months seem to go on forever. So as green changes to orange, I chose orange flowers for todays card.

I cased myself to make this card. I needed to make new pen pal cards and was going through old designs. The original was a purple based flower on white, very clean and crisp. When I decided on the orange flower, I wanted to make it dirtier. I used this background from Cornish Heritage Farms and fawn ink (CTMH). I then used Rubber Stampede flowers and Dee Gruenig markers (love these markers with flowers). Finally, the sentiment is from Green Grass Stamps. I originally tried to stamp it with SU pumpkin ink but all I got was a mottled look. So I pulled out my trusty chalk inks and used that instead - result, perfect sentiment stamped every time. So, if you are on the splitcoast pen pal list and I owe you a card, you may see this one in person shortly!

Quick Birthday Greeting

So you know how when your child has a party to go to and you've got the gift and all but it's not wrapped and you have less than an hour to at least make something cute????? That was me today. Meg was going to a birthday party and I needed to pretty up the gift a bit. I rarely wrap presents because that would mean I would need to buy paper and I never get to the store to get paper. I could make the wrapping paper (and I have) but that was so not happening today. Besides, the gift was a Webkins - I'm so not into trying to wrap a stuffed animal! The easiest thing was to plop the present in a gift bag and then just add a cute little card. So long story short (too late), I made a little postcard to hang off the bag.

These stamps came from the Gina K Stamps for a Cause set. This went together very easily and I plan to make some full cards with this design, just adding a card base.

I punched a hole in the corner of the postcard and hung it from the bag with lots of hot pink and purple curling ribbon.

This is the first set of Gina K stamps I have used. They are very deeply cut and stamp like a dream. I would recommend them in a heartbeat.

Spring Cleaning

Okay, so it's August but I've gotten the bug to spring clean. Do you ever feel like all the stuff in your house is taking over? Well, this weekend I clearing out. I haven't tackled my studio yet but thats the next area that needs a going over!

I received my comp copy of the September/October issue of Rubber Stamper. Check out the neutrals section and the Halloween cards section to find two of my cards in there.

Fun Friday Challenge - A Meg Original Sketch

I've been a pretty sporadic blogger these past couple of weeks. I thought that coming back today with my Fun Friday Challenge would be a good way to get back into things. Today I have a SKETCH that I'm challenging you with. This sketch was created by my daughter Meg.

Sadly, I didn't keep the sheet she sketched it on (I need to in the future) but I have it exactly as she sketched it out. Now, I need to be a proud mama for a moment - Meg sketched this without any card examples in front of her. It was completely off the top of her head. And this little creative girl is only just turned 6 years old! Okay, so that's my moment of bragging!!

Take the sketch and create a card with it. As you'll see a took some license with it but kept to the main scheme of things. Then please post a link so I (and Meg) can check out your work. I can't wait to see what you come up with!

This is my take on Meg's sketch. I used the circles from PaperTrey Ink, the background is from Cornish Heritage Farms and the jewel in the middle of the flower punch is from Doodlebug.

Consider yourself challenged!!

Waylaid....

My library copy of the latest Harry Potter book came in a few days ago. I will admit that during the time set aside for creating, I was reading instead. But now that I know what happens to Harry and the gang, I should be back to crafting tomorrow!

A Bella Birthday Party

Phew, birthdays for kids are hard work! (But it was fun!). Today my little Meg turned six so this weekend was one big party. Saturday night was her party with her friends. She had chosen to have a bella party - the invites were easy because she loves Tinkerbella but unfortunately, you can't just walk into Stop & Shop and order a bella cake (although it would be cute!). So we improvised a bit.

We decided that rainbow colors and clouds embody the Tinkerbella theme. If you are interested, the cake is from Stop & Shop (awesome cakes, but I digress) and it is decorated in the Barbie Magic of Pegasus theme. We told them not to put the figurines on. I then stamped and cut out 5 Tinkerbellas. Meghan colored them in. She was quite proud - every bella has a different outfit special for the party. I hot glued the bella to a skewer and then hot glued some Doodlebug flowers behind the bella to pretty it up a bit.

Here's a close-up of a couple of them. I cut the skewers different lengths so that they'd be staggered and at different levels. I kept them around the edges of the cake so we could do candles with setting the poor things on fire! It was VERY cute in person and Meg was soooo happy and proud. If you are looking for this adorable stamp, it can be found at Stamping Bella. But if you've never seen the bellas before, look out, they can be very addicting! And if your little girl wants a bella party, it can be done!

And since we're talking bellas, I just have to show this. I think in a couple of years, Meg can be designing for Em, Miss Bella herself.

For her camp, the kids were decorating bags. Meg decided to draw a bella since they were on the brain. I want to draw your attention to the eyes and mouth. This was drawn for memory - she had no picture to refer to. The first thing she asked was if the mouth and eyes were correct. If you have some bellas, check them out....Meg got it right!