Whirlpool of Imagination

Snow, Snow, Snow

Apparently the snow day dance that Meghan did worked - no school today! This was what we were treated to this morning.....

The kids went outside for a little while, threw a few snowballs and made this.....

So, in homage to the snowman in our backyard, I am showing you my snowmen project today. I was in the mood to make some cute little clip bookmarks this afternoon. The hardest part of the whole project is usually deciding what stamp to use! Today I went hunting for snowmen.

I made three different ones, basically the same with just a change in colors. The snowman stamp is from Elzybell's. It's stamped with Memento tuxedo ink and colored with copic and prismacolor markers.

Copic: E39, YR16, R24, R29   Prismacolor: cool grey 50% & 80%

Copics: E39, YR16, B06    Same prismacolors as above.

Copics: E39, YR16, G05, G09  Same prismacolors as above.

Here's the group of three. I used nestibilities to cut both circles and clear stickles for the "snowflakes". I use a glue gun to attach all the pieces. Not only do I have the front piece glued to the clip but I also cut a scallop circle from the appropriate color to glue to the back of the clip. I like how this finishes the project off as well as makes me more comfortable that the glue will stick with use.

As I write, our little snowman has been washed away as the rain followed the snow. We've even had thunder and lightening to top the night off. Here's hoping for warm enough temperatures to keep all that mess from freezing over again. Have a great night!

A Sweet Tree For Halloween

Happy Halloween! It's a "dark and stormy" night right now but luckily the trick or treaters got some candy before the rains came. Today we are talking lollipops. The kids had their Halloween parties at school yesterday so I made lollipop trees for the class treats. These are super easy, make great centerpieces and look fun when finished.

I first worked on the lollipops. The lollipop itself is from Oriental Trading. They usually have nice flat lollipops for the various holidays so I always look there first when I want to make lollipop covers.

 

Here is the first of two lollipop cover designs. The circle words and pumpkin are two different stamps, both from Elzybell Stamps. I first stamped the words with Memento tuxedo black ink. The pumpkin was then stamped in the center with the tuxedo black and colored with copic markers. I cannot seem to find my marker notes so I can't give you the copic numbers I used. If I find the notes, I'll come back and edit this. The white layer was punched out as well as the orange scallop layer. The back of the lollipops just contains an orange scallop layer to finish out the look.

 

Here are the second set of covers, again using Elzybell stamps and tuxedo black ink. The vampire is colored with prismacolor black marker, copic E00 marker, and his teeth have just a touch of lipstick spica (#21). They are put together exactly the same as the pumpkin pops.

Now for a way to present them.....

 

Here are your two basic supplies, a styrofoam cone and a terra cotta plate. Using spray paint, I painted the cone black. The styrofoam will soak up the paint so I usually reapply about 4 coats of paint. I decided to brush on acrylic paint for the plate although I could have spray painted that too. The plate is painted both inside and out. The only part I didn't bother with is the bottom. Once both parts are completely dry, I used a glue gun to adhere the cone to the plate. Once it was in there securely, I used shredded paper all around the bottom of the cone to fill in that area.

 

Here is the finished tree. The lollipops are placed at angle all around the tree. I've found that around 21 pops fit comfortably without mashing them together too much. Luckily, that's how many kids are in both classes. The tree needed something for the top so I painted two wooden bat shapes black front and back, as well as along the edges. Then I "stamped" the shape in a glue pad and dumped glitter all over the front. Using my glue gun, I adhered both shapes to a plain lollipop stick. The bat is then stuck into the top of the tree to finish off the look.

This is one of my favorite ways to display decorated lollipops. It's fun and festive and relatively easy.

Hope your Halloween was loads of fun - have a great weekend!

Pink Thanks

A friend saw the little girl thank you notecards on my blog and asked me to make a set for her daughter but in pink. I set aside some time recently to work on them.

As a reminder, these are an A2 sized flat notecard. The little girl stamp is from Pink Cat Studio. She is stamped with Momento tuxedo black ink and colored with copic markers.

Copics: E00, Y13, RV17, RV21

I used a pink (02) spica glitter pen for the earrings and hair holders.

The sentiment is from Elzybell and also stamped with the Momento black ink.

And here is the set of 20 that she asked me to make. Phew - and I thought having Meg do 6 thank you notes would be challenging!

My cough is going strong and keeping everyone up. Well, keeping me and Mo up, the kids sleep through anything. I have high hopes that I'm turning the tide though - it's got to get better soon, right??

Have a great night!

On With the Thank You's

After the presents comes the thank you's. Mo and I try hard to get Meg and Conor into the habit of writing thank you notes when they receive gifts. I try to make it a bit more fun by creating unique cards for them to use. Last week was Meghan's birthday and now she has some thank you notes to write. As is my habit lately, I've been creating flat notecards for all of our thank you needs.

Here is what I came up for Meghan this year. The little girl is from Pink Cat Studio and stamped with Momento tuxedo black ink. She is colored with copic markers (E00, B12, B16, E35). The sentiment is from an adorable little set from Elzybell and also stamped in tuxedo black.

These are your traditional A2 size, just flat instead of foldover. And see, like a good mom I went with the blue again.

Let's Party!

Overripe bananas means......banana bread! I've been busy busy mixing up ingredients and have two breads in the oven as we speak - makes the house smell yummy!

We had a wonderful time for Meg's dinner last night (and there's leftovers so more yumminess tonight as well). And now it's time for me to think birthday party. I have finally learned that with a summer birthday it's easier to wait before Meg has her party (yes, it took me eight years, I'm a slower learner). Nobody is in town and trying to make sure what friends are around when just plain drives me nuts. So we will have the party after school goes and so this week I've been making her birthday invites which HAVE to go out by tomorrow. I'm not surprised with the rush - I am the queen of procrastination, after all.

Meg picked out the stamp she wanted for the image. So we may not be having a pool party (tough when you don't have a pool) but she loved this image from Elzybell's so much that we are going with the flow. Everything is stamped with Momento Tuxedo Black ink and colored with copic markers.

Copics: E00, R14, G02, YG07, E33, E35

The sentiment is from Papertrey and the patterned paper is from Doodlebug. I had the hardest time coming up with a final design but this one was okayed by the boss (MEG) so this is what we are going with. I have to print up the inside info and get that all done. Of course I have no clue what we are doing for the party but I'm saving that for another day (probably the week of the party knowing me!)

Hope you are having a fantastic day!

Sssshhh - Baby Sleeping

Good friends of ours just had a little baby girl so my goal this week was to make a baby card (now I just need to get out shopping and buy a cute little pink outfit!).

The baby stamp is from Elzybell's. I've had this one stamped and colored for a while so I just needed to design the card. I know the image was stamped with palette noir ink and colored with copic and prismacolor markers. I also know I wrote down what markers I used but for the life of me can't find the info so I apologize that I can't be more specific.

The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink and stamped with chocolate chip (SU) ink.

I used one of the new cuttlebug embossing folders for the background - I never would have thought it but this pattern is rapidly becoming one of my favorites (and I thought that it would be darn near impossible to top swiss dots!).

The crystals in the corners are Swarovski crystals (light rose I believe).

And how was that for ambiguous imformation! What I do know is that Elzybell's just released some new stamps and they are too cute for words (no Siobhan, don't look!) I have a wish list running from there - might have to place an order pretty soon! Have a great night!

Baby Boy Blue

Today is my favorite challenge day of the week - the CAS challenge at Splitcoast. This week we had to use kids bedding as our inspiration for our card. I decided to go with the Limealicious bedding set (Isn't that an awesome name for a bedding set? Had to use it for that alone).

I did not pay attention to the design of the bed set but rather used the color scheme to inspire this card.

I picked up some really cute Elzybell stamps a few weeks ago so I decided to ink up this little one. He is colored with copic and prismacolor markers. I have questions sometimes about which supplies were used so I will try to be a bit more specific.
copic: E00, (need to check the green #)
pc marker: light cerulean blue

I used paper from NRN design and a sparkly brad for just a little pizazz.

Rain, rain for the next few days but dare I say it? We may see temps in the 70's by the end of the week - woohooo. I'll take a little bit of rain if it means a weekend of sunshine! Have a great day!

Happy Easter!

I want to take a moment to wish all those who celebrate Easter a very happy holiday. I have a super simple card for today - this weekend is a busy one for us. We had an Easter dinner yesterday, a brunch this morning and then another dinner this afternoon!

Here it is, in all its simplicity. This card is actually for this past weeks CAS challenge which was to distress something on your card. It's hard to tell from my picture, but it is the yellow layer that's distressed. I ran the yellow cardstock through the cuttlebug three times, changing the orientation of the cardstock each time. I then used my CTMH distressing tool to distress the edges a bit more (this is easier to see in person).

The chick (from Elzybell) is colored with copic and prismacolor markers and the egg is paper pieced with some sparkly paper.

Have a wonderful day!

Stripe-y Girl

I am on a roll with Splitcoast challenges. Okay, so they are never the challenge of the day but hey, I'm working on them. Last weeks Ways to Use It challenge was stripes. Now I love striped patterned paper so I knew that would figure into the challenge. I had a few different choices of paper picked out but then little Elzybell called out to me and she won out.

I had decided to ink up this little girl about the same time as the challenge rolled around and thought why not paper piece her dress with stripes? I went through a couple of choices of paper but settled on this great orange and pink color combo.

The image is obviously from Elzybell's and the sentiment is from Lizzie Anne. Does the sentiment look familiar? I used it in another form on my one button card. I probably have this sentiment in 10 shapes/sizes/designs.

Elzy is colored with copic markers except for her hair. That I colored with a prismacolor pencil and blended with baby oil. I used a gelly roll metallic pen for her shoes and hairbow for a little sparkle. Its a fairly simple design but one I like to play around with. This paper is so pretty in person that I figured you needed to see a lot of it.

I've looked at today's sketch challenge and have a few thoughts. I'm sure some time next week you'll see the fruits of my labor. Have a great day!

Little Skater

Snowy greetings! It's light snow but I guess its freezing the roads which is apparently why the kids got an early dismissal from school today. Want to lay odds on a delay tomorrow morning??

Since today was kind of dreary, I skipped taking pictures of projects. Luckily, I have one more Elzybell already uploaded to show you.

Here's my little skater. Since Meggie skates I think that's why she ended up with brown hair. And you know how I feel about purple - use it whenever I can.

The image is stamped with palette noir ink and colored with copics and prismacolor pencil and baby oil. The picture didn't really capture it but I used CTMH liquid glass on the line where she is skating, to give it the wet ice look.

The sentiment is stamped with concord grape distress ink and I think its from Papertrey. I need to double check that one.

Lastly, those snowflakes are from Creative Impressions.

She has a few more layers that I traditionally do but I like her. But how can I not if she reminds me of my Meggie??

This cold of mine if a bit better today than it was yesterday so I'm hoping its a quick one. It seems like everyone is feeling under the weather lately - hope you are keeping well. Have a great night!