Whirlpool of Imagination

Love Birds

Shamrock is loving the basement lately as it's the coolest place in the house. He has his spot on the couch in direct line of the blowing cool air so he's as happy as a clam. I'm happy too because I can then get some stamping done without worrying about him getting into anything.

I was in the mood to use a digi stamp so I printed off these cute birds in a tree from Pink Cat Studio.

Tree and birds are colored with copic markers.

Given the cute "love bird" look, I decided to go with a anniversary sentiment.

I couldn't decide which of the colors to pair together so I picked all three from the coloring and made those into the card stock layers.

And now I'm off to book club. Have a great night!

Late Valentine Wrap Up

Before February leaves us, I finally got my Valentine creations all uploaded and edited for showing. These are the treats I created for the kids to give out at school as well as to their teachers.

I went crazy with the test tubes this Valentines. The size and scale of my designs followed the size and scale of the tubes.

Here's the bucket of treats Meg took in to school.

Conor's valentine....

Here's his bucket...

Teacher treats...

That little book is a chipboard book Meg and her friend coordinated where the kids in class would say what they liked about their teacher.

I used my nesties to cut hearts out of chipboard coasters. I then covered each of the hearts with card stock.

We then wrote in the kids answers and attached them all with a binder ring.

It was a time intensive Valentine creative week (when is it not time intensive really?) but everyone was real happy with the final results so it was all worth it. And what's even better is that Valentine's Day only comes once a year!

Quick Valentine For the Young Ones

After doing my robot mini cards, I wanted to play with the same image, but only a bit bigger. That is the beauty of digital stamps, the ability to resize them whichever way you want.

This little guy is from Pink Cat Studios and he's colored with copic and prismacolor markers.

I'm trying to figure out where the sentiment is from and I'm drawing a blank. I have surprisingly few stamps with this sentiment so it shouldn't be that hard to remember but still can't remember.

I think it's the cold and snow - it's completely frozen my brain this winter.So I'm taking my frozen brain, putting on my pj's and getting under the covers to get nice and warm. Have a great night!

Just Because You're You

I was hoping to have a snowman card for you today given all the snow we got but for having the day off, I really got hardly anything accomplished. I think it was because everyone had the day off too!

But this little girl is winter-ish, so I'm going with her.

This stamp is a digi from Pink Cat Studio. No, I haven't been printed out digi's like crazy, this little girl was colored LAST year but apparently a card design never made the cut because she was still sitting in my "to create with" drawer. She's colored with copic markers although for the life of me, I have no clue which ones!

The sentiment is from Verve Visual and stamped with grape jelly ink from Memento. I love this patterned paper and am so sad that, at the time I bought it, there was only one sheet. You know how I feel about purple.

Instead of stamping, I spent much of the day cooking so I'm off to go sample my delicious smelling beef stew. Have a great night!

Panda Mini Valentine

Since I've been creating with Pink Cat digi stamps this week, how about one more to finish the trio of mini Valentine's cards off.

I had some of these left over from the previous panda cards so I decided to make some mini's. This little guy is colored with copic markers. The sentiment is from Gina K.

Thanks for following me through my series of mini valentine's.  Next time I'm heading in a completely different direction.

Girl Robot Love

I said I'd be back with my girl robot Valentine mini and here I am. Shamrock and I hung out today while Mo and the kids went skiing so I didn't get much studio time but these are small so I was able to get a few made.

This cutie is a digi from Pink Cat Studio and she's colored with copic and prismacolor markers.

Short and sweet ~ I have one more mini to show you tomorrow.

Boy Robot Love

I had a plan to show you all my Valentine mini's together but that would be taking good pictures, uploading, editing and resizing for internet them all at once. Since that is so not going to happen, I figure as they get done I'll show them. This gives me a feeling that I've accomplished something as well as being able to show stuff on the blog!

I am busy getting my store stocked with Valentine's items which is what all these minis are.

This little cutie is a digi stamp from Pink Cat Studio. He's colored with copics and prismacolor markers.

Here's the pair of them. I pop dotted the image layer just because the mini card was fairly simple - this gives it a bit of dimensional interest.

I'm working on my uploads today so I hope to show you my little robot girl tomorrow. Have a great day!

Crafting With Leftovers

Whenever we cook, we like to make extras so we can have leftovers. Many times those leftovers are used in a different way than the original meal. The same thing can be done with crafting. When I have a project, many times I will make extra pieces. Then, at some later date, I can use those pieces in a different way.

These pandas were left over from Meg's school Valentine's from last year. They were already cut and colored so I decided to make some Valentine cards out of them.

These pandas are digis from Pink Cat Studio and are colored with copic and prismacolor markers.

So next time you have a project, make some extra components. Put them in the extras drawer and from time to time, go through there and see what goodies you can find.

Flowers and Bunnies Easter Centerpiece

Happy Wednesday ~ I had to check before I said that though because I have my days all in a mess, for some reason. This week for my Anti-Card Challenge, you (the general you unless you do really want to do my challenge which will tickle me to no end) were to make an Easter centerpiece. How and what you used were up to you but you got brownie points for using eggs.

I'm quite proud of mine, if I do say so myself...

I was creating this with kids in mind which is why it is a bit whimsical. I started off with the flower bucket from Target (that $1. spot is awesome) and built the flowers around those colors.

I did not have a flower die that was exactly the same as the flowers in the bucket but close enough. I used a Sizzix die and my Big Shot to make the flowers and put pieces of patterned paper in the centers. The flowers were then glued to skewers with my glue gun (haven't used that thing in a week or two and was feeling a sense of withdrawal).

Then I worked on the bunnies. I couldn't decide originally if I wanted to make punched bunnies but say this adorable image from Pink Cat Studios and decided I had to have it. The bunnies were printed up and colored with copic markers (ooops, I don't have the numbers with me at the moment). They were layered onto a scallop circle and then onto binder clips. I figure I can use them as place settings or to hold photos once I break apart the centerpiece.

The eggs are actually dyed hard boiled eggs that the kids created on Sunday. Those are a temporary addition because they will go bad once out of the fridge. I'll scatter jelly beans after I put the eggs away.

So let's build this centerpiece.

I found a plastic serving tray that was fairly flat and the right size. I first added the bucket and placed pink "grass" all around it, covering up the tray. I added the bunnies and the eggs next. To finish off the piece and to cover the tray, I pieced together three scallop borders from one of the new Papertrey scallop border dies. (I use the dies in my Big Shot and they cut like a dream, if you were looking to be enabled). And there you have, A cute Easter centerpiece and another challenge completed.

You know, participation in these challenges is low (okay, really low) but I'm going to keep plugging away anyway. I would love to have company in my journey here and hey, there may be, at some point, giveaways but only for people who are actually playing along with me!

Have a great night!

Snowman and Bird

Brrrr - it is colder than cold out there. Seriously, I took a breath and thought my lungs would freeze. Since it is so frigid out today, I thought it would be fitting to have a snowman card to show you.

I've just realized how much I love snowman stamps - I have about 20,000 of them. So I guess I better start using them! This cute guy is a digital stamp from Pink Cat Studio. He's colored with copic and prismacolor markers.

Copic: BG0000, B21, B26, B34, YR07    Prismacolor: cool grey 50%, 80%

The middle of his hat and the buttons are colored with a sky blue (#9) spica pen and the patterned paper is from Doodlebug (blue jean sweet stripe). There is something so appealing to me about the blues and black together - I'm really glad I went with those for this card.

Getting back to the routine went off without much of a hitch today. Even Conor woke up before I had to drag him out of bed and that's unheard of!  He's my sleeper and lounging in bed extra is his thing although in this weather I can hardly blame him. I hope you are staying warm wherever you are - have a great night!