Happy Birthday

Arielle, of Wax Fruit Company, recently had a "sneak peak" contest on her blog for one of her new images. What that means, is that she posts a small part of an image for you to try to guess what it is. All of the names of the people that guess right are put together and a random draw is done for a winner. That person receives the image! Pretty easy challenge right? Well this time no one got what the image was right lol. So being the kind person that she is, Arielle has given us another chance at winning that fantastic image of hers ( by the way, it was a dogwood lol.) All we had to do was make a card using any image of hers and post it in a section called I'd love to see Your creations. Now that in itself was such an easy challenge. What made it even better is Nana Vic's newest challenge! Now if you read my post from Friday, you will know that Vickie, of Nana Vic's, has released her newest Vickie Quickie. This time we were able to choose an image from her store to work with. That's right...we got to chose any image from her store that we wanted!!! She is making this offer available until Friday March 25th. The only thing that she asks is that you do not take an image unless you have every intention of making something for the challenge. So here we have 2 wonderfully easy challenges to choose from. Well, I chose both! I decided to use some of Vickie's Birthday word art with a recent sneak peak challenge that I had won from Arielle. The image is a beautiful camilia. So I got online and searched for an idea of what to do for a style of card. I found what looked like a really interesting design, it's called a triangle tri-fold card. You can find the instructions for it here. So I cut the paper for this triangle tri-fold card, only to realize that this card is really small. It measured 31/2 by 31/2 squared...so I'm thinking, Oh man, this is just too small (serves me right for doing it late at night lol). So I grabbed some more paper and started over. I used a 12x12 sheet of paper and cut it into a 4x12 piece. I then scored it at 4, and 8 inches. That gave me 3 4 inch squares. I then cut a piece of cardstock at 31/2 x 31/2. That gave me my square to cut into 2 triangle shapes. Everything else was the same. I choose pink and purple as my color palette because of the wonderful dp that I had found for this card.

I used Nana Vic's Birthday Sentiment ticket from her Birthday 2 Word Art to hold it closed. I put it onto 2 dimensionals on the left side, with space left in between the dimensionals to feed the ribbon through. Then I opened it up and added Arielle's gorgeous Camilia flower. I printed it onto a very pale pink cs (that matches the cs on the front that I embossed) and then mounted it onto purple cs and mounted that to the tri-fold card.

So there we go, my card was done...NOT! I'm looking at this card and thinking that it still needed something. It's not big enough and how does the recipient display it? So I made a 5x5 card to put my little 4x4 triangle tri-fold card onto. And of course the card needed a beautiful sentiment to go in it. Luckily I had a wonderful one from Nana Vic's.

So I printed this wonderful sentiment onto white cs and then mounted it onto the pale pink and purple cardstock.

Supplies:

Uncolored Flower Image: Wax Fruit Company

Sentiments Front and inside: Nana Vic's 

DP: Pink and Purple and Pink on the inside - From my stash

CS: SU Melon Mambo (base), Purple and pink cs - Recollections from Michaels 

Flowers - Portafolia

Ribbon - from my stash

Flat back pearls and rhinestones - Recollections

Other Challenges entered:

Crafty Ann's - Spring

Mami Doodles - Spring

Stampin with the Dragon - Bring on Spring

Digi Doodle Shop's Best - Anything Goes

Little Miss Muffet - Brads, Gems or Pearls

Creative Cottage - Spring

Scrapbook Sisters - Challenge #27 - Spring Flowers

Aly's Sunday Challenge - Spring

Papertake Weekly Challenge - 3 of Something (Three layers of paper and 1 pink pearl in 3 corners)

A 50th Birthday and St. Patrick's Day!

So, it's St. Patrick's Day...and it's also my girlfriend's 50th Birthday! Can you imagine having your birthday on St. Patrick's Day? At least no one will forget it lol. So because it was her 50th, and she was born on St. Patrick's Day, I wanted to make her a card that not only celebrated such an incredible milestone, but also brought a bit of the Irish luck in with it. I found the best sentiment for this at Wendy Made and All Things Crafty. Now I had this sentiment that talked about Irish luck but what to do with it? Well as it so happens Vickie, of Nana Vic's, just gave away a fabulous freebie 2 weeks ago for her challenge. It is no longer free, but she should be putting it in her store soon. Anyways, so now I had this fabulous image and a terrific sentiment to go with it. I decided to do a Twisted Easle card for something different. I found a tutorial at Deb's Stamping Corner   that was really easy to follow. It is done in metric so if you need to convert it to inches, you can find an easy converter here. Now you will have to excuse me, but I found this card a little more difficult to take a picture of...probably because I was in a hurry and wasn't taking the time I needed to to get it right lol. So I hope that you can get the idea of what I did.

Now there are 9 different colors of green on this card. What good would a Birthday/St. Patricks Day card be without lots of green? The base is an almost sage color, then there is pink dp, then a dp with 2 different shades of green, the 2 different shades of green in the image (the frameand the rose leaves). The mini roses have a different shade of green for the leaves and their stems are a different color again. The pearls in the corner are also different than all the other greens lol. I used my Stampin Up Pastels (chalk) to color in the background behind the sentiment and around the outer edges of the image. Here's a close up for you to see.

I just noticed that the leaves on the pink dp also have a different shade of green lol. For the base I chose a beautiful sentiment also from Nana Vic. It's in her Birthday Set 1 and can be found here . I printed it out and put it on pop dots to raise it up as a stopper for the easel card. The flower by this sentiment was made by me using a flower punch, punching 3 flowers out and then shaping them and glueing them together. I added a green pearl for the center. For leaves I used 3 sequin flowers that I glued together and then added the flower on top. On all of the flowers I added some stickles with green glitter in it. Then I added some self sticking silver pearls and small self sticking clear rhinestones and it was done!

This just in..... Nana Vic's just posted her new Vickie Quickie Challenge  and you can find it here.
Now Vickie is just about the most generous person you will ever meet. Every two weeks she posts what's called her "Vickie Quickie" for the members of her group. These are a members only treat that all of us look forward to with "bated breath". Some of us have been known to have a virtual party on her front lawn while waiting for the new image to be revealed (but that's another story that I won't get into right now lol).  Now this is not a challenge in the regular sense of the word...you don't win another image, but who cares...she always posts another image after the challenge period is over...so we all win!!! Anyways, life was a little on the busy side for Vickie this time and she didn't have time to make us a new image. So being the wonderful person she is, instead of telling us that there would be no image this time, she has opened the doors to her shop and told us that we are welcome to pick out an image of our choice from her store!!! Yes, you heard right....your choice! It can be one of her absolutely incredible images or her fantastic word art....whatever you would like! Now how could it be any better? The only thing she does ask is that if you have No Intention  of trying to make a project, please do not ask for one of her images. And her images are totally fabulous....take a few minutes and check them out...you won't be disappointed.

Supplies:


Uncolored image - Nana Vic's (see above for direct link)
Sentiments - Nana Vic's and Wendy Made and All Things Crafty (see above for links)
CS - Green: Stuff I bought at my local craft store (sorry I don't remember the name and the tag got left on the card...ooops....lol). The white is from Michael's.
DP - Make It Special scrapbooking sheets found at my local dollar store.
Mini Roses - Recollections Boutique Fleur Mulberry Paper Mini Roses
Pearls and rhinestones - Recollections
Green sequin flowers used for leaves - Bought at our local Dollar Mania (sorry, I don't remember who made them as I threw away the tag.)
Pink Chalk background - Stampin Up Pastels
Image colored with - Prisma Scholar pencil crayons and oms

Challenges entered:

Nana Vic's Vickie Quickie - 4/5 March
Outlaws Tuesday Color Challenge - Three shades of green and glitter
Outlaws Thursday Pom - March 17 -Green
Papertake Weekly Challenge - Triple Tastic: 3 of something
All Sorts - Week 94 -  Luck o' the Irish
Penny Black Saturday Challenge - Green
Shelly's Images - Anything Goes
Pattie's Creations Design Challenge - Green
Daisy Doodles - Challenge 29 - Green

Wave for Japan

With all that has been going on in Japan that last couple of days, I was really surprised and happy when I came across this posting on MelonHeadz. This is what Nikki from MelonHeadz posted.

 ·´¯`·.´¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸PRAYER WAVE¸.·´¯`·.´¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸ Going out to all those affected in Japan, the Pacific and everywhere else affected by the earthquake and tsunami. Keep this going, please post this on your blogs for our friends that are in it's path. Stay safe my friends, my thoughts and prayers are with you!

Well I just had to join in on this. My family and I have been a host family to a total of 9 Japanese exchange students. In the short time that they were with us (we had short term students), we grew to feel like each and every one was a member of our family. We have 2 students that we know of whose family's live in the Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture. We have heard from one that she and her family are safe, but are still waiting and hoping to hear from the other. We have been trying to contact all of our other students to make sure that they were not in any of the areas affected by the earthquake or resulting tsunami. But we have only been able to contact a few. Our thoughts and prayers are with all the people that have been affected by this...both in Japan and outside of Japan. We pray that God will watch over those who are missing, and those who have lost relatives and friends. Please join us in posting this on your blog...they can use all the prayers they can get. And thank you Nikki for starting this prayer wave.

Dr. Chuck's Got the Cure!

Not feeling good? Gotta tummy ache? Or maybe you're coughing and just can't stop. Well that's o.k. cause Dr. Chuck has the cure for what ails you. That's right, Guylou (from Guylou's Inimitability) has got the cutest Dr. you've ever seen...and he'll cure whatever's wrong. And at the same time, all those that paid attention to a previous post of mine, would have seen that he also would be helping children in need who could not afford medical aid, as he was being sold as a fundraiser for Dr.'s Without Borders. I was hoping to have him done sooner, but unfortunately life decided to step in and it just didn't happen. So let's take a look at this adorable little guy.

Now unfortunately, it was night time when I finished him so I didn't have very good lighting to take a picture, but you still get the general idea. Isn't he too cute? And you know that teddy bear is in good hands!

Just had to show you a close up because he's just so cute! If you are interested in getting Dr. Chuck, you can find him, as well as a whole bunch of awesome images, at Guylou's Inimitability store.

Supplies:

Uncolored Image: Dr. Chuck from Guylou's Inimitability
SU Close to Cocoa cs
DP and Yellow cs from my stash
Sentiment by me
Colored with Prisma Scholar and oms
Brown pearls by Recollections.