Hanging with friends, the human kind

The purpose of this blog isn't to bring anyone down, so I'll make the sad part short (although this news is nothing close to sweet). We found out on Friday that one of our kitties isn't doing well, and she probably won't make it through the year. I am not handling it well at all; my cats are my babies. Anyone who knows me knows how crazy I am about them. Sophie was sleeping all day and I needed some distraction; I got it in the form of a crop with some new friends. My buddy Kelly (KraftinKelly) invited me to a crop near Philly, so I took the drive. It turned out to be a great choice. I had a blast; I laughed so hard that I literally came close to peeing my pants on a few occasions. Let me just say: jelly belly is entirely too good at flavored jelly beans, and you do not want to play BeanBoozled if certain tastes make you sick. I was tasting "vomit" and "rotten fish" jelly belly aftertaste the whole two hour drive home! EW. On the plus side, I woke up Sunday morning and spent an hour and a half loving on my girl, until she did the typical cat thing and got bored with me.

I wasn't super productive at the crop, but I got a few things done. Prepare for a bit of picture overload (fyi, as usual, all images are colored with copics and I was too lazy to note the colors I used). Here goes:

This cutie is called Daisy Fairie Marci, from La La Land Crafts. I think she might be retired now, though. She's for a dear friend who is going through some rough times right now, and I just want her to know that I'm thinking of her. My friend loves fairies and has a fairy garden, so she seemed perfect for her.











Another La La Land image, because I just love them. Also another card for a wonderful friend going through some hard times. Her issues are similar to mine, unfortunately. She has some sick furry babies at home. I wanted to send her some happy mail to give her a paper hug. To keep the La La Land love going:

Now, this one is kind of different than the others, because I tried something new. There's an amazing tutorial on the La La Land blog on how to make this fun rose pattern. So, I downloaded the digi of Lovely Marci (she really is lovely) and gave it a shot. You should try, too! It's so much easier than it looks! Thanks, Debbie, for the awesome tutorial. This was my first time using my new leaf dies from My Favorite Things, too. I love them because you can layer them or use them alone. It's hard to tell from this pic, but the one behind the red rose is popped up for some dimension.

And last but not least:

For this one, the image is Some Odd Girl's Crazy Love Tia. I tried to color her with long blonde hair and my girls are sealpoint siamese. Their tails only get fluffy like that when they're fighting, though. lol.

That's all from me today. I figure I've bugged you enough! I made more card kits and just never finished them at this crop. I was too distracted by new friends, laughter, BeanBoozled, Catchphrase, and yummy food. I figure those are all nice distractions, right?!?

Just because I felt like it

It seems like I usually make cards with a specific person in mind, which means I'll pick the image just for them. You know, one that speaks to me and says something like, "so-and-so would love her!". Then I might color that image in the proposed recipient's favorite colors and find papers to match, then set about making the card. And then there are other times when I just color an image because I like to color and I just make a card with that image because I like to create. Monday was one of those times. I was waiting for a friend to visit and I was too pumped up to sit and read or watch tv, so I got lost at my craft desk once again. This is what emerged after I was done, amidst the sea of paper scraps, half empty embellishment packets and ribbon pieces:

Luckily for me, I know several people with special occasions coming up who would love her, even if yellow is not their favorite color. I mean, who wouldn't love a little girl with a toddler chub tummy and stocky little toddler legs, loving on her teddy bear? She is illustrated by Elisabeth Bell for Belles N Whistles. I colored her with copics. For now, she'll sit in my stash and wait for that special person to call for her. Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Oh, yeah. The challenge list before I forget. This card is for the following challenges:
Challenges 4 Everybody (6/7)- Anything Goes
Clear it out (6/3) - Critters (teddy bear fits, I hope) and earth tones (lots of yellow in my card)
Creatalicious Challenges (6/13) - for the girls
Cute Card Thursday (5/29)- Tie it up
Elisabeth Bell's World (6/22) - new beginnings (I think this would make a cute baby card)
Elphine House (6/12) - Welcome, Little One
Kaboodle Doodles (6/2) - Anything Goes
Oozak (5/31)- Anything Goes with Earth Tones
Simon Says (6/4) - Anything Goes
The Squirrel and The Fox (5/31) - Here come the girls
Sweet Stampin'  (6/1) - Doilies and Dies

Hugs for my friend

I'm scheduling this post to show up on Saturday evening, so let's hope it works! Blogger hasn't really been showing me much love lately, so I have my concerns.

Anyway, I'm off to go see my friend Sara this weekend. I was in the mood to play with an image I colored a while ago and when I found this sentiment in my stash, it just seemed perfect to go with her. What do you think?

This is one of those instances where I can't share the copic colors with you, because I colored this cutie from CC Designs over a year ago. Sorry about that! It's also one of those cases where I threw everything but the kitchen sink at the card and just decided to see what looked right enough to stick it down. Who am I kidding? That's my usual tendency! It's how my craft room ends up being such a hot mess after I make one lousy card!!!

Anyway, thanks for stopping by. I hope you have a fabulous weekend!!!

Sometimes, you've only got time for a quickie.

And some titles make my friends minds go right into the gutter. You know who you are. Back on up out of that gutter now, darlings. Come along now.

It was 12:30 at night, my cousin was in the hospital following a particularly nasty surgery, and I needed a quick card to put in the mail first thing in the morning. Luckily for me, I'd had some time to color recently, so I had a few images ready to go. Mojo Monday's sketch 279 made the decision for me. I only had two images that went with the shape of the sketch, and I really, really liked this sketch and wanted to use it.

This is the card I put together. Notice that I finally used one of my non-Elisabeth Bell Whimsy images like I promised I'd do over a week ago. Better late than never!

This little cutie is from the Playful Kittens set at Whimsy stamps. My cousin loves cats, and I love her, so a cat with a heart is perfect. Papers are Crate Paper. Image border cut with a Spellbinders Nestie. I'm going to enter this card in the Whimsy Inspirations challenge to use fancy edges. Anyway, cardstock is Bazzill, buttons and twine are from my stash, and the little grommets are actually stickers from Rain Dots. And, of course, the image was colored with copics.

Please pray for my cousin's speedy recovery. And, as always, thanks for stopping by!

Whimsy DT Application for March

So, as you can see, I decided to keep this title free of puns or otherwise potentially confusing wording. For once, my title is very cut-and-dried, can't-miss-what-I-mean. I didn't want anyone on the Whimsy Team to miss it. :)

If you can't guess from the straightforward title (I know, it's confusing because I'm just not usually so...well...dry with my titles, unless we're discussing dry humor), I am applying to be on the Whimsy DT as a guest designer for March.

I've been a fan of Whimsy Stamps for a while. I love the fact that you can find so many things there, from beautiful digi papers, to adorable and fun stamps in both rubber and digi to shaped sentiments with special dies just to cut them out. How cool is that, and so super easy, too? They even have personalized stamps, as I know because I just got one. LOVE! I used it for the first time on the back of my card below. I think it was appropriate to break it in with a Whimsy image, don't you?

So, this is my brand spankin' new card that I just made tonight, with this DT call and my friend Barb in mind. This sweet girl is from Elisabeth Bell's Cottage Cuties collection and her name is SkippyDee. We can't forget her furry little friend, too. That's Bella. I'm a cat person, so I love when Elisabeth puts Bella with her images.

The design is based on sketch #54 at CLP Challenge Blog. Papers are Prima Songbird that I distressed and inked. Embellishments from my stash. I colored SkippyDee and Bella with copics. Here goes with the colors (I tend to use a lot, so this could take a while):

Skin: E11, E00, E000 and R20 for the cheeks

Hair: E25, E31, E50

Hat: E40, E41, E42

Scarf: R20, R21, R22 and a green spica pen for the polka dots

Shirt: G20, G21, G24 (it's a lot more muted than it looks like in this pic)

Pants: E41, E42, E44

Bella: Y28 (bell), C1, C3, C5

Log: E23, E57, E59

 

I think it would be so much fun to participate as a guest DT for the March new release. Not only because I'd get to work alongside some amazing artists (truth, not brown-nosing, just so you know), but let's be honest - I'd get a huge kick out of being one of the first to see the new products. Don't fib; you know you'd want to have that honor, too. Plus, their products always inspire me to create. I wasn't much good at work today; I kept picturing cards to make in my head. Good thing it was a slow Friday.

 

Just in case my new card doesn't showcase enough of my crafting style for the DT to make a decision, here are two of my older creations:



I recently purchased some Sylvia Zet stamps, too, and hope to create with those later this weekend, so keep your eyes peeled!

Pssssstttt....Whimsy Team, March is my birthday month. Don't you think it'd be a great gift to let me design for your team? Not that there's any pressure or guilt tripping going on or anything. Really.

My first card is also for the following challenges:
CLP: sketch 54
Elphine House: vintage
Elisabeth Bell's World: vintage Valentine

What did I do to be so rewarded?

I don't know what in the heck I did to deserve the reward of Mr. Mojo's ongoing visit, but if I can figure it out, I'm going to do it again! Tonight, that Mojo dude didn't feel like coloring. He wanted to play with paper. I'm all about paper, so I yanked out an image that I colored a while ago and prepared to slap her down on a card. I had a lot of fun distressing, inking, rooting through my embellishments for just the perfect thing, and so on. Here's what I came up with:

Ain't she cute? She's from the Greeting Farm. As usual, I colored her with my handy-dandy copics. It was a while ago, so don't ask for colors, k? I gave her little scarf a striped pattern with different shades of pink, rouged up her little cheeks, added some highlights with a signo pen, and added some shine to her buttons with glossy accents. I think she goes really well with this Doodlebug paper called Sweet Cakes, don't you? After all, she's so cute and sweet!

I'm entering her in the challenge at:
Cute Card Thursday - anything goes!

The weekend is almost here. Does anybody have any fun plans? I've got my belly dancing class tomorrow night, then my brother and I plan to go see "The Hunger Games" afterwards. I've got to yank down my warm weather clothes from the attic, put away the winter ones, clean my house, and maybe craft a bit. My nephew's got a soccer game on Sunday, so I'll go cheer him on, too! I can't cheer too loud, though. He's 15. Apparently, cheering aunts are embarrassing. Who knew?