Happy Canada Day!

First week of summer now that the kids are home from school. Wow, I have managed to get NO crafting done all week. Oops. Still adjusting I suppose.

Since it is so close to Canada Day, I wanted to share with you a Silly Patriotic story from my childhood.

My dad took my older brothers and I to the local mall to pick out our own hot pressed transfer t-shirts; remember those kiosks in the mall that were all the rage in the 80's. I poured over the massive binders for what seemed like hours finally finding the most perfect image for my tee. I was so excited about the adorable googly eyed critters with the huge front teeth, and the Patriotic phrase I thought showed how mature I was becoming at 10 years of age. I proudly showed my dad the image I wanted, knowing he was going to be so proud of my decision.

Shockingly my dad put his foot down and said there was no way I could have a shirt with that image on it. Well, I was a bit of a brat back then, and had a massive temper tantrum causing quite the chaos. Finally my dad relented and very reluctantly explained to his little 10 year old what the slogan on the shirt actually meant.

Thanks DAD for having the foresight and determination to say NO to me in this situation. It would have been utterly humiliating and embarrassing to have shown up at school the next day wearing a t-shirt that read: "If your Canadian, show me your beaver!" True story!

Summer Treats

My DD and I quickly whipped up these "Treats" to give out to her classmates tomorrow on her last day of Kindergarten. We used my handy dandy Cricut for the the little sunshine die cuts which my daughter created the faces herself with marker. I typed up "Enjoy Summer! From DD" printed on Avery return address labels and we quickly pieced them together. It was very fun to do along side of my DD opposed to mom doing them all herself. (I used PS to remove DD's name on the label for this post)

Our school board does not allow any home made bake goods to be sent to the school because of food allergies and any pre-packaged products have to clearly identify that they are peanut free. So licorice it is.

While I truly appreciate that food allergies should not be taken lightly, it's just a bit of a downer sometimes. I love to bake and it would be nice to send cupcakes just once. Oh well.

Tiny Thanks / Sketch #7 Blog Hop

Tomorrow afternoon is my 4 year old son and 5 half year old daughters dance recital. I have been meaning to make a thank you card for each of their teacher's and helpers, but of course waited until the last minute. I quickly coloured Tiddly Inks - Tiny Dancer. I knew I was going to use black and pink DP so, coloured her hair accordingly even though my kids are blonde.

In Adobe Illustrator I made the dashed frame and sentiment around my scanned coloured image. There are many file extensions you can save as in AI. I tried a few on this card and pdf. format seemed to get the truest print result. The other extensions changed the dark C9 in the hair to a blue hue when printing.

After all my thank you's were printed, gift carded and sealed, I thought my RL coloured image needed to go somewhere too. I remembered that Deconstructing Jen was having a blog hop and sketch #7 challenge, so why not. I flipped the layout so my Dancer was standing more upright when the image frame was angled. She looked like she was ready to fall over when angled the other way like Jen's sketch.

The DP is SU Pattern Pack II and the svg lattice fence is from Images by Heather M. The popped up XOXO paper tiles are from a scrapbook page kit from Walmart, not sure of the brand.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope everyone has a great weekend. We are Cars 2 bound on Sunday, dang diet doesn't allow for popcorn though :(

Wish Big / Reflection Challenge

The challenge over at the Make It Colourful blog: challenge #23 ColourCast/Reflection is a bit of a doozy. It was to use light or the colour of light to reflect on the objects around it. For example if it was a red light, the shadow and highlights may have a red cast to them. I gave it a go using Tiddly Inks Fairy Fae Catches a Star.

I am slightly disappointed with the cast reflection, she looks a bit like she ate some bad clams. I think if I had chosen a different colour for the star, hence changing the highlight colour on her face, it would have turned out better. Lesson learned.

I kept the layout very simple. This card was created specifically for the Make it Colourful challenge so I wasn't so concerned with the card face. The paper is DCWV and she was coloured with Copics. I added some Stickles to the fairy wings. The Sprig Leaf svg is from SVGCuts.

Squigglefly Watermelon News

Okay, ready for some exciting news? I have been asked to participate on the Design Team for the Squigglefly Challenge Blog. Hurray! What is very cool about the Squigglefly store is that it houses images & sentiments by 43 seperate artist - now that's a lot of variety. Your sure to find something to suit your style.

As well, check out today's challenge over at the Squigglefly Challenge Blog. Today's challenge #103 Playing Favorites, choose your favorite image from the Squigglefly store for you project. And don't forget to say "hey" to all the New DT's. Now on to my card.

This gorgeous little sweetheart is Watermelon Bee by artist Cheryl Alger. Isn't she adorable. Reminds me of my little ones; what sweet, messy fun. It just screams "SUMMER" to me.

I played along with this fabulous sketch challenge #6 by fellow Tiddly Inker Jen over at @ her blog Deconstructing Jen. I am a huge fan of DP panels, so this was right up my alley.

The DP is all from Jillibean Soup: Watermelon Gazpacho & two coordinating circle Journaling Sprouts or tags. Of course my image is all done up with Copics, I also popped her up on dimensional. The sentiment and "love" heart are from retired SU set "Treat Yourself". Actually it was one of my very first stamp sets, I won it at an SU Retirement Party a few years back.

Submitted for the following Challenges:
Deconstructing Jen - Sketch #6
Frosted Designs - Journaling Tags
7 Kids College Fund - #23 Feeling Hot Hot Hot
The Rubber Cafe - Summer

Bubble Gum Birthday

Don't you just love this adorable little Bubble Blower by Cheryl Alger that I got from the Squigglefly store. I love the idea of this image, a great big bubble ready to pop. I thought to myself wouldn't it be kind of cute to see an image of when it did pop too, low and behold there is one over at Sassy Cheryl's. How funny.

I just now after uploading my images, figured out that I made a tragic mistake. I coloured the hat incorrectly, the hat brim wraps all the way around the left hand side of her face. Must fix that next time. I can't fix it now, it's all sealed up in an envelope for a party my daughter is going to tomorrow morning. That's a big oops.

Sassy Cheryl's is also having a Make a Tent Card challenge #68. So I made this Twisted Easel card with a tent topper. Directions found here. The challenge wasn't clear if a Tent Topper was okay, I'm going with it, what the hey, I've already messed up the hat brim.

I had already made the background for this card last month but ended up changing DP at the last minute. I had made a whole other card as seen in this post. When I was digging through my scrap drawer this afternoon and found this Easel Card, I remembered Chery's challenge and decided to add the scallop circle for a tent topper. The DP is DCWV - Blossom's & Butterflies on SU Chocolate Chip. Computer generated sentiment "You blow me away".

Now although was purchased at Squigglefly, it is also a Cheryl Alger image. Hope it still qualifies for the Sassy Cheryl challenge, kind of a gray area really. Although with my colouring mistake maybe it shouldn't.

I wish this could be viewed as is in RL. The light pink dress looks almost gauzy.

Gamer Bambino's

Now this should have been my entry for the Blue Challenge #22 @ Make It Colourful. Oh well, but it does qualify for the Squigglefly Challenge #102 Make it Masculine SFC102. If you don't use a Squigglefly image you aren't eligible for the prize, but you are still able to enter.

My husband is a HUGE gamer and will just adore this card. This image represents him more then any other Fathers Day card I have EVER made him. Gaming or Mountain Biking are his truest love's beyond family. So I am super excited to finally share with all of you, what is now my FAVORITE image.

It's a actually 3 Tiddly Ink images combined into one: Gamer, FlutterBy and Big Bad Dad. I asked Christy if we could modify Gamer so that it would represent both my littlest ones. They just love to game with their Daddy. Christy very graciously played with my mock up to come up with this TRES FABULOUS image.

I am not loving the shading on my daughters hair, but I ADORE how my son's crown turned out. His hair is very sticky up in the back so this is a good representation.

The card layout I have been wanting to do for a while, but never got around to it. It's June's Sketch For You to Try by i{heart}2stamp. I haven't participated in all of this years sketches, but have done quite a few. They always have fantastic samples.

As well, my fabulous Rrrred rrrrrick rrrrack is my "R" embelishment for the Crafts for Eternity challenge - C4E #24. How awesome is that idea for a challenge, just give a letter as the inspiration, leave the door waaay open. Very fun.

Tiddly's In Blue

* Just to clarify for those who asked: I didn't make the sun burst pattern on this layout. It was a sun burst patterned DP by Echo Park. I just cut out a large circle from the sun burst DP, then cut a smaller circle inside of the original circle and twisted the outside circle so the pattern no longer matched up. It's just one circle within another. Hope that clear's things up.

Did you know that Tiddly Inks digital stamps is hosting the Make It Colourful's, Challenge #22 - Make It Blue. It is as it read, colour your image in blues.

I was completely thrilled to get an Honorable mention for last weeks Cast Your Shadow challenge. It easy to see why the top 3 were the top 3. Their projects blew me away, such amazing colouring talent. For me that is such high praise to be mentioned, I LOVE the submissions on this blog.

Back to my card, sorry for the gushing. Now I personally think I have done blue better than this. I think I started off too dark, however, once I had the blue outside shadowing done, I LOVED this piece and didn't have the heart to redo her. She popped more then I thought she would.

I have been seeing a lot of challenge layouts recently that incorporate circle layers, so I decided, that a circular sun burst would look lovely with this digi. I had used my Colluzle on the Echo Park -Splash collection paper, but then cut an additional circle into the mat but offset the pattern before sticking it down on the blue layer - I like the effect.

Thanks for stopping by, sorry if I gushed too much, it was just VERY exciting news for me, since I am ever trying to improve my colouring.

Tiddly Dog Walking

Post Script: A BIG THANK YOU to Judi M. aka. Crafts aka. Watercolour Wizard, this card was noted on the Splitcoaststampers: FAVORITES for the week ending June 19, 2011. Wow, other then regular "reply"s, I have never been mentioned on Splitcoaststampers. *Blush*

Today's Tiddly Tuesday Challenge is the perfect opportunity to get me out of my comfort zone and colour an actual scene. Tiddly Challenge #54- Simplify: create a single layer Tiddly card. Don't forget to check out the DT's amazing single layered cards and play along, you don't need a lot of supplies for today's challenge. Don't be intimidated, you just colour once and then you have a versatile card that can be quickly mass produced for any occasion.

I perused the awesome Tiddly Store for the perfect image to go with my doodled "Zoo" background. Yes it was a Zoo scene originally. I scanned my Zoo, then used PS to erase the animals and Zoo letters. Christy's Walk the Dogs was just the right image for my new little park setting and to fill out the right side, I also added Tree Hugger, I ADORED the shape of the tree. This card was made from Xpress It paper and coloured with Copics and watercolour pencils. Submitted for the In the Frame - One Layer card challenge at the Less is More Challenge Blog.

For anyone who's interested in learning how to combine digital images to a background, here is a great tutorial by Make It Crafty.

Okay so now that you've spent all this time on one CAS card, here is a kewl trick - SCAN IT. Now you have a ready made image that you can reproduce or drop into a digital card, or just print like it's an uncoloured digi and set it into your layered card and away you go. Colour once and enjoy many times.

This "completely digital" layout used a modified card sketch from Our Vintage Affair. All the digital items are from various Shabby Princess kits, except the brown cardstock paper from Peppermintcreative - Momitude kit, the stitches by Christine Smith Digital and the blank dog tag from The Elemental Pixie.


A special thank you to Mutnik on Splitcoaststampers for emailing me her tip to colour the background lightly with watercolour pencils then go over it with a lightly moisten Q-tip. I modified this and used a SU colour blender. X-press It! paper will lift and pill if too wet so quick and light blending is best.

Tiddly School Girl & Challenges

Here in Ontario Canada, the school year isn't over until the end of June, so I had one more teacher thank you to prepare. I used School Girl by Tiddly Inks, the Sketch Saturday layout, and focused on using shadows for the Make it Colourful's challenge #21 Cast Your Shadow.

This week they want to see you cast your shadows onto the ground and objects! I haven't been brave enough yet to challenge myself to do scenery, which this project is perfect for. Instead I focused on making my shadows in the image more prominent. Instead of just shading like I normally would, I tried to add more dimension by using W3 in the nooks and crannies.

The sentiment circle I made in Photoshop and is a freebie for whomever is interested. Click on the image and save to your computer. I printed mine at approximately 1.5" size.

Details:
DP: Echo Park - Summer Days
Accessories: diecut paper butterfly, Cricut scallops, Colluzle circle, Cuttlebug embossing folder, corner punch, ribbon, Inkessentials pen

Mojo Monday on Wednesday

There is a really fabulous sketch over at the Mojo Monday Blog - sketch #193.

This was a fun challenge, I don't think I have ever made a non square or rectangle card before. It was super easy though with the Coluzzle tool. even cutting the pie shapes was quick - just fold your circle in half, cut, then fold and half and cut again.

I decided to make my Fathers Day cards and get them in the mail today since the Canadian Post Office may go on strike this Friday - I might just be able to get them on route before the strike. Fingers crossed.

I had paper pieced these retired Stamping Bella shirts last winter and set them aside intending to use for this Fathers Day, but couldn't quite fit them on the front of the card the way I wanted to, so used them as inside embellishment.

You can't tell by the photo, but the whole card has been paper stained with Antique Paper stain.