It's a whopper of an Easter!

Hi everyone! Checking in tonite to show you what I'm up to tonite. The procrastinator here finally ran to Wal-Mart to pick up the little milk cartons of flavored Whoppers candy that I'm going to bring to my family's Easter gathering on Sunday. I love candy that comes in boxes because they can easily be altered by slapping some cardstock or patterned paper on them!

Did you guys know that Whoppers come in yummy new flavors like blueberry, vanilla, strawberry and ORANGE CREME? YUM! It made me happy that these boxes were bright and fun colors, which inspired me to pair this Doodlebug sparkly polka dot paper with it. I found my Crafty Secrets Easter Joy stamp set that has been buried in a pile since CHA and pulled it out. Each box has a different little scene on it!

I chose the copic colors for the little bunny images based on the polka dot colors in the patterned paper, and then started cutting out circles and ovals with my Nestabilities dies.





I am well on my way to finishing 15 of these babies; I'm done covering the boxes and am going to sit in front of the TV and color in my bunny images now.

Easter greetings, everyone; have a whopper of a week!!

L.

J's Birthday Card

Happy Saturday morning, everyone! I'm happy to be home today, putzing around cleaning and getting ready for a birthday celebration at my house for my BFF Janine! J. and I have always been a week apart for birthdays, so we combine the 2 and celebrate them together. Tonite we're having a low calorie FIESTA that will include tacos, skinny margaritas & Hungry Girl low-calorie 8 layer dip. I'm prepping all the food today and my house smells like a big ONION! I whipped together a fun card for her this morning; I got my shipment of Crafty's new "Creative Scraps" a while ago and just haven't dug into them yet like I'd like to!

I used an image from the "Domestic Goddess" Scraps to create this card. I can't believe how cheap these are; they are retailing for $3.50! You can totally CRANK out 10-15 cards for the price of ONE! I reached for these first because they are so quick to slap a card together with. On this card I also used the little mixer image from Crafty's "Sweet Stuff" stamp set for a little round corner embellishment. I had to use the sentiment "If we are what we eat, I'm fast, easy and cheap"! You can mix and match any of the sentiments to create your own personal sassy card!

The scraps come on a double sheet folded in half, so the front of the scraps is the image above, and the back of the scraps has more images! I'm counting 14 cards out of these now! DUH!

So I'm off to finish cleaning up after THIS

<------

He leaves big fuzzy cotton-ball dust bunnies for me to clean up. YUCKO.

Happy Saturday!

L.

Spring Birthday Birds

I was on a Unity roll last weekend so I thought I'd post more cards I did using the spring flower birdie from Unity's "Birds of a Feather" stamp set. After coloring a bunch of these in, I figured out that the green loops under the yellow birdie are probably supposed to be Easter eggs, for Easter cards! Oopsie, I colored them in green thinking they were twirly vines! Dual purpose, right?

I think it's so much fun that on each of the birds in this set, there are always 2 or3 little whimsical dots above their heads or on the flowers. I've been adding tiny rhinestones to them to make them sparkle and add whimsy to these sweet images!

Has spring sprung in your town yet? We're getting snow here but it is GOING AWAY AND MELTING! Yay!

Happy Wednesday!

L.

Crank 'Em Out Unity Birds

I could hardly wait for cardmaking to turn to spring and summer themes, because I bought the cutest little Unity "Birds of a Feather" stamp set last winter. Finally I am cranking out flowery cards with these sweet little birdies!

This weekend I came up with this layout because I only had 1 sheet each of this Basic Grey "Bittersweet" Hand Dipped & "Praline" paper. I was on a mission to see how many cards I could get off of 2 sheets of patterned paper! I reversed my scallop circles on this one to give a different look for the focal point image. I sort of like the scallop on the white paper for a change, instead of always using it for the mat!

I pulled out my FAVORITE circle sentiment set from Papertrey/Pinefeather Press (Around & About Sentiments), and then used it to stamp thank you, happy birthday and get-well soon! So now I have all-occasion cards, from the same batch of bird cards! I also used Pine's "Beyond Basic Borders" to stamp a faint pink vine in the background going down the edge of the paper.

I cranked out close to 16 of these cards with 2 sheets of 12 x 12 patterned paper! Man, I'm a thrifty girl, eh?

Happy Sunday!
L.

Colored, Glimmered Bingo Cards!

Oh man, those Tattered Angels girlies have created a monster here. While I was experimenting with different ways to use Tattered Angels Glimmer mist, I decided I wanted to try it on my favorite cardboard BINGO cards! And not just the CLEAR glimmer mist, the COLORED stuff! I had some vintage bingo cards that were cardboard with BLACK numbers, and decided I could spice them up a bit with Vintage PINK glimmer mist! I gave the card a few sweeping spritzes with the pink mist, let it dry and then gave a few more spritzes, and a FEW MORE! And I got this gorgeous deep pink glimmery color from it!

Then I added some seed packet and floral images from Crafty Secret's new "Garden" Scraps. I coated the seed packet with Ranger Crackle glaze so it has a shiny, crackly texture to it.

Here's a close up of the shimmer! I also took distress ink and went around the edges of the Garden Scraps to dirty them up a bit.

Hope everyone has a great weekend! YAY FRIDAY!

Lisa

Glimmer Mist & Crafty Secrets Scraps

Tonite I have another project that I did for the Crafty Secrets/Tattered Angels "March Mix" challenge. I found this unfinished wood mirror at Michaels or Crafts Direct for a dollar or so, and had it in my project cabinet. I pulled it out and was going to paint it, and then I thought, HEY! I wonder what glimmer mist would look like on the raw wood!

I laid the mirror down on some cardboard and spritzed away with Tattered Angels "Patina" colored glimmer mist. I was SO thrilled that the glimmer mist covered beautifully, and brought out the woodgrain! Because it's water-based, the color soaked right into the wood and left a cool shimmery coating!

Click on the close-up here, to see the wood frame up close. Look at the shimmer it left!

Then I took images from Crafty's new "Garden Scraps" (these images are printed on a heavy cardstock), and glued them to the front of the frame with mod-podge. After everything was dry, I gave it another coat of a clear 'pearl' colored glimmer mist.

I also had some white Bazzil stitched ribbon that I had bought at Archivers in their $1.99 section, and spritzed the ribbon with the glimmer mist too! The color soaked into the ribbon, so now my ribbon color matches my frame perfectly!

Here's a close-up of some of the cool images from Crafty's Garden Scraps sheets.

I have one more project I couldn't resist doing; I made a BINGO card! More to follow!

L.

Crafty Secrets and Tattered Angels March Mix

Happy MONDAY morning to everyone! Today is my birthday and I have the DAY OFF! No one should have to work on their birthday, so I took a day of vacation! YIPPIE! Today I have a tutorial for you for the Crafty Secrets/Tattered Angels March Mix challenge, that has been going on all month. We have teamed up with the Tattered Angels design team to create some fun projects with Crafty Secrets and Tattered Angels products!




I first have to tell you that I was COMPLETELY inspired by Anna Wight's card HERE; her beautiful watercoloring inspired me to pull out Crafty Secret's "Garden Girls" set and try my hand at coloring these beautiful spring girl images. Anna is a master at watercoloring, so I'm not even going to ATTEMPT to copy her, because I do not have the skills! But I wanted to show you guys a cool, easy technique to get a great 'expressionistic watercolor' type background, that is easy and simple for a beginner or novice to accomplish.


Here's what you'll need:

A grass colored & sky colored ink (I used Stampin Up Certainly Celery & Soft Sky)

A solid background stamp (I used Hero Arts Aged Background Block)

Tattered Angels Honey Dew & Patina colored glimmer mist

Stamp off your images onto white cardstock. I always use Neenah Solar White now, for everything I do. I used Brilliance Black Ink and then heat-set the ink with my heat gun. (Brilliance is a waterproof ink...important because we don't want the black ink to bleed.) I also stamped off another image on copy paper for my 'mask' & cut it out. I'm not going to worry about the trees or the rest of the images, just my focal point, which is the girl. Place your mask over the girl. This will protect her from getting waterlogged.


Let's start with the sky. Take your blue ink (SU soft sky) and ink up part of the background block.











Now lightly 'spritz' the Patina-blue colored glimmer mist across the block.

Stamp the block across the top of your image. Your paper will curl slightly; take your heat gun and run it across the paper until the glimmer mist dries.

Now do the same thing with the celery green ink. Ink up the block, then spritz Honey dew-green colored glimmer mist. Stamp it onto the bottom half of your image.

Take the heat gun and run it across your image again. Your sky and grass will have a cool shimmer to it! I think you may be able to see it if you click onto the next photo and look at the close-up (you can see the glimmer and how Copics will cover over the top of the glimmer misted bench and pots.

Now take your Copic markers and color your images in! I used "Sand" color for the potting bench and brown (E08) for the clay pots.

Continue coloring your images until a bright and beautiful scene evolves! My favorite dark brown Copic for trees is "Light Walnut", and leaves are done in Spring Dim Green. Dress colors are "Buttercup Yellow & Golden Yellow".

I have another project for this challenge that I'll post soon. In the meantime, check out more new projects on the following design team blogs:

Linda Duke
Lauren Ferguson
Tricia Ladouceur


Plus, there are grand finale give-aways on the Crafty Secrets and Tattered Angels blogs! Stop over and get entered to win some great products!

Crafty Secrets Blog
Tattered Angels Blog

Happy Monday!

L.