Happy birthday to Ewe

Hi there :)  Today's card is my #6 for the #I'mbringingbirthdaysback project.  My nieces birthdays seem to come in a big bunch - three of them in March!  This card is the one I made for Miss Kody.

Kody is a little farm girl and she loves her animals.  For the last few years she's had a pet lamb for school and she's won lots of ribbons for her lamb training skills so when I saw the Clearly Besotted 'Feeling Sheepish' stamp and die set I knew I had to get it.  I purchased this one directly from Craft Stash in the UK as it was the only place I could locate both the stamps and the dies, and their service was pretty awesome.

I started off by stamping the images I wanted onto some watercolour paper.  I even used pieces that were left over from a previous card project... very thrifty of me LOL

I did all the colouring using my Zig Clean Color Markers. I started off by doing the grass:

Then I die cut them and used my water brush to blend the grass right out to the bottom edge.

Next I started on the sheep. I used some greys to do their wee feet and some peachy colours for their faces along with some pink in their ears and for their cheeks.

I used some Micropore tape to hold the dies in place while I die cut these little babies... which led to a little bit of a learning curve!

It turns out that even though Micropore tape isn't super sticky it IS sticky enough to lift your carefully coloured paper off if you are a bit 'enthusiastic' about removing it... and that might actually cost you time because then you have to do another sheep to replace it!  Just saying :)

I did consider keeping this 'oopsy' for Darnell's Boo Boo challenge... but the honest truth is that I've got a much bigger oopsy to share for that one!

Anyway... onto the next step... I had a bit of a loose idea as to what I was going to make for Miss Kody so I started laying out the pieces I had in mind.

I used some Tumbled Glass Distress Ink to create a bit of sky:

The hills were a little more challenging!  Darn perfectionism really got in my way with this one!  I started off with some Mowed Lawn Distress Ink...

...nah too bland!  Maybe I could create some interest with some water droplets...

... ahh... nah!!!  Maybe spray on some glimmer mist??

Hmm... it's kinda getting there.  Maybe some Twisted Citron Distress Ink would help...

Yay!  Loving it!  And every little hill paddock needs a cute little fence thanks to the Rolling Hills die from My Favorite Things.

Before I added my sheep I had to stamp the sentiment... and the MISTI really helps get everything lined up perfectly.

Of course I wanted to heat emboss the sentiments before I added the wee sheep to the card front!

My little sheep that I had to do a replacement copy of was saved for the inside of the card:

Next I layered my card front onto some perfectly coordinated paper from my stash... I'm pretty sure it's an Autumn Leaves paper from YEARS ago.

But wait... there's more... my little sheep weren't quite finished.  I knew I wanted to have white sheep but I thought my niece might appreciate a bit of bling so I got out my Wink of Stella pen and got busy... and I love the results!

And since it was Kody's birthday... and I already had everything on my table... I decided to make her a gift card holder to match her card... and of course to hold the actual gift card I'd bought her.  Of course I used my Lawn Fawn Small Stitched Envelope die set... super useful die!

Having just turned 10, she was able to appreciate the puny nature of the sentiments... and she thought it was especially funny that her Auntie would use 'ewe' instead of 'you' since she was a school teacher LOL

Here's the finished card and gift card holder:

Thanks for visiting today... I hope 'ewe' have an awesome day xx

# Bringing Birthdays Back

Hi there :)

Today I've got a little project that I'm working on this year thanks to my lovely friend Sheree.  Back in the middle of January, Sheree and I did a road trip to Wellington to stay with our good friend Esther...  we visited scrapbooking places, Spotlights, ate out and generally had a super awesome time... we SOOO need to do this again! 

I digress... I go off on tangents all the time!  So back to Sheree... she was telling us about a project called 'Bringing Birthdays Back' that she'd heard about through Stampin Up.  Here's the explanation in her own words:

I would like to share with you a project that I am working on.  Stampin Up released a stamp at the beginning of last year and it was a project of Shannon West from the home office.  She was wanting to encourage people to send snail mail.  To encourage this 'Card Movement' she designed a stamp #imbringingbirthdaysback.   I purchased the stamp last year and it sat in my stash till this year.  I decided over the Christmas holidays that I would like to do the same thing.  So since the beginning of January I have been making and sending cards and stamping this stamp on the envelopes. I have attached a photo of a couple of cards that were sent at the beginning of the week to show you the stamp. I am also numbering them as I send them out. This has been very rewarding so far and I will definitely keep this up - it will be interesting at the end of the year to see how many have been sent - so far it is 20 birthday cards.

That email was sent to me over a month ago so I'm sure the card count is a bit higher by now! 

To be honest I'm a slack birthday card sender... Esther can attest to that... I think she's had 2 (or maybe 3) birthday cards in the last 10 years.  I have 'good intentions' of sending cards but then time disappears and it just doesn't happen.  So... I decided to buy this stamp from Sheree and make it a goal to send friends and family birthday cards that I have made... and so far so good!

Sheree's birthday is actually in January so I decided that she would get my #1 card with this stamp and here's what I made for her:

Sheree asked me how I'd made it and luckily I'd taken a couple of photos of the process so here it is in a few easy steps.

I started off by stamping the image with black ink and then heat embossing it with Ranger clear embossing powder.  The image is called 'Fairytale' and it's from Lavinia Stamps.  If you live in New Zealand you can get it from Krafters Cart in Auckland and they have a fabulous service.

I wanted this image stamped on watercolour paper and it was a good thing I had my MISTI handy because it took about six stampings before I finally had the image completely black!

Next I masked off a moon area where the dandelion flower was stamped... at this point I knew exactly how I wanted the finished card to look!

Then I added some colour to my background using Distress Inks - Spun Sugar and Shaded Lilac.  I didn't mask the wings of the fairy but I was super careful around this area because I didn't want any colour in the wings.

Before I removed the mask I added some 'artistic' splatters with Ranger Pearl paint.  I put a bit of the paint onto a stamping block, watered it down a bit and then just 'flicked' it (artistically of course!) from a tiny paint brush. 

Then I unmasked the moon and painted in the wings with my Wink of Stella pen for some sparkle.

I thought the moon was a bit stark so I softly added some watercolour shading using Distress Inks - Pumice Stone and Weathered Wood.

At the last minute I decided to die cut the image with a stitched border die and pop it onto some cardstock to make it stand out.  I also stamped Sheree's name using Concord & 9th's Sophisticated Script stamps - Upper & Lower Case... totally LOVE these stamps!  They have FAB service too!

The final step was to stamp my new stamp on the back of the envelope - I didn't use the MISTI for this one and it stamped perfectly the very first time!

So far I've made (and sent) 8 birthday cards this year... total miracle!  I'm just crossing my fingers I don't run out of steam before Esther has her birthday in October!!  LOL

Thanks so much for visiting xx

In a galaxy... not so far away!

Hi :)

I'm guessing lots of people look around the internet for ideas to use... otherwise Pinterest would never have been invented... and one of the things I've seen lately is galaxy backgrounds.  There's so many awesome video tutorials out there that I'm not going to do another one... but I will show you the step by step photos of my first attempt.

I started off with some watercolour paper and Twisted Citron Distress Ink:

Then I added Carved Pumpkin:

Followed by Picked Raspberry:

Then I covered over all of that with Wilted Violet:

Next I added some Chipped Sapphire:

And finally some Black Soot around the edges:

Then I sprayed some Glimmer Mist over the top... it gives a gorgeous sparkle and also helped the inks blend in a really cool way:

Finally I added some white spatters with watery paint to give the effect of stars and light:

While all this was going on, my mind was whirling with ideas for how to use this background and then I realised it would be perfect to turn into a birthday card for one of my nephews.  I recently bought Gerda Steiner's Alien Invasion stamp set and I had ideas forming about using the cool little spaceship.

I stamped a few of the images onto watercolour paper and then heat embossed them.

Then I coloured all the images using my Zig Clean Color Markers and cut them out.  I wanted to make the top of the spaceship shiny but I knew if I used Glossy Accents the colours underneath would run... and then I realised the perfect option was to heat emboss clear on top and do several layers so that the top really looked like glass.

After getting the images ready I decided to create a base using some glitter cardstock which I die cut to size.  I also cut the background with my Lawn Fawn stitched rectangles die.

At this point I got so into creating my card that I forgot to take any more photos but here is the finished card:

Since I had everything out I actually made two of these cards... so much fun! Click on the images to get a more detailed view.

I usually leave the inside of my cards blank but since this was a special one for my nephew I added a little something inside:

I'd coloured over the wee alien with my Wink of Stella pen but it didn't show up very well in this photo so I went back indoors and got a better one.... you've gotta love that sparkle!

The card with the orange alien was for my nephew's birthday and I knew he wanted a gift card so I thought I'd make him one to match his card:

Here's the set together... totally loved them and my nephew was very happy with them... although in truth, he was probably happier with the gift card itself rather than the card and gift holder!

I'm happy to report that Gerda Steiner have started making more dies for their stamp sets and this Alien Invasion one now comes with a die which I immediately ordered and it might just arrive here today!  I have to admit that having the dies makes it FAR more likely that I will actually use the stamps.

Thanks for visiting my blog today... wishing you all a fab weekend xx