Mom, Love You More Than Coffee

I love the smell of coffee even though I don’t drink it. My mom never drank it when I was a kid and my dad only drank it when he was at work. So I’d only wake up to the smell of coffee when my grandparents were visiting. It’s one of the best smell memories of my childhood!

So when I saw our challenge at Crazy 4 Challenges was to be inspired by, you guessed it, coffee!!! I made the coffee cup with paper piecing and layered die cuts to make it more like a chipboard embellishment. I even carefully trimmed out the cup itself, the small rim and handle is all you can see, and layered it up a bit more so it’s higher than the saucer and the coffee is a couple of layers lower. It’s a small thing but adds some fun texture while keeping the card fairly flat. Even with the small flowers, the card will still mail with standard postage. That’s always a bonus!

The stamps are by Neat & Tangled, don’t you love the sentiment? So cute right? I added the Mom die cut and some tiny stamped hearts just to add a little something extra. The gorgeous paper is by Prima, it’s one of my faves. I kind of wish I’d added some messy thread under the cup but oh well!

I hope you love coffee-themed crafting as much as I do! So join us over at C4C and link up your project!

Enjoy, Rebecca

An Apple a Day…

Our challenge at Crazy 4 Challenges this week was to make a medical themed card. A thank you for a medical professional who has helped you out or a get well card!

I stamped the nurse and patient from a set by Art Impressions, then penciled in the rest of the scene. When I was happy with the design, I went over it with a Copic multiliner. I kept the lines slightly sketchy so they would work with the rest of the images. In retrospect, I do wish I had placed the pie chart in a different place! The images were coloured with Polychromos pencils. Finally, I added the glitter paper die cut sentiment by Hero Arts and stamped the smaller sentiment.

This card is for my family doctor. She is an interesting character with short spikey purple hair and a love of big, bold earrings! She is so kind and caring, not rushing you out like so many doctors now. You are probably picturing someone quite young but she isn’t and I’m so worried she will retire!

Have someone special in your life who would love a medical themed card? Hop on over to the C4C blog to play along with us this week!

Enjoy, Rebecca

Rainbow Unicorn Magical Wishes

I just got these brand new stamps and dies from Concord and 9th! I love that this unicorn is a bit more realistic than the other unicorn stamps I’ve seen. I used hot press watercolour paper and some professional water colours (various brands) to colour the image.

The paper has a definite ivory tint so it was a bit hard to match some of the other parts of the card. I used the cloud die included in the set to airbrush the clouds on the background then I die cut the oval from the aqua cardstock (PTI). I would have cut the cloud from white paper but it looked really odd next to the ivory water colour paper. So I used Tim Holtz silver glitter paper instead.

I created my shaker in the usual way placing the oval die cut on the card base to back the window. I made 4 of these cards at once so I made up a huge batch of multicoloured sequins and beads, too many in fact so I have extras to use on future cards! To finish, I added lots of stars, the sentiment and lots of shimmer pen.

Our theme at Crazy 4 Challenges this week was to make a card or project for a kid! These are actually going to adults but seriously, who doesn’t love unicorns with rainbow mane and tail? :) Awesome right? Have fun!

Enjoy, Rebecca

Mermaid Songs Canvas

Once in a while, I like to make a project other than a card for Crazy 4 Challenges. I made this mermaid a while back and started the canvas but hadn’t finished it yet. I happened to notice it right while I was deciding what to make so it worked out perfectly!

When I started, I had a slightly different plan so I covered the canvas with Tim Holtz tissue paper. Then I covered it with watered down gesso. Next I mixed up a concoction of acrylic paint and shimmer acrylic paint for the sky. The shimmer paint was old and pretty thick so it made a sort of paste so instead of painting it on, I used a palette knife. It gave me some really cool texture! I liked it so much that I repeated the technique for the sea except I added much more of the shimmer paint. For this layer I also used a palette knife to give me some texture. I deliberately applied it in wave-like motion and because I didn’t mix it completely, there is some colour variation as well especially in the lower corners. It’s subtle and didn’t show up well here because the shimmer reflects the light so strongly.

To follow the sketch I needed a half circle at the bottom so I mixed up another concoction this time with gold and buff paints, some texture paste and some gold glitter. Again, it was applied with a palette knife; I didn’t use any template, I just applied it like cake icing until I got a shape I liked. While the paste was still wet, I embedded shells, shell chips and added some more glitter; gold glitter all over and some bright colours to look like coral and little creatures sticking to the rock. Some green glitter was applied to look like sea weed as well. I liked it so much that I created a large sea weed growing off the top of the rock using texture paste and glitter. The shape I wanted was much too small for the palette knife so I used a new set of silicone tipped tools I bought.

For the corals, I used a stencil from Red Lead paper company. I tried adding pink and red glitter but I waited too long (off washing the stencil) so it was splotchy and I didn’t like the colours. So I mixed some Autumn Rose and Copper Nuvo drops and painted that over the top. I liked that so much better! I used another Red Lead stencil to add the words using gold paint mixed with light modeling paste. It kept a hint of shimmer which I liked. So much is shimmery on this canvas that this is a nice contrast.

Also to match the sketch, I added some sea creatures to the canvas. These chipboard shapes were from Michaels; I covered them with various paints. The Prima doll stamp by Julie Nutting was stamped on scrapbooking paper from Craft Smith except for the skin which was stamped on X-Press It paper and coloured with Copic markers. Last I added some Nuvo drops for bubbles, a plastic starfish to her headband and a few sea gulls in the sky.

Join us over at the C4C blog with your project featuring this fun sketch.

Enjoy, Rebecca

Floral Smile Card

I recently saw that The Flower Challenge is looking for a new design team member! So I decided to play along with their latest challenge. It’s pretty easy, Anything Goes!

Think I used enough flowers? Ha Ha! The background paper is by Echo Park and the flower dies are by Altenew. I don’t usually use an odd colour for leaves but this time it seemed to work perfectly. Adding green really wouldn’t have worked although I guess a sage colour might have been ok. The heart die is by Hero Arts and I made the tag by hand but used the reinforcer die from a tag set by Neat n Tangled. No matter how many tag dies I have, I never seem to have he perfect length and width I needed! Does that every happen to you? The stencil I used on the tag is by Prima. And last but not least, the sentiment is by Papertry Ink! I shopped at almost every store in my stash for this one!

I really hope the powers that be at the Flower Challenge enjoy my card. I really enjoy the challenge of being on design teams. I work best with deadlines!

Enjoy, Rebecca