Welcome baby Emily!

My sister had her second child, Emily, this week, and I was finally able to visit them today!

I've had this adorable image of baby taking a bath in my box of pif's and rak's for a while now, and decided it would be perfect for Emily's card. Isn't she cute? The image was colored with copic markers, and has stardust gellroll pen on the bubbles for a bit of sparkle.

For the card itself, I decided to use some scraps I had leftover from making a name frame for Emily's big sister, Anna, to make a quilted background. The image was cut out with a scalloped square Nestabilities, and hand stitched to a piece of PTI Sweet Blush card stock (I used DMC thread #3713 if you are interested. It is a perfect match for the paper.). The bottom layer was also cut out with a scalloped square Nestabilities, and then run through my Cuttlebug with the Swiss Dots embossing folder. I curled up the edges of the bottom layer before attaching the stitched layer with pop-dots.

Copic markers used:

Challenges I participated in with this card:

Moving along with the Times - in stitches
Craft your Days away - girly n glitter
Stamp Something - Something cute
Paper Play - in stitches
Allsorts - new beginnings

Thanks for stopping by!

Stamp Something Blue & White Challenge

Happy Friday! I don't know about you, but I am looking forward to having a long weekend! Here's hoping you are lucky enough to have Monday off too!

Are you ready for another Stamp Something challenge? This week, we're being sponsored by Whimsy Stamps, and are challenging you to make a project using Blue and White. Easy, right?

My cousin gave birth to her second child right after Christmas, so I thought it was about time I sent her a card to welcome baby Ethan to the family. I adore the SU set, Bundle of Joy, but hardly ever get to use it, so I decided to dust it off for baby Ethan's card. Think she'll like it?

The cute little giraffe and stars were colored with copic markers (B21, B23, B000), and accented with a Sakura Stardust pen. I stamped a few extra stars, cut them out, and popped them up on glue dots for a fun accent. The pretty fuzzy yarn was a Dollar Tree find a few years back. It's super-sparkly in real life and almost didn't make it on the card because my cat thought it looked like a wonderful new playtoy! LOL!

Thanks for stopping by! Be sure to pop on over the the Stamp Something blog to see what the rest of the design team has in store for you. And don't forget to add a link to your project in Mr. Linky if you decide to play along.

Mommy's little angel...

Today I made a card for the first ever challenge on Mo's Challenge Blog. The challenge is really simple, you just need to use purple on your card, along with an image from Mo's Digital Pencil. I actually really like purple, but for some reason, I almost never use it on my cards. So this was a fun challenge for me, as it gave me an excuse to pull out my purple copics and give them a whirl.

Isn't this just the sweetest image ever? I'm normally not into angels, but as soon as I saw Michael, I had to add him to my shopping cart. Before I started coloring the image, I actually had the prettiest purple designer paper picked out to use on the card, but once I was finished coloring, I decided that the image was too sweet on it's own to need any fancy paper or layout. I matted the image on black card stock, and then layered that onto a white card base for a simple but elegant card.


For my finishing touch, I added Frosted Lace stickles to his wings, and went over the halo with a Buttermilk Spica pen.

Copics used:

As you can see from the photo, I used two custom YR21 copics for the halo. The palest, YR21p, is made from 5cc's blender fluid plus 30 drops of YR21 ink refill. The darker one, YR21pd, is made from 5cc's blender fluid plus 80 drops of YR21 ink refill. These 2 custom markers are by far my favorite yellows.

Happy Birthday Ryan!

Yesterday was my nephew Ryan's first birthday, and the whole family got together to throw him a party. My mother made the yummy cake (shown above) for the party, along with a cute little "smash" cake for the birthday boy.

As you can see, he didn't really do much "smashing" (despite lots and lots of encouragement from his daddy), but he certainly seemed to enjoy the icing!

For Ryan's birthday card, I used this adorable freebie from Mo's Digital Pencil. Ryan has a little pool just like this one at Grandma's house. He had a lot of fun in it over the summer, so I knew this would be the perfect image for his card the moment I saw it.

The image was colored with copic markers, and then the water was gone over with a clear Spica pen for some sparkle. Once the card was together, I added Alleene's Paper Glaze to the water for a wet look. Sorry it doesn't show up better in the photo. The little ducky is one of the add-on's that comes with the image. I printed it twice and attached it with glue dots for a bit more dimension.

Welcome baby Eli!

Baby Eli arrived Christmas Eve, so I made a card for his mommy using Jasmine by InStyle Stamps. Isn't she sweet?


I found the pretty polka-dotted dp in my stash - it was part of a baby scrap booking kit that I purchased solely for the pretty papers it contained - and based the colors for the rest of the card on the dp. Jasmine and baby were colored in with copic markers, and then I added lavender stickles for a little sparkle.

I took a photo of the copic markers I used on this project so you won't have to guess what color is what if you particularly like one of them. I know I like it when bloggers post what color copics they use, so I will try to do so for most of my projects in the future. It makes it so much easier to find colors you *have* to add to your collection! LOL!

Welcome, baby!

My new nephew is due to arrive in mid-September, so I've been having fun working on baby projects while waiting for him to get here.

When I saw this sketch:

for the Whiff of Joy guest designer call, I knew I had found the perfect layout for a card for the baby-to-be. I don't normally make square cards, so this was a challenge for me. I really like this layout though, so I think I will use it to make a matching page for the scrapbook I am working on for baby.

The adorable baby image is from Stamping Bella. If you click on the photo to enlarge it, you can see the stickles I added to the blanket and the car on his shirt. I've always loved that sparkly yarn they make for baby blankets, so I tried to get that effect with the glitter. I should learn how to crochet one of these days so I can make a sparkly blanket for myself!

It's official!

I'm an auntie! Baby Anna was born yesterday, and both mama and baby are doing well. She is the first baby in the family, and everyone is quite excited! I have to clear it with my sister before posting a photo of her, but trust me, she is adorable!
While waiting for her arrival, I had a lot of fun making baby cards. Want to see some? Good!!!

The first two cards were 2 of the many sample cards I gave my sister to choose from for her shower invitations. The onesie was her favorite, so that is what we went for, but I just love the little dress with the flirty vellum overlay. I'll have to save the design for future use...

The next two cards were congratulations cards that I sent after finding out I was going to be an auntie. Both feature stamps from Stamping Bella. I really like the Bella pregnancy stamps - mama looks so radiant and proud!

Baby Announcement

I made this as a gift for my cousin's baby shower. I hope she likes it! I used "Bundle of Joy" from the Spring Mini for this project. The bear and giraffe are just so cute! I actually broke out my Stamp-a-ma-jig for this project - it would have been impossible to line up the swirls without it. The announcement part in the middle can easily be popped out so she can use this as a picture frame if she prefers.

More baby cards

Ok, I am having way too much fun with "A New Little Someone". That darn rabbit is just so much fun to watercolor! Plus, I just found out that one of my friends is pregnant, so of course I need more baby cards.

Stamps: A New Little Someone, Riveting, Flannel Plaid
Paper: Apricot Appeal, Barely Banana, Whisper White
Ink: Apricot Appeal, Basic Black

Accessories: Watercolor Crayons, Blender Pens, White narrow organdy ribbon, circle punches

Stamps: A New Little Someone, Happy Everything
Paper: Certainly Celery, Whisper White
Ink: Basic Black
Accessories: Watercolor Crayons, markers, blender pen, hole punch, celery narrow organdy ribbon

Baby Card

My cousin is expecting her first child this summer, and the baby shower is in a few weeks. I wanted to make her something special and love how this angled card turned out. Any writing will go on the inside of the Lavender Lace card base so that she can use the front in a baby scrapbook if she so chooses. I think "A New Little Someone" is just the cutest baby set, and I am sad to see it retiring come June 30th.



Stamps: A New Little Someone, In My Thoughts
Paper: Lavender Lace
Ink: Mellow Moss, Basic Black
Accessories: Moss gingham ribbon, watercolor crayons, aquapainter, mellow moss and lavender lace markers, dimensionals