Happy Bearthday!

This September, my nephew celebrated his 7th birthday. As I've mentioned before, I have a difficult time coming up with cards for males of all ages. Lucky for me, the month of October gives me the chance to practice! LOL I have no less than four birthdays, all male, to create cards for this month. Oh the stress! LOL

Fortunately, I have this new Build-a-Bear stamp set, which works perfectly (well for the boys in my family, anyway)! I love this little guy! The best part about him, is he has a "better half"! LOL A girl bear comes with this set, too, so any card I can think of for a girl, I can now create for a boy, and vice versa.

So for my nephew's card, rather than try to stamp a background, I punched out 3/4" circles in colours that matched his clothes, party hat and balloon, and adhered them to the main card. In this replica of my nephew's card, however, I had a bit more time (what, me wait to the last minute to make a card? never! Ok, maybe sometimes...) so I cut out his clothes and party hat. I just couldn't mask his head and party hat to make it look right. It either looked like he was wearing his hat on his forehead, or it was floating above him!

This picture shows how his clothes and shoes are raised above the bear image. To make the circles stand out, I followed my oldest daughter, Kaitlyn's advice, and inked around the outer edges so you could see the Green Galore circles on the same coloured background.

For the balloon, I punched a 3/4" circle of Real Red, raised it with a Stampin' Dimensional, put a couple of white gel pen lines on it to make it look like it was shiny, and then added more shine with Crystal Effects. I love using Crystal Effects on a card because of the kind of extra dimension it adds, especially to a balloon! It helps make the card more fun, don't you think?

I think I've mentioned before, that I love to colour, I find it calming somehow. Must be a throwback to my little girl days. So you can imagine how happy I was to pull out the watercolour crayons to colour this little guy and his party hat! I don't use my crayons enough, and there are so many different ways to colour with them. For this card, I coloured on the paper, then used my aqua painter to spread the colour around. When I wanted to highlight, I squeezed out the excess water from the bristles, and picked up colour directly from the crayon, and then painted it on the image.

Tomorrow, I am going to show you a cute little project for Hallowe'en that I've seen and finally tried!

Until then, have a great day!

Donna

I'm back! Sort of... ;)

I am so sorry I haven't posted in so long. Last week, I was busy, we were away on the weekend, and now, I have a cold. Being sick stinks! It's so hard to find your creative "mojo" when you're constantly looking for kleenex! LOL So, I went digging through my pictures and found these that I had not yet posted. I thought I would post two, since it's been so long...

I made these with a Simply Scrappin' kit. These two cards were a part of a set of four that came in a special card holder, which I will have to post at a later date. But I have to say, Simply Scrappin' kits are awesome for putting together cards very quickly! Which is a good thing to know, if you're like me, and you tend to wait for the last minute to pull things together! LOL

Well, I am off for now, to chill out and hopefully feel better soon.

Have a great day!

Donna

Build-a-Bear part deux

As promised, here is my other Build-a-Bear card! Isn't he so cute? I couldn't resist putting together one of these little cuties! The dsp SU has for this die is priceless...I just love the plaid on this little guy. It goes so well with his jeans. He has no shoes because his mom spent it on his sister's bling. Poor little guy-good thing he's a bear!

It looks like he's waving at someone-must be the other bears I've been putting together for other cards...ah, but that's a story for another day.

Well, my first week without any girls during the daytime is about to end, and my girls are about to come running in the door to shed their backpacks and lunch boxes in a flurry of activity and chit chat. I'll end this for now, but I will be back!

Have a great weekend!

Donna

When my youngest daughter, Olivia, and I were looking through SU's Holiday Mini, we both drooled over the new Build-a-Bear Workshop dies and stamp sets. In fact, Olivia "put in" (more like commanded!) an order for all things Build-a-Bear! LOL Fortunately, I found them as adorable as she did, so I did order some dies and a stamp set or two, for both of us to play with. When the order arrived, Olivia kept thanking me for getting her the Build-a-Bear items! LOL If only she knew.... ;)

Of course, we were both equally excited to play with the new dies, and we happily played to our hearts' content. This card is my first bear-isn't she precious!?! SU has a special package of designer paper to use for the clothing-so smart! Here, I went with a pink plaid for the skirt and matching jacket, and a green herringbone for the cuffs and shoes (the shoes have to match, after all! LOL). I couldn't resist dressing up her shoes with little flowers, and then putting one in her hair. And since I am "all about the sparkle", I added a pink jewel to her hair flower. Isn't she so cute??

The idea of dressing little bears is somewhat similar to this Barbie designer thing my sister used to have when we were younger-and oh, how I loved to design outfits for Barbie and then add flowers or stripes to the skirt and shirt I had chosen, or to turn a skirt into the bottom half of the wedding dress...I had a lot of fun helping the Barbie drawing get dressed! Then many years later, when my eldest daughter, Kaitlyn, was about 4, my mother-in-law purchased this wooden puzzle set that had different fabrics for skirts, shirts and shoes that you could mix and match and dress the little puzzle girl. I had more fun with that than Kaitlyn did! (I wonder where it is now? hmmm....) Anyway, I have always had more fun dressing other people, both wooden and real, than I have dressing myself! (I really hate shopping for me). This new set of dies and designer paper are perfect for me! I get to dress adorable little bears now! LOL I really do have fun with these ones! There are going to be a lot of people receiving Bear cards from me-and all of them dressed differently too, no doubt! LOL

I've also put togther a little boy bear, but you'll have to wait to see him! Stay tuned!

Happy Labour Day weekend!

Shelli's SIP Challenge

This month's challenge given by Shelli Gardner (co-founder and CEO of Stampin' Up!) was to create a SIP card. That is, a card using only Stamps, Ink and Paper. No ribbon, no brads, not even dazzling diamonds! (yikes!) A tough challenge for me these days, as I like to use embellishments to add extras to give my card more dimension and pop, especially since I am not one to layer, layer, layer, like so many of my favourite stampers do. However, I was determined to come up with something for this challenge, because it seemed it would be fun to challenge myself the SIP way!

This card was great fun, as it turns out! I decided to try weaving, which was recently written about in a Stamping Success magazine (SU's magazine for demos). So I weaved. And it was fun! I used the new Cottage Wall dsp. (Don't those stripes look sharp when they're weaved like that?) Then I ran it through the Big Shot with the clear circle die. As a background, I cut a Rich Razzleberry Scallop circle (my new favourite colour! But chances are, you already knew that-LOL). I have recently acquired the Many Thanks sizzlet die and thought I would try it out. And of course, the Butterfly die provided me with the perfect finishing touch! Normally I would use some kind of bling for the butterfly's body, but used the horizontal slot punch-it fits in there perfectly!

So that's my challenge for this month-I did it! I hope you like it! If you happen to try some weaving in a card, please feel free to send me the link in the comments so I can check it out!

Have a great day!

RMHC class

This is the second half of the class I recently showed you the cards for. I cased this purse from someone, and couldn't remember who, so I couldn't post this without first doing a bit of research so I could give the proper credit. I now know, I cased this from Becky Roberts over at Inking Idaho. Her cute little purse was so adorable, I knew I had to try it. I didn't have the cute polka dot paper she had, but I did have the new dsp with my new favourite colour (Rich Razzleberry!) in it. (you know I had to throw that into today's post! LOL) So this is what I came up with. I was able to use the new clear circle die instead of the coluzzle to cut the circle-shaped dsp for the top of the purse. And, because I just received the new daisies die, I used the smallest daisy with a jewel brad as the clasp on the purse.

So the class I held to help support the Ronald McDonald House charity consisted of this purse and the four cards in the previous post. Janice and Anne joined me last night to put together their purse and cards, and it was a great time, chatting about Disney World and other places we've travelled to. It turns out that Anne and I were at Disney world at the same time this year-and we didn't even know! What a great surprise that would have been if we'd have seen each other there! It would have been quite the surprise!

If you decide to try this purse, send me a link in the comments section, I'd love to check out your version of this adorable purse!

Have a great day!

A Worthy Cause

Here is a portion of a class I'll be teaching this Thursday and next Tuesday. It uses the Very Thankful set on the back inside cover of the catalogue. This is a special set because it is this year's Ronald McDonald House Charities set from Stampin' Up!. That means that every time someone buys this set, $2 goes to the Ronald McDonald House Charity. As a mother to two healthy girls (knock wood), it's easy for me to take for granted that I don't have to go to a hospital just to see my girls, and that I don't have to watch them be subjected to tests, needles, drugs, and operations.

I can't imagine what it would be like, living with that kind of stress, and feeling like there was nothing I could do to take away the hurt. It was bad enough for me when my niece, who was born prematurely this spring, was being pricked on her ankle so the nurses could have a blood sample. They were a-squeezing away on her poor little ankle trying to obtain enough blood, and she just wasn't giving it up! Although she was born that morning, she was surprisingly patient for most of it, but after a minute or two of constant ankle squeezing, she finally started to become upset, and so did I. I actually had to sit down because I was starting to feel squeamish, watching her poor little ankle go red and not bleed, forcing the nurses to prick and squeeze again. I couldn't watch. And that was just one "little" blood sample! I'd probably pass out if I had to watch my girls go through other, more complicated tests. They'd need to make sure the bed next door is empty before they started anything while I was around!

As a result of the work done by this charity, I am proud to be able to offer a class using this set, and hopefully make a small contribution to help those families who have to live with this kind of stress. It's sad that this kind of charity is even needed, but heartwarming to know that someone is doing something to help people in this kind of situation and that I can help!

If you live in this area, and would like to take this class next Tuesday, please e-mail and let me know! I still have a few places left and the cost of the class ($28) includes the set. (dstollery@yahoo.com)

My next post will show you the purse that these cards fit into (also part of the class).

Have a great day!

D

Rich Little Birdy

Here is another of my projects from Jenntopia, again with the Rich Razzleberry! (Have I mentioned yet today how much I love Rich Razzleberry?) I had the opportunity to use Jacqui's scallop oval punch, which I also love, love, love! I was playing around with colouring the rubber stamp with the blender pen and ink. It wasn't as dark as I'd hoped, but I like the general idea behind this card. I am supposed to have my own scallop oval punch in my hands tomorrow, so I am looking very forward to using it a lot more!

I still have a couple more things to show you from Jenntopia, so come back soon!

Have a great day!

Donna

Look Donna! The sun is coming up!

So last weekend, I was stamping with my best girls until all hours of the night-literally! Saturday night, I stayed up extra late with my girl Jenn who had come down from BC and was hosting us at her mom's house. Finally, at 5:30 or so, I decided to head to bed.

Jenn was still on BC time, so while it was 5:30 am for me, it only felt like 2:30am to her. Jenn and I were sharing a room, and as I tried to close my eyes and catch a few winks, it was very clear that she was in no mood for sleeping! She walked up to the window and pointed out that the sun was coming out and mentioned that she wanted to go take pictures of the sunrise. I said I was tired, and tried to go to sleep, but it seemed that my nocturnal friend Jenn was not going to let me sleep. She kept talking and giggling, and finally she got out of bed, walked to the window, and yanked up the blind to show me that the sun was coming and we really, really should go out and take pictures!

So, out we went, in our jammies, with cameras in hand, and we started snapping away. Of course the mosquitos were out, so we would take a picture or two, and smack at the mosquitos bothering us, then take another picture or two, then smack! In between the attacks, both Jenn and I did manage to capture some nice shots of the sunrise. Hopefully this is the last sunrise I stay up to see for a long, long time! LOL

Have a great day!

Razzleberry, razzleberry, oh how I love my razzleberry!

Last weekend was a blast! I had so much fun stamping with my girls! It was a great weekend, and as I had predicted, there were tears and laughs. And there was a lot of stamping! I don't remember the last time I had such a productive weekend!

This first card was one that I had made for the sole purpose of trying out the many thanks die from SU. I also got to use the Cottage Wall dsp, and, most importantly, my new favourite SU colour, Rich Razzleberry. I think every one of my projects from last weekend had this colour in it! LOL I'm hooked! The ribbon on this one was the polka dot razzleberry ribbon, but I flipped it for a more elegant, less busy, look.

So this is only my first project to show you. Tune in for more!

Have a great day!