Still pluggin' away...

Yup, I'm still working on the wedding album I started last year

for my Aunt and Uncle.

Slow and steady wins the race, right? 

I should have this album finished by their third anniversary if

I keep at it. That's September of this year. 

I had better not put it away or I'll forget I'm working on it, again. 

It's a good thing the new challenge at the Aurora Wings Challenge blog is

Anything Goes.

In keeping with the Hawaiian/ocean theme I have used the adorable

Sea Turtle Kiss image from Aurora Wings.

I decided to crop the image to keep it small enough to fit into the layout,

and large enough to color it well with my aging eyeballs.

Reader glasses are my saving grace when it comes to coloring images

these days.

Using the same image, I separated the sea turtles and used them 

by themselves for added interest and to make the two pages cohesive.

I added lots of circle punches to give the feeling of bubbles, and some

branch die cuts to mimic coral. I have been collecting a TON of

charms and brads and schtuff for this project, and I finally managed to 

work in one of the fish charms as a cute dangle from the sentiment tag.

I'm trying to keep the dimensions to a minimum or the book will never 

close properly.

That's going to do it for me today. 

I hope you'll pop by the challenge blog and check out all of the 

incredible inspiration pieces my DT sisters have created for this

new Anything Goes challenge.  

  

Useless Trinkets Easter Addition

It's that time again! 

Jessa at Useless Trinkets has drawn up some super cute and fun 

Easter themed freebies for you to play with.

I know it's hard to believe that someone with such marketable talent

would be willing to just give her drawings away for free, but that's

precisely what Jessa insists upon doing. 

She's just cool and  generous like that.

First up is Gustav, the Easter Monstah.

Gustav is filling in for the Easter Bunny, who apparently has taken ill....

Jessa has also created some cute sentiments to go along with the new images.

Be sure to grab them while you're visiting her freebie page.

I have been wanting to create a shaker card for months now.

I have been collecting sequins and schtuff to fill my shakers, and

I have been watching various tutorials on how to make simple,

Fuse tool-free shaker cards on YouTube. After all of my preparation

I figured now was as good a time as any to give it a go.

I began by coloring up the Easter version of Cookie Jar, the Unicorn.

I went with a rainbow color palette. I thought it went well with the cute cloud paper. 

And unicorns and rainbows kind of go hand in hand, don't they?

I remember my cherished sticker album as a kid was full of rainbow unicorn stickers.

This was one of my favorites.  

Now I did mention that this is my very first attempt at making a shaker

card, right? It's a little rough, but I think I did okay.

Some key advice would be to use a heavier stock of paper

to go over the shaker part. My paper is super thin, so it really

shows the wrinkles and even tore a bit, too. Still, it's not too shabby

for my first attempt. I'll be trying this technique again now that I have 

figured out some of my mistakes. Practice makes perfect.

Thanks for stopping by today. 

I hope you'll pop by Jessa's blog and grab these awesome new freebies.

Be sure to bunneh hop along with the Freebie DT to see all of the clever

ways we've used these great images and sentiments.

Jessa https://uselesstrinkets.wordpress.com/

Birka http://www.mitherzundschere.blogspot.de/

Claudia http://colorfulcapricorndays.blogspot.de/

Gloria (me!) http://creepyglowbugg.blogspot.de/

Julia http://just-one-more-card.com/

Katrin http://projekt-cupcake.blogspot.de/

Tanja http://www.stempelspielplatz.de/

Slow Loris Rescue Fundraiser

One of the things I love the most about Mitzi from Aurora Wings

is her compassion for animals. She has previously raised money for the

protection of the adorable Numbats, offering an exclusive digital image as an incentive

for donations. 

Since she had such a great response to the Numbat fundraiser,

she has turned her efforts towards the plight of the equally adorable and endangered, 

Slow Loris.

As with the Numbat fundraiser, Mitzi is offering another exclusive digital image

incentive for any donations. With a $10 donation you will receive TWO exclusive

images of these wonderful little creatures. How can you not want to support such

a worthy cause? All proceeds go directly to the Slow Loris Rescue.

And did I forget to mention that this fundraiser also marks the second anniversary

of the Aurora Wings challenge blog? That's right, it's been two years since

we all began this journey with Mitzi and I couldn't be more proud to be a part

of the Aurora Wings family.     

I have created a sample card using the Slow Loris Sprite image, available exclusively

with any donation dollar amount. This image, and the $10 donation image will not be

sold as digis, but can only be obtained by a donation to this worthy cause.

I chose to go with the auburn version of this sweetie

coupled with my favorite blue green contrasting hues.

I took a chance and added Glossy Accents to his eyes to give them

that buggy look of the Loris. I did forget that Glossy Accents usually

leach out some of the Copic color when applied, but I think those eyes

still convey a look of depth and sweetness.    

Super adorable, right?

Be sure to stop by the AW showcase blog and get all of the details

and links to take advantage of the generous gifts for your donations.

Plus, there are lots of inspiration pieces created just for this special event.

   

Check out this Carnivorous Cutie

It is so cool to see the seed of an idea come to fruition.

From time to time, Mitzi will ask her DTs and fans for ideas

of images they'd like to see. It doesn't mean she'll be able to draw all

of them, but she does manage to create quite a few with wonderful success.

Her newest sprite image is a 

Venus Flytrap Sprite!!

Isn't she just murderously lovely? Well, she does eat flies after all.

I'm still waiting patiently for my idea of a Black Widow Sprite, 

but I digress... 

I decided to do a day-glo version of this little sprite.

I love neon pink and green. Can't help it. Must be

residual from surviving the 80's.

I colored her up with Copics, my usual go-to coloring medium.

I've tried other mediums like colored pencils and distress inks, but

I never can achieve the level of color saturation that has come to be my

style of coloring. No pastels or watercolor subtly from this chick. 

  

Since the coloring of the sprite was pretty overwhelming, I decided to 

ground everything with browns and even distressed the dp flags to keep

them subtle, not so neon.

Thanks for stopping by today.

I hope you'll drop by the AW showcase blog to see 

all the various DT versions of this carnivorous cutie.  

The Venus Flytrap Sprite image is available in the shop here.