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.

I'm so late, I'm early!

It seems like just when I finally get into the full swing of a holiday,

it ends. And then I'm left with all these great ideas and tons of timely 

crap strewn around my craft room, but the special day has come and gone. 

Screw it! I'm making schtuff for next year. 

Hey, look at me! I'm way ahead of schedule! 

This is perfect for Valentine's Day 2017, or an

anniversary. My 20th wedding anniversary is in August.

Check me out, all early and shit.

 I started out with a white card that I stamped the Stampotique hearts 

background onto, and then colored using a water pen and distress inks. 

I splattered some black speckles on it for an artsy feel. 

Awww, look at the sweethearts!!

I chopped off the heads of Fofe and Perl from Stampotique,

and then I colored them with Copic markers.

I added some Stickles to make Fofe's green eyes sparkle,

then added the colored heads to some distressed photo booth photos 

from Tim Holtz.

I stamped the heart background onto some scrap pink and red paper,

cut them out and then popped them up on foam dots for some

fun dimension. 

I'd like to enter this card in the following challenges:

Stampotique - SDC231 Love is in the Air 

Unicorn Challenge - Lots of Love

Crafty Calendar Challenge - Love is in the Air 

Sometimes I like to just color. I can sit for hours and color

image after image. This is one I have had printed for months,

but never had the time to color it properly. Until now. 

This image is named Abby, by Regan Kubecek. I purchased her

along with some others from Sweet Peas stamps before they

unfortunately closed shop.  

I colored her using Copics, and white gel pen for the highlights.

I broke out the heart embossing folder, a black doily with silver distress ink

splattered on it, and the skull and crossbones punch from Martha Stewart.

I decided to stop there, as I have a tendency to over work a piece to death.

Less is more. Less is more. Less is .... look, glitter!

I'd like to enter this card in the following challenges:

Through the Craft Room Door - Anything Goes

Crafty Friends Challenge - Girly  

Sprite Delight Part Trois

Today marks the beginning of the newest challenge at the

Aurora Wings Challenge Blog.

The new theme is an oldie, but a goody,

Sprite Delight III.

This is the third time we have used the adorable Sprites

as our challenge theme because they never get old.
It's always a favorite of the DT who love creating with them.

Mitzi's Sprites were the very reason I fell in love with her

art to begin with. 

My Grandma's birthday is this Wednesday.

She loves flowers and all things purple.

I knew right away that the Wisteria Sprite would be

perfect for her Birthday card. 

   

I always end up going pretty CAS when spotlighting

one of Mitzi's images. I hate to compete with her gorgeous artwork.

This time I used quite a few die cuts without making things too cluttered. 

I colored little Miss Wisteria using Copic markers in the

Violet and Red Violet families. I saved the Blue Violets for her face and body.

I never color the Sprites in flesh tones. They're not human in my world,

so they get fantastical skin tones. I'd love to have violet or blue green skin.

Who wouldn't?! 

I added some Clear Rock Candy dry glitter to the frame and some

of her hair berries(?) and earrings for some sparkle.

That stuff (the dry glitter) is great for some quick bling.

That's it for me today.

Still running late from having such a liquid-filled good time yesterday.

I like to say I'm not much of a drinker, but I really made myself

into a liar yesterday. It was Valentine's Day, what the hell! 

Once a year (hopefully) won't kill me.

A Little FUN with an ATC

I really miss making ATCs. They are so fun and realativly quick

to whip up. They're a great way to use up those paper scraps, and a good

trial size way to try out new techniques or mediums.

A great ATC only challenge blog is Wicked Wednesday ATC challenge .

Jen always has a fun weekly challenge theme, 

and usually has a fabulous sponsor lined up as well.

This week's challenge theme is :

#194 (almost 200!) 'You Animal!'.

The awesome sponsor is Janet Klein from Vera Lane Studio.

She has some quirky and unusual images. I like that. A lot.

Here is my animal inspired ATC.

This guy is from Little Miss Muffet Stamps .

He is from a set of two unicorns called, 

Boon and Jitters. I'm not sure which one he is.

I'm going to assume this is Boon. But it doesn't

really matter since it appears the image is no longer available.

Yes, I've had him that long and just now got around to coloring

him in. One down, thousands more to go. As usual, I have colored this
image using Copic markers. 

Even though he has a horn that makes him a unicorn,

I decided to mix it up a bit and gave him a cool, sparkly, metal wing.

Let's just assume he actually has two wings. Otherwise he'd just

fly around in circles and that's not cool. 

I backed him onto some OLD dp scrap and an even older rhinestone

flourish. Overall, this is quite a destash heavy project. I like that.

I'd like to enter this ATC in the following challenges:

Wicked Wednesday ATC - You Animal!

Get Creative Challenges - Fantasy/Mythological  

MarkerPop - Anything Goes

Simon Says Wednesday challenge - Anything Goes