Stocking Full of Love / House Mouse

This week over at the Monday House Mouse & Friends Challenge blog, the challenge is "embossing". Some where on your creation you must have some type of embossing whether it be dry embossing, heat embossing etc, and must also include a House Mouse or friend image. I chose to use the House Mouse image "Stocking Full Of Love" by Stampabilities for my image. Image is colored with Prismacolor colored pencils. My embossing was created by using Cuttlebug's Snow Dot embossing folder in my Sizzix BigKick. I chose to keep my card simple by embellishing it with some punch snowflakes and having the sentiment on the inside of the card. Sentiment is: "Wishing you a warm and snugly winter".
Stop over at the House Mouse & Friends challenge blog and check out the fantastic creations for this challenge!

My Teacher, My son - "The Artist"

I often get compliments about my coloring and quite often I will hear from those that know I have two very talented kids , "I know where your kids get their talent". Well, it honestly is not from me! I think I was born with a crochet hook in one hand and a sewing needle in the other. I have an amazing talent to look at something and grab the newspaper, make my own pattern and then sew it up with no problems. Sewing always came naturally for me. But I couldn't draw a straight line to save my life. My 19 year old son though is amazing and incredibly talented. He graduated high school last May. He has taken this year off from school to work some things out financially and will be leaving this coming August for art college to pursue a degree in fine arts. These past 6 months he was commissioned by some different people to do some drawings for them. The above one is one he just completed for one of his high school teachers. She wanted a rather large drawing of her dog. To the left is the photo she provided him and to the right is the completed portrait of the dog. The entire portrait is done with Lyra color pencil and took 41 hours to complete.
Thought I would also share with you his largest piece he has done entirely in color pencil. His junior year of high school one of his art teachers entered him into a national contest. 30 entries out of thousands nationwide were chosen to complete their entry onto a life size fiberglass cow. My son was one of them and yes I do mean a life size cow! His cow was Noah's ark with after the storm on one side.....

....and before the storm on the other side. The entire cow is done in Lyra color pencils and took 170 hours to complete. He is the only one in the history of the contest to ever do a cow in color pencil. He entered again his senior year and once again placed in the 30 national finalists making him the only one to place twice in the history of the contest. His second cow he chose to paint and was of Betsy Ross making the flag and Francis Scott Key on the other side writing our national anthem. It took him 162 hours to complete his second cow.

My son has has spent a great deal of time trying to teach me how to color with color pencils. I say try because I'm not the easiest of students to have. Those that know me well know that I have been fighting an eye disease that has been causing a slow process of blindness all my life. In the last few months my eyes have taken a turn for the worse leaving me with only light and shapes that I can see in my left eye and depending on my right eye which also has considerable vision loss. As of this past May I can no longer drive. Due to this I also have problems seeing some colors. Therefore I'm sure it hasn't been easy for my son to teach me how to blend and color with my color pencils. I love making cards and he knows that so I truly appreciate his patience in working with me. However, I will admit he can be one tough teacher! Many times I wanted to quit coloring an image but he pushes me to do my best.

I also have a daughter who is amazing behind the camera. Soon I will post some pics of her work to share. So now you all know.....my kids didn't get it from me....instead they are teaching me! Can you imagine what my cards would look like if I could see, draw and color as well as my son!!!!!

I hope everyone has a safe and happy Christmas!

House Mouse ATC

UPDATE: I wasn't quite pleased with my ATC as posted below and decided to add something. I took a white gel pen and colored the swiss dots then topped each dot with a dab of Stickles (crystal). Now the swiss dots look like rhinestones and I'm much happier with my ATC! Above picture is with colored swiss dots and the pictures below are of the ATC before I decided to color the dots.
Made this House Mouse ATC for a swap I'm in. I had a really hard time getting a good photograph / scan of this. Due to the black cardstock it is hard to see the embossing on the black part. I know the proper way to photograph this is to do it outdoors in natural sunlight but with the below zero weather we are having, that is not going to happen!

Image is House Mouse "Monica Romances" from Stampbilities. It is colored with Prismacolor colored pencils. The red heart is coated with Judi Kins Diamond Glaze for a glass like look. An oval die nestability by Spellbinders was used to cut the oval window on the black cardstock. The black frame was then embossed with Cuttlebug's Swiss Dot embossing folder. I sure wish that would show up better in the photo. Red satin bow was used for a touch of embellishing.

Pucker Power / House Mouse

The challenge this week at Monday's House Mouse & Friends Challenge Blog is a sketch and is also in memory of a participant on the challenge blog who recently passed away. We are also to include a kind sentiment on our card and then give it to someone in need. I'm sure my sentiment may not appear kind in the way that the challenge required but the friend I have this card in mind for has been dealt one bad thing after another this past year. Through it all though she has managed to hold her head high and keep going. I thought the image I chose with the words (on front) "When life gives you lemons" (inside) "make lemonade", somehow seemed appropriate for this friend and what she has been through.
With the sketch you could flip it. stretch it, rotate it, whatever you wanted as long as you could see the original sketch in your work. I had trouble with this challenge. Although I enjoyed coloring the image I had trouble getting this sketch to work for me. I also had problems getting a good photo showing the true colors of the card.

Cardstock is Bazzil - Printed paper is DCWV - Image is "Pucker Power" by Stampabilities - Sentiment is computer generated - Green cardstock is embossed with Cuttlebug's Swiss Dots embossing folder - Image is colored with Prismacolor Color Pencils. Colors used are: light peach, beige, blush pink, henne, french grey 10, french grey 50, french grey 70, french grey 90, crimson lake, black cherry, ginger root, canary yellow, juane deco and white
Sentiment is pop dotted for dimension and edges inked with Colorbox pigment inks.


Don't forget to take some time to check out the House Mouse Challenge Blog and see all the fantastic creations everyone made for this week's challenge.

Santa's Helper / House Mouse

The challenge this week over at the Monday House Mouse & Friends Challenge Blog is "Let It Snow". You could make anything you wanted as long as you featured a House Mouse & Friend image and used something that represented snow. It could be printed paper with snowflakes or painted snow, even the word snow on your creation would count. I've been pretty busy finishing all my Christmas cards this week and didn't think I would be able to participate in this week's challenge. I wasn't too happy with not participating so I quickly found a way to incorporate the challenge into making my Christmas cards. I changed the background on the cards I was making to an embossed image of snowflakes. It worked!


The embossed snowflakes are made using a Cuttlebug embossing folder that I ran through my Bigkick die cutting machine. House Mouse image is "Santa's Helper" by Stampabilities and is colored using Prismacolor colored pencils. White gel pen was used to outline the scallops on the green / red oval. I made a LOT of these and I'm almost done and ready to mail my cards. Maybe next year I will be smarter and start much earlier on making my Christmas cards. I say that every year.

Don't forget to check out the blizzard of creations for this week's challenge on the Monday House Mouse & Friends Challenge Blog.

Awesome Blog Candy On Crafting Magic's Blog!

I would like to post today about a new friend of mine and some awesome blog candy she is offering on her blog in celebration of reaching 5000 hits/ views. My new friend is Rosette, who lives in Malta. We met online a couple of months ago through a one on one image swap and my life has not been the same since. Thanks to Rosette I am blogging and enjoying it tremendously. Through her I have learned of challenge blogs and have even joined in on some of the challenges. I have met some people with some awesome talent through blogging.......and I owe this all to Rosette.

As I mentioned, Rosette is currently offering some fun blog candy and all you need to do is check out her blog and follow her simple instructions to enter for a chance to win her blog candy. She ships worldwide! While your at her blog, Crafting Magic's Crafting World, please take some time to check out her creations. Rosette has so much fun creating her beautiful cards and it really shows in her creations. She is an amazing person with an awesome talent!

Faux Postage - "Snowflakes"

With the hustle and bustle of Christmas, I haven't had much time for card making this past week. So I thought I would post another one of my older cards but still a favorite of mine.

I often frequent a site called SplitcoastStampers that is just chocked full of information, inspiration, tips and techniques for the paper crafter. One of the sections on SplitcoastStampers is a technique how to section. This past year I hosted a series of swaps featuring several of the techniques that are found on the SplitcoastStamper site. The first technique swap I hosted was for the "Faux Postage" technique. I chose to do snowflakes. The background snowflakes on the card base are stenciled on using a brass stencil by Dreamweaver. The snowflakes used on the faux postage are by Hero Arts. All ink used to stamp and stencil with are Versafine Pigment Inks. I enjoyed trying the faux postage technique and it is a technique that I have used a couple times since my first adventure of trying the technique. If your looking for something new to try or feeling adventuresome, I recommend checking out the SplitcoastStamper site for ideas and inspiration!

Surprise Party / House Mouse

The challenge for this week over at the Monday House Mouse & Friends Challenge Blog is "glitter & glitz". I knew immediately what image I wanted to use when I read what the challenge was. There is a special little boy turning 5 this month and I had planned on making him a card using this House Mouse image. I thought why not make his card to work with this week's challenge and glitz it up a bit!
I used the House Mouse image called "Surprise Party". I colored it with Prismacolor colored pencils, gamsol and blending stumps. I then used Stickles glitter glue to glitter up the confetti and pom pom on the hat.

The number 5 is chipboard which I painted with Lumiere Paints in the color Aqua. I then used Stickles glitter glue over the paint. Cardstock is Bazzil and printed paper is from my "stash". I pop dotted the 5 to give the card more dimension. I think I have just enough glitz but not too much for a young man of 5!

Be sure to take some time to check out all the amazing creations over at the House Mouse & Friends for this week's challenge.

Oh my! It's a Winter Wonderland outside today!

We had our first significant snowfall of the season during the night. Woke up this morning to a winter wonderland outside my window. It's very beautiful and I do enjoy the first snow of the season. I also enjoy a beautiful snowfall on Christmas Eve. Other than that, I could do without! No more snow for me. Sadly though, due to where I live I know I can expect more before winter is over.

I made this card awhile ago but thought of it this morning when thinking of places I would love to be for winter....like Florida....or California.....Hawaii would be fantastic! A girl can dream....right?

The flamingo is a brass stencil by Dreamweaver. I paste embossed it with white embossing paste also by Dreamweaver and then stenciled it with chalks. Fern image is by Rubber Stampede and stamped with Versafine pigment ink. Sentiment is by Hero Arts. I'm not sure who the printed paper is by, I do recall though that I purchased it from Hobby Lobby. I sure wouldn't mind enjoying some tropical breezes right now!