My Cards for the Card Crop Challenges

Whew! That was a fun week of challenges and a fun blog hop as well over at Card Swaps on the CardMakers Magazine site. If you have never participated in one...you should! The next one will be in August. There are challenges, games and prizes too! This time around there were 12 challenges in total. I was only able to find time to complete 5 of them. My first card (above), the challenge was to create a card with an ice cream image. My image is by Tina Wenke / Stampavie. I colored it with Prismacolor color pencils.

My second card is a joint effort of mine and my son's. The challenge was to use a frog image and some depth on your card. I only had one frog image that I wasn't too crazy about and almost didn't do the challenge. My son offered to come to the rescue and draw and cut out a frog for me. Isn't he cute? I went with an Asian theme and heat embossed Japanese handwriting on the background. Both the leaf and the frog are pop dotted for the depth part of the challenge.

This next card was for a challenge to create cards using images of something you would see at the beach. I chose to use this seagull image by PSX. I stamped it on Kraft color paper and colored only certain parts with white Prismacolor color pencil. It's a simple card but I think it is my favorite of the 5.

For this challenge we were to create a kite for our card. I drew and cut out the kite shape on a thin piece of cardboard then covered it with designer paper by Basic Grey. Pop dotted it and added a tail with tied ribbons and I had my kite!

Last but not least...the challenge was to create an outdoor scene using a tree. Well I didn't quite create a scene but I did use a tree! I discovered I own only this tree image except for a couple of Christmas tree images so I was pretty stuck on this too. I'm hoping I will be forgiven by the host of the challenge for not creating a scene and my tree is accepted! :) I colored the image with Prismacolor color pencils.

I have had some request to post a tutorial on how to use WORD text boxes which I hope to have posted very soon. Also coming up soon I will be posting my discoveries on making stick pins and just how I make mine. So stay tuned...

Thanks for stopping by!

Over The Rainbow Blog Hop / Sunny Days Card Crop

Welcome to the Sunny Days Card Crop "Over The Rainbow Blog Hop"! I hope you enjoy hopping through all the colors of the rainbow by visiting some very creative hostesses. You should have arrived here from Lora's blog. If not you should go back as you won't want to miss her fabulous card. She starts the hop with a card using all the colors of the rainbow with scraps from her scrap drawer! To start at the beginning with Lora go HERE.

So that means my color is the first color of the rainbow...RED! I was actually pretty excited about the color red as I like it very much and use it often in my Asian inspired cards. Then I found out we were also to make our card monochromatic. Really??? Seriously??? It was like someone slammed the brakes on when I read that. I am so not good at monochromatic. I always freak at this technique and have a tendency to run from it as you may have read in some of my past posts. Also I couldn't think of a thing for red using the monochromatic theme without it looking like Christmas or Valentines Day. So I searched my stamps and found nothing I could color that didn't involve me using other colors too. So that took yet another level of my comfort zone away as I usually love to stamp and color images for my cards. So I changed my line of thinking and decided to try using two new things that I have been playing around with lately but still try to keep a theme of sunny days. Here is what I came up with:

S


I recently discovered how to use WORD text boxes to create my sentiments for my cards and have been having loads of fun with that. So using a quote from Lady Bird Johnson I created the sentiment. Also I recently discovered stick pins and making my own. They are soooo much fun and addictive. I will be posting another post about stick pins very soon. I decided it would be fun to create one for my card using beads I had on hand and a head pin. The head pins do not have a pointy end on them like corsage pins do. Since I was sticking the pin coming out from the flower I did not need the sharp point so the head pin worked perfect for my stick pin. My cardstock is by Bazzill and I snuck the one cream piece in for matting which we were allowed to do. The top piece of cardstock has an oval cut out using a Spellbinders die creating a frame allowing me to only have to use just the one piece of cream cardstock . The flowers are by Prima and originally were white till I colored them using alcohol inks. We were told that our card should scream our color and I do believe mine screams red. Hopefully the monochromatic police won't be knocking at my door!

We aren't doing prizes on the blog hop today but I do hope you will consider leaving me a comment and let me know if my card inspired you. There are prizes though over at the Sunny Days Card Crop. There will be challenges, games and prizes for the next four days. Also there will be a spot in the forum for you to post any creations you may have made that might have been inspired from the blog hop. To find the Sunny Days Card Crop go HERE. However don't leave the hop yet. The last stop on the hop will also include a link to the card crop.

Next up is the talented and creative Golda. She recently started her blog not too long ago and I am glad she did as she has a lot to share with everyone. So hop on over to her and don't forget to leave her some love!

In case you lose your way, here is a full list of blogs on the hop:

Lora

Susan H -- You are here

Golda - next stop

Jane

Ana

Meredith

Laura

Angelina

Ashley <-- she will lead you to the pot of gold...

treasures galore... challenges, games, fun, prizes... Please join us....guaranteed to be loads of FUN!

CardSwap Sketch Challenge

Hello everyone! I'm the host of this week's sketch challenge over at CardSwaps on the CardMakers site. I usually am attracted to sketches that have lots of layers and places to put all kinds of embellies. I like simple sketches but find that I rarely use them. I am also guilty of buying those larger image stamps and then rarely using the stamp because it takes up the whole card. Sound familiar?

So I challenged myself to design a very simple sketch that would showcase a larger image. Below is the sketch. For the card I used Bazzill cardstock. The image is by Hero Arts and is colored with Prismacolor color pencils.

You can find the sketch challenge HERE. Hope you consider joining us this week for the challenge. All are welcome! While your checking out the challenge be sure to check out the info on the upcoming card crop also at CardSwaps on the CardMakers site. There will be four days of challenges, games, prizes and a blog hop! Yours truly will be one of the stops on the blog hop. I'm planning a fun card to hopefully help get your mojo juices flowing. Be sure to join in on the fun! I have a blinkie on the top right to help remind you of the dates when your visiting me. It's next week so clear your calendars!




Thanks for stopping by!