It's a Birthday Blog Hop!

It's a birthday bloghop for an uber special blogger, my in real life friend, Elise of Mamacow Creations!

She rocks the creative span, ranging from oodles of papercrafts (card making to scrapbooking to home dec to food art...you should see what she does come pumpkin time!) and on down the line, to gorgeous fine art paintings (the first one here is  my current fav).  Elise is known to tickle a funny bone, get silly in the wee hours, write and sing an ode to the creative man, Tim Holtz, and make so many of us smile with her sweet heart.

Thanks to the gals at the Just Us Girls challenge site, I'm thrilled to be able to wish her a Happy Birthday!!!

And the birthday gal needs a birthday card, right?!

Elise had been begging for spring not too long ago and when I walked by a few of my Dew Drop ink pads, they whispered to me.  (No, really, they did!)

Well, their shape awoke some slumbering inky card making mojo and so I had to run with it!  I started with the orchid and then filled in with the purple.

A birthday needs sparkle, so after adding a piece of chunky purple bling for the flower's center, spica glitter pens went to work, laying on oodles of sparkle onto the vine ribbon used for the flower's stem. (It doesn't show fabulously in the photo, but it really does sparkle!)

Happy Happy Birthday, Elise!!

I'm grateful for your friendship and
hope your day is wonderful, launching an awesome new year! :>

I hope you'll hop along, visit the partiers, and most of all, stop by Elise's Mamacow Creations blog and leave her some birthday love (even if you're not a papercrafter, we know how fantastic the community of bloggers can be and would love if you stopped by to wish her Happy Birthday! :>)!!!

Supplies:Cardstock: Papertrey Ink
Ink: Tsukineko Brilliance Dew Drops
Ribbon: May Arts
Bling: rhinestone - stash;  Spica Glitter Pens - Copic
Other:  FabriTac, foam tape, ScorPal

Detailed Fun with Just Us Girls & EBTKS

Come & Color, I did....but not with markers, pens, or pencils. But, I did have so much FUN with these colors for the Just Us Girls 21st challenge! I mean there were little giggles, lots of smiles, and oodles of delight as I played!

And all that delight is most definitely in the details! But, before I tell you about those details, let me share where the rest of the card came from.........the current sketch challenge from Everything But The Kitchen Sink! I have wanted to play along with the EBTKS crew from the beginning...thank goodness I finally did! :>

Okay, okay, back to some of those details! I cut some lovely K & Company printed paper into four squares, used some temporary adhesive to adhere them all butted up against each other (as in one big square) and then using coral and raspberry ink, I inked up some fun stripes. If I haven't said it before, I'll say it now (or again) that I feel just like a kid when I get all inky....instant happy pill!


Next, I spread out those four squares, adhered them to a piece of raspberry cardstock, pierced around the edges, using the Tim Holtz Clear Design Ruler (I LOVE this tool!), and hand stitched with vanilla embroidery thread. Matting the whole thing onto a chocolate card base, I turned to the rest of those fun details.

That fab scalloped square chipboard frame took a quick bath in some ivory paint and then went for a good soak in some of Tim Holtz's Distress Rock Candy crackle paint. I stamped that wonderful sentiment (that oh so fits my love of the little things in life!) in brown StazOn onto vanilla cardstock, cut it out with a circle Coluzzle (still do not understand why it was discontinued!) and it too went for a soak in Rock Candy. And when they started cracking like mad, can you see why giggles were escaping me?! When they were all dry (the cardstock curled, but I simply bent it back and smoothed it out), I rubbed some coral ink onto it and rubbed off the excess.....its a very subtle effect, but it does add to it. I also did the same dry rubbed ink on the sweet vanilla wood button.

The last bit of details rest in the fibers. I layered the stitched raspberry ribbon on top of chocolate ribbon...I just like the subtle extra bit of chocolate in the middle of the card. Now the stitching on that raspberry ribbon is white and that just didn't work. So, I took a Q-Tip, dabbed it in some Distress ink and ran it over the stitches. Again, very subtle, but it took the edge off of the white stitching and made it applicable to the color challenge, which calls for vanilla, not white! I tied the whole bow together with some brown embroidery floss and that sweet vanilla wood button!

Big Thank Yous to both the JUGS & EBTKS teams for creating their fabulous & fun challenge sites! So glad I crafted some time to play!

Hope everyone is having a fantastic week! I'm off to celebrate some of the cherrished details in my own life.....in fact, one is smiling at me right now, while nibbling on her carrot! :>

And don't forget my Blog Birthday Giveaway is still going on!

Supplies:
Cardstock: Dark Chocolate & Vintage Cream - Papertrey Ink; Purely Pomegranate - Stampin' Up!
Patterned Paper: K & Company

Ink: Cameo Coral, Chocolate Chip, Purely Pomegranate - Stampin' Up!; Vintage Cream - Papertrey Ink; Timber Brown - StazOn by Tsukineko; Old Paper Distress Ink - Tim Holtz for Ranger
Stamps: Life Bundle - Kolette Hall
Chipboard: Scalloped square frame - Stampin' Up!; circles/Chips (2 circles under the sentiment) - Bazzill
Paint: Ivory - Delta; Rock Candy Distress Crackle Paint - Tim Holtz for Ranger
Ribbon & Fibers: Purely Pomegranate Saddle Stitched, Chocolate Chip grosgrain - Stampin' Up!; Chocolate embroidery thread - Making Memories; Vanilla embroidery floss - DMC
Button: sweet flower wooden button - La*di*dah for Ki Memories

Count me in!! Just Us Girls #16

Yippie!!!!! My fingers are covered in ink & burgundy marker and not only do I have something inky to offer, but for a challenge! I am tapping my toes to my own personal Happy Dance to get my hands inked up again. :>


I have been wanting to play along with one of the Just Us Girls challenges since they started, but somehow, I just kept coming up short on time. And while time is still short.......I made sure to craft some of my own time for a little inky {Love} for their JUGS #16 Color Challenge.

After playing along with Tim & his fabulous Christmas tags, I have a bunch of office tags left over. When I use them, I like to adhere two together so that they stand up to ink and paint much better and then I lightly ink the backside, so its pretty too. (The line in the middle is actually not nearly as obvious......its raining, its pouring, and I had to use a flash as I'm not set up for indoor photography......yet.) I inked the whole thing in soft pink, went over most of it with burgundy, adhered some Noteworthy chipboard alpha stickers, blinged out a chipboard heart, popped it up on foam tape and cut out a bunch of blingy swirls to make a flourish that would fit and work with the tag and voila...a happy little Valentine taggy {love}.

Oh yea! When I experimented with making my own {custom} colored ribbon back in November, I was using polyester satin ribbon. And since I did not have a single piece of burgundy ribbon anywhere in my overflowing ribbon collection (how could that be?!), I thought I would make some, using white nylon organza this time.......and it worked beautifully!! I highly recommend giving it a try.....I'm so happy I did!

Twenty Ten has kicked off to a bit of a slow start , but I am thinking that a little ink goes a long way towards rejuvenating a spirit and putting a grande smile on my face!

Supplies:
Ink: Bravo Burgundy, Pretty in Pink - Stampin' Up!
Chipboard: Making Memories, Cosmo Cricket
Bling: K & Company, Prima
Ribbon: Stash
Tag: Office Depot