Monster birthday card

This is just going to be a quick post. I've been fighting a cruddy summertime cold for the last week and I just received some heartbreaking news that a close friend's beloved-to-all (including me!) M-I-L has just lost her 4 year battle with cancer (LMS). So, I'm not feeling too hot.

Today my son attended his first without-mommy birthday party. His good friend just turned 5 and they went to see Up! in 3D and then went to Uno's for pizza. Here's the card I made for our little 5-y-o:

This is a Cricut Wild Card diecut. I'd been wanting to make this little guy since I'd first seen him and I finally had an opportunity. Now my son insists I have to make one for him, too. Said he looks like Broby from Yo Gabba Gabba!

When preparing to make this card I thought of this week's SPCC color combo and thought how it lends itself equally well to monsters as frilly heritage layouts (see that one here).

Wow! I just realized how off the color looks in my pic. He really is practically the spittin' image of the 3 colors above. Huh.

The little guy was ran through my Cuttlebug with the spiderweb embossing folder and then I smeared green Stickles randomly about all over him. His eyes, nose, and mouth are filled with gold Stickles. I drew stitch marks around his face with an embossing pen and embossed it with purple powder.

Here's the envelope diecut to match. I just stitch-outlined the face with a marker for definition.

Details: Paper - Stampin' Up!, Bazzill; Cricut diecut; Cuttlebug embossing folder; Stickles; Creative Beginnings embossing powder; SU! marker; embossing pen.

TFL!!

I'm going to go lie in bed, moan a bit a la When Harry Met Sally, and watch some Friday night TLC. Love my What Not to Wear. I wish someone would nominate me!!

Heidi

You Are My Sunshine

I'm doing a series of layouts for a friend. Here's the first one completed. The pics of his daughter on the beach are priceless!

Aparently I didn't get enough stitching on my Vintage Plum week 4 challenge because this one is chock full of stitching - albeit machine stitching -- which I feel like takes me longer to do than handstitching. Go figure. (Probably not true but machine stitching ratchets up the stress levels for me.) I've seen a good share of these sun ray layouts lately and finally had a good subject with which to use the idea. Not a long ingredient list but lots of time invested. I don't know if you can see it very well on the pic but the word "sunshine" is covered with a bit of Stickles, too. Gotta have a little bling on a sunny,girly layout!

I'll post the other 2 layouts I'm making for my friend as they are completed. (Hopefully tonight!)

Details: Paper - DCWV, Chatterbox, Scrapworks, The Paper Company; Cricut die cuts; Stickles; thread.

TFL!

Heidi

(p.s. Does anyone else have problems with formatting their posts with Blogger? It looks all perfectly spaced between paragraphs in the text box but when I hit preview sometimes (and it seems completely random) paragraphs run together. Ugh!!)

Plum Star Search Week #3 challenge (bling!) - Every Artist

(Voting begins today!! Please private message your vote for this layout at THIS LINK.)

For those of you who haven't been by before, I'm participating in the Vintage Plum Star Search 5 week challenge to find their July guest designer. This is week #3 and the challenge is "All That Glitters." For some reason this challenge threw me for a loop. I didn't want to end up overdoing the bling. It took me until Wednesday to identify my subject matter and then another day to figure out the direction. This one's been slow going but I think, in the end, it came out pretty cool.

The ideas began with a quote I happened upon: "Every artist was first an amateur" by Ralph Waldo Emerson. My daughter has recently been watercoloring with purpose (ie making pictures instead of sloshing muddied colors onto paper) and this was a current fav of mine:

So, I thought I'd build a layout around this pic. Well, as you can see, ideas evolve and the process of painting that picture became the focus of the layout. I am sure the artwork pic will make its way onto a layout of its own for the facing page in the scrapbook soon.

I felt it was only fitting that my background for the layout be watercolored. So, I dug out this Rusty Pickle Pop Star paper (below) and the Crayola waterpaints, and my daughter and I sat down for a joint watercoloring session (in which she created a gorgeous multicolored "sunflower", but that's a pic for another post...).

I wanted the quote to mimic the lettering already on the paper so I freehanded it as best I could and then included a couple swirls, too.

~flower detail~


Of course, the challenge was to bling a layout so out came the Stickles. I also included a Heidi Swapp bling flower and blinged up the Making Memories mini bulldog clip.

Finally, the fancy frame was cut using my Quickutz Silhouette machine on white paper. I brayered it with some Ranger Distressed Ink, doodled a border like the one on the paper, and then blinged that up, too, with more Stickles.

~frame detail~

I'm hoping I didn't go too far with the bling as had worried me to temporary inaction.

If you like what you see, PLEASE VOTE FOR ME beginning Sunday, May 31 through Monday, June 1. I'll post the link where to vote on Sunday morning.

Details: Paper - Rusty Pickle, The Paper Company; Crayola watercolors; Ranger Stickles & Distress Ink; Quickutz Silhouette die cut; Cricut die cut (photo corners); Making Memories bulldog clip; Zig Millenium pens; Heidi Swapp Bling; K&Co rhinestones; foam squares.

As always, thank you so much for stopping by, taking a peek, and for all the great feedback. I hope you'll keep coming back!

Heidi

p.s. I apologize for the less-than-stellar qualilty of the photos of the layout. I intended to try to get a few more shots of it in morning daylight tomorrow but unfortunately the layout fell victim to a shifting chair and a flying cup of coffee. :o( It's still in tact but with a few extra "splashes" of a non-coordinating color and the fancy frame got ripped a bit but I glued it back together. Guess now the layout has an "antiqued" feel (and coffeehouse smell) to it.