When Life Hands You Lemons...

Hey out there in blogland! I realized the other day how hard it is to blog when you're stressed out or upset about something so my post have been limited to non existent. Life has been handing me lemon after extra sour lemon and they are beginning to rub off on me and make me a tad sour... ok a lot sour. I haven't quite figured out how to make lemonade with those particular lemons, they're a bit hard to digest but rest assure there are many ways to juice a lemon (so they say, personally I only know of one!) and I fortunately know quite a few recipes that require lemon juice so no worries! This week's challenge at Simon Says Stamp the challenge is summer fruit, how apt since one of the first fruit I think of when I think of summer would be lemons! And what might you say is the unanimous drink of summer? LEMONADE! That's right folks who doesn't love an ice cold glass of sweet and tart lemonade on a hot Texas day? I can't think of anyone, can you? I certainly do and this card makes me thirsty just looking at it!

TGF Lolli Anya

 

I used Lolli Anya for this card colored with copics and gave her a cool glass of lemonade by wiping away her lolli and cutting out a glass of lemonade with my cricut to replace it. The lemons were all hand drawn and stickled beyond all reason including the giant lemon slice in the background. The dp is a mix of something I created and a scrap of the Echo Park Paradise beach 6x6 stack and the ribbon is from my stash. The sentiment as well as the cute lil glass were cut from the Simply Charmed Cricut Cartridge. I plan to enter this card into the following challenges:

 

Simon Says Stamp Challenge Summer Fruit

The Greeting Farm FFF - Summer Time

The Greeting Farm Retro Fresh Challenge- Layers

The ABC Challenge P for Pretty in Pink

The Greeting Farm GVT Sketch



Up Up and Away!

OMG I'm so excited about my post today! I wanted to wait, to hold out until Monday but I just can't, I tell ya I just can't! I feel like a balloon over filled and ready to pop! O.k. I'll explain my balloon metaphor and my post title:
A few days ago TGF posted the theme for the retro fresh challenge, Layers. When I saw this my mind began to race because if you craft, you know there's more than one way to interpret the theme of layers. Problem is, I had TOO many ideas and before I could get a sketch down, another 'better' idea popped into my head so I had to start over of course. Well last night after bath time, my girls and I sat down to watch a little Disney Channel. And what were they playing you ask? Up (yes that's the entire title, how creative huh?) Even though the title wasn't all that great, the movie was pretty cute and for those of you who love cartoons or have little ones (I'm guilty of both!) I highly recommend it. Anyway, to get to the point, the cartoon inspired me to get my head in the clouds, so that's where I started. I knew I wanted to do a spinner card with a pinwheel because pinwheels make me think of wind. I also knew I wanted to do something with clouds, so first step, make some dp with clouds since I owned none this is how it came out

 

 

Ok so technically these are the leftover scraps. This genius didn't think to take a picture of it till after I played seamstress and snipped clipped and trimmed away at it but you get the idea, right? Came out pretty cute. My white pigment ink was not in a cooperative mood so I ended up using a white embossing powder and opaque white gel pen. I had a late night trying to make this card but it came together and in the end I was not satisfied, it looked so blah, so empty

 

 

Anya Lifts

 

 

Just looks like something is missing right? Anya Lifts was colored with copic markers and the sentiment inside the pinwheel window came in the same set. The hot air balloons were hand drawn on shrink dink and colored with either prismacolor pencils (center) or copic markers (left and right). I've really been into making my own charms and plan to do a post on that soon so be looking for it! As I said, I wasn't happy with the way it turned out, so I slept on it and in the morning came up with THIS:

Anya Lifts

Anya Lifts Spinner Card

 



 

I had to completely disassemble the previous card (I'm embarrassed to admit I just noticed they look pretty similar) largely because I attempted to add a sentiment directly to the blank space on the card with DISASTROUS results. Lesson learned. This time around I added another layer to the base of the card by creating a patchwork quilt looking dp. To make it I combined several leftover scraps in coordinating colors in a random order, glued them to a paper, trimmed it to fit the card base, then placed the last (big) piece of the cloud paper I made on top. For a little more color I also added a banner with the matching sentiment to the Anya Lifts set, and a few clouds on dimensionals for even more layering. Last I re attached my DIY hot air balloon charms on thicker dimensionals so that they would sit slightly higher than everything else for the final layer of my masterpiece! This was my first ever spinner card and I can now proudly show it off in the following challenges:

Splendid Stampin Retro Fresh Challenge- Layers!
Splendid Stamping FFF- Wave Your Banners or Flags!
Splendid Stamping GVT Girly Girl
Oozak Challenge Anything Goes with a Sentiment
Simon Says Stamp and Show Transport!

Hope this wasn't too long!
Happy Stamping,
-Krys

Fairy Tails

Hello again bloggers!
Today has been just peachy for me and my DDs and DH, and how could it not be, I started my day with a trip to my LCS and got everything I needed for under $10! Granted I didn't buy much but I went in with a purpose and only a few select things on my mind and came out with everything I wanted for less than I thought I'd spend, great way to start the day. What did I buy? Tis a secret, for a tippy top secret project that is coming soon I promise! How's that for a tease? Well to get to the point of today's post and the title ( I promise I used the correct word, its a homophone!) I found a challenge for a garden themed card and I wanted to put a spin on it so I thought what other type of garden can I do besides the traditional flower garden? Not many of you know that I'm a gamer as well and I love RPGs like Final Fantasy, and more importantly for this card, Kingdom Hearts. For those of you unfamiliar with the latter, Kingdom Hearts is a game based on the worlds of several different Disney characters such as Mulan, Hercules, and once again more important, or rather more relevant, The Little Mermaid. In the world of Ariel you visit her grotto, and something beautiful like.... are you ready for this...

an undersea GARDEN!

Perfect! I created an undersea garden for my card and what better stamp to use in an undersea garden than a mermaid? I cant think of anything more perfect except, I only have one mermaid stamp and to be honest, I'm not too crazy about her. Her torso and tail would go beautifully however with another head (that sounds so much worse than it is) so I swapped her head out for TGF's fairy-like cutie pie, Shiny Bean and OMG too freakin cute!!!!

Shiny Bean/ Mermaid Anya

Now I wish I could take sole credit for this idea but I'm actually casing another scrapper/ card maker on her idea to use TGF's Mer Ian swapped with Shiny Bean's head over at A Thousand Sheets of Paper. Man oh man is that chic crafty! I don't own Mer Ian yet but I do have Mermaid Anya so I used her and it came out beautifully! I experimented a little with my copics to give her tail some texture I believe it worked out nicely unfortunately I neglected to write down the color combination I used -__-. The sentiment is from TGF's Anya Lifts set, the stickers rhinestones and paper were all from my stash. Spun Sugar Distress Stickles on her sea shells, tail and hair accessories finished the look. I plan to enter her in the following challenges;
TGF's Garden Variety Tuesday Girly Girl
TGF's Farm Fresh Friday Bold and Bright
The All Sorts Challenge In the Garden
The Sweet Stop SSS214 (sketch)
All That Stickles Distress Stickles Linky Party