It's Your Birthday with Newton's Nook Inky Paws Challenge

Wow, it's been a while since I posted but I've headed into the busiest time of the year at work and I'm just dog tired by the time I get home every night and weekends are busy now too.  I'm sure you all know how that goes.  But I wanted to pop on here to share the card I made for the Inky Paws Challenge over at Newton's Nook.  I love their challenges almost as much as I love their stamps.  This one was all about sparkle and you know how I love that.  You can find the challenge here.

For this only slightly more than one layer card, I used a technique from a class I took a month ago to do some partial die cutting.  I stamped the oh so cute kitty in a box from Newton's Birthday Bash and colored him with my copics.  Then I very carefully cut around the kitty and slid my Simon Says Stamp Brilliant Gifts die behind it.  I cut out the present die from the card, then again from black card stock and some DCWV glitter cardstock.  Then it was just a matter of rebuilding the presents behind the kitty.  I added some Wink of Stella to the kitty's box and covered it with Glossy Accents.

Trick or Treat?

Today's card was inspired from my childhood when Pac-man and Ms. Pac-man were popular.  When I saw the adorable ghost on the Lawn Fawn Monster Mash set, I knew I had to do a Pac-man card.  I colored the ghosts in the pac-man colors and made my own pac-man by tracing around a nickel (because I can't draw to save my life) and then used a straight edge to make the mouth.  I then fussy cut the two I had cut and colored out.  For the inside of the card, I flipped the switch on the ghosts and made them on the run just like when pac-man gets a power pill (is that what they were called?). 

Enjoy Your Day Card Two Featuring Newton's Nook

Today's card is another image from the delightful Newton's Summer Vacation set from Newton's Nook.  I actually fussy cut this image after coloring it with my copics.  I hate fussy cutting, but it was the perfect thing for this card.  I used two sheets of paper from the Echo Park 6x6 pad A Perfect Summer.  I love that paper pad and it seemed the perfect one to go with this stamp set.  I die cut the wave paper using the largest die from the Avery Elle Pinked die set.  I then stamped my sentiment on a scrap piece of white paper and cut it out with the banner die from the Avery Elle set.  I then ran it through again with the large die to pink the other end to match the background.  I cut the polka dot/pie chart paper to cover the entire card base.  I adhered my wave paper and then tied it with some Martha Stewart baker's twine, adhered it my card base and then added a few Doodlebug sequins to finish it off.  It was cute, but still needed something.  So I covered the floatie with some Glossy Accents and called it good.

Enjoy Your Day Featuring Newton's Nook

Since I had my new stamp sets on my desk, I thought I would stamp out the images and play with them.  So the next few cards all come from one of Newton's Nook's newest sets called Newton's Summer Vacation.  For this card, I colored it all with copics the cut the panel out with the smallest banner from Lawn Fawn's Stitched Party Banners.  I ran some Lawn Fawn Sky Lawn Trimming through the banner piece.  I cut a piece of paper from the Echo Park 6x6 pad A Perfect Summer pad using the scalloped, largest die from Mama Elephant's Femme Frames and then adhered it to a orange card base.  I used pop dots for the banner and finished it off with some Glossy Accents on the mask and bubbles.

Wish You Were Here Featuring Newton's Nook

This week and next week are going to be crazy busy at work. I'm basically covering the work of three people for two weeks and one of those weeks I won't even be in this state. So, although, we're really short handed, I decided to take last Friday off.  I had been scheduled off since the beginning of the month to use some use-it-or-lose-it time before I lose it at the end of this month and I had worked long hours all week so I really needed a break, plus hubby had the day off.  We spent some time together doing a lot of nothing, which was nice.  He worked on Saturday, so I had thought about going into the office, but I also realized that I had things around the house I wanted to get done since I knew I was going to be working long hours and wouldn't to have any time this week or next.  So I stayed home and cleaned the house, snuggled a furball or two (at the same time!) and watched a few crafty videos in between loads of laundry.  It was the perfect break to feel like I was human again and not just a working machine.  Then I it was time to spend some time in my craft room to exercise a different part of my brain with some new goodies I've picked up recently.

Specifically, Newton's Nook recently released some new (adorable) stamp sets.  I'm such a sucker for Newton so I had to pick up Newton's Summer Vacation and my sister loves flamingos so, of course, I had to get Flirty Flamingos.  When I was catching up on my blog reading, I noticed Newton's Nook had a new challenge to create a beach themed card and thought it was the perfect opportunity to play with my new stamps.  You can find out all about the challenge over on the Newton's Nook blog here.  It's open until August 8th so go check it out and play along.

For my card, I started with the Flirty Flamingos set.  I inked up the solo flamingo in Memento Tuxedo Black ink and colored it with copics.  I then created mask for my flamingo so I could sponge in some waves with Distress Ink and sponge daubers and then colored in some sand and sky with my copics.  I used the Amy Tangerine dies to cut a polaroid shape.  I stamped the sentiment from the Newton's Summer Vacation and colored in the little heart with the same copics used for the flamingos.  I remembered having some "sand' paper and found in an old DCWV Summer Stack.  I used the Dotted Die from Avery Elle to cut out that paper and mounted my "polaroid" on it.  To finish it off, I added a few Doodlebug sequins, some Glossy Accents on the floaty ring and a some Wink of Stella on the waves. 

Withholding Judgment

So I'm not so sure about today's card.  I had this idea but it didn't quite translate the way I had it in my mind.  So I'm not in love with this card.  I keep looking at it thinking that it needs something, but I'm not sure just quite what.  So I'm going to sleep on it and take another look at it tomorrow.  In the meantime, what got me started tonight was the newest sketch over at Freshly Made Sketches, another challenge block that I stalk read every week, but haven't participated in for a while.  I really liked Rita's sketch this week and I've had this Happy Trails set from Lawn Fawn that I picked up at CKC about two months ago, but haven't broken out yet.  But now that I've played with the set, I really, really want to go camping, but the RV is in the shop.  Boo.

I had stamped the stars from the Lawn Fawn Lucky Stars set, heat embossed the stars with some Versamark and clear embossing powder, stamped the car and trailer from Lawn Fawn's Happy Trails set, inked the starry night background and grass with some colors of Distress Ink, and had the car and trailer pretty much colored with Copics when my husband came in my craft room.  He immediately commented on how cute it was (which he rarely does when something is in progress).  So I felt like I was on the right track, especially when I added Wink of Stella to the starry night, but it just fell apart after that. I love the starry background embossed with the Darice Stars folder using paper from the Lemon Lush 6x6 pad from Studio Calico.  I wasn't sure on the banners because I couldn't find a paper I liked, so I just colored them with a marker to match.  Basically I like each of the elements by itself, but they just don't really come together right...  So you just may see this card again soon when I figure out what's not quite right.  Do you ever have that happen to you? 

Loads of Thanks

I wasn't sure I would make it into my craft room tonight.  I'm fighting a bit of a sinus headache and I really just thought about crawling in bed, but it's Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs!  How could I sleep through that?  In fact, I have to thank those guys because in between periods (and overtime!) I played around in my craft room because I needed a thank you card.  I pulled out a Newton's Nook stamp set called Wagon of Wishes that I think is just adorable and stamped out the wagon with the apples.  I played with my copics trying to color the apples to match the apples that grow on the tree in our backyard.  It was kind of hard to get that green, yellow with a little red combo, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.  I was a little stumped for a layout for the card, but then I remembered that I loved the Mojo Monday layout and I haven't participated in that for a while so it seemed like the perfect time to try my hand at it.  I've also been playing around with trying the current Inky Paws challenge which was to use wood, metal or cork on a card.  So I started by breaking out the Hardwood stamp I bought during the Stampin' Up free shipping promotion a while back.  I used Vintage Photo Distress Ink on some watercolor paper then used a damp brush to spread the color a little.  To be honest, I wasn't sure I liked it and I really wasn't sure I liked it with the image I had colored, but I kept plugging along.  I broke out my Lawn Fawn Circle Stackables and Scalloped Circle Stackables to set off the cute sentiment from the Newton's Nook set and then remembered how much I liked the tag stamp and die from the Lawn Fawn Winter Gifts that I used on a card a week or so ago.  So the last piece I wasn't sure about was the strip on the right.  I knew that a red strip would help tie it all together, but plain red wasn't working for me.  I pulled out a couple of embossing folders.  Wood grain didn't look quite right and I ended up debating between a dotted texture and this Quick Kutz Zig Zag folder.  Fortunately, I have a great resource when I can't decide:  my husband!  So then it was just some glue, a couple of chomps of the corners of some pieces and a few wood veneer hearts to balance what seemed to be a bit of a plain spot in the corner and it was done.  I actually walked back out to the family room and commented to my husband that I wasn't really sure about the pieces going together but I loved how it turned out in the end.   I'll be linking this up to both challenges, but come play with me because it's always more fun if everyone plays.  You have until Friday, June 6th for the Inky Paws challenge and until Sunday, June 8th for the Mojo Monday challenge.

Happy Birthday Bethany!

A co-worker's daughter is celebrating her 13th birthday today and she needed a special card.  Along comes this cute little one I made just playing with some fun Lawn Fawn stamps sitting on my craft desk.  The polka dot paper in the background is from the DCWV Celebrations stack and was left over from some Easter treat boxes.  I thought it was the cutest place to start.  I love this cute little Yeti for the Yeti, Set, Go stamp set and thought he would be adorable in duplicate holding a banner.  The words are from the Sophie's Sentiment set and the banner is from Bannerific.   where I used the balloons to make the background paper.  I used some copics to color the yeti and banner.  I had to fussy cut the yetis (hey Kelly Marie from Lawn Fawn - when are we going to get dies for Yeti, Set, Go?  I'm ready, set, go for them now!), but the banner was easy with the dies for Bannerific.  The card still needed something, so I decided to take up the Lawnscaping challenge and stamp my background.  I stamped the balloons from the Admit One set I recently picked up.  After some color, I die cut the background using the Stitched Journaling Card dies.  Then it was just a little glossy accents to finish off the balloons.  Super fun!

Get Well Soon Inspired by the Lawn Fawn Blog

I had a headache (darn weather change) and yet I needed a card for a co-worker who just had surgery.  So, I scoped out the Lawn Fawn blog where I fell in love with this cute turtle card.  It was the perfect opportunity to break out my On the Mend set (with a few extra stamps from Critters in the 'Burbs, Sunny Skies and Bon Voyage) plus my new Grassy Border die.  After stamping out my selections with the Momento Tuxedo Black ink and coloring with my Copics (love them), I cut out my grass with some green paper and the sky from some blue paper in my stash.  I added some clouds with Hero Arts Unicorn white ink and the cloud from the Bon Voyage set.  I added some Hemptique baker's twine and a button from my stash, but it still seemed to need something.  So I cut out a black mat to bring it all together and adhered it to my card base.  Simple, easy and quick to let me crawl off to bed and see if I can sleep off this headache.

Soy Happy for You Card

I needed a card to congratulate a friend on his new job.  I was flipped through my stamps and decided I had to use the Let's Roll set from Lawn Fawn.  I have loved this set since I first saw it in the preview pictures from CHA.  It's so cute and punny.  I broke out my Momento ink and new Copics (thanks again Mom) and colored up a storm.  Then it was just a matter of using the dies and finding some cute paper.  I had some paper left in the 6x6 Print Shop paper pad from Studio Calico that I received as part of a Citrus Twist project life kit.  I thought it would work well for the background and yet leave the card suitably masculine.  I decided that the puffy star stackables from Lawn Fawn would add a nice highlight, especially after I edged them in Wink of Stella, too bad it doesn't really show in the cards.