Thank You Thank You !

I get so excited when I pull a parcel out of the mail box. Especially if it is a surprise from a friend! ( I mean getting something you ordered is very nice too, but you know what I mean, right?)

Just before Christmas I got such a fab surprise in my mail box and decided to send my friend a 'proper' thank you.

While I was making one...I figured I'd make an extra. Besides I had such a hard time deciding on just one set of colours!

I used the (free) 'Awwww Thanks!' digital stamp from Tiddly Inks. It is such a cute image, and just right for my friend, who loves flowers!

The idea of the split papers/back ground came from Therese over at 'Lost In Paper' I thought her Penny Black Cat just adorable.

For my cards I changed it up just a bit, but kept the basic idea. I also printed the strip of repeated 'thank you' words onto the card bases. The thank you banners and images were all printed at the same time. For the 'bluish' image I traced over the lines again with black pen. I decided to leave the other image in the printed 'grey' lines. In the end I like both versions equally. That does NOT help me to know what to do next time though...to trace or not to trace. Sigh...

The images were coloured with water colour pencils and I cut the hair to make 'clumps' which I can manipulate just a little to add dimension. The girls as well as the bottom embossed panels are popped up with foam tape. Adding the sentiment banner with a stapler also allowed me to curve it to add interest.

I'm entering these cards into the current "Thank You" challenge (#174) over at Tiddly Inks. Come on over, take a look and join in!

Flying Away - Birthday Card

A birthday card in warm colours, send with warm wishes!

I started with the brown cat. And then added the warm colours on the balloons...and decided to keep the rest all in the yellows through reds. I'm so pleased with how this one turned out!

A simple greeting inside leaves room for a personal note...

 A little detail there of the paper ribbon.

I popped the tag up with foam tape and I like the dimension it gives to the card.

The cat stamp is from Penny Black - Bubbly

The sentiment is from Stampendous - Happy Messages

and the balloons are from an old Provo Crafts set.

Have a happy week creating!

Happy New Year!

Well well well!

Here we are in a New Year. And I'm sort of slooow out of the blocks, right?

Well that's because I've been busy! What with drawing most days (see posts HERE) and getting set up with a new painting/drawing inbetween, life has been busy. Add visiting with friends, doing the usual crafts, and oh yes! The Christmas holidays and suddenly it doesn't seem like it has been so long since I posted after all. I was given a new jigsaw puzzle for Christmas and have not even opened it yet. Now THAT is remarkable.

I do have a brand new feature for you for this year though - Colouring pages. I've always enjoyed colouring and still have a book from 1971. It's really cute to look at all the little colouring efforts by myself, sisters and friends! I recently won a 'lucky draw' style contest via the Colored Pencil Magazine for a couple colouring books from Dover Publishing . I was tickled pink to win and chose this one - Entangled and Art Nouveau Animals. I've not had a chance to colour in them, but I do look forward to making a start!

I was busy colouring these carnations instead :
I printed it onto regular copy paper with a toner printer and coloured using watercolour pencils and a waterbrush. I'm wanting to add lots more detail in with coloured pencils, but am resisting the urge or I will never get round to finishing this post!

Here is another carnation design that I started to colour digitally. It is almost as much fun as using real media...

There is just so much one can do with a design like this. My head always explodes with the possibilities. Drives me crazy. That is why I have to draw the 'enough' line and move on...

You can download both design HERE in one zip file. Please note that the images are jpeg files. They should work for most people. If you have trouble printing these, do let me know.