A Mexican Penguin :)

I was born in 1990, and 2011 is the year most of my friends are turning 21. :) One of them actually gave me the stamp set I used for this card, called Salud, with a hint to use it on her birthday card that I have yet to make. :) I love this penguin, it's so cute! :) 

So, here's a card I made for one of my guy friends for his birthday. :) The pictures did not come out too great, because it was already evening and the lighting in my room is not that good..

*click on the image to enlarge*

Not visible in this picture, but the black on the penguin is embossed so it's all shiny. :)

This is the first time I have used Faerie Glass dewdrops! They are on the glass that the penguin is holding, making it look like a cold drink. :) I really liked using these, they're so cool! 

The friend I made this for really loves soccer, so I cut and folded a piece of white cardstock using this pattern to make a 3D soccer ball (okay, just half a soccer ball...) for the penguin to stand on. :) I then had to glue on little black pieces.

*click on the image to enlarge*

The inside is very simple... I didn't want to overdecorate a guy card (I have barely any experience in making those), so I kept it as simple as I could. :)

I would like to enter this card in the following challenges:

• Craft Your Days Away #11 - anything goes
• Stamp Something - anything goes

Products I used:

• Stamps: Swanky Stamps - Salud; Sarah Phelps - Make a Wish
• Inks: Distress - peeled paint; Memories - black; Colorit - black (used for embossing); ColorBox - frost white
• Stickles glitter glue: lime green, burgundy, frosted lace
• Embossing: Denami clear (powder); Art Glitter - martini (powder)
• PrismaColor pencils
• Faerie Glass dewdrop glued on with "Be Creative" tape

Winter Sparkle

Here's a New Year card I made for another friend :) This one is pretty simple, but very sparkly! Without any more prelude, I will go on to the card.

Here it is!

*click on image to enlarge*

I love my Hero Arts "Create Your Own" set... I can make snowmen with different faces, hats, buttons, and add a scarf or a broom if I like. :D I actually ended up putting some lime green Stickles to highlight some of the top of the broom... But I forgot to retake the picture after I did that.

I used the cool highlights micro-fine glitter to make the snow-sparkly background.. Very easy to do with some wide double-sided tape and no need to buy any special blue glitter paper ;) Since the glitter is micro-fine, it doesn't rub off, and actually feels pretty smooth.

*click on image to enlarge*

On the inside, I added some vellum paper and more stamps from the same Hero Arts set. And some Stickles in the corners of the vellum. That's it! :)

I would like to enter this card in the following challenges:

• One Stitch at a Time #43 - anything goes
• Crafty Catz #63 - your choice (I chose #61 "Happy New Year")
• Paper Playtime #31 - New Years

Products I used:

• Stamps: Hero Arts - Create Your Own (Snowman)
• Inks: Distress - broken china, peeled paint, worn lipstick, vintage photo; Versa Color - royal blue; Memories - black
• Stickles glitter glue: turquoise
• Glitter: Jewel Glitter Ritz - cool highlights
• Embossing: Denami clear embossing powder
• PrismaColor pencils
• Vellum: Christmas trees

Christmas Fun!

I hope everyone is having a wonderful time this holiday season! :) I haven't made all the Christmas cards that I wanted to, yet... But my excuse would be that in Russia, my homeland, New Years is celebrated much more than Christmas is... And Orthodox Christmas itself is on January 7th, which gives me two more weeks ;)

Anyway, here is a Christmas card I made for a friend of mine. I love this card so much, I'd keep it for myself if I could! ;)

*click the image to enlarge*

Can you see all the glitter on the background?.. It's the snow that the lucky mouse is rolling through... :D Here's a close-up to see the snow..

*click the image to enlarge*

And here is the inside of the card, also all sparkly (not really visible in this picture =/)! Sprayed with Tattered Angels glimmer mist, marshmallow. 

*click the image to enlarge*

And that is all for now. :) But I will definitely be making more Christmas cards very soon.. :) Merry Christmas, everyone! :)

I am entering this card in the following challenges:

• House-Mouse & Friends #85 - aperture
• A Spoon Full of Sugar #133 - Christmas cards
• Crafts and Me #20 - anything goes

Products I used (not a complete list yet..):

• Stamps: House-Mouse - Light Fun
• Inks: Distress - barn red; Memories - black 
• Stickles glitter glue: burgundy, waterfall
• Jewel Glitter Ritz: highlights (white), sand

Winter break is here!

The finals week at UCSD has just ended (yay!), and the winter break has begun! :D Thus, I now have the time to post this card I made for my friend to wish good luck on these finals :) It's a mini-card, approximately 5 by 5 cm (2 by 2 inches), and I loved making it!

Also, I recently got the Glitter Ritz micro fine glitter.. So exciting! This is the first card I got to use it on, just a little bit though. It's awesome, so much finer than the glitter I usually use. And so shiny! I used it for the green "branches" (couldn't find a better word..) of the Christmas tree. 

I sprayed just the front of the card (by masking the inside) with the pashmina color of Tattered Angels glimmer mist spray, so it looks darker (and sparkly! but not in the photo) than the paper was originally. The square is regular white cardstock wrapped in the awesome Hanko paper (I am terrible at remembering specific paper and ribbon names :/ ).

Whoever is opening it undoes the ribbon, and tah-dah!...

You can see lots and lots and lots of Stickles and just glitter... :D Here are some close-ups:

The sign "Good Luck" Is a combination of white opal Liquid Pearls and the same white glitter that I used on the edges of the tree. :)

To make the tree outline look really snowy, I stamped it with white pigment ink, and then put white glitter on it. For the Christmas tree "ornaments" I just painted little circles with acrylic paints and then put stardust Stickles over them for the sparkle. :)

The heart on the pot is actually cut out separately and outlined with a ruby red Liquid Pearls. I also layered an extra piece of paper in between the heart and the pot so the heart pops a little more. :)

I am entering this card into the following challenges:

• Creative Card Crew - anything goes
• Creative Cowgirls Challenge #2 - anything goes
• Stamps R Us #11 - anything goes
• One Stitch at a Time - anything goes
• Sugar Sweet Paper Treats december - anything goes 

Products I used:

• Stamps: Printworks - Jolly Tree
• Inks: ColorBox - frost white 
• Stickles glitter glue: cinnamon, waterfall, turquoise, lime green, orange peel, stardust, purple
• Jewel Glitter Ritz: lime green
• Tattered Angels glimmer mist - pashmina
• Fiskars scissors - ripple
• Liquid pearls: white opal, ruby red

My Father's Birthday!

This card is a month late (thus the HouseMouse stamp with the tortoise!)... But I hope he enjoys it, still. :)

Recently, my friend told me her art teacher in high school forbid them from smudging colored pencils when coloring... And that apparently art professors (at least at Cal Poly) don't smudge it, either. Not even with special solutions for smudging pencil! I thought it was a little weird, because Prismacolor pencils, smudged with Turpenoid, give a nice result... So, for this card I actually challenged myself to not use Turpenoid! Here's how it came out... :)

Not bad, hm? :) I actually think that it looks a bit brighter than it would have if I did it my usual way... This is a HouseMouse stamp, and I cut it out, every little grass leaf, (took me forever, but totally worth it!) and used a tape roller to glue it on the baby blue paper. The brown paper was Cuttlebugged and then I mounted the baby blue paper onto it. The white dots are pearl-looking like beads, just glued.. :) And of course, ribbon; and some Stickles for the sentiment. :)

And this.. is the inside!

These images are also colored without Turpenoid intervention, even though I was so tempted to smudge the color on the little lion's face! :) The writing is in Russian.. It's glittery, but you cannot see that in this photo. And the dots are Stickles, just to fill up the background somehow. :)

On this close-up, you can see that both the lion and the bird are embossed. Makes them pop a bit on the flowery background. :) Finally, the edges were cut with some shaped craft scissors.

And... That is it! :) I would like to enter this card in the following challenges:

• Paper Pretties - embossing
• Anything Goes - emboss it
• Fairy Tale Challenge - everything goes

Products I used:

• Stamps: HouseMouse - Slow Pokes; Autumn Leaves - Mindy's Zoo
• Inks: Vintage Photo Distress; Versa color - royal blue; Memories - black
• Embossing: D'Vine Swirls Cuttlebug folder
• Denami clear embossing powder
• Prismacolor pencils
• Stickles glitter glue: cinnamon, waterfall, golden rod, turquoise
• Fiskars scissors - ripple

A (Late) Halloween Card

This is the second time I enter a card into challenges! Very exciting for me! :) 

I absolutely love House Mouse images, so when I accidentally found specifically a House Mouse challenge blog... I knew I had to make a card, and a design idea popped into my head a second later, so I got on it. The challenge was to make a Halloween-themed (or -colored) card and use a House Mouse stamp. And.. Here's the result: 

I don't have any pumpkin stamps, so I freehanded and painted the pumpkin with acrylics. It is mounted on the vellum, and the mouse (such a cutie!) is actually mounted onto the pumpkin. Hope he doesn't wake any time soon, or it will give him a big fright... :) The mouse was colored with Prismacolor pencils. The bow is there just for a little embellishment.

I am going to give this card to a friend, so I will also decorate the inside, and will update this post later. (No time to decorate it before the the challenge closes for this week...)

I am entering this card in the following challenges:
House Mouse challenge #81
Crazy4Challenges - square card
Lexi-s Creations, #26 - anything goes

Birthday Cupcake

No more wood-burning (at least not for a long while..), and meanwhile.. back to cards! :)

This one I made for a friend of mine who loves food and especially cakes. Thus, practically all of the stamps I used were cakes... Mmm, yummy! :)

I cut the light lime paper out with craft shaped scissors, cuttlebugged it, and used Stickles for the border. It is mounted on the black-gold paper, so the card doesn't look too flat. :) The cupcake, I stamped, colored with my Prismacolor pencils and the stamped the top again (Stamp-a-ma-jig aligns it perfectly!) and embossed it. (Can't tell it's embossed form this picture though...)

I did the same procedure with the little cakes, also added some Stickles. The skeleton is embossed, too. :) The hardest part was writing... I do not own a white pen (yet!), so the best I could do was paint all of the words with acrylic white paint.... Which was not too fast. But it worked! :)

Products I used:

• Birds and Swirls Cuttlebug embossing folder
• Studio G clear stamps (the skeleton); Inkadinkado Birthday Cupcake clear stamps
• Denami clear embossing powder
• Inks: Colorit black pigment; Vintage Photo Distress; Versa color: orchid, orange, fresh green, baby blue, royal blue; Color Box frost white

BOO!

Just wanted to wish everyone a safe and HAPPY Halloweeeeen! :D 

This is my first ever carved pumpkin, I made it a week ago. Sadly, it didn't live until Halloween, but luckily I did take a picture of it before it molded. :) Hope you're having a fun weekend! :D

Wood-burning: Totoro

Here's another wood-burning project that I did in my last few days in Russia, and then colored when I was already back in the USA. It is a picture of Totoro (the cute main character from the Japanese "My Neighbor Totoro"). :) And it was a birthday present for one of my good friends. :)

I started out coloring it with watercolor paint, but it bled more than I expected it to, and I ended up buying some acrylic paints to use on this picture. This was my first time ever using acrylics, but I think they worked out well. :)

The back is pure wood-burning. And Russian is my nickname at college. :)

Wood-burning: 1915 Fashion

Please excuse that I have not posted in a while... Here is something that is actually different from my usual repertoire. Wood-burned pictures! :) I was unable to take any of my crafting stuff with me to Russia, but I found my mom's old wood-burning tool (~30 years old.. :D ) in the attic.. And thought I'd play around with it. I did a few little pictures at first to try it out, and then went on to burning and also coloring in the image... Here are the results.

These two ladies are from a book of postcards that my mom has. The postcards are of 1915 fashion from New York, copied from French fashion (probably of the same time). Their faces and hands look a bit awkward.. But that is how it was in those pictures. :) *I don't mean to plagiarize the pictures, these were done just for my personal practice in wood-burning.*

Coloring was done in watercolors. I don't know why the left lady did not bleed much (I mean the paint, of course :) ), but the one on the right did bleed alright... However, that was not much of a problem, because my mom (who I ended up gifting it to) said it added a cool effect to the picture and she liked it better that way. :)

Here they are a bit closer up:

Here you can see the bleeding. Not bad when it is around the picture, but it does not discriminate and when purple and blue bleed, for example, from her collar onto her face... It's not so great.

This concludes 1915 fashion show for tonight, ladies and gentlemen! :) However, I do have another wood-burning project that I will share with you in a day or two. :)