Cherry blossom thanks

Hi Crafters,

to balance my very sad news, I'd like to  tell you something more cheerful today, even though to me it feels bitter sweet right now.

Some of you may know, that my girls and I moved house just before Christmas last year. Our  landlady lives downstairs from us, in the same house, and we instantly connected. She is a lovely person and she and I have a lot in common for example our cats. As you know, my girls and I had three cats (sadly now only 2), among them our red tom Benny. She too had a red tom called Benny. We laughed a lot, when we first found that out. 

Unfortunately her Benny disappeared last summer without a trace and all of us were heartbroken. We have been searching everywhere, asking around, but he simply didn't turn up anymore. 

On Friday the 6th (St. Nicolas day) I received a phone call from the pet registration agency, asking for my landlady. She had given them my number, when she went on holiday. The little stray has actually turned up, happy, healthy and for some reason well fed, at the other end of town. Nobody knows where he's been in the past 6 months, but a lovely family noticed him and had his chip read out.

I immediately called my landlady and she point blank refused to believe it, until she had proof, for fear of raising false hope. Since she couldn't leave work at the time, I went to pick him up right after I finished that call. Now he is back home, dozing on the oven bench, his favourite spot. And all of us are so happy for the two of them. Since he has the same name and colouring as our Benny, we almost feel like he's ours as well.

So, to go with our St. Nicholas wonder, I picked a thank you card for today's post. It's a very simple one layer card. I coloured the cherry blossoms with Polychromos pencils and added a Thank you sentiment. 

Wishing you a nice day

Ela 

Happy 4th Birthday

Hi Crafters, 

today is my niece's 4th Birthday. Happy Birthday sweetheart, even if you can't read it!

I coloured the little fairy, which is a customisable sticker, not a stamp with Polychromos pencils. I haven't used them in a while, so I kept it simple. 

Then I die cut the numbers from white card stock and picked an alcohol marker that looked very similar to the dress. I actually coloured the number 4 three times. I got a dark smudge on the first, with the second I realised, that the colour wasn't right so I re-did it again, using two markers for a tiny bit of a gradient. I also created a sentiment strip with the same markers and stamped "we congratulate" on it. 

When I fuzzed about the assembly, I thought it was too much white, especially since it's for a little girl, not an adult. So I added soft pink ink blending behind the fairy. Now I am very happy with the result and hope my little Sweety will like it as well. 

We'll be visiting her to celebrate later today. 

Truthfully, while I am usually always happy to see my litle nieces, this time I would rather stay home with my sick cat. I am desperate. She still won't eat and by now she's only skin and bones. This is not an old cat and until last week she has been healthy. But now I seriously fear she might starve in front of my eyes.
I am seeing the vet again later today.
 

Keep your fingers crossed for my feline baby, please
Ela

Film strip Birthday card

Hi Crafters, 

how is life treating you? 

Today I'd like to show you another of the stencilled card panels I created a while ago. I have three sets of 15x15 cm stencils from a cheap dutch chain store nearby. One of them inspired me to create my new stamp storage boxes and I wanted to try out a few more of the designs.

One of them has these lines of arrows. I masked off three of them and blended a strip across my card. That looked a bit empty, so I added 2 more lines in green in between. I had originally intended to use a circle and an image on top of that strip. But since I messed up the blending on the centre line of arrows, I needed to cover that up.

To do so, I picked this film strip die and stamped the smallest critter stamps I could find on the individual windows. Since the images are so small, Polychromos pencils seemed to be the easiest option for some very simple colouring.

Then I adhered the film strip and the panel itself with foam adhesive to a white card base. In hindsight, I think I would have preferred the filmstrip flat. 

My girls immediately claimed the card for one of their friends, who's birthday is coming up. I however am not entirely content with it. I think I'll try the same idea and change it up a bit sometime.


Have a beautiful day
Ela




Challenges:

Seize the Birthday: Anything goes Birthday
 

 

Birthday cat

Hello again, 

here's another Birthday card for you. You can't ever have enough of these...

As you may know, I love cat stamps, and when I found this fish bone stencil, I knew I had to have it. 

To try it out, I wanted to create an ombre effect with embossing paste. Unfortunately that didn't work out as intended, but I used the panel anyway. 

I stamped, coloured and fuzzy cut the cat and embossed the sentiment on vellum. I adhered the cat to the card front, so that it looks like it's hanging off the sentiment strip.


See you soon
Ela



Challenges:
Seize the Birthday: Anything goes Birthday
Just add ink: #378 Texture

Birthday flowers with Polychromos

Hello everyone, 

Debby posted this wonderful flower card last week, and I instantly fell in love with it.

As always, my first thought was "I need that stamp", but you can't have everything... I decided to use a child free evening and find something in my stash to make it work without spending money.

I stamped the image with Versamark ink and coloured in the flowers with my Polychromos pencils in a similar colour scheme as Debby. 

My craft card stock was a bit too smooth, so I had a hard time laying down as much pigment as I wanted to, all the while thinking it's wouldn't turn out good. And while it certainly cannot compare with Debby's original, I am still rather pleased with the end result. 

I had to fidget quite a bit with the final card design. I couldn't use my stitched rectangle dies, because the stamp is so large and I didn't want to cut off too much. I decided to go for an over-sized card base and just a white border on both sides. The stitching is a wonderful detail, but I simply didn't have the supplies. 

The sentiment reads "Today is your Birthday". The first part was stamped with brown ink, the second part was die cut from a scrap piece of paper, that I coloured with the same pencils. I quite like the ombre effect. 

Due to the unusual size of the card, I had to use patterend paper to create an envelope, because my normal cardstock was too small.

As I had some more spare time the next day, I went ahead and did the same again, only with white and yellows on grey card stock. I wanted to try my other idea and adhere the panel at an angle. Also that card stock has bit more of a tooth.

For the card base, I used white wood structure card stock and rounded corners. The sentiments reads "for your Birthday".

So, if you like, tell me which one you prefer, because I am still undecided. 

Lots of love

Ela

Happy Easter and another bunny

Hello Crafters,

Just a very quick note from me:  one of my girls was ill last week, therefore I had no time for anything much. But at least I created another one of the little gift wraps, because as you know, I have two daughters...

So I did the other one the same way, only in different colours and stamped the other way round.

Wishing you all a very happy Easter!

Ela

Challenge up your life: Challenge #37: Bunnies

Hello Crafters,

it's time again for another Challenge at: 

Ready for Easter, we are looking for Bunnies for the next two weeks.

Challenge #37 Bunny

Of course I used my favourite Bunny, from Purple Onions Design, and I wanted to use my brand new set of  Polychromos pencils. Yeah, I know, I said I would make do without. But my sister-in-law gave them to me for my Birthday a while ago. And I love them, THANKS!

I thought a little gift box for Easter would be nice, so I picked a bright orange card stock, die cut the pillow box and stamped and coloured directly on the box, without a belly band this time.

I thought blue would go well with the bright orange, and I think I was right.

So, show us all your bunnies, and don't forget to check out what the other ladies created.

Hugs

Ela