St. Patrick's Day treats

Inspired by this post from Cheri & and this post from Kristan - I made St Patrick's Day treats.
I baked some dark chocolate brownies and my wonderful husband cut them out using a shamrock-shaped cookie cutter. Then we dipped them in melted green candy melts.
After putting them in the fridge to set-up, I put one each in a ziploc sandwich bag. I cut of the top and used Picnik to create this collage. (The images used are from Google images)

I also made a collage using pictures of the kids, but this one (and one more just like it) were for Jeff to give to the kids today when he sees them. Jeff's parent's will each receive one with images of the kids.

Super easy, cute project - both Cheri & Kristan's blogs have awesome instructions!

St. Pat's cards

I was inspired by this post but added a little more to it. My wonderful sidekicks R & M lent me their fingers. R decided the little guys needed bodies - so viola!

St Pat's decorations

I cut out a bunch of shamrocks then ran them through different Cuttlebug folders. Next I punched a little hole in each of them, which I reinforced with an eyelet. I used some clear fishing line to hang some shamrocks from the ceiling fan, over the window, and from our mantle.

Before hanging them my husband helped me ink the edges - what a guy!

Canvas subway art

I painted this canvas green and cut some shamrocks for another project (to be seen soon) and used the negatives to paint white shamrocks on top of the green background. While the white paint dried, I cut some St Patrick's Day themed-words in green vinyl. I applied them on top of the painted canvas. I haven't yet decided where it will hang, for now it sits on the window sill over the kitchen sink.

There's Magic in the Air 3/8/2010 Challenge

Here are two cards for last week's There's Magic in the Air challenge. Using Nina's image you are to also incorporate green & gold and metal. My submissions are late, but I had a helper this week. Rileigh helped color both images and put the cards together for her friends. She had lots of fun with the new markers, and she did a great job!

There's Magic in the Air

The challenge over at http://theresmagicintheair.blogspot.com/ this week is to use any of Nina's fabulous digis with a sketch provided by Patti. Nina did offer up previously issued "Orson with cake" an an option. My Grandpa turns 88 today and he has always collected statues/figurines of the 3 monkeys - see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil - so Orson was the perfect fit. Colored with Copics. I added a lil Shimmerz to the frosting to complete the yummy cake. Scrap papers. I also tried something new - I used chalks. My amzing, wonderful husband took me craft shopping as an early anniversary gift (we had a 50% coupon buring a hole in my pocket) and we picked out chalks. I had never tried them before, but where have I been?! So I went to work last night, and with a little practice I think I will really get the hang of it. I also bought the Making Memories Distressing Tool Nilla showcased last week on her blog (http://nillascraftroom.blogspot.com/) - thank you for enabling :) Unfortunately I will not be giving the card to my Grandpa for a few weeks. He (and my Mom) went on a two week cruise from Argentina to Chile, they were supposed to come hom today - but now he is stuck in South America, unable to fly out due to earthquake damage. He is fine, though apparently he is a little cranky in that he can't come home. Reports keep changing when he and Mom will return. I think the decision this morning was to repeat the cruise in reverse so that they can get back to Argentina and fly out from there, so their two week vacation may turn into an almost 4 week excursion. All I know is there had better be tons of pictures, and I have some time to create a mini album for his trip!

I made another card for this challenge using the "Lucky Bear" image from last week. I need more St Patrick's Day cards to the sketch helped with this one too. Again I used scrap paper, a MS punch, some festive ribbon I picked up at Michaels. Stickles on the balloon. I also tried to do a little more shading with the balloon for this version. Also more chalking. Thanks for looking!

More St Patrick's Day cards

Here is another card using the "Lucky Bear" image from Nina over at TMITA. I have been looking at how other people color, and noticed that most "finish" the background whereas - I normally leave the background white. So I tried something different, I used a yellow colored pencil and some OMS around the bear, and a yellowish-green around the grass. I sponged brown around the whole image, and though it doesn't look near as nice as most, if I practice more I might get better.



This card and the next three are pretty c&s. I cut the shamrocks out with my Cricut and mounted them on different DCWV Designer Stack papers. Ribbon is from Paper Source, the glittery shamrock came in a pack of 10-12 at HL ($1.19 with 40% off coupon). I ran the shamrocks through my Cuttlebug in the Swiss Dots embossing folder. I found the Irish proverb for the above card online, and printed it out.




I think this last one is my favorite - I really like how it turned out with the colors and the layered nesties.

TMITA Challenge

This week the challenge over at http://theresmagicintheair.blogspot.com/ includes using "Lucky Bear" and any techniques for distressing. I am not a fan of distressing - well maybe that's not accurate, I don't mind admiring others' distressed works, but I have issues "destroying" my projects. I am the type of person who will restaple a stack of papers if they are not perfectly lined up. I normally would have shied away from this sketch, but in that it one of my personal goals to keep crafting (and this weekly challenge is my main motivator) I tried it. I did visit Nilla's Distressing tutorial over at http://nillascraftroom.blogspot.com/ for help/guidance, and I found do like the look of the distressing tool from Making Memories (maybe distressing wouldn't be so bad with it, thanks for enabling me)- however I made do with scissors (not fun) on both the green cs and scrap dp. I also used my emery board to sand the scallops on the green nesties. I was tempted to crumple the whole thing up and hide, but then I saw some ribbon and thought frayed ends distress me (ha ha)- so they must count, and added green and white ribbon. I colored the bear with copics, and added some green stickles to the balloon. In the end it wasn't as painful as I thought, so maybe ripping some white paper for snowhills is better then rounded perfect hills - I will try that soon. I rambled more than usual in this post, so I do apologize for that. Thanks for looking.

Another St Patrick's Day card

Here is another card using the Dustin Pike image.
I used a lot of glitter on the Versamark stamped shamrocks(a lucky person will be opening that envelope, tee-hee)
The embellishment in the bottom left corner is from a button pack I picked up at Hobby Lobby this past weekend (a bag of 10-12 "buttons") for $1.19 with my 40% off coupon.

St Pat's Card

Dustin Pike offered this free image over at: http://dustinpike.blogspot.com/
Perfect for St. Patrick's cards. So here is the first of several St Pat's cards I will make. I was gifted some Copic markers from my husband - as an anniversary present. So the image is colored with both Copics and Prismacolor markers. The gold accents were colored with a gold gel pen and some ultra find MS glitter is added for emphasis. The image was cut and matted on circle scallop nesties. The background is stamped with Versmark ink. To "tie" the look together (haha) a green stain ribbon, and a shamrock punch in the vellum. May the luck of the Irish be with you.