Have You Seen a Gruffalo?

A mouse took a stroll through the deep dark woods,
A fox saw the mouse and the mouse looked good.

"Where are you going  to Little Brown Mouse?
Come have lunch in my underground house!"

"It's terribly kind of you, Fox, but no -
I'm going to have lunch with a Gruffalo!"

Hi there Friends and Stampers!

Yes, that is an unusual way for my blog post to open but I promised you  the story behind my share today.  As you all must know by now I have a little grand daughter, named Emily.  When I was in Ottawa, Emily would have me read a story called The Gruffalo!

It's about a little mouse that fooled several woodland creatures into not eating him.   I must have read it a hundred times.  I did all the voices and she was always interested in the story. (But after awhile, I just wanted to pitch the book through the window) lol. 

Well I am sending her a card with a cd in it.  She also loves to dance.  Yesterday I received a parcel from Stampin' Up! and in it was my new Little Letters Dies.  And also my Simply Pressed Clay and the new alphabet mold.  This was too good an opportunity to miss!

So I used my new products to create this little beauty!

 

I used Whisper White card stock as my base and dug out a piece of Watercolor paper and used my Aqua Painter to color it Old Olive.  It is washed out in places and looks so cool as a mat.

 

I used the Little Letters dies to cut out Emily and then used the Negative space to make an impact.  Love this idea so very much!

 

The letters were put into the mold and then placed in the Freezer.  Once they hardened up enough to take out of the mold I let them dry for several hours before attempting to color them.  I used Old Olive, Tangerine Tango and Crushed Curry Ink Refills and my Aqua Painter.  Then I had to wait for them to dry.  I am sometimes not a very patient person but I didn't want to mar the surface of my card front.

 

I used Life in the Forest stamp set and stamped the fox and the mouse in Memento Ink.  I then colored the fox in using markers.  Tangerine Tango and some Cajun Craze.  The mouse is done in Crumb Cake. 

 

Now do you get the reference at the top of the post? 

 

Here is a close up of the elements in the card.  I think it is #cute!  Hope you like my post today!

 

Foxy Hugs!  (I started to say Mousy hugs but like the other one better) 

A Busy Week!

Good Day stampers,

It's Wednesday already!  Where in the world does the time go.  I have spent the week getting some much needed cleaning done and spending time with friends. 

Yesterday I went to visit Sharon O'Bryan, my friend who had surgery several weeks ago.  She is doing fine but it's taking a little longer to get back on her feet than she thought.  So, yesterday I spent the afternoon to give her a little distraction.  She and I chatted and laughed and I stamped some of the elements of my swap for the Regionals in St. John's.

Stampin' Up! is having a mini "convention" in November and I am going, along with three of my down line.  I am super excited and have my swap all planned out.  And then yesterday when I was showing it to Sharon, I realized that this "simple card" was going to be A LOT OF WORK!

When Demonstrators get together we do card fronts and swap them with other demos.  Of course we want to show off I mean do our best work.  And I am no exception.  My swap is gojus and I just know everyone will think so (I'm also very modest, NOT)  But there are so many elements to prepare I think I may have lost my mind.  Now I know that with all this blather you expect to see the silly thing, but I am not ready to reveal it to the world.  lol  So you have to just wait for a little while until I get them done. 

But because I haven't posted in a few days I have a couple of cards to show you that I designed (with some help from Pintrest) for a Children's Birthday card class.  The ladies loved these cards and I have to say, so do I.

I struggled a little with the little girl cards ( I KNOW  what's up with that?)  until my daughter said "Mom butterflies and flowers and bling!  These are perfectly acceptable for little girls."  So Light Bulb moment courtesy of DD.  The rest were easy!

Here you go, the rest of the Birthday class cards -

 

Found this charming idea on Pintrest and didn't do much to change it up.  The stamp set is called "Life in the Forest"  Lots of whimsical animals and fun fun, fun.  The colors used were Bermuda Bay, Calypso Coral, Soft Suede and Very Vanilla. 

 

We did some sponging to make the clouds and drew the birds on free hand with a black marker.  The ladies had never made clouds before, so they loved learning that technique.  A couple of them were concerned about free hand drawing the lines for the parachute but I told them "They are string and shouldn't be exactly straight"  All of them rose to the challenge and created gojus cards.

 

 

 

My next card used the Owl Builder Punch.  I love the owl punch for the versatility and whimsical qualities it brings to the table.  Once again my ladies hadn't done balloons before using Punches.  I am always pleased when I can show something new (to them ) and see the reactions when they figure out just what I have done. lol.  They thought I had a "Balloon Punch"  and marveled when they found out we did it with a 1" circle punch and the "foot" of the owl. 

 

The colors used were Pool Party, Early Espresso, Natural White and for the balloons, Smoky Slate, Coastal Cabana and Tempting Turquoise.  We used a Black marker to free hand the string.  Another panic moment for some of them. lol.  The white lines were the White Gel Pen.

 

This one is definitely Girly.  Card base is Whisper White and Rich Razzleberry and Pink Pirouette are  my accent colors.  This was a super easy card to assemble.  Not much stamping but the little birdies are from "For the Birds"  One of my fav sets. 

 

I wasn't sure about the piercing around the birds but it needed something and so I timed it to see how long it would take to go right around the punched out card stock.  I did the large one in 40 seconds.  So I thought that wasn't too bad and for an extra 2 minutes per person it added so much to this card.

 

This has been a long post and I have cards to make and orders to place so will finish up for today. 

 

Thanks for reading!

 

Swapping hugs!

 

 

 

 

 

Happy World Card Making Day!

Hi there Stampers!

Today is World Card Making Day and also my Husband's Birthday!  I couldn't plan a class or stamping session because of that.  But that doesn't mean that I couldn't get into my craft room today to play.  Ssshhh!  He's having a nap!

I have a class coming up on Monday where we will be making several Birthday cards for children.  So, I have been searching the net (Pintrest) trying to find some inspiration.  I must say there are some very talented stampers out there.

So the card I made today was inspired by Jan Tinklenberg.  I love her style and she does whimsical best.  So here is my rendition of her layout.

 

This will be one of the cards the ladies will be doing on Monday evening!  I hope they like it.  It is a very good way to use up leftover scraps of DSP.  I used the stamp sets  Life in the Forest and For the Birds to create the little animals. I also used some retired card stock.  Can't throw it away right?  The ladies know that there are other color options out there lol.  

 

So bright and cheerful don't you think?

 

So now to spend some time with my hubby! 

 

Happy World Card Making Day to all!