Warm gray cool gray

It's never to early to think Christmas!  I was having a good time playing with warm and cool gray copic markers. The image is from Firecracker -- and is on sale this month as a part of the Christmas in July sale.

I hope this post goes up as scheduled because I am M I A and visiting with my daughter in Florida.

Featured stamper Kristen

This card gave me some inspiration this morning ... and I need to get going on my Christmas challenge.  So while the punches and pieces were out, I put together 8 Christmas cards. Not bad, huh!  This snowman set is going to be featured at Firecracker on Wednesday so I think I will link to today and be all set.

The photos don't show the microfine glitter in the snowflake cutouts but it is there and glitzy.  Holiday cards just HAVE to have some sparkle, don't you think?

Blog Hop Sketch -

It's blog hop time again!  This time all of us at Firecracker have made a card using the same sketch.

The official start time of this Hop is Friday, at 8:00 AM (EST). If you arrived early, please be patient as all the links may not be live yet.

This is a “circular blog hop” where the beginning is wherever you start!! You will know you are at the end of your blog hop when you’ve come back to the blog you’ve started. We'll all be showing a different interpretation of the very same sketch this month. Your comment at each blog will give you another chance to win a special treat. If you win, you will be contacted by Pamela via e-mail (so be sure to leave it with your comment.) and you can also find out on Pamela’s blog after the blog hop ends on Mon, at 8:00 PM (EST).

The card above was made with the "I wish you bluebirds" set from Firecracker as well as the sketch of the week. My owl was colored with copics and I made a brown bag flower for the embellishment. It seems to go well with the kraft paper background.

Hop on over to Michelle B and see what she has done with the same sketch.

Josette Card and Bookmark

Josette is a dear crafting friend in Hot Hot Hotter than ever before Florida  --- and she has gone on to get a whole year older without me there to tease her. I made her this card and bookmark and included a note inside about how nice and cool the nights are in Michigan. I swear, I don't know where I got this evil streak from!

I was  playing around with background techniques and my copics ... not sure if I like the look or not. But it was something new to try.

Image is a digi from Firecracker.

Only a week late ... or a month early

This star image is a Sunday Freebie over at Firecracker --- and a fun place to practice my shading with my copics.  So think of this as a late Memorial Day card, or early for the 4th of July.  

It was a great place to play with copics, I used 3 blues and a gray, and 4 reds/pinks! You can't quite see how I outlined the whole thing in gray to make the whites pop ( Thank you Susan!)

Blog Hop Grunge ... Tribute to Amy

The Theme of this month's blog hop at Firecracker is GRUNGE ... and I decided to make it a real challenge and create an orchid/grunge card. This digital image is available over at Firecracker Designs along with a lot of other fun stuff.

The official start time of this Hop is Friday, at 8:00 AM (EST). If you arrived early, please be patient as all the links may not be live yet.

This is a “circular blog hop” where the beginning is wherever you start!! You will know you are at the end of your blog hop when you’ve come back to the blog you’ve started. We'll all be showing a different interpretation of grunge this month. Your comment at each blog will give you another chance to win a special treat. If you win, you will be contacted by Pamela via e-mail (so be sure to leave it with your comment.) and you can also find out on Pamela’s blog after the blog hop ends on Mon, at 8:00 PM (EST). If you want to hop right now, Chrissy is next on the list. Hop HERE ... or read the tutorial, there is another link at the end.



My card uses a digital image of an orchid from Firecracker. First I printed it on light brown cardstock and colored it with copics. Then I used a white pencil to lighten the places I wanted to add highlights. My prismacolor colored pencils worked great for highlighting.





I got some shelf lining at the dollar store. It makes a wonderful pattern on your brayer if you ink up your brayer, then run the brayer over the shelf runner before putting it on your paper. By running it over some Tim Holtz grunge letters, I was able to remove the ink from the letters creating the " Amy" outline that you see. I layered the grunge letters on top of the outlines, off-setting them a bit.

After cutting out my image, I roughed up the edges with a scissors. Then I layered everything together, added some embellishments, and I have a card ready for my dear friend. The digital drawing is of one of her favorite orchids.

So this card is my tribute to my favorite muse, Amy - she inspires me and cheers me on no matter what I do.


Now, to continue the circle, you will need to hop on over to Chrissy's Creations
and keep going until you’ve come back to where you’ve started!  Click on "comments" below to leave a comment with your email address and get another chance to win some Firecracker Rubber Stamps!

3 kids 3 cards 3 bunnies ... whew

Had to get packages off to the kids today so it was wild cardmaking day since somehow it never occurred to me that Easter was coming soon.
This is Bertie, a brand new bunny image from Firecracker Designs --- actually she has been taken out of a family photo which you will see in tomorrow's Teapot Tuesday card since I was chosen to do one of the early release cards. I am liking the long and lean look of cards these days. The other 2 cards use the barb wire border I admired so much when Brandi used it. Kind of a nice touch, I think.

Hetty's Velveteen Rabbit

Hetty used a rabbit to showcase the beautiful bracelets she makes --- you can go see them here. I was fascinated with the bunny ... and made this card:) It is for the design team challenge over at Firecracker - to use the letters in the word S P R I N G ... well, I have used my Scissors--Photo --Rabbit --Ink--New digi image-- Greeting

Image is reversed because my scanner is going bonkers with colors so I used the camera in my computer to take the photo.

Hetty's Parrots! And a sketch

Hetty has a bird feeder and her visitors are parrots. And no, she doesn't live in the sahara, she lives in the snowy Netherlands! I love doing the splitcoast sketch challenges and this was a perfect combination! Unfortunately my scanner turned a perfectly green parrot blue ... so imagine the photo on the card matching the photo of the bird; which it does, minus the flip, and you can imagine how my card looks in real life.
You can visit Hetty for some great card ideas ... and more photos of the parrots outside her window. Click here.

Teapot Tuesday

On Tuesdays, Mothermark posts a teapot and a story to inspire some outlandish cards. Today's teapot is quite over the edge --- kind of looks like the kind of teapot you would expect mad hatter tea inside. But I made up a poem and used a Firecracker digi for the card.

There once was a seagull named Ruby
She was quite the flat footed booby
But she got the blues cuz she wanted new shoes
For dancing the shoeby dooby.

Rhyme Time ...

I'm published! Pam over at Firecracker took my poem and made it into a digi stamp. I was really tickled! I really think of myself as much more of a woman of words than a doer of drawings.

Bikini Girl!

I design images for Firecracker designs, and they are having a blog hop going on. I didn't participate since my computer was not reliable ( I NOW HAVE A BRAND NEW MAC >>> !!! ) but I did make this card from a digi manatee you can find at their site ..

I hope to do the blog hop with them next month.

TJ has a blog hop going ...

Technique Junkies has a blog hop going. The challenge is to make a card using this sketch and lots of TJ techniques ... sounded like fun to me! I turned the template on its side and used marker tapping and animal spots from the current TJ newsletter. The drawing is one I did for Firecracker and is available as a digital image there.

Giroids again!

I just drew one giroid and next thing I knew I had a stack of them.
I was always hoping to find my niche in art but I never thought ( or wanted) it to be drawing silly giraffes. I guess you take the talent you are given -- but gee, couldn't it be cats, or flowers, or something else???

I cannot explain the bird on the head of one giraffe ... it was on my table and just had to land there -

the OTHER Zindorf attempt ...

Here's the one I sent to Juliet ... since the background was the size of a business size envelope, the whole thing kept growing and growing. I ended up using a really pretty file folder as the card base!

Don't tell Kathleen

I finally got Kathleen's card in the mail. This is it !!!

Sickies and ouchies

If you have a friend who "coad a code" please feel free to take the snurflepuss image and make a card. Click on comments and tell me if you do - it's great ego food to think someone else likes my drawings.

Octo image is free to a good home.... and has been cleaned up and sharpened by my good friend Juliet.

I sent the manatee image to Pamela at Firecracker... you never know when you will need a manatee on crutches!

I have to say, my scanner does really strange thing when I color with copics. The colors are blended and much more smooth in real life. Oh well.

Jessica's Just Ducky

This digi stamp comes with an empty word cloud so you can have it say anything you want ... or leave it empty and it is a cloud. I did a cloud on the inside as well to carry out the theme --

Big news!

Pam, over at Firecracker designs, has offered to carry my giroids and any other drawings I wish to send over. She will be offering them as digi stamps. I feel so honored, and after going over to see her site, I am a bit humbled as well to be in the company of some actual artists. So ... you can hop over there and see my tomfoolery and penciled outlines. I did a new Giroid for her, the ones you see here are still here for your use and I would love it if you took them.
Spent Saturday morning drawing manatees while Mike is out on a kayak ride SEEING manatees.