Christmas cards # 6 - 10

Whew... I finished the January challenge to make 10 cards for Christmas. These all use a polar bear from Delightful Inspiration that I got free!

Warm Wishes!

My desktop weather watch tells me that my dear friend in Michigan is shivering along with my kids in New York and Massachusetts, so a WARM WISHES theme was just the thing for the Christmas cards I started today. I joined a challenge to make 10 cards a month so that I would have a stash when the holidays roll around but when Jan 29th rolled around and I still hadn't started, I realized I would have to get moving on it! I did a one-sheet-wonder and cut it up to create the cards you see here. I know, I know, there are only 5 and there are supposed to be 10. Guess you can guess what I will be doing tomorrow! These are generic enough to be used for Christmas or Hannukah, although I guess the red and green are a Christmas thing ...

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 --

Teaparty Tuesday

Tuesdays are the days that Mothermark posts a teapot and a story .... today is no exception. Click here to read the story. Seems Rapunzel's castle has a moat around it and all kinds of swamp things live in the moat.

My card shows an octopus who lives in the moat, but comes out to style Rapunzel's hair when she comes out of the castle to sun.

I don't even want to discuss how BIG this card ended up after adding borders and a brayer attempt at a Zindorf card that went awry and was sitting on my desk ... but here is my Octopus "all set" to do Rapunzel's hair at the castle ...

Coffee ATCs

Gotta keep a steady flow to Juliet's mailbox. These are my ancient paper atc's. The ancient paper is a brown bag, colored, crumpled, colored, crumpled and colored some more.

Please visit Marika!

I received an email from Marika and she made some wonderful cards with my giroids. Please go and visit her blog to see them! Click HERE

Note to Marika ....

Marika, I hope it is ok that I published your link.
I am so happy to see what you did with my drawings!

Tooting Karen's horn

Check out this card and this card and the ones I made just like them ... Karen Barber is the featured stamper at Splitcoast today. I love Sundays. Mike goes out running and I sit with coffee and look through the featured album, then go off all inspired to make a card.

Here are the ones I thought I could use as inspiration from Karen: Her room hummingbird quilt dragonfly circle all over pattern melon snowman snowman2 flower branches Zindorf scene black magic wreath blackmagic flowers butterfly

That's only from the first page - she has 6 more pages of fantastic cards. I like to keep my list here so I can go back to it later if my muse is missing.
flowers God's gift snowflakes weeds silhouettes snowman 3 folded snowman inside folded snowman black magic flowers mitten popup owl Z mountains shaded flowers Z flower hydrangea cutaway embrace cutaway snowman wisdom Christmas blessings halloween zebras and giraffes joy flower bird and flowers

Inspiration at Echo

Splitcoast challenged stampers to pop on over to Echo to get some inspiration this morning. I could not resist the seahorse. Since I am in a drawing mood, I gave it a hand and will see if Pam is interested in Seahorses as well as manatees.

It's a bad photo, but I couldn't scan it because it would squish down all the dimension I put in.

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.

Toot, Kayak, Toot!

Ok I know kayaks don't usually toot, but for that matter, giraffes don't usually ride in them. Today is 01 22 2010 which is a palindrome, reads the same backwards and forwards. So in celebration of the date here is my card with totally balanced and backwards and forwards clouds in the sky, punchies on the side, and a K A Y A K ( go ahead, read it backwards) to boot. I mean T-O-O-T.
Ha ha ... get it?

I think this card is perfect for an inside sentiment of ....

feeling out of it?
Or ... up a creek without a paddle?
Or ... stick your neck out again? Look where it got you!

ha ha.

Giroids ...

I made the giraffe background by sticking cut aways from SU stamps onto a wood blick. Then I printed test and stamped over it.



I saw this card and drew these guys ... then made a variety of cards with them.

If anybody else wants the images, feel free to grab them -- I would be honored to have you like them enough to use them!

My friend Juliet made a card with one of them --- you can see it here.

I have another Giroid available from Firecracker designs and my friend Karen made this card from it.

Delightful Inspiration doggy heart

It's week 3 of the design challenge at the Delightful Inspiration blog. I am still not sure how I feel about digital images, but this challenge has made me much more comfortable in working with digi images. It sure is nice to be able to make them any size you wish, and I had some fun playing around and making them long and skinny or short and fat. But this is the image the way it comes -

These dogs to form a heart are perfect for my friend who has 2 labs - they are both light golden so I used my copics to outline only then smudged the edges with my blender pen. Since I printed the images on regular copy paper, it was easy to get the paper saturated and get the inks to bleed and soften.

The other card uses the sketch of the week from Splitcoast.

You can click here for the image and lots of other cute stuff.

Teapot Tuesday

Check out the teapot and the bookmarks I made.

Wreath on a Wall

Thinking spring yet? I am! However, even with my glasses on, I didn't realize that the wreath was supposed to be fall bittersweet till I tried coloring it and making it into spring forsythia. Oh well!

Sunday featured stamper

On Sunday morning, I like to mosey on over to Splitcoast and see who the featured stamper might be. Then I go through their gallery and see which cards call out to me. I like to choose a card and draw the image - I can't draw that well so I need to choose a card with an image that I can manage. I think it makes me see things differently to draw them.

However, my Santa doesn't even LOOK like hers!

These are some possibilities from the 681 cards in JDMommy's gallery. blue bird mouse and bird snowflake swedish meatballs snowguys Christmoose gingerbreads wall penguinthanksgiving tags trees angel duct tape candles snow button flower fall tri shutter pirates elephant car wanted whale koi morning cat ocean santa birthday lighthouse coffee turtle and frog tugboat face beach frog corn bird tags jugglecow turtle rose sheep giraffe crab baseball bug teacups marshmallow snowman umbrella bug Gingham snowman butterfly

Delightful Inspiration Latte cups

Isn't this just the cutest image from Delightful Inspiration ... all the more delightful cuz I got it free >^..^<. You can scroll down and click on their logo on the left to go visit and get your own!

I got some permanent Bic markers and used them for 3 of the cups ... did one of the cups with my copics.

Can you tell which one is copic colored?

Heyyyyy Juliet ...

She challenged me to do the card you see here ... and I followed the tutorial by Michelle Zindorf and came up with this card.

I think we should do this one next.

Teapot Tuesday...Apple tree

Teapot Tuesday at Splitcoast has us chasing down an apple picking pusher perpetrator. Since that probably doesn't make sense, hop on over to Splitcoast and hear the whole apple picking story.

Look what I found at Juliet's Blog!

I was blog surfing today and found this Valentine by Juliet that looks a great deal like the Christmas card I sent her ... turns out she scanned it, cleaned it up and recycled it into a Valentine. I am honestly Honored!

PLEASE note that the branch is adapted from an original design available from stampingbella-branch with birdies

Juliet's black birds

Juliet chose this tutorial from the Zindorf blog for our next challenge. I kind of wish I hadn't colored in the leaves ... but I don't wish it enough to re-do the card.

Sunday featured stamper

I looked at a lot of cards before I decided which one to case for the Sunday Featured stamper at Splitcoast. Since I didn't have the Whipper snapper stamp, I drew the image in pencil then went over it with black gel pen and finally with a durango colored marker. I think it turned out kind of cute!

Amazing what you can do if you can't get at your usual supplies. I used glitter glue for brads, and had no solid colors to layer so I drew a line around the edges with my marker. I used kitchen string in place of ribbon. And I met my New Year's Resolution to decorate envelopes and insides.

The links below are other cards I considered casing before I settled on this one.

I saved them here for myself in case I need inspiration later in the week.

orchid card lighthouse cool cat single flower droopy daisy tulips grass tweetheart bright bloomsSanta cup flowers baroque butterflies pencil box bbq peachy bunny to draw monkey cranberry blooms snowman so happy

Delightful Inspiration

This image was free at this site; and if you put that I am your friend, I will get a free image ... hint hint hint ...

I printed the image off on cardstock and colored it with my copics.

I forgot to say that I entered the challenge as a friend of Juliet A -- so I hope she gets the credit for it anyway!

Juliet made me do it ....

Juliet suggested I find inspiration at the Zindorf blog, and this is the card I am choosing to inspire me. Sometimes I need a good friend to kick my muse in the pants to get me going. One of the driving forces in choosing this card is the fact that I don't know where my brayer is ! I also would have liked to add gold brads ... but you can guess where my brad collection is located - ( where current temperature is 9 degrees, gosh I am glad to be here and not there.)

Juliet gave a good explanation of our challenge at her blog so I will direct you there if you want to see her card and her explanation.

Snow?

Our weatherman said SNOW ... he never says snow. It doesn't snow here! They rescued 150 sea turtles, apparently when they get cold they just float to the surface and wait to be picked up - as in 150 pounds per turtle ... the manatees aren't doing so well. My orange tree is looking sad.
Brrrrrr!

Update ...

Numerous surface observations and weather spotters continue to
report rain mixing with light sleet and snow flurries across an area
north of a line from Melbourne to Kenansville. Intermittent periods
of a rain...sleet...and snow flurries with little to no accumulation
are forecasted to continue across this same area through mid
morning.

Teapot tuesday and a color challenge

I finally tried a color challenge over at splitcoast. I was halfway into the card when I realized my SU markers are in Michigan and I happen to be in Florida. I did my best with the copics but they look a bit blotchy to me.
Got out my Elemental Doodles Teapot - I love that little image! Then I realized I left ALL of my clear blocks for clear stamps ... in Michigan.
Duhhh what was I thinking!

Patchwork heart

This was kind of fun. I made the patchwork first then cut out the heart.

Featured stamper Ann

Wish Mike were back at work, because I found a bunch of cards to case at the Splitcoast featured stamper gallery that I am thinking of using for inspiration.
The first one was inspired by this ... the next one inspired here ...
The grid one was inspired by this card.
http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/gallery/photo/1537940?&cat=500&ppuser=198978

http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/gallery/photo/1467913?&cat=500&ppuser=198978

http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/gallery/photo/1466343?&cat=500&ppuser=198978

butterfly - long note Butterflies sky scene punch flowers shutter fish layer flower turtle
fish and yarn frog koi red daisy car

pumpkin birdhouse http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/gallery/photo/1456538?&cat=500&ppuser=198978

embossed leaves http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/gallery/photo/1449129?&cat=500&ppuser=198978

beer http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/gallery/photo/1439130?&cat=500&ppuser=198978

teapot http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/gallery/photo/1487637?&cat=500&ppuser=198978

bubble fish http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/gallery/photo/1513879?&cat=500&ppuser=198978

pussy willow http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/gallery/photo/1499929?&cat=500&ppuser=198978

ginko http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/gallery/photo/1490376?&cat=500&ppuser=198978

flower vase http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/gallery/photo/1524034?&cat=500&ppuser=198978