Belted Kingfisher

Belted Kingfisher

Friday, October 16, 2015

Music Man

Hi everyone!  What a week it has been.  I've been on vacation this week, and can't believe it's coming to and end on Monday, then back to work on Tuesday.  For our Thanksgiving, my son Mark and his Fiancee Anna invited us up to their home along with her family.  It was so nice to meet her parents and her siblings - 6 of the 7 were there. Such a fun and loving family, lots of laughs - which is always good for the soul!

The rest of the week we worked around the house, cleaning closets, garage and storage areas, took a lot of stuff to the Goodwill. - (this is why I haven't posted all week).  It was hard work especially in the crawl spaces where you can only crouch, no room to stand with being under the eves - really hard on the lower back, which after 2 days of doing this we laid low on Thursday.  Today we worked in putting all the lawn furniture away, cleaning out flower pots etc.  It's always sad when this gets done because you know what is around the corner - WINTER - which means SNOW!  Actually it is suppose to snow tonight in areas an hour north and east of us, just a chance of rain for us over night.

On Oct 12 it was Mark's 31st birthday.  I was stumped on what to do for a card for him.  I know he loves his guitar, and then remembered I had this MO Manning digital image I purchased a few years back. My friend  Carla used this image a few years ago, and I fell in love with the colours she used, so I basically coloured mine the same.

This is the final result:



I coloured the image using copics, but I was in a rush to get this done last Saturday before we went to visit them on Sunday, and never kept track of my colours.  I stamped my background music notes - (Penny Black background stamp)in black on a piece of kraft cardstock.

Finished off with some twine, Stamping bella dots as well as a musical die from Memory Box.

I hope to get some more stamping and colouring done over the next 3 days - I have to start on my Christmas cards - time is slipping away fast.

Thanks for the visit, have a wonderful day!

Pauline

Friday, October 9, 2015

snowflakes sparkles

Hello everyone.  I have another Christmas card to share with you today.  I must say when I saw this card I was totally inspired.  Leslie has a unique style, I can always spot her cards as I'm strolling through my Feedly posts without even looking at names. 

As I was saying her card inspired me to make this.  I'm using a Memory Box snowflake die my friend
Nancy so kindly lent me.


To make the  back ground I used the 'smooshing' technique using distress inks.  This was then cut  using a MFT stitch rectangle die.  I then placed my snowflake die where I want it and ran it through my big shot.  I also cut a piece of silver glitter paper using the same die.  I then inserted the silver snowflake into the area where I cut out the snowflake on my main piece.

Stamped the sentiment using black versafine ink.  Added some die cut snowflakes using silver glitter paper and some silver and clear sequins.  I popped up my main panel by adding a piece of fun foam cut slightly smaller than my panel.  

Stamps: PTI - In the meadow
Dies - Memory box - snowflake ribbon, MFT die-namics blueprints # 12
Ink - distress mermaid lagoon, cracked pistachio, black versafine
paper - white cougar 100 lb
misc - sequins, fun foam

Thanks for stopping by today.  To all my fellow Canadian followers - Have a wonderful Thannksgiving weekend!

Take care, 
Pauline

Saturday, October 3, 2015

First Christmas card of 2015

Happy Saturday everyone.  Well it sure feels like fall in my neck of the woods. Cold (well not freezing cold, but not far from it, it's currently 43 F) and with strong winds, gloomy, and rain in the forecast for today and tomorrow - a good weekend to get some stamping done!

I'm off shortly to go out to the orchard to get some apples and squash, then going to make a pot of apple squash soup, I've had it before and it is delicious, yum, yum!

Okay so on to my card.  I have fallen in love with a new line of stamps - Wild Rose Studio.  They have the most 'cutest' images ever.  I couldn't resist a few and this is one of them: Mouse and Poinsettia.



I coloured the image using prismacolour pencils.  Used a MFT die to cut out the image, left the die in place then sponged some light pink ink around the edges. 

Designer paper is by Wild Rose Studio - Painted Poinsettias.  I layered a die cut using the same papers to lay in behind the image.

To finish off I added some white flock to the mouse's hat, gold glitter to the centers of the poinsettia's, as well as a couple of Stamping Bella 'glitter dots' in the corner.

I just finished my cards for the October Dirty Dozen theme last night, so now I can concentrate on doing some more Christmas cards over the next couple of weeks.

Supplies:
Stamp - Wild Rose Studio - Mouse and Poinsettia
ink- black memento, prismacolour pencils & gamsol, 
paper - cougar white, dusty rose, SU Mellow Moss, Wild rose studio - painted poinsettias
die- memory box - winterflake frame, MFT- die-namics blueprints 12
misc - stamping bella glitter dots, gold glitter, quickie glue pen, white flock

Thanks for stopping by today, have yourself a wonderful day.  See you again real soon!

Pauline

Thursday, October 1, 2015

Finally!

Sorry, no cards today, just had to share this:

WOOHOOT!!! After 22yrs, the Toronto Blue Jays have just clinched the AL East Division.  I have been a Jays fan since 1989, and remember the last time they were in this position, which at that time went on to win the World Series in 1993!  GO JAYS GO!!!!

Have a wonderful day! :)

Pauline

Saturday, September 26, 2015

Wishing

Hello everyone, and happy Saturday to all! Isn't this time of year wonderful? Cooler night temperatures, as well as early morning, and then the day warms up to low to mid 70's, the sun warming your face - ah... a perfect day.

This past Monday, Sept 21 my daughter turned 29 - OMG yes 29, she is my baby.  I can't believe where the years have gone.  She loves sweet images, so I just received my Purple Onion order a few weeks back and I knew I wanted to colour up this image for her card.

Is this not the sweetest image ever? I just love this cute mouse.  The image is called Wishing - a Stacey Yakula image from Purple Onion.




I stamped the image onto cougar 100 lb white cardstock using black memento ink, then coloured using primsacolour pencils and blended with gamsol.


I cut the image out using spellbinders square die, then layered this onto a piece of blue bazzill c/s, then stitched around the edges.

Designer paper is from Kathy Davis - journeys. I wanted to stamp a little sentiment of some sort, but nothing big to take away from the image. I found the perfect sentiment in my PTI- mixed messages set, that fit perfectly on this little die cut tag.

Finished off with some seam binding ribbon, glitter and a couple of dots on her cheek using my white pen.

Supplies:
stamp - Purple Onion - Wishes by Stacey Yakula, PTI - mixes messages
ink - black memento, black versafine, prismacolour pencils & gamsol
paper - cougar white 100 lb, blue bazzill - starmist, Kathy Davis - journeys
dies - spellbinders square , back to basic tags
misc - glitter, seam binding ribbon, gold floss, marvy white pen

Thanks for stopping by today, I hope I have encouraged you to do some stamping. Have a wonderful day.

Pauline

Sunday, September 20, 2015

Purple Ranunculus

Hello there to all my blogging friends!  Can you believe that we are in the middle of September already, summer just came and went?

Not sure if I mentioned a couple of months back or not but my son Mark got engaged to a wonderful gal - Anna. Wedding date is set for fall of 2016. They have been looking for a home since late spring and found one - closing date was Sept 15. So yesterday Bill and I were in London to help move them into their new home.  The rain held off long enough to get the moving van packed and unpacked, then shortly after that it poured!  We are so happy for them to be moving into a new home, to start a new chapter in their lives. 

I haven't had much time to do any card making, I have been working OT the last 2 weeks and again this coming week, but I managed to colour this before OT started a few weeks ago.  

I'm using one of Marcella's digital image called Ranunculus.  Not sure if purple is a real colour for these flowers, but I felt the need to go purple!



After printing the image off, I coloured this using prismacolour pencils and blended with gamsol. Image was cut out using spellbinders labels twenty-five, then I layered this onto a piece of heavy vellum cut using spellbinders elegant ovals. 

Designer paper is from DCWV- latte matstack.  I also used some bazzill purple tone cardstock for layering and base card.

My finishing touches include some seam binding ribbon, glitter (of course!), sequins,  and a wooden bird from Studio Calico.

Wishing you a wonderful day.  Thanks for stopping by

Pauline

Saturday, September 12, 2015

Crazy bird

Hi - hope your weekend is going well.  Remember that heat wave I complained about earlier in the week, well we got relief - like 60 degree weather, cool winds, it sure feels like fall as landed upon us, so I made a big pot of homemade chicken noodle soup. Mmmmm good!

We were invited to our neighbors 75th birthday open house today.  When we got the invite last week, I thought what kind of card should I make.  He has a good sense of humor, both  dishing it out and taking it.  I don't have a wide variety of choices when it comes to masculine images, but then I remembered I have Tim Holtz's Crazy Bird set - perfect!

So off I went to create a card for my neighbor:

 
I just loves these birds!  I started out by stamping the bird onto some water colour paper- cold press 140 lb using black archival ink. Crazy bird was water coloured using distress inks- hickory smoke, twisted citron, peacock feathers, fossilized amber, spiced marmalade.  After that was coloured I wet the paper  around the bird with my paintbrush - make sure it is really wet, then picked up some of the fossilized amber (stamped off onto my Teflon mat) and dropped the paintbrush down onto the wet water colour paper.  If you have enough water on the paper the ink will spread. I continued to add a bit of twisted citron and a bit of peacock feathers.  

The corners were rounded, twine was added, then I added a piece of fun foam cut a bit smaller than my image layer and glued it to the back.  I find by using the fun foam, it gives you a much even and stable layer - sometimes using foam tape or dimensionals your  paper can droop/sage in spots.

This was then layered onto my card.  I added some MME enamel dots to finish this off.
Inside for my liner I stamped this:  "Happy birthday you old bird".  I know Gary will get a chuckle out of this!

Thanks for stopping by today, enjoy the rest of your day,

Pauline

Tuesday, September 8, 2015

Hey friend

Hello everyone.  We are in the middle of a very hot & humid streak of weather, which according to the weather forecast will come to an end sometime tomorrow as the cooler front pushes through with rain and thunderstorms.  I'll take cooler weather anytime.  The 100 + degree days can go.

Okay, lets get on with my card.  I had this coloured up for a few weeks now, so I guess it's time to share.  This is one of the Power Poppy digital images released a few weeks back called 
Easy Breezy Coneflowers.  As I have said several times, I just love digi images, there is just something about instant gratification once you purchase you have the digi within a few hours, and you can resize to your liking.

So with that being said, after printing this off, this is he finished product:


I did google for colours of these coneflowers - there is quite a variety, and since I had this paper in mind I went with the yellow/orange combo.  The centers are brown tones but layered with art institute glitter  - ultra fine autumn.  I love the way it glitters in real.  I hope you can see in the picture how sparkly this really is.

supplies:
stamp - Power poppy digital - easy breezy coneflowers
ink - copcis - E09, e19, E33, E79, R02, R05, R56, R89, Y000, Y32, Y35, Y38, YG93, YG95, YG97, YR01
paper - cougar white, bazzill peach/orange tones, MME - wild asparagus
dies - spellbinders  -  5 x 7 herloom legacy 
misc - sizzix embossing folder -  swiss dots,  art institute autumn glitter, rush seam binding ribbon

I thank you for stopping by for a visit. Enjoy the rest of your day.

Pauline


Sunday, August 30, 2015

Lulu's orchids

Hello!  I've been working on my cards for Septembers SCS Dirty Dozen challenge, and decided to take a break to post a card.

I just love this image.  It's an older one from Stamping Bella, but I remember when I was on the DT a few years ago, I coloured this image up a few times.  Since I have a love for flowers, and they are a popular type card in my sale basket I reached for this image again.


After stamping the image on cougar 100 lb white cardstock I coloured this using copics.  I then cut out the image using spellbinders square die, left the die in place and sponged Adirondak shell pink ink around the edges

Designer paper is from Basic Grey - Curio.  I'm such a hoarder, I think this is the first time I used any paper out of this pack, it's just so pretty I hate to part with it! Like get a life right- there is so much more out there.  I have enough paper to last me 2 life times and maybe more - anyone else there like me? I'm sure there is!

Okay back to my card.  To finish up I added some shading around the flower using the 'pointillism' technique,  some lace, ribbon, sequins, stitching and pearls.

supplies:
stamp - Stamping Bella - Lulu's orchids (this stamp has been discontinued)
ink - black memento, copics - Yg0000, YG000, YR0000, E01, E02, E09, YG97, YG93, G000, G0000, G00, G12, R00, R07, R08, RV13, adirondack - shell pink
paper - Basic Grey - Curio, cougar 100 lb white, SU Soft Suede, Bazill - peach & green
dies - spellbinder square
misc - SU Mint Macaron lace, taupe chiffon ribbon, light green silk ribbon, sequins, pearls, stitching, bow maker

Thanks for the visit.  Enjoy your day!
Pauline

Thursday, August 27, 2015

Best wishes


Hi everyone!  Just here for a quick post.  As I mentioned before I had made quite a few Wedding cards, so here is another one that I did.  I was asked to make it in blues.



I'm not even sure of the designer paper I used, this was over a month ago when I made this and didn't keep track of the source of paper.

Spellbinder dies used were labels 42, labels 42 decorative accents, and grand calibre square.  Other misc items are ribbon, lace, pearls, flower and stamens.

Sentiment  is from a Justrite set stamped using black versafine.

Thanks for visiting today, see you again real soon,

Pauline


Thursday, August 20, 2015

a little shabby and a little chic

Hi everyone. Well we are on the home stretch towards another weekend.  Actually this is my 'friday' per say as I have both friday and monday off - woohoo!! So looking forward to a 4 day weekend.

I'm back today with another coloured image using Power Poppy's sunflower power digital image.
I googled colours of sunflower's and I was amazed at all the different shades.  Instead of going with the typical yellow I went with this:


I am also entering this into the Power Poppy challenge this month - shabby & chic!

So here are some details about my card:  after re-sizing and printing I cut out the image using spellbinders labels 22, then coloured using copics. After the image was coloured I placed the die back in place and sponged some antique linen around the edges, then  I edged the border using my krylon gold pen.

To get the shabby look, I distressed one of my layers of designer paper around the edges using my heidi swapp edge distresser, then I also cut one of the matching papers using a doily die to lay behind the image. 

Added some green seam binding ribbon, and attached a prima gem using gold twine.  I was trying to come up with something for the right corner of the image, and I had this die cut laying on my table, so I snipped a piece of it off and added it to the corner.  Not sure if I'm sold on it, but it's glued down now!  I added a couple of green rhinestones for accents. For the center of the sunflower I added some hero arts glitter.

Supplies:
stamp - Power Poppy - digital sunflower power
ink- distress antique linen, copics - E08, E19, YG01, YG03, YG17, YG63, YG67, YG98, G28, Y02, Y26, Y28, V01, V04, V05, V06, V09, V99, RV09, BV08
dies - spellbinders labels 22, memory box rose border (#99142), cherry lynn - english tea party doily die (#DL101)
paper - white cougar 100 lb, beckett expression (for image), Basic Grey - Eva
misc - seam binding ribbon, gold twine, glitter, rhinestones, prima gem, edge distresser,  

Thanks for visiting me today, have a wonderful day,

Pauline

Saturday, August 15, 2015

Sunflower Power

Hello and hope your enjoying your weekend.  

Many of you know how much I love to colour flowers, well when Marcella from Power Poppy announced that there was a challenge this weekend with Passionate Paper Creations & Friends over on Facebook with a chance to win $25 to shop at Power Poppy I was in!  You can read all about the challenge here.

I resized the image and sentiment to make it fit to the size I had in mind.  I must give huge kudos to Cheryl for helping me with combining both the image and sentiment into one image.  If you only knew how many wasted hours I have spent trying to figure out how to remove the boxes so I could combine them!  After following Cheryl's instructions I had it done less than 10 min! Phew.....

So with out further ado this is what I came up with....



After printing the image I cut it out using a square die, then left the die in place and sponged some distress antique linen inside the frame area.  I then coloured the image using copics.


Used this image as a colour inspiration:

 Image result for sunflowers
 

The rest is pretty simple - some distressing of paper edges, ribbon, glitter and clear dots.

Supplies:
stamps - Power Poppy - Digital sunflower power
ink- copics - R30, R32, R35, R37, R39 R89, RV99, YG93, YG95, YG97, YG99, YG01, E19, YR27, distress antique linen
paper - PTI Kraft, burgundy, Basic Grey - Lucille
dies - spellbinder square, spellbinder triple floral
misc - burgundy ribbon, glitter, kraft foam (I cut a piece slightly smaller than the image square and glued it to the back- I find it gives it a more stable even level of height), PTI raindrops, bow maker

I'm really thrilled with how this turned out.  I hope you enjoy it as well.  Thanks for stopping by.

Again, thanks to Cheryl for your help. I couldn't of done it without you! :)

Pauline 

Wednesday, August 12, 2015

the birthday girl

How is your week going? I was just about to work on another card,  and watch my favourite baseball team play on tv (Toronto Blue Jays - they are on fire these past couple of weeks! :) ),but thought I best post a card, because I did promise you that I would post a card that I coloured up.

I had a request for a this image but in blue tones - navy to be exact.  Do you know how many tones of 'blue' there is out there?  I tried so many different pencils to try and come up with a 'navy' colour, and after this being my 3rd try at this image, I settled for this:




This is Uptown Brittany the Birthday Girl by Stamping Bella.  I stamped her on cougar white 100 lb using black memento, then coloured her with prismacolour pencils.  I did the skin tones and hair  with copics.

After colouring I did some shading around her using the 'pointillism' technique using copics. Next, I trimmed the image down to the size I wanted, stamped the sentiment in black versafine, then layered this onto a piece of navy cardstock then stitched around the edges.

Designer paper - the 2 pieces behind the image are from Glitz - vintage blue and the background paper is MME - hattie.

To finish it off I added glitter to the frills on her dress and cake.  I also added some rhinestones for some added bling!

Well that's it for me for tonight, I'm off to do some colouring.  Thanks for stopping by for a visit, love to hear your comments.

Enjoy your evening.

Pauline

Sunday, August 9, 2015

today, tomorrow and always


I back to share another wedding card.  I hope you are not getting tired of these types of cards. I promise my next post will be a coloured image :).

A co-worked requested a wedding card in green, silver and lace theme, and this is what I came up with:




Sentiment is from Justrite which is stamped in black versafine onto some white cougar 100 lb cardstock.  I used spellbinder decorative labels one die to cut it out. I cut another one using the same die and layered behind my sentiment piece.  


The larger white piece was done using spellbinders ornate labels one embossing folder.  I cut it down to 4 1/8 square, then layered this onto a piece of lime green c/s.  I was playing around one day cutting a bunch of different spellbinder dies just so I could have them handy if needed, so the layer behind the white/green layer was cut using spellbinder victorian medallion three die.  I needed something behind the green and this seemed to fit perfectly.

The grey/silver paper behind is a pearlized cardstock I picked up at my local scrapbook store.

Pulled it all together with some lace, lime green silk ribbon and pearls.

Thanks for visiting today, take care and see you again real soon.....

Pauline

Sunday, August 2, 2015

Uptown Claudia


Gosh, another week gone by and I haven't posted yet.  I apologize for the long stretches of non-postings.  Sometimes 'life' gets in the way of things we love to do.  Work has been very busy, lots of overtime, and also I have been working on my august theme for SCS -DD team.  I have 3 done, 3 more to go.  And on top of that the weather this weekend has been fantastic, no humidity, sunny, blue skies, breezy, a perfect day to be outside rather than in working on cards.  

But... I thought I would pop in doors for a moment and post this long lost card I made back in April! Yikes, I know I'm bad.  I was saving it for a later post at that time and completely forgot about it.

Anyhoo... this is Uptown Claudia...




I coloured her using copics and prismacolour pencils.  Not sure of the colours, I thought I wrote them down but can't seem to locate them at this time.  I cut her out using a MFT pierced die, then layered her onto some paper from MME Dolled Up.  


To finish off I added a silk ribbon bow, glitter, MME enamel dots and I cut out a butterfly from the designer paper to pull it all together.

Thank you for stopping by today, enjoy your week.

Pauline