Bluebird of Happiness

I made this card for the Splitcoast Stampers Sketch Challenge. I was inspired by this photo on my friend Lorraine's blog. I wish I could get a photo like hers. I have seen a couple of bluebirds in the past week or two, but never when I could catch them on film. The words Bluebird of Happiness went through my head as I was making this card. Wikipedia had this to say about bluebirds and happiness: "It is a widely accepted symbol of cheerfulness, happiness, prosperity, herth and home, good health, new births, the renewal of springtime, etc. Virtually any positive sentiments may be attached to the bluebird." I am sure that this must be true, because they are such a beautiful creation of God. They make me happy to see. Maybe that is because blue is my favorite color.

I got this image in an image swap. I colored it with prisma colored pencils. I masked it and used chalks to make the greenery behind him. I quilled a flourish in the corner.

Faux Bamboo tutorial

Here is the bamboo tutorial that I promised last week.

Joy-Tulips

I made this card for the Splitcoast Stampers Inspiration Challenge. I choose to take my inspiration from the tulips in this room. I stamped the tulips and scored 3 lines on either end of the panel. I colored the tulips with prisma colored pencils. I added 3 little rhinestones to each side. I matted the tulip panel with yellow and green the colors of the room. I also tied two ribbons. I stamped the sentiment with black stazon ink. I was going for a Clean and Simple look.

Old School Charm

I made this for the Splitcoast Stampers Ways To Use it Challenge. It was to use a charm on the card. I have only a few charms in my collection of embellishments. It just so happened that I had sorted through my embellishments so I knew right away where my charms were. I had this little bow. I tried it on several images, but I liked it best on this one. This image is one that I recieved from my friend Ginny. She sent me a package this week with all sorts of new images to play with. I printed the sheet music with my computer on cream colored cardstock. The base of the card was made with a piece of designer paper that my secret sister at church gave me. It has a lacy printed design at the bottom. I cut along the edge of the lace and made a pocket to stick the sheet music into. I taped it back together on the back. I added the little pearls, a cream colored ribbon bow. I used my paper piercer on either side of where I wanted the bow charm to go. Then attached it with a small piece of wire. The image was colored with prisma colored pencils.

Pretty, pretty Pollys

This card was made for the Splitcoast Cards CAS24 challenge. It was a color challenge. I already had the parrot images in my computer. I just adjusted the coloring to make it match the color challenge.

Today for Cindy's teapot challenge, we were traveling to France for the tour de France.
Cindy told us about bikes, snails, and pelotons. I didn't have any snail stamps or images... so I let my mind wander... I looked out my window and saw birds sitting on a wire. I thought it would make a great story to have birds on a wire. But what kind of birds? I love the colors in parrots so I looked at a photo of a parrot and I drew one. I then scanned that parrot into my computer. I resized it, copied it and mirror flipped it and printed them on white cardstock. I colored them in with prisma colored pencils. I pierced the cardstock and ran twine for the wire. I chalked the sky and ground. I added rhinestone brads in the corners and matted the image with turquoise, green and red cardstock. Here... is my story... These two little parrots are named Michaelangelo and Leonardo-Sophisticated names like these aren't limited to turtles. They are art aficiandos. They have always wanted to visit Paris and the Louve Museum. After spending some time in Paris, they were heading towards Monaco. They planned their flight path to go through Bourg-Saint-Maurice where the end of the 16th stage of the tour de France takes place. Along the way, they sat on a wire watching the peloton pass. It was then that they noticed snails crossing the road. Escargot, Yummy!!! -for parrots, not for me!!

Fields of poppies

Here are two cards that I made that were inspired by this poppy art print. I drew the poppies and colored them with my prisma colored pencils. I made them for these challenges. Sketch Challenge 237, CAS Challenge 23 and Color Combo Challenge 227. That is a lot for only two cards.