Fairy Dreams at Lacy Sunshine

The new challenge starts today at Lacy Sunshine and the theme is Fairy Dreams (or anything with wings) in honor of a new release of adorable fairies at the Lacy Sunshine Shoppe.  I have the pleasure of introducing Emmilou Boo's Magical Garden Fairy.  We have an extra special sponsor this week, Petal Lu, and the DT has embellished our projects with the gorgeous hand made blooms. Mine are from the Norrland Bloom mix.  I've made a simple card this time to showcase the adorable image and beautiful flowers.

Here's Emmilou's closeup, colored with Copics in the colors from the flowers I chose, with a bit of Stickles on her magical wings.  I've added a bloom to the tip of her wand as well.  Come visit the Challenge Blog and see all the new adorable fairies, soon to be available at the Lacy Sunshine Crafter's Candy Shoppe.  Also, if you've used a Lacy Sunshine image in the last challenge, don't forget to claim your "Loyalty Program digi".  Find out how on the Challenge Blog.

And there's always lots going on at the Lacy Sunshine FB Group, too.  Be sure to check out our ongoing Selfie Saturday Contest each week.  See ya there.

I'm entering this in the Cute Card Thursday Too Cute challenge, the Alphabet Challenge, "P" is for Pretty Petals, Suzy Bee's Bloomin' Challenge ATG, the Petal Lu FB Challenge, Allsorts Sugar and Spice, Wags 'n Whiskers For the Girls and QKR Stampede Things With Wings.

Exciting News!

Although it's been a totally sucky day for NCAA Tournament basketball (my alma mater MSU AND rival U of M BOTH lost today), I managed to finish a card because I'm totally thrilled to have been invited to be a part of The East Wind Design Team. WOOHOO! I fell in love with Kyra's (AKA Unky's) stamps and you will too.  We have a fab Challenge Blog, an active FB Group and fun challenges on both sites.  Our current FB Group Challenge is Magical Creatures (which runs through April 17th) inspired my card today as well as several other challenges where I play regularly.

 

The fabulous image is Lucy Loo Arabian Nights, colored with Copics (yeah, yeah, I know, red hair, LOL) and fussy cut atop a gorgeous embossed panel sent to me by my dear friend Carole, because it is from a discontinued Marianne folder.  I've been saving these embossings for a special project and THIS it IT!  Thanks so much, Carole!

 

Here's the card closed.  I spent the entire day yesterday figuring out this fold for the current Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers "F" is for (fortunately not for what came out of my mouth watching basketball all afternoon) Fancy Fold.  Used my Spellbinders Gothic Arches to make it happen.  Obviously, the sentiment was inspired by their challenge, as well.  In case you can't read it, it says "To be perfectly honest, you really rub me the WRONG way". Although it's not required, I LOVE the opportunity to do SNARK.  (Especially TODAY!)  The blue scrolly stuff is cut with my Cuttlebug  Moroccan something (don't even THINK of asking me to look that up) set.  The color scheme of Blue, Purple, and Turquoise was inspired by the current challenge at 613 Avenue Create.  Although they are an ATG Challenge Blog, they always have the most creative optional twists and this one was no exception.  Always love playing there.  So there ya go.  Back to drowning my sorrows. 

 

I'm also adding this to the Allsorts Use Those Dies Challenge. 

ADFD Use a Die Cut

Clearly I had a bit of a struggle getting my creep on this weekend so I came up empty for my HDH project this week.  My mojo seems to have flown the coop so in an attempt to lure it back I decided to just do a challenge I've been wanting to do, but haven't been able to find the time for.  Every fortnight I rush over to the ADFD Blog to see the challenge and even go so far as to plan it all out in my head, but life, or DT obligations, always seem to get in the way.  I have loads of new ADFD digis just begging to be colored, but when I saw the challenge was Use a Die Cut, I knew immediately which one I would choose.  This recently purchased floral wreath is a Memory Box die and I thought it would look beautiful with one of the fab deer from the June Club Kit.  (Of course I belong to the Club, who doesn't love a bargain?)  Anyway, this is Uncle Buck.  He looks so majestic with the butterflies on his antlers, don'tcha think?

The kraft mat is embossed with my new Wicker Cuttlebug folder and the window was cut with Nesties Labels Three.  The buck is colored with Copics with some pencil action defining his fur.  I printed him twice, fussy cut and popped him, along with the mats and wreath and then added another layer of 3 of the butterflies for further dimension.  the sentiment is a peel off, colored black with a Sharpie and black adhesive beads adorn the corners.

I'm also entering this in the One Crazy Stamper July "Kraft" Color Challenge,  OOzak Anything Goes with Texture, 613 Avenue Creative Anything Goes/Optional Birthday, Robyn's Fetish Things with Wings Challenge, the Allsorts Fur and Feathers Challenge, Totally Papercrafts All Aflutter, A.R.T. Masculine Birthday Challenge and Sweet Pea Stampers for Men/Boys Challenge.

It's a Girl with CTMH Artiste

I've been playing with my new CMTH Artiste cart and was excited to use the sweet baby shoes on page 63.  Our nephew's wife is expecting and although we don't know the sex yet, I figured I had a 50/50 chance.  I cut them at 4" in the sweetest flocked DP from Me&My Big Ideas and then set out to find something to do with them.  I loved the cool box on page 74 and used DS to determine how large I wanted the top to fit the shoes with room to spare.  I was surprised to find out it was 2".  Must be measuring from the height of the box.  At this size, you need a 12x24" mat and you still can't fit the top, bottom and side cuts on one piece of 12x24" card stock but the box was then a substantial size, with the interior being approximately 5" square.  I chose to do the top and bottom cuts out of white, instead.  The assembly instructions tell you to glue the shoe upper flaps to the top of the soles, but I wanted a more finished look inside so I cut the soles again at 3 7/8" and glued the flaps under the smaller soles and then glued the 4" soles on the bottom.  This was a bit tricky and I ended up doing a teeny bit of trimming, but I preferred the clean look both inside and out.

I made a second layer for the top, again using DS so I could add another layer of DP.  The sweet bows on the toes are another cut from Artiste, (page 56) which I embossed (along with the shoe straps) with Swiss Dots.  They started at 1" but I shrunk them down to fit with DS.  "It's a Girl" is another fab cut (on page 64 at 2 1/2") and I cut it twice, embossed the top layer and offset them slightly and popped them for a little more dimension. 

I have to say my fave cut of all on this is actually the bow.  Couldn't help but use it again cut at 1", and embossed with the Cuttlebug Polka Dots folder. This is cut in a single piece with holes cut with your Cricut for a brad for easy assembly.  Too cute!

For a finishing touch I lined the top and bottom sections of the box with DP.  I just cut a square at 5" and attached inside which not only added strength, but also hid the flaps used for assembly.  I'm really loving CTMH Artiste because it really has fabulous 3D projects  and cuts for all holidays and occasions as well as coordinating chipboard and stamps.  If you haven't already purchased it, please visit my fab friend, DT sister and CTMH consultant Susan HERE.  Also be sure to visit her personal blog HERE for many more inspirational projects from this versatile cartridge.

I'm entering this in the Simon Says Stamp and Show No Rules Challenge, the Allsorts It's a Gift Challenge, and the Divas by Design Anything Goes challenge.

Macabre Monday Apalling Apothecary

What's in YOUR medicine cabinet? Okay, Margie, you don't have to answer that. LOL but you ladies who take the challenge at Haunted Design House must...do you dare? My nifty little bottle of poison started as a bottle of premium scotch that hubby had to have. LOVE the shape of the bottle and just KNEW it would come in handy.WooHoo! I finally got to use my Tim Holtz Poison Label embossing folder which I tore around and inked with Distress.

The "cobwebs" are a ripped up dryer sheet. That seems to be one of my favorite recyclable items. A few plastic spiders and some interesting looking fibers and I was good to go.

And how about my cool skeleton fingers gripping that bottle? I used a mold meant for making chocolate covered pretzels and filled it with Paperclay (no baking required). After filling each finger, I carefully removed them and molded them around the bottle. Once dry, I painted them with Distress. The bottle is filled with some bile colored liquid and some dish soap so it bubbles. Couldn't really get a pic of that. And I've used some Distress Embossing Powder around the wood cork stopper which looks like some lovely corrosion. The top said Est. 1897 and I thought that was just too cool to cover up. I really enjoyed doing an "altered project" for a change and I hope you enjoy it too. I'm afraid there won't be a BBTB2 post this week. Sorry about that, but not only did I not have the cart, I had a fleeting (I hope) lack of mojo in that arena. Be sure to check out the rest of the Minions take on this challenge HERE (and again on Wednesday for Creepy Glo's submission) and in a few hours stop by BBTB2 and give my sisters there some love. I'm also entering this in the Allsorts Recycle/Alter something challenge, the Shopping Our Stash Vintage, Distressed or Shabby Chic Challenge, and the Quirky Crafts Anything but a Card Challenge.

Whimsical Wednesday Tag Challenge

Okay, it doesn't look like a tag, but I'm using some "artistic license" here. I made it as a tag, so it IS a tag. My DH looked at it and said "Why are you calling it a tag? Isn't it kinda BIG?". I'm calling is a tag because that's what the Whimsical Wednesday challenge is. Make a TAG! Honestly, I started out designing a proper tag, but it took on a life of it's own, and who am I to stop the creative juices when they're flowing like wine (No, I wasn't drinking when I made this, I promise!) Anyway, I had leftover bird parts (OOOh, that sounds like something the cats dragged in...literally, EEEeeewww) from my BBTB2 Challenge card this week and was afraid I'd lose them so I assembled another version. See the first HERE. The bird is from Florals Embellished and I cut it using the silhouette feature in two shades of blue (at 4 inches) and had enough cuts to actually do 3 versions (so you just may see version 3 showing up in the near future on something else. Hope you're not TOO bored with it.) Of course I had to cut a bunch of white bases, but they're easy compared to the silhouette cut. If you're gonna do this bird, cut it BIG, like I did and use the multi-cut feature on 2 and you'll be good to go. "Fly" came from Straight from the Nest and it's cut at 5 inches. The sizing on Cricut always cracks me up. It is 5 inches from the top of the "F" to the bottom of the swirl but it's 12 inches long! Yeah, I'd say it's a BIG tag! LOL

Nothing too fancy going on here. I welded the shadow of "Fly to the shadow of the bird using DS and then added the layers. I cut 2 extra regular white layers so I could pop the wings making it look a bit more like it's flying and then popped the whole thing on the tag. My bling is a little subtle. I've used adhesive pearls, but yes, it's a TAG! See the ribbon hangy things on top? So what would I use such a huge tag for? How about a big Graduation gift, like a computer, or TV or better yet, a CAR! Works for me. I'm also entering it in the Allsorts Challenge, Things with Wings, and the Anything Goes Challenge at a brand new Challenge Blog called Crafting for All Seasons.