Happy Little Stampers Watercolour: Flowers

It's March in Australia, and soon to be March here, and so the next round of Happy Little Stampers begins with its Watercolour Challenge! Our optional theme for March is flowers - and here, where it's still WINTER, flowers seem like a fine idea. 

I watercoloured this pretty stem of sweet peas with my Zig markers and die cut it. For a little interest on the white panel, I used a section of a scraped paint stencil with green distress ink, letting it fade away towards the top and bottom. A sentiment banner and a trio of sequins finish this clean and simple card. 

There is a veritable bouquet of inspiration on the Happy Little Stampers blog today - check it out and then I hope you will join us! 

Supplies: Neenah white & Hero Arts layering cardstock, Ranger watercolour paper, Studio Katia You're So Sweet stamps & dies, Versafine onyx black & mowed lawn distress ink, Wow clear gloss embossing powder, Zig watercolour markers, Memory Box scraped paint stencil, MFT blueprints 29 sentiment die, Ink Road sequins, frosted lace Stickles, foam tape

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Seize the Birthday: Focal Point Sentiments

Welcome to a new Seize the Birthday challenge! For our newest *topping*, we are suggesting you create a card with the sentiment as the focal image. Of course you know that we like to see any newly created birthday card in our link-up, so our topping is optional. 
I have some great, fill-the-card Christmas sentiment stamps, but not as much in the way of sizeable birthday sentiments. Luckily, I had a choice of dies that would give me a focal sentiment. Here's my card: 

This die cut sentiment from My Favorite Things certainly fills a card nicely! I can sense a few of you thinking, but it would also make a terrific shaker card! I just wasn't ready to make my one annual shaker card yet this year. :D Instead I found some patterned paper to go with the blue I'd chosen for my main panel. I'm not sure I love this cake as a centre image - not thrilled that the candles/sparklers are black. To help offset that, I added some yellow "glow" behind each sparkler, then dabbed a little Stickles in the centre of each. Also, at some point in my colouring, I decided the cake also looked like a hat. And so now of course I'm having trouble unseeing it that way. I stuck it on some foam tape in the middle anyway. I think this is CAS enough to enter in the current Addicted to CAS challenge, where the code word is CAKE. And of course, there's the Simon Says Stamp Anything Goes Wednesday challenge. 

Our surprise party guest Joyce is with us for one last challenge post - she and the design team have lots of fun takes on the challenge theme. Make a birthday card and join us! 

Supplies: Neenah white & Stampin' Up bashful blue cardstock, Basic Grey patterned paper, Technique Tuesday Sassy Birthday stamp, Versafine onyx black ink, Wow clear gloss embossing powder, Copic markers, MFT birthday centrepiece, blueprints 24 stitched frame & spellbinders circle dies, Wink of Stella clear glitter brush marker, frosted lace Stickles, foam tape

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The Sisterhood of Evil Stampers

The newest challenge at the Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers starts today, and it is a fun one: E is for Evil! As for our challenge badge, I'm not saying a word. :D 
I had to ponder this one for a while... evil is somewhat subjective, I think. Also, I don't have a lot of sentiments that are evil *enough*. As can happen, my mind eventually wandered to cats. After all, cats do sometimes get a bad rap - black cats and bad luck, familiars of scary witches... there's even a myth that a cat will jump in a crib and steal a baby's breath. So cats it is: 

This trio of ATCs was a lot of fun to make, and use some of my earliest cat stamps, too! I didn't even have to colour them! A closer look at each one...

This is the cat face that got me started. He seems to look demented enough. ;) The background is distress oxide ink blended on manila tag, splattered with water (see that extra little mark just above the Moi? That was a cat hair. How appropriate.) and then fish skeletons stamped in the same inks. All sentiments are computer-generated. 

I think this is my favourite of the trio. I knew this chubster would look great with a little feather as evidence to his *crime*. (Nature, red in tooth and claw...) Handy to have a former fly-tie-guy around the house for when feathers are needed. 

I couldn't resist using this crazy-faced cat, too. (I got out my Tim Holtz Crazy Cats; they may be crazy, but none of them really look that evil. :D) Another distress oxide blended background with some delightfully muddy paw prints. 

Make sure you visit the Snarky blog to see all the variations on our EVIL theme! Our current Queen of Snark and guest designer is Rina. Channel your darkest self and join us! 

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Addicted to Stamps and More: Make Your Mark!

It's time for a new Addicted to Stamps and More challenge, and this week it's "Make Your Mark". Since it's my first time with this theme, I thought I'd review what exactly this means: on your card, we want you to use anything that can, literally, make a mark. So you could use Copics, watercolours, sponges, stencils... it's really the next best thing to an anything goes challenge! (We have those, too.) 

I decided I felt like making my mark with Zig watercolour markers for this. And since it seems like it's been days since I made a cat card :D, here's what I came up with: 

Looking to do something a little different, I decided to find a couple of cats that would fit in this MFT stitched frame. Once I had my cats coloured, I decided to back each of the frame panels with some patterned paper, so I could play along in the Wednesday Simon Says Stamp challenge, Two or More Patterned Papers. 

There is a wide variety of *marks* on the ATSM blog, so be sure to visit and gather some inspiration! 

Supplies: Neenah white cardstock, Memory Box grey card base, Crate Paper Fourteen patterned paper, MFT Cool Cat & I Knead You stamps & dies, Versafine onyx black ink, Wow clear gloss embossing powder, Zig watercolour markers, MFT blueprints 29 dies, foam tape

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A Perfect Valentine Pear

Source

Happy Valentine's Day! Or, simply, TGIF. ;) I've got one last valentine to share for this year, and now that it's been received, I can display it publicly: 

For this punny card, I used the Lawn Fawn set My Silly Valentine - an oldie but goodie, and I was pleasantly surprised to see they still keep it in stock! The pears were easy to colour with a few shades of Copic markers, but I did use a green pencil crayon, a la Kathy Rac, to add a little definition to the two leaves. Since it's a valentine, I used a heart die to cut them out, then stamped the banner sentiment with an extra little heart added. 

I'm adding this to the current Lawn Fawnatics challenge: Lots of Love! 

Supplies: Neenah white & Hero Arts layering cardstock, Crate Paper Fourteen patterned paper, Lawn Fawn My Silly Valentine stamps, Versafine onyx black ink, Wow clear gloss embossing powder, Copic markers, QuicKuts nesting heart & Sunny Studio Stamps Fishtail Banners 1 dies, foam tape

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Seize the Birthday: Show Me Your White Space

It's a Seize the Birthday Thursday! Our newest topping for your consideration is "Show Me Your White Space". Barbara picked our topic, and shares a design definition of "white space" on the StB blog. Of course, if you are a more layered type of designer, we love to see any and all birthday cards in our link-up.

As a predominantly CAS (clean and simple) cardmaker, I didn't mind leaving some white space on my creation: 

Of course, for a truly CAS design, I would have made a one layer card, but I also enjoy bending the rules a little bit. :D I combined this *calling bird* from Ellen Hutson's Twelve Days stamp set (sadly, retired) with a sentiment from their Everyday Punnies set. A little Copic colouring, a little Glossy Accents on the red hot line just for fun, and this really was quite simple to make. 

My teammates and our continuing surprise party guest, Joyce, have each put their own spins on their "white space" cards, so be sure to check out their inspirations, too. Make a birthday card and join us! 

Supplies: Neenah white cardstock, American Crafts Hip Hip Hooray patterned paper, Essentials by Ellen Twelve Days & Everyday Punnies stamps, Versafine onyx black ink, Wow clear gloss embossing powder, Copic markers, Winnie & Walter Katharine cutaway die, Glossy Accents

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