Sunday, February 26, 2012

Smiley Team Altered Notebook

I am swamped with work at the office right now.  I wanted to do something that would make me smile this weekend with my one day off.  So, I decided to snoop around my paper studio yesterday and see if I had anything that would work for the Kards for Kids Smiley Team design challenge.

I really wanted to do the dinosaur one, but I don't have any plaid.  Turns out, I'm a stripes and polka dots girl!  So, I chose the nautical theme: navy, blue, grey, cream and white.


I altered this small notebook for parents at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children to keep track of appointments and medications and such.  It's about the size of a small address book, so it could easily fit in a purse or pocket.  The little boat is my own die cut design.


Altering something is a lot faster than making it from scratch.  I don't have a lot of time these days but I really didn't want to miss the first challenge.

Now back to work for me.

Monday, February 20, 2012

Fairy Tweaking

I have a re-order of my fairy die cut tri-shutter cards.  After staring at so many fairies, I decided to teak the design a little.  Sometimes, I look at my fairy and I think she looks all dainty and sweet like Tinkerbelle about to dab her wand on the Disney logo.


Other times, I look at her and think she's doing the pee-pee dance.

Something bothered me about her knees.  Something.  I can't articulate it.  It's just... not quite right.  So, I went back to the design and tweaked it a little.  I cleaned up some cuts (imperceptible to the eye) and I widened the knees a tad to improve the legs coming together (instead of merging together).

I decided it's the depth I didn't like.  The layering of her legs looked fine when I drew each limb out.  However, when I merged the image into a 2D silhouette, something was lost in the translation.  So, I reverted back to the full design (with all the limbs) and tried to bring some depth to the legs by bringing one of them up and forward.


How did I do?  While the original fairy has more of a "hovering" pose, I think this one is ready to go somewhere, or just sprung up from her perch a moment ago.  I still like them both, so I am keeping both versions.

(A little note: Busy season has arrived at work and we are down a manager.  You might see less of me until the end of April (tax season) when I can finally drive home when there is still sunlight in the sky.)

Monday, February 13, 2012

Get Well Card and a Scrapbook Page

Before my mother-in-law went in for surgery, she visited me in my Paper Studio for an afternoon and we worked on our own projects together.  It was very nice to have company in my room and very productive too. She worked on some birthday cards she needed to send and I worked on my wedding album.

We worked so well we both had time for a little extra.  She made a stunning get well card.  The ink she used for the sentiment was a perfect match for the paper.  It really looks like it was professionally printed on the paper.


I like the warm, inviting colours of this card.  I got some free scrapbooking papers when I ordered some tool accessories from Scrapppin' Great Deals.  They were clearing out older stock for CHA releases.  The papers were not colour combinations I would pick for myself.  My mother-in-law used this paper flawlessly!  Since then, I have found some use for the rest of the paper (to my surprise) but that is for another post.

Here's the extra scrapbook page I made for my youngest nephew's album.  He is right about 1 and half now and I still haven't finished his 1 year album. The other two nephews had them before their second birthdays.  (Eeeek!)  You know that saying, the later in the line you are born, the fewer the pictures of you!


I kept to my style for this one: one pattern, rounded corners, focal embellishment.  The baby elephant is a stamp that my sister coloured with her water colours.  She made a few and gave me this extra one to make something with.  I thought it only fitting to put it on a layout of her and her youngest son!

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Magical Birthday


We hosted my nephew's 6th birthday party today.  Since my work has been very busy, my husband picked up a birthday card when he picked up the present.  However, my nephews have always had handmade cards from me and I didn't want to break the trend.  So, I made a really simple one last night.

The theme of this year's party was Harry Potter.  Isn't this cake cute?  My sister-in-law brought all the little Harry Potter Lego guys from a Lego set my nephew already has to decorate it.



My nephew enjoyed telling us the names of all the characters.  My sister-in-law has been reading to him the Harry Potter series.  He will get to watch the movies after reading the books.  He has a voracious mind when it comes to reading (or being read to).  He is learning to read himself now too.

To keep on the Harry Potter "magic" theme, I used my "magical birthday wishes" stamp that I bought to go with the fairies from A Day for Daisies.  Well, I decided it would work just as well for a dragon!


This dragon is a digital image from MelJen's designs.  I coloured it with my copic markers.  To make it look like scales, I just dotted the markers.  First, I made dots with the light green and then went in with the dark.  Then I used the light green again to help the darker dots to blend in.  Where I wanted the most shadow, I went again with the dark and did not go back and blend with the light.


The background is embossed with a crocodile pattern that I got from Accucut Craft.  I thought it would work for my dragon card.  (Of course, I composed a little poem for the inside too!)

It was a good day.  The boys played well together (both the little ones and all the uncles) and everyone had a nice visit.  My sister-in-law brought lots of finger foods and some guests brought snacks too.  (AND - it was all over before Super Bowl Sunday started, so my husband can "have his cake and eat it too!")