Mousey birthday

Recently, I was looking for a stamp that I swore I had. Going through all of my stamps resulted in finding out that I actually thought I bought the stamp, but didn't. Darn it. Thankfully, when husband, son and I went to the US for a weekend away, I was in Hobby Lobby and found it in the clearance bin. SCORE! I snapped it up without a second thought.

Our son is turning one this week. I thought this stamp would be the perfect one to mark his first birthday.

I am entering this card in the House Mouse & Friends challenge HMFMC117, Something Sweet.

 The image was stamped in momento black on bristol paper and coloured with copics. I added a little distress stickles on the top of the cupcake to make it sparkle a little. The image and mat were cut out with a nestabilities die and layered on a piece of patterned paper and placed on top of a blue card.

Happy first birthday, Mr. Munch. Mommy and Daddy love you!

One Mothers' Day card down...

Thanks to the Less is More challenge this week for helping me get the card done for my Mother in Law for Mothers' Day. This week, we were challenged to incorporate a hand-drawn component to the card.

It's been a while since I've been able to play- we're in the process of learning to parent a toddler (and her infant brother)- it's been a little busy around here, not much time for creating, but it's been lots of fun.
When I saw the challenge this weekend, I had an idea pop immediately to mind.

I must admit- I nearly didn't enter the challenge because I am not able to draw more than a straight line (and even then, I need a ruler, as demonstrated by the drawn frame around the text.

For this card, I stamped the La Blanche rose in the corner with Momento black ink and stamped another to create a mask. Then I cut out a frame with a Nestabilities die and laid it over the 4.25 by 5.5 inch card stock and stamped En Francais from SU in the frame using Momento's London Fog ink.
Keeping the frame in place, I sponged on Scattered Straw Distress ink, hated it, and added Weathered wood on top. I drew the frame with a spica pen. The rose was coloured with Copics.

I always find so much inspiration from the Less is More blog and love to follow it each week, even if I don't have time to play. I hope my feeble attempt meet the challenge guidelines. 

Happy birthday!

This past weekend, one of my friends celebrated a milestone birthday. We've been friends since Grade 7, and have seen each other through many ups and downs. I wanted to make her a card for her birthday, and went to one of my fallback stamps- one that I seem to reach for on a regular basis.

It's just such a happy image, and one that has special sentiment for us, as we've shared more than our fair share of chocolate cake over the years. This housemouse stamp was coloured with copics and then layered on a piece of chocolate brown card stock. It needed a little lift, so I added some patterned card stock behind the image and punched a flower from the same papers. The yellow behind the stamped image is slightly metallic and adds a little bling to the card.

One card, two challenges

I had a few minutes to create a quick card- this one took less than five minutes (including having to restamp three times because I didn't like the way it looked). This is my entry into the Less is More weekly challenge, neutral colours, and the Splitcoast Stampers Saturday inspiration challenge, which is Superfine Bakery.
For this card, I used cream card stock and layered it onto a dark brown base. Not sure why the card looks pink in the photo. The image and sentiment are stamped in Momento ink rich cocoa. I distressed the edges of the cream card with some of the same ink and added three brown brads to the corner to finish it off.

I am pleased with how this one turned out, given that I had the idea pop into my head and it turned out exactly the way I wanted, in the amount of time I had to play!

Thank you

This has been a crazy month- my husband and I got a call on Jan 16 saying we had been matched to adopt a brother and sister- he is 10 months old, and she is nearly three. Our son was placed with us on February 3, and it's been a crazy ride ever since- going from no children to having an infant in the house has turned our world upside down- in the best possible way imaginable. It's incredible to watch him grow and develop each day, and the changes are amazing. He's moving along the furniture, crawling all over the house and is eager to start walking.
We met our daughter for the first time on Friday, and will be doing weekly visits with her to get her used to us and her brother before we start daily visits in April. We are hoping she's going to be home for her birthday close to the end of April.

I was thrilled to see the theme of Don't Scrap It. I'd had an idea for some thank you cards for a while, and this challenge fit it to a tee.

The card is 4.25x5.5 inches- with a piece of white cut 1/4 inch smaller and layered on top. The monkey was stamped on a scrap piece of bristol paper and coloured with copics. The blue is the same shade as the base layer and cut with a spellbinders die. It was adhered to the card with foam tape.

The thank you sentiment is stamped on the inside of the card.

I am hoping to have more time to stamp in the coming weeks, but with the addition of a toddler to our family, I think my fun stamping time will be reserved for after bed... or I could teach her early!

Quickie card

I've had this card made for a while, but haven't had time to post it.

Quite a while ago, my husband and I started the process to adopt. Our homestudy was approved in August 2011, and we were officially waiting.

On January 16, our worker called me at work to tell me that we had been matched with two little people- a boy, 9 months, and a girl, just under three.

On January 17, she came to our house for a disclosure meeting- which is intended to give us more information about the children and their histories. There was no doubt in our minds that these kids were meant to be part of our family.

January 17 is also my dad's birthday. My last post was the card that I made for his birthday. My parents came to our house on the 17th for dad's birthday dinner, and we told them what was going on.

My intention was to come home from work early and make a card. Fortunately, I already had an idea bouncing around in my head. Unfortunately, they were here when I got home, so I had to make the card in record time. I think I banged it out in about five or 10 minutes.

I put it in a pile of cards I made, and told my parents they could go through them. When they got to this one, I got them to open it. Inside, I had written "Hopefully soon, two little monkeys will be joining the zoo."

It took my mom a few minutes, she was looking at me saying "Monkeys? Why on earth do you want monkeys?" (I am a huge animal lover, and we have two dogs and four cats, so apparently it wouldn't be much of a stretch for me to want monkeys, I guess). The icing on the cake was when she commented that monkeys throw poo at each other.

While she was processing the message in the card, my husband was pulling up the photos of the kids that our social worker sent us. My parents were immediately in love, and were over the moon excited.

I am entering this card into the Ways to Use it challenge on Splitcoast Stampers (groundhog day)

The die cuts were cut out using a sizzix die, and the flower is (I think) Penny Black.

I'll have a couple of more cards to post in the coming days, but for now, I need to go spend some time with our little man- today is his first day in our home! 

Try it Tuesday

I have decided that I am going to try a new technique each Tuesday. There is a wealth of information and resources on Splitcoast Stampers, and it's about time I checked it out. So, each week, I am going to pick a technique to try out. It'll either be from SCC, a stamping magazine, or inspiration from a stamping friend. This technique came to me via my friend M.

This week, it's a quarter fold card. It's unique, and could be used to hold a simple wish for someone, a small gift or gift card.

 The finished size for this card is 4x4. To make it, I took two pieces of paper 8 inches by 4 inches each and scored them at 2 and 6 inches. I taped the back of one to the centre of the other to make a plus sign (see image below). The four flaps are closed like a box. Decorate the fronts of each piece. For this card, I wanted to decorate the front of it as well. To decorate, I cut the green pieces at 1.5 inches and the brown pieces were embossed in a Tim Holtz folder and highlighted it with vintage photo distress inks. The bird (Nature Walk, SU) was attached with foam tape.

The centre was decorated with Bo Bunny paper (top and bottom flaps) and cream cardstock. The flap pieces were cut at 1.5 inches by 3.75 inches. The trees are from the SU set Lovely as a Tree.

It would be easy to increase the size of this card, as long as the card is increased equally. A 5x5 card would need a 10x5 strip of paper -scoring would be at 2.5 inches from both ends. A 6x6 would have to be 6x12 - scoring would be at 3 inches from both ends of the paper.