Get Your Wild On!

Shirley is asking the CCEE Stampers to get their "wild" on this week and post something with their favorite zoo animal. I have several favorites, but my heart is especially fond of the penguins. To me, they are just so dang cute, and I love the way they walk.

I chose to make a post-it note pad cover, calling it my Purple Penguin Post-it Pad cover!  I made the big penguin with various Stampin' Up punches (circles, heart, five-petal, modern label, 1/4" circle, pendant).  The the three stamped penguins are from an old Stampin' Up set called Animal Alphabet. 

Here's the back of the post-it note cover, using black and Almost Amethyst cardstock and circle punches.  I used velcro to close it together.

Here's the link to our CCEE Stampers' blog so that you can see all the wild animal creations my friends came up with.  We hope you'll play along with us, too!

Be sure to stop by this Saturday, February 25, for our Stampin' Sisterhood Spring blog hop!!
 

Tweet Colors

I had a wonderful birthday yesterday and would like to thank those of you who took the time to send me a Happy Birthday message!

I love the colors of pink, celery, and white together, which is the Clean and Simple (CAS) challenge on Splitcoaststampers.  I used punches for everything in my design with the exception of the sentiment and the bird's legs which I drew.

My punch-around-the-page one of many items in my birthday package from my sweet friend, Joanne.  Isn't it pretty?  I hand cut grass and then embossed it with an embossing folder for additional texture.  The birds were made with various circle punches, a bird wing punch, and a heart punch.  The "Tweet" sentiment is from a There She Goes Stamp set.

Digger Flies a Kite

Frances challenged the CCEE Stampers to incorporate a kite into our designs.  I don't have any kite stamps so I had to make mine.  I drew the outline of a kite on the back of my designer paper, cut it out, and then used a Classic Diamond Nestability for the patterned paper in the center of the kite.

Incorporating a kite into my design definitely called for some scene work, in my opinion.   I pulled out my Rubbernecker sets:  Kittie Kits Cause a Scene set for the tree and grass and this adorable doggie, whom I've named Digger, from the Animals set.  Digger and the tree trunk were colored with Copic markers.   I fussy cut Digger and popped him up on dimensionals.  The kite string is embroidery thread that I looped around Digger's tail so he can fly his kite.   Inks I used for the tree leaves and grass were a combination of  Stampin' Up's Certainly Celery, Old Olive and Always Artichoke and Adirondack Lettuce.

I made my sun using the largest Stampin' Up star punch and the 3/4" circle punch out of this cute Good Neighbor designer paper.  I used the Martha Stewart leaf punch for the bows on my kite string.  I punched a post-it note with the large scallop punch to sponge around thereby creating the clouds in my sky.  I lightly sponged Barely Banana just above the ground line and Certainly Celery on the ground.

Digger sure has a goofy look on his face (like a deer in headlights, if you ask me), but he is having fun romping around in the lush grass flying his kite!

Be sure to stop by the CCEE Stampers blog and check out the designs of my teammates.  Why not play along with us, too?

And, if you didn't get a chance to read my blog post from yesterday, you might want to scroll down to see the great blog candy Dolce Stamps and Cards is offering.

Have a great day!

The Fast and the Furriest!!

My furry friends are off to the fast and furriest canine street race at the Raleigh Drift in Raleigh, NC today.

Da Mudder has asked all the tea partiers to bring dogs to the tea party today. She specifically requested “…racing dogs, spectator dogs, mechanic dogs, dogs on a news crew, dogs in a pit crew. We need dogs that can drive, dogs that high five, dogs that love bones, dogs with cell phones! We need dogs to keep score, dogs to sweep the floor. We need dogs that are nurses, we need dogs who sell purses. We need dogs that are sweet, we need dogs that can tweet! We need dogs to write a book, we need dogs that can cook! We need a dog for the head of promotion, and a dog to control all of the commotion! We need big dogs on the porch, we need dogs who can carry a torch! We need a dog that can howl and one that chases fowl! We need dogs that can bark and dogs in the dark. But most of all, we need dogs that are furry, dogs in a hurry, dogs that are fast, dogs who will last! Dogs that are The Fast and Furriest!”

These fellers heard there was a long, long, LOOOOONG waiting line at the local potty tree, so they thought they’d better bring their own fire hydrant to help out for when duty calls. I mean, did you see that line of pooches waiting in line to pee at the tree?!?!? You just know we’re gonna have at least one or two of these pooches with bladder problems and the mayor of Raleigh doesn’t want them peeing just anywhere. So, all you pooches who need to potty, feel free to lift a leg in the back of the hydrant when duty calls.

Today’s Destination Station is to zgirlsgranny’s life-long friend, Rachel, who has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Rachel loves dogs and recently had to give up her beloved Sheltie because of her illness. If you’d like to participate in today’s challenge and/or send your card to Rachel to offer her encouragement and support, you can get all the details in the Teapot Tuesday forum here.

My pooches were colored with Copic markers and cut out.  The two outer dogs are popped up on dimensionals.  My fire hydrant was made using the small oval punch, corner rounder, 3/4" circle punch, and half of a large oval cut from my Coluzzle.  The cardstock is Ruby Red and the edges were sponged in Cherry Cobbler.  I saw this on Lauren Meader's blog eons ago and had printed out her instructions to use one day.  Today is that day! 

Oompa Cat

Hi!  I hope you are having a fantabulous weekend; I appreciate your visit to my blog today.  We have family due to arrive shortly for a cookout, but I did have a little time this morning to participate in the Inspiration challenge on Splitcoaststampers.  Stef gave us another terrific website for our inspiration called Oompa.   I absolutely love the darling artwork by Noelle Dass at Oompa!!! All of her animal drawings are adorable. I chose this Cat Blue Print for a friend who is a cat lover.

I replicated her cat image using punches and Nestabilities. I made mine a full body image adding the kitty's paws.  Isn't he funky?


Cat Parts:

ears = five-star flower punch
eyes = double circle punch
face = oval Nestabilities
neck = arrow punch
body = circle Nestabilities
paws = 3/4" circle punch
whiskers = free-hand cutting

I inked up my dotted swiss embossing folder with Night of Navy and ran my Bashful Blue cardstock through my Cuttlebug. I added additional sponging around the cat to outline it like Noelle did in her drawing.

Punchin' Cute Tree

Iris (Pam) is the chosen featured stamper on Splitcoaststampers today.  I chose to case her cute Happy Bird-day card.  Obviously, I made several changes with colors, stamps, and using no ribbon.

Isn't this punched tree cute? I got the idea for it after I saw Mary Fish use SU's 1 1/4" circle punch to make a leaf for her flower stem, and I thought, why not tree leaves?

 

These sweet flowers and grass are from Rubbernecker's Kittie Kits Cause a Scene and are the perfect size for fitting under my tree.

I used the same punch for the tree trunk on chocolate chip cardstock, using the remaining piece of cardstock after I cut out the leaf portion.  I then used my 1" circle punch for the center of the tree and adhered the leaves with glue.  You can see the pieced sections in the photo on the left and how I inserted just a portion of the 1 1/4" circle.  I then finished off the tree by adhering an olive green button with embroidery thread tied through it.

Want to know how I made those clouds? With my SU slotted punch! I just punched bashful blue and white cardstock at various depths, sponged the edges in ballet blue, and then glued them together.  Here's a close up.  The black buttons on each side of the main image panel were made with the Buttons #5 Sizzlits die.

Food Inspired

Tosh Leyendekker is our CCEE challenge hostess for the month of March, and she will be tempting us with food inspiration photos each week.  Here's the first photo she's tempted us with, and Tosh told us that anything goes for our projects:  shapes, embellishments, styles.....

I was inspired by the colors and what I saw as the sketch design in this photo.  The colors I saw in this photo are Wild Wasabi, Purely Pomegranate, Creamy Caramel, and White. 

I used my Stampin' Up trio of flowers punch to make my trees.  I saw these cute punch art trees on Julia Bettencourt's blog some time ago and had made a note to make these for one of my Christmas cards this year.  Julia used SU's full heart punch, but since I don't have that one, I used the trio heart punch.  This punch ended up being perfect for my card as I needed to make two smaller trees and one larger one for my design.  I sponged the bottom of the branches in White Craft ink and the tops of them with Always Artichoke.  I used the 1/2" and double circle punches to for the ornaments.  The sentiment is gold embossed.

You can check out the challenge details and the cards the CCEE team members made on our CCEE blog.  I hope you'll find some time to play along with us!

Snow Day!

I gave myself a snow day today and stayed home from work due to the snowstorm that made for hazardous driving conditions.  Lord knows our state government would NEVER shut down.  They expect you to drive under treacherous road conditions, but that just isn't for me anymore, especially since we've had a couple accidents due to bad road conditions in the last few years.  Instead, I had fun stamping my day away and catching up on some of my challenges since I was gone on vacation.

Julia, aka artystamper, challenged the Doubledog Dare Challenge (DDC) group a few weeks ago to make a card using Mercy's flower tutorial.  Mercy's tutorial is quick and easy.  This makes for a beautiful flower, but you definitely wouldn't be able to mail this type of card in a regular envelope!  What better image to go with a flower than a bee to pollinate it?  This cute bee and sentiment are from Rubbernecker Stamps.

I stamped his wings an extra time onto vellum, colored them in on the back with Copic markers, cut them out, added MS glitter, and adhered with vellum tape. Since I cut the bee image out, I wasn't able to keep the original antennae because they were too narrow to cut, so I added my own I made from cardstock.

Do you Stampin' Up experts recognize this old SU designer paper?  It's always been one of my favorites.  I also used this pretty border punch my friend Joanne (aka JoJo, aka JoJot, aka SnoSnot, aka SnoSnertie) gave me for my birthday this year.

My next card was for another DDC challenge given to us by Anne, jdmommy, to use a frame on our card.  I chose to make a shaker card---something I haven't done in AGES---and framed my image that way.  This designer paper is from Chloe's Closet and the cupcake is from SU's Little Layers.

Why not join us in our DDC challenges?  You can check out the forum we have on Splitcoaststampers here.

I saw a really cute card that Denise, aka cardcrazy, made using SU punches to make an adorable dog the other day, and I just HAD to try one for myself. A friend's birthday is this week and her dog is her baby! She'll get a kick out of this.  What do you think of her painted toenails and earrings?  Giggle.  I used a retired SU In Color, called Pink Pirouette (another In Color I wish SU would keep!!!)

They say to be careful what you wish for, but after a day like today, I sure wish I could stay home from work and stamp more often! 
As always, I appreciate your taking the time out of YOUR busy day to visit my blog and blessing me with your comments!  I'll be by to visit yours soon, too!