An ugly sweater of a card.

Hi friends!

This post kicks off October's edition of lawn fawn inspiration week for me.  Today, we're showcasing lawn cut dies for older essentials: winter bunny, making frosty friends, and winter owl.

My offering is completely tongue in cheek:

Pattern overload, and oversized images... it's so ugly it's cute.  I've always wanted to convince my family to do an ugly sweater party for Christmas, but we're too immigrant for that... my parents always gave me raised eyebrows and changed the subject.  I wonder if we'd even find very many kitchy sweaters at our local thrift stores... stay tuned *wink*



My favorite part is the candy cane in frosty's twiggy hand.  Let's pretend I'm a knitter who decided that the stripes of the candy cane would be a nice compliment to the the sweater's trim... ha.

Click over to the lawn fawn blog for more inspiration!

♥.

a little bit woodsy for Jessika's 11th.

This past weekend, I set up decorations at Marlyn's house (of Montreal Confections) for her daughter's 11th birthday.  I also provided the party entertainment: the kids made altered notebooks and bookmarks with lawn fawn stamps that matched the party decor and my collection of copic markers.  I hope you enjoy the party:



You may remember that wood backdrop from *this party* - it pays to keep party things!

Forest tree drink labels - they were so excited to drink out of these mason jars!

Do you see who the lawn fawn fox is checking out?



It's our foxy, in cookie form.  I was so excited when I saw these!  And, the frame too!

Isn't the owl adorable?  I love that Marlyn didn't cover the whole thing in fondant - the texture from the buttercream matches the whimsical feel of the party so much better...

woodgrain wings!





Marlyn's sweets are just so beautiful:

The party craft was to alter a notebook.  Here's my original:

The birthday girl, holding her bookmarks.  I love that she painted her nails so fancy for the party.

I hope you enjoyed looking at our woodsy party pictures!  It's Jessika's actual birthday today - happy birthday, sweet girl! I hope you have a great day ♥.

into the woods.

I did a double-take this morning when I realized we were already into the month of June.  It took me a few days to notice....

The good news?  It's time for another lawnscaping challenge:

This one is for all the wannabe copic colorers out there, the ones who own copics but don't really know what to do with them.  Solidarity, my friends.

I was recently asked to make a set of woodsy invitations, oh and by the way, the birthday girl loves gnomes. My kind of girl.  

I started out by coloring all of my gnomes and die-cutting them.  For a little something extra, I added glossy accents to his tall gnome hat.

The circle stackable dies made it easy to create my focal point.  I stamped the fox, mushrooms, and gnome onto a white circle and colored them all in.  Even the gnome.  I like that when you look sideways, you can see a fully colored gnome underneath the pop-up.

The "you're invited" banner at the bottom of the circle hides a folded, flat edge.  All of the party information can be accessed by untying  the twine at the top and opening the folded circle.

I popped the entire circle onto foam squares, so that it would be able to open and close with ease...

Here's a quick visual on how I created the folded circle card.  Fold a piece of red cardstock, and lay the circle so that the die overhangs the folded edge at the top.  Secure with washi tape (or post-it notes) and run through the machine.

I hope you like them, and I really hope you decide to play along with our coloring challenge!  Our sponsor this week is Simon Says Stamp: 

ps, my friend Paulina, over at prettypinkposh is getting to know me better today.  Click over to read the interview!

♥.

retrosketches #28

Good Monday, all!

Today marks the kids' first full week back at school... I'm still dragging my feet to get into the routine of rush-rush-rush in the mornings... "did you brush your teeth?"  "don't forget to put your lunch into your school bag!"  "whaddayamean you don't want a sandwich?  You just watched me make it!  You're gonna eat it!"  "no, those clothes don't match together!"

Doesn't everyone with school-age children have those sweat-inducing kind of mornings? ha!

I am very happy to report that Thomas excused himself from our dinner table last night with a lispy: "maman, je veux aller à la toilette, s'il vous plait."  (mom, I'd like to go to the washroom, please.)  He looked so proud of himself, we were all beaming, and maybe even clapping.  Language does not come easy for our little guy.  We have been working with him all summer to get him ready with some basic phrases for his french kindergarten... this is..... a start :)

In crafty news, I'm happy to be joining in the retrosketches fun for the second week in a row:

That "hi y'owl" greeting cracks me right up.

The polaroid frame (by PTI) got a paisley treatment, courtesy of a new (to me) stamp set by Paper Smooches.  I colored in the paisleys and the background with copics.  I actually die-cut 5 polaroid frames and adhered them one on top of the other for a much chunkier frame.  When it was all dry, I dry-brushed a very thin layer of glaze over-top.  I like the texture and aging effect it had on the paisleys.

Inside the polaroid, I stamped an owl (and since I'd just used my CSS owl, I decided to stamp with Lawn Fawn's this time.  I believe in equal opportunity for all owls. hee hee.)  I wanted to keep the card very monochromatic, so the owl, log, and even inside of the sentiment banner, were all colored with the same 3-4 copic markers... the speech bubble was stamped in a soft brown (literally, hero arts' "soft brown shadow ink.")

I hope "y'owl" like it! *groan*

lawnscaping challenge #35

First off, thanks to everyone who left sweet comments about my Gallery Idol card.  And, if you haven't voted yet, would you vote for me?  I would love to have the chance to compete again next week!

Click on my "girl on fire" card over at the right ------------------------------------------------>

Voting ends on Thursday!

I thought I'd join in the fun over at the Lawnscaping blog - where we're asked to use patterned paper.

The patterned paper treatment on my card was inspired by *this card* of Nichole Heady's.  I adhered 2 different patterned papers, wrong sides together and flipped the one over to reveal a fun little scene.

I used "critters in the forest," "gnome sweet gnome," and the grass from "critters in the 'burbs" to create the scene.

I may be absent for a few days again - we're taking our son for minor ear surgery in the morning.  His daddy took him out for a late-night happy meal at McD's (since he won't be able to eat or drink starting at midnight all the way until it's all done and over with) - which means that right now, Thomas is happy as a clam :)

Thanks for peeking!

Lawnscaping guest designer!

Happy Monday, all!

I'm so thrilled to be guest designing for the lawnscaping challenge today!

The fabulous sponsor is... Lawn Fawn!

And here is what I created:

I had so much fun making my little scene!  I started out by stamping the frame (from "fanciful frames") onto a piece of white cardstock, and masked around the edged to be able to stamp the log + hedgehog (from "critters in the forest") and the mushroom house (from "gnome sweet gnome") without bleeding out of the picture frame. Once all the elements were colored in, I stamped a wood-grain pattern, distressed the frame and then cut it out.  The patterned paper behind the frame is meant to look like wallpaper... crazy wallpaper :)  

Maybe they have wallpaper like that at gnomie hotels and he's just seen that painting that made him smile for his home... hee hee.

And the props?  They are there to prove how much I love gnomes... my daughter's 1st birthday party was wood-land themed... the sugar gnomes were cake-toppers!  And I'll use any excuse to whip up a batch of cupcakes... these were banana-flavored, with a honey-cinnamon frosting... yum!

Hope you play along with the build-a-scene lawnscaping challenge!

Retro sketch #4.

I was pretty loose with the retro sketch this week:

I enlarged the focal panel quite a bit, but I did follow the sketch the rest of the way ;)

I started out with a 3.25-inch white circle, and stamped a little lawn fawn scene on it.  I used the new frog from "critters ever after" and had him sit on the log from "critters in the forest."  The bird and tulip are from "gnome sweet gnome" and the grass clumps, from "critters in the 'burbs."  I did some simple copic-coloring and then masked all of the elements so that I could stamp the hero arts envelope pattern overtop in blue ink.

Since I was inspired by the retro sketch of the week, I'm also throwing this card into the current lawnscaping challenge - all about being inspired by fellow crafters.

Hope you like it!  Have a great day!

lawnscaping challenge: dimension

Hi all!

I hope I can safely say that the "loopy" feeling is calming into something much more normal.  Yay for chicken soup, and echinacea!  (Although, I was babysitting my niece and nephew yesterday afternoon, and she's only 11 months and was quite snotty.  And fully kissing my 17 month old on the lips.  And wiping runny nose gunk into my ear - don't even ask me how she managed that one, haha!  So we might be in for another round of something... 'tis the season!)

The current lawnscaping challenge is to add dimension to your project using layers, foam tape, or whatever else you can dream up:

Here's my take on the challenge:

You can't really tell by looking straight on, but that ornament-looking die-cut is l-a-y-e-r-e-d.  I'll show you a different view:

See?  layered.  I cut 5 PTI "tag sale 4" shapes from an old granola box that I conveniently had lying around (and now there's a mound of granola bars on the shelf of my pantry...) and stuck them all together to create a very thick chipboard piece.  I always thought this tag looked more like an ornament, so I ran with it and made a Christmas card :)

I paper-pieced the tree from lawn fawn's "critters in the forest" and the prezzies and bear (with gift-bow, I might add) from the "pa ra pa pum pum" set.  I added foam squares to one of the presents, and to the bear, to give even more dimension to the project.

The sentiment is from PTI's "merry little christmas" set, and I curved it to fit the contour of my tag shape.  Don't you love that you can do that with clear stamps?  I also stamped a PTI sheet music image into the background, but it's very faint in the pictures.

The patterned paper is SU, which I stitched around and adhered to an SU "cherry cobbler" mat, before adhering it all to a very vanilla card base.

Thanks for looking!

Is it okay...

if I show you another Christmas card?  It's been about a week, right?  I've shown you other stuff, right?

I've heard that *some people* don't want to think about Christmas yet.  Their prerogative.  But I can't help myself *twirlsaboutsingingattopvolumeit'sthemostwonderfultimeoftheyear*

This weekend, I'm going to start some Christmas crafting.  I want to make each of the children a "black apple doll."  I found the template on Martha Stewart's website, and it looks easy enough (famous last words, right?) The problem is that I can't really sew.  I know I've fooled you with all of the card-stitching I've been doing, but apart from sewing on cards, and making the occasional simple throw-pillow.... I just hope this isn't a case of ambition far-outweighing skill level :)  Are you planning any homemade gifts for the holidays?  Care to share?

ps.  For today's card, I used lawn fawn's "winter fox" and, with a bit of masking, layered the pine from "critters in the forest" behind it.  The embossed snowflakes are from an SU embossing folder, and I dabbed some light blue ink over the embossed parts to highlight them more...

Thanks for looking!