Hope you see your rainbow soon

Today I have a little get well card to over on the Card a Day Blog to share here with you.

The sentiment reads "Without a little rain there would be no rainbows". I could not for the life of me get a picture that showed the sentiment clearly... sorry.

I used Pacifica cardstock for my base (it's a 4" square card). The green strip is Olive cardstock and the ribbon is an Offray brand ribbon that I've had in my stash for a very long time but I think goes absolutely perfect with this card. All of the stamps are from the "A Rainbow" stamp set which is an awesome stamp set for just $6.95!! The rainbow is stamped using a rainbow pigment inkpad I happen to have but our new pigment inks would have worked wonderfully for this too (I realized after I had already inked up my stamp of course).


This could also easily be a pick me up card or a don't lose hope card depending on what you write on the inside.I haven't actually written on the inside of this one yet as I am sticking this one in my stash for when I need it, however a few suggestions would be:

...Hoping you see your rainbow soon.

...Sending an umbrella to make the rain more bearable.

...Chasing the clouds away.

...You may as well dance in the rain while it's here

or I'm sure you could probably come up with something even better!! :)

Please go over to the Card a Day Blog and check out all of the other wonderful cards by the other designers there as well.

Products Used:

It's Your Birthday

Welcome to our January Art Philosophy Blog Hop! We are starting a new year of blog hops for you all featuring Close to My Heart's exclusive Art Philosophy Cricut cartridge.  The Art Philosophy Cricut cartridge is available exclusively through a Close to My Heart consultant.

This month we are featuring a "birthday" theme for you.  In this hop, you will see projects featuring this versatile cartridge from many talented crafty ladies!  Enjoy our blog hop!  

If you have just hopped onto my blog, please start at the beginning at Lucy's blog – Love 2 Create.   If you came from Lucy's blog – Love 2 Create then you are in the right place!

For my project today I decided I really wanted to make some cute little cupcake earrings for my cousin as a late birthday present (though I might just hang on to them instead for her daughters first birthday as a congrats on making it through the first year present). She absolutely loves cupcakes and even decorated her daughters bedroom in them (which is why I'm really contemplating saving them for that instead).

Before I show you the pictures though I have to tell you that they aren''t 100% completed as I realized at the very last minute as I was about to put them on the earring hooks to take a photo that I am all out of earring hooks!! GASP... I know. :( So... instead I put them on a few jump rings so you could see how they "will" hang and hopefully you can just imagine them hanging from earring hooks in someones ear. I will be changing the colour of these jump rings to match the colour of the cupcakes better too. :)

I cut these using the cupcake shape on page 70 at 2 1/2" from shrink plastic. I them used mushroom and mountain rose alcohol ink to colour them and then took my alcohol marker blender to draw some swirls through the icing and some lines on the bottom. Hole punched them where I wanted the hook to go and then shrunk them down. They are now approximately 1'. I put a bit of glitter gel on the cupcake icing and a sealer all over (liquid glass works perfect for this but I just sprayed them to save time).

Your next stop on our birthday hop is Jennifer over at 4 Hearts Scrapbooking.

Here is the complete lineup in case you get lost along the way:

1. Lucy ~ Love 2 Create 
2. Darla ~ Caution: Stamping is Contagious 
3. Jennifer ~ 4 Hearts Scrapbooking
4. Priscilla ~ Priscilla's Paperie 
5. Kindred Hearts ~ It Makes Total Cents 
6. Theodora ~ Celebrate Crafts
7. Stephanie ~ The Quilted Scrapper 
8. Traci ~ Paper Crafting 101

Thanks for hopping along with us - we hope we were able to inspire you.

Thank You

Today I have a card over at the Card A Day blog.

I had every intention to share a detailed, intricate and time consuming card for my post, however when I saw the theme "Thank You" I knew I just had to share this instead.

Many people in my life (past and present) have battled with cancer. Anyone that has ever been around anyone battling cancer knows that you always feel so helpless whether you are the one fighting, a friend of or family of.... I decided I would do what I knew I "could" do. Our cancer center has what is called a "Sunshine Room". This is a place where cancer patients and caregivers of those patients can go to relax, receive complementary therapies and chat with counsellors or other various services offered. You can read more about it here. One of the things a few of my friends that battled often asked for were thank you cards as they didn't have the energy/money to go and get thank you cards for the many people who often step in to help in some small or large way for them. I thought it would be nice to make a whole pile of simple thank you cards and give them to the Sunshine Room for patients and caregivers to take for their use as needed/wanted.

Here is the first of many....

The picture does not do this card justice. The "Thanks" stamp is stamped in versamark and embossed with Ranger "Bridal" embossing tinsel so it is very glittery. I used my cotton candy ink and a sponge dauber to go over the embossed area to really make it stand out. I picked up hundreds of the little pink ribbons which are craft foam covered in glitter and will be making my own in other colours for the other various cancer colours. I finished it off by simply rounding 2 of the corners to make is just a little bit different. The card itself measures 3 1/2" square so it's not very big and won't require a huge message to be written inside to fill the space. 

I hope you like my card today, and maybe even feel so inclined to make a few yourself as most cancer centers will accept cards. 

January Cross Canada Hop

Welcome to the first Blog Hop of 2013. Our January Hop is featuring a “Consultants Choice”, so each consultant has a unique project to share with you. I hope that you will take the time to leave comments on our posts, as we love to get feedback from our viewers....whether it was something that you really liked or some new technique that was used that you would like to learn how to do....by leaving us comments, we get to hear what you like, and what you want to see. Thank you… now on to our hop!

If you have just hopped onto my blog, you can start here as this is a circular hop, but if you want to follow us across Canada then please start at the beginning and join Michelle S at  My Creations With  Michelle  If you came from  My Creations With  Michelle then you are in the right place!


For my project I decided to make a card (I know you're all shocked right?? LOL) using a stamp set that has become one of my favourites but will be retiring at the end of this month with the release of the new Spring/Summer idea book "Perfect Day". If you're wondering what other goodies are retiring at the end of the month please check the "Retiring CTMH" tab at the top of my page, currently I have only listed the stamp sets but I promise I will have the rest of the list up by the beginning of next week.

Here is a picture of my card.

I decided not to add a sentiment or anything to the front just yet and left it blank so I could keep this card in my stash for a later occasion as I think this card could easily be used for anything from a sympathy to a thank you card. I also haven't decided whether to leave it like this with the image consuming the entire card front or cut the card front off and mat it with a layer or two... What do you think?

I used my new promarkers of course to colour this but you could use anything to colour this stamp. It looks beautiful in watercolour pencil, chalk, paint or even left blank! A lot of the shading in this set is already there in the stamped image so all the guess work of where to shade is taken care of for you.

The colours I used were: buttercup, warm grey 1, warm grey 2, warm grey 3, warm grey 4, warm grey 5, arctic blue, sky blue, powder blue, azure, true blue, midnight blue, cocoa and cinammon. I could have gotten away with a few less blues but I "oops'd" and had to fix it, plus I am very new to this so just figuring it all out myself.

Here is a picture of a card that I haven't shared here yet done with this same stamp set but coloured with chalk. I did this very quickly the day I received this set... took literally about 10 minutes (mind you I really could have taken the time to line my fence up on the stamp on the right side so it was straight, but I was too excited to play with this set). . 

Side note: I have been using my new promarkers a lot lately (and you can expect to see more and more things done with them as I am truly enjoying them) and have been trying them out on various cardstocks to see what I like and I have to say that our CTMH paper does wonderfully with these alcohol markers (and other including the CTMH ones of course). 

Your next stop on the Cross Canada Hop is Suzette Crop Paper Scissors.

If you get lost along the way, you can head to Michelle S Blog - My Creations With  Michelle as she has the complete blog list.

Thanks for hopping along with us - we hope we were able to inspire you to create your own projects using some of the designs and paper seen along the way. Join us again in February when we will be featuring a 2 page layout.

Products Used:

"Happy Valentine's" Day!

Welcome to our January Stamp of the Month Blog Hop! We are starting a new year of blog hops for you all featuring Close to My Heart's Stamp of the Month.

This month Close to My Heart is offering a stamp set called "Happy Valentine's" throughout the month of January.  This versatile set can be purchased exclusively through a Close to My Heart Independent Consultant for only $5 with a qualifying purchase of $50.  (That’s a $17.95 value!)

This set is just so pretty and has 4 different sentiments included!

In this hop, you will see projects featuring this beautiful stamp set from many talented crafty ladies!  Enjoy  our blog hop!  

If you have just hopped onto my blog, please start at the beginning at Lucy's blog – Love 2 Create.   If you came from there then you are in the right place!

I had so much fun colouring this image. I now have enough coloured in various colours to make MANY cards. :)
Of course it sure helps that I got the entire set of promarkers for Christmas as well as the airbrush system for it.

I only used the largest set of flowers on my card and just cut it apart to position them all where I wanted.

Your next stop on our Valentine's hop is Jennifer ~ 4 Hearts Scrapbooking .

Here is the complete lineup in case you get lost along the way:

1. Lucy ~ Love 2 Create 
2. Darla ~ Caution: Stamping is Contagious
3. Jennifer ~ 4 Hearts Scrapbooking      
4. Priscilla ~ Priscilla's Paperie
5. Theodora ~ Celebrate Crafts 
6. Stephanie ~ The Quilted Scrapper
7. Cat ~ Cat Scrapbooking  
8. Donna ~ Diary of a Scrapbook Addict   
9. Michelle ~ My Creations with Michelle   

Thanks for hopping along with us - we hope we were able to inspire you.