Every day is a gift

As I was walking along the lake nearby I came across a ring of mushrooms. Somehow I have  always been fascinated by mushrooms. The umbrella like tops and the soft soft rings underneath. Nature is a wonder isn't it? And everyday is a gift!
So I decided to color up a mushroom image and make a card.

This is a digi stamp from Make it Crafty.  They do have some wonderful images.
The beautiful sentiment is from paper trey ink (I think from the buttons collection or tag collection I am not sure). It is the perfect sentiment to recapture that  moment.
The tag itself is cut using a nestability. I just snipped off one end.
The mats for the card is recollections Kraft paper while all the papers  are from DCWV green stack (8 x 8 ) .
The card itself is 6.25x6.25 inches. I used a prima flower and stacked it up with  another acrylic flower to then finally added a red heart pearl for the center. The paper clip was from Walmart. I added a big white pearl heart to it.
And of course I loved pulling out my new brother )Costco) sewing machine and adding a decorative stitch to the mushroom square. I added a small satin ribbon to the tag.
Maybe this will stay as a card or I might just add this whole thing as a panel in a scrapbook page. I might just have to go back to that part of the lake again with a camera!

Strut Your Stuff

Hello
This is Pam from Papillon Digital Designs & The Bug Bytes
Today is my turn as a designer at http://shesasassylady.blogspot.com/
Thanks Sheila for giving us all the opportunity to post in your blog

When I went to Florida my friend Michelle had got some wonderful stamps with her and also taught me the way to stamp properly on paper. I loved some of her stamps so much - especially this one by Krafting Kimmy that I had to get some for myself along with Sugar Nelly stamps.
I thought this image would make a wonderful (and a little bit naughty) card to give to hubby on  our 20th wedding anniversary last week.

The image is colored with copics. The pattern paper is one I designed myself and the kit and the post is one of my first post in Papillon Digital Design blog - http://papillondigitaldesigns.com/2010/08/welcome.html .

The peacock feather is a silhouette studio file which is also available at Papillon Digital Designs
I got the pendant from Micheal's and the fiber/ribbon is from India. I have used white gel pen, black sharpie and gold metallic acrylic ink and a brush to embellish the pattern paper and the feather. The oval scallop (image) and the blue oval scallop is a nestability.

A view of the silhouette studio file

Once again Sheila thanks for having me on here.
Hope you all liked the card. Thank you for reading

another card for april alphabet challenge

Here is another card I made for alphabet challenge at the silhouette forum.

This time I used Parchment font to make the butterfly and the border ( I have used letters b, d , f and o for the butterfly and just o for the border) and then for the label mat I used letter o from pass the chex font and welded and then offset it to get the scalloped dark brown mat.

Silhouette forum April challenge

The silhouette forum http://s15.zetaboards.com/Silhouette_Plus/index/ has a challenge every month and this month I decided to take part. You learn a lot by these challenges.  This month's card challenge is take any letters from any font and weld and play with it to make a design from it and then make a card. I used Monterey BT font and used the letters c, v and z. I slanted/slewed them and elongated them and flipped and welded to make a frame and then placed other elements and made this card
I used print and cut feature for pattern including the wood pattern. Offset feature came in very very handy. I loved playing with letters this way. So many unique frame patterns can be made this way. I remember doing this on gypsy in the beginning when we had the old gypsy message board. Oh those fun days!.

Weave in Faith and Happy Easter

Hello
This is Pam from PapillonDigitalDesigns & TheBugBytes today on Shes a Sassylady.
Thank you Sheila on having me as along as a member of your awesome design team. I go slack jawed seeing some of the creations here. So So inspiring!
This month my design day fell on  Good Friday. Also Easter is this Sunday.
Now even if I am from a different religion I believe in the entity called God and I believe in celebrating  festivals from all religion. 
So I wanted to make some cards for both. Easter was easy. But Good Friday had me thinking.
As I ruffled the ultimate words book a particular phrase caught my attention and so ideas around that phrase popped.

Here are my projects

The basket is one I made in Silhouette studio using a template as base as I wanted this particular weave. The file is available in papillondigital designs under the silhouette tab in case you want to download.

1st card

The studio file

The pattern paper is from Oscraps called Moonrise.

Now I backed down  the pattern's transparency as it was too bright and I wanted a paler version for a particular technique I wanted to try on it.

Another look at the silhouette studio file

I wanted to play upon the word thread so I used copic marker and drew in some thread texture. I could have embossed with a stylus further but I did not want to.

I did the same to the pattern paper too and then cut some white burlap to the inner rounded square size and then offset and glued them all down using some pop dots here and there to raise up
the central label.
 You will see I have not cut out the base of the card as I wanted a cardstock which unified all 3 projects. I then decided to go with white and cut the base for the 2 cards using a fiskar cutter.

Once I did that I cut also a small white strip to place/stack/layer the yellow ringed paper  ribbon on and also punched some white flowers using EK success medium and small flower punch. Took copic and colored one of 3 medium flowers and then added a dew drop colored with copic to match the brad on the label.

2nd card was simple

I have used the Beatrice potter print and cut image from silhouette online store and one of their patterns

A peek at the studio file

And then cut the basket. It will fit one egg the way I sized it in SD (if you have cameo you might make it a little bigger). The file can be found at Papillon digital design.

Hope you liked my project today.  Happy Easter

While coloring copic I found

Now even though I am a little bit new to copics I am not new to watercolor. While watercoloring I used to use Viva paper towels for picking up or sopping or mopping up extra watery paint. Also used sometime to lift colors and give fun effects. You can use ordinary tissue or paper towel but in watercolor unless you are careful you find that these leave fibers behind which the brush picks up. Viva is nice and thick  unlike regualr tissues and has no texture unlike the quilted paper towels.
Now a few days back I said how the bee paper got saturated quickly especially with the copic way of blending (not flicking) or while using dark colors like reds.
So I decided why not use these paper towels. (in this case ie with copics you can probably use the tissue too) to mop/blot the colors like red which float on the surface even after just a couple of layers. And I did find this worked a bit. Happy discovery.
Oh and I think I am going to settle on starting with the  medium  colors and most of the time go with flicking method to color.
Still have to ways to go before I get comfortable with copics but I like the improvement so far.
I may even start mixing media soon like bringing pencils and pastels and watrcolor pencils too.

Learning from mistakes

As you saw I posted my final project for the created from color. I almost got everything but forgot one tiny bit. Shadow from the hat on the - forehead. Eeks! I got the hair but by the time I came to color face (which I do last I was so happy that things were going well I forgot ). Thanks to Melissa - CFC (created from color) for bringing this to my attention.
So I have corrected the image. I had to go in with a C3. Now the paper was fairly saturated already so couldn't do much. Always better to get it right the first time I guess and go with gentle touches on paper instead of pushing the color in.
Oh I found that viva paper towels do such a great job of picking up the pooling colors on paper.
I used to use this while watercoloring as this paper towel doesn't leave fiber bits on the image and it is smooth so also does not leave texture and is thicker than tissues. Well it does help with copics too.
My corrected image with C3 and then E11 added. I did not want to blend too much because of the blotching that occurs with too much saturation

The before picture for comparison