FBBC Challenge 208 - April Showers

 Happy Monday and welcome to another Monday challenge!

Challenge #208 April Showers

This Weeks Sponsor

Winner will receive their choice of 3 digital images

~This Weeks Challenge~

April Showers

Create a project using an umbrella

To qualify for the prize, be sure to use at least 1 Cricut cut on your project and if it's not obvious, let us know what cartridge you used.

Here is my project for the week:

I used a very cute digi image from Crafty Sentiments - our sponsor!! which I watercoloured in with Distress Inks and Distress Markers.  The image is printed in brown ink and I didn't have any problem with any bleeding of the printed image, which I printed on regular white cardstock.

The flower is a rub-on by Kaisercraft and I cut the umbrella from the Create A Critter cartridge.  I inked the edges of the patterned paper with some Distress Inks to add some highlights.

I also watercoloured the background by first spritzing watercolour paper with water lightly and then spritzing with Dylusions Inks, which I then blended by using a baby wipe.  The sentiment is a rub-on by Kaisercraft.

I'm getting very excited about the upcoming Watercolor For Cardmakers class at Online Card Classes and wanted to practice some techniques - I'm so happy with how they turned out!

Be sure to check out the FCCB blog to see what other delightful projects our Design Team has come up with and add your own umbrella project.

Happy Crafting!

Karla

Have a Great Day Watercolour Card

Hi all, hope you're having a good weekend so far! It has been snowing all day here today- I'm not sure if Spring is ever coming! 

Thought I'd share this card with you today. I wanted to practice some watercolouring techniques to get ready for the Warercolors for Cardmakers class over at Onlinecardclasses.com, which starts May 5. 

To  add some sparkle, I placed a piece of double sided tape above the patterned paper strip and coated it with glitter. 

I stamped an outline of a Penny Black stamp on watercolour paper with clear embossing powder and swiped on watercolour paints. The embossing powder acted as a resist, which looks so neat! 

The card layout is based on this month's sketch from SEM (see the link below). 

Scrapping Everyday Miracles - April Card Sketch

I'm also entering this card into the Wednesday challenge at Simon Says Stamp - Clean and Simple. 

http://www.simonsaysstampblog.com/wednesdaychallenge/

Happy Crafting!

Karla 

Brighten Up My Day!

I've been enjoying all the bright rainbow colours lately, and I was inspired to create this card. I used a Graphic 45 balloon stamp, which I coloured with Distress markers, as my focal image and I stamped 3 hearts that I covered with glossy accents. I stamped the cloud outlines on the card front and, after making a mask on a separate piece of paper, sponged ink through to colour the clouds in.

I stamped a sunshine peeking from behind the clouds and a sentiment in black and then rounded my corners.

We are still hoping for the sun to peek through the clouds today! 

Hope you all have a lovely weekend :)

Happy Crafting! 

Karla 

Challenges:

One Stitch At A Time-  Favorite Things (Distress Products!)

DL Art - Thankful Thursday April Linky Party

Just B Creative Crazy - April Linky Party

Pause, Dream, Enjoy - Anything Goes

Simon Says Wednesday - Clean and Simple

Mojo Monday Watercolour Card

I'm gearing up to take the Watercolor For Cardmakers class at Online Card Classes that starts May 5th and wanted to practice with my supplies.  I bought a set of 12 watercolour tubes from Michaels and a few brushes and had some fun today painting away.

 This card was based on the sketch over at Mojo Monday this week.

I embossed the Tim Holtz sentiment with clear embossing powder on watercolour paper and then swiped my paint over top.

I used a plastic slide I had from very long ago.... as my element on the left side and placed a paper flower and button coloured with alcohol ink inside.

I found some tie-dyed ribbon and added it along with some green Stickles across my card.

I am really looking forward to learning lots of watercolouring techniques and can't wait for class to start!

Happy Crafting!

Karla

FCCB Challenge 207 - Easter or Use a Bunny

 Happy Monday and welcome to another Monday challenge!

Challenge #207 Easter or use a Bunny

This Weeks Sponsor

Aurora Wings Etsy Store

Winner will receive $10 in digital images

~This Weeks Challenge~

Easter

Create a project using a bunny or an Easter project

To qualify for the prize, be sure to use at least 1 Cricut cut on your project and if it's not obvious, let us know what cartridge you used.

Here's my project:

I used the Wild Violet Sprite from the Aurora Wings (our sponsor!!)

I coloured this cute digi stamp with Prismacolour coloured pencils.

The eggs were cut from the Art Philosophy Cricut cartridge, sponged with Distress Inks, embossed with Cuttlebug folders and then Distressed once again to highlight the embossing. 

For the inside, I stamped on a label die cut from the Art Philosophy cart and Distress Ink'd around the edges. 

Be sure to check out the FCCB blog to see all the amazing Easter projects from our fabulous design team, and, of course, to enter your own crafty Easter project! 

Hope you all had a wonderful Easter :)

Challenges - 

DL Art Thankful Thursday Challenge #130 - Easter

Just B Creative Crazy - April Linky Party

Cuttin and Stampin - Easter

Pause, Dream, Enjoy - Anything Goes Linky Party #8

Happy Crafting!

Karla

Crochet Coffee Cozy

I have been feeling the need to dig out my crochet supplies lately and finally sat down to check out Ravelry.com. I'm so impressed at all the lovely designs posted there! They have a large library of free patterns to choose from as well.

I used a fun variegated yarn to create this quick and easy coffee cozy with a scalloped edge. I forgot how relaxing and easy it is to sit down with some yarn and a hook (and some tea of course) and create something fun. 

Another source of crochet inspiration is the Marly Bird podcast http://www.blogtalkradio.com/yarnthing.rss. She always has interesting guests in the yarn industry and lots of books and websites to check out.

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend!

Happy crafting!

Karla

FCCB Challenge 205 - Spring Cleaning

 Happy Monday and welcome to another Monday challenge!

Challenge #205 Spring Cleaning

This Weeks Sponsor

Silly Shells Stamp Set

~Design Team Inspiration~

~This Weeks Challenge~

Spring Cleaning

Create a project using a cartridge or cut you have never used before.

To qualify for the prize, be sure to use at least 1 Cricut cut on your project and if it's not obvious, let us know what cartridge you used.

Here is my card for the week:

I used the Heritage cartridge and a cut I've never used before, the barn silhouette. I layered Kraft cardstock on a black card base after sponging the edge with brown Distress Ink. After layering my die cut and stamp, I used a Dyan Reavely zigzag stamp for a faux stitching line. 

I used the cow stamp from Mark's Finest Stamps (our sponsor!)- the Primitive Farm set.

I layered a frame cut, from the Heritage cartridge as well, over a stamped sentiment from MFS, the Primitive Farm set, and placed it on the inside of my card, which I had sponged with red Distress ink and added another zigzag stamp to. 

Being a country girl myself and having spent a good deal of time on my cousin's farm growing up, this card brings back a lot of good memories!

I hope you all have a good Monday - be sure to head over to FCCB to check out all the wonderful projects our design team has come up with and if you're inspired to try a new cut please play along!

Happy Crafting!

Karla

Birthday Craftiness

Well, I keep waiting, so patiently, for spring to come, but for some reason we keep getting teased with a sunny day here and a blizzard of snow and cold there!

My big girl just turned 26 on Sunday! She came over with the family - her fiancé, my sister, and my niece to celebrate with supper. Her request - soup. While you may be thinking, ugh, it actually turned out to be a fun, make your own event. Stephanie is vegan, my husband eats Paleo, her fiancé has a nut allergy and of course with a 5 and 2 year old there comes more culinary challenges!

This was probably one of the easier meals I've prepared as everything was separate and people could simply serve themselves.  For ingredients we had rice noodles, red peppers, cooked onions, steamed broccoli slaw, cilantro, barbecued beef, barbecued chicken, soy ''chicken', carrots, sprout, French fried onions, vegetable broth and chicken broth. I set out different kinds of sauces and spices and each person made their own.

For dessert I made vegan oatmeal vanilla cupcakes with Wow Butter icing (which is a peanut butter substitute made with toasted soybeans) and vegan chocolate cookie sandwiches with the same icing in the centre. They were really good! I have not had much success with vegan baking, so I was impressed. The recipe, somewhat modified, was from www.thisrawsomeveganlife.com.

I got inspiration for her cute birthday card from a post on Craftsy by Ready, Set, Love. I sponged Distress Ink around the edge of a Kraft piece of cardstock after rounding the corners and then stamped the bike from an American Crafts stamp set. The sentiment and arrow is from the Simon Says Stamp set included with the February 2014 card kit. I used bakers twine for the balloon strings and stamped a heart outline stamp on patterned papers for the balloons, popping them up with foam tape.

The inside and envelope:

For Stephanie's birthday gifts I wanted to paint her a canvas.  I knew she loved these bright colours and when I saw Vicky Papaioannou's beautiful art journal page I just knew it would be perfect made into a canvas! I used acrylic paints on the background and cut the balloons and clouds out of patterned paper, highlighting them with Gelatos and using Mod Podge to apply them to the canvas.  The star stencil is from Heidi Swapp and I used homemade texture paste. I cut the letters out with the Kate's ABC's Cricut cartridge and used a white gel pen to add highlights to the word SKY.

Steph loved it!

For her second gift I made a rag doll modified from a pattern in the Create and Decorate magazine. She's got little stripy legs and I gave her red yarn hair with piggy tales.  I painted the nose and mouth on and added button eyes.

All in all it was a fun birthday for my girl! It makes you realize how quick time flies and to appreciate everyday you have with your little ones :)

Challenges:
Simon Says Monday Challenge - Anything Goes
Simon Says Wednesday Challenge - Birthday
DL Art Thankful Thursday April Linky Challenge
Just B Creative Crazy April Linky Challenge

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend!

Happy Crafting!

Karla