MPS Stairstep Birthday Card

Here's another birthday card I made for my friend's granddaughter.  The images on this stairstep card are all digital stamps from Michelle Perkett Studio.  I just recently bought a Martha Stewart Scoring Board and I'm having a ball with it!  I've made stairstep cards before, but this makes things soooooo much easier!  If you want to try your hand at one of these cards, there are many tutorials for them on the Internet.  I usually start first with Split Coast Stampers for any specialty cards I want to make and go from there. 

The image on the left is the Posie Fairy.  All of the images are colored with colored pencils and blended with baby oil.  Posie Fairy's flowers and wings were given dimension with Crystal Glaze.  A fairy must have some bling, so Stickles were added to her hair for highlights.  The Dream dragonfly was a freebie that Michelle gave to us in her Paper Craft Planet group. 

The card base is on Remember When textured card stock and layered with some design papers from my stash. Can you tell that Alayna loves purple?  The flowers and brads in the center were from my stash, and they were all enhanced with some Icicle Stickles. I found these wonderful deep purple and gold fibers on a hair tie that I took apart, and the light pink sparkle fibers were from my stash. The plastic hearts, dragonfly and butterfly were from Hobby Lobby, and the corner punch is made by Fiskars.  The purple coated wire was in a unknown kit that I bought a couple years ago, and the butterfly charm is another stash item.

 Meadow Fairy is one of my favorite fairies.  The techniques that are used on her are the same that are used on Posie Fairy.  To the left of her is another fabulous freebie from Michelle, the Create Butterfly.  Below Meadow Fairy is a birthday cake that I painted with dimensional acrylic paint and the Happy Birthday sentiment which are yet more freebies from Michelle.  As you can tell, membership has perks at Michelle's Paper Craft Planet group!  I love being able to coordinate several of her images to work together in my creations.

Here's a side view of the card.  All of the edges were inked with Adirondack Eggplant ink to add a bit of richness.  Since the lighter purple DP had stitching on it, I added dark purple stitching to the left side with a purple gel pen to coordinate the paper better.  I realize that this card is a bit over the top for the average birthday card, but isn't it fun to play with a card when you get a chance; especially when it's for a very special little girl?

I entered this in the Michelle Perkett Challenge Blog for  the Either or Challenge.

~~  Lee  ~~

Michelle Perkett Studio Earth Day Blog Hop

Welcome to my part of the Michelle Perkett Studio Earth Day Blog Hop!  I'm so happy that you decided to join us in celebrating this wonderful occasion.  If you arrived here from Ellen's blog, you are in the right place.  If not, you may want to go to the beginning of the hop at Michelle's blog here.  Even though so many people are realizing the importance of recycling and conserving energy, there's always more that we can do.  You don't have to have tons of plastic bins full of recycled materials to know that you are doing a part to help keep things out of the landfills. 

One of the major ways I recycle is to think twice before I toss things out.  Who would've thought that packaging for toothbrushes would yield something that could be used in a card?  I punched out the bubbles from this package to be used on my card.  One of Michelle's beautiful mermaids, Tropical Rhapsody, is the digital image that I used for this card.  She was colored with colored pencils and blended with baby oil that is a bit more earth friendly instead of the "odorless" mineral spirits that is a bit too chemical for me. 

My kids used to collect all kinds of shells when we vacationed, so I was able to use lots of these little beauties on Tropical Rhapsody's seaweed garland.  The seaweed was borrowed from a dried flower arrangement that had seen it's better days.  You must have some fish to swim with the mermaids, so I took apart an earring that I had lost the match to and attached them to the card.  I couldn't resist carrying the recycling theme a bit further by attaching the recycling symbol from the packaging of a ream of card stock that I normally use for my digi images. 

I like to keep an assortment of cards ready to go that will only need a quick sentiment attached to it to make ready to go.  Michelle's images are versatile enough that they can be used for so many occasions.  Instead of making one card at a time, I usually make several like cards at the same time so I have a supply of extra cards to use.  This also helps save on energy.  There are so many ways we can practice conservation, so with just a little forethought, you too could become a part of the solution!

Since I made you wait for the pics (yeah! I was finally able to load them...unfortunately it was operator error, not Blogger as I first thought!), I decided to post another card.  This one the digital image Pearl, also from Michelle Perkett Studio.  I used colored pencils to color her also.  The Make A Wish charm was taken from a card I received a couple years ago.  The green bubbles were taken from pieces of a kid's toy.  All of the rest is pretty self-explanatory.

Your next stop on the hop is with the multi-talented Betty. She does some real awesome drawing that are beyond belief! If you get lost along the way, you can always go back to Michelle's blog to find out who's next.

~~  Lee  ~~

Happy Earth Day!!!

Don't forget to stop back here on Sunday, April 25th for the Michelle Perkett Studio Earth Day Blog Hop!  Come check out the blogs in the hop to get some inspiration on how recycled materials can be used in your card making.  We hope to give you lots of ideas for items to use, so you can help us celebrate Earth Day everyday!

Have you ever thrown something away and later thought that would've been perfect for the project you're working on?  I constantly use recycled items like ribbons that were tied around gifts I've received, charms from parts of jewelry that have broken, vellum & other papers that I see in magazines or in junk mail, pieces or parts of toys and more.  Old clothing is a great source for buttons, pockets and lots of interesting ribbons and trims.  How about using everday household products to create your cards like stamping with bleach, create background papers with things like shaving cream that are speckled with reinkers and then pressed onto the card stock, spraying spray starch onto card stock and then sprinkle with Pearl Ex and spread with a sponge brush or maybe even using masking tape and ink pads to make paper look like leather?  These things are just a few items that can be used in our paper crafting. 

When you think of the amount of packaging that we throw away from the paper crafting products that we buy, don't we owe it to ourselves to try to use some of the packaging in our creations?  I save the acetate from packaging to make shaker cards and to stamp my scenery stamps onto to help me put all the parts together first without having to waste tons of paper.  Many people are already saving chipboard from packaging for their diecut machines.  Unfortunately, manufacturers use excess packaging to make their products looks larger so they will get noticed by us.  The next time you bring home new supplies try to think twice before you instantly toss everything into the trash.

Earth Day is a day to celebrate different ways that we can band together to make changes in the way that we normally operate.  Stop using those plastic shopping bags and bring your own reusable bags.  Turn off the water while you're brusing your teeth.  Turn the heat down or the air conditioning up a couple degrees from the temperatures that you normally choose.  Combine as many of your errands together or carpool so you can to save on gas and emissions.  Become knowledgeable about the world around us, and see if there is more you can do to help make this place a better world to live in!  Happy Earth Day everyone!

~~  Lee  ~~

BTW...Happy Birthday to my only brother, Dave, and my nephew, Danny.  Love you guys!

Operation Write Home Challenge

Here's another challenge that's issued to all of you that make cards for Operation Write Home. 

"This is a short challenge...and it's got a specific goal! Our shippers need to keep up with the anytime cards as well as the wonderful grad and Dad cards...so we need your help in rounding out those boxes! What's an anytime card? Thinking of you, hello, birthday, love, miss you, anniversary, etc...as well as blank. All those non-holiday types.

To be eligible for the prize drawing, you need to do the following:

Include at least half anytime cards. (It can be all anytime cards if you wish.)

Include at least two AnyHero cards.

On your packing slip, be sure to write that it's for the Make Someone's Day challenge!

Ship early enough that they arrive on or before Monday, May 10th. And with the slow mail we've had lately, you may want to give it a few extra days cushion!

If you'd like to go that extra mile (though this gets no extra entries since it's no requirement), include a donation for shipping. That keeps these boxes heading out overseas to our heroes!"

Operation Write Home

 

Marcy has been kind enough to offer awesome donations of FIVE different groups of items which include Stampin' Up! stamp sets!  So don't delay!  Get those boxes full of cards in and you may be one of the five lucky winners of this awesome challenge!

 

~~  Lee  ~~

Stampscapes II Peoplescapes Swap from Ineke

I received another wonderful swap today from the Stampscapes II Yahoo group.  The theme this time was peoplescapes which is to stamp people in the more prominet position as well as using our Stampscapes rubber stamps.  This is a wonderful way to help group members think outside of the box.

This awesome scene was made by Ineke Sloof from the Netherlands.  Although the spotlight of this scene is the Stampscapes stamps, Ineke sent me a history of the The People of Laaf; one of which is spotlighted in this scene.  I wanted to share a shortened version of this story with you. 

It seems that these peace-loving people lived somewhere above the North Pole long, long ago.  The Mother Lot was married to Father Laat and she had the powers to make them all immortal when they grew old and ran out of steam.  Unfortunately, when the North Pole became covered with ice, Father Laaf realized that the cold would kill them.  So they dug deep in the earth to the lava center where it was warm, and Mother Lot and her children went deep into these tunnels to stay warm. 

Unfortunately, Father Laaf stayed on the earth looking for his  dear wife and children not knowing they were safe below, and the temperatures dropped to 60 degrees below zero.  He almost made it to the tunnel after realizing they were probably safe, but he was too late.  The family did retrieve him, and they then began a journey over thousands of years of occasionally coming to the surface to look for a place where they all could live in harmony.  

In 1989, they did find a wonderful place called the Efteling in the Netherlands.  This is an amusement park that is one of Europe's oldest and most attractive.  They have lived there happily ever since, but occasionally Mother Lot will let some of the children travel to other lands that they've heard the visitors speak about.  Many of the children come to the U.S. for new adventures, and Mother Lot checks in on them from time to time.  She asks that all that see them be kind since they have spent so much time underground and have much to learn.

I'm sorry if I hacked this story to pieces, so if any of you want to read the full history, you can find it here.  If you know the language and want to check out the Efteling Amusement park, you can see it here.  I want to thank Ineke for this awesome scene and let her know that it will be treasured on my wall along with other swap scenes I've also received from other group members.

~~  Lee  ~~

Midnight Madness Blog Candy Alert

You won't want to miss this chance at some awesome blog candy over at Midnight Madness Sketch Challenge!  You can win up to eight entries to this blog candy by following all three steps.  This blog candy is offered to help spread the word about  Midnight Madness on the High Seas Caribbean Cruise vacation in September. 

If you're wondering what the candy is, how about a new Pink Dreamkuts Zutter Cutter!!!  Hurry on over and get your entries in now, so you don't miss the drawing the first week of May.  Priscilla will add more craft candy to the pot for every entry over 50!  This Zutter Cutter is worth over $100, so don't miss out on this awesome machine!

~~  Lee  ~~

Easter 2010

I spent Easter with my family out at my youngest daughter's farm after we all went to church.  It was such a beautiful day that the squirt guns that the grandkids got from the Easter bunny were put to good use! 

As you can see, they had a great time!  The oldest tried to hide behind the hot tub, but needless to say his little brother found him & here he was giving Bailey his come play with me look.

The baby duck and goose were having a good time following the kids until Bailey caught one (this was one of the turkeys that he caught).  As you can tell, the weather was in the 80s to the kids delight!

The kids couldn't wait any longer, so they had to go outside for their Easter egg hunt.  Then inside to check out what they got & to see what Grandma Lee had brought them in their baskets.  Sully played the Hulk when he opened his new Transformer.  Now if he could just open those horrible CD packages for us!

Next it was time to go outside and work off some of the food.  The guys played softball for quite a while with Chloe and Bailey.

 

While they were playing ball, Grandma took Bradley around to meet all of the animals.  He loved to say bawk, bawk like the chicken says along with all of his hilarious motions!  The goat liked his shirt more than the petting he got from my little cutie!

The goose wasn't as pleased to see us especially since he was used to having the yard to himself.  He was happy to hiss us all a goodbye honk!

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter too!

~~  Lee  ~~