Design Team Friday at JustWordz

Hello again, my friends!  It's Friday again and that means it's time for the JustWordz Design Team to inspire and entice you!  Yes, we want to entice you to get creative with your crafting and, if possible, to try something new or outside your normal comfort zone so be sure to visit each of my teammates to see what they have made to inspire you this week.  Links to their blogs can be found in my left sidebar.  If you haven't already, be sure to visit the JustWordz website too as Kim has a project posted as well.  Today is the last day to order the two new stamps sets at the pre-sale price.  Tomorrow, the price will be going up a couple of dollars but I'm not sure when they will start shipping.

This week, our assignment was to make a shaped card using any image and any sentiment we wanted to as long as we used the Everyday Sentiments stamp set.  Well, let me tell you, I have hardly touched my cutting machines since  I discovered Copic markers last year and I practically had to re-learn how to use the Silhouette.  I already had a few shaped cards saved to my library so it was easier than having to design one for the Cricut.  Don't get me wrong, I still love my machines and I enjoy cutting not quite as much as I enjoy coloring.  When I color, the piece I am creating is more of a work of art than the die cut ones.  I have to choose the colors and lay them down in layers on the image I'm using, blending and building the colors until I get exactly the effect I want.  Each piece kind of takes on its own personality and is really my own design when it's finished.  I'm not saying that it doesn't take talent and an eye for art to create with the cutters; it's just a different kind of art.  I enjoy both methods though so I will never tire of creating the same types of projects all the time.

Sooooo... after a few practice cuts and adjustments to my Silhouette, here is the card I came up with.  It's a simple design with only a couple of layers but I really like the way it turned out.

In case you have somehow missed it in several of my earlier posts, here are pictures of the two new stamp sets that are being released and will start shipping soon.  They look like they are going to be every bit as versatile and fun to use as the Everyday Sentiments set that we have been using these past months.  I can't wait to play with them!

That's about it.  All cardstock was by Core-dinations and Recollection.  Bling by Recollections, rhinestones by Recollections.  Don't forget to visit my teammates and this afternoon, I'll be posting two new entries for the Progressive Freebies Challenge at CDAC this afternoon after I have photographed them and edited the photos for posting.  Until later...

Happy crafting!
Anniebee

For the Boys

How about something for the boys in our lives?  I don't know about you but I seem to have more problems designing gifts and cards for the guys than I do for the ladies.  Well, today I have for your viewing pleasure three birthday cards and a Bosses' Day card that I made.

First up, is one I made for my grandson's birthday last year.  This little guy has been into automobiles since he learned to crawl so what could be more fitting for him than Pixar Cars?  The images were, of course, cut on my Cricut Expression from the Disney Pixar Cars cartridge.  The background was pieced together from different colored sheets of Recollections cardstock and hand colored using a combination of Copic markers and Prismacolor pencils.  The red and silver foil cardstock is by DCWV.  The lettering other than the Cars logo and "Hot Roddin" are from George and Basic Shapes and Storybook.

Next, we have a birthday card for my son, Jason, who is an avid off-roader.  The diamond plate background on this card was embossed using the Cuttlebug diamondplate folder.  The paper beneath it is from DCWV's Rockstar stack.  "It's Your Day" and the other lettering inside are from the George and Calligraphy Collection cartridges, respectively.  "Celebrate!" was cut on my Silhouette using three colors of glitter card stock.  It as well as the silver foil cardstock are from DCWV  .  The truck is a die cut sticker purchased from Michael's.

(I'm not sure why Blogger insists on turning some of my pictures on end but the second picture is a rpime example.  If anyone knows how to correct this, please let me know as I find it most irritating!)

Now, we have a birthday card I created for a male co-worker.  I'm sorry but I don't recall what papers I used on this one but the blue card and envelope are from one of Jo-Ann's Value Packs and the bronze colored metallic paper was open stock purchased from Michael's.  All of the lettering on it is cut from Plantin Schoolbook and I believe that both the marquee and the pretty flourish image are from Home Accents.  The first image is the card front and envelope.  

Last, but not least, is a card I made for my former boss.  He had a cute figurine of Mickey Mouse in his office that his daughter had given him when she was very young.  It was that figurine and his love of antique cars that inspired my card.  The car and Mickey are from the Mickey and Friends cartridge, all of the lettering is from Plantin Schoolbook and the little flowers are from Walk In My Garden.  The pastel card and envelope are from Michael's, all cardstock except for the brown and silver foil are from Recollections.  The foil cardstocks are from AC Specialty Papers.  The shading was done with Prismacolor pencils.

Other than putting Mickey and the car together, all of these cards are relatively simple to make.  I hope you enjoyed them.  The week is over halfway gone already, can you believe it?  Tomorrow, maybe I'll do something similar to this, only for the girls... and maybe I won't!  Thanks for stopping by!

Anniebee

And Now For Something Completely Different...

I thought I would share something different with you today.  I'm not really a scrapbooker but I have created a few pages over the past year.  Most of them have been given to family members as gifts and alas! I forgot to take pictures of them before I gave them away.  I do have a couple of pages that I managed to photograph however.  The one I'm showing today is the first page I made and as you can tell, the photograph is quite old.
This was my younger sister, Patty, on her wedding day in 1978 at the Botanical Gardens in Fort Worth.  I have always loved this picture of her.  She and I mixed like oil and water when we were kids but over the years, we became best friends and when I lived in Houston during the 23 years of my marriage, she was the one who came to visit me regularly.  She was my crafting buddy in addition to being my BFF and confidante.

Sadly to say, I lost her in May of last year, less than a week after my birthday, 3 days before the 9th anniversary of my mother's passing and 9 days before the 7th anniversary of my father's passing.  Patty lost her 6 year long battle with breast cancer and I still haven't gotten over her loss.  Sorry to be a little nostalgic here but I think a little history is called for in this instance.  Anyway, because I love this picture so much, I decided to use it as the subject for my first layout.

The background paper is by Karen Russell for Creative Imaginations and as you can see from the second photo, it was originally a black line drawing on a cream colored background.  I decided to color in the floral motif using Prismacolor pencils (this was before I got my Copic markers) to bring out the red rose my sister is holding in the photo.  I'm not sure how well this detail is captured in these pictures but the coloring really changed the overall look of the layout.  Red is not a color usually associated with weddings, other than Christmas weddings that is, but I wanted to accentuate it in this layout so I used touches of it in the flowers and in the paper strip design on the left side.  My Cutter Bee Circle Scissor was used to cut the circle a little over half way around and then I used a very sharp craft knife and detail scissors to cut out the background around the floral motif so that the picture would show behind the cut outs. Another circle, about a half inch smaller in diameter was cut and placed behind the page to create the red frame for the photo.  I used glass pebbles and rhinestones for the centers of the flowers, added the tiny pink rhinestone heart, journal tag and if you have checked out my post from 2/24 you'll recognize the title, "Always and Forever" which I cut on my Silhouette.

And here's how it turned out:

It's much prettier and the colors are more vibrant than the picture shows.  I thought it turned out pretty well for my first attempt.  Thanks for looking.  I look forward to reading your comments.

Have a fantastic week!
Anniebee