Happy Birthday Joy!

Wowzers, TWO posts in one day! Be sure to scroll down to my first post today to celebrate with some Copic fun!!

Today is my friend Joy's birthday (from Eclectic Paperie and Our Craft Lounge). She is such a sweetie and boy oh boy is she gettin' some birthday love today! Check out Cami's blog HERE to read all about Joy's special surprise. She loves this new Our Craft Lounge Hangin' Loose with Kona set which is available now at Eclectic Paperie. This little turtle is so cute and perfect for summer time cards and projects. Marianne Walker from Our Craft Lounge (and Copic) illustrated this set, way to go Marianne!! I colored in my image using Copic Sketch markers, using Cosmo Cricket's Snorkel patterned paper as my color guide. I love the fun fruit-punchy colors. Since the Snorkel paper was distressed looking, I inked up my image with a Ranger distress pad to give it a little tan color. I cut my image out using Spellbinder's Inverted Scalloped Circle Dies. I love them for summer-y projects, the shape reminds me of the sun.

I finished off my fun pocket card with some machine stitching, juicy, purple Papertrey ribbon, an insert card with some more Snorkel patterned paper and glitter on the beach towel. What a fun card! I'm a little late to the party but I'm so glad I got to participate today. Happy Birthday Joy!!

Hard Work!

It's been a stressful week for my dear hubby at work. He's so good at what he does and works very hard. This week, he got a big promotion and is now the *boss man* as I call him. The promotion came the hard way....by someone else losing their job.....and most likely Eric will have to lay off several other employees very soon. That part disheartens him but it's part of his role. So to be super supportive, I made Eric his favorite lasagna supper and had this card below sitting on the table when he got home last night.
My friends Cami and Joy....and my friend Marianne from Copic....have begun a new venture. They recently released their first stamp sets from their brand new company called Our Craft Lounge. Marianne has put her artistic skills to work by illustrating the images, she's such a creative gal. The girls were kind enough to send me a stamp set to work with and I chose this fun little beaver set called Bubs the Beaver. Be sure to navigate around the website for other fun sets and lots of creative inspiration. Congratulations and good luck to my friends!!!

Here's the inside of the card. I printed the script wording off of my computer and stamped the *hard work* using my JustRite stamps from the Times Roman alphabet and a rectangle wood stamper. I love to use computer journaling mixed with hand stamping. It's a quick and fun way to mix and match fonts.

I colored my image in with Copic markers, using the woodsy patterned papers from Cosmo Cricket for inspiration. I wanted the beaver to look like he's been working hard so I gave him some blushed cheeks. All you have to do to achieve this look is to lay down your base color of brown, and then us a lighter blush color to make some splotches. Just hold the sketch tip of the marker in one spot and it will begin to bleed out the darker brown color. Easy peasy but oh so fun!

Well, this busy little beaver has to get back to work! Have a great day everyone!!