Florida life

This morning I went biking, and this is what I saw. It might seem like a weird scene to people who never came to Florida, but that's the way it is where I live. A lot of little (artificial) lakes, sometimes with lily pads or water plants, bordered with palm trees...

It is truly quite beautiful. :-) On my way back I saw 3 orange butterflies in my garden, so I decided to add some butterflies on my card too....

The grass and waterlily are from Melanie's new set "Hip-hop accessories", the butterflies are form her "So hoppy" set. The water ring and the tall grass are from PaperTrey Ink (Madras Design) "Pond life", and the palm tree is from an "Aloha" set from Oriental Trading, the sentiment is from MFT...

I think I'll send it to my parents.

Froggy Love

This is my take on Lauren's sketch-challenge for this week-end ... ( http://laurenm.blogs.splitcoaststampers.com/2008/04/26/happy-day-its-sketch-time/ )

I made it late last night and my eyes were tired, I wanted to keep it very simple, but I still like it in the daylight, LOL!... I thought Melanie's stamps would be perfect for those tiny little circle windows.

The card is, obviously, for my husband!... (even though, technically I am the "froggy" in our couple, since I'm 100% french and he only is 50%... ;-))

Baby& Mom giraffe

If you have been reading my blog for a while, you might remember my giraffe card and the matching memory box that I made for my sister-in-law who was expecting: http://dare2beecreative.blogspot.com/2008/02/melanie-has-contest-going-on-on-her.html

Well I now have a new niece! :-)

I was waiting for my "hip-hop babies" to arrive so that I could make a baby card that would sort of match the previous one since I had a little bit of paper left over! :-)

So here it is! Everything is on dimensionals, and there was quite some cutting, which was a little bit time consuming (one of the reasons why there is only one parent, LOL). The baby carriage I cut out of pattern paper I found at Target, I just added little buttons brads on the wheels. I tried to paper piece the carriage using the same striped paper that is at the bottom of the card but it was "too much" of the same pattern and colors for me. The balloon tie is made with a piece of hemp twine. The bottom lace pattern is made with a Martha Stewart punch.

(As always, click on the pic for the giant version ;-))

Floral Thoughts

The first card is the one I made for the RAK I mentioned yesterday. For Shelly who is fighting an agressive breast cancer. The second one I made for Tammy, her friend who posted the thread asking for a RAK. Because if her dear friend is going through something like that, and she tries and support her the best that she can, it has to be hard on her too.

Things like this make me feel so sad and helpless too... *sigh* :-(

Paper blooms

Something a little different today...

I was playing around yesterday with my new Cuttlebug flower dyes, I cut flowers out in a few different colors and then started playing with them, arranging them together...

Today I played some more with them, and then this card happened.

Parts of the flowers are, of course, on pop-dots... ;-) I'm not too sure about the colors but after all I have flowers with those colors (yellow and dark purple pansies) somewhere in my garden!... :-) I think when you're in doubt it's always ok to do something that you can find in nature! (even though nature comes up with weird color combos sometimes, but that's just the beauty of it!)

I'll send it to a friend of mine in France whose birthday is coming up (perfect sentiment for her! ;-))

Sunflowers- sketch challenge

I found those little sunflowers yesterday at Walmart and thought they would be perfect for a little windowsill project I had in mind.

Lauren dared me to do more sketch challenges to get out of my comfort zone, so I did! ;-)Following the directions from her last one: http://laurenm.blogs.splitcoaststampers.com/2008/04/12/saturday-sketch-time-simple-or-not/, I came up with this card.

I kept it very simple, although it was itching me a little to add a bit of brown satin ribbon somewhere... ;-) I just added a little bit of orange in the center of my premade sunflowers (I will definitely try to make my own soon with brown mini glass pearls in the middle) and cut some grass and leaves (they're of course on pop-dots), I cut my window with 2 Nestabilities nested together, added a tiny bit of light blue chalk ink in the back....

When I see simple cards on other peoples' blogs I'm always stunned, but when I try to make some myself it often feels like they're missing something...This one could maybe use some sprucing up, like a brown mat in the back, but I like it the way it is, so that my window stays the focal point.

I have been thinking about a friend who could certainly use a little bit of sunshine and cheering up, I haven't heard from her in a long time and my guess is she's struggling to keep it all together. It makes me sad, I am far and I feel like I can't do anything to help. :-(

Happy mail and experimenting... :-)

I made this card for Elizebeth, who is a sweetheart, and sent me a big enveloppe of happy mail that I received yesterday! :-) In it were stamps, ribbon and tons of designer paper (and of course a gorgeous card ;-))... So I had to use some of those goodies to make her a thank you card...

Now that the card is finished and I'm looking at it, I can't decide if I like it or not. I think it is a little weird, which makes me love it, LOL, but if I had to re-do it I think I would do some things differently. I would likely lose the scalloped circle and find another way to place my sentiment.

This is something I like when I papercraft though, I never really know where it is taking me. Sometimes the result is completely different from what I had in mind when I started. Sometimes I don't even have something in mind and I just go with the flow... I think I learn so much about me like that, by experimenting, it helps me discover what I like and what I don't, what feels like me and what doesn't... I'm still looking for my style I think, and I know I tend to always use the same old layout that I am comfortable with but I want to do other things !

What I also like is that there isn't really rules in stamping/card making, and that when there are rules they are made to be broken. ;-) I'm really admirative of the stampers that can think out of the box, but I am not quite there yet!... One day maybe! I already have fun looking at the very 1st cards I made about 10 months ago... :-)

French squirrel

This is my belated birthday card for Melanie, by now she should have received it so I can edit my post...

I made the squirrel red because that's the way they are in France and I like them like that! (check this little guy on the left, that's how they look, too cute!... ;-))
This was one of those cards that are really hard to photograph. The colors are totally off and I tried with or without flash (the squirrel is embossed so the flash was reflecting on it...) and photo-editing and nothing makes it look good, so you'll just have to trust me that it does! LOL!... :-)

I've had that ribbon from Michaels in my stash for a while and was saving it just for the right occasion... Now what's going on with the cherry is left to your imagination... maybe the nice little squirrel is putting a cherry on top of the cupcake... maybe the sneaky little squirrel is stealing the cherry! ;-)...

PS: Say hello to my cute kitty cat on the right, he purrs and meows when you rub his belly and his head... :-) He's the brother of the one on Melanie's blog... She said it was OK for me to adopt one too... ;-) I couldn't resist playing with the one she has on her blog every time I visited so I had to have one too!... :-P

Message tin

I finally got to make my 1st tin with Melanie's stamp sets!... :-)

I love those little tins and I love Post-Its...so I wanted to combine the 2... My daughter always steals my post-its and leaves little notes everywhere, so I made her a little "Message tin" with tiny post-its and little gel pens...

Now I just need one of those for myself! :-)

ETA: The alphabet I used to write Naomi is an acrylic set by Martha Stewart (at Michaels) called "sans serif, typeface". It's great because you get several of each letter in uppercase and lowercase (and several numbers too), + a few symbols, and it costs about $12.

Floral punch

Well, Melanie posted the official info for her RAK on her blog: http://melaniemuenchinger.blogspot.com/2008/04/you-made-merris-day-maybe-got-some.html , so I'll share the card I made today for Merri.

It started with an idea from one of Lauren's card, where she had used punches to cut out flowers and then added paper behind on dimensionals. So I made a little frame with my Nestabilities and punched flowers out, and just went from there. The centers of the flowers are actually glued under the flowers. (Click on the pic and watch the details on the giant version, it will makes more sense that way!...)

It's something a little different from what I have been doing, and I really like the end result. The colors are bright in real life and I think it is a happy card which was what I wanted! I hope Merri likes it too. :-)

Yet another b-day princess...

This card is for my niece's 4th birthday, I used the same layout for her and her brother's cards. This one uses "Once upon a time", also by Lizzie Anne.

My ribbon was about as pale as the background paper so I ran my palette ink on it to achieve this dark tone.

Could you guess my niece has jet black hair?... ;-)

Birthday Blast

My twin nephew & niece's 4th birthday is coming up and I made their card yesterday night since I wanted it to leave today. I was tired and it took me forever, since I was moving in slow motion it seems! I went to bed at 2:30 am, but the cards went in the mailbox as planned today!! I hope they get them on time! :-)

The 1st one is for my nephew, very simple design and "Out of this world" stamps set by Lizzie Anne...