Darling Butterfly

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3/27/2012

Peachy Keen Challenge 10: Just Cards-Faux Stitching

     Hi there, me again with my card for this weeks Peachy Keen Challenge. I missed last weeks because I was very busy making a banner for sick kids in P.A. I love how it turned out, and I'm sure the kids faces will light up with all the bright colours and cute critters. Of course I used my PK stamps and Cottage Cutz dies, so I was in the PK zone so to speak LOL!
     This week's challenge is to use faux stitching on your card. I've thought about it off and on over the past 4 days and wondered what I should make.  I thought about using my dies and  about my different face stamp sets and what I could make to incorporate the stitching. Then I looked up at the card I made for my sons b-day which came about because I was trying to make a card with a pocket on it for another PK challenge back in January. Then this saying popped in to my head and I thought hey.....that would be cute. I know it won't "wow" anybody, but they may get a chuckle....and that's good for them right?!?!  :) I wonder if there are any pun challenges this week LOL :)
 Except for the seam down the middle, everything was cut, edges folded over and faux stitching added, to resemble the way real jeans are put together.
   I used PK-238 pocket posies for the pocket and flowers, and  a Sizzix tag die, it was flat on one end so I rounded the edges to get it to sit deeper in the pocket.
     If my card gave you a chuckle I'm happy, laughter is sooo good for you :) I thought this card would be great for a co-worker that's leaving or change up the wording to so bummed your moving. I think it's a really cute card idea and I'm sure I'll be making this one again. In fact our neighbours are moving, I think I'll change up the tag and give it to them. They have lived beside us for eight years and have been awesome. We will miss them and wish them the best.
     I am glad you stopped by to check out what I was up to today, check back again, I'm sure to have a few posts going up in the next while. I've made a lot more stuff than I have been blogging about but that's because I was so busy making it and trying to keep up with my DT challenges and playing along with the PK challenge every week, as well as a wedding album and baby shower stuff etc, I just haven't gotten around to blogging everything yet. :) Anyway, I am always happy to see you, and love reading your comments, hope to see you again, bye for now, go get your scrap on :) LOL

Cindy

3/25/2012

Bunnies and Blossoms for kids Blog Hop

     Welcome to the bunnies and blossoms blog hop for special needs children. Between yesterday and today 30+ fantastic paper crafters have come together to create spring themed banners. We will then donate these banners to Ellen (cardmonkey) Jarvis who works as the admissions coordinator at Pediatric Specialty Care (P.S.C.) in P.A.  PSC is a long-term care facility for special needs children who are medically-fragile and/or technologically-dependent. The babies, children and youths at PSC range in age from birth to 21, and are admitted from all over the U.S.
     Some are infants, born prematurely and before their lungs have had a chance to mature. Others have serious birth defects, illnesses or injuries from accidents that cause them to need tender loving care in a home-like environment--many for their lifetimes.

     A few months back I saw a post for a love bug  banner hop and decided to check it out. It was fantastic and I loved that the banners were being donated to these children. So much so that when I saw the call for the spring/Easter hop I jumped at the chance and signed up. I know the banners will give them joy which will be like sunshine to their families and staff at the centre. It's like bringing spring time and sunshine to those that can't go to it. :) I worked as a developmental support worker before my accident, and know that small gestures mean so much to these kids and their families. 


If you have happened upon my blog today by chance and would love to hop, or are already hopping, this is the line up for today.  Please make sure you start at Ellen Cardmonkey's blog :) She has an awesome prize for one lucky hopper and you don't want to miss out on your chances to win :) 
Lisa T. - http://bitbythecricutbug.blogspot.com/<< you came from here
Cindy Potentier. -  http://toolsofacropingqueen.blogspot.com/<<mine :)


Yay.... it's finally time to share my very first banner with you, I'm so happy with how it turned out and I hope the kids will like it as well ....warning.....pic/dialogue  heavy :) LOL  All the bunnies and chicks are dies designed by Peachy Keen and made by The Scrapping Cottage, with Peachy Keen face stamps to use with each. This is an awesome set and so versatile. I had fun playing with them and embellishing them either the same or differently than the pic of them on their pkging. :)


I used a 5" doily, two Big Scalloped Circles (Lg) and one Big scalloped circles (sm), as well as one Classic Circle sm spellbinders die for each segment. Each small scalloped circle was embossed with a different folder.
                                       
The doily was glued between the two largest scalloped circles, the smaller ones were glued together and then pop dotted on top of the larger set after they were inked and decorated with their embellishments.
I had put the grommets (hole thingys) in the wrong location so I used the second set I had on hand for the Easter banner I was planning to make but took so long to make this one I ran out of time. 
"Happy" was cut from the Easter 2010 cricut cart. I cut it out in shadow and regular then cut off the word
Easter, ran the reg cut through the xyron upside down, glittered and glued onto the shadow.

      Here I kept my "Easter Basket Bunny" as is but added tulips to the basket instead of Easter eggs. I cut the tulips with a fiskars punch twice for each flower, once in green for the leaves and stem, once for the colour of the flower, did some inking, cutting and shaping and used lots of pop dots to give dimension and to help the tulips on the sides keep their shape.
how I made the tulips 

 This little chick was kept the same as her packaging, I just cut out extra flowers for the background, and pop dotted her up. She is one of the cuties on the Shower Peepers 4X6 die :)
 This is the "Crunchin' Carrot Bunny", I replaced her carrots with the daisies I made using the 6 petal  EK Success flower punch. Love her happy little face :)
How I made the daisies


I cut the rainboot freehand from a punched flower, then traced it on another flower and cut to match. I made the back ground flowers from the flower bits from the Fiskars scalloped flower border punch. I just ran a line of tacky glue, shaped the flowers, inked the centres and set in the glue. The umbrella is popped up and the chicks head is inside it. She's so cute!!
 This bunny was way more work than the rest and so were her flowers. She is the "Paintin' Easter Bunny" die that I cut twice because I wasn't using the egg and she cuts out as only half a bunny, a foot and paw for the other that you glue in front of the egg. After cutting it twice I flipped one image over, placed them together best I could to make it look right, did a bit of trimming, cut off most of the bunnies heads leaving a bit for a pop dot, then popped a third cut using just the head on top. I glued flowers in front to cover where the bodies over lapped. The face for this bunny has really long whiskers that are actually a seperate stamp from it's face but when you add a lot of dimension it wouldn't look right with the whiskars in the back ground so I used the rabbit face from the Peachy Keen Animal Faces (sm) set for the Animal Kingdom Cricut Cart. It fits perfect :)  I made the daffodils, with two different EK Success flower punches. I will be doing a blog post later on how to make the flowers from this banner. :)
how I made the daffodils


 This lil peeper is doing the spring cleaning, she has a different stamp for her face that kind of says ewwww house work, LOL but I wanted her to look happy it's spring. The flowers were also made with the 6 petal EK Success punch,, shaped and blinged :)
 Spring was cut from the April showers cricut cart in regular and shadow. I cut off the flower that is part of the cut, ran the reg cut through the xyron and glittered before gluing to the shadow cut.  I only had a small piece of ribbon left over after making the banner spreader so I cut it in half, tied two bows and hot glued in place. I wish I had another roll of this gorgeous ribbon, I would love to have a bow between each segment.
 The next few pics are just to show some of the dimension on these segments.
 I love the umbrella, I actually cut it twice and glued a solid piece to the back of it with the pop dots in between to make it look like an actual umbrella, kinda sorta, lol it's not round but their is a space in there.
 Can see how deep the daffodils are, these were a ton of work but I think they came out so cute and well worth the time it took. Added glossy accent and stickles to lots of areas :) Face parts, flowers, etc.
Before glueing the smaller embellished sections on, I turned over the whole banner and wrote a msg to everyone :) 
     I hope you enjoyed the hop and got some inspiration along the way to make something special for your family or someone else for the up coming spring season and/or holiday :) If you have any questions or would like to let me know what you think, please leave me a comment. I love to read them and know you were here so I can pop over and visit your blog tooo :)  Thank you so much for dropping by our hop today, maybe I'll see your creation in the next hop, Ellen is always looking for more peeps in the line up :)
     I'd just like to thank Ellen for hosting and letting me be a part of it. It was a fabulous hop and I totally loved every minute I spent making my banner. It was a labour of pure love, thinking of the smiles on their little faces when they see all the brightly coloured, whimsical characters and flowers. To all the ladies in the hop, thank you for hopping by, I enjoyed checking out your banner as well and left you a lovely comment :)Have a great day every one, be crafty, be blessed!! 

Cindy  :)





     



3/22/2012

Awesome Day!!!

     Hi again, today I am excited to share a bit about my day with you rather than a project. I have been looking forward to it for a couple weeks now. You may know that I have recently become a designer for the Wednesday Sketch Challenges over at The Outlawz. A day or two later, a newbie to The Outlawz was asked to be on the Thursday design team and her work is awesome!
     While "meeting/greeting/congratulating each other and moving about the forum I saw her discussion with another long time designer in the chat forum and seen where she lived.  I think I had to pick my jaw up off the floor, she lives about 20 - 30 mins away. I couldn't believe it and I immediately sent her a private msg telling her where I live, and that we should get together sometime. She replied and agreed, and she told me another member lives an hour away from me. Holy Karoly you can't believe my excitement. To have people so close to me that have the same desire to create and be on the same design team so to speak. How wicked cool is that.
     Anyway, to get to my excitement....she came over today!!!! We had lunch and then checked out my craft room and talked for a little over two hours. It was AWESOME!!! Thank you Darlene for such a fabulous afternoon. When she arrived it was like we knew each other for yrs. even though we only met on the forum a few weeks ago :) She gave me a big hug, which is totally me I hug everyone that is willing :) LOL While we ate lunch we talked about ourselves and a bit about our families. Then we came up here and I showed her a lot of my "stuff", but not everything, would need more than two hours for that LOL  :) I really loved having her over and we plan to get together again, I'll probably go to her place next time and check out her crafty space :) am sooo looking forward to it.
     I hope you can find the time to come visit us over at The Outlawz  and check out all our fun challenges, hopefully become a member and see what awesome creative juices are flowing over there. We have over 1600 members and are growing by leaps and bounds. In my opinion it's the best darn forum on the web. I love it and love all the ladies that play over there, everyone is so nice. We have a different challenge for everyday of the week, so there's lots to choose from, and we have a creative freebie challenge where you are given 2 free digi's and 2 weeks to create something with them, post it in the forum and when the new challenges begins you will receive 2 more free digi's, how cool is that? :) I absolutely love it and am proud to be an Outlaw!! :)
     You should also check out Darlene's blog which is http://www.scrappyduesbydarlene.blogspot.ca/, she hasn't been blogging long, but she sure has been crafting for some time, and she has some gorgeous pieces to share with you. Hop on over and check out her blog, you may even be so inspired to become a follower, I did :)
     Have a scrap happy day and hope to see you soon, bye for now!

Cindy    :) 

3/20/2012

Bunnies and Banners Blog Hop

       Heyyyy.....how's it goin?  I really hope you can join me for a blog hop this wkend, so far I am in the one on Sunday, but if I can get another banner finished I might be able to be in the Sat one too! I have to ask Ellen, she had a few people unable to be in it for various reasons so I don't think it would be a problem  :) 
     A wonderful lady named Ellen (Cardmonkey) Jarvis puts on these hops quarterly, to get banners for the kids at the pediatric specialty care centre where she works to help brighten their lives and bring smiles to their lil faces :) They are so deserving and precious! The hop for this quarter is Bunnies and Blossoms for kids, and the theme is spring/ Easter, there are many talented crafters in the line up so you won't be disappointed. :O) I don't have the write up yet so I am uncertain of prizes, but this hop isn't about that, it's about bringing smiles to these kids faces which ultimately creates the best kind of sunshine!  If there happens to be some candy along the way woot woot, bonus!!! I am going to try to get my hands on something to offer :)
     I sure hope you all can drop by and check it out.  If you see this early enough and would like to put it on your blog to help spread the word that would be fantastic :) Thank you so much for you support, see you at the hop :



Cindy       :) 

3/14/2012

Happy 30th

     Hello my crafty friend! Tonight I am sharing the card I made for my hubby yesterday for our 30th wedding anniversary :) I am on the Wednesday sketch challenge over at The Outlawz and I followed this weeks sketch, using one of the images provided by Guylou of Guylou's Inimitability Digistamps. Her stamps are awesome :)

The Sketch
My version
     It took me forever to put this card together, I struggled with the top and bottom strips and the gem heart, nothing I put in those spots seemed to look right until I finally made/used what is in place now  :)  For my sexy mama, I printed her twice, sprayed one image with Glossy Accents and then wiped off  the excess. For the background paper I used a plain piece of red paper, sprayed it with glossy accents as well then stamped with a text stamp. Later I used a paint brush and painted stickles on the upper part of the dress, and trimmed with tiny red gems, plus used gems for her bracelet and necklace. I added the pearls because the 30th Anniversary is pearl or diamond! I never drink martini's so the version of the card I actually gave my hubby had been altered, I cut off the martini glass and gave her a beer bottle, that's more my style :) 
     Thank you for stopping by and checking out what I've been up to. We would love it if you would join us over at The Outlawz, it's the best site on the web in my opinion, I just love it there and I know for sure you would love it to!! Everyone is so awesome, and the challenges are fun, a new one everyday which run for a week each and fantastic prizes :)  See you there, hope your having a craft happy day, take care!

Cindy    :) 



It's Peachy Time again

     Hi , ty for stopping by. It's that time again, another Peachy Keen Challenge, this week is everyone's favourite "Anything Goes" YAY!!! Free to create what ever you want, so I decided to make a set of cards. I totally love my peachy keen dies from the spring release and I am working on a project for a blog hop I am in next weekend.  I had a few extra's I decided not to use after all and used them for my set.
                                                                Wow, look at this big one!!!
                                                          My clover sniffing bunny :) LOL
                                                                        I love Easter!!
Challenges

     I hope you like my set of cards, I got a head start on my Easter cards and am all set for St. Patty's day on Sat, woohoo. I love reading your comments and am always so greatful for your feed back, ty so much. I hope your having a craft happy day my friend :) Take care and Happy St. Patrick's Day!!

Cindy :) 
     

3/08/2012

The Liebster Award

     Hello there my crafty friend, guess what?!?!  I was chosen to receive the Liebster Blog Award, how crazy exciting is that? I'm thrilled and want to say ty so much to Bex of Kawai Krafts  for choosing me as one of her recipients, this is so awesome. Bex said "She is great at crafting outside the box" about me and the things I have shared with everyone on my blog, I am so honoured.

Isn't is awesome!!!!

Liebster is german for "dearest". The award is a "share the love arrangement" given to inspirational bloggers with less than 200 followers. Now it is my turn to share the love :)  I will be going around checking my blogging friends to see if they qualify for the award, only by having less than 200 followers, lol, everyone of my followers deserves an award of excellence in my opinion. :)
So this is the to do list that I have to do, and the it may be your turn, we are only supposed to pass it on to 5 bloggers, sry if I don't get to yours and you qualify!

1. Thank your Liebster Blog Award presenter on your blog.
2. Link back to the blogger who presented you the award.
3. Copy and paste the award on your blog.
4. Present the Liebster Blog Award to 5 bloggers with less than 200 followers.
5. Let the know they have been chose by leaving a comment on their blog.

If I come by your blog and you qualify but you already have this award or one similar I will try to find someone that doesn't yet have an award, I hope everyone is o.k. with this, I would like to spread the love to those that haven't been recognized yet, cause they probably have five followers that qualify and haven't gotten an award yet either. Ty for understanding, off to find who I will award this to and will be back later to let you know who I chose. Have a great day, and remember, in my books, 200 followers or more your all award winners! Thank you so much for visiting my blog and leaving lovely comments that encourage me to keep sharing what I love to do.


Cindy   :)

3/07/2012

You are my Sunshine

     Hi, how are you, so glad you dropped by today. I play along with the challenges over at Peachy Keen EVERY week and this week is no exception.  I waited to make my card because I knew my 4" face stamp was on it's way that I won at the release party a couple of weeks ago. I was planning on making a shamrock for the face but this is a sketch challenge and the face would have to be cut to big then wouldn't  fit on my card, so I made a sun instead :) This week is.... Peachy Challenge 07: Sketch!
     I used a spellbinders classic circle die then used my "drop" shape punch for the ray's. I don't know how many it took to go around twice as I didn't count them but I know it was a lot :) LOL
Challenges 
     I stamped the face with versamark and heat embossed with black embossing powder, added yellow stickles to the nose and rays, then gave him some pink chalk cheeks. I added pop dots to give it some dimension off the card, a couple pearls and called it done! The face stamp I used  is PKK-04 4"  "Open eyes with simple smile" and the sentiment is from PK-M16 You are my Sunshine
     Thank you so much for dropping by today, I hope you like my card. I totally love that face :) And I love to read your comments, so if you have a minute please let me know what you think. I hope you can drop by  Peachy Keen  to see what everyone else made, and if you have time join in the challenge with us, hope to see you there :)  Bye for now my crafty friend, may you have a scrap happy day! 

Cindy     :)