Welcome to the very rare Tuesday post.  Tuesdays are usually absolutely insane for me, thus I don’t sit down much to share here.  I’m working on that, so there might soon be a little insight into my world on these crazy days, but for today it is just more of the usual.

Today is slow.  Well it is slow for the next few hours until it becomes insane.  For reasons I’m still not certain of, except my friends are in charge and I don’t want to see my friends drown in the politics of school, I have agreed to help with the elementary school variety show.  It is this Friday, and tonight, after our regularly scheduled choir rehearsal, we have talent show rehearsals.  So I have erased today’s normally programed schedule so I can work on all things talent show, choir, and any other strings I need to pull together before the weekend hits and my life returns to normal.

Since I am procrastinating all the things I am suppose to do today, I am here instead showing some cards I worked on this last weekend.  This seemed much more fun instead of making run down sheets for the variety show.  (Please note, choir performance is three weeks away, and once that is done, I am free of all things volunteer at school until next semester starts.)

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Up first in today’s short list of cards is an interesting sketch from the sleuths of design over at Can You Case It.  What makes it so interesting is the simplicity of the sketch.  It is one of those sketches that almost anything can happen with it, but yet, you

want to keep a cleanness to it.

I recently got so large word stamps from Fiskars, and thought one of those words embossed in some red embossing powder would work for the strip in the sketch.  Then pulling a stamp pack from Art Impressions I stamped out the smaller sentiment and an image of some ‘happy pills’.  I colored in the pills with a bit of alcohol markers.  Finally in the attempt to keep things clean I added just a few cork add ons, and a few red dew drops.  I think it works.  I think it works in a way towards the original sketch.  I know it makes me chuckle, and in the end, that is the only thing that really matters.

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Next up in our little line, is a theme challenge from the gals of the game over at The Paper Players.  This week they are looking for the use of ‘wild animals’ in their clean and simple design challenge.

This presented a bit of a challenge, since I do not have any wild

animal stamps except for this one pack by Reflections that is more cute and cuddle then wild and real.  But as you learn in life, you use what you’ve got and you go with it.  So I stamped out three cute little critters and colored them in with my Copics.  I wanted to play down the cuteness of the stamps so I repeatedly stamped out a pallet stamp I have from Technique Tuesday in so Tree Branch Archival Ink.  Finally since I could not find any sentiment that went with three cute little critters that I wanted to pretend were wild, I went with a large word sentiment from my new Fiskars pack that I think worked.  I know the little friends in the card aren’t fierce, but I like how they turned out none the less.

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The designers over at Sunday Stamps this week have delivered a sweet little sketch that’s simplicity was almost daunting.  Again this is one of those sketches that can go work if you over work it.  I might just have done that.

I wanted to do a single layer card this time, but I so didn’t want to

do boring, so I sketched out a little mound to act as a hill and rubbed in some Distress Ink forest moss into a stencil.  Then adding a bit of stormy sky Distress Ink on another stencil to add a bit of interest into the sky.  Finally, using one of Stampendous House Mouse stamps, I stamped a cute little bunny having too much fun with his kite.  I colored in the image with my Derwent watercolor pencils.  I added only a touch of water to them to blend the colors in, and keep things soft.  Finally to add some fun to the image, I pulled out a Riley and Company Funny Bones sentiment stamp and called the whole thing done.  I don’t do many single layered cards, and I think I understand why.  I struggle when there aren’t layers to build off of.  In the end I think this worked, if you like mute colors.

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Finally today we have a bit of Christmas cheer with the perpetual holiday obsessed designers over at 52 Christmas Card Throwdown.  This week the little elves of design tossed out a color challenge asking for the colors blue, grey and kraft.

I was feeling the need to feel the cold apparently this weekend when I designed this card.  We’ve had a bit of gray skies here in

Southern California being that we have officially reached May/gray, so a snow card actually felt appropriate despite the fact we are on the verge of summer.  I pulled out a snow flake stamp pack with coordinating dies from My Favorite Things and stamped out the images in three different shades of blue ink.  I added colored sequins to the center of the snow flakes and added dimensional tape under them.  I stacked the card with a full A2 piece of kraft, and slightly smaller piece of textured grey card stock.  I added the raised snow flakes, and stamped in some smaller ones to fill the blank space.  Finally adding a banner of a sentiment, I called the whole things done.  The gray paper was a little too blue gray, but other than that, I like this card.  It feels pretty.

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That is all for today, and now I have to go work on things I don’t really want to but I really have to.  So I am off.  While I won’t be able to today, I dare you to go make something, something you find pretty.