Simple Sympathy

This is a sympathy card I made for a co-worker who had to put their cat down.  The sentiment is from a Unity KOM and the little paw hearts are from a set (Fiskars I believe) that has a bunch of dog sentiments in it.   The bow turned our perfect on the first attempt!  Unfortunately, I've been making a lot of sympathy cards lately for friends who have lost their cherished pets.  I'm thinking I should replicate this one so I have a few on hand.

HCCC Challenge May & FWF Friday at Unity

I've been involved in a 'stamp club' hosted by a Stampin' Up consultant for the last couple of years.  Although they are not in the club right now, there were two amazing women, Angela & Marnie that were so much fun and so creative.  Well, in keeping up with their blogs, I noticed they are part of http://dukedesigndivas.blogspot.com/ and they do monthly challenges.  The challenge this month was to be inspired by gladiolas, so below is my take on the challenge, hope they like it.  I used a stamp from one of my Unity KOM's for the sentiment, so I'm linking it up for the FWF Friday blog hop too :)

Unity Challenge 'Tooty Fruity'

The new Unity Challenge was to incorporate Fruit into a project.  So I dug out my April 2010 KOM - Together we Bloom, and finally inked up the Strawberry stamp and sentiment.  I also used the background stamp from this kit.

 After I initially stamped the image, it felt like something was missing, so I coloured it with watercolour pencils and then added crystal effects to give it a nice glaze (although it might be hard to see it in the picture) I also added some green flock to the leaves to give them some dimension too. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

Birthday card

The other night I had four cards to make - 3 birthdays (one for niece which I used the Unity KOM sketch challenge for, one for my nephew, and one for my dad) and a sympathy card for a co-worker who lost their cat.  My husband jokes that it takes me 2 hours to make a card, so I was very impressed with myself that I completed 4 cards in just over 2 hours.  The one I made for my dad, below, I had the idea for the layout in my head for awhile.  I had ordered the owl punch from Stampin' Up and had the Tim Holtz tree embossing folder, and thought it may be fun to put them together.  I also finally tried inking an embossed image and like how it turned out, but may try next time using the same ink as the paper (crumb cake) to give it a more subtle look.

Unity KOM Sketch Challenge

The May 2011 Unity KOM Sketch challenge was based on this sketch:

Here is my creation using the April 2011 KOM, Small things Matter:

 The patterned paper is from Cosmo Cricket Garden Variety, which I originally purchased to use with the co-branded stamp set of the same name from Unity and while I was putting it together I looked at my ribbon rack and noticed this cute "chick" ribbon which I believe is American Crafts.

Another Unity Challenge

So for National Scrapbooking Day, the amazing Unity team created layouts based on their favourite recipes, and the challenge was for us to do the same.  I was only able to read about the challenge this morning, and the deadline was midnight tonight.... hmmm.... well I know what my recipe is for my busy Monday nights (my oldest son has to leave for Beavers within an hour of when I leave work) - PIZZA!  So I decided to document that as my recipe for a busy Monday night.

I used a stamp from a Unity KOM - delightful moments December 2009, to symbolize the rush of the evening.  And look, I found a use for that corrugated cardboard that I saved from our new dresser (which my husband thought I was pretty crazy for stashing in my craft room).

I won, I won, I won!!! Yippee!!!

Faber-Castell has come out with some new mediums for colouring, which many talented (and lucky) designers have been showcasing on their blogs.  I've been following a few of them and drooling over the creations, hoping to get my hands on some.  Christi Snow had been showing off various ways of using the mediums on her blog; www.alteredambitions.blogspot.com and she was giving away a set to one of the comments! Yep, you guessed it, I won!!  so excited!!!

Mother's Day presents

Well, after taking a Coaster making class, I decided I would try my hand at it.  I had quite a few tea/coffee stamps in my various Unity KOM's so I used them.  I also made 'pizza' boxes using cardstock and retired designer paper from Stampin' Up!  The stamps for the tags were from a Verve Stamp set, 'Because of You' (I think).