A Potpourri Weekend

This week's cards are a bit of a potpourri! 

Love the mourning doves - quite a peaceful card.

Here's a bunch of pen work.  Took forever on the Pazzles Inspiration, but I love to watch it work.

 

The GraphicStock images are still amazing me.  Found this wonderful doodle - thought it would make a great birthday card.

This started out as part of a Cinco de Mayo ad, but now it's just right for some Hot Stuff Birthday wishes!

Had to work hard to figure out how to keep "crabby"-ness out of this card, but I think I got it!

I've been working on this card forever.  Finally found the right background at GraphicStock.

Fonts make all the difference in the world!

Just a little lighthearted fun!

Kind of a blue card - but the inside:

makes it all work!

Just love these print and cut cartoon animals - so fun to work with.

Still working on increasing the stock of Love cards.

This turned out to be my favorite this weekend!  I'm thinking about more cards based on song lyrics.

I hope the "Rock" is understood to mean the rocking chair!  Having a little fun with this Retirement Card.

I've had these round designs for a long time - it took a bit of planning but I like they way they turned out. 

So nice to get back to cardmaking.  If only I could do it 24/7!

Just Having a Ball!

It has been a blast working with the GraphicStock images.  I have a friend helping me with some puns and I'm creating fun little cards with GS images and silly puns!

 

Puns may indeed be the lowest form of comedy, but they are funny!  This one has an inside verse "It may be a pain in the neck to be another year older, but it's awesome having you around!"  I just love this giraffe - he's so cute!

Inside Verse:  Hope you have as much fun as a barrel of monkeys!  I think the HUGE feet make this card really funny.

And did you expect "Party 'til the cows come home"?

Again, "Go hog wild" was probably expected.  Don't you wish you really could just dive into your birthday cake and make a complete mess?

So it's no surprise that this one says "Put on your game face and have a ball!"

A little less common - Happy Brrrr-thday! 

Inside Verse:  One of the nicest, wisest people I know, that's whoooo!  I think Kathy caught all the stereotypes for an owl on this one!

 

This smiling little snail is perfect for a belated card since he's so slow!

And not really a pun, but just for fun!

 

You know, we all groan at puns, but we all know them!  I think we need a revival of good puns - a little humor never hurt anyone!

Free Downloads for 7 Days!

I received an email from a papercraft magazine about an image warehouse offering 7 days of free downloads!  I signed up immediately!  Yes, it means that if you forget, you'll be charged, but just don't forget if you don't want to pay for it.  GraphicStock has some amazing stuff - jpgs for backgrounds and clipart, eps for cutting files and pen drawings, and great images!

Here are some jpgs I used this weekend:

I'd forgotten about this cute saying (baffle them with bull!), so when I found it again, I went looking for a bull.  Isn't he cute?

I've had this saying designed for a bit, but never made the card because I didn't like the design.  Finding this hilly background worked perfectly!

I designed this card around the cat - so adorable!  I used 3 images as background and did a Print & Cut on the center one.

And this card previously had leaves hanging at the top - OK, but not great.  Now I really like this card.

And these flowers really pop off this card!  Talk about a simple card to make.

And there's tons of doodles - I used this one as paper.  I have downloaded more and we'll see what I come up with for those.

 

For a custom order, I needed a silhouette of a golden retriever.  Guess where I found it?  I downloaded it as an eps file and did minor cleanup and had my black silhouette in no time.

I could have used this file as a background, but I wanted to play with the colors.  So I cut it out instead.  Makes a great manly birthday card.

This one is a combo of cutting file and pen drawing.  I left all the pieces of the rope for the pen and created an outline around it.  The anchor and stripes imported directly into my Pazzles.

Since this started life as a black and white illustration, I used my pen tool so I could color it.  I love the way it turned out.

 

All the other elements were made with my Pazzles Inspiration, which is just a joy to work with.

Inside the Mind of a Cardmaker

A very lovely lady wanted a very special card for a 70th wedding anniversary.  I asked for some additional info, so I had something to work with.  Turns out the couple owned roller rinks, so I'm thinking "as life rolls along" type of verse.  Kind of kitschy but cute.  Then she added that they are also into ballroom dancing.

Well, that set a whole different tone.  Out went the kitsch and in went the elegance.  I went searching for a design that included a couple dancing.  Online I found a cute layout:

 

 

I instantly had a ton of ideas on how to change this to what I needed.  The heart needed some pen work, the girl changed into a couple dancing and music notes instead of clouds.  I've recently found GraphicStock, an image warehouse, and they are offering a 7 day free download of 20 images a day.  Fantastic deal!  Anyway, I found the perfect image of a couple tango-ing.  I found the music staff in the Pazzles Library - wonderful resource.

 

So, here's what I came up with!

 

 

I'm very happy with the way it turned out.  I hope the buyer and the recipients like it too!  Thanks for the order, Teri!  Anytime you need a special card, you know my number!