Cat-sitter Thank-you

My husband & I have a trip scheduled in a couple of weeks, our neighbor is kind enough to look after our two cats. I used this week's Freshly Made Sketches sketch as inspiration for the above card. The other inspiration came from Sophie and Tucker, our two cats:

Hopefully you can see the resemblance! I stamped "Sophie" with black Stazon ink and colored her eyes with Pear Pizzazz and ears & nose with Blushing Bride markers. "Tucker" was stamped with Peach Parfait and again his ears were colored in with Blushing Bride. Both cats were outlined, and the sentiment stamped, with Marina Mist. The DSP is two pieces from Botanical Gazette - bird cages behind cats just seemed appropriate somehow. I'm not sure what color blue the main card is - it was a stray piece of card stock in the drawer.

Here's the Freshly Made Sketch:

You have until Monday (July 2) at noon PST to submit a card.

Father's Day Guest Designer

I'm happy to be a Guest Designer once again for the A La Card Monkey Challenge. This week, it's a Father's Day card using the following sketch:



That looks like a manly card right? Here's what I came up with:

The ship & anchor are from the Open Sea stamp set. I stamped them with Not Quite Navy craft ink, added clear embossing powder and heat-embossed it. I sponged around the edges with the Not Quite Navy. The base card stock is Bordering Blue, I'm not sure what the navy card stock is called. The DSP is Nautical Expedition. The sentiment is the only Happy Father's Day stamp I own and is punched with the Modern Label punch. The Not Quite Navy button with Cherry Cobbler bakers twine completes the card. Come on over and play with us this week.

Graduation Already?

I wasn't sure that I was going to create a card for this week's A La Card Monkey challenge. The theme is graduation + sketch. I didn't know anyone who is graduating this year and even though you don't have to follow the theme, I just wasn't coming up with anything. Then, in yesterday's mail came a graduation announcement from one of my husband's nieces. WHAT? Seems like she was just born, she can't be graduating from high school already! But she is. Time does fly. Here's my card:

Red and black are her school colors. I used white card stock for the base, with a layer of black, then a layer of Cherry Cobbler that had been embossed with stars. The DSP is from a pack called "School Days" that I got at Michaels. I remembered seeing a graduation owl on Terry's blog last year, so I went over there to see what she had done. I punched the owl out of silver/gray glittery card stock. For his wings I used a scalloped heart punch cut in half. I sponged around the edges with Stazon black to give him a little more definition. The mortarboard cap I hand-cut and added a black rhinestone for the button. I hand-cut the beak, and punched the feet out of scrap Daffodil Delight card stock. I added plastic google eyes, and the diploma is regular paper punched with the 1" square and then rolled and tied with Cherry Cobbler baker's twine. The sentiment is from the Happiest Thoughts stamp set and is stamped in Cherry Cobbler. I punched the ends with the 1" square punch and added Cherry Cobbler Dazzling Details around the edge and two red stars. I topped the card off with some more CC bakers twine at the top.

Here's this week's sketch:


Hope you have a chance to play along this week.