Pretty in Pink (Light Blue and Red too)

I just have to say first hand, I LOVE THIS COLOR SCHEME!  Oh, yes, these colors make me very happy inside.  When I am happy I cannot but make things that make me happy.  Today's cards do just that.  One is a generic card to say HELLO!!  I wanted to use these beads that I had in the colors of red, blue and white...so I got me some silver wire, strung some up and then had to figure out how to use them on my card.  Everything that I used to day was stuff from my scrapbin.  This is full of stuff that I either had left from another project or stuff I had salvaged from another object.  The ring that holds the ribbon used to be on a key ring.  I just loved it so I cut it off the key ring.  The chipboard is from an old card kit I got years ago, and I just didn't use this piece.  

 I liked the scheme so much I decided to make a tag for a friend of mine.  She is a special lady about to celebrate her 40th birthday.  The items here are also from my bin.  The tissue flower is a piece of tissue that came in a gift. I stamped it and spritzed it with some of my inks and then fashioned it into a flower (using Tim Holtz's flower from tissue technique).  The chipboard and harlequin stamp are from Technique Tuesday, the jewelry is from a kids necklace and the girl stamp is from Hot off the Press and I wish I knew where the priceless stamp was made. I bought it at a yard sale. 


Since the tag was made in layers, I wanted to use it for a challenge on layers. I love layers so I HAD to do this challenge.  And the color scheme is perfect for a layering challenge.


Thanks to both CR84FN and Crazy 4 Challenges for keeping us all fresh and on our toes. I for one LOVE what you do for all of us crafters!  

My Mind's Eye Card Challenge

This was fun as well...again I got to use my favorite paper in the world wide world. Actually these are the scraps from my large layout, you can't throw away any Bohemia paper. Get my look: All patterned paper is Bohemia by My Mind's Eye Green paper is recollections from Michael's Punch is by Stamping UP!! Black pen by Sharpie Pink paper by Bazzill Glue by Scotch Lyrics by Lennon and McCartney Thanks for letting me play.

For the Birds (week 2 CR84FN)

I needed to do this challenge one more time, why?  Because I need to learn to use YELLOW more.  People like yellow, yellow makes them happy. I need to overcome my hatred and please others.  This layout was inspired by all of the birds that I saw at the St. Louis Zoo in 2011.  The birds in the 1904 bird cage were very thrilling to watch.  I was watching  the white one and thinking about a NOVA show that I watched once on the birds of the Everglades and how some were almost extinct because they were hunted and killed so their feathers could adorn ladies hats.  The feathers were so lovely, that I could imagine why they were sought in the 1930's.  I even had to do a close up of the wispy feathers.

To go with my birds, I painted some of my favorite birds from the day at the zoo.  I painted that white bird (I have no idea what he is), the flamingo (whom I love to view) and the wonderful little owl.

All of the patterned paper used is Creative Memories (sold to me by Kim Davidson), and the pink paper is Bazzil brought from Archiver's.  The dock was made and painted by me, from brown scraps that I keep in my bin.  The birds were also painted on scraps.  I notice now that I did not draw the white birds neck long enough, but I am NOT redoing it.  Maybe his short neck gives him character.   

Have a great week, can't wait for CR84FN next week...I have my fingers crossed for something PURPLE!!!

Weather and the SS Princess Sophia

This latest ship sinking takes me back to yet another sinking that I like to read about.  I remember the first time I heard about the SS Princess Sophia.  I was on my first sailing to Alaska (very close to where the ship sank).

Our lecturer (this was a lecture on the Alaskan Inside Passage and moments in its history) was mentioning that this was one of the greatest disasters, but of course, it is overshadowed by the Titanic.

This great ship ran aground between Skagway and Juneau in the most beautiful waters along the Lynn Canal (which is actually the deepest fjord in North America---and simply gorgeous).  It had just a little less than 350 people on board.  Weather played a MASSIVE part in the story of Princess Sophia. The weather may be the major cause of the ships doom.  The weather in Alaska is wild and unpredictable.  I have experienced that first hand, but we had modern equipment.  The ships mentioned in this terrible story had none of that, just their basic Alaskan weather history and their brains.

I am not going to type the story for you, you need to google it or click on the links I have provided.  I am just going to show you some pictures that I saved after I got home from that Alaskan cruise in 2008.  I just found them on the internet.

And if you want to purchase a book about the sinking:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/739967.The_Sinking_of_the_Princess_Sophia

Dreaming I could use Yellow

I am not really a fan of yellow, so it is very hard for me to be creative with a color that I do not like.  I thought that I would use the colors to make a LOVE card and maybe a generic card.  Can you ever really have enough generic cards to give away?

I used Hampton Arts stamps on the LOVE card, also a bunch of things from my bin of stuff I don't use anymore.  I thought I would never use the heart rub ons.


The Journey card is my favorite of the two.  The Journey stamp is from Technique Tuesday, oh wait the flower stamp is too.  The flowers on the card are painted with watercolor pencils and the flowers on the yellow "ribbon" are done with watercolor crayons.  I actually made those at the Technique Tuesday class at CKC.

The RMS Titanic

This is a story that has been told many times. It is one that you will probably hear about a lot again this year.  April 15, 2012, marks the 100^th anniversary of the Titanic.  711 people were saved and over 1500 perished in this massive sea disaster. It is a story worth repeating

The what-ifs have been told over and over.  The story has been glorified in a fantastic movie, but all in all many people died because of mistakes. Mistakes that can never be corrected.  100 years later then Titanic still stands out as a marvel of a ship and a very sad sailing. 

The Titanic started my love of big cruise ship liners. I remember the first time that I read “A Night to Remember”.  I was mesmerized by the story, taken aback by the loss of life, and wishing I could find the wreckage.  I remember September 1, 1985, well.  Tom Brokaw announced on the news that Dr. Bob Ballard found the ship.  And then new details of that fateful night April 15, 1912, began to emerge.  The stern and bow were in separate pieces and facing away from each other,  there was a large debris field lying on the bottom of the ocean and then got some insight on exactly why the ship sank. 

If you are not a Titanic person, you may get tired of the news. I expect there will be many events commemorating the ship.  I know there will be a celebration in Belfast, the Titanic movie will be re-released, and some ship is sailing the course was taken and the course that should have been sailed.  If you can check out one of the Titanic museums they are a wealth of knowledge, and very interesting.

 

I have made this layout for the 100 anniversary.  I am sure this is just my first of many.  This one is pretty logo intensive because these are logos that are important to me.

First Challenge of Twenty Twelve

For the first challenge of 2012 I decided to go with the colors from my very favorite color challenge, CR84FN.  I have been doing their challenges for quite some time and I must admit it has made me look at new color combinations and even use combos/colors I usually don't.  I can see more variety in the colors on my layouts.

In addition to that, CR84FN has made me a card maker. I was never a card maker until I found Mona Pendelton's blog.  http://cupcakescreations.blogspot.com/  I guess the rest as they say it is history. I have been doing the challenges since 29 April 2011 and frankly my dear I don't plan on stopping.

This layout was something I have fretted over for a while.  I knew I wanted to piece together the view from the back of the Carnival Dream and put it into a layout, but honestly I have been stuck on what to do with it.  The challenge colors of blue, yellow and orange seem to flow with the colors on the pool deck and of course to me that makes my eye go right up to that lovely water of the Caribbean.

The owl was something I have wanted to work on for a while too.  He is a free clip art owl that I found online and knew I was going to use for a string art, I just did not know what colors.  First I painted him with watercolors in the blue, yellow and orange.  This was a base for my string art.  Then I took my stick thingy (paper piercer) and grabbed some DMC floss and my needle and let my imagination go. 

I am rather pleased with the way the whole thing turned out.  The orange and blue paper were from my scrapbin.  The yellow paper is Recollections from Michael's.  The thread is DMC.  The ink is faded jeans by Tim Holtz.  The watercolors are Prang.  And the views by God!  My journaling is hidden under the owl, because I wanted the large photo and owl to stand out.  There was not much to say anyway, just how much I loved to walk to deck 14 and stare out at this view.