Yearning for summer...

I'm sooo over this whole winter thing. I'm ready for warm weather, sunshine, longer days (or at least having daylight still when I head home), and to pump up my bike tires. I never bike very far, but I want to know that I can!

When the Saturated Canary challenge went up, I loved the colors ... but I wanted to make them fit a summery card. I just didn't have an image that said "summer." This gave me a fabulous excuse to purchase a few more SC digis, though! I used nearly every color posted for the challenge in some part of the card. I considered putting "Warm Winter Wishes" as the sentiment ... but that seemed like a cruel joke!

The image I decided to use is called "To the Lake," which you can purchase here. I colored her up with Copics, and I'm relatively happy with the skin shading, but I definitely need to work on hair. I struggle with coloring hair well -- I never seem to have the same colors others use in tutorials, so I have to layer what I have until it works (ish).

Two things I would do differently (just the most obvious, to start) would be to run the piece of blush pink cardstock through an embossing folder to give it some texture, and to adjust the placement of the bows.

I'm trying to get better each week, but I'm just not good (yet!) at the elaborate cards I love so much on other people's blogs. Some people excel at layering flowers and lace and bling and DP ... but I'm not one of them. I just hope to continue developing my style until I'm happy and comfortable with it. I hope I'll be able to look back at my posts next year and see how my style has changed!

I'm entering this in the Saturated Canary Challenge #36.

By the skin of my teeth...

That seems like such an odd saying -- "by the skin of my teeth." I'll have to look up what it means. Anyhow, I needed -- per NYRL (New Year's Resolution Law) -- to post a second card before the end of the month. That would be today. So I made a card last night specifically to fulfill this resolution and juuuust barely made it!



This used the Saturated Canary image Princess Rose Red, which is available here. I also used Stampin' Up! designer paper, SU! cardstock, and some ribbon I saved from a Christmas gift (sometimes I'm as excited to get the wrapping as I am for the gift inside!). I masked the image and made the clouds with Tim Holtz distress ink -- a technique I saw both on Krista's (Saturated Canary artist) blog, and while watching some videos on YouTube. Hope you like!

Living up to my New Year's Resolutions

I made a LOT of New Year's Resolutions. A lot. There are daily, weekly, monthly, and annual goals. Several of those goals have to do with card making and blogging. I am required (by New Year's Resolution law) to post two cards a month to my blog, and to enter at least one challenge a month using a card I've posted. It's pretty late in the month, so I need to post this quickly to enter a challenge and post another card by Thursday, eek!

This is a card I created for the Saturated Canary Challenge #35 -- Movie Inspiration. I used Glossy Accents on her glasses frames, and a little glitter on her eyelids and edges of her glasses, which hopefully is visible in the picture below:

The inspiration for this card actually comes from two movies -- "The Christmas Kiss" and "Head Over Heels." I'm a sucker for geek-who-gets-the-guy-of-her-dreams movies and books. I wonder why? ;-)

I'm entering this in the following challenges:

Saturated Canary - Movie Inspiration (The Christmas Kiss and Head Over Heels)

Stampin' for the Weekend - Something Girly


I'm looking forward to more challenges -- I like having parameters to build a card around!