Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Have an a"maze"ing Halloween

I had some spare time so I made up a few Halloween cards for Send a Smile 4 Kids. I think these will be quite popular based on my own kids' reactions - they totally tried to snag a card each! I can't imagine anything more boring for a child than being in the hospital so I hope these mazes give them even a couple of minutes of amusement.
I picked up the mazes at the Dollar Store for 4/$1. The images inside the mazes were pretty lame so I used an exacto knife to cut open the maze and then replaced the images with pre-coloured digis from Doodle Dragon Studio. A little dab of glue sealed the maze back up no problem. For the purple cards I embossed plain cardstock and then lightly ran black ink to pick up the pattern. It gives a nice distressed look and also coordinates well with all the blacks in the patterned papers (from Basic Grey). I used sketches from 2 sources:

 
I also have to thank Kimber McGray for the idea of using mazes on cards. I picked up the idea at one of her classes at the Burnaby Crop & Create. Happy Halloween (1 month early) to you all!


Challenges:

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

The word is out ...

I was totally inspired by the cover of the latest Simply Cards and Papercrafts magazine to make this batch of cards for the BC Childrens Hospital. They often request cards that can be given to kids when they go home and the balloons and sentiment just seemed ideal.
To duplicate the look of the balloons, I first printed off a digi of an old dictionary page (from The Graphics Fairy), then I put the printed paper back in the printer and printed off a bunch of balloon digis (from Dustin Pike). After colouring and cutting out the balloons, I added pop dots and string (actually cross-stitch floss left over from another project). The polka dot paper was scrap so I'm not sure who makes it. The final cards are quite dimensional and because I didn't adhere the string except in a few spots, they also have some movement. I made a batch of these and will include them in the next Send A Smile 4 Kids (Canada) card delivery.

Challenges:
Crazy Challenge - seeing spots
Fashionista Challenge - for a child
I {heart} to stamp - sketch
Moving Along with the Times - flying high
Papertake Weekly - anything goes
Simon Says Stamp & Show - read all about it