July 26, 2012

Grounding Your Images

How's everyone doing?  I've been pretty busy - between working long hours at my day job and working on cards for magazine submissions and my design team work days have been flying by at an enormous rate.  When we were kids, each day seemed to go by like a month....now, as an adult each day goes by like a minute.  The older I get, the faster it goes by. 

My mother's 82nd birthday was last Friday and we did some fun girly things...she got her nails done, she got her hair done and we met some friends for dinner.  All in all it was a great day....too bad that with her dementia it was all forgotten by the next day.  But she enjoyed herself as it was happening and as long as she had fun in the moment that's all I can ask for.

Now on to some craft stuff.  I submitted five projects to CardMaker Magazine and they picked one of them for the Spring 2013 issue.  So I'll have a project appearing in the next three issues (November, January and March).  I can't show you the project they picked but I can show you the ones they rejected.  I hate the word 'rejected'.....I should start referring to them as those just not selected.  The emails they send when they don't select a project is very polite "we regret we are unable to use your project at this time'.

On my post showing the Father's Day card I talked about coloring in a sidewalk to ground my image.  One of the projects I submitted showed the different stages of making and coloring in the sidewalk.  They didn't select the project so I can post the images now. 

Here's the image just by itself.  This little image is from CC Designs and is called Sugarplum Polka Dot Emma.  She's colored with COPICS (Skin: E11, E00, E000, R20; Hair: E25, E31; Bathing Suit: Y11, Y15, BG02, BG05; Sidewalk: C00, C01, C03; Grass: YG61, YG63, Y67, G28).

She appears to be floating in air.....


I drew in and colored the sidewalk.  It's looking a little better - at least she's not floating in the air any more....but it's still missing something don't you think?


Now I've colored in some grass and she looks so much better....hopefully she's not burning her little feet on the sidewalk.

Here's a look at the finished card.

I'm entering this card in the following card challenges:
The Poodles Parlour   (Anything Goes)
 Delightful Challenges  (Dog Days of Summer)
The Pink Elephant  (Summer)
Love To Create  (Spots and Dots)
Simon Says Stamp  (Anything Goes)
Crafts and Me  (Anything Goes)


I'll be posting some of the other projects not chosen.....check back soon! 
Hope everyone has a great weekend - I'm hoping for a cooler, dry weekend here in the mid-west.
Thanks for stopping by....

Heidi

July 6, 2012

Remembering Memories

Hello everyone!  I hope everyone had a fabulous and safe 4th of the July.  Unfortunately I've been so busy I was unable to craft a holiday card...and I had some wonderful papers and stamps to use.  Drats!

The project I have to show you today is a sympathy card I made for a friend of mine at work who lost her father just recently.  It's always so much fun to create the bright, colorful and fun cards for people, so creating a sympathy card makes you think outside the box.  Having lost my sister back in 1993, I remember getting all those sympathy cards in the mail and how they made me cry. I seemed to keep things under control until someone expressed concern and then I'd burst into tears.  I tried really hard to create a card that would express my condolences without starting the waterworks.  I thought by creating a 'remember memories' card instead of a 'sorry for your loss' type card it might save some tissues. 



The papers are from My Minds Eye Miss Caroline 'Howdy Doody' collection.  The stamps used are from Stampendous 'Cling Tree Swing' and Hero Arts 'Remember' sentiment collection.  The tree was colored with COPIC markers (didn't keep track of colors but they were just basic brown for the tree trunk and green for the leaves/grass).

I never used to finish the inside of my cards, I used to just slap a sentiment on the inside and be done with it.  But I've been following a blog called www.prairiepaperandink.typepad.com and Amy always finishes the inside of her cards and I really like that.....so I've been trying to do that with my cards too.  She always uses matching patterned papers and uses a piece that can be used to write a note.  It can be a separate piece of white or other light colored matching paper. 


Thanks for stopping by - see you again soon!

Heidi