Santa on a motorcycle

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!  I went to my husband’s parents’ house, as did the rest of his family.  There, after an absolutely wonderful dinner, my husband’s sister requested a special card for her boss, who rides a Harley.  She asked if I could draw Santa on a motorcycle.  I said “of course” (she didn’t ask if I could draw it well).   So after I returned home, I googled “Harley motorcycle photo”) and got this.  Well, it was late, late at night when we returned home, and I was pretty groggy from all the awesome food.  I didn’t feel like drawing, so I just did a quick pencil sketch, referring back to the Google photo only to make it look more like a motorcycle than a bicycle *grin*…

I drew this on Neenah’s Paper Classic Linen (Solar White) cardstock instead of watercolour paper, ’cause I thought it would probably be a crappy drawing (why waste good watercolour paper on this? …I mean, I like Neenah’s Paper – it just isn’t ideally suited for watercolours is all), since I was putting so little effort in it (indeed, this motorcycle looks quite wimpy, and not like the Harley I googled…I won’t even get started on the Santa…well okay…why is he so short you wonder? ‘Cause I’m short, that’s why.  …and why are his proportions so off?  Because I need more practice drawing short little men riding motorcycles).  (sorry for the run-on sentences too)

Then I drew over it with a black 005 Micron pen and erased the pencil marks:

Then I coloured it in with Winsor & Newton watercolours…

There. Oh, wait. Um…now I have to make it into a card.   But I so want to go to bed!!!  It’s okay.  I’ll just do the most generic layout there is…

There we go.   Actually, I knew my husband would want to keep the original even though it is crappy and not on actual watercolour paper.  SO, I made a photocopy of Santa with my handy dandy printer/scanner/copier.  Then I mounted the copy (which may be considered superior by some, since it has none of the slight warping caused by the water on the original) on Neenah’s Paper Classic Linen red cardstock.  It still left this disturbing empty space behind his sack there, so I used some stamps from Stampin’ Up’s Holiday Tag Team set for the “very merry Christmas”. I hope the guy likes it and doesn’t mind that the motorcycle doesn’t look like a Harley.

Stockings

Well, I am trying to make Christmas cards now.  This week’s sketch challenge (SC151) helped a lot. 

I buy Strathmore’s 140 lb watercolour paper in pads of 9 x 12 inches, and am always cutting them down to 8.5 x 11 inches, so I have all these thin little strips left, right?  Well, I get them at Michael’s with a 40%-off coupon for $5.18 (this includes tax).  There’s 12 sheets in a pad, so that is about 43 cents per sheet!  So…none of this precious paper is going to the trash;  I’ll find ways to use it.  So one day months ago, I took some strips and cut some stockings out, using the image from Stampin’ Up!’s Holiday Tag Team set.  Well, I forgot about them until today, when I saw them in the Holiday Tag Team box.  So I taped them to some green paper and matted it with darker green paper, and then put it on red paper.  Then I took more of those thin strips of watercolour paper and stamped on them with the thin line of text from the French version of Stampin’ Up!’s Happiness Background stamp (which I had cut apart)…

 

But I didn’t want there to be an uneven feel to the card, where the top and bottom of the red parts would be lumpy, so I took another thin strip, cut it down to size, and taped them to the sides in the back…

Then I took a break to mount one phrase from the French version of Stampin’ Up!’s So Many Sayings…

The phrase I wanted was “meilleurs vœux” (which means “best wishes”). 

Here is the finished card:

Anyway, I thought it was a neat way to use up those thin strips of expensive watercolour paper!

Here are the rest of the things I used to make this card:

The “noël” stamp is from the French version of Stampin’ Up!’s Many Merry Messages.  The inks used were SU!’s Whisper White pigment ink, Memories Black, and Tim Holtz Fired Brick.  The papers are craft, olive green, Neenah’s Paper Classic Linen (red and dark green), and Strathmore’s watercolour paper.  I painted the stockings with Winsor & Newton watercolours. 

Luke’s truck

Well, it is time for another birthday card!  This one is for my nephew, who loves cars, trucks, and other vehicles.  I actually went and bought a stamp set of trucks by All Night Media (from Michael’s), just to make cards for him.  But for the main image, I drew a truck instead of stamping one, because I didn’t have one the exact size I wanted.  Here is the rough draft, completed with the help of circle guides and a straight-edge.  As usual, I waited ’til the last minute, so this is not a really good drawing. 

Then I inked it up with a 005 Micron pen, erased the pencil marks, sponged the trailer, and painted the rest with Winsor & Newton watercolours.  I only painted the bottom of the trailer after I sponged it.   I used Neenah’s Classic Linen paper instead of watercolour paper, so I did not want to get too much water on it.  I wanted to try to keep this card lighter, because it will be mailed. 

 These All Night Media stamps were foam stamps, but I still trimmed them:

That way, no extra ink will get on the corners of the foam when I ink them up.

I ran the front of the card through the Cuttlebug with the Spots & Dots folder.  I watercoloured the two small stamped trucks, and then threw the whole thing together following this week’s card sketch on SCS. 

Hopefully he will like it. 

cake and flowers

I got a new Stampin’ Up! set “Blooming with Happiness” recently and wanted to play with it!  I took the cake image and some pink and brown paper.  Then I mixed some Winsor & Newton watercolours (yellow ochre and alizarin crimson hue) to match the pink paper.  I wanted to use up some of my Neenah’s Classic Linen Solar White paper, and thought this would be a good way to use it up, since I would only be watercolouring a tiny bit.

Notice the new watermark! *grin* I did this in Adobe Photoshop, using Stampin’ Kub’s tutorial.  (Stampin’ Kub is Krabearkub on SCS)  I did have a hard time with it at first, because I am a beginner in Photoshop.  So I went to read the free downloadable (2.1 MB) first chapter of Stephen Romaniello’s Photoshop CS3 Channels And Masks Bible from Photoshop Support.  Then I went back to Stampin’ Kub’s tutorial, and with liberal use of his “pause” button, I got it! 

Back to the card…I thought the set Simply Said (by Stampin’ Up!) went perfectly with Blooming with Happiness, so I used the flowers from that set for the upper background.  Then I got out my back ground stamp (Happiness, also by Stampin’ Up!) for the stripes.  I cut up this stamp, so it’s no longer one big stamp…

…anyway, I used the stripes with Tim Holtz’s Walnut Stain ink pad on lighter pink paper.   I like the distressed look a lot, so then I sponged everything with Tim Holtz’s Antique Linen, and then again with his Walnut Stain ink pad, and added four copper brads.  I used the Cuttlebug on the pink piece of paper underneath the centre panel.  I painted some of the flowers on the cake brown because chocolate is my favourite flavour! 

 Then I made the inside:

 

I like making cards, but for some reason, I dislike actually writing in them.  Notice the strategically placed flowers, which would allow me to write only a very brief message!  *grin*

Birdhouses

Well, it was my co-worker/stamper friend’s birthday, so I made her a card.  I feel a little more stress whenever the recipient of one of my cards is actually a stamper.   And this friend is not just any stamper, but she is the stamper who revived my interest in stamping after I had not stamped for about five years!  She was like a one-person SCS for me (before I found SCS) - full of neat card ideas and inspiration.  So I actually drew a rough draft of her card:

 

This was inspired by two cards:  Markie’s Mom’s WT123 Hello and Mothermark’s Heavy Metal Birdhouse. 

Then I actually took an entire day to make her card, but I didn’t scan it before I took it to work because I had finished it at the last minute!  

BUT the next day, I made a similar card for my husband (even though it is nowhere near his birthday), because he wants a copy of every card I make (if not the original).  My husband’s card looks like this: 

I used Rhonna Farrer’s Swirls (Autumn Leaves)  and Technique Tuesday’s Whirlygigs for the swirls and flourishes.  For the oval, I used The Angel Company’s Hip Hardware set.  I stamped the oval on craft paper and cut it out.  I hand-wrote the sentiment using a 005 Micron pen.  For the birdhouse, I circle-punched a hole from craft paper, cut out a birdhouse shape around the hole, and cut out a roof.  For the faux wood look on the birdhouse, I used Stampin’ Up’s Weathered background stamp.  For the centre panel, I punched the corners with a corner adorner inset paper punch. This is all on Strathmore’s 140 lb cold-pressed watercolour paper.  I hand-drew the birds and the ladybugs (my husband loves ladybugs).  Then I watercoloured everything with Winsor & Newton’s Cotman (student grade) watercolours, except for the birds, which I coloured with Grumbacher’s Indigo watercolour. 

At work, I had thought my co-worker/friend was going to be working on her actual birthday, so I asked another co-worker (Tracy) if I could pay her to bake a cake (because I don’t know how to bake) for the birthday girl on the actual birthday. Tracy agreed and brought in an awesome chocolate mint cake.  But alas, no birthday girl!  Tracy said, no problem – she’ll make another one the next day – for free!  Wow!  So everyone happily demolished the chocolate mint cake, and the next day, Tracy brought in an awesome pumpkin pecan cake – (and the birthday girl was there too *grin*).  This cake was gone within 15 minutes – it was sooooo good.  I was totally grateful and made Tracy a card too!

I was totally wiped out and not feeling creative, so I decided to make it similar to the birthday card.  But I changed the bird in the birdhouse.  Here is the rough draft of the chef bird (mechanical pencil on Strathmore’s 140 lb cold-pressed watercolour paper:

I traced the birdhouse circular opening first, and then filled it in with the scene.  Then I inked it up with a waterproof 005 Micron pen, erased the pencil, and watercoloured it. 

…and here is the finished thank-you card for Tracy:

And since I am posting this several days after all this happened, I am happy to say that both the birthday girl (and DH) and Tracy liked their cards!