It's a boy!

My younger Cousin had her first child yesterday morning and my ever prepared mother asked me oh so early to make a card for that occasion *lol*.
Don't ask me why, but I went for blue/yellow again, I liked that combo a lot, I guess. And of course an easel card, I'm a sucker for those.

I just love this collection by Whiff of Joy. I'm really disappointed by the new City Girl collection, but this one... such a beauty, probably Elisabeth's best collection so far.

Stamp: Whiff of Joy
Inks: Memento Tuxedo Black and Dandelion, Distress Ink Tumbled Glass
Paper: Stampin' Up, yellow craft paper, Canson Illustration paper
Flowers & pins: Whiff of Joy, Wild Orchid Crafts and a few beads from my stash
Ribbon & lace: From stash
Other: Nestabilities, flatback pearls from Quixotic Paperie, Stickles "Waterfall"

Ballet Tilda set in blue and yellow

Today I made a set. A present, which should have been with the recipient today, but I just couldn't get it finished in time with my back and all :o(

The card I like very much:


The colours are slightly off due to the artificial light, but I'll take some more pictures tomorrow, perhaps they'll turn out better.
I think, the card turned out quite well. These blue Copics (B91 - B97) are quite hard to blend, even on the Canson paper, but it turned out okay and I could keep the bleeding to a minimum. Thank God for small favors.

The box not so much:


I basically screwed up anything about it there was to screw up.

1. Coloration. I colored this image when I received my first order of Copics. It was my second attempt after the Tilda with frog I showed here and I used SU Whisper White cardstock for it. The bleeding was horrible. I usually do the skin first, but I learned from this piece that the skin comes last whenever I use these blues (did it that way with the card and could erase a lot of bleeding this way, before I did the skin). The blues wouldn't blend no matter what. I used B99 here as well, but left it away ever since, because it's just too stubborn.

2. The yellow paper. I don't have a nice yellow design paper and went for this plain yellow paper instead. It's nice, it really is, but I should have done something to it first. Stamp a pattern on it or add some shimmer or anything. It looks too blah.

3. That blue whatever I did with the ribbon... I don't know what I was thinking. It's so ugly.

If I wasn't horribly late already, I would redo it and probably go with the style of the card for the box as well. I made the box first, big mistake.

Well, I hope the present IN the box will make up for the horrible look it has and at least the card turned out somewhat beautiful.


My back is still a mess. After coloring the Tilda for the card, I could hardly get up from my chair let alone walk the short distance to the living room and the couch. Damn. I need some serious painkillers and muscle relaxing medication to get rid of this.


EDIT:

Here are the pictures in natural light I promised. They are a lot better and show the colors much more as they are.






Stamp: "Ballerina Tild" by Magnolia
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Distress Ink Chipped Saphire
Coloration: Copic
Paper: SU Whisper White, SU blue Design Paper, Canson Illustration Paper, light yellow craft paper, pearlescent card
Flowers, pearl spread and crystals: Wild Orchid Craft
Punches: Martha Stewart
Lace: From stash, I think I got that one from Pops
Misc: Blue Ribbon, flatback pearls, Ice Stickles

Tilda's Midsummer Night's Dream part II

Yesterday night I finished the corresponding card for the book:






I really do love easel cards, you'll probably see much more of them in the future LOL. I have skipped on the receipt part for the longest time, but I'll to do better again from now on.

Stamp: "Midsummer Tilda" by Magnolia
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black
Papers: Canson Illustration paper, SU Le Jardin, SU cardstock green, pearlescent paper from stash and pearlescent cardstock
Coloration: Copic markers
Flowers and crystal stem: Wild Orchid Crafts
Punches: Martha Stewart

And since I just saw it fits this week's challenge at Stamptacular Sunday, I entered with it.

Tilda's Midsummer Night's Dream

I made a new cover for a very cheap book for a friend.




That's what it's originally looked like. Not very pretty, isn't it?

I colored Tilda with Copic Sketch markers and used my new Canson Illustration paper for the first time. Not too bad, though I'd still love to try Neenah since people seem to love it. It's just too expensive for me to get, because so far I only found US shops which sell it and I'd have to pay $14 for shipping for 25 sheets... not a good deal.
But I found a German shop which sells Splendorgel, I'll try that next.

Fancy Coconuts

This was a quick project I could handle with my back pains, because I didn't have to work for longer than 10 minutes at a time on it before it had to dry.

I found some coconut ice cream in real coconut shells at a local store and just had to buy it *lol*. And afterwards I couldn't throw out the shells, I just had to do something with them. I added two coats of shiny lacquer on the outside and used Viva Decor Inka Gold on the inside. Those colors are made on a wax base and work well on all porose surfaces. The inside also got 2 coats of lacquer to seal the Inka Gold.

I love pearls and I thought those shells would make a beautiful way to store and display them. I bought some new necklaces just this weekend and I think the peacock colored is perfect for the green shell and the white one works really well with the purple one.

I have to keep it out of my cat's reach though. She discovered right away that this weird thing would spin if she hit it with her paw *rofl*

These shells are simple, but I think they have a great effect nevertheless.

Pirates of the Caribbean

Finally I got something done. I suffered severe back pains in the last few weeks and couldn't do much crafting, since sitting upright was nearly impossible. It seems that is getting better now though and I finally finished something yesterday, which doesn't look like it, but that took me weeks *lol*





Now I'm just waiting to get off work and back at my crafting table. Hopefully I don't have to work overtime today.

I'll be entering the #1 Steckenpferdchen Challenge and this week's challenge at Simon Says Challenge with this.