Sunday, May 27, 2012

Petits Six -- Boxed mini-greetings

Happy Memorial Day weekend, bloggy friends!

The sun is finally out today ... it was very hot and overcast today, following a night full of thunderstorms. It's supposed to be a nice, warm week too ... and I'm blessed to have the whole week off on vacation!! 

I plan to catch up on many projects I want to do, others I want to try (or as Yoda said, "There is no try, only do.")
I also neeeeeed to clean and re-organize my Paper Jungle.

One sweet project I'd like to share with you is a darling "petits set" of cards I've made, (above).

Each finished card is just 3" square, and come with envelopes from My Favorite Things.

I used a variety of digi-stamped images for these cards, including two Pure Innocence girls, and a cupcake tree.  I colored each of these using Prisma pencils and Gamsol (alcohol) technique.

Later this week, I'll be making a box for this set and hopefully, adding it to my Etsy site. Yes, I am eventually going to populate my Etsy site, so if there's any card or project you'd like to buy, let me know!

Enjoy the start of the Summer 2012 season!



DeFiaNtLy DiFfeReNt & CreAtiVeLy Yours,

Monday, May 21, 2012

On Surviving Childhood

Weekend family activities, along with the beautiful weather, kept me from crafting this weekend -- much as I really wanted to go to a Sunday crop. But there's a long weekend coming up, and woot-woot! my boss just approved my taking next week off for a do-nothing, be-lazy staycation.

Meanwhile, I wanted to share a picture of Charlotte and her new ride:


This is the "tricycle" hubby John and I bought for our dear granddaughter Charlotte on Saturday. Talk about bells and whistles ... this one even comes with its own attached cell phone (battery-operated toy, of course) and a cup holder.

Check out the safety features: metal roll bar, three-point harness, padded seats, foot rest bars, sunshade, rear-locking brake, and a handle for Mom (Dad, or grandma) to push/steer and guide. 


There's a wagon bucket in the back to carry some toys, and on the removable steering handle, there's a safety pouch for Mom to carry necessities, like the car keys she's used to drive Charlotte and the trike to the park to ride.
\ Now compare that to my first tricycle. This one pictured at right is similar:

Easy tip, stander rail for my brother to ride on the back, hard metal seat, streamers, and wheelspokes to clip on baseball cards with wooden clothes pins (taken from the laundry line in the backyard). 

It was a little bit rusty from being caught out in the rain or left tipped at the curb overnight, unlocked and nobody stole it. I rode this in more than a few Memorial Day parades, with the trike wrapped up in crepe-paper streamers.  My trike had a bell on the right hand grip that I'd use to call out to my friends, no cell phone and certainly no "wireless connections". 

My, how did we EVER survive? 

DeFiaNtLy DiFfeReNt & CreAtiVeLy Yours,

Disney blog candy winners randomly picked! Congrats to everyone and thank you for visiting!!



"Hot Dog, hot dog,
hot diggity dog ... "


We've got winners of the
CardMonkey Blog Candy
from this weekend's
Disney Pixar Blog Hop





"Going Home Makes Me Grumpy" T-shirt winner (from my Disney Pixar Blog Hop, Day #1 posting) goes to:


BloggerKarenduch who said...

"I love your book! I also made books (MUCH SIMPLER ones!!) for my family and friends when we went down to Disney in 2007. (They were basically for autographs, but I then turned the pages into scrapbooks.). My favorite character(s) would be Ariel - love the songs in Little Mermaid, or Sleeping Beauty... I always dreamed of being her since I was little...
I had no idea that there was a 'linky follower'! that is great!"

Winner of the Making Magical Memories journal (prize made available on Disney Pixar Blog Hop, Day #2 posting) goes to:

BloggerBrenda who said...

"This Disney fan is loving this hop! All the projects are amazing!"


I have contacted both Karen and Brenda through either their blogs or e-mail.  Ladies, you now have 10 days to contact me via e-mail to cardmonkey@comcast.net, with your mailing addresses please.  Hoping to hear from you!




THANK YOU ALL for visiting my blog this weekend, and for joining along on the fantasMick ORIGINAL Disney Pixar Blog Hop. I hope you'll stick around for more fun to come with the
CardMonkey!







DeFiaNtLy DiFfeReNt & CreAtiVeLy Yours,

Sunday, May 20, 2012

Disney Pixar Hop - Day #2: Capturing the Magic of Tinker Bell!

If you are here for WHITNEY'S SWEET 16th BIRTHDAY HOP, please click HERE

Welcome back to Day #2 of the Original, fantasmic Disney Pixar Blog Hop.  There are many imitators of these Disney hops, but none is finer than this series, originated by Shawn and Melissa.  Melissa finds herself super-busy at this time of year, so I volunteered to step in to assist Shawn this time. She's my "Scrapping Sistah" -- such a sweetie, and the genius behind the "My Cut Search" team.

I always have super-fun trying to come up with something a little "different" to feature on these hops.
This about explains my brain.

"Different" -- that'd be among my least favorite words, don't you know?  "You know that new girl in homeroom?  Well, she's different."  "Yes, we got the gift you made, Ellen. Sure is different."  Said that way, the word takes on negative connotation. 


Conversely, isn't it better to be diFfeReNt, as opposed to "same old, same old ... run-of-the-mill ... nothing unique to that one."  Yes, I'd rather be diFfeReNt ... and I do spend considerable time "Catching the Muse," or "Capturing the Magic."  Thinking about that is how I came up with this project:


That's Tinker Bell in there,
caught like a firefly on a warm summer's night.

To make this project, I cut Tink at some ungodly tiny size (3.5" I think) ... terribly difficult because there are itty-bitty pieces to place.  I used the Cricut Tinker Bell & Friends cartridge to cut Core-dinations cardstock. Tink's dress and wings have been sprinkled with pixie dust Stickled for extra magic.  To cut the wee thin-stemmed leaves, I turned to my Silhouette Cameo which I demo'ed at last month's crop I hosted in suburban Philadelphia.  (That's where I made this project.) 
Tink is stabilized by a leaning post (a thin dowel) which has been poked into a half-round ball of moss-covered styrofoam that's glued into the lid of a 6" high clean jar that I inverted to make it look like a terrarium. I tried other things with this -- glitter in the jar, a Magic Kingdom sticker in the back -- but none of it looked as nice, clean and crisp as the unadorned jar.

Did you know that Tinker Bell is one of the four main spokes-icons for Disney, opening up Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Disney on Sunday nights when I was a kid, with a dash of pixie dust?  (The other three characters who are "franchise reps" for Disney are Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse and Winnie the Pooh.)  In 2010, Tink earned her own star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame. 

Left: Tink in "Peter Pan's Ride"; Right: Tinker Bell in "It's a Small World"

And she's a featured character in one attraction/ride in every Disney Theme park but one (Hong Kong)... do you know which ride?  Yup, you guessed -- "Peter Pan's Ride" in Fantasyland.  Can you guess in which other attraction she appears?  * . * .  * My hubby's favorite:  "It's a Small World."

Oh, blog readers, that's an inside joke. My hubby John HATES that Disney attraction! We got stuck in it once when the cable system on the boat snapped. Sat there, floating for well more than an hour. Yes, with that insipid song running over and over and over and over ......    Life has never been the same since then, LOL.  John was about to swim ashore on the 128th go-round of that song. No kidding. For him -- in honor of his 58th birthday celebrated this week, I've put the song on Playlist here, so he'll hear it during this blog hop. 

Hi, honey.  I love you.

So now it's time to move you onto your next stop on this great blog hop:  KIM at UScrap2!

Be sure to visit Shawn's starting post, where you'll see the grand prize being offered for this hop -- a Scrap'N Easel-Ette, perfect for us cardmakers! 

Also, if you leave a comment on this post and are a CardMonkey follower, you can win the Making Magical Memories journal I showed yesterday.  (If you comment/follow on yesterday's post, you might win that "diFfeReNt" Disney t-shirt I made with Grumpy's image -- by the way, that's GRUMPY, not my hubby John, on the t-shirt, LOL!! Hi, honey. I still love you!

Thanks for stopping by!  I hope you enjoyed your stay as much as I enjoyed making my projects for this hop.

OH, and in case you need the full list of blog stops, I'll post it below.  This is your DISNEY PIXAR BLOG HOP Day #2 "Easy Pass" -- click on the names, and you'll go right to their Disney Pixar post for today! 

Ellen 
Kim

Thank you again for visiting ... Now go forth and create!

Make every day a "diFfeReNt" kinda day

DeFiaNtLy DiFfeReNt & CreAtiVeLy Yours,

P.S.  If you just can't get enough Disney, here are pictures of projects I made for previous "Disney Pixar Blog Hops":

September, 2011 - Pooh's Hundred Acre Wood 3-D box

November 2011 - Wall art for Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

Close-up views of each vignette



Ariel birthday card - front here, and inside below


Cards by Mickey - Christmas

And here are links to Disney Pixar Blog Hop's Day #1 posts. DON'T confuse these with the links (above) to Day #2's posts. Be sure to "capture" them all to stimulate YOUR Muse!

Amy
Amy

Saturday, May 19, 2012

Whitney's Sweet 16 Birthday Blog Hop

<---  If you have come here looking for DAY ONE of the Disney Pixar Blog Hop, please click HERE. DAY TWO (Sunday's) post will be up at 6:00 a.m. EDT, and will be HERE.

-----------------------------------------------
The following hop celebrates
Whitney's 16th birthday!
-----------------------------------------------

Happy Birthday, Whitney! 

You have a super mama (Rachelle Larsen), who arranged for her bloggie friends to make cards to help celebrate your landmark 16th birthday. I'm happy to join in the fun, since Rachelle tells us that Whitney is truly as sweet as she is now sixteen!

Rachelle gave us a few clues as to what Whitney likes, and I picked up on that the sweetie apparently gets some of her sweetness by enjoying Skittles candies.  For her "card", I bought a small box of Skittles and covered it in Skittles colors, incorporating the candy as a gift into the card:


Here it is, laying flat:


Here is the inside of the gift/card:


It's in the mail, Whitney!  I hope you enjoy it!!

Now move on the Whitney's Sweet 16 Birthday Blog Hop, by visiting others' cards for this precious young lady. But before you go, be sure to leave a comment here (and on each stop) to be eligible to win super BLOG CANDY provided by Whitney's mom Rachelle. Check out her hostess hop (HERE) to see what's available to win. 

Your next stop is: KIMBERLY

In case you joined me from the Disney Pixar Blog Hop, or just stumbled across this post -- or if you're lost -- here is the full blog line-up:
  1. Rachelle ~ http://creationsbyrachelle.blogspot.com/
  2. Ashley ~ http://theglamoroussideofscrapping.blogspot.com/
  3. Ellen ♥ CardMonkey ~ http://cardmonkey-business.blogspot.com/  <-- YOU ARE HERE
  4. Kimberly ~ http://scrappingrookie.blogspot.com 
  5. Beth ~ http://motherandaughterdesigns.blogspot.com
  6. Lynne ~ http://slasewcraftiness.blogspot.com/
  7. Angie ~ http://atuttletime.blogspot.com
  8. Shelly ~ http://kccroppers.blogspot.com/
  9. Suzanne ~ http://cricutcraftingrammy.blogspot.com/
  10. Patti ~ http://pattispaperfun.blogspot.com
  11. Melissa ~ http://pinkpolkadotscrapping.blogspot.com
  12. Brenda ~ http://www.friendscraftinwithfriends.blogspot.com/
  13. Jenny ~ http://cccjalessi.blogspot.com/
  14. Kristy ~ http://scraptasticalkreations.blogspot.com/



Creatively Yours,

Disney Pixar Blog Hop - Day 1's Making Magical Memories album

Welcome to the Fantasmic, Original, one-of-a-very-special-kind Disney Pixar Blog Hop! I have had the pleasure of hopping in each of the Disney Pixar Blog Hops sponsored by Shawn and Melissa. 

Melissa needed some extra family time with her busy spring, so Shawn asked me to step in and join her as co-host on this fantastic ride, on both days. I'm more than happy to do so, as I have two terrific projects (if I do say so myself!) to share with you!

First, before we get too far into this, I want to give credit where credit is WAY due!  All of the images you'll see below I found on PhotoBucket, on the albums of a terrific crafter named Mel whose profile name is "Bababearbucket". They are for personal use only, with credit/attribution.  In some of the cases, I've customized by putting in my own headline, but the art is Mel's. So thank you!


For this blog hop, I made a Disney "Making Magical Memories" book:

Finished size: 6" h x 5" w plus binding


Here's a video that I made to show the entire project:

 


I used Bababear's images to make a "Making Magical Memories" Disney trip journal, where you'll find journaling pages, ride completion certificates, and even coupons (where Mom or Dad pays -- don't really try to use these for freebies in the parks!) for kids to use.

I compiled these images onto pages using Adobe Illustrator and saved them as jpeg files for my use.  I then printed them out on cardstock as well as glossy paper (for the coupons).  The coupons are perfed, by running the edge of the coupon through my thread-less sewing machine.  I laminated the front and back covers, and then bound it using my Zutter Bind-It-All.

Below are my page-by-page jpeg files, if you'd like to make a Making Magical Memories book yourself.  Again, please remember that these images are for your personal use only and not for sale or resale. 

Make sure you scroll through to the bottom to find a handmade by CardMonkey bit of extra special blog candy ...

But in case you'd rather just jump to the next stop on the hop, here is your link. JUMP TO:  TAMI to continue onto your stop!


  
  
  
  
  
  




  


  

  


  

Whew!  Now that you've worn out your finger on your scroll button, I really need to reward you with some blog candy for coming this far!

I've made a deeeeeeelightful t-shirt using this image from the back cover of the Making Magical Memories journal I made.  While the Grumpy in the Ears image is Bababear's, I added the caption to depict how *I* feel when I have to go home from the Happiest Place on Earth.  The t-shirt is size XL, so if that won't do and you're the winner, just say so -- and I'll print out and send an extra iron-on image for your own shirt.

To qualify to win this blog candy, you must do three things:
  1. Follow my blog. I'd prefer that you use the Mr. Linky tool (see sidebar) so that when Google Friends Connect goes away at the end of the year, you'll still be my friend!
  2. Leave a comment on this post, and include in it a way for me to be in touch with you when you win!
  3. In your comment, please tell me who your favorite Disney character is and why.


*FREE GIFT*: Special for CardMonkey readers: Make your own blog candy! Worried that you won't win and you really have to make one of these t-shirts yourself? CLICK HERE for a printer-ready image to make your own iron-on transfer! 

Good luck!

Now, just to remind you, you're hopping along to TAMI, for your next stop.  Thank you again for joining us today on this hop, and for Winnie-the-Pooh Bear-ing with me through this very long post!

In case you get lost along the way, here are the Blog Stops for DAY #1 of the Disney Pixar Blog Hop. Where available, a direct link to the Disney posting has been provided.

Shawn 
Tami  
Cathie 
Lori  
Amy 
Kathy 
Amy 

Creatively Yours,