Welcome back to Friendship Week here on the blog!  Today is “Fun Friday” — when we do something FUN!  I have tons of things to share with you, starting with this card I made for a friend who I want to send love + a BIG hug to — Nancy!

One of my favorite things to do with the Clear Design Dolls set is to stamp a doll on cardstock, then score next to it, fold + cut around the doll, making sure to leave part of the fold still attached and and ta dah! — you have a mini card!  How fun is that?

This is a great little card to practice the colored pencil techniques I showed HERE in Wednesday’s video.

Here’s another tip for this card — to make a bow less bulky, but still make it look as though it is wrapped around the card, try this:  cut a strip of ribbon the width of your card front plus a little extra.  Apply adhesive to the back of the ribbon and adhere in place, securing the ends inside.  Then make a bow with the ribbon and adhere it to the card front.  This is also a great way to use less ribbon, so you can put it on MORE cards!

Featured Supplies:

• Clear Design Dolls (now HERE in the store!)
• Design Accents: A Little Note
• Clear Design Hugs and Hearts (for the heart inside the doll)
• Woodgrain Pattern
• Primary Elements Queue, ArtPrint Brown, Black inks
• Sunshine Notecards
• Assorted Gems, Smooth Gems, Summer Felt Flowers
• Other: ribbon (American Crafts), foam tape, colored pencils (Prismacolor)

Next, I wanted to share this scrapbook page + cards that Jennifer and Shari stamped about their friendship — they really are “true friends” –  just look at those smiles!

(Scrapbook page and cards by Shari Carroll and Jennifer McGuire)

Don’t you just love how they used the Clear Design Scallop Borders set?  Click HERE for more info.

Next I have a birthday card that I made for a friend who loves pink — Sally!  I discovered something new while making this card — you can use watercolor pencils to change the color of white paper flowers!  Just scribble on color and wet with a brush to blend. And!  If you scrunch them up a little before they are dry, they’ll have a neat “shabby chic” look.

I watercolored the owl with the same pencils too — quick and so fun to do!  I used the same technique as shown HERE in Monday’s video.

I just love this new owl, her eyelashes crack me up!  And yep, for those who don’t speak French — “joyeux anniversaire” really means “happy birthday”.

One more tip — if you trim a card you can hang things off the side like this greeting and it will still fit inside a regular envelope!

Featured Stamps

• NEW Clear Design Friendship
• Wallpaper Background
•   Design Block Flower Tapestry Background (now HERE in the store!)
• Small, Medium Accent Pearls
• Shabby Shutters Distress Ink, Soft Blossom Shadow ink, Memories Black, Artprint Brown inks
• Garden, Blush Notecards
• Other: watercolor pencils (various), hot press watercolor paper (Fabriano), silk ribbon (Creative Impressions), border punch (Fiskars)

Finally, let’s have a giveaway!  This all started yesterday when Lynn Whelan left a comment asking where I learned my colored pencil + watercolor pencil techniques.  I thought about it, and I basically just sort of made them up after experimenting over the years.

Anyhow, that got me thinking about one of the people who has been a big inspiration to me during my coloring experimentation journey — Dave Brethuaer – he does truly amazing things with watercolors + pencils. Dave is the owner of Memory Box, the maker of our wonderful notecards.  He has a new book out called “Card Design: Rubber Stamping with Colored Pencils” that is packed with great ideas for using these mediums.  Plus, Dave uses some Hero stamps in it, too!

Now for the best part of this long-winded tale — I called him to ask if he would like to giveaway a copy of his book and he said YES! Did I mention that he is a super nice guy?  And, he will autograph it!  YAY!  To enter the giveaway, just leave a comment on this post.  The lucky winner will be chosen randomly on Monday.  In the meantime, you can read more about Dave HERE on his blog.

I love how the stamping community is full of such fun, caring people — it’s like a big family. So happy to be a part of it, and so very thankful for all of the friends I’ve made!

PS.  Don’t forget, there’s still plenty of time to enter this week’s challenge celebrating friendship!  Click HERE for all the details.

Filed under: friendship

This entry was posted on Friday, February 20th, 2009 at 4:04 am and is filed under Fun Fridays. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.