OCC - Mother's Day Card

This week my challenging is to make a Mother’s Day card with no flowers or blossoms on your card. Mother’s Day is coming very soon. Flower shops will be full of beautiful blooms of many beautiful fragrances and vibrant colours. This will be a card that we can give along with a beautiful bouquet without competing with natural floral beauty! Anyone can play and we can't wait to see your creations.

Please remember there is no time limit on our challenges - participate whenever you are able. To play along, upload your creation to your blog or gallery, then leave us a comment linking to your card/project so we can check it out. If you upload to SCS, remember to use keyword: OCCC


I love this house mouse image and it FEELS like Mother's Day to me. I don't know many moms who don't spend copious amounts of time cuddling with their little ones, and their bigger ones! *grin* It's one of the best things about being the mom - KWIM?!

I coloured this image with Copic markers and accented it with prismacolours. It is a fairly simple image to colour thanks to the quality of the house mouse images.

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!

stamps; together under the moon (house mouse), out on a limb sentiments (papertreyink)
paper; kraft, brown, coconut swirl (bazzill), dp (unknown)
ink; pitch black, espresso adirondack (ranger)
accessories; labels 11, in spades pendant, oval nesties (spellbinders), traditional eyelet border punch (martha stewart), mini scallop border punch (ek success), ribbons, linen thread (SU!), button (basic grey)

February Calendar - A little mousy

I sat down this week and got our February calendar done. I knew I was on a tight time line with the end of the month looming, and I had it all planned in my head, so it came together quite quickly. I am really enjoying this year long project!


I had this house mouse stamp and knew I wanted to plan February around it. All the designer papers used for this month are from the Juliette line by SEI. The 8 1/2"x 8 1/2" base for this month is again, mounted on the base I made originally for the calendar. Here is the January image post that will be retired tonight to make way for this new cutie patootie pair.


I stamped the image with black soot distress ink and coloured it with a combination of prismacolors and copic markers. Now, about that bowl... I accidently used Tim Holtz crackle accents instead of glossy accents. Note to self; READ LABELS!!! I love the idea of this look, but next time I will also stamp the image in an ink that isn't water soluble. :( The distress ink ran and gave the bowl a bit of a pewter look. This isn't what I intended, but I can live with it because it ended up looking kinda cool - like some depression era pressed glass.



When the i {heart} papers design team did a calendar hop last month, one of the girls did a very clever thing layering snowflakes and hearts. I said I'd case it, and here it is! I ended up too lazy (snort) to cut snowflakes out with my cricut, so I used a few spare felt ones I had laying around. The heart on top is from Basic Grey chip board. I painted the heart with brushed pewter crackle paint from ranger and then applied some alcohol ink to it. The result is stunning!!! Kate has some of the BG chipboard in stock - on sale. And the snowflakes she has would look amazing done this way! I think there's also some picket fence crackle paint coming out or another white? I know there is rock candy crackle paint now, and by adding a drop of reinker to a little bit of it poured out on a plastic surface gives the chipboard a very cool looking transparent colour effect like it's coated with glass.

I used some ZVA crystal flourishes to give that corner a snow flake blustery feel. A few pink rhinestones on the snowflakes and hearts finish the pretty bling for this month. I cut the 'be mine' sentiment with my cricut using the opposites attract cartridge, welding the letters together - I just haven't got over that feature!!!

So, what to do for March?!!!

stamps; Lovin Mouseful (house mouse)
paper; juliette (SEI), cardstock (bazzill)
ink; black soot distress ink (ranger)
accessories; crystal flourishes (zva), chipboard (basic grey), brushed pewter distress paint, alcohol ink, crackle accents (ranger), felt snowflakes, border punch (SU!), ribbon (offray), heart charms (blue moon beads), prismacolours, copic markers

OCC IC188 Pet Parade

This week our July hostess, Jenny Gropp, has challenged the OCC to create a Parade of cards or a project using "Pets" as the focus... a cat or dog, or other animal image. There is no time limit on our challenges - feel free to participate whenever you are able. To play along, upload your creation to your blog or gallery, then leave us a comment linking to your project so we can check it out. If you upload to SCS, remember to use keyword: OCCC.

I think you may know my family is quite into dogs...big time. Well, when I saw the challenge for this week, I laughed out loud! I own very few animal stamps and I don't own a dog stamp - not one! As I was considering what I could use, I thought about my House Mouse collection. I would never have a mouse for a pet...EVER!!! But these stamps are so stinkin' adorable and I can manage to set aside the differences I have with mice long enough to create my card for today.


I was having trouble with the layout (it's been an over the moon busy week) so I borrowed a layout from Amy Sheffer (pickletree) which can be seen here. Yes, I chose the layout first. I went to SCS and checked out the inspiration challenge and found this adorable Viking Princess costume and at that point I was off to the races. The bodice on the dress reminded me of Cosmo Cricket's Be Good paper. I saw the green paper and it reminded me of the peppermint house mouse. Yup, total cascade effect.

It's a good thing everything fell into place like this last night. It's been a long week with wedding dress alterations, hungry children and no food in the house - imagine 4 children licking the crumbs out of cupboards, gnawing on table legs... My dad's health is causing us some concern and I've been with him through it. So, I was up late stamping. I'm trying to stay organized and ahead of the game and most of the time, I'm there. This week just got away from me...

Check out the fab Pet Parade with the other OCC girls using the links on my side bar. Have an awesome weekend and I appreciate you stopping by!

stamps; peppermint delight (house mouse)
paper; brown (bazzill), very vanilla (SU!), be good (cosmo cricket)
ink; adirondack espresso (ranger)
accessories; 3/8' brown satin ribbon(may arts - IHP), moss taffeta, vanilla grosgrain ribbons, eastern elegance rub ons (SU!), antique copper deco brads (making memories), red rhinestones (basic grey), prismacolours