Jumbo Birthday Wishes

Morning everyone and hope this post finds you well. 

Normality should now have returned to Casa Mia with youngest Bambino and I being back at school last week, and eldest Bambino starts college this morning ... eek, that means the next long holiday is Christmas!!!!!!!

It's new challenge day at Incy Wincy Designs and this week we'd like to see your projects For the Boyz ... any masculine makes will be perfect and, I don't know about you, but I sure don't make enough male cards!

We've got a brand new sponsor this week; Krista Heij-Barber from Drawn with Character. And here is a little bit about her:

  I LOVE TO DRAW. THAT ABOUT SUMS IT UP.

It is what I have done since my Dad gave me my first "real art book", lets just say a few years ago. It is all I've ever wanted to do. I was lucky enough to live that dream and work as an Animator for over 15 years. Almost a decade of which I worked at Walt Disney Feature Animation Florida, up until they shut their doors in 2004. I since then, have concentrated on raising my 2 beautifully spirited children, while making a "new" career in illustration and design. It was this new path that let me to cookie decorating. This was a perfect outlet for me, combining my love of baking and my true "need" to create art. 
Once I got into cookie decorating and discovered all the possibilities, I wanted to find more images that I could put on a cookie. This is how Drawn with Character was born. I not only want to provide usable clip art for digital artists but cookie artists as well!

Krista is offering this week's lucky prize winner 3 digital images from her Drawn with Character Store. Krista also has a Drawn with Character Blog too, so please do head over to both sites and leave Krista some love. Krista also very kindly gave the DT a few images to showcase, but before I show you my card I'll just let you know how the background to it came about.

Whilst pottering around on Facebook a few weeks ago, I saw a lovely card shared in one of the crafting groups I belong too. Being intrigued by the background, I went to the lady's blog and she had linked up to this video by Laura Bassen demonstrating the "Smooshing" technique. I had to have a couple of goes before I got this quite right, and got slightly over-excited whilst smooshing, and inked the desk too .... glad I noticed it before Papa Mia did, else I'd have had some explaining to do!!!!!!!!!!!! :oD I think I need to invest in some watercolour cardstock, and also experiment a bit with my heatgun to avoid the card buckling, but I do love the "splatty" result:

My card recipe is as follows:

• Card Base - is made from Snow White Silver Centura Pearl card, which has been cut, scored and folded to make a 9.9cm square card
• Background - is a piece of Neenah Cardstock onto which I've "smooshed" Tim Holtz Distress Inks in Mustard Seed and Peacock Feather using a piece of acetate, a Travel Spray Bottle containing water, and a Heat Gun. Once this background card was dry, I cut it to a 9.5cm square, to fit onto the base card
  
• Image - is Birthday Elephant sitting with a Cupcake by Krista at Drawn with Character. I wanted to keep the soft effect of both the drawing and my background, so I brought this cutie to life using my Spectrum Noir Pencils in the listed colours, before fussy cutting my image out and mounting it onto the background card so it slightly overhung the edges, as I liked the way this background looked behind the elephant.
• Elephant - 065, 066, 068
• Cupcake - 010, 013, 017, 056, 058, 047
• Sentiment - is from the Sentiment Stamp Set which came with the Crafter's Inspiration Magazine Issue 6 which I stamped directly onto the background using Memento Tuxedo Black Ink

I hope I've inspired you to have a go at making something For the Boyz ... please don't forget to head over to Incy Wincy Designs and have a look at what my talented team-mates have made. Then come back and show us your creations! This challenge ends on Sunday 13th September 2015.

I would like to enter this card into the following challenges:

• Challenge #32 - Boys will be Boys at Scribbles Designs Challenge (Second Entry)
• September Anything Goes at Catch the Bug
• Anything Goes Birthday at Seize the Birthday
• Cute Animal at Moving Along With the Times

Have a great week!

Hugs, Helen x