limits, inspiration, and color swatch for Some Odd Girl!

sometimes limiting oneself can have WONDERFUL effects, especially when one feels overwhelmed with the amount of crafty things in one's stash.  ;)

today, i'm up on the Some Odd Girl blog with some inspiration for you!

i surprised myself by playing along with part one of Kristy's Color Swatch Journal for May!  she's thrown down the Copic color BG23 or equivalent Spectrum Noir color GT2, and invited all our crafty friends to share their blendy combos to see what we can come up with!  since i'm a Speccie girl, i went for the GT2 and instead of sticking within the GT family, i went with BT2 (which was much lighter for my base) and BT6 (which is a step darker than i might normally choose to blend).  my challenge was to limit myself to just 3 markers and try to rock some monochromatic coloring. 

enter our gorgeous Coy Kaylee digi stamp - she's one of my absolute faves!  the simple outfit helped with this "challenge" because i didn't face the struggle of aiming for more depth than i might be able to achieve with just 3 markers.  you can always layer on top of color once everything is dry, but after too much saturation, there tends to be a mottled effect and i really wanted to avoid that.

here's my card, featuring sentiment from our Birthday Mae clear stamp set, Sunshine Sorbet paper, and Hexie Dots wood veneers:

 

whatcha think?  is she looking a little sickly, or is the combo fun?  i've played around with pink and blue monochromatic coloring (and, of course, grey tones), but this is the first time i've ventured into the green family (aside from hair colors) and i wasn't sure as i was going along.  in the end, i'm pretty content with it, and now i'm anxious to try the other Color Swatch Journal prompts!  have you checked it out before?  CLICK HERE to see what i'm talking about!

here's a (slightly) closer view of my girl:

and i may just try this one again soon!  tomorrow's Friday - any plans for the weekend?  apparently The Son has a lunch or dinner thing in mind for us on Sunday (it's Mother's Day here in the U.S.), so i have a little quality time to look forward to.  in the meantime, i'll be back Saturday with a super fun event you won't want to miss!

some odd favourite things popping the cork and hello again

okay, hello there chickens.  haven't been around in a bit as i've been extremely busy with the new job and then with losing my father on Christmas Day and scrambling around ever since.  i'm trying to settle back in but there is SO MUCH TO DO and i feel very overwhelmed. 

that's why it was important for me to decompress a bit last night and spend some time in my craft studio.  LONG overdue. 

i coloured.

i combined elements.

i combined challenges.

i played with some new goodies.

i felt a little better by the time i went to bed, so i'm glad i took some time for ME.  haven't had much of it lately.  and thank you to everyone who's been so supportive while i'm dealing with things.  i appreciate it more than i can possibly express on a computer screen.

here's one of two cards i made last night...  it features the critter from Some Odd Girl's Acorn Fairy clear stamp set, the heart and sentiment from the Nutsy Kaylee set (she's on clearance!) with Some Odd Girl's Sunshine Sorbet paper, some lovely adhesive cork, background papers from Pretty Little Studio.  and the wood sequins are from Chic Tags, coloured up with Wink of Stella from the Paper Issues shop. 

 

close up of critter love, coloured up with my Prismacolor pencils
(and maybe you can see a bit of the shimmer on the sequins):

 

annnnnnd i am throwing down for the new sketch challenge (211) at My Favorite Things - i followed it pretty closely:

and i'm also linking up at the current Linky Party at Paper Issues - the theme is "Popping the Cork" (sponsored by the awesome Elle's Studio) and it inspired me to FINALLY cut into one of my adhesive cork sheets.  i think i bought the cork pad about a year and a half ago, and that's just silly. 

and that will do it.  it felt GOOD to get my craft on.  what have you folks been up to?