Cute is easy to do with this image from The Angel Company (Wonder and Joy) which was RAK'd to me by a fellow Angel, Angela, who does cute so well. (Check out her coloring - she uses Copics and she's fabulous!)

I used artists pencils and baby oil to color my image. No Copics here, I just don't do coloring enough to justify having more coloring mediums. (Although The Angel Company sells Copics and you can get them as your half-price item - woohoo! TAC's minimum party amount is still just $100 to get hostess awards - free stamps and a 1/2-price item!)

This card is going to my DH's cousin, who just had surgery. I hope it brightens her day just a bit!

* Image and patterned paper from The Angel Company.

I have a peek at a couple of projects I'm working on...

Can't say too much about them yet. Not because it's a secret, but because I don't know how they'll quite turn out. Art is an adventure around here - I never know what I'll end up with!

I thought you might enjoy seeing some recent visitors to our yard. First, for the "awwww!" factor, the cute picture:

Can you see it? This baby rabbit was narrowly missed by the lawn mower. Its mom had evidently decided that our lawn looked just right while we were on vacation. We cut around it, leaving an area of tall grass for them.

Now for the "ewww!" picture (for some of us, anyway):

This guy likes our cherry tomato plants. DH took the photo; he asked if I wanted to come see the big spider in the garden and you can imagine my response (it had NO in it somewhere). The picture was close enough for me!

So that's what I'm doing in my studio. I've also started a bunch of other projects but none of them are finished. I missed out on some of my favorite challenges last week, too, as I've had a lot of "real" work to do. Oh, woe is me!

Here is an ATC I did last year for the Tim Holtz and Wendy Vecchi cruise, but haven't shown you yet. I hope you're having a crafty day!

It took me a few days to think about what I wanted to do and I was leaning towards metal. Then I saw Lori's tag and decided that there was no way I could top that. (That, and I couldn't get Wonder Woman out of my head.) Then I found some neat suede material stuff (I don't know what it is, but it's cool) in the RAK box that Ann over at StampHaven had sent me (and I haven't put away yet) and decided that was the way to go.

Note: No paper was harmed in the creating of this project!

I realize that it looks like paper. But it's not. You'll just have to trust me. It's a green suede/felt type of fabric. Sort of. Anyway, I stamped on it (Judikins) and put a painted and stamped corrugated cardboard swirl (Tim Holtz Alterations) on it.

You know those thin, foam-plastic place mats that you see at garage sales? I used Tim's Tattered Florals die and cut out some flowers out of the old one I had laying around, which I then alcohol inked and added with a large brad and washer.

The chipboard sentiment says "happiness" in some language (Japanese, maybe? I have no clue) and I topped it off with some ric rac and a metal swirl. I did back the suede stuff to chipboard so that it holds its shape. And ta-da! No paper! (Whew!)

And when I went looking for the challenge in my blog reader, I found a bunch of other challenges that my project also matched. Sweet!

I used Wendy's Art Chic, added some wings (with Rock Candy Crackle Paint), some flowers and a piece of film strip. She's popped up off the ATC, although I'm not sure you can tell in the photo. The background is chipboard covered with Distress inks and stamped with Wendy's fly poop stamp (she calls it that, really!) and then edged with Adirondack Snow Cap Pigment Ink. I also faux stitched around the edge with my white gel pen. (Click the photo for a larger version.)

Other challenges this project works for:

GingerSnap Creations: Go 3-Dimensional

Mixed Media Monday: Embellish It!

Wednesday Stamper: Stitched

Phew! Be sure to follow the links and check out everyone's work (I'm going to).

It's from Paper Inspirations and it has so much depth to it. I stamped it on glossy paper with gold Brilliance ink. The paper behind it is some handmade paper I got at Costco and although you can't see it in the photo, if you hold it just right it shimmers gold just like the stamped image.

Sentiment is from The Angel Company.

I took my inspiration from Wendy Vecchi's project on this post. As you can see, I did lots of things differently.

I used a lot of chipboard with a lot of Distress Inks. I actually cut out the chipboard focal point with Nestabilities Labels 4, although I had to finish with a craft knife as the chip was a bit too thick. (Check out the nice embossing on the edge.) The pretty patterned paper is from K&Co (Life's Journey).

Also included are grungeboard numbers (Distress Inked and Distress Stickled), grungepaper for parts of the flowers which I cut using the Tim Holtz Alterations Die(Tattered Florals). Images are from The Angel Company.

I ended up not using the large brads but instead did a sort of a ribbon thing tied in the back to keep it closed. I didn't take photos again, sorry.

This took me a while to do. Perhaps I should have just followed Wendy's great tutorial - it wouldn't have taken so long to complete!

I took the Simon Says challenge of "Things with Wings" and Tag Tuesday's "Crowns" and combined them into one tag. They went together quite well, I think!

The bird stamp is from Martha Stewart, a RAK from my friend Ann over at StampHaven, which I colored with Distress Inks. The tag (7 Gypsies) is also a RAK from Ann. I used one of the grungeboard crowns, inked it and covered with Distress Stickles (love those!) in Peeled Paint. (I was going to emboss it but I was too lazy to clean up the mess on my table in order to get my machine out. Bad, I know!)

It feels good to get back to work in my studio. It would feel better if it wasn't so messy, but I can't have everything, can I?

Please take a look at all the other submissions to these challenges - there's some great art out there!

This is all I saw for days (click on the photos if you want to see the larger image):

I know. Vacation is rough.

So this post is not completely off topic, here's a little something I did before I left.

* Images from The Angel Company

I don't remember where I got the image from - it was a long time ago. I used my Nestabilities ovals for the image and the white backdrop and the background paper is from TAC. The flourishes are cut with Tim Holtz Alterations Elegant Flourishes, covered with silver leaf pen and silver Stickles. I also used Stickles on the image for the fairy dust... What? You can't have fairies without fairy dust!