Bookmarks XXXII: Frog Princess

The frog princess has a golden ball just like the human princess, but when it falls into the well she just goes in right after it.

Once she managed to lose the golden ball up in a tree. A human prince happened to be sitting under the tree, so she asked him to get it down for her. When he proceeded to demand to eat off her plate, and sleep on her pillow, and all that rigamarole, she simply called on the frog gardeners and had them get it down instead.

She's both independent and charming, and she knows it. That's why she looks so self-satisfied. That and the being-a-princess, which does tend to give one an over-inflated idea of one's self-importance.

I shall put this bookmark into "The Ordinary Princess" by M. M. Kaye. Princess Amy is not a frog, but she is certainly both independent and charming.

I'm entering this bookmark into these challenges:

• Annabelle Stamps: Say It In... Shades of Pink (and white)
• Dawn's Crafting: Breast Cancer Awareness and/or Think Pink (not just a little use a lot!) (no BCA here, but I think we can agree there is quite a lot of pink)
• Cupcake Craft Challenge 211: Fairytales (frog princess!)
• Sarah Hurley Challenge 72: Something Magical (frog princesses and strong women are both magical, although in different ways)
• Challenge Up Your Life #78: Fantasy (frog princess!)
• Stamptacular Sunday #182: BLING It On! (glitter on the paper, glitter in the clear embossing powder, sparkly gold embossing powder...)
• Great Impressions: Sentimental Journey
• Robyn's Fetish Challenge #126: Book Marks

I'm also linking it up to DL.ART's 1000-post Linky Party and Unique Crafters' Big Chance Giveaway.

Supplies: (white 110lb. cardstock is from Staples)

Bookmarks XXXI: Scare Up Some Fun

I have to admit Lawnscaping challenges are a bit frustrating for me. Because gosh darn it, I want to enter more than three challenges with one project! So many Anything Goes challenges are deprived of the fruit of my genius efforts! (I'm sure they're heartbroken.)

But I love Lawn Fawn and I love the aesthetic sense of the whole Lawnscaping design team, and I can't let it go by without an entry. And it does make writing up the challenge listing a lot easier, so there's that.

This week's challenge was to add text -- use a sentiment or patterned paper. So I used both.

For my patterned paper I used one with a bunch of stereotypical cat names on it. This paper has a bit of a distressed look -- so the solid cardstock colors I used looked a little too, well, solid. Since the colorful kitty names are mostly streaked with red on the patterned paper, I smushed my finger into a red ink pad and rubbed it on. They ended up with a similar streaky look, just as I was hoping! (I didn't rub it on the whole of the greenish base, but used my mostly-dried finger to add just a little to the area around the sentiment.)

I only own one set of Lawn Fawn stamps (although another should be in the mail soon!), and no Wags 'n Whiskers stamps, and no Creative Inspirations paint, so I hope the design teams are not too saddened when they see absolutely none of those things on my bookmark.

I'm entering this bookmark in the following challenges:

• Lawnscaping Challenge #42: Getting Texty
• Wags 'n Whiskers Challenge 88: Circles (I even rounded the corners of my rectangles!)
• Creative Inspirations Paint: Inspired by Fall Colors

I'm also linking it up to DL.ART's 1000-post Linky Party and Unique Crafters' Big Chance Giveaway.

Supplies:

Bookmarks XXIX: Monarch Migration

In the later weeks of September, if you are very lucky, you may see a Monarch elephant on its lonely migration, south to Mexico for the winter.

Another day, another color challenge involving orange. But this time it was in a nice easy fall-ish combination: Flamingo, Honey, and Coffee.

And another color challenge means another color test! I settled on Terra Cotta, Ochre, and Chestnut, although in the final project I only really used them for edging. It's better than not using them at all!

Every time I looked at this color prompt, my eye was drawn to the little flying elephant/pig thing in the lower right. I know it's only there for the background color, but... flying elephant! I have an elephant stamp. I have plenty of butterfly stamps to steal from wings from. I had to make a flying elephant, and with these lovely fall colors, I decided it was a Monarch elephant, migrating south for the winter like Monarch butterflies do. It's so big, though, that I think it must migrate in a solitary fashion.

If I'd thought of the monarch thing before stamping and embossing the wings, I probably would have tried to make them look a bit like a monarch butterfly's wings. Considering I stamped and embossed just the elephant about five times until I was happy with it, it is probably a good thing that I was only aiming for white wings and not something more complicated.

I put my elephant on this nice simple sketch from this week's challenge at Skipping Stones Design:

I hand-cut the central element without doing a lot of calculation or drawing out first, so it is either whimsical or wince-inducing depending on your preferences. Since I don't have any sort of die-cutting machine, it wasn't going to be perfect anyway -- therefore it might as well be imperfect enough that you can tell the imperfection was probably on purpose!

Here's my migrating elephant:

I allowed myself a little bit of dimensionality with the wings. Now, a bookmark still must be flat to be functional, so I didn't pop the near wing up on dimensional adhesive or anything. But it isn't glued on all the way, either, just attached at the base with a little tab -- that way it squishes flat inside a book but you can flap it about outside a book.

I'm entering this bookmark in the following challenges:

• The Play Date Cafe Challenge 150: Flamingo ... Honey ... Coffee
• Skipping Stones Design Sketch Challenge 146 (sorry, I haven't got any SSD stamps)
• CAS-ual Fridays Challenge 71: Fall Fun (colors and made-up migration)
• Simon Says Stamp: Emboss It! (with white Stampendous embossing powder)

I'm also linking it up to DL.ART's 1000-post Linky Party and Unique Crafters' Big Chance Giveaway.

Supplies: (light orange paper with little acorns is from DCWV's Autumn Melody matstack, which I cannot find online to link to)