Young Crafters Unite Blog Hop!

Hello and Welcome to Fur and Green Feathers!

 If you are participating in the Young Crafter Unite Blog Hop you've just visited Joy's blog Less Is More.  If you need want to start at the beginning click here! 

(Don't forget to comment to be eligible for some awesome prizes!)

If this is your first time here you may be wondering about the title of my blog.  It is named after my "babies", Luigi (an Eclectus parrot) and Stormy (a Russian Blue Cat)! :o)

First things first:  What makes me a young crafter?  I am nearly 26 years old and I am a lifetime crafter.  I have always enjoyed doodling, scrapbooking and creating in general, and just recently found the craft of card making when making my wedding invitations.  Once I found this card/paper crafting community I knew I had found my type of people!  I started this blog so I had a place to chronical my crafting adventures to share with the world and hopefully inspire others the way so many of you have inspired me.  

(I'm especially talking to you Britta!  You rock!)

I don't know what I was thinking!  I made this card for this blog hop, but posted it the day I finished it (which was Wednesday) instead of saving it for today.  

DUH!  Oh well - this card is in two posts in a row!!  

Here is my card project: 

My favorite thing to do is cut SVG files with my digital cutter. (Right now I am using a Cricut, but I am saving up to purchase a Black Cat Lynx!)  So that brings me to my favorite company, which is... SVGCUTS.COM The bride image in my card is from svgcuts.com's svg set called "Kate's Silhouettes", which happens to be my favorite set of svg's ever!  Another favorite thing included in this card: Tim Holtz's Distress Inks.  If you have never used these inks, or you simply want to learn about different ways to use them, watch Britta's "No Stress Distress Inks" tutorials on YouTube!  If you'd like to learn more about how I made this card, please scroll down or click here to read my previous post about this card. 

But Wait!  There's MORE!!

 I was inspired by this blog hop to tackle a craft project I have been putting off for over a year!  When we purchased our home this ugly light fixture (in my opinion!) was hanging in the dining room.  I have been looking around for a new one, but I never found what I wanted.  So I decided to totally renovate the existing fixture.  

Here is what it looked like before:

And this is what it looks like now:

I spray painted the fixture in "Cherry Red" Kylon paint.  After much searching I found the chandelier shades at Lowe's.  I love the fabric - which I bought at Walmart for less than $5 yd.  I adhered the fabric using spray adhesive.  The ribbon and trim I purchased at JoAnn Fabrics, and I simply used my hot glue gun to adhere it.  

I am very proud of the transformation... and I can't believe I have lived with that dated chandelier for a year now! It took me a few hours to make something beautiful and that completely transformed my dinning room!

So glad you stopped by to check out my blog!  Please come back! :D

Comments are always welcome and appreciated! And you are eligible for some awesome prizes when you comment during this blog hop!  Let me know what you think!

The next blog in the hop is: Wendy's blog Happy Stamping Designs

Bridal Shower and Wedding Cards

This summer we had two friends get married... which gave me the opportunity to make some fun cards!  First, here is my bridal shower card.

I wanted to make a card incorporating one of the bride svgs in the "Kate's Silhouettes" kit from svgcuts.com, as well as the concept of a "shower" of love.  Using white cardstock as my base I stamped the hearts in VersaMark ink and then used some red embossing powder to give them dimension and shine.  I created the background using distress inks and ranger's foam applicators.  I masked some areas off with cloud shapes too.  I cut out the bride and dress svg using my Cricut and SCAL2. The dress I embossed using my Big Shot and the Sizzix flower folder.   I rubbed Ranger's Perfect Medium (which comes in the kit with the Perfect Pearls) all over the dress and then wiped on the Perfect Pearls powder.  To adhere the powder to the dress permanently I sprayed it with hairspray.  The umbrella is a font from WC Sold Out E bta which I downloaded free from dafont.com.  Finally the sentiment I created in Microsoft Word and printed onto white cardstock.  I added some pearls and a diamond to the bouquet for some extra sparkle.   

I think this card conveyed the idea that I wanted the bride to be "Showered in Love"!

But, in case my card front didn't get the message across, here is the inside of the card.

I sure wish I hadn't spelled Forecast wrong! Oh well!!

And here is a close up:

Products Used

Stamp: Fiskars "Thank You" set (Heart)

Embossing Folder: Sizzix Flowers (Dress)

Ink: Distress Ink (Broken China, Faded Jeans, Crushed Olive, Peeled Paint), VersaMark

Additional: Perfect Pearls & Perfect Medium, Sticky Pearls

SVGs: svgcuts.com "Kate's Silhouettes" (Bride), font "WC Sold Out E bta" letter n (umbrella)

And here are the wedding cards!

The bride's favorite flowers are Sunflowers, so I had to make her a card using the awesome 3D SVG sunflower from SVGcuts.com!  I used some metallic ink on the ends of the sunflower centers and used some yellow Perfect Pearls to add the simmer in the middle of the flowers.  I used SCAL2 to create the cut out names.  I made the background paper using a direct to paper technique with both Mustard Seed and Wild Honey distress inks.  Then I stamped the sunflower image in Tea Dye Distress Ink.  I also used a filigree stamp (which is hard to see in the picture) with the Mustard Seed ink.  

And here is the inside of the card.  Like I usually do, I simply typed up what I wanted the card to say in Word and printed it out on my laser printer.  It is really easy to do this and I think it makes the card look more professional.

Products Used

Stamps: Fiskars "Family" set (filigree), PSX "E-2564" (flower)

Ink: Distress Ink (Mustard Seed, Wild Honey, Tea Dye), Brilliance (Cosmic Copper)

Additional items: ribbon, brads, perfect pearls (perfect gold) 

Here is another quick wedding card I recently made.  

The bird image is a SVG from the "banner day" svg set from LetteringDelights.com, which is a fabulous website!  Both birds were cut on white cardstock.  I inked the birds with Anirondack Alcohol Inks. I made the blue bird using a mixture of "Stream" and "Pearl" and the green bird using "Pearl" and "Lettuce".  It was my husband's idea to mix-match the wings, which I love!  The top of the wings are adhered with glue and the bottom of them is adhered with foam dimensionals, so the wings are lifting off the page.  

Products Used
Stamps: PTI Mega Mixed Messages (Love), Studio g ditto (Botanical Background)
Ink: Memento (Tuxedo Black), Brilliance (Platinum Planet), Adirondack Alcohol Ink (Lettuce, Stream, Pearl)
Patterned Paper: K&Company (Pink Posey)

New Home Card

It is SNOWING... again.  And not just a little.  The ground is covered and it is coming down heavy. I am most definitely not a fan.  The saying is "if you don't like the weather in Ohio, wait five minutes and it will change".  The last two months this has been very true.  We have had weather in the 60's one day and heavy snow the next.  I am whole heartedly ready for Spring!!

 Anyways - My oldest friend and her fiancée just moved into their first home. 

 I am SO incredibly happy for them so I made them this card.   

 I couldn't find a house SVG file that I liked so I created this house in Adobe Illustrator. 

 It was my first real attempt at making my own SVG file, so I'm happy with how it came out.  

Well that's all for today.  Hopefully I will have something better to post tomorrow. 

 I need some sunshine, this snow really dampened my spirits! 

Spring Butterfly Card

Lately it has beautiful and sunny outside... but absolutely frigid! 

So I decided to make a card that looks warm and Springy!  

Challenge: Res-Q Challenge Blog's Scrub it Up challenge

Inspiration: The butterfly scrubs, purple, blue and green

How I made this card: I started with white card stock, freehanded some cloud templates and used Tim Holtz Faded Jeans and Tumbled Glass distress inks to color the sky.  Using SCAL I cut out the butterfly image, which was from the free font aptly called Butterflies.  You can find the font here.  I created the butterfly bodies using the basic shapes in SCAL.  The grass border was a freebie file from Pigtails Paper Trails. I inked up the edges of the grass, added some crystal stickles to the wings and wa-la! A spring card that makes me yearn for warmer temperatures!

Paper Flowers

I have been super busy working on a party my mom and I are throwing for my brother and his wife.  They got married in California in December, and since our side of the family primarily resides in Ohio, we are giving them a party here in Ohio at the end of April to celebrate.  I have been working like a crazy person on the center pieces, invitations, random decorations, photo albums, etc etc etc.  Since this isn't going to be a "reception" (they had a real reception in California following the wedding) we are having a Spring themed party.  The decorations are Spring flowers and bright spring-y colors.  

We decided to make paper flowers using my digital cutter, so I purchased 27 flower svgs from SVGCuts.  Here is a close up of one of each flower I made.  I think they are beautiful!  

We need a TON of these flowers to be able to decorate all the tables at the party. So, I have enlisted the help of my father, who is very artistic, to help me assemble them all.  I am very lucky to have such a great helper! Thanks Dad! 

Each of the flowers has many parts, with some flowers having more than ten layers each!  Using an upside down mouse pad and stylus, we cupped each of the petals and center pieces.  We also inked the edges, painted and used colored pencils to get the desired effect.  

Here are some of the flowers we were able to make in a weekend.  

They take a long time, but they turned out fantastic and they were actually enjoyable to make.    

I will be posting more decorations and such for this party soon!  It is all consuming at the moment. 

I hope you enjoy the pictures and that they get you in the mood for SPRING!  

Papertrey Ink Anniversary Challenge #2

I decided to check Nichole Heady's blog before I went to bed... and today's challenge literally got me too excited to sleep!  It is going on 3am and I want to keep crafting.  

Today's challenge is to make a card using one of the great free 4th Anniversary tags created by Papertrey's amazing design team!  I chose to use the tag designed by Dawn McVey.  I love love love her designs!  Here is her tag:

And here is my card:

I embossed the background with the Diamonds Sizzix Texturz plate and used a nail file to buff the raised parts to add more visual dimension.  The shapes around the tag I cut out on the Cricut.   The sentiment stamp is from PTI's Friendship Jar Holiday Fillers stamp set.  You can't tell from the photo but Dawn's circle is raised by foam dimensions and with the blue ring around it the tag really pops!  

You have until 7am tomorrow (2/7/11) to enter this challenge... and you can enter up to 9 times by using all 9 of the tags made by PTI's design team.  If I wasn't so tired I would keep making them tonight.  Maybe I'll be able to fit in another one or so later on in the day!  

Papertrey Ink 4th Anniversary Celebration!

If you haven't been able to tell yet from my previous posts, I LOVE PAPERTREY INK!! They are simply the best place to purchase stamps.  They are celebrating their 4th anniversary right now, and having great festivities along the way.  To follow along check out Nichole Heady's blog.

The first contest is for the world's most AMAZING prize aptly called the "Ultimate Card Kit", which includes: 22 stamp sets, 20 dies/die collections, felt, ribbon, buttons, cardstock and more (over $700 worth of fabulous stuff)!!  I never win anything... but I couldn't pass up this chance!  To enter this contest you have to post your favorite card from 2010 made using Papertrey products.  Here is my favorite creation.

The Papertrey product used in this card are the Candy Canes from Friendship Jar Holiday Fillers and the sentiment from my favorite holiday stamp set On Ice.   The candy canes are colored with Copic R29.  I cut out the trim and banner (created myself!) on my Cricut and the background was embossed in the Sizzix dots folder.  This picture doesn't really do this card justice.  It looks simple on here, but in person the candy canes visually pop right off the card.  I loved the way this card came out... and I love the stamps I used! 

 I made all my Christmas cards this year using Papertrey stamps and dies.  I posted photos of them in an earlier post which you can see here.