Magical Monday - Sweet Trouble

Aloha and Welcome to another TMITA Magical Monday post!! This one is even more MAGICAL for me as the image was inspired by something NEAR and DEAR to me, my SWEET puppy Malie!! (see here for the original post)

Fortunately, Nina made her look a bit happier and even cuter in the image!


I'm wanting to use this image for my Christmas cards this year, hence your challenge to make this a CLEAN AND SIMPLE (CAS) CARD with no embellies that would make it challenging to mail (e.g., no bow, brads, etc.) and use the color PINK somewhere on the card. Can't wait to see what you all come up with using the image of SWEET TROUBLE!!! I'm sure I'll get LOTS of great ideas that'll make my card even BETTER (wink, wink!).  In the meantime, here's my offering:

I ended up keeping this an almost one layer card as I wanted to keep it pretty simple and quick to mass produce. (Check out here for a toot on how to emboss a Cuttlebug folder and leave an unembossed spot on the card.) I added the scallops and pink cardstock as a backing for the front as it was a bit flimsy after embossing it. The cardstock is a pearlized white and I colored the base on the image in Paint, printed off on the cs and embellished as follows:

• Used a prismacolor pencil to color over the light brown of Malie and smoothed a bit with OMS.
• Colored over the pink coat with a white Prismacolor pencil
• Covered the candy canes with glassy accents
• Colored over the candy cane holder with a Sakura clear star gel pen
• Added Frosted Lace stickles to the hood, ball, edge and button of coat
• Added white Fun Flock and glitter at the bottom of the image for the snow
• Stamped "Santa's Little Helper" sentiment

Okay so that's the technical stuff. Here's a little bit more about my little puppy...

• "Malie" [mah - lee - ay] is Hawaiian and means "calm, peaceful, serene" -- I choose this name as she was the most reserved of her litter and I hoped she would live up to it. :) Usually she does, but if she hasn't seen you in awhile (like you go to the store and come back!) she is SUPER excited to see you!
• She is a Lhasa Apso, Miniature Pinscher, and English Toy Terrier mix
• She weighs about 8.5 pounds
• She HATES wearing clothes!! Well, she hates wearing tight clothes...she wore a dress at her birthday party all day with no problems but it was very loose. So why do I keep dressing her up? Well, she gets clothes passed down to her and I just have to try them on her! Actually I usually put them on long enough to take a picture and then she never sees them again :) And in the process I usually get a great laugh as she looks so disgruntled while getting her pic taken :)
• Yes, we had a birthday party with her siblings (my boss has her sister, her neighbor has her sister and brother and a friend of the neighbor has the other sister). See here for deets on the party! (you know you wanna look!) ;) Here's the gifts and cards I made to give to the siblings :)
• The name of the image "Sweet Trouble" was a collaboration between Nina and I. She came up with "Sweet Malie" and I offered "Sweet Trouble" as my nickname for her is "Trouble" :) She actually responds almost better to that than to her name! My mom warns me that calling her that will encourage her to live up to it, but I say she already does...I've got the gnawed on stuff to prove it (and that's with an abundance of appropriate toys she can play with!)
• Here are some pictures that I took of her today with a "Mrs. Claus" hat and collar from Target (she did not like wearing this either!)

This is last year's Christmas pic - she was only about 6 months old

And to just to prove that she doesn't always look so unhappy:

And here she is during play date with her sister. Malie is on the left, on the right is her sister, Pomai :)

TFL and have a WONDERFUL week! Aloha and see you back here Wednesday-Sunday for the Recipe Blog Hop and an extra special "candy" surprise from me!