Prairie Wildflower Designs

Sing

2012-01-08T20:42:00.000-08:00

Hi y'all! I am hosting this week's member challenge on CardMaker's Card Swap forum. We have a different type of challenge each week, and I was asked to host a recipe challenge. Rather than a typical recipe challenge, I decided to give mine a little twist. Instead of telling participants what to use, I am providing the recipe I used for my sample card and asking them to choose at least three of my ingredients to incorporate into their own creation. I tried to put a lot of different elements into my card to give them a number of ingredients to choose from.

Here is my recipe:

Colors: black, white, pink, neutrals + one color

Papers: cardstock

Stamps: collage, leaf, bird, music, butterfly, flowers, naturetheme

Color Mediums: black ink

Embellishments: ribbon, twine (cord, yarn, etc. can also beused. My button is tied with crochet cotton), thread, buttons, beads, pears,rhinestones, stick pin

Techniques: embossing (it’s hard to see, but the blackbackground square is embossed), collage, inchies, stitching

Tools: die cuts, punches, embossing folders or texture plates

Themes: nature, birds, butterflies, flowers, music, leaves

Thanks for stopping by!

2011-12-31T17:27:00.000-08:00

Hello friends! Welcome to my 200th post! I made this card for this week's CardMaker Challenge Corner hosted by Lora. This week's challenge was to use scraps. I decided to use some of my scraps to make serendipity squares. I also used scraps to make the card base and white and blue mats. I totally CASEd this card, but I can't remember where I saw the original design.

I have made serendipity squares many times, but I really love the way these turned out. After I glued down the random pieces of paper, I painted over the entire piece with a thin coat of gesso. I then stamped paisley and script patterns randomly over the whole piece using Faded Jeans Distress Ink. Finally I used decoupage glue to glue white tissue paper over the entire piece to bring it together and add a little texture. The first piece of tissue paper I stamped with a swirl pattern using Crushed Olive Distress Ink. After I put it over the background piece, I didn't like the way it looked so I peeled it off. It left the random splotches of green behind, but I really liked the way it looked. I may do that on purpose next time.

That's about it. I have tons of scraps and I plan to do more of the serendipity technique. I love the squares, but I also like the way it looks as a background for mixed media. It's so easy. It's something I can do to be creative when I don't have the energy to work on a big project.

Thanks for stopping by!

Clean and Simple Thank You Card

2011-12-30T14:05:00.000-08:00

Hi friends! I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. Ours was quiet and peaceful. This year we were able to spend Christmas with my parents and my husband's, which was very nice.

This is a clean and simple thank you card that I made. I almost feel guilty posting it. If it hadn't been for the flower, it would have taken me literally five minutes. I kept staring at it after it was finished thinking that I should add something else because I hadn't spent enough time on it.

I printed the sentiment on the computer, then cut the card to size. I embossed above and below the sentiment with the Cuttlebug Victoria EF, then embossed the horizontal rules with my ScorPal and a bone folder.

The flower is handmade using a template from Mel Stamps blog. If you have never checked out Mel's blog, you should. She has tons of templates, tutorials and links. She offers everything for free. I go there first anytime I need something. If she doesn't have it herself, chances are she has a link to a place that does. I transferred the pattern for the flower to my DP, then fussy cut it, inked the edges, layered it, scrunched it up a little for dimension and added a pearl brad.

That's about all there is to it. I really like this card. I think it's very elegant - even if it does seem like it didn't take me long enough. :)

Thanks for stopping by. Happy New Year!!!

Peaceful Dove

2011-12-15T18:33:00.000-08:00

I think I made it just in time! This is my final project for the 12 Tags of Christmas Funkie Junkie Style challenge - Week 12. Today is the deadline, and as usual I am getting my project in at the last minute.

I am also submitting this for this week's Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge, which is titled "Thru the Looking Glass: Projects with Depth." It might be a little difficult to tell from the photo, but the ornament is three dimensional. I achieved this by layering three Nestabilities die cuts with foam tape. The You really can't see the middle layer at all. I managed to cover it up with all the stuff.

You can see Linda's inspiration tag for week 12 of the Funkie Junkie challenge HERE. I was inspired by the gold color, music paper, holly and the bird cage. No I didn't use a bird cage - I don't have that awesome die and I didn't really want to spend forever fussy cutting a bird cage. So I used a bird instead. My intention was to use the Faux Crazed Porcelain technique that Shelly Hickox posted on Splitcoast Stampers last week. I did the technique and it looked great until I tried to flatten out the dove's right wing. Although I was trying my best to be gentle, the embossing cracked. I really didn't want to do the dove over, so I just cracked the embossing all over. I now I have cracked glass over crazed porcelain. :)

The base of the ornament is chipboard that I embossed with the Cuttlebug Victoria EF, painted with gesso and covered with Antique Gold Rub N Buff. I used the Labels 1 (or 2 - I can't remember the number - the square one) and turned it 90 degrees. I cut the centers wtih a circle Nestie. The middle layer that you can't see was painted cream color, inked with Vintage Photo DI and I left it oriented the "regular way". If I had turned it like I did the other two layers, you would have been able to see it. :) The holly is a stamp that I colored with Peeled Paint and Fired Brick Distress Inks and cut up. I used four of the images total. I also added some leaves punched with a Martha Stewart punch from handmade gold paper. Finally I added a music paper rosette and a poinsettia that I made from lace and pearls.

I have really enjoyed doing the Funkie Junkie tag challenge. I tried a lot of new techniques and different types of projects. I've discovered how much I love making hanging things. I am quite inspired by Linda's work. If you follow her blog you will probably notice that I CASE a lot of her ideas in my other projects too. I hope she'll do another challenge at some point.

I guess that's about it. I have a couple more Christmas cards to make for my family and a couple of small gifts, then I think I'm done with Christmas. I love making Christmas projects, but I think I'm about ready to move on to something else for awhile. :)

Thanks for stopping by!!

Winter Romance

2011-12-13T18:50:00.000-08:00

Here is my submission for week 10 of the 12 Tags of Christmas Funkie Junkie Style. You can see Linda's inspiration tag for week 10 HERE. Linda's tag immediately made me think of romance with the big burlap heart and the cute ice skating couple. I chose to make a heart-shaped ornament in soft feminine colors.

For the base I die-cut the heart shape and then used Tammy Tutterow's Frosty Deboss technique. I used the Cuttlebug snowflake folder, but put the heart in the opposite way I usually would so that the areas that are normally raised were indented. I then painted the heart a light pink. After it was dry, I brushed on a layer of Rock Candy Distress Crackle Paint, then scraped it off with the edge of a piece of chipboard. The crackle stayed only in the indented areas. It's a very cool technique, but it's hard to see on this piece. The indented snowflakes are really too small to show the crackle very well. Plus I covered a lot of it up.

I added a white crepe paper ruffle to the back of the heart then sprayed everything with homemade glimmer spray. The ice skate was downloaded from the Internet, traced onto chipboard and cut out. I painted the boot white and the blade metallic silver, then covered it with ultra fine glitter. I embellished with silver brads, corrugated paper snowflake, a button, some bells and white twine. Finally I added two primitive hearts cut from corrugated paper, some punched silver leaves, punched snowflakes a pink flower bud and some bling. I stamped Magic onto a small tag and inked with Rouge Chalk Ink.

I only have one more project to complete by Thursday. I think I'm the only one participating in the challenge that isn't finished with all 12 projects. I am just so slooooww. :^)

Thanks for stopping by!!

Red and Gray Poinsettia

2011-12-10T22:05:00.000-08:00

Just a quick post. Lora has this week's member challenge on the CardSwaps forum on the CardMaker magazine web site. She challenged us to create a project using only the colors of red, gray and white. To be honest, color challenges are not my favorite types of challenges and rarely do them, but after seeing all the beautiful cards everyone was creating with these colors, I decided to go ahead and give it a shot. Red and gray is a classic color combo, but it's not one I see often in the challenges. I also had been wanting to try my hand at making a handmade poinsettia out of fabric. For this one I used some white lace-like fabric from one of my Goodwill clothing finds. There's really not much else to the card - some DP, red and gray cardstock and bling. I handstitched around the outside. The border punch is EK success. The flourish die is Quikutz and the the holly embossing is from a Sizzix Impressions plate.

Thanks for stopping by!

Let it Snow!

2011-12-07T14:06:00.001-08:00

Hello friends! Today I have another Christmas/Winter wall hanging. I think I'm enjoying these decorative projects more all the time. I keep thinking of more ideas I can do. One day my walls will be filled with 'stuff'. :^). I'm submitting this project for the following challenges:

The 12 Tags of Christmas Funkie Junkie Style Week 11
Raise the Bar #86 - It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas
Quirky Crafts Challenges #25 - Snow
Crazy for Challenges #116 - Let's Go to the Movies (Frosty the Snowman)
City Crafter Challenge #86 - Home for the Holidays (a project to decorate the home or with a home on it)

You can find Linda's week 11 tag for the Funkie Junkie Challenge HERE. I'm not posting a pic of the tag anymore because for some reason a lot of the commenters that visit my blog seem to think I made the tag (even though I always say it's Linda's tag). I am no where near Linda's level in my work, so to avoid the confusion I'll just link to her tag from now on.

In Linda's tag, I was inspired by snowflakes, the book page background, the Snowflakes on the Edge die and the square fragment. I had a hard time coming up with an idea for my project until I saw tag 4 in Tim's 12 Tags of Christmas series. I was inspired by the snowman (I can't believe this is the first snowman project I've made so far this year!) and the color. I really wanted to do something different. It seems like almost everything I've been making lately has been some shade of brown. I really do like color! :^).

For the base of my wall hanging I used a page from a children's board book. It was already the perfect shape and has a good weight for this type of project. I covered it with a book page, then brushed on a thin layer of white paint. I stamped snowflakes on it with Versamark and clear embossed them. I don't have any Distress Inks in the right colors of blue, and I don't own any Distress Stains so I sponged on a couple different colors of blue paint then dabbed on some white. I wiped the paint off the snowflakes with a damp paper towel. I was very pleased with the way it turned out. I misted the base with some homemade glimmer spray. I mixed a cream color metallic paint with some white Perfect Pearls. I love how it added shimmer without adding color. Unfortunately, I don't think you can see it in the photo. I edged the base with Faded Jeans Distress Ink.

I'm not making tags for Tim's series, but I am checking them out every day. I love the techniques and designs - both his and the participants. I wish my brain worked like his. I don't know how he comes up with this stuff!

I loved the crackle snowman on tag #4 and I just bought some Rock Candy Distress Crackle so I was anxious to try it out. LOVE IT!!! I'm definitely going to have to get a bigger jar of that stuff. I don't own any of Mr. Holtz's dies (I buy very few dies except basic shapes), so I found a piece of clipart I like online, printed it out the size I wanted and traced it only chipboard and cut it out. I painted it white and crackled it. I brushed on some blue paint, misted it with water, and wiped it off so it just highlighted the cracks. I edged him with some Faded Jeans Distress Ink. I added a couple pieces of ribbon and a ribbon tied button for his scarf and added some silver leaves and a rhinestone to embellish his hat.

Of course I don't own a Snowflakes on the Edge die either so I just made my own. I cut a strip and punched the snowflakes out of a light weight box. I think it had sweetener packets in it. I wanted something heavier than cardstock, but not as heavy as chipboard. I used deckle edge scissors to trim one side of the strip and arranged the snowflakes on the back side. I painted everything white, then crackled it and added the blue like I did on the snowman. This piece didn't crackle as well as the snowman, so I think I didn't brush on quite enough of the distress crackle.

I used a little square charm that I had since I don't have any of the fragments like Linda used on her tag. I tried to use the Alcohol Ink resist that Tim used on another of his tags, but it just didn't work for me. So I added the little punched snowflakes and blue rhinestones on top of the alcohol ink background. The snowflakes are leftovers from my snowflake border punch. I knew those would come in handy one day. I save everything.

Finally I added some corrugated paper snowflakes, button, rhinestones, big ric-rak and pearls. Lots of pearls. I think I went overboard on the pearls. LOL!

I think that's it. I only have two more projects to make for the Funkie Junkie challenge so I think I'll make it by the deadline of December 15th. Yea!

Thanks for stopping by!!

Oh My Stars!

2011-11-29T17:49:00.000-08:00

I think this is one of the most fun projects I've done for awhile. It took me several hours because I just kind of made it up as I went along. I'm really getting into these wall hangings and other non-card projects.

I am submitting this ornament/wall hanging for the following three challenges:

1. 12 Tags of Christmas Funkie Junkie Style - Week 9

2. Simon Says Stamp and Show - Stars

3. Stampin' Sisters in Christ - Matthew 6: 25-34/Birds

Linda's inspiration tag for the Funkie Junkie challenge is shown below. I was inspired by the theme, corrugated cardboard and the music paper. As you can see I totally CASEd Linda's music paper stars except that I used a primitive star die instead of a regular one and I wrapped them with gold cord instead of white. I was also inspired by a star wall hanging I saw online a couple of weeks or so ago that had paper rosettes on it. Unfortunately, I didn't make note of where I saw it so I can't give credit to the artist. I need to be better about that.

For the ornament base I cut a 6" star from a corrugated cardboard box. I peeled the paper off one side and sanded off the little stuck pieces. I painted it with a couple of coats of gesso and then dry brushed some antique gold acrylic paint. The bottom rosette is made from music paper and the top is made from vellum. I used border punches on both before folding. I sprayed the top one with homemade glimmer spray. I stamped the music on the button with StazOn.

For the little tag, I stamped the holly with Frayed Burlap Distress Ink. After that was dry I stamped the music background with Versamark and embossed with clear. I sponged on Antique Linen and Vintage Photo Distress Inks. I added the little snowflake, some gold cord, the sentiment (computer generated) and a bow.

The Vintage Holly image is from Stampabilities. I stamped it three times, then cut it apart since it was very long. My original plan was to not color the holly, but it needed something to make it stand out, so I tinted it with pastels. The little bird nestled in the holly above the rosette is from Paper Studio. I stamped him with Versafine Vintage Sepia and tinted lightly with pastels.

The little metal word tag on the right side was originally copper so I rubbed it with some antique gold rub n buff and attached it to the center star.

I think that about covers it. Thanks for stopping by!

A Couple of Simple Christmas Cards

2011-11-27T20:19:00.001-08:00

I made a couple of very simple Christmas cards today. While it was nice to take a little break from my usual vintage-distressed-grungy style, I keep thinking these aren't finished. LOL!

I am submitting this first card for this week's Less is More challenge - a bit of bling. I stamped the tree and sentiment on black and heat embossed with silver. I added some rhinestones to the tree for the bling. The tree stamp is Inkadinkado and the sentiment is from the $1.00 bin at Michaels (several years ago).
This card is for Lora's sketch challenge on CardSwaps. The background is embossed with a Sizzix Impressions plate. I went over the raised areas with a Versamarker and applied bronze Perfect Pearls. It looks a little splotchy in the photo, but in person it's not. I stamped the sentiment with Versamark and also applied the bronze Perfect Pearls. I don't own any ornament dies, so I found an ornament template online and printed out the size I wanted. I adhered it to the back of some metallic bronze cardstock, cut it out and embossed it with the Swirls Cuttlebug folder. I added an wire hook and some ribbon.

That's three cards for today so I think I'm done. Thanks for stopping by!

Peaceful Country Church

2011-11-27T13:49:00.001-08:00

This week's Flourishes Timeless Tuesday challenge is to make a project using the dryer sheet technique. This is my first time to submit a card for the Timeless Tuesday Challenge. Unfortunately I don't own any Flourishes stamps, but I wish I did. I think they are very pretty. I have a few on my wish list if my budget allows it.

This is also my first time to do the dryer sheet technique. It's super easy to do. After you stamp and color your image, you run it through a Xyron to apply the adhesive to the image side. It's been so long since I used my Xyron, I did it backwards and had to run it through again. :^) Then you apply a used dryer sheet to the adhesive and trim it to fit. I cut mine with a circle Nestie. Finally, you pour some glitter over the dryer sheet, rub it in and shake of the excess. The glitter goes through the holes in the dryer sheet and sticks to the adhesive. If you don't have a Xyron you can use spray adhesive. There's a great tutorial and video on Splitcoast Stampers if you would like more details.

I don't know who makes the church image that I used. It was in my stash of stamped images, so I either got it in a swap or someone gave it to me. I thought it would be pretty with the technique. The frame is a Quikutz die that I got on clearance at Hobby Lobby a few weeks ago. I thought the circle needed a little something to set it off, so I inked the edge a bit with Fired Brick Distress ink. The top part of the background was run through my Big Kick with a Sizzix Impressions plate and the bottom is from my scrap stash. I punched the green strip under the ribbon with a Fiskars border punch.

Thanks for stopping by!

Red and Cream Snowflake

2011-11-22T16:50:00.001-08:00

This card is for Jane's Unusually Used Challenge on the CardSwaps Autumn blessings online crop. She asked us to use fabric and lace on a card. The gingham on the bottom is fabric. I tea dyed it to make the white squares more cream. The top half of the card is stamped with Fired Brick Distress Ink using the SU Winter Wishes set from waaaay back. The large snowflake is a Sizzix die and the two on top are punches. The Noel Stamp is from Inkadinkado. I have had the snowflake twill tape forever and this is the first time I've ever used it. I also trimmed with a bit of lace.

Vintage Santa Waterfall Card

2011-11-22T16:41:00.000-08:00

This waterfall card is for Golda's challenge on CardSwaps Autumn Blessings crop. I used vintage santa images from Graphics Fairy and Flickr. The image below show the different images as the card flips up.

Beaded Christmas Tree

2011-11-21T18:51:00.000-08:00

This little piece is my submission for week 3 of the 12 Tags of Christmas Funkie Junkie Style challenge. I'm also submitting it for Lora's Just Bead It challenge on the CardSwaps online fall crop. I haven't decided exactly what I want to do with it yet. I'll probably make a Christmas tree ornament out of it, but for now it's just a little 4x4 piece of art. It didn't turn out exactly like I saw it in my head, but I like it okay.

Linda's inspiration tag for week 3 appears below.

My piece was inspired by the stamped word background (most of mine got covered up), the chain and the metal tag. Also, it's hard to tell, but the tree is made of a sort of music paper. It's a scrap piece of music theme Club Scrap cardstock that I found. I cut it with my scalloped circle nesties and cut them in quarters to make the tree.

That's about it for this one. Thanks for stopping by!

Vintage Angels

2011-11-20T19:35:00.000-08:00

This is my project for week 6 of the 12 Tags of Christmas Funkie Junkie Style challenge. I am also submitting it for Golda's cracked glass challenge on the CardSwaps fall online crop. I thought the antique angel image would be perfect for this technique.

Linda's inspiration tag for week 6 of her challenge appears below. The inspirations for my card were the angel, the doily and the Peace sentiment.

Since I don't own any angel stamps, I used an antique post card image that I downloaded from Graphics Fairy. The sentiment is actually a picture font. I just typed "h" and it appeared like that. I colored it with Prismacolor pencils. The background is embossed with a Sizzix Impressions plate, scissor distressed and inked with Vintage Photo distress ink. I sprayed the doily with some homemade glimmer spray. I painted the flowers with antique gold metallic paint and added a bead cap and pearl to the center.

Thanks for stopping by!

Hand-Stitched Starburst Card

2011-11-20T19:04:00.000-08:00

I made this card for Lora's stitching challenge on the CardSwaps fall online crop. I saw one of these starburst cards on SCS a few days ago and thought this would be the perfect opportunity to try it out. The one I saw wasn't stitched, but I thought that would work well for it. My sewing machine is not working right so I hand-stitched between the pieces. I also stitched around the sentiment. I embossed the bottom piece with the Victorian Cuttlebug EF, then sanded it. I scissor distressed the edges and inked with Frayed Burlap Distress Ink. I embellished with some red gems, lace, ribbon, button and stick pin. The papers I used for the starburst are Basic Grey Fruitcake.

The tutorial for the starburst is on the Operation Write Home web site.

Thanks for stopping by!

Well Behaved Women Seldom Make History

2011-11-20T18:44:00.000-08:00

This card is for Georgette's Faux Leather challenge in the CardSwaps online fall crop. The first thing I thought of for this was a western theme. I created the cowgirl collage in Photoshop. I scissor distressed and inked all the edges. I embellished with some gingham ribbon, a concho, some buttons and a photo corner. The concho and photo corner were originally shiny silver so I rubbed them with some antique gold RubNBuff. I embossed the lower half of the faux leather background with the Cuttlebug Victorian EF. It's kind of hard to see in the photo. The quote says "Well behaved women rarely make history."

Thanks for stopping by!

CardMaker Autumn Blessings Blog Hop

2011-11-16T03:00:00.000-08:00

WELCOME to the CardSwaps Autumn Blessings Blog Hop!! It goes along with the Autumn Blessings Crop at CardSwaps. The crop is from November 16-19, 2011 and you have until November 22, 2011 to get your projects posted to the challenge threads and in the drawings for prizes. You should have arrived here from Meredith's blog. If not, consider starting the hop at the beginning with Lora's blog. All our blogs are linked together from post to post. At the end, you'll hop right on over to the CardSwaps board. We hope to see you there!

The theme of our blog hop is "I've been blessed" and we were asked to create something that reflects on someone or something that we have been blessed with. I chose one of my favorite Bible verses because I believe all our blessings come from God. The most important part of this verse to me is "Give thanks in ALL circumstances." We should not be grateful only when things are going well, but even when they are not going so well. No matter what is going on in our life, we have many blessings to be thankful for.

This is something I have had to remember many times over the last couple of years. Over that time myself and my family have been going through some very difficult circumstances and we haven't come through on the other side yet. During that time, my step father (who I am very close to) has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, my husband started and lost a business, I've been fired from two jobs, and my husband has been wrongfully accused of something that still hasn't been resolved. While I could give up and become depressed, I choose instead to focus on what I DO have. I am truly blessed, and no matter what I am going through, I know that my God is with me and will get me through it.

For this card, I downloaded the sheet music from The Graphics Fairy and the harvest image from Plush Possum. The background is corrugated cardboard. Everything is sponged with Vintage Photo Distress Ink. The Bible verse is computer generated. I embellished with a handmade flower and stick pin.

I made the flower from a fabric called buckram. I had no idea what this was when I bought it. I just thought it would make good flowers because it had a nice weave, was made of cotton and was pretty stiff. I looked it up later and found out it's used to make hats. I think it does pretty well for flowers too. I cut the layers from a Spellbinders Bloom die, colored them with distress inks then scrunched them up and let them dry. When they were dry, I pulled them apart and layered them together.

That's it for me. Your next stop on the hop is Golda's blog. Golda is a delightful and talented lady and I think you will enjoy what she has created for the hop.

If you get lost along the way, here is the complete blog hop list.

Judy < You are here.

Christmas Gift Tags

2011-11-14T16:41:00.000-08:00

I've gotten behind again on my submissions for the 12 Tags of Christmas Funkie Junkie Style challenge. Things are extremely crazy in my life right now so I'm hoping I'm going to be able to complete all the challenges. I may end up having to simplify my plans.

I did decide to go simple for my Week 7 submission and to actually make tags. These are doing double duty for a gift tag swap that I am participating in as well.

Here is Linda's inspiration tag for week 7:

My first inspiration from Linda's tag was the background. I stamped the Merry Christmas and snowflakes with Versamark on white cardstock, then embossed them with clear EP. Then I sponged on Old Paper, Frayed Burlap and Vintage Photo Distress Inks. The EP acts as a resist, leaving them white.

The next inspiration was the corrugated cardboard snowflake. I don't have any white corrugated cardboard, but I do have some funky corrugated paper that I have had for at least 10 years. I have no clue why I bought it or why I hung onto it for so long. Maybe it was to make this tag. :) I cut my snowflake with a punch because all my snowflake dies are too "skinny" and I wanted a chunkier snowflake. I highlighted the edges and ridges with Frayed Burlap Distress Ink and used some chunky glitter on the edges. For the center I used a red button tied with twine.

Next was the pine branches stamped on Linda's background. From those I was inspired to make the wreath on the other tag. I stamped some texture with Peeled Paint Distress Ink, then punched out the "branches" with a Martha Stewart leaf punch. I glued those around a round ring that I made with small Spellbinders circle dies. After the wreath was dry, I sprayed it with some homemade glimmer spray and added red gems and a raffia bow.

Finally, was the Christmas ticket and gold snowflake. I love ticket images, but I don't have any stamps, punches, or anything like that. I have been wanting to create some of my own in Photoshop, but just didn't have time for this project. I used a small scalloped tag to stamp the To and From on for the gift tag. It's very hard to see because it's a tiny stamp. I sponged on Fired Brick Distress and Frayed Burlap Distress inks, then edged the tag with antique gold metallic paint. Instead of a snowflake I used a Prima flower that I painted with antique gold metallic paint, then brushed on gold Stickles. For the center I used a bead cap that I flattened a little and glued a pearl to the center. The bead caps were silver so I rubbed them with antique gold RubNBuff.

For a little color, I added a piece of red cardstock that I embossed with my Victorian Cuttlebug folder. I distressed the edges with scissors and edged with Frayed Burlap Distress Ink. I added some gold and black fiber. Finally, I added some jute twine to tie the tags to gifts.

That's about it for this one. Thanks for stopping by!

Vintage Santa Gift Set

2011-11-01T19:44:00.001-07:00

Why is it that something can look so good in my head, then not look so good when I actually get it done? I made this box, 3x3 card and tag for The Twelve Tags of Christmas Funkie Junkie Style Challenge week 8. It's not horrible - otherwise I wouldn't even be posting it. I actually do like the little card and the tag. I just don't like the box much. I probably should have just made a regular box or bag. I don't think it's one of my best projects.

I love quilt blocks and have been wanting to make a card with one for awhile. My grandmother was a quilter and tried to teach me. I never was able to do anything decent with fabric, so I thought I'd try paper. This pattern is called Ohio Star. I have never made a quilt block from paper before and I have not made a box like this before. I think if I do either again they'll be better because I know things I would do differently. I probably will try the quilt block again, but the box is doubtful.

Linda's inspiration tag for week 8 is below. The inspirations for my set are the vintage Santa collage, snowflakes, the flower and "quilt". Linda stitched her collage piece with some fill to give it a quilted look so that's where my quilt blocks come in.

I will say there is one piece of the box that I am very happy with - my Santa collage. I don't have a stamp like this and I don't have the right types of individual stamps to create my own stamped collage. So I made my collage in Photoshop. I used the image "Merry Old Santa" by Thomas Nast. This is the first illustration of Santa that is similar to our modern version and it's one of my favorite Santa images. It was published in Harper's Weekly in the early 1880's and is now in the public domain. I cleaned up the background around the image, then placed it on top of a text background and added some snowflakes with Photoshop brushes. I used a font called Christmas Card that I downloaded from daFont for the "Believe". The little stamp in the upper right corner is also a Photoshop brush. Now I have my own vintage Santa collage that I can print in different sizes for cards or other projects. This is my first digital collage, but I don't think it will be my last. It was fun.

I also created the sentiment on the card and tag in Photoshop. The sentiment itself is actually a picture font that I also downloaded from daFont. There are several Christmas sentiments in the set. You just press a letter key and the sentiment pops up all nice and pretty like that. I put it inside a frame image that I downloaded from The Graphics Fairy, trimmed around it and layered on a Spellbinders Labels 18 (I think) die cut. So I can also print the sentiment in any size I want.

A larger version of the sentiment also appears on the other side of the box, but since I wasn't all that thrilled with the box anyway, I only photographed the one side. The two ends have other vintage Santa images - just single images, not collages like the front.

I think that's about it. Thanks for stopping by!

Noel Wall Hanging

2011-10-27T12:58:00.000-07:00

Here's one I've been working on for a little while - my first piece of wall art! I made this for the Twelve Tags of Christmas Funkie Junkie Style challe nge and it is based on week #5's inspiration tag. I am also submitting it to Lessology Challenge #4: Wall Art.

Linda's inspiration tag for Week 5 appears below. The inspirations from her tag for my piece were the gold embossed lettering, the mix of elegance and homespun (burlap with gold, etc.) and the Perfect Distress technique used on the background.

I have a Noel stamp from Inkadinkado that is very similar to the Joy stamp Linda used on her tag. I stamped it on black and embossed in gold, then cut the letters apart using one for each panel. For my burlap piece I made a simple Christmas tree. I stamped flourishes, text and snowflakes on the background of each panel using Frayed Burlap Distress ink. I guess technically my technique isn't Perfect Distress because I used Gold Interference PearlEx powder instead of Perfect Pearls, but the effect is the same. Unfortunately you can't see a lot of the background. As usual, I managed to cover most of it up. You can see close-ups of each of the four panels at the end of this post.

The Lessology challenge has only been around a couple of months and this is my first submission. This challenge is for altered items and has a requirement of using at least one recycled/upcycled item in each creation. The theme for challenge 4 is wall art and I used two different recycled items. I cut the four background panels and the swirls around the snowflake/flower on the "L" panel from a cereal box. I painted it with antique white acrylic paint then did a little distressing with Frayed Burlap Distress Ink and some homemade glimmer spray.

The metal mat around the angel image and the center of the flower on the 'O' panel, the three little diamonds on the "E" panel and the center of the snowflake/flower on the 'L' panel are made from a soda can. I cut the can open, embossed it with my Tapestry Cuttlebug folder and colored it with Pitch Black Alcohol ink. I used a tiny flower die and a tiny square die from Spellbinders to cut the shapes, then I rubbed them with Antique Gold Rub-n-Buff. For the flower centers, I used my paper piercer to poke holes into the points of each petal. I love using jewelry findings for flower centers and decoration, but I don't have a lot of them and can't buy as many as I would like. I thought this might be a cool way to get a similar look and stretch the crafting dollars a little farther. I do like how they came out and am looking forward to trying some other ideas that I have with the soda cans.

Close ups of each of the four panels of the wall hanging appear below. This was a really fun project and I will definitely be making more wall art. Thanks for stopping by!

I Hope You Dance

2011-10-25T16:19:00.001-07:00

I'm submitting this pretty ballerina as a second project for the current Catered Crop Follow the Recipe Challenge. For this challenge you are provided an inspiration project from the previous challenge entries. The objective is to use parts of the "recipe" used for that creation along with your own ingredients to make a project. I made a card in my favorite vintage collage style using the following ingredients from the inspiration recipe:

Papers: pattern paper
Embellishments: lace, thread, buttons, tags, pearls, ribbon, twine
Techniques: sewing, make a bow bouquet
Tools: die cuts

The background paper is a digital paper that I created using Photoshop textures and brushes. The post card, music paper, ballerina and hydrangea images are all from The Graphics Fairy. I created the sentiment in Photoshop and added the swirls at the ends with a PS brush. The bow bouquet is made with tulle, sheer pink ribbon, brown satin ribbon and a length of strung pearls. There is a shipping tag layered behind the main image that has been stamped with a damask background using Vintage Photo Distress ink. I adhered ivory color wrinkled tissue paper to the ballerina image using Mod Podge just to give it a faux silk look. Everything is sponged with Vintage Photo Distress Ink. The flower is made from a Prima and a pink lace circle. I finished it off with a pink button, a twine bow and a pearl/crystal stick pin.

Thanks for stopping by!

Vintage Santa in Shades of Brown

2011-10-24T19:47:00.000-07:00

This is my entry for Week 2 of the Twelve Tags of Christmas Funkie Junkie Style challenge. In addition, I am entering in the following five challenges:

Simon Says Stamp and Show - One Color (shades of brown)
Our Creative Corner - Fabulous Faces
Fashionable Stamping Challenges - Coffee and Cream with a Hint of Dark Chocolate
Charisma Cardz Challenges - Embossing (Heat or Dry)
Catered Crop Follow the Recipe - the ingredients I used are listed at the end of this post

I am getting pretty far behind in the Funkie Junkie challenge, but I think I'll be catching up now. I got a little stuck on week 2 and just stayed stuck instead of moving on to some of the other weeks and then coming back (I did manage to do week 4). Linda's inspiration tag is beautiful (see below), but I just couldn't get it together. I did make an ornament a couple of weeks ago, but did not like it at all. I think it was because I was trying to use the same colors that Linda used and they just weren't coming together in a way that I liked. When I decided to try a different color combination, that worked much better for me. The inspiration pieces I took from this tag were the shabby flower, the flourishes and snowflakes in the background and the snowflake embellishments.

The Santa image I used is a stamp that was created exclusively for members of a stamping forum that I belonged to several years ago. I really like this image a lot, but have only used it once or twice before. It is so big I have a hard time coming up with designs where it doesn't cover everything else up. I stamped it with Versafine Vintage Sepia ink on tan cardstock. I cut it out with a rectangle nestie and matted it with a scalloped rectangle. I pierced the scallops and sponged the edges with Walnut Stain Distress Ink.

I don't own the Tim Holtz tattered florals die, so I used what I had to make my flower. I made the bottom layer by gathering a circle of tea-colored lace. The other two layers are made from silk flowers. They started out as white. I painted them with cream color acrylic paint and sponged them with Walnut Stain Distress Ink. They ended up a little too dark so I dry brushed just a little more of the acrylic paint over the top. After I layered the flower, I sprayed it with some homemade glimmer spray and added the jewelry finding and pearl in the center. I really like this flower and think I'll be doing a lot more painting on silk flowers. I buy the cheapo ones at Walmart or Dollar Tree so they are kind of tattery looking on the edges, which I think adds to their shabby look. Pretty cool.

The bottom layer of the card is dark brown Bazzil cardstock that I embossed with a Sizzix texture plate. After embossing I sanded the top lightly. Since the Bazzil doesn't have a white core, it just lightened up the high spots and left it darker in the recesses, which added some dimension to the background. The edge piece is dark cream color paper that I stamped with flourishes and snowflakes using Walnut Stain Distress Ink. I then sponged more of the DI on the edges and added a piece of the same lace from the flower on the edge. The piece under the image is a scrap piece of DP I had. I crumpled it then flattened back out and roughed up the edges by scraping the sharp edge of my scissors along them. I then inked the edges with the Walnut Stain ink.

For the snowflakes I stamped more of the flourishes on a scrap piece of ivory cardstock with the Walnut Stain ink and brushed them with bronze color Perfect Pearls. I punched them out, layered them, and added a button and some twine to the centers.

Here are the ingredients I used from the inspiration cards on the Catered Crop Challenge:

Papers: Pattern paper

Stamps: Men

Color Mediums: Glimmer Mist (my own homemade kind)

Embellishments: Lace, buttons, pearls, twine

Tools: Die cuts, punches

I don't often say this about my own work, but I really like this card. I really like how the different challenges that I participate in stretch my creativity. I probably would never have made a completely brown Christmas card otherwise. I also like finding my own ways to do the same types of things without having a lot of the tools and supplies that my budget doesn't allow. It really stretches my creativity and gives me ides for doing other things.

Well, I think I've rambled on long enough. Thanks for stopping by!

Embossed Ornament Card

2011-10-16T13:07:00.000-07:00

I decided to make a round card for something different this time. I'm not sure why I have never made one before. I really like the way they look. I am entering this card in three challenges:

Crazy 4 Challenges 109 - Card for an upcoming holiday and heat embossing
Our Creative Corner: Supply Challenge - Totally Transparent
Cardmaker Magazine Forum Anything Goes Challenge - Deirdre's challenge was to make a matching envelope to go with your card

This is a super simple card. Everything is cut with Nestabilities (circle, scalloped circle and Label 4). I embossed the red circle with the swirls Cuttlebug embossing folder, then went over the swirls with a Versamarker and embossed with gold. I added a small pearl to the end of each swirl. For the top I cut a scrap with one of my scalloped square nesties, then trimmed it to size, embossed with gold and added the three pearls. For the hanger I simply bent a piece of beading wire and glued it to the back.

For the card base I folded a piece of ivory cardstock in half and cut it with the largest scalloped circle nestie, leaving a small piece attached at the top. I decided after I put the three pieces next to each other than the ivory was too light. I thought gold would be a better color, but I didn't have any gold paper, so I colored the outside of the ivory piece with a gold Sharpie paint marker and added the pearls to each scallop.

I stamped the sentiment on black then embossed it with gold. I added the ribbon and poinsettia. The poinsettia is made from transparency and colored with alcohol inks. I added tiny gold marbles to the center. I originally intended the sentiment to be stamped on transparency as well, but was not happy with how that was looking. So I hope my little flower is enough to count for the OCC challenge.

I wanted to do something different for the envelope. Rather than using a plain square envelope, I made the envelope from a hexagon petal card template than I downloaded from Mirkwood Designs. I decorated the front with gold embossed holly leaves and attached a label. Since it's not likely I will mail this card, I just used a small label for the name. The bottom two pictures so the envelope open and closed. I would hold the envelope closed with some kind of embellishment.

This was a fun card. I'm not sure how often I will make my own envelopes, but it was a good exercise in creativity.

That's about it for now. Thanks for stopping by!

Not a Creature Was Stirring...

2011-10-09T18:28:00.001-07:00

Not even a mouse! This cute little guy is for this week's DP2 Challenge. This week's challenge is Patchwork, and of course you must use a Mo's Digital Pencil design. This image is a couple of years old, but I still think he's adorable all snuggled up in his tea cup waiting for Santa.

I colored the image with Prismacolor pencils blended with Gamsol. The simple patchwork background is made from DCWV papers and hand-stitched around the outside with pink floss. I added some simple embellishments - ribbon, flowers, button and stick pin.

I am also posting this card for Golda's challenge on the Cardmaker Magazine Card Swap forum. Her challenge is to make a Christmas card from a non-traditional image.

Thanks for stopping by!

Reindeer Card

2011-10-03T22:19:00.001-07:00

Here is my second submission for The 12 Tags of Christmas Funkie Junkie Style challenge. This is actually my submission for week 4's tag. I still need to do weeks 2 and 3. The challenge runs through December 15th and participants have until then to post all 12 of their projects. That's my kind of challenge because some weeks I crank out all kinds of stuff and others not so much.

Anyway, the object of the challenge is to make a project inspired by tags created by Linda - aka The Funkie Junkie. (I just love that name!) The projects can be anything you like - cards, tags, altered art, etc. So far both my submissions have been cards, but I plan to make a few other things as well.

You can see Linda's tag that inspired this card on her blog. I was inspired by:

Colors
Reindeer
Snowflakes
Sheet Music

The reindeer and snowflake stamps are from a clear set. I took all my clear stamps out of their packaging so I could store them in binders on acrylic sheets in page protectors. Unfortunately, I didn't note the companies. I'm fairly certain these are Inkadinkado, but they could be Hampton Art. I do know that the Merry Christmas is from Martha Stewart. The sheet music is from an old piano lesson book that I found at our local swap meet (referred to here as "the sale barn") for a dollar. I sponged everything with Vintage Photo Distress Ink. I stamped the snowflakes on the background with Vintage Photo and the ones on the image panel with Black Soot. I also edged the image with Black Soot. I sprayed the background and the reindeer image with my homemade glimmer spray.

Thanks for looking!

Rolled Ribbon Flower Technique

2011-10-02T16:44:00.001-07:00

I love making my own flowers, so I was excited that one of the challenges for the World Cardmaking Day crop on the Cardmaker forum was to make and use rolled ribbon flowers on a card. It was relatively easy, but I found it a little tedious. It's probably not something I would do a lot, but maybe once in awhile.

In addition to the challenge on Cardmaker, I am also entering this card into the following:

Card Patterns Sketch 135
Less is More Week 35 - make a card using the color of your eyes as the primary color
Crafty Creations Challenge #137 - Clean and simple

I'm not completely sure my card is truly what's considered clean and simple, but it seems clean and simple to me, so I'm going to submit it anyway. If it's not, then I'll know better next time. :)

I didn't actually use ribbon for my flowers. I didn't have any the color that I wanted that was really wide enough. I managed to make one with some 5/8" blue satin ribbon, but I didn't like it. It was too neat for my taste. So I found some white double fold bias tape. I tea dyed it and pressed it flat. Once I got the flowers made I sprayed it with some of my homemade glimmer spray and added a blue glass bead in the center. I like the way some of the tattered edges of the bias tape show in the flowers. Much more to my liking.

The stamps are from a clear set that I bought a couple of years ago, but I can't remember who made them. They are either Hampton Art or Inkadinkado. I used 4 separate stamps to make the image. It is stamped with French Blue Chalk Ink so it would have a softer look. I inked my edges with Vintage Photo Distress Ink.

Thanks for looking!

Le Coq

2011-10-01T19:51:00.000-07:00

When I saw this awesome vintage rooster on The Graphics Fairy a few days ago, I knew I would have to come up with something to make with him. I love chickens and I love French stuff. As it happens, two challenges came up today where this guy fit right in.

The CardMaker magazine card swap forum is having an online mini crop today in honor of World Cardmaking Day. One of the challenges was to use a farm animal on a card.

The challenge at Our Creative Corner this week also celebrates World Cardmaking Day. The challenge is to create a project inspired by a country other than your own. Obviously the country that inspired my card is France.

In addition to the rooster, I also downloaded the French ephemera at the top of the card and the floral paper at the bottom from The Graphics Fairy. The only stamping on the card is the two little ornamental designs in the corner of the ephemera piece and the fleur de lis on the sentiment. The sentiment is computer generated. I inked everything with Vintage Photo Distress Ink, added some hand-stitching, lace, ribbon, flowers, a button, some twine and a stick pin.

Since I downloaded my papers and main image from there, I am also submitting this to The Graphics Fairy for Brag Monday. You can submit any projects you have made using Karen's images on Mondays. She'll pick a couple of her favorites to feature the following week. Just a neat little thing to recognize her followers. Karen is very generous and has awesome vintage images. If you like vintage at all, you owe it to yourself to check out her site. You won't be disappointed (and everything is free!).

Thanks for looking!

Vintage Magnolia Santa

2011-09-30T21:44:00.001-07:00

I made this card for the 12 Tags of Christmas Funkie Junkie Style Challenge. Each week for 12 weeks, Linda is posting a tag to use as inspiration. Participants do not have to create a tag. They can create a tag, card, art piece - anything at all. The only requirement is to use something from the posted tag as inspiration for whatever you create. I'm a little behind. The challenge is on week 4 and this is my project for the week 1 inspiration. Good thing we have until December 15 to link all 12 of the projects. I had a hard time getting started. At first I thought I wanted to create one big overall project, such as an altered book, and have each week's project be a part of that larger project. But I couldn't figure out what I wanted to do or what I would really do with it once I was finished. For me, the things I make also need to be practical. So in the end, I decided to just make whatever I was inspired to make for each week's inspiration and not try to have everything come together in one piece. I may make a card, a tag, a gift card holder, an ornament or whatever.

You can see Linda's inspiration tag for the week 1 challenge here on her blog. For this week's challenge I chose to make a card. The inspirations from Linda's tag are:

Vintage
Santa
Kraft + 1 color (I used red instead of green)
Gold accents
Paper rosette behind the sentiment

My Santa image is from Magnolia and I colored him with Prismacolor pencils blended with Gamsol. The Be Merry sentiment is stamped with Fired Brick Distress Ink and cut out with a Nestabilities label die. I hand-stitched around the outside of the background with fine gold cord. The "Grand Christmas" piece is part of a Boston toy store advertisement that I downloaded from The Graphics Fairy. I inked everything with Vintage Photo Distress Ink and sprayed with a homemade glimmer spray made from Vintage Photo Distress Ink and Aztec Gold PearlEx powder. Some of the mist came out in bigger droplets than I would have liked. To finish it off, I added some red gems, gold sheer ribbon, a paper rosette and a stick pin.

I'm looking forward to doing more projects for this challenge. I really admire Linda's work. Thanks for looking!

Vintage Collage Birthday Card

2011-09-27T19:05:00.000-07:00

I made this card for my dear friend Susan's birthday. I am also entering it in the Catered Crop Follow the Recipe Challenge. This is another newly discovered challenge blog for me and my first submission. The idea of this challenge is that the winner of the previous challenge provides the "recipe" for the next challenge (theme, papers, tools, etc.) You can choose any ingredient or ingredients from the recipe and add your own "spice" to make a new creation. Looking at the inspiration recipe and mine, I may have used more of the inspiration ingredients than I realized and not so much of my own spices, but I still am very happy with how this card turned out. It was a lot of fun to make.

Here is my recipe:

Colors: Sepia, Blues, Browns, Gold

Papers: Design paper (My Mind's Eye - I think :); dictionary page; shipping tag; scraps

Stamps: harlequin, sentiment, scroll (on twill tape)

Color Mediums: Distress Ink (Vintage Photo, Walnut Stain, Antique Linen), homemade glimmer spray (distress ink mixed with PearlEx powder and water)

Embellishments: Twill tape, lace, twine, buttons, beads, jewelry tag, thread, vintage clipart

Techniques: Tea dye, distress, sewing

Tools: die cuts, punches

Themes: Vintage, bird, birdcage, birthday

A few notes:

I soaked the gingham background paper in tea to give it an aged look. It was very bright before I did that.

The blue flower is made using the Martha Stewart Hydrangea punch. I punched it twice, pressed on the petals with a stylus to curl them and stacked the six pieces together to make the flower. I used a gold seed bead for the center.

The white flower is made from crepe paper. I colored it with a homemade glitter spray, then die cut the petals with a Nestabilities die. I layered them with regular white glue and puffed up the layers. I added three gold seed beads for the center. I really enjoyed working with the crepe paper. it's thin so you can manipulate it, but not as delicate as tissue paper. I got a big roll of white for less than a dollar and I can color it with inks or whatever to get the color I want. Pretty good buy.

The bird and birdcage images are from the awesome Graphics Fairy blog. If you like vintage images you should check it out. It has tons of cool stuff for free.

Thanks for looking!

Autumn Blessings

2011-09-25T16:04:00.000-07:00

This is my first fall-themed card this year. I love, love, love fall. It's hands-down my favorite season of the year. I love the cooler temperatures (our summers are very hot and humid), the clear blue sky and the crispness in the air. We've already had some cool days. We even had to turn our heat on for a little while today.

I'm submitting this card for two challenges - the weekly challenge on the CardMaker Card Swap forum and the Stampin' Sisters in Christ Challenge #108.

For the CardMaker challenge this week, Rhonda challenged us to make a fall card without using any fall-theme designer paper. Instead she wanted us to create our own background paper. I decided to try a new technique (for me) to make my background paper, but as often happens it didn't turn out right.

What I wanted to do was the Alcohol Ink Faux Bleach technique. With this technique, you stamp an image with Versamark on white glossy cardstock then heat emboss it with clear. You sponge the alcohol inks all over the paper, then cover the image with a piece of plain white cardstock and iron over it to remove the embossing. The image you stamped then shows in white with the alcohol ink colors on the rest of the piece. The technique was beautiful in the demo video I watched, but mine - not so much. I think maybe my stamp was too detailed and didn't quite get stamped all the way either. Soooo - I just made my background by sponging the fall color alcohol inks all over the paper and I think that turned out pretty well.

On top of my background I made six little fall theme squares. In the upper left is a square punched from my failed background technique. The pumpkin in the next square is cut from a vintage seed packet image that I dowloaded from The Graphics Fairy (awesome site for FREE vintage images!). For the next square I sprayed a piece of cheesecloth with some homemade glimmer spray made from Vintage Photo Distress Ink and Aztec Gold PearlEx powder. I love the look of these sprays but never wanted to pay the prices for the ready-made stuff. You can search for "homemade glimmer mist" on YouTube for how to make this. It's super easy. I then punched three leaves from the background paper left from trimming down my piece and glued them on top of the cheesecloth.

In the lower left corner is a stamped sunflower that I colored with watercolor pencils, sponged on a little Vintage Photo Distress Ink and cut it out. Next is my sentiment, which I printed on the computer. I added a little stamped leaf and a flower with a little button and some twine, then sponged on an little of the Vintage Photo ink. The final square is another square punched from my faux bleach image. After I had everything glued to the background paper, I sprayed the whole thing with some of the homemade glimmer spray.

The theme for this week's Stampin' Sisters in Christ challenge is to use the word "blessings" or a piece of scripture on your card. I just found this challenge blog a couple of weeks ago and this is my first time to participate in the challenge. They post wonderful inspirational stories with their challenges and I am happy to have found a challenge that also helps me profess my Christian faith. I'm looking forward to getting to know and fellowshipping with other women who share my faith and my passion for stamping and paper crafting.

Thanks for looking!

Altered Book Calendar Februrary 2012

2011-09-23T21:45:00.000-07:00

I am participating in The Craft Barn's 12 Week Calendar Challenge. Each week has a different theme and each day one member of the design team posts their take on the theme. You can make one calendar creating a month each week or you can create multiple calendars with the full year on each one. I have decided to make my calendar in an altered children's board book. This is my first altered book project and so far it's a lot of fun - but very time consuming.

I was not able to complete my January page in time to meet the challenge deadline last week, so I'm starting with February. I decided to get that month done so I could try to meet the deadline this week. I'll go back and finish my January page and post it later.

This week's challenge was to use the color red and heat embossing. I painted the page with dark red acrylic paint. I stamped the background of the page with a script stamp and attempted to emboss it in cream. That was a disaster. I don't know if it was because I was stamping on a painted surface or because the page wasn't laying flat, but I could not get a good stamp anywhere. I tried to fill in thinking it would just end up adding to the distressed look anyway, but it just was a mess. Fortunately most of the mess got covered up with everything else. I had no way to salvage it other than to just trash it and I didn't want to do that. Lesson learned. I also embossed the same script on the little pocket. That turned out much better. The frame behind the calendar is a piece of chipboard cut with my Labels Nestie. I inked the edges and embossed them in gold. I also embossed the wings on the heart.

The tag in the pocket is to write important dates, such as birthdays. I also thought I could tuck little notes or appointment cards, etc. in the pocket.

Thanks for looking!

We Will Never Forget

2011-09-11T20:32:00.000-07:00

This is my little tribute to today's somber anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. It's hard to believe it's been 10 years. This was not only a horrible day for my beloved country, but for the whole world as everyone mourned along with us.

I started this little collage just because I wanted to do it. I wanted to do something to honor the day and I also wanted to try something new. I have never made anything like this before. I have been wanting to try some mixed media collage and thought this would be something I could practice on. I didn't intend to submit it for any challenges or anything. But shortly after I started this project yesterday, Hels Sheridan, who publishes the Ink on My Fingers blog, posted her Sunday Stamper challenge. The theme this week is The Time to Remember commemorating the 9/11 attacks. So I have decided to submit it for that challenge.

I just recently discovered Hels' blog. She is not only a talented artist, this lady is a hoot! Even if you aren't particularly into her artistic style, you should check out her blog. She never fails to make me laugh. I think she would be a delightful person to know.

I started my collage by making the background. First I tore some random pieces of paper in shades of red, blue and tan and glued them onto a piece of scrap paper with Mod Podge. After that dried, I went over the whole piece with Walnut Stain Distress Ink to get rid of the white edges of the paper and tone down the colors a bit. Then I stamped the clock and script randomly on cream color tissue paper using brown StazOn, tore it into pieces and glued them over the paper, again using Mod Podge. It wrinkled a bit and some of the distress ink showed through, which I decided I liked. After the background piece dried, I glued it to a 6x6 piece of chipboard and trimmed it to fit. I then brushed metallic antique gold acrylic paint around the edges and in random strokes across the piece.

I downloaded the "We the People" and the vintage lady graphics from Flickr (Creative Commons License). I hand-stitched the lady onto a piece of vintage dictionary paper with the definition for "free" at the top. I created the Bible verse on the computer, tore it out and inked it with Vintage Photo and Fired Brick Distress Inks. I made the rosette and added the button, twine, stick pin and star charm. I stamped "Remember 9-11-01 Forever" using Fired Brick Distress Ink, then finished it off with an old postage stamp (it says "Give me liberty or give me death.") and three copper upholstery tack brads. I'm not sure about the brads, but it looked like it needed some dimension on that side and I couldn't find anything else to put there. I may change that part later if I find something more appropriate.

As I mentioned above, this is my first mixed media collage and I loved making it as much as I thought I would. I know I still have a lot to learn, but it turned out even better than I had hoped it would. I got a little scared when I was making the torn paper background. It looked pretty bad in it's first stages, but I kept going and it turned out great. I'm definitely going to do more of that and more mixed media art.

Thanks for looking!

Supplies

Stamps: Clock (Rosebud); Script (Club Scrap); Numbers (Technique Tuesday); Remember and Forever (Unknown)

Ink: Walnut Stain, Vintage Photo and Fired Brick Distress Ink (Tim Holtz - Ranger); Saddle Brown (StazOn); Red Pepper Alcohol Ink on the button (Ranger)

Paper: Scraps from my stash and tissue paper

Other: Vintage images (Flickr), vintage postage stamp, Metallic Antique Gold acrylic paint (Folk Art); stick pin; star charm; button; twine; upholstery tack brads (Making Memories)

Gluttonous Gruffie

2011-09-09T14:44:00.000-07:00

Still making progress on my return to crafting. This time I not only stamped my image - I even colored it. It sure seems like it took a lot longer than it used to, but it's my first coloring attempt for quite awhile, so I guess I'm not surprised. I'm submitting this chocoholic Gruffie for the following three challenges:

CardMaker Magazine Forum - Trash to Treasure

Crafty Creations - Anything but a Square

Colour Create - Pink, Brown and Cream or White; Optional - Lace

This week's "anything goes" challenge on the CardMaker forum is Trash to Treasure. The challenge is to use a candy wrapper or other food packaging that you would usually discard on a card. I paper-pieced (actually foil-pieced) the truffle wrappers that the Gruffie has discarded with pink foil from a Hershey Kiss. I found them at my mom's house and I think they must have been left from Valentine's Day. I also made my ginormous flower (at least it looks ginormous because the card isn't very big) with the paper wrappers from six miniature Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. The center of the flower is fancy button from my stash. By the way, paper piecing with foil from Hershey Kisses is a royal pain.

To meet the requirement for the Crafty Creations challenge I cut the card with my largest Labels Nestie. I folded the card stock in half, then left the left edge of the die hanging just off the fold so it wouldn't cut that side. I really like the way it looks, but I wish I had a bigger die like that. It's only a little over 5" x a little over 4". Not a lot of room to do much, especially with the large image. I could have made a rectangle that would have been larger, but I didn't want a straight shape.

This week's Colour Create challenge is pink, brown and cream/white. There is also an option of using lace. I used all shades of pink and brown to color the image, except for the gold metallic pen that I used for the word "Truffles" on the box. My papers and embellishments are also the required colors. I used a lace ribbon on the left side. I also used a clear Glaze pen on the truffles to make them look kind of shiny. I'm not sure if that shows very well in the photo.

It was fun to color again and fun to make a challenge card again. Thanks for looking!

Supplies

Stamp: Beary Full of Truffles (Gruffies - House Mouse Designs)

Paper: pink card stock (scrap from my stash), brown card stock (Club Scrap), DP (My Mind's Eye)

Ink: Onyx Black (VersaFine); Jet Black (StazOn); Vintage Photo Distress Ink (Tim Holtz - Ranger)

Technique: Prismacolor pencil blended with odorless mineral spirits

Misc: Labels Nestabilities die (Spellbinder); lace, button, Reese's papers and Hershey Kiss foil

Vintage Stamped Collage

2011-09-06T15:55:00.000-07:00

I made this card for this week's sketch challenge on the CardMaker Card Swap forum. I am not completely thrilled with it. Collage is one of my favorite stamping techniques, but I think I am a bit out of practice since it's been at least two years since I've done one (probably longer). It didn't turn out quite like I wanted it too. I wanted to see how it looked to tint a couple of the images, which I have never done before. I used chalks just to give a little color. I don't think I'll be doing that again - or if I do I'll just color them sepia tones. Also it didn't exactly fit the sketch. I probably should have made a bigger card to have more room below the diamond to put the ribbon.

I did try a couple of new things. I made my own background paper out of a page from an old book that I picked up for free from a box at the library. I applied packaging tape to the page, then stripped it off to remove some of the lettering. Then I wet the page down with coffee, crumpled it and flattened it out to dry. I then stamped swirls on it using Vintage Photo Distress ink. I think I need to work on it a little more (too many swirls and not enough enough color from the coffee), but overall I liked it. I'm on a much more restricted crafting budget than I used to be so I'm always looking for ways to recycle and make my own things so I don't have to spend a lot of money. Since I love shabby and vintage, this is a good technique for me.

For the flower embellishment, I stamped some script on the top flower with the distress ink (which kind of got covered up with the button). I also decorated the button. I used the back side of a plain white button so it would be smooth. I dabbed it with Latte alcohol ink to color it, then I stamped a tiny argyle pattern on it with Timber Brown Staz-On. On top of that, I stamped a tiny fleur de lis with Blazing Red Staz-On. Unfortunately, that pretty much got covered up by the bow. I still count it as a success because now I know my huge stash of plain ol' buttons has tons of new possibilities with my alcohol inks and little stamps. I have a feeling I'm going to go crazy with this one. :) I also made the stick pin and colored the pearl on the end with the Latte alcohol ink.

Even though this card didn't turn out quite like I wanted it to, it was a success for me. I learned a few new techniques and ways to stretch those crafting dollars. Plus, I finally got to use my stamps again. Thanks for looking!

Supplies

Stamps: Stampabilities, Hampton Art, Rosebud, Penny Black, Impression Obsession, Inkadinkado, Club Scrap

Ink: Vintage Sepia (VersaFine); Timber Brown, Blazing Red (StazOn); Tim Holtz Vintage Photo Distress Ink (Ranger); Latte Adirondak Alcohol Ink (Ranger)

Paper: Scraps from my stash; old book page

Diamond Cookie Cutter die (QuikCutz); ribbon, Prima flowers, button, twine, red fiber, stick pin

C'mon Honey, Cowgirl Up!

2011-09-02T12:04:00.000-07:00

Here is the card I made for this week's "Anything Goes" challenge on the CardMaker Magazine Card Swap Forum. The theme was to use newsprint. As is usually the case, the card did not end up as I had originally planned. I guess I should stop thinking of them as plans and start thinking of them as starting points.

The newsprint is from an article about bull riding that was in our monthly rural electric cooperative newspaper. This led me to a western theme. Since the boot image is really the only western theme stamp I have, I decided to see if I could find a vintage cowboy image online and I thought the phrase "cowboy up" would be a good sentiment. While I did find some cowboy images, I really liked the one of the cow"girl" that I decided to use. Obviously, I had to change the sentiment, but that's just the way life works out for me most of the time.

I stamped and distressed the newsprint to give it some interest. I also inked the edges of the card and the photo. The sentiment is computer generated. I embellished with jute twine, a copper heart charm and embossed metal photo corners, which I made myself.

To make the photo corners, I cut the top and bottom off an aluminum soda can, then cut it open lengthwise to make a sheet. I stuck it inside an embossing folder and ran it through my Big Kick so that the silver side was embossed. Then I colored it with alcohol inks. I cut small squares with a Nestabilities die, then punched two of the corners into a scroll shape. I cut the squares in half into two triangles to finish them. I was very happy with the way they turned out and now I'm trying to think of what else I can make with soda cans. Sure beats going out and buying metal sheets at the craft store. You do have to be careful with embossing. Because the metal is thin, the grooves can be weak and the metal might break if you bend them in those areas.

Thanks for checking out my card!

Supplies

Paper and Cardstock: Scraps from my stash and newsprint

Stamps: Old Boot (Stamabilities); swirl (Hampton Art)

Vintage cowgirl image (public domain image downloaded from the Internet)

Font: Honey Script (downloaded from daFont.com)

Ink: Tim Holtz Vintage Photo Distress Ink (Ranger); Rust, Terra Cotta and Pitch Black Adirondak alcohol inks (Ranger)

Nestabilities square die (Spellbinders); Corner punch (EK Success); Victorian embossing folder (Cuttlebug); jute twine; copper heart charm

I'm Baaaaack!

2011-08-30T19:25:00.000-07:00

Wow! I can't believe it's been almost two whole years!! A lot has happened in the last two years. I lleft my job of 20 years and left Kansas City - my home for 23 years. My family and I are now happily settled in my small hometown in Southeast Missouri. We decided we wanted a slower paced life and to be closer to family. I work part-time at a small day spa and have more time to be creative. I LOVE my life!!

I finally got my craft room unpacked and am ready to play. I still love making things with paper and ink and am discovering some new addictions, as well. You will no doubt be seeing some of those on here too.

This tag is my first paper creation in over a year. I made it for last week's challenge on the CardMaker Magazine Card Swap forum. I just joined there and everybody is super nice. If you'd like a laid back place to chat and play check it out.

No supplies list for this one. I used all scraps and bits from my stash. The photo is public domain from the Internet and the sentiment is from Hero Arts.

Thanks for looking! It won't be another two years before I post again.

A Little Christmas Cheer

2009-11-15T10:32:00.001-08:00

I am hosting the weekly challenge on CK/PCMB this week. My challenge is to create a Christmas theme project with at least one non-traditional element. It could be a non-traditional color scheme, an image that was not originally intended for Christmas, a humorous theme, etc. For my sample card I chose an image that was not originally intended for Christmas - Cosmobella. I chose some retro style papers to go with the image and printed the sentiment on the computer using a retro font.

Supplies
Stamp: Cosmobella (Stamping Bella); sentiment is computer generated using Fontdiner.com font
Ink: Onyx Black (VersaFine); Peeled Paint Distress Ink (Ranger)
Paper: White cardstock; blue cardstock and DP - Holiday (Paper Salon); red scraps
Embellishments: Circle Nestabilities; corner rounder punch; brads; ribbon
Technique: Prismacolor pencils blended with mineral spirits
Finished card size: A2 (4 1/4" x 5 1/1")

Thanksgiving Cornucopia

2009-11-06T19:28:00.000-08:00

Here's a cornucopia for Thanksgiving. I made this card for this week's challenge on the PaperCrafts message board. The challenge hostess is Sue/weedsgalore and she asked us to make a Thanksgiving card with either a turkey, a Pilgrim or a cornucopa. I love this cornucopia stamp, but I have been lazy lately and not in the mood to color. Sue suggested that I emboss the image in gold so I didn't have to color it, so that's what I did. Personally, I like it colored better, but that's okay. Now I know for sure.

Peace Dove in Gold and Cream

2009-10-31T08:24:00.001-07:00

This morning was the first time I set foot in my craft room this week. I wanted to make a card for this week's challenge on CK/PCMB forum. It's a sketch challenge hosted by my friend Barbara. She also included an optional challenge of doing white on white. I didn't exactly do the white on white. Instead I used a gold and cream color scheme. I heat embossed the image in gold and embossed the papers with three different Cuttlebug folders. The background is gold vellum. I matted the circle and rectangle in gold handmade paper and added the gold nail heads to the corners to cover up my adhesive.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope everyone has a spooktacular (and SAFE) Halloween!!

Supplies
Stamp: Christmas Fillagree clear set (Inkadinkado)
Ink: Versamark; gold EP
Paper: Cream cardstock, gold vellum, gold handmade paper
Embellishments: Circle, rectangle and long rectangle Nestabilities; D'Vine Swirls, Victoria and Script embossing folders (Cuttlebug); ribbon, nail heads
Techniques: Heat Embossing, dry embossing
Finished card size: A2 (4 1/4" x 5 1/2")

A Holly Jolly Christmas

2009-10-25T12:27:00.001-07:00

Here's a jolly little Christmas card. No challenges - just something I wanted to make. I'm working on a few personal goals this weekend - using some stamps I haven't used or haven't used in a long time, using some of my scraps and stuff in my stash and making simpler, smaller cards. This stamp is one of the very first stamps I ever bought and I used it to make my very first stamped card several years ago. I still think it's really cute. Since it's so small and has the hand-drawn look, I chose to color it with chalks instead of my usual Prismacolor Pencils. That's another one of my goals by the way - to use some of my other coloring media.

Supplies
Stamps: Jolly Ranchers, Merry Christmas 02 (Stampabilities)
Ink: Vintage Sepia (VersaFine); Vintage Photo and Fired Brick Distress Ink (Ranger)
Paper: Tan cardstock, green cardstock, DP - all scraps from my stash
Embellishments: Long rectangle Nestabilities, scallop border punch, ribbon, button
Techniques: Chalk, distressing
Finished Card Size: A2 (4 1/4" x 5 1/2")

I Witch Shoe a Happy Halloween

2009-10-24T16:19:00.000-07:00

Here is a simple little Halloween card that I made today. I wasn't really intending it for any challenges, but happened to notice that three of my favorite challenge blogs have Halloween as the theme this week - Cupcake Craft Challenge, Stamp Something and Stampin' for the Weekend.
I found this stamp in the clearance bin at Michael's awhile back and thought it was cute. When I was putting it together, the little pun came to me, so that is what I put on the inside - I Witch Shoe a Happy Halloween. Tee hee... I printed it on the computer and cut it out with my Label 8 Nesties.
Supplies
Stamp: Witch Shoes (Stampendous); Sentiment is computer generated (Blackladder font)
Ink: Onyx Black (VersaFine); Tangerine Chalk Ink (Color Box)
Paper: White, orange and black cardstock (scraps); DP - Spooky Alley (Making Memories)
Embellishments: Label 8 Nestabilities; buttons, twine, ribbon
Technique: Prismacolor pencils blended with mineral spirits
Finished card size: A2 (4 1/4" x 5 1/2")

Henry with Ornament

2009-10-24T09:16:00.000-07:00

I can't believe I haven't made a card for two weeks! I did this one for Jenny's masking challenge on CK/PCMB. I love masking, but didn't get all that creative this time. I think my mojo is on vacation. I stamped the image, then masked it and stamped the background stamp over it. The image is colored with Prismas blended with mineral spirits. I added some flock to Henry's hat, a little bling and some ribbon.

Thanks for stopping by.

Supplies
Stamps: Henry with Ornament (Whiff of Joy); International Christmas Script (Hero Arts)
Ink: Onyx Black (VersaFine); Pewter metallic (Color Box); Warm Red (Color Box Chalk)
Paper: Turquoise cardstock (Club Scrap); DP - Fruitcake (Basic Grey)
Embellishments: Scalloped rectangle Nestabilities; red gems, ribbon, flock
Techniques: Prismacolor Pencils blended with mineral spirits; masking
Finished card size: A2 (4 1/4" x 5 1/2")

Card Relay

2009-10-11T17:32:00.001-07:00

We are having a card relay race on the PaperCrafts Message board that I participate in. The basic premise is that there are two teams of five members each. Each person has a specific item to contribute to the cards, and once their task is complete, the mail the items to the next person. The fifth person on the team takes the items and makes five identical cards with them. The first team to post a picture of all five completed cards wins the relay. Each team member then gets one of the completed cards back. I was the fifth person on our team. I think my teammates picked some really cute images, papers and embellishments. It was fun making these cards.

Here is a photo of all five completed cards.

The above photos shows the inside of all the completed cards. Using a sentiment was part of the requirement, so I took a picture of the inside to show that I did that part. The peachy paper is actually the back side of the brown flowered paper that you see on the card front. I had to use only what was provided in the packet. I couldn't add any other papers or embellishments, so I was happy that my paper team mate sent one of the papers that could be used on both sides.

And finally, here is a close-up of one of the completed cards.

This was really fun. I hope my team mates enjoy their cards!

Cute Little Witch - Recessed Window Card

2009-10-09T20:07:00.000-07:00

Several of my favorite challenge blogs are doing a Halloween theme this week, so this card is for six different challenges.

Three of the blogs I am submitting to I have participated in before. They are A Spoon Full of Sugar, Simon Says Challenge and 2RB Banana Split Sunday. All three of these blogs are featuring the Halloween theme this week. In addition I am submitting this for two challenges I have not participated in before. One is the Cuttlebug Challenge, which is also a Halloween theme. The other is Mo's Digital Pencil Challenge. Mo is having her very first challenge this week. You must use one of Mo's images and also follow the theme, which is purple. For the image I chose Halloween Witch. I think she's just so cute. To meet the color requirement I colored her dress purple.

Finally, I am also submitting this for Kari's challenge this week on Scrap and Paper Corner PaperCrafts forum. Kari's challenge was to make a fall or Halloween window card. I didn't create a traditional window card. Instead I decided to try the recessed window card. I found a tutorial for this on Splitcoast Stampers. It was surprisingly easy to do.

Unfortunately, I don't seem to have a lot of Halloween theme embellishments, so I kept this card fairly simple. I used a spider web texture plate to emboss the outside (and to meet the Cuttlebug requirment :) - although I use a Big Kick). I swiped some white ink on it to make the web stand out a little better. I also used some little bats, which are actually a computer font that I printed and cut out, then mounted with foam squares. I sponged some yellow inks on the circle around the little witch, which in my head I thought made it look like a moon, but I don't know how successful I was with that. The sentiment is also computer generated and from the same font set as the bats. I finished it off with a black and orange ribbon.

Supplies
Images: Halloween Witch (Mo's Digital Pencil); bats and sentiment (Trick or Treat font downloaded from dafont.com)
Paper: black cardstock (unknown); DP - Spooky Alley (Making Memories)
Tools and embellishments: Spider web texture plate (Fiskars); circle Nestabilities (Spellbinders); circle punch (creative memories); Scalloped circle punch (Paper Studio); ribbon
Technique: Prismacolor pencils blended with mineral spirits; recessed window
Finished card size: 6" square

Anniversary Card and House Mouse and Friends Challenge #53

2009-10-03T19:11:00.000-07:00

On Monday, my husband and I celebrate our "lucky 13" wedding anniversary. This is the card I made for him. You may be wondering what bears hanging laundry has to do with wedding anniversaries. I haven't quite worked out what I'm going to put on the inside, but I'm thinking along the lines of being together makes even our everyday routine more fun - or something like that. Even though I love my husband with all my heart, I didn't really want to do a mushy card this time. He enjoys the Gruffies and this is one of my favorite images. (Thank you Jenny;) I'm also submitting this card for House Mouse and Friends Challenge #53 - buttons.

If you follow my blog, you might think this image looks familiar. Here is where I confess that I made another card with this same image for a previous challenge. Unfortunately, I dropped an ink pad on the card and was not able to use it. As luck would have it though, the pad missed the actual image, so I removed it and made a different card with it. No sense throwing away a perfectly good image just because the rest of the card is ruined.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope everyone is enjoying their weekend!

Supplies
Stamp: Gruffies - Laundry Line
Paper: kraft cardstock, green cardstock, blue cardstock, paisely DP - all from my stash and unknown
Embellishments: Victoria embossing folder (Cuttlebug); photo corner die (Quikutz); buttons, twine, ribbon
Technique: Prismacolor pencils blended with mineral spirits; sponged sky with blue pigment ink
Finished card size: A7 (5" x 7")

Peachy Keen Stamps Challenge Blog Candy!

2009-09-30T05:55:00.000-07:00

Peachy Keen Stamps challenge blog has candy up until, Friday, October 23rd midnight CST. The winner will be drawn and announced on Saturday, October 24th.

The following items are included in the blog candy:
4 packages of Miss Elizabeth's Scrapbook Papers: Braun, Lodge, Jewels, and Fairytale Princess(6 pages per package)
Peachy Keen Stamps PK-303A Tubular Star Snowman Small
Peachy Keen Stamps PK-320 Snickerdoodle Gift Elf
Peachy Keen Stamps PK-311 Snowmany Thanks
Peachy Keen Stamps PK-404 Sugar n Spice Gingers Small
12 Ice Stickles: Gold, Crystal, Arctic Ice, Grape, Blueberry, Lime, Cherry, Strawberry, Silver, Coffee, Lemon and Mint
12 Offray Grosgrain Ribbon Spools 3/8": White, Cranberry, Island Blue, Ant White, Black, Lt Pink, Shock Pink, Blue, Lemongrass, Lemon, Yellow Gold, Oatmeal (two of these are at the bottom of the stack behind the long acrylic block)
3 SUPER acrylic blocks with grid lines and finger grooves, Sizes: 3.5" round, 4.25" round and 8" x 2.5"

Check out the Peachy Keen Stamps Challenge Blog for details!!

Life's a Bowl of Cherries

2009-09-27T14:55:00.001-07:00

I'm so sorry for the cliche, but I'm sure you understand why I had to do it. It was the perfect sentiment for this card.

I am submitting this card for this week's Penny Black Saturday Challenge. This week was a color challenge - Chocolate, Lemon and Pink. I don't think I ever would have made a card wit those colors had I not been challenged to do so, but now that I have them together, I kind of like it.

I also used a sketch that I created for this week's challenge on the Creating Keepstakes PaperCrafts Message Board.

Thanks for stopping by!

Stamp: Penny Black (from the Micey Day clear set); sentiment is computer generated
Paper: Pink and brown cardstock (Bazzill); DP - Kaleidescope (My Mind's Eye)
Tools and embellishments: Birds and Swirls embossing folder (Cuttlebug); flower punch (EK Success); flower brads (Making Memories); ribbon
Technique: Prismacolor pencils blended with mineral spirits
Final card size: A2 (4 1/4" x 5 1/2")

Stocking Full of Love in White on White

2009-09-27T09:11:00.000-07:00

I'm squ"eek"ing this one in under the wire! It's for the House Mouse and Friends Monday Challenge and the deadline is less than three hours from now. As those little mice would say "EEK!" I am also submitting this card for this week's Stamp Something Challenge.

The House Mouse challenge blog is celebrating it's first birthday and the theme for this challenge was to choose one or more of your favorite challenges from the last year for your entry. I chose two - Challenge #43 (the sketch shown below) and Challenge #47 (White on White). I didn't have the opportunity to participate in the White on White challenge when it was posted, so I was glad to have another opportunity. For this challenge only the image could be colored. All other elements of the card had to be white. I used some embossing to add some texture and help define the elements of the card.

The sketch I used is from Challenge #43 and is one of my favorites. I have used it on other cards and also seen several others use it as well. Since the theme for this week's Stamp Something challenge is something with your favorite sketch or layout, I am submitting it for that challenge as well. Like most other things, I don't have one favorite sketch or layout, but this is definitely one a like a lot and have used more than once.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope you have a great week!!!

Supplies

Image: Stocking Full of Love

Paper: White cardstock (Georgia Pacific)

Tools: Rectangle, scalloped rectangle, circle, scalloped circle Nestabilities (Spellbinder); D'Vine Swirls and Snowflake embossing folders (Cuttlebug); Snowflake punches (Oriental Trading)

Embellishments: ribbon, rhinestones

Technique: Prismacolor pencils blended with mineral spirits

Finished Card Size: A7 (5" x 7")

Tilda with Presents

2009-09-22T21:47:00.000-07:00

Here is another Christmas card. I think I'm stuck on that holiday right now for some reason. I am submitting this card for SIX challenges. I think that's a personal record. Here they are.

Just Magnolia - Bev's sketch (shown below) using a Magnolia image. The image I chose is Tilda with Presents, which was a RAK from my friend Barbara. (thanks!) I colored Tilda with Prismacolor pencils blended with mineral spirits. I added some Stickles to her wings, the holly in her hair and the ribbons on the presents. I also used a gold metallic pen on the ribbon of the middle present.

Stamp Something - Something with your favorite colors or favorite papers. This could either be easy or hard depending on how you look at it. I don't have any "favorite" colors - I love them all! For this one I chose one of my favorite paper lines - Basic Grey - and also one of my favorite BG collections of all time - Fruitcake.

Basic Grey - Embossing, plus at least one Basic Grey item. I embossed the green scalloped piece using my Cuttlebug Victoria embossing folder. I also heat embossed the sentiment. As mentioned above I used Basic Grey Fruitcake paper. The background paper is Tidings and the greenish paper behind the image is the flip side - Wintermint.

2RB Banana Split Sunday - Easy as 1-2-3 - One ribbon, two stamps, three dewdrops or gems. I think the 1 and 2 are pretty obvious. I don't own any dew drops so I used gems.

Pile it On - Punches plus combine with at least one other challenge. The only punch I used is the Martha Stewart Doily border punch -hope that's acceptable.

Cupcake Craft Challenge - Distressing. I sanded the embossing on the scalloped piece as well as the edges of the mat behind the image and the scallop behind the sentiment. I also inked the image and sentiment with Vintage Photo distress ink.

Thanks for stopping by! Maybe it won't take me a whole week to post my next card. :)

Be Merry - Santa in Blue and Brown

2009-09-15T21:39:00.000-07:00

I decided that after a couple hundred years or so, Santa was bored with his red suit and wanted to update his look - so here is is with a blue suit. It may be non-traditional, but I really like it. I might just have to do more blue-suited Santas.

I am submitting this card for four (count them four) challenges this week. The info for each challenge is as follows:

Just Magnolia - Embossing - I used the Cuttlebug Victorian embossing folder for the background behind Santa and I heat embossed the sentiment.

Stamp Something - Something with Your Favorite Embellishment - That was a tough one. I'm not sure I have "one" favorite embellishment. I'm going to say it's ribbon and trim because I use that on almost every card I make. But I like punches and die cuts and pearls a lot too. :)

Sketch Saturday - Sketch shown below. I took a few liberties (fewer "circles" (snowflakes) and a circular sentiment), but hopefully it's still close enough to the original to count.

Cupcake Craft Challenge - Swirls and Pearls - I used my Quikutz Swirls die, plus a swirl in the sentiment and sort of swirls in the background paper and embossed background piece. I used pearls in the center of the die cut snowflakes, the sentiment snowflake and on the folded down corner.

Supplies
Stamps: Santa (Magnolia); Be Merry (Imaginisce)
Ink: Vintage Sepia (VersaFine); Blue pigment ink (ColorBox); clear embossing powder
Paper: Cream cardstock (Hobby Lobby); brown cardstock (scraps); DP - Fruitcake (Basic Grey)
Tools: Circle and scalloped circle Nestabilities (Spellbinders); Victorian embossing folder (Cuttlebug); Swirls die (Quikutz); snowflake die (Cuttlebug)
Embellishments: cream trim (Wright's); pearls (Paper Studio)
Techniques: Prismacolor pencils blended with mineral spirits; heat embossing
Finished card size: 6" square

Final Baby Announcement

2009-09-12T13:33:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, I posted some sample baby announcements that I made for some friends. Well, little Rory Beth arrived last Thursday morning - right on her due date! Here is the announcement that they chose. I made a few edits to the text and the photo is the real Rory with her real birth info. I think she's just beautiful!

I want to explain the poor quality of the actual photo. It's a low-res image that Evan sent via e-mail a few hours after she was born. And my printer doesn't like me right now for some reason. I managed to print the text fine, but the photo has all kinds of junk in it that shouldn't be there. The parents are going to supply their own, better quality photo when they send the announcements. I just wanted to put this one in there so they could see the final sample with their real baby in it. Plus I wanted to show her off because she's just so darn adorable!

I'm thinking about adding something below the text beneath the photo. I had to move it up pretty far so that I could print 3 announcements from one sheet of 12x12 paper. Any lower and it got cut off. So now I think the space below looks a little empty. I haven't decided yet though. I'm going to see what the parents think.

I'm also going to submit this for this week's Cute Card Thursday challenge. The theme this week is a color challenge - Strawberry Mint Julep - or pink and green. Can't get much more pink and green than this. I know it technically is not a card, but they do say other items are allowed. And even though it is not a card, I'm not sure it could get any cuter - at least as far as the main image goes. :)

Supplies
Stamp: Tiny feet (Stampabilities); all text is computer generated (Segoe Script and Segoe Print fonts)
Ink: Pink Pastel Chalk Ink (ColorBox)
Paper: Green cardstock (Paper Studio); pink cardstock (Bazzill); DP - 29th Street Market (My Mind's Eye)
Tools: Scalloped border punches (Fiskars); circle and scallop circle Nestabilities (Spellbinders); scalloped corner slot punch (Paper Studio)
Embellishments: Ribbon (Offray)
Finished size: 4" x 9"

Hip Hip Hooray! - Tasia's PCMB Challenge

2009-09-07T20:33:00.001-07:00

You may remember my posting about little online community where I hang out with a great group of ladies. We talk about crafting and life in general. We are very small, but a lot of fun. Each week we have a challenge, and this week it was Tasia's turn to host it. Tasia is our newest member and I'm not quite sure how she found it, but I'm sure glad she did. She is just so fun and upbeat. I look forward to her posts every day.

Tasia's challenge was to use black and white with one other color, a sentiment and at least one non-pattern paper. For my other color, I chose lime green. I know red and yellow are often popular with black and white, and I wanted to do something a little different. The image is from Penny Black and was colored with Prismacolor pencils blended with mineral spirits. The sentiment is Studio G. I did have to cheat and use a tiny bit of pink on the kitty. I didn't think he'd look right with green nose, ears and paw pads. Hopefully that's not enough to detract from the overall look of the card.

Whipper Snapper Halloween Card

2009-09-07T20:25:00.002-07:00

Here's a card I made just for fun. I haven't done a lot of Halloween projects, but now that I have a five year old son, it has taken on a whole new meaning and I'm really enjoying the whole thing now.
So here is my first Halloween project for the season. The image is called Hitchin' a Ride and is by Whipper Snapper. I just love it. I colored it with Prismas/mineral spirits. I thought I would use this with this week's Mojo Monday sketch, but the image just wasn't the right size so I kind of created my own layout. I used two different halloween papers and embellished with black and orange ribbon and candy corn buttons. The sentiment stamp is by Inkadinkado.

Notealope Gift Card Holder

2009-09-07T20:11:00.000-07:00

I've been wanting to try one of these "notealope" cards ever since my friend Susan posted one on her blog awhile back. I decided to make mine into a gift card holder. My plan was to post it for last week's House Mouse Monday Challenge, but I didn't get it finished in time.

Above is the notealope closed. The top flap tucks into the little diamond behind the image. For this part, I used the House Mouse Party Mouse image.

The photo above shows the notealope open. The image I used inside is House Mouse Mice Cream Celebration. The green piece is folded up from the bottom and stamped with the sentiment. A gift card can be tucked inside the folded piece.

Dawn Griffith (Dawn's Stampin' Studio) has an excellent video on how to make this card and envelope in one. It's surprisingly easy and is made from one 11" square sheet of designer paper.

Just Magnolia, Stampin' for the Weekend and Pile It On Challenges

2009-09-07T19:58:00.000-07:00

I debated whether to even post this card that I made for three different challenges this week. I am just not liking it at all. But I haven't posted anything on here for over a week and I am not always the best judge of my work anyway, so here it is.

The three challenges this card is for are:
Just Magnolia - sketch by Mina (shown below); I chose Spring Tilda for the Magnolia image.

Stampin' for the Weekend - color challenge - teal, orange and pink; I wasn't too sure about this color combo, but believe it or not, I had paper that has those colors, so I decided to go outside my little box. I still am not sure it's one of my favorites, but I'm glad I tried it anyway.

Pile It On - Birthday plus combine with at least one other challenge

Baby Girl Card

2009-08-30T21:13:00.000-07:00

If you read my earlier post, you know that I don't scrapbook. I also don't make baby cards. I just never have had the need for one for some reason - until now. A few weeks ago, I posted some samples of baby announcements that I am making for a friend at work and his wife who are expecting a baby girl next month. As luck would have it, two of my favorite challenge blogs have baby themes this week, so what better time to get a card made for them too. By the way, they chose an announcement style and I am working on those now. I will post one of the final versions soon.
I am submitting this card for the following challenges:
Cute Card Thursday - New Beginnings
Stampin' for the Weekend - Babies
Stamp Something - Animal Somethings

The image I chose for this card is In a Nutshell by Penny Black. I wanted to use an image that I don't see very often. I wasn't sure if this little hedgie was supposed to be a baby or not, but it looks like a baby image to me so that's what I went with. The sentiment is from a vellum sheet that I have had since my son was a baby. I think I bought it for those scrapbooks I never got around to. It has several baby quotes and sentiments on it.

I also tried something for the first time on this card - hand-stitching. If you saw my post a few days ago, you know my sewing machine and I don't get along, but I do like the look of stitching on cards, so I decided to try using some embroidery floss and stitching by hand. It was a bit time-consuming, but I really like the way it turned out. I used a zig zag stitch around the outside of the card and a straight stitch around the image and sentiment.

Supplies
Image: In a Nutshell (Penny Black); preprinted vellum sentiment
Paper: Pink and green cardstock (Bazzill); DP - Baby Girl Flowers (Heidi Grace Designs)
Tools: Square, scalloped square, rectangle, scalloped rectangle Nestabilities (Spellbinders)
Embellishments: Ribbon, flowers, button, pearls, pink floss
Techniques: Prismacolor pencil blended with mineral spirits; hand-stitching
Finished card size: A7 (5" x 7")

Kindergarten Scrapbook

2009-08-30T20:35:00.000-07:00

I am not a scrapbooker. I tried for awhile, but I think I just didn't have the patience and found those big pages a little bit overwhelming. However, I do enjoy doing theme scrapbook projects on a smaller scale from time to time. My son started Kindergarten this year, and I wanted some way to document his first year of school. This is what I came up with. There aren't any pages yet. I kind of ran out of steam. That image took me just about forever to color.

I'm also submitting this project for three different challenges:
Simon Says Challenge - Back to School
Friday Sketchers - Sketch shown below
Pile it On - Round + multiple challenges - there are circular shapes in two of the papers, the circle at the bottom right, Swiss Dots Cuttlebug folder and round brads

The album is a plain chipboard album that I covered and embellished. I chose the House Mouse image Teacher's Pet for the back to school theme. I received the image in a swap, and unfortunately, it's not the most neatly stamped image, but it's the only one I had. I distressed the papers to help tie everything together. I colored the image with Prismacolor pencils blended with mineral spirits. I rubbed some white artist pastel over the chalkboard to give it a chalky appearance. I'm not sure that shows up very well in the photo. I covered the chipboard letter with paper and added the brads and the star button. The button was actually white. I used my alcohol inks to change the color. I also used the alcohol inks on the brads to make them the right shade of green as I didn't have any the right color. The words were printed on the computer, torn out and distressed.

Supplies

Stamp: House Mouse - Teacher's Pet (Stampabilities)

Ink: Old Paper and Frayed Burlap Distress Inks (Ranger); Lettuce Alcohol Ink (Ranger)

Paper: K&Co.

Tools: Circle and Labels 1 Nestabilities (Spellbinders); Swiss Dots embossing folder (Cuttlebug)

Embellishments: Ribbon (Bo Bunny); Notebook paper tag (K&Co. Tag Pad); chipboard letter (Making Memories); metal photo corners (Oriental Trading); button, twine, brads

Technique: Prismacolor pencils blended with mineral spirits; distressing

Happy Little Piggy

2009-08-26T19:59:00.000-07:00

Hello all! I created this card for two challenges this week - Penny Black Saturday Challenge and Scrap and Paper Corner's PaperCrafts forum challenge.

The theme for the Penny Black Saturday Challenge is stitching. I remember now why I never do stitching on my cards. UGH! Maybe I'm too much of a perfectionist, but I am not at all happy with that part. Now that being said, I do enjoy embroidery and cross stitch and I think I would enjoy trying hand-stitching on my cards one day. If I had planned ahead, I would have done that. But alas, I never plan ahead (drives my husband crazy :) I also think I might have liked it better if I had used a zig-zag stitch instead of a straight one. But just to show you how sewing machine challenged I am, I could not get my zig to zag. I turned every dial on that machine in every direction and it wouldn't work. :( And of course, I can't seem to find the instruction manual.

Kari/Heppster is hosting this week's challenge on the PaperCrafts forum at Scrap and Paper Corner. Her challenge was to use an image of a barnyard animal, at least one embellishment and a sentiment. For my image I chose Pinky Joy by Penny Black. I adore piggies and this is one of my favorite stamps. For embellishing I used a ribbon and photo corners, which I ran through my big Kick with my D'Vine Swirls embossing folder. One final note - I was able to make this card all from scraps.

Supplies
Stamps: Pinky Joy (Penny Black); sentiment (Hero Arts)
Ink: Onyx Black (VersaFine); Rouge Chalk Ink (Colorbox)
Paper: light pink cardstock (unknown); dark pink cardstock (Club Scrap); DP - Bohemia (My Mind's Eye) and Blush (Basic Grey) - all scraps from my stash
Tools: 1 1/2" square punch and 1 1/2" circle punch (Creative Memories); classic square and scalloped square Nestabilities (Spellbinders); 1 7/8" scalloped circle punch (Paper Studio); photo corner die (Quikutz); D'Vine Swirls embossing folder (Cuttlebug) sewing machine
Embellishments: ribbon
Techniques: Prismacolor pencil blended with mineral spirits; sewing
Finished card size: A7 (5" x 7")

Baking Tilda for Three Challenges

2009-08-23T13:57:00.000-07:00

This sweet little Tilda is for three different challenges:

Just Magnolia - sketch by Rach (shown below). I moved the circle on the bottom left to the top left to suit my preferences and used a flower for the circle on the bottom right. For the circle on the left, I used my new Victorian Cuttlebug embossing folder. I really like some of the new designs that are out now. I added glitter to Tilda's wings and cookies.

Stampin' for the Weekend - pink and gray color challenge. This was tougher than I thought it would be. I have virtually no DP that is pink and gray. I do have pink and I have a limited amount of gray, so I put them together. The mats in the photo might look black, but they are actually dark gray.

Stamp Something - birthday somethings. I added the little Happy Birthday tag to fit this challenge.

Supplies

Stamps: Baking Tilda (Magnolia); Happy Birthday (My Sentiments Exactly)

Ink: Onyx Black (VersaFine)

Paper: Pink cardstock (DCWV); gray cardstock (unknown); gray polka dot DP (Paper Pizazz); dark pink DP (Kay & Co.)

Tools: Rectangle, scalloped rectangle, circle and scalloped circle Nestabilities (Spellbinders); Victorian embossing folder (Cuttlebug); Tiny Tags die (Cuttlebug)

Embellishments: Small flower (Prima); larger flower - silk from my stash; jewelry spacer, pearl, rhinestone brad, glitter

Technique: Prismacolor pencils blended with mineral spirits

Finished card size: 6" square

Couple of Gruffies

2009-08-20T19:16:00.000-07:00

These are the last two cards I needed to complete for the House Mouse Merry Go Round swap I am hosting. Participants could send any House Mouse, Happy Hoppers or Gruffies image. Each of the other participants made a card with the image, the the cards were returned to the person who originally sent the image in.

The image on this firs card was sent by Barbara and is called Bear of an Appetite. I also used the sketch that Barbara is challenging us with on the Scrap and Paper Corner PaperCrafts message board. I colored the image with Prismacolor pencils blended with mineral spirits. The papers are all from My Mind's Eye. I added buttons/twine and brads for embellishments.

The image above, Bearied in Paperwork, was sent by Traci. This was definitely the most difficult image for me to work with in the whole swap, but I am pretty pleased with how the card turned out. Again, the image was colored with Prismas. The sentiment "Are we having fun yet?" was printed on the computer. I cut it out with my Nesties and used the Labels 1 Nestie as the mat. I added a spiral clip with some ribbon. The papers are all from a Kay and Co. scrap pack that I got ages ago and has just been sitting in my closet. I don't know why. There are some cool papers in there.

Thanks for stopping by!

Just Magnolia and Sketch Saturday Challenges

2009-08-16T19:50:00.000-07:00

Time for one more quick post before the weekend comes to an end. This card is for this week's Just Magnolia Challenge using the Sketch Saturday Challenge sketch.

The theme for Just Magnolia is Friendship and I chose Tilda with Bee as the image. I colored her with Prismacolor pencils/mineral spirits and popped her on top the oval for dimension. I replaced the bee's antennae with little wires and added Stickles to his wings.

The Sketch Saturday sketch is shown above and I think I followed it pretty much to the letter. I used a bit of a different color scheme for me. All the papers are from Deja Views Fresh Print Blue Raspberry Paper and Punch Out Tablet, which I got free at Archiver's last weekend. Gotta love a freebie :). The tag where I stamped the sentiment and the Delight tag in the top flower are also from the tablet. It was kind of cool to be able to easily coordinate everything.

I finished off the card with some Prima flowers and gem brads. The finished card size is 6" square.

Bonjour

2009-08-16T11:08:00.001-07:00

This is my entry for this week's Stampin' for the Weekend and Penny Black Saturday challenges.

The theme for Stampin' for the Weekend is Days Gone By. I used to do a lot of vintage style cards, but haven't done any for quite awhile, so I enjoyed this challenge. To get the vintage look, I used the faux linen technique on the script background. I stamped the background on glossy cardstock, then sanded in more or less straight lines both horizontally and vertically. To make the scratches pop so that it looks like linen, I used a sponge brayer to apply Antique Linen Distress Ink over the whole thing. I also inked the edges of my image and sentiment with the same Distress Ink. For the flowers, I inked the edges of the cream color flowers. For the center of the large flower, I used a jewelry spacer and pearl. The center of the smaller flower is a "stud" that is supposed to be used to make designs on clothing. There are little prongs on the back to go through the fabric and an indentation on the front for a rhinestone to be placed. I got several packages of these on clearance super cheap and I thought the design was pretty. I just flattened the little prongs and added a pearl on this one. Finally, I completed the vintage look with a sheer ribbon and little hat pin, which I made myself.

In addition to using at least one Penny Black stamp, the requirement for this week's Penny Black Saturday is a color challenge - blue, tan and cream. The Eiffel Tower image and the little flower with the sentiment are from the Penny Black "Thinking of You" clear set. I realized that I must really love the Eiffel Tower because I have four Eiffel Tower stamps. LOL! They are all different sizes and styles so that's okay. I stamped everything in blue pigment ink then embossed with clear EP. I popped the tower image and sentiment with foam squares.

I hope everyone is enjoying their weekend. I hope to see you again soon!

Supplies

Stamps: Eiffel Tower, small flower (Penny Black); Bonjour (Stamabilities)

Ink: Blue pigment ink (Colorbox); Tim Holtz Antique Linen Distress Ink (Ranger)

Paper: Cream cardstock, glossy cardstock (unknown); Blue pattern cardstock (Club Scrap)

Tools: Square, scalloped square, oval and scalloped oval Nestabilities (Spellbinders); clear embossing powder (Ranger)

Embellishments: flowers (Prima); jewelry spacers, pearls, handmade hat pin, ribbon

Techniques: Heat embossing, distressing, faux linen

Finished Card Size: 5" x 6 1/2"

Cupcake Box - Simon Says and Whiff of Joy Challenges

2009-08-15T07:34:00.000-07:00

I found this cute little cupcake box template a few days ago through Mel Stampz blog. Mel has an awesome blog with lots of tutorials, templates and generally cool info. Some information comes from her and some are links that she gives to other Web sites and blogs. She has a whole page of links for cup cakes - cards, recipes, boxes, etc. This template I got from Sharon's blog, which was linked on that page. It looks like a miniature Chinese take out container and is perfect for one cupcake or muffin. There's even a little insert that goes inside to hold the cupcake in place.

I made the little box for this week's Simon Says Challenge - Anything BUT a Card. Since I used Henry Celebrating Mouse and it's pink and brown - it also qualifies for the Whiff of Joy challenge. As usual, things did not go as planned. I think I have a hard time visualizing how big things really are. I intended to put Henry on the side of the box, then tie the ribbon on top with a little tag that said Happy Birthday, but Henry is way too big to fit right on the side of the box, so he got made into a tag and tied on top. I used a pattern cardstock for this box, but you can also use plain and stamp on it or embellish as you like. I was just trying to keep it easy for myself and I have tons of pattern cardstock that I got in a giant pack at Costco.

This was such a fun and easy little box to make. I think I might use these at Christmas time for little goody boxes for my coworkers. Unless I find something else that catches my fancy before then - which is very likely. :) I think it would also be really cute to put a muffin inside and give it with a mug and some coffee or tea as a breakfast package. So many ideas, so little time. :)

Hope everyone has a great weekend!!

Supplies
Stamp: Henry Celebrating Mouse (Whiff of Joy)
Paper: Pink and white polka dot pattern cardstock (Costco); brown and white are scraps
Tools and embellishments: Circle and Scalloped Circle Nestabilities (Spellbinders); cup cake box template (Sharon Rivera - Artful Avocations); ribbon
Technique: Prismacolor pencils blended with mineral spirits

Life's More Amusing Than We Thought

2009-08-14T14:43:00.001-07:00

Just a quick post here. This card is for this week's challenge on the CK PaperCrafts forum. The challenge is being hosted by Sue/weedsgalore, and she challenged us to make a long card using an African animal/safari image. This gave me a chance to dig out some of my Club Scrap stamps that I haven't used for awhile.

All the stamps are from the Serengeti kit. The paper is also from Club Scrap, but I don't think it's from the same kit. I think it's just a random sheet that I got at the retreat I went to a couple years ago.

The small squares are punched from a larger background stamp. I love this quote too "Life's more amusing than we thought." I think zebras are pretty amusing animals. I have also used this quote with flamingo images. I think they are amusing too.

That's a about it. Thanks for stopping by!

Birth Announcements

2009-08-14T09:21:00.000-07:00

My friend at work Evan and his wife Cindy are expecting their first baby next month. I offered to make some handmade birth announcements as my gift. This is a first for me. These are the samples that I gave them, but they haven't chosen one yet. I am very happy with the way they turned out. I would love to have your comments on them too. By the way - I have no idea who the baby in the photo is. It's just a picture I found on a stock photo site. She is pretty cute though. I printed all the text on these on my computer.

This A2 size announcements has two side, and this is the front. I made the flower from white cardstock and vellum punched with my daisy punches. I put the white pieces through the Big Kick with my Swiss Dots folder, then I inked the edges with Pastel Pink Chalk Ink and put a pearl in the center. The squares are cut with my Nesties and the edges of the top part are border punched. I cut two slots with my ribbon slot punch and tied the ribbon through them before I attached the top piece to the card. I did this to make the ribbon more secure than just sticking in on with a glue dot. The quote says "A new baby is like the beginning of all things - wonder, hope a dream of possibilities." One note, the center scallop border piece is actually dark brown. It looks black in the photo.

This is the back of the announcement. I didn't plan my printing very well, so the text ended up a little closer to the photo than I wanted. I'll correct that if they choose this design. I used a corner slot punch to insert the photo into the mat and put it on a scalloped rectangle cut with my nesties.

The announcement above is 5x7 and only one-sided. I printed the text on pink paper, then stamped on the side with swirl stamps. I punched more daisies from cardstock and vellum and placed them randomly on the swirls. I used tiny pink rhinestones for the centers. I made another bigger daisy for the corner of the photo. The quote on this one says "It is not a slight thing when those who are so fresh from God love us." That's by Charles Dickens and is one of my favorite quotes of all time. I'm a quote freak by the way. :)

The last sample is a long 8 1/2 x 4 option. I realized after I had it printed and almost put together than I should have moved the photo and info up or down and added another quote or sentiment to this one as well. If they choose this option, I would do that on the finished cards. I decorated this one simply with some DP and a scalloped edge. I stamped the little footprints (are those cute or what?) and cut them out with my nesties along with the scalloped circle mat and added a ribbon.

Ho, Ho, Ho - Stampin' for the Weekend #10

2009-08-10T18:57:00.000-07:00

I just got this uber-cool Magnolia Santa stamp from my friend Jenny and couldn't wait to ink him up. I fell in love with this image when I saw a card made with it on one of the challenge blogs awhile back and had to have him. I was having a hard time finding it here in states. I was just about to give up and order directly from Magnolia in Sweden, when he showed up in my mailbox. Thank you, thank you Jenny. You are awesome!

I am submitting this card for this week's Stampin' for the Weekend challenge. The challenge is a sketch, which I have posted below. I did take a few liberties with the sketch. First, Santa Baby was too big to fit on a rectangular mat and still see the circle, so I just cut him out and popped him right on the circle with dimensionals. I also didn't tilt him because I didn't want him to look like he was drunk or something. I also put my sentiment in the upper right instead of the lower left. I thought it balanced the overall card a little better. I think the overall look of the sketch is still evident, so I hope it will be acceptable.

Supplies

Stamps: Santa (Magnolia); Believe (Rubber Stampede)

Ink: Onyx Black (VersaFine); Warm Red Chalk Ink (Colorbox); Tim Holtz Peeled Paint Distress Ink (Ranger)

Paper: Tan cardstock (DCWV); DP - Fruitcake (Basic Grey) and vintage red from my stash (I've had it so long I can't begin to remember who made it)
Tools: Circle, scalloped circle, oval and scalloped oval Nestabilities (Spellbinders); Retro flower punches (EK Success)

Embellishments: buttons, twine

Technique: Prismacolor pencils blended with mineral spirits

Finished card size: 6" square

Tilda with Lilacs

2009-08-08T21:36:00.000-07:00

I started out making this card only for this week's Just Magnolia challenge, but when I looked through the other challenge blogs I follow, I found it also fits the Simon Says Challenge and the Stamp Something challenge. So it ended up being a three-fer. :)

This week's Just Magnolia challenge is a sketch, which I have posted below. For the image I chose Tilda with Lilacs. I wanted to try my hand at coloring Tilda's hair red like my friend Susan did in a card she made earlier this week. I think mine turned out a bit more orange than I wanted, but still not bad. I may have used too much of one of colors. I'm not sure. I made the flowers in the corner with the Flower Creations 3 Spellbinders die. I've had this die for awhile, but this is the first time I've used it. The leave are made with two different Martha Stewart punches.

The theme for Simon Says Challenge this week is buttons and bows. I only have one button, but I do have two bows. The Stamp Something challenge is charms, which I added in the lower left corner tied to the ribbon.

Supplies

Stamp: Tilda with Lilacs (Magnolia)

Paper: Cardstock (Bazzill); DP (My Mind's Eye)

Tools: Rectangle and scalloped rectangle Nestabilities (Spellbinder); Flower Creations 3 die (Spellbinder); scalloped border punch (Fiskars); rose leaf punch and frond punch (Martha Stewart)

Embellishments: ribbon, pearls, button, green bead cord, charms (all from my stash)

Technique: Prismacolor pencils blended with mineral spirits

Finished card size: 6" square

Pure Joy - A Card for Mojo Monday Plus Three More Challenges

2009-08-07T19:29:00.000-07:00

Here is my card for this week's Mojo Monday challenge. It also qualifies for three other challenges: Pile it On, Digital Tuesday and A Spoonful of Sugar.

The Mojo Monday sketch is shown below. I chose to use a narrower ribbon on the side and added some flowers in that space. Otherwise, it's pretty close.

I just found the Pile It On challenge a few weeks ago and this is my first time to participate. This challenge has it's own theme, and in addition you must combine it with at least one other challenge. Perfect for me. You know how I love to combine my challenges. :) The theme this week is to use at least three flowers. I used four - and combined it with three other challenges as already mentioned. I made the flowers with my Retro Flower and tiny daisy punches. I added rhinestone flowers to the centers.

The theme for A Spoonful of Sugar this week is Floral Fantasy. There are flowers in the image and the background paper, in addition to the punched flowers I added.

Finally, the theme for Digital Tuesday is "bling". I got pleny o' bling goin' on - stickles on the girl's headband and butterfly, glitter on her skirt, rhinestones in the centers of the flowers in the image, rhinestones on the butterfly's body and flower shaped rhinestones in the punched flowers. The image is another from my favorite digital illustrator Maurie at Mo's Digital Pencil. This image is called Soakin' Up the Joy and is available as a freebie on Mo's blog. I just love this image. She looks so happy!

Thanks for stopping by. Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Supplies

Image: Soakin' Up the Joy (Mo's Digital Pencil)

Paper: Purple cardstock (unknown); DP (flowers) - Rob and Bob Studio (Provocraft); all other papers from my stash and unknown

Tools: Square and circle Nestabilities (Spellbinder); Retro flower punch (EK Success); daisy punch (Fiskars)

Embellishments: rhinestones, Stickles, glitter, ribbon

Technique: Prismacolor pencils blended with mineral spirits

Finished card size: A7 (5" x 7")

Cowboy Birthday Card

2009-08-05T19:19:00.000-07:00

Here's something a little different for me. I made this card for my stepdad's birthday. I also used the sketch that I created for this week's challenge on the CK/PaperCrafts forum.

The image is from Stampabilities and I got on clearance at Hobby Lobby for $1.43. Can't beat that deal. The sentiment is from My Sentiments Exactly. I stamped both with Vintage Sepia VersaFine ink then cut them out with my nestabilities. I added a little Vintage Photo Distress Ink as well. The papers are scraps from my stash. I finished it off with some jute rick-rack and fancy brads - also from my stash.

Thanks for stopping by!

Keeping Cool - Cupcake Craft Challenge #51

2009-08-04T20:20:00.000-07:00

This card is for this week's Cupcake Craft Challenge - Beach Theme. It is also another of the cards I completed for the House Mouse and Friends Merry Go Round Swap I am hosting.

This House Mouse image is called Keeping Cool and was sent for the Merry Go Round swap by Chris/BeachBum - appropriate isn't it? :) I colored the image with Prismacolor pencils blended with mineral spirits. I sponged the sky with blue ink and added Stickles to the ice cube, shell and here and there on the sand. The sentiment is a $1 stamp from Michael's that I bought a few years ago. It's one of my favorite sentiment stamps - I use it a lot. I added some bling to it to spruce it up a little. I embellished the card with white and green ribbon and a lime slice charm. I added Stickles to that to spruce it up a little too. The cardstock I used is Bazzill, and the orange polka dot paper is Kay and Co. The other papers are scraps from my stash.

The finished card size is 6" square. I used the sketch from last week's House Mouse and Friends challenge, which I didn't have a chance to participate in.

Thanks for stopping by!

Mojo Monday 97 and Simon Says Challenge

2009-07-30T19:10:00.000-07:00

I have another two-fer today - Mojo Monday and Simon Says Challenges.

I chose the Happy Hopper image called Bunny Bath for this card. My friend Kari sent this image in for the House Mouse and Friends Merry Go Round swap that I am currently hosting. I thought the image fit the sketch for Mojo Monday perfectly. The sketch is shown below. Since I am using this card for a swap, I decided to stick with an A2 size. I think a 5x7 might have been a better fit for the size of the image. I just have a really hard time making A2 cards anymore. They seem so tiny. :)

I also thought this image was perfect for the Simon Says Challenge this week, which is distressing. Had I stamped this image myself, I would have used kraft cardstock to fit with the rest of the card. However, since it was stamped on white, I used Vintage Photo Distress ink to help blend it in better. I also tore the top edge of the paisley paper, roughed it up and edged it with the Distress ink. Finally, I sanded the edges of the scalloped circle and hit it with a little distress ink as well. In addition, the papers I used have a distresed look. Distressed/shabby used to be my usual style for cards, but I don't much of it anymore. It was fun to use my old techniques again.

Supplies
Stamps: Happy Hopper - Bunny Bath (Stampabilities); sentiment (Technique Tuesday)

Paper: Kraft cardstock and red cardstock (unknown); paisley DP(Creative Imaginations); striped DP (no-name giant Costco pack)

Embellishments: Circle, scalloped circle and long rectangle Nestabilities (Spellbinder); metal photo corner (Oriental Trading); Tim Holtz Vintage Photo Distress Ink (Ranger); buttons, twine

Technique: Prismacolor pencils blended with mineral spirits; distressing

Finished card size: A2 (4 1/4 x 5 1/2)

A Chubby Little Fairy for Three Challenges

2009-07-29T18:22:00.001-07:00

This card fits three challenges - Dare You to Digistamp, Stamp Something and Digital Tuesday.

This the first time I have submitted a card for the Dare You to Digistamp challenge. The challenge this week is a sketch, which I have posted below. I chose another wonderful illustration from Mo's Digital Pencil for my digital element. She's called Chubby Fairy. I think I can honestly say, I have never before seen a chubby fairy and I just couldn't resist her. I colored her with Prismas/mineral spirits and added some stickles to her wings. I used a metallic gold gel pen to color her wand.

This is also my first time to submit a card for the Stamp Something challenge. This week's theme is Bugs, Butterflies and other winged somethings.

The theme for this week's Digital Tuesday challenge is simplify. I think this card fits - it's pretty simple for me anyway, so I hope it will be acceptable.

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies
Stamps: Chubby Fairy (Mo's Digital Pencil); Sentiment (Hero Arts)
Paper: Pink cardstock (Bazzill); DP (Kay and Co.)
Embellishments: ribbon; pink rhinestones
Technique: Prismacolor pencils blended with odorless mineral spirits
Finished card size: 6" square

Harry Needs a Hand - Simon Says Challenge

2009-07-27T20:52:00.001-07:00

I finally had time to make a card for this week's Simon Says Challenge. The image I used is a freebie that I downloaded from Mo's Digital Pencil called Harry Needs a Hand. I just love Mo's illustrations. Even if you think you don't like digis, you should check out her blog and her Etsy shop. She is quite talented - and a very nice person too. :)

The challenge for Simon Says Challenge this week is a sketch, which I have posted below. I just realized that I have my 2nd layer of paper turned the wrong way - oopsie! LOL! Oh well. I really like this sketch. It's simple, but still interesting and very versatile. I'm going to be filing it away for future use.

Supplies

Stamps: Harry Needs a Hand (Mo's Digital Pencil); Sentiment (Martha Stewart)

Paper: Green and red cardstock (unknown); DP - Christmas Stack (DCWV)

Embellishments: Ribbon, metal frame, buttons, twine

Technique: Prismacolor pencils blended with mineral spirits

Finished card size: 6" square

Just Magnolia and CK Sketch Challenges

2009-07-22T20:41:00.000-07:00

I'm barely making it in time for this week's Just Magnolia challenge, which is buttons. I am also combining it with Jenny's sketch challenge on the CK/PaperCrafts forum.

I chose one of the Magnolia stamps that I purchased recently - Tilda in Cherry Dress. At least I think that's what it's called. There is another one called Cherry Tilda where she's wearing little boots, but I think I got the names correct. I colored Tilda with Prismacolor pencils blended with mineral spirits and cut her out. I was going to sit her on the edge of the square, but this is kind of a big Tilda. She is much bigger than my other sitting Tilda stamps. Since I had to move her up a little bit, I added the ribbon and sat her on that. I also added the sentiment tag and three pearl hearts to the image area. The sentiment stamps is Hero Arts. The buttons required for the Just Magnolia challenge are in the centers of the flowers, which were created with my EK Success Retro Flower punches. All the cardstock for this card is from Bazzill and the DP is Kay and Co. I ran the green square behind Tilda through my Big Kick with the Fiskars Squares Texture Plate.

Christmas Mojo

2009-07-21T20:58:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it's been almost a week since I've posted a card! I've just been super busy and the weather here has been so beautiful that when I do have some extra time, I want to be out enjoying it. I'm back with another Christmas card that fits four challenges - well actually five if you count Susan's Christmas in July challenge on the CK message board. The other four are: Mojo Monday, Cute Card Thursday, Cupcake Craft Challenge and Digital Tuesday Challenge. The latter three are all Christmas theme challenges, and the Mojo sketch fit my image perfectly. It's shown at the bottom of this post.

I've been following the Digital Tuesday challenge blog for awhile, but this is my first time to submit a card. I am very new to using digital stamps, but so far I am really enjoying it. The image I chose is called "Not Even a Mouse" and it's from Mo's Digital Pencil. Maurie (Mo) has just recently started creating and selling digital illustrations. I just happened on her blog a week or so ago through a link on another blog that I follow, and I fell in love with her work. All of her illustrations have tons of charm and personality.

Above is a close up of the image. I colored it with Prismacolor pencils blended with mineral spirits.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope it doesn't take me a whole week to make another card!

Supplies

Image: Not Even a Mouse (Mo's Digital Pencil)

Paper: Pink cardstock (Bazzill); green cardstock (DCWV); DP - Christmas Stack (DCWV)

Embellishments: Circle and scalloped circle Nestabilities (Spellbinder); border punch (Fiskars); ribbon, buttons

Technique: Prismacolor pencils blended with mineral spirits; paper piercing; digital art

Awesome Digis

2009-07-17T17:19:00.000-07:00

I have just started playing around with digital stamps, and I'm always looking for unique images. A week or so ago I discovered Mo's Digital Pencil Too. Maurie (Mo) is very talented and her images are different than anything I have found so far. Her characters have a lot of personality and are whimsical and fun.

I purchased several of her images last night and today she has posted an adorable freebie on her blog. I hope you'll go check out her work and support a fellow artist.

Mo's Blog - Digital Pencil Too

Mo's Etsy Shop

Giving Shelter - A Spoonful of Sugar/CK Challenges

2009-07-15T19:46:00.000-07:00

I just had a friend tell me that I'm obsessed with doing challenges. LOL! Maybe so. This one is for this week's A Spoonful of Sugar challenge and also for the PaperCrafts/Creating Keepsakes Message Board challenge.

The Spoonful of Sugar challenge this week is a sketch, which I have posted below. The image I used is called Giving Shelter by Rachelle Anne Miller. I think this is one of the cutest images ever. I love that little snail. I colored the image with Prismas/mineral spirits and sponged some blue on the background. White backgrounds are starting to not look right to me for some reason - just on my own cards though - not anyone else's. I cut the image with my square Nesties and matted it with a scalloped square, also cut with my Nesties. I scallop punched the two horizontal pieces, but that got covered up quite a bit by all the stuff. I added a few more flowers than the sketch indicates, but that was so I could meet the requirements of the other challenge (see below). I guess you can't have too many flowers, right?

The CK/PCMB challenge this week is hosted by Barbara/lillyscrapper and is what I would call a recipe challenge. Our card was to have the following elements: A "critter" (I'm pretty sure a snail and a lady bug are both "critters"); 1, 3 or 5 flowers (I have five - not counting the flower in the image); at least one ribbon (I tied ribbon through the buttons); and at least one punch (I used two border punches, three retro flower punches and one MS butterfly punch).

Christmas in July - Whiff of Joy Challenge

2009-07-13T19:54:00.001-07:00

I made a couple more Christmas cards tonight. The first one is for the Whiff of Joy challenge this week.
The sketch for the challenge is shown below. I chose one of the Herb the Snowman images for this one. I colored him with Prismacolor pencils blended with mineral spirits. I added some flourish die cuts, blue gems and snowflake embellishments.

The card below is another one for Susan's Christmas in July challenge on the CK message board. The image is Sitting Alva from Magnolia colored with Prismas/mineral spirits. I used a sketch that Susan also created a few weeks ago. I embossed the circles with Cuttlebug folders and Sizzix Texture Plates. The pink trim and metal word charm are goodies I found in my stash. I think the top right corner needs something, but I was having trouble finding something that really worked tonight. I may add something later if something comes to me.

Tilda from the Heart - Three Challenges in One

2009-07-11T12:15:00.000-07:00

I am submitting this card for three different challenges this week - A Spoonful of Sugar, Just Magnolia and Stampin' for the Weekend.

The challenge for A Spoonful of Sugar is hearts. In addition to Tilda's little heart cookies and the little hearts on her shoes in the image, I used a heart to stamp the sentiment on, a couple of heart brads and a heart charm.

The sketch for this week's Just Magnolia challenge is shown below. I did add a couple of flowers to the upper right corner, otherwise I followed the sketch pretty closely. For the image I chose Baking Tilda. I cut the image out and popped it on top of the oval, which I edged with distress ink. I scallop-punched the horizontal strip and added a polka dot and sheer ribbon over the top. The flowers are made from various sizes of daisy punches and layered.

Finally, the Stampin' for the Weekend challenge this week is a color challenge - chocolate covered strawberries. I used deep pinks and browns.

I can usually whip up a card fairly quickly, but this one took me quite awhile. I spent a lot of time layering and blending the colors in my image, then just playing around with different elements until it looked right. I am very happy with how it turned out.

Supplies
Stamps: Baking Tilda (Magnolia); sentiment (Hero Arts)
Paper: Pink cardstock (DCWV); brown cardstock (scraps); DP - Bohemia (My Mind's Eye)
Embellishments: oval and scalloped oval Nestabilities (Spellbinder); primitive heart die (Sizzix); daisy punches (Marvy); scallop diamond border punch (EK Success); ribbon, brads, heart charm
Technique: Prismacolor pencils blended with mineral spirits
Finished card size: 6" square

Simon Says Paper Piece!

2009-07-10T20:39:00.001-07:00

Believe it or not - this is my very first ever attempt at paper piecing. I have always liked seeing the technique on other people's stamping, but never felt moved to try it myself. I often need a little push to try something different. I finally got the push I needed with this week's Simon Says Challenge, which is to use the paper piecing technique. How fun! I can't believe I never did this before. :)

The image I used is Magnolia - Rainy Tilda, and I paper pieced her raincoat and boots. I was going to also paper piece the umbrella, but I thought it was getting a little too busy, so I just left it plain red. I colored the non-paper-pieced parts of the image with my Prismas. I kept the layout and embellishments simple this time. I was still hungover from my snowflake extravaganza last night. :)

I 've also been giving myself little color challenges from time to time. I'm trying to challenge myself to use different color combos or colors that I might associate with one thing for other themes. I usually think of red and green for Christmas cards, so I challenged myself to use these colors for a non-Christmas theme card. These little self-challenges kind of take me out of my comfort zone a little bit.

Supplies
Stamps: Rainy Tilda (Magnolia); Sentiment (Hero Arts)
Paper: Green and red cardstock (DCWV); DP - Wild Asparagus (My Mind's Eye); the paper used for the coat and boots is a digital download called Nanny's Garden from Raspberry Road Designs
Embellishments: Circle and scalloped circle Nestabilities (Spellbinder); buttons, ribbon
Techniques: Prismacolor pencils blended with mineral spirits; paper piecing
Finished Card Size: 6" square

Sending Warm Wishes

2009-07-09T21:26:00.001-07:00

The theme for this week's House Mouse and Friends challenge is seasons. I chose to do another winter theme card. Maybe they make me feel cooler somehow in the heat we've been having.

This card didn't turn out exactly like I pictured it. I'm thinking maybe I went too far with the snowflakes. The little ones on the image are the pieces that were cut out of the border when I punched it. I also added some snow texture paint to the image. The background of the image is sponged with blue ink and I highlighted the snow with blue chalk ink. The photo is really kind of deceptive. The sentiment is stamped clearly. I'm not sure why it looks faded in the photo.

Supplies
Stamps: Stocking Full of Love (Stampabilities); sentiment (Hero Arts)
Paper: white cardstock (DCWV); blue cardstock (Bazzill); DP - Blue Poinsettia collection (Fred She Said Digital)
Embellishments: Circle and scalloped circle Nestabilities; snowflake border punch (EK Success); scallop border punch (Fiskars); snowflake punches (Oriental Trading); rhinestones; ribbon
Technique: Prismacolor pencils blended with mineral spirits
Finished Card Size: 6" square

Blue Poinsettias - And No Stamping

2009-07-08T20:09:00.000-07:00

I finally gave in. I made a card with digital downloads and absolutely no stamping. Eeek! I never thought I would do such a thing, but when I saw some cards on Donna's blog made with these lovely poinsettias I had to try them too. I decided that Janet's sketch challenge on the PaperCrafts forum on the Creating Keepsakes Web site was a great time to try these out.

The poinsettia and the blue pattern paper are from Fred She Said. The package included the blue poinsettias, as well as traditional red. It also included several background papers and sentiments. While I have used digital stamps before, this is the first time I have used a download that was already colored.

To add a little more dimension to the poinsettia, I tried a trick that I learned from my blog buddy Emily. I covered the flowers with VersaMark and heat embossed them in clear. I think it really adds a little extra pop to the image. I'm definitely going to be using that little trick more in the future. Thanks Emily!

I added some tiny silver glass marbles to the center of the flower. The flourises are a metallic silver paper cut with my new Quikutz Flourishes die. I added rhinestones to the swirls. The sentiment is a Making Memories rub-on that I had in my stash. The scalloped borders were cut with two different Fiskars border punches and I ran the background piece through my Big Kick with the Swiss Dots Cuttlebug folder.

I enjoyed using the digital images and paper for this card. Now that I've finally tried it, I think I'll be using more digital downloads in the future.

Sunflower Tilda - Double Challenge

2009-07-06T20:09:00.001-07:00

I created this card for this week's Just Magnolia and Stampin' for the Weekend challenges.

The Just Magnolia challenge this week is to use one or more charms. I added a butterfly charm to the flower embellishment in the top right corner of the card.

This week's Stampin for the Weekend challenge is a sketch. Two sketches were provided to choose from. I chose Donna's sketch, which is showne below. I tend to choose my images before I determine whether they will work right with a particular sketch. In this case. I had to use an oval instead of a circle because Tilda wouldn't fit in my largest circle Nestie. I also had to cut her out and pop-dot her on top to keep from cutting off part of the image. The flowers I used are premade paper sunflowers that I have had in my stash forever. I can't even remember why I bought them, but I'm glad I finally got the chance to use them. I modified the top part of the sketch so that I could add some ribbon and a charm to the card. Instead of the two buttons I used a large flower with a button center. I added tiny green buttons to my corner embellishment to work with the green in the top part of the card. The DP I used for this card is actually from one single sheet. It has also been in my stash forever and it was orginally designed for scrapbook layouts.

Supplies

Stamp: Sunflower Tilda (Magnolia)

Paper: Blue cardstock (Paper Studio); yellow cardstock (unknown); DP (Paper Wishes)

Embellishments: Oval and scalloped oval Nestabilities (Spellbinder); scalloped border punch (Fiskars); retro flower punch (EK Success); buttons, ribbon, butterfly charm, paper sunflowers

Technique: Prismacolor pencils blended with mineral spirits

Finished card size: 6" square

Headed Out for Some R & R

2009-06-30T18:48:00.000-07:00

We are headed out of town tomorrow for a long holiday weekend. I was hoping to get another card made and posted this evening, but it didn't happen. Maybe I'll be able to catch up when we get back home.

I made this card several months ago for a challenge on Splitcoaststampers. It's posted in the gallery there, but this is the first time I've posted it on my blog. I am very proud of this card. I think it's one of the best coloring jobs I've ever done. I just wish I could remember exactly what I did that made my coloring so much better than it usually is. It's the same technique I always use, but just seemed to turn out a little better than usual.

I hope everyone has a great July 4th holiday! I'll catch ya when we get home!!

Supplies
Stamps: Happy Hopper - Apple a Day (Stampabilities); Enjoy (Studio G)
Ink: Onyx Black (VersaFine); red pigment ink and warm red chalk ink (Colorbox)
Paper: Yellow cardstock (Archiver's); DP - Front Porch Collection (My Mind's Eye)
Embellishments: Circle and scalloped circle punches (Paper Studio); ribbon (unknown)
Technique: Prismacolor pencil blended with mineral spirits
Finished card size: A7 (5" x 7")

Just Magnolia and Simon Says Challenge

2009-06-28T13:12:00.000-07:00

It's been a few days since my last card. I have just been so busy this week at work, I'm totally exhausted in the evenings and haven't had much mojo. I finally found a little bit. I created this card for two challenges this week - Just Magnolia and Simon Says Challenge.

The Just Magnolia challenge this week is a sketch, which I have posted below. The Magnolia image I chose is Tilda in Jeans. I like to perch the sitting Tildas on the edges of circles, so the sketch worked well for that. I colored the image with Lyra colored pencils (except for the face, which is Prisma) and popped her for added dimension. For the flowers I used my retro flower punches and buttons. I also added a punched butterfly, some ribbon and a butterfly charm. I stamped the sentiment directly on the background. I sponged the inner circle where Tilda is sitting with sky blue pigment ink. I also chose a bit of a different color combo for me. I don't know if I have ever used green and orange together, except for Halloween cards.

The Simon Says Challenge this week is Happy Mail. They requested that you create a card for an ill child and send it through Post Pals (UK) or Make a Child Smile (US). Both of these organizations are awesome. It is so beneficial for children who are going through such a trying time to receive positive and happy thoughts from people and to know that they are cared for. Since I am in the US, i will send my card through Make a Child Smile. I hope that you will check out these organizations and consider using some of your own cards to make a sick child's day a little brighter.

Supplies
Stamps: Tilda in Jeans (Magnolia); Sentiment (Hero Arts)
Ink: Onyx Black (VersaFine); blue pigment ink (Colorbox)
Paper: Orange and green cardstock (Bazzill); DP (Kay and Co.)
Embellishments: Circle and scalloped circle Nestabilities (Spellbinder); border punches (Fiskars); retro flower punches (EK Success); Royal butterfly punch (Martha Stewart); buttons, ribbon, twine, gems, butterfly charm
Technique: Lyra colored pencil
Finished card size: 6" square

Laundry Day

2009-06-24T20:25:00.000-07:00

Here is my card for this week's House Mouse and Friends Challenge. This week's challenge is a sketch, which is shown below. It's just a one challenge card this time. :)

The image I used is one of the new Gruffies stamps - Laundry Line. I don't own this stamp. My Friend Jenny RAK'd me some images recently. She also gave me the one with the Gruffie sleeping in the hammock between the sunflowers. The new Gruffies stamps are just so darn cute!

I colored the image with my Prismas and mineral spirits. I sponged in the sky with blue pigment ink. Since the image is very detailed, I left the background of the card fairly simple and used a soft blue/green color scheme. I think the DP in the circle looks like bubbles, which matches the theme of the image. Because of the size of the image, I didn't have room on the circle to put the three gems in a straight line, so I added them to three scallops on each side. I also added a ribbon. Once I decide what I'm going to use this card for, I will most likely add a tag or something with a sentiment. I have some mini clothespins that I thought would look cute with this image, but they didn't really fit anywhere. I may try those next time I use this image with a different layout.

Supplies
Stamp: Gruffies - Laundry Line (Stampabilities)
Ink: black (unknown); blue pigment ink (Colorbox)
Paper: Cardstock - Tropical Breeze and Apple Crush (Bazzill Basics); DP - green gingham (DCWV); green circles (unknown)
Embellishments: circle and scalloped circle Nestabilities (Spellbinder); gems (Paper Studio); ribbon (unknown)
Technique: Prismacolor pencils blended with mineral spirits
Finished card size: A7 (5"x7")

House Mouse Christmas Card - CK Sketch Challenge

2009-06-22T20:30:00.001-07:00

I'm on a roll with my Christmas cards the last few days! It has been so unbelieveably hot here lately, anything that helps me think about cool weather is helpful.

I made this card for a sketch challenge on the CK/PaperCrafts message board this week. My dear friend Susan created this sketch and I think it's so cute. I totally CASEd her sample card - except she did a birthday card. I did use her idea of the three different images to fit a theme. I had these three small House Mouse Christmas stamps that fit the sketch perfectly. I added Stickles to each of the images and embellished the card with ribbon and three red gems. Susan's original sketch has a sentiment in the lower right corner, but I couldn't find a stamp that was fitting the space right and didn't want to take the time to print on on the computer. I used the little bow instead.

This is such a great sketch - so cute and simple the work with. I'm definitely going to be using it for other cards later.

Supplies
Stamps: House Mouse - Muzzie's To/From (I just inked the image part), Having a Ball, Santa's Little Helper (Stampabilities)
Ink: Onyx Black (VersaFine)
Paper: Green cardstock (Paper Studio), red cardstock and DP (Paper Salon Swatches)
Embellishments: Circle Nesties (Stampabilties); gems (Paper Studio); ribbon (Target); Stickles
Technique: Prismacolor pencils blended with mineral spirits
Finished card size: 5 1/2" square

A Few Swap Projects

2009-06-21T15:24:00.000-07:00

When I first started stamping and paper crafting, I did a lot of swaps. Since I started participating in the challenge blogs, I don't do as many, but every once in awhile one comes along that I want to do. I set a limit for myself of no more than two swaps due in a month, but apparently, I wasn't paying attention this month and ended up with about six. I spent today catching up on the last of them, so now I can get back on track with my limit.

This first card is for an all-white card swap that I am participating in on the Splitcoaststampers site. I posted a similar card a few weeks ago for a challenge I did. I simplified it for the swap and added a butterfly die cut. The image/sentiment is two stamps from an Inkadinkado clear set. I stamped with Versamark and heat embossed with white EP. The embossed background is made with the Birds and Swirls Cuttlebug folder and the vertical piece is the Script folder. The butterfly is a Cuttlebug combination die and embossing folder. The circles are cut with my Nesties and the scalloped border on the left with the Fiskars scallop border punch.

The ATC above is for a Penny Black swap my friend Chris is hosting. I wanted to do a little more with this one, but the image ended up being a little bigger than I thought so I didn't have much room. The image is called Ooh La La. I colored it with my Prismas and cut it with my Label 1 Nesties. I inked the edges in Warm Red Chalk Ink. The sentiment is from the SU Paris in Spring set. I punched it out with a circle punch and matted it with red cut with one of my scallop circle Nesties. I scalloped the bottom of the yellow and added a black and white ribbon. I mounted the whole thing on piece of black cardstock cut to ATC size.

This final project is a recipe page. My 2nd favorite hobby is cooking and I used to participate in and host a lot of recipe swaps. This is my first one in a long time and it's being hosted by my friend Barbara. It was to be for a favorite family recipe. This is one I make for my son and husband quite frequently. It's super easy and we all love it. You can also make with fat free/sugar free ingredients and it's just as good. I also sometimes use graham crackers instead of Oreos. When I do that, I use two packages of chocolate pudding and no vanilla.

I used pink and brown Bazzill cardstock. The DP is some that I have had forever and I think it's from Paper Wishes. I used to belong to their scrapbook kit of the month club. The pink behind the recipe and in the flower is from My Mind's Eye. I made the flower with my retro flower punches and small circle punch. I ran the flower parts through my Big Kick with my D'Vine Swirls embossing folder and the center through with the Swiss Dots folder then layered them. I finished it off with some pink and brown polka dot ribbon and pink pearls.

From the Heart - Father's Day Card/Penny Black Challenge

2009-06-20T20:38:00.001-07:00

This card is for this week's Penny Black Saturday Challenge. I'm also giving to my husband for Father's Day. If you're wondering what a hedgehog playing guitar has to do with Father's Day - I chose the image because my husband plays the guitar - and I just thought it was cute!

The Penny Black Challenge this week was to use embossing. I love to use my Cuttlebug embossing folders so this challenge was right up my alley. I used the Script folder because it fits a masculine style better than some of the others I have and it also went well with the papers I chose. The gray cardstock is also embossed with a pin stripe pattern, but it came that way, so I'm not sure it counts for the challenge.

I find it a bit challenging to make the cute little hedgie images masculine, but I also enjoy a bit of a challenge. To accomplish that, I chose masculine papers and colors - cream, red, gray and black. I also used Old Paper Distress Ink over the image and sentiment to work with the distressed style of the paper. I kept the layout and embellishments simple as well.

I was afraid the contrast of styles between the papers and embellishments and the hedgie might not work, but I like the way it turned out. Hopefully, my husband will like it too.

Supplies
Stamps: Hmmm...(Penny Black); From the Heart (Hero Arts)
Ink: Onyx Black (VersaFine); Old Paper Distress Ink (Ranger)
Paper: Gray pinstripe cardstock (Club Scrap); red cardstock (DCWV); DP (Autumn Leaves)
Embellishments: Label 1 Nestabilities, circle Nestabilities (Spellbinder); Script embossing folder (Cuttlebug); flowers (Prima); square gem brad, ribbon (unknown)
Technique: Prismacolor pencils blended with mineral spirits
Finished card size: 5 1/2" square

Lazy Summer Day

2009-06-20T13:58:00.000-07:00

I'm back with another challenge card. I created this one for three different challenges - Roses on Paper, Just Magnolia and Stampin' for the Weekend.

For the Roses on Paper challenge, you must follow the challenge theme AND use a Magnolia, Rachelle Anne Miller, Sarah Kay, The Greeting Farm or Alota image. The current theme is to use flowers and to combine the ROP challenge with any other challenge. I chose Relaxing Tilda for the image, and there are flowers in the image itself, my DP and as embellishments on the card. And obviously, I met the requirement to combine challenges with the other two that I am doing with this one.

The Just Magnolia challenge theme this week is Summer. I don't have any Magnolia images with an obvious Summer theme, but I have a couple on my wish list. I think maybe this image is supposed to really be Spring since Tilda is wearing her little jacket, but I decided that maybe where Tilda lives it isn't 95 degrees with a heat index of 105 like it is here. :) I thought the image was perfect for the summer quote that I found. I printed the quote on my computer and cut it out with my Nesties. The quote, by Sir John Lubbock, says "To lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time."

The final challenge for this card is Stampin' for the Weekend. This is the third week for this new challenge blog and I've really been enjoying their challenges. So far they've been a little different than some of the other blogs. The challenge theme for this week is Rock n Roll 60's. When I first saw the title I kind of panicked because I wasn't quite sure what it was going to be, but it turned out fine. They provided three song titles from the 1960's and we were to use one of them as our inspiration. We were only to consider the title and not the lyrics. The three songs provided were:

"Whiter Shade of Pale" by Procol Harem

"Time of the Season" by The Zombies

"Please Mr. Postman" by the Marvellettes

The song I chose for my inspiration is "Time of the Season" which by the way is one of my favorite songs of all time - even though I was only four when it was popular. I love 1960's songs. The tie-in - obviously - is the summer theme of my card. I did consider "Whiter Shade of Pale" (another of my favorite songs) because I'm working on some all white cards for a swap I'm in, but I wouldn't have been able to combine that with the Just Magnolia challenge and I posted an all white card not too long ago anyway which was similar to the one I'm working on.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you'll check out the other great creations on these awesome blogs. Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Supplies
Stamp: Relaxing Tilda (Magnolia); quote is computer generated
Paper: Yellow and blue cardstock (DCWV); DP - Spring Stack (DCWV)
Embellishments: Circle and scalloped circle Nestabilities and rectangle Nestabilities (Spellbinder); large flowers - Chloe's Closet (Making Memories); small flowers (Prima); flower brads (Making Memories); button, twine, ribbon
Technique: Prismacolor pencils blended with mineral spirits
Finished card size: 6" square

You're Snow Special

2009-06-19T20:09:00.000-07:00

Well, the first thing that comes to my mind when it's 95 degrees with 80 percent humidity outside, is snow! LOL! Actually, I rarely make "off season" cards. I make warm weather theme cards in the spring and summer and cold theme cards in the fall and winter. I decided to step out of my box a little and make a wintery card when it's really, really hot outside.

I made this card for this week's challenge on the CK/Papercrafts message board. Pene is hosting this week's challenge, which is a color challenge. She chose three random items on her craft table and asked us to take our colors from those objects. There was a bright blue bottle, a red rubber duck and a spool of lime green thread.

For several days this week, I didn't think I was going to be able to do this challenge because nothing was coming to mind that I could do with this combination of colors. When another person posted her card and mentioned that she had to change some things because it looked too much like a Christmas card. So I thought, "hmm - why not make a Christmas card." I found some paper in a DCWV Christmas Stack and there I was.

I received the snowman image and sentiment in an image swap, so I don't know who makes the stamps. I colored the image with my trusty Prismas/mineral spirits then cut out the image and sentiment with my circle Nesties. I inked the edges with French Blue Chalk Ink. I then matted with green and red also cut with the Nesties. I used a couple of border punches to scallop the bottom edge, added some ribbon, a big Prima and some buttons to finish it off.

Dance Like Nobody's Watching

2009-06-16T20:20:00.000-07:00

I made this ATC for a swap that my friend Chris is hosting for House Mouse ATCs. I am also submitting it for this week's House Mouse and Friends Monday Challenge. The challenge this week is a Neopolitan color challenge - chocolate, strawberry and vanilla. I already had the ATC figured out before the challenge was posted, so I just got lucky that it worked out this way. I can complete a swap and still participate in this week's House Mouse challenge. :)

I colored the Twinkle Toes image with Prismas blended with mineral spirits and then cut it out as close as I could without buzzing Amanda's fur. I then took my brown pencils and went over the edges a little to get rid of the white edge. I added some Stickles to her tutu and then pop-dotted her on the ATC. I printed the saying on my computer, then cut it out with my oval Nesties and matted with brown and pink scallop ovals also cut with Nesties. I used a slot punch on the edge and threaded the ribbon through, then tied a bow. I was going to add some flowers, but I thought it looked too crowded so I left it alone.

Supplies
Stamp: House Mouse Twinkle Toes (Stampabilities); saying is computer generated.
Ink: Onyx Black (VersaFine); Rouge Chalk Ink (ColorBox)
Paper: Brown cardstock (Archiver's); DP - Bohemia (My Mind's Eye)
Embellishments: Oval and Scalloped Oval Nestabilities (Spellbinder); ribbon (unknown); ribbon slot punch (Making Memories); Stickles
Technique: Prismacolor pencils blended with mineral spirits
Finished size: ATC - 2 1/2" x 3 1/2"

Mojo Monday Challenge 91 - Father's Day Card

2009-06-15T20:05:00.000-07:00

I needed to get a card made for my step dad for Father's Day. My parents divorced when I was very young, and although I stayed close to my dad, my step dad, Paul, has always been an important part of my life. Even more so now since my father passed away last year.

I chose to use the Grape Dreams image because Paul grows his own grapes and makes several varieties of wine. He always likes cards with grapes or wine images on them. To help make the card more masculine, I chose darker colors, more masculine papers and distressing. I used my Script Cuttlebug folder to emboss the paper on the right side of the card.

For the layout, I used this week's Mojo Monday sketch, which is shown below. I rotated it to make it short and wide rather than tall and thin. I also used a flower instead of the oval where the sentiment is shown in the sketch. I'll put the sentiment on the inside of the card. I usually use poems or quotes about fatherhood for Father's Day cards and that would not have fit in the small space left.
Supplies
Stamp: House Mouse - Grape Dreams (Stampabilities)
Ink: Black (unknown); Vintage Photo and Antique Linen Distress Ink (Ranger)
Paper: Brown cardstock (Paper Studio); DP (Costco)
Embellishments: Jute rick-rack (unknown); flowers (Prima); square brad (Spare Parts - Paper Studio); script embossing folder (Cuttlebug)
Technique: Prismacolor pencils blended with mineral spirits
Finished card size: 4" x 9"

Create Joy

2009-06-14T13:09:00.000-07:00

I managed another two-challenge card today. Maybe in a day or two I'll be caught up on my favorite challenges. This week shouldn't be quite so busy with work and home life. This card is for this week's Simon Says and Whiff of Joy challenges.

The Simon Says Challenge this week is a pink and brown color challenge. That's another pretty easy one for me. I love pink and brown (and blue and brown and green and brown :) I used pink and brown cardstock and my DP is also mostly pink and brown, although there is some yellow and green in the striped paper. I also used mostly pinks and browns to color the image. I had to make her jeans blue though. Other colors just don't look right to me. I also added a pink flower that I found in my stash (no clue where it came from) and pink and brown ribbon. The little charm, which I made from some beads that I had, has pink beads on it. I stamped the sentiment with Vintage Photo Distress Ink and inked the edges of the image, sentiment and card base with Tattered Rose Distress Ink. I highlighted the raised parts of the embossed piece with Tattered Rose as well.

This is the first time I have submitted a card for the Whiff of Joy challenge, although I have been following them for quite some time. I just can't seem to get all my challenges in that I want to do. This week's challenge is a sketch which is shown above. In addition to meeting the challenge theme, submissions must use a Whiff of Joy image. The one I used, Willow with Cookies, is one of the few Whiff of Joy images that I own. I have several that I have received as RAKs and in image swaps. I love these images. They are just so sweet. There are definitely more of them on my wish list.

Supplies

Stamps: Willow with Cookies (Whiff of Joy); sentiment (Hero Arts)

Ink: Onyx Black (VersFine); Vintage Photo and Tattered Rose Distress Ink (Ranger)

Paper: Pink cardstock (unknown); brown cardstock (Bazzill Basics); DP (Costco)

Embellishments: Circle punch (Creative Memories); scalloped circle punch (Paper Studio); ribbon (Michael's); flower (unknown); charm (handmade - beads and findings from Hobby Lobby)

Technique: Prismacolor pencils blended with mineral spirits

Finished card size: 6" square

Cool, Cool Kitty

2009-06-13T21:14:00.000-07:00

I created this card for this week's Stampin' for the Weekend Challenge. For the layout I used the Friday Sketchers challenge sketch.

The challenge for Stampin' for the Weekend is to use a digital image. I haven't used many digi images, but I have seen some really cute ones. This Hambo Cool Cat image was a freebie that I found through Mel Stampz blog. This blog is an awesome resource for all kinds of cool stamping stuff. One of the cool things on there is an index for free digital images. You can find this image here. I colored it with Prismas blended with odorless mineral spirits

The sketch for Friday Sketchers is shown above . It's a nice, simple sketch which is my favorite kind because it leaves lots of room for embellishing. I scalloped the edge of the vertical piece. The flowers are made with some of my favorite punches and layered. The hot, hot, hot charm and flip-flops were goodies I found in my stash.

Thanks for stopping by! Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Flutter Anya - A Four Challenge Card

2009-06-12T21:24:00.000-07:00

What a week!! I have been beyond busy this week at work and at home. I'm having a hard time getting in my creative time. To top it off, I have to work tomorrow. Yuck! So it's been even more important to try to combine challenges whenever I can this week. I managed four again with this one - Roses on Paper, Mojo Monday, A Spoon Full of Sugar and Cute Card Thursday. Yea!!

Roses on Paper is not a challenge I do often. I think I've only done it twice before. The current challenge is a color challenge - pink, green and yellow. In addition to meeting the challenge theme, participants are required to stamps from specific lines - Magnolia, Sarah Kay, Rachelle Anne Miller, The Greeting Farm or Alota. For the image I chose one of my new stamps from The Greeting Farm - Flutter Anya. I chose the Basic Grey Two Scoops paper as my starting point for the colors. That particular paper does have all those colors. Unfortunately, in the piece I cut, the yellow got covered up by the image.

For my layout I used this week's Mojo Monday sketch, which is pictured below. I had to move my circle piece to the left so it wasn't on top of Anya's head. I probably should have made the card a 5x7 to give myself more vertical space, but I always figure these things out after I have everything cut and half of it glued down. However, in my defense, one of the DT members moved her circle to the left too, so I think I'm okay. :)

The theme for this week's A Spoon Full of Sugar challenge is butterflies. Of course the little cutie Anya is a butterfly (although I thought she was a fairy when I ordered her). I also added a butterfly embellishment, which I made with my Spellbinder butterfly die and some gems.

The fourth and final challenge for this card is Cute Card Thursday. The theme for that challenge is quotations. I chose one of my favorite butterfly quotes to go with the theme - "The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough." It's kind of an elegant sounding quote for such a whimsical card, but I like it anyway. I printed the quote on the computer and cut it out with my circle Nesties.

Thanks for stopping by. I guess I better get some sleep so I'll be nice and refreshed for my Saturday at work. Yippee...Have a great weekend!

Supplies
Stamp: Flutter Anya (The Greeting Farm); quote is computer generated
Ink: Onyx Black (VersaFine); Rouge Chalk Ink (Colorbox)
Paper: Light pink cardstock (unknown); yellow cardstock (Archiver's); dark pink cardstock (Club Scrap); DP - Two Scoops (Basic Grey)
Embellishments: circle, scalloped circle, square and scalloped square Nestabilities (Spellbinder); butterfly die (Spellbinder); clear and pink gems (unknown); clear flower gems (Jesse James Dress it Up)
Technique: Prismacolor pencils blended with mineral spirits
Finished card size: 6" square

Dream Big

2009-06-11T20:27:00.000-07:00

My friend Jenny is hosting this week's challenge on the Creating Keepsakes Paper Crafts forum. This is the first online place I found to share my love of paper crafting. It has gone through some tough transitions in the last year, and a lot of people have left the forum, but there are a few of us that still hang out. I have fun with the challenges there because we all know each other and it's very personal.

I didn't post Jenny's sketch here but I really didn't deviate from it at all. I made my little corner thingie with my Nesties. I just cut two squares then put the two "frames" that were left together and cut across at an angle. It was easy - I'm going to have to do that more often. The round embellies are gems and the sentiment is computer generated and printed on DP. I used a monochromatic color scheme this time, which I don't do very often. The Dream Puff image is a RAK from my friend Susan.

This was a fun sketch, and I think I'll be using it again. Jenny, if you're reading this, thanks for a fun challenge and I hope you have an awesome birthday!!

Thanks for stopping by. Have a great weekend!

Supplies

Stamp: House Mouse Dream Puff (Stampabilities); sentiment is computer generated

Paper: light pink cardstock (Bazzill); coral pink cardstock (Club Scrap); DP - Spring Stack (DCWV)

Embellishments: Oval, scalloped oval and square Nestabilities (Spellbinder); gems (unknown)

Technique: Prismacolor pencils blended with mineral spirits

Finished card size: A2 (4 1/4" x 5 1/2")

Beach Bears

2009-06-09T19:50:00.000-07:00

This week's House Mouse and Friends Monday Challenge is a color challenge - red, white and blue. For the layout I used this week's Card Positioning Systems sketch.

Since red, white and blue are the colors of the U.S. flag, I usually think of a patriotic theme for those colors. Since I don't have any House Mouse stamps or images in that theme, I had to come up with something else. I chose this cute Gruffies image, which I received in an image swap. The bear putting on the sun screen is supposed to be the Panda (sorry I don't know their names :), but I colored him like a regular bear. Instead of using designer paper, I embossed one end of the red cardstock with Cuttlebug Spots and Dots folder.

This week's CPS sketch is shown below. I rotated it to fit the image. For the circular elements I used punched circles and stamped some beach-y words on them. They looked a little plain so I made them into little tags. I also rotated the image slightly to give it a little more interest.

Supplies
Stamps: Gruffies Beach Time Fun (Stampabilities); word stamps (Club Scrap)
Ink: Warm Red and French Blue Chalk Inks (Colorbox)
Paper: white cardstock (Georgia Pacific); red and blue cardstock (DCWV)
Embellishments: circle punch (Creative Memories); corner rounder punch; Spots and Dots embossing folder (Cuttlebug); ribbon (unknown)
Technique: Prismacolor pencils blended with mineral spirits
Finished card size: 4" x 9"

Woo Hoo! I Made the Top Five!

2009-06-08T04:36:00.000-07:00

I am very honored that my Charming Blossom Fairy Charlotte card was chosen as one of the top five of last week's Cupcake Craft Challenge. It's even better because the top five are chosen by the DT member who sets the challenge, rather than by random draw. I will proudly display the special Top Five blinkie on the left of my blog! Thanks for the pat on the back!!

Penny Black / Banana Split Sunday Challenges

2009-06-07T18:11:00.000-07:00

I've gone back to more of my earlier distressed style for this card. It's for the Penny Black Saturday Challenge and the 2 Red Bananas Banana Split Sunday Challenge.

The theme for this week's Penny Black challenge is "blooming gorgeous", which we were to interpret any way we chose. While I love the cute Penny Black critter stamps, I am also a fan of the more elegant stamps in that line. I chose to use images from the Thinking of You clear set - the main image, as well as the tulip and butterfly in the squares are from that set. Also in keeping with the theme, I chose a background paper with flower names on it (from a very old DCWV paper stack) and added some little punched flowers along the bottom.

The theme for this week's Banana Split Sunday challenge is "pattern frenzy". We were to use at least three different pattern papers. I love patterns, so that's not too hard for me. The patterns in two of my papers are very subtle, but they are there. You'll be able to see them better in the enlarged photo. In addition to the flower names paper, the purple and green papers also have a pattern.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope everyone had a great weekend!

Supplies
Stamps: Images - Thinking of You set (Penny Black); sentiment (Hero Arts)
Ink: Onyx Black (VersaFine); Tim Holtz Vintage Photo Distress Ink (Ranger)
Embellishments: circle and scalloped circle Nestabilities (Spellbinder); scalloped border punch (Fiskars); square punch (Creative Memories); ribbon (Club Scrap); flower punch (EK Success); antique copper brads (Making Memories)
Technique: Prismacolor pencils blended with mineral spirits
Finished card size: 5 1/2" square