Adventures of a stamping writer

Salute to Spring

2012-02-14T11:44:00.000-05:00

     We got a blast of winter today, but no sleet, snow or slush, thank goodness. In hopes of enticing spring to come back, I have a very spring-like card today.
     Daffodils are already in bloom here, thanks to the mild winter, so tulips should be the next up. This lovely tulip stamp is from SmArtWorks. I like the more subtly shaded tulips, so mine here are white with pink at the base.
      I used the current Card Patterns sketch (#152) for this card. The color scheme comes from There's Magic in the Air, which challenged us to use pink, white and another color -- green, in my case.
     The sentiment is from CTMH and is stamped in Baby Pink ink. The pink patterned paper is an old Stampin' Up set.
     Hope your day is wonderful, no matter the weather.

With a flourish

2012-02-11T16:37:00.001-05:00

     I guess flourishes are still "in," because I do see them a lot as a way to use bling, but I haven't really thought about using flourishes for a while. One of the Virtual Stamp Night challenges at SCS was to use swirls or flourishes.
     As soon as I saw the challenge, I knew I wanted to use this bird by Inkdadinkadoo. I had seen it used on a card somewhere in the last few days, so it was fresh in my mind. I usually use the larger birds from this set, so it was good to put some ink on this.
     I used the Mojo Monday sketch (MOJO227) as the basis for this card. The bird is stamped in Ranger Denim ink, then clear embossed. I also sponged the denim ink around the edges of the oval and on the top silk flower to done down the white.
     The papers are from Stampin Up and the lace is a paper adhesive lace from K&Co. (I love this stuff; got it at Tuesday Morning and would grap another package if I found it anywhere.)
     I'm really starting to like the look of monochromatic cards. What do you think?

Inspired balloons

2012-01-27T11:04:00.001-05:00

Paper Cupcakes inspiration photo

     This week's challenge at There's Magic in the Air asks us to be inspired by this bright and cheerful photo. I loved the greens and purples and wanted to be sure to incorporate them into this card.
     I even found a Paper Cupcakes image that works well with this inpiration. It's called (surpirsingly enough) Balloons with Envelopes.
     I used this week's sketch from SCS, and there's nothing that needs explanation on this card.
     The details: Image by Paper Cupcakes; papers by Martha Stewart. Image colored with pencils and OMS. Accessories include Beads in a Bottle, decorative-edge scissors and skinny ribbon.
     I'm also entering this in the current Victorine Originals Challenge, which is "anything goes," so I'm pretty sure this qualifies.

Bluebird of Happiness

2012-01-24T16:49:00.000-05:00

I had to make a monochromatic card, and I used the current Card Positioning System sketch (CPS252) for the layout.

This card is pretty self explanatory. The bluebird image is clear embossed. I hand-sewed the lace to the ribbon because it seemed like the easiest way to make sure it stayed where I wanted it to. The silk flowers started out white and I sponged blue on them to fit the theme.

The details: Stamp by Inkadinkadoo. Papers by Stamping UP. Ink is Cobalt Blue and SU Bliss Blue. Accessories include nesties, brad, lace, ribbon, and clear EP.

Happy Bday

2012-01-23T12:59:00.000-05:00

This week's sketch at Card Patterns (#149) called for a circle card. I had to make a birthday card for my sister-in-law, and a circle card just seemed kind of small (based on the nesties I own), so I used the sketch and put it on a square card (like one of the DT did).

My SIL enjoys gardening, so I did a gardening theme. The wide variety of different stylized flowers on this card really strikes me as sort of funny, but I think the common colors make them all work together OK.

The stamp is from a very old SU set, and it's fun to give it new life occasionally. Image is colored with pencils, and Colorbox Ice Blue ink is sponged around the edges. The panel is sewn onto the card. The Nestie circles feature Cosmo Cricket paper, flower embellies are from a yard sale bargain box, and the super wide ribbon is from Offray.

Poof, it's spring

2012-01-19T18:50:00.000-05:00

It's completely a coincidence that the last post was a winter scene and this one is a spring scene. Well, maybe it's wishful thinking. Once Christmas is over, I'm ready for spring.

This card was designed for the current Card Positioning System sketch (CPS251) -- it's been fun to see how different stampers have created the half-circles on either side of the main image panel. I used dimensional paint to make my little dotted flourish.

The card is pretty self-explanatory, so here are the details:
Stamps -- Posh Impressions and Purple Onion Designs
Ink -- Colorbox Chestnut Roan
Accessories -- border punch, Flower Soft (Sweet Pea is the color) and Tulip Beads in a Bottle (metallic gold).

Cleaner technique

2012-01-12T15:18:00.000-05:00

      That's cleaner as in "I used a cleaning product" on it, not that it has less dirt than the average technique.
      The card began its life several weeks ago, when I tried to do a Virtual Stamp Night challenge to use the salted background technique (apply reinker to glossy cardstock, spritz with water and sprinkle on salt). I wasn't pleased with the results, so I washed off the salt and spritzed the inked background with spray Lysol cleaner, which creates a wonderful splatter background. I've only tried a few cleaners on this technique, but I don't think any particular brand is needed. It's probably some basic ingredient in spray cleaners that works its magic this way. If you have some other brand, try it and let us know if it works!
      The resulting design on the paper reminded me of a snowy night, hence this card. I stamped the tree, then used a white gel pen to add the accumulated snow in the branch joints. The sentiment features a TJ tecnhique called spirelli -- I found embroidery floss that matched the purple paper and used two strands to get what looked like the perfect weight for that technique.

      The layout here is the sketch that is current challenge at Victorine Originals (VO25).

The details: Trees by Posh Impressions; Sentiment by Hobby Lobby. White gel pen, embroidery floss, Oval and scalloped oval nesties.

What's Christmas Without Glitter?

2011-12-14T10:43:00.000-05:00

     I'm not much of a glitter girl, but one of the VSN challenges this weekend was to do a panel covered in glitter. I decided to make my panel angels in a glittery sky.
     The card is based on the current Card Positioning System sketch (CPS248), which called for three stacked elements, so I just stacked the angels (unknown maker). They are colored with pencils. I used a thin two-sided adhesive film for Thermoweb to cover the panel, then added a light blue glitter. That panel is matted on navy paper, and the sentiment (from Serendipity) is in Night of Navy ink. Clean and Simple, it's as easy as that.
      I'm also entering this to the current Victorine Originals Challenge (VO23) to make a Christmas card.

Winter fun

2011-12-13T11:48:00.000-05:00

     I got this cute penguin stamp during Impression-Obsession's annual Thanksgiving sale, and I'm so happy to have an excuse to use him. Cute images like this are "almost" enough to convince me that winter is fun (but I live in the South, where ice is serious and can shut the town down for days, so it's not "completely" enough to convince me).
     I also love this sketch from Card Patterns (sketch 145). It went together so quickly I was amazed, and I really like that element I used blue vellum on -- it really gives the card an extra bit of pizzazz. This card is also for the current challenge at There's Magic in the Air -- "winter fun with bling" (bling in this case being glitter).
     Image is stamped in Memento black and colored with pencils and OMS. It's matted on a scalloped circle. White layer has a punched edge and is also embossed with the Swiss Dot folder. Blue vellum was punched with same edge punch. Ribbon is actually sewn in place -- I sewed the button on the card with embroidery floss.
      What sort of winter fun do you enjoy?

Reindeer Games

2011-12-09T14:46:00.000-05:00

     I was super surpised to see my name listed as winner of last week's Card Positioning System Challenge (yay for random selection). A big thanks to CPS and Stamping Bella, the sponsor for last week.
     On to this week's challenge at CPS (CPS 247). I'm loving all these sketches that allow me to use up the little scraps of Christmas dp I have stashed in a folder. This one is pretty self explanatory. The reindeer is in glittery gold embossing powder because, like everyone else, I dig out the metallic EP for Christmas cards. That gold cording is a recurring theme in my holiday cards, as well, it seems.
      Reindeer is from A Muse stamps. It is cut out and matted on metallic gold circle, embossed with the nestie. The little tickets are from Paper Cupcakes Christmas tickets set -- the bottom one shows Santa wih his sleigh and reindeer -- and are tied onto the cording with a small bit of cording (I punched tiny holes in the tickets first). The scrap of striped paper has been corner-puched to add a little interest up there.
     Ultimately, it's really a CAS card, but I think it's quite festive.

Silver and Gold...

2011-12-07T15:05:00.000-05:00

     I just can't believe it's only a little over two weeks until Christmas. I haven't bought a single gift. In fact, I have no idea what to buy. And the tree is up but not completely decorated yet. I really need to get moving on this.
     I was inspired to make a Christmas-themed card, at least. This is based on the current sketch at Card Patterns (#144). I'm quite pleased with how this came out and how the dark shades of red and green work with the metallic elements. I used up my last scrap of that "merry Christmas" paper for this and it was the basis for the color choices.
     The Christmas tree (Impression-Obsession) is silver-embossed on dark green and has an "out of the box" cut with the star on top. It's matted on a metallic silver scalloped oval. I wrapped gold metallic cording around the printed paper and tied it with a silver bow in a thicker cording. (The silver and gold trim  make this eligible for the current Really Reasonable Ribbon Challenge, RRR 37; silver and gold ribbon/trim.) And everything is on a maroon base.

Vintage Christmas

2011-12-01T11:49:00.000-05:00

I wish could get as enthused about other aspects of getting ready for Chistmas as I can get interested in making Christmas cards. Things would go a lot easier that way.

Today's card is a vintage-style Christmas card. The vintage aspect was inspired by this week's Magical Monday Challenge from Paper Cupcakes/There's Magic in the Air. It's also based on the current Card Positioning System Sketch (CPS246). And it uses ribbon, qualifying it for the current Victorine Originals Challenge (VO22).

The old-fashioned Santa is stamped on white paper, colored with pencils and OMS. There's a little glitter pen on the ribbon on the wreath and silver gel pen on the jingle bells up the cneter of his coat. Edges are sponged with SU Creamy Caramel ink. Image is mounted on maroon paper that has been run through the Cuttlebug (textile plate) and came from the scrap file. I wapped gold cording around that with a little Chirstmas stocking charm hanging from the cording. I added gold ribbon tabs at the top of the matting, which is popped up on popdots. I also sponged around the edges of the cream-colored card and did faux-stitching around the strip of old-fashioned holly DP in maroon marker.

What's shaping up?

2011-11-16T13:20:00.002-05:00

      I've done enough challenges that it's pretty hard to surprise me with anything. This week's challenge at There's Magic in the Air included something I've never seen before in a challenge -- the requirement is to include a half-circle in your card, along with the colors of orange, blue and brown. Actually, that's sort of a surprising color combo, but it's the shape that's a new one on me. Aside from requiring an actual circular card, I don't remember shapes coming up in any challenge.
     This cute image is from Paper Cupcakes, and it's the freebie this week, so head on over to There's Magic in the Air and download it. There are also some Thanksgiving sentiments offerent for a free download. I just forgot about them, or I would have used one on this card.
     Card is pretty self-explanatory. Image is colored in pencils and OMS. I sponged Bliss Blue ink around the image. Sentiment is from two different sets and is inked in Tangerine and Chestnut Roan Chalk ink. Sentiment is wrapped in baker's twine and up on popdots. I put a big half circle behind the main image and echoed it with a small one behind the sentiment.
      The little acorn is from a set of buttons I picked up at Hobby Lobby on Monday (66 percent off). I don't usually buy buttons with shanks, but I couldn't resist these cuties at the clearance price. Aside from investing in a shank removing tool, does anyone have a suggestion on how to remove shanks?

White-on-White

2011-11-12T15:20:00.000-05:00

     White-on-white always makes an elegant looking card. Adding some dry embossing just seems to up the elegance quotient, or at least I hope that's the case for this Christmas card.
      It was as simple as could be to make. The tree is gold-embossed and popped up on a white mat that is embossed with the textile folder. That is popped up on a panel embossed with the swiss dot folder. A white organza ribbon with gold edging is wrapped around the larger mat and finished off with a bow. And that's all there is to it. This would be an easy one to set up assembly-line style if you make a lot of Christmas cards.
     This card is for a VSN challenge to make a white-on-white card, and also for what amounts to the same challenge at Paper Cupcake's blog There's Magic in the Air.
     The embossing powder is called Pirate's Gold from Powder Keg. I love the stamp, but unfortunately I don't know who made it (it's from a clear stamp set I got at a consignment sale and it doesn't have any identifying info on it).

Cats Rule

2011-11-08T20:08:00.000-05:00

     The theme of this week's Teapot Tuesday challenge is Diva Cats. The layout is the current sketch from Card Patterns (#140)
     This cat stamp from A Muse seemed perfect -- the crown, or tiara, really seemed to capture the idea of a diva. The cat is stamped in Colorbox Chalk Yellow Cadmium ink, and additional ink is sponged around the circle. I always have ginger cats, and this color is pretty close to that of my current cat.
      To emphasize the diadem, I colored it in with a Spica pen and added gemstones. (Somewhere in my stash are tiny green gemstones that I intended to use and that would be perfect. Of course, I couldn't locate them.)
      The sentiment is computer-generated, and the little heart/paw stamp is from All Night Media. I used markers to ink it up so I could get two colors on it.
     The patterned paper was a gift, so I don't know the origin. Twine is Martha Stewart baker's twine. Border punch is labeled Recollections (I don't know anything about the company, but this punch works really well, although it could be because it's fairly new.)

Gingerbread Newsboys

2011-11-04T18:07:00.000-04:00

     A few weeks ago, I saw several cards that used newsprint as one of the design elements. As a former journalist, this really appealed to me, but I kind of forgot about it until this week's Way to Use it Challenge at SCS called for us to use newsprint. I ended up making a Christmas card that is for both for the current Really Reasonable Reason challenge (#35, Christmas) and the current challenge at Paper Cupcakes' There's Magic in the Air blog (Something sweet).
     Since I knew I was doing a Christmas card, I didn't want the news article to be about Greek debt or anything depressing, so I went through the newspaper looking for a block of newsprint that was both solid type and about a reasonably pleasant subject, just in case the recipient is like me and starts to read the background. (If it's in print, I will try to read it). I really hoped I could find something Christmasy, but settled for a food section article on growing water chestnuts.
        I DPT'd the newsprint with Creamy Caramel ink to make it look aged and so the gingerbread strip would pop.
       Gingerbread border stamp is from DRS. I stamped it in Colorbox Chalk lipstick red, and colored the gingerbread men with colored pencils, dotting in a little green marker on their bowties. Candy cane is from a bag of metal embellies from Michael's, purchased a few years ago.
       What do you think of the newspaper background? The solid block of type works well when you want the background just to be background, as I did here. I would like to try different elements from the paper (ad pages, classifieds, etc) to see how they look on cards. Yet another thing to remember when I'm making cards....

Thanksgiving Card II

2011-11-02T19:44:00.000-04:00

     When I saw the current challenge at Victorine Originals (VO20) was to use the color combo of black and orange, I immediately thought of Halloween. However, it's too late in the year to be doing Halloween cards, so I decided to challenge myself to use those colors for a Thanksgiving card. I was driving around when I came up with the idea for this card, and I was inspired by all the trees I was driving by, espically the variations in color found on a single tree.
      The layout is based on the current Card Patterns sketch (#139) .
      The bare trees image is from Posh Impressions. I stamped part of it on the white panel in Memento Tuxedo Black, letting the rest just disappear off the right edge of the paper. I went thru my scrap pile and found a variey of different orange papers to punch leaves from, then added leaves to the trees and on the ground. The sentiment comes from two different sets, with the "happy" in Colorbox Chalk Tangerine and the "Thanksgiving" stamped in black.
     To play on the variations in oranges theme, I used different orange papers to mat the main image and the sentiment; the ribbon has yet another shade or orange. Finishing touches include a corner punch and a leaf embellishment (too bad I didn't have one in orange)

Thanksgiving Card

2011-11-01T19:22:00.003-04:00

I finally got around to trying some of the new techniques from the current edition of Tecnhnique Junkies. One, called chalk resist, required chalk ink and a solid stamp, so I used this pumpkin. The technique takes advantage of the fact you can see what is stamped beneath the chalk ink, so the background stamping shows through (although the photo didn't pick it up very well, I just noticed)
I thought the curlicues of the background stamp (an old Stampabilities stamp) were a good complement to the curlicues on the stem of the pumpkins.
The sketch is Card Positioning System sketch #242. I replaced the paper clip with a tiny safety pin and a bow. The flower seen in the picture looked too stark white; after taking the photo I sponged on some orange ink to make it fit in better.
Other details:
Inks: colorbox Chalk in tangerine and chestnut roan; Memories shadow ink in pale leaf
Sentiment: taken from two different sets

I {heart} glue dots

2011-10-25T19:58:00.000-04:00

This week's Teapot Tuesday Challenge at SCS has a King Kong theme. I thought this little monkey stamp from Autumn Leaves would be a good one to use.
I based the card on this week's sketch from Card Patterns (#138). To be honest, one of the most time-consuming part of this card was doing that half circle. It's too big for a nestie, so I went around my kitchen looking for something circular and 5 inches wide to trace. (I eventually found the lid to a big cannister of pretzels that fit the bill.)
I traced the circle and cut it out, then stamped the vine in SU Garden Green and the monkey in Memento Tuxedo Black ink and colored them both with pencils and OMS. Next I added the rickrack, which is both an embellishment and a way to disguise my not-perfect circle. I could have tried sewing it on, I guess, but I went with glue dots -- one on every other "zig" (hence the title of this post, in case you were wondering. It was a lot of glue dots.)
The sentiment is computer-generated and cut with a tag punch. The leafy patterned paper is from DCWV's "Kid Safari" stack. The sketch called for a ribbon across the top, and I added a few flowers to finish it off.
Funny thing about King Kong -- I've seen dozens of spoofs of it, but I've never actually seen any of the movie versions. Folks on SCS assured me I really hadn't missed anything.

Fall Fun

2011-10-20T10:13:00.025-04:00

You're probably sick of me saying that fall is my favorite time of the year. Looking at blogs and other sites, I think a lot of cardmakers are inspired by fall colors and images. So, I was delighted to make a fall card that fits Really Reasonable Ribbon's Fun 4 Fall theme (RRR34) and Victorine Original's Fall theme (VO19).
I don't usually do a lot of distressing, but fall seems like an appropriate time for the distressed look. Two different distressing techniques I learned from Technqiues Junkies came in handy.
I used distressed coloring blocking in yellow and brown ink to add color to the image (which someone sent me as an RAK, so I don't know the origin), and framed the image with a "torn frame." I wrapped the image with gingham ribbon and added a leaf brad before matting it on the frame.
The autumn sentiment is from Purple Onion Design, and I finished the card off with faux stitching.

Girly Birthday Card

2011-10-19T10:11:00.000-04:00

I made this girly birthday card with the current sketch from Card Patterns (#137).
The image is from Paper Cupcakes. The cupcake holder (is there an official name for those little paper cups?) is paper pieced, and the butterfly and frosting are colored with pencils and OMS. The nesties are popped up on dimensionls.
There's a row of lace topped by pink rickrack on the top section, and over that a die-cut flower and gem.
All those cool embellies are my recent bargain finds. The ribbon and rickrack is my most recent acquisition -- I bought a box at a yard sale that had more than a dozen unopened packs of rickrack and trim, yards of lace and ribbon, probably a couple dozen buttons and a bunch of embroidered appliques. The price for all this -- $1.00!. You'll probably be seeing lots of lace and rickrack on upcoming cards.

Christmas scraps

2011-10-10T16:41:00.000-04:00

The current sketch at Card Patterns (#136) is a perfect way to use up scraps of designer paper to color block the background layer. I pulled out a stack of Hobby Lobby Christmas papers to make this card.

I don't usually put things at an angle but I like the effect it has on this sketch.

I hope the flower looks like a poinsettia to you -- I improvised it by tracing around the red felt flower on green card stock and cutting out the leaves, then finding a little yellow flower to be the center part of the poinsettia.

Stamps of unknown origin (possibly Hero Arts or Inkadinkado). SU Forest Foliage and Colorbox Lipstick Red chalk inks. Spica pen used on all the stars to add a little glitter that doesn't show in the photo. Center panel popped up on popdots.

That's 1 Christmas card done, in possibly one of my earliest starts ever.

Silhouetted flower

2011-10-05T20:34:00.000-04:00

     I was playing with silhouette stamps, because that's the theme of a COTM for a group I'm in. I black-embossed the black-eyed Susan stamp on kraft paper. The paper has a texture which showed up through the embossing, but it's kind of an interesting effect.
     The layout is this week's Card Positioning System sketch (CPS238). I kept the card all neutral, so as not to draw attention away from the main element.
     Other supplies: Printed paper is from Hobby Lobby. Stamp is from A Country Welcome (which is no longer in business, but someone bought their stamp line); gingham ribbon, half-pearls in two sizes. The sentiment is a rub-on.

Fall Leaves, Part II

2011-09-28T10:33:00.025-04:00

Still celebrating fall while doing this week's sketch for Card Positioning System (CPS237). I really like this sketch, because it's such a change from the usual A2 size, and I see a lot of possibilities for the different elements.

Image is from Chapel Road Artstamps, and it's so appropriate for fall -- "every leaf a miracle." It's stamped in Chestnut Roan Colorbox chalk ink. I decided to showcase a couple of leaf-shaped brads in place of images on either side of the main image -- kind of like framed art.
I'm also entering this card in Paper Cupcake's Magical Monday challenge, to use at least 3 pucnhes or dies cuts on the card. This has a total of six die cut Nesties in four different sizes.

Several of the elements on this card -- the brads, twill ribbon and ink -- are the same as yesterday's fall card, but I think they look very different in the two contexts.

Fall Leaves

2011-09-27T10:31:00.001-04:00

     The weather has cooled in the South to where it's pleasant but still doesn't feel like fall. That's a good three weeks off. But fall is my favorite time of year, so I'm enjoying it in stamping if not in real life. So making a card for Really Reasonable Ribbon's current theme, Autumn, (RRR32) was the obvious thing to do.
     This card was created using the Card Patterns sketch for this week, sketch #134. The leaf stamps are from Autumn Leaves (how appropriate!). Not sure of the origin of the other stamp, it's a foam backed stamped I picked up on clearance at Hobby Lobby. The ink is Chestnut Roan fluid chalk ink, which is one of the real workhorses on my stamping desk.
     Papers are all from an old Provo Craft mat stack, and the burgundy twill ribbon worked well with it. As embellies I added faux stitching, a leaf brad and a punched edge.
     So, I have my fall leaves, and I don't have to rake them up.

With a Flourish

2011-09-13T11:46:00.000-04:00

This week's sketch at Card Patterns (#132) is a very nice CAS layout. I used it for today's Teapot Tuesday Challenge at SCS, which called for creating a card with flourishes and pearls. I used blue as the color for this card, qualifying for Victorine Originals Challenge #16, to use a primary color.

This card went together extraordinarily quickly for me. I simply stamped the Autumn Leaves flourishes on the base card and the sentiment (from TPC) on another panel, using Ancient Page Cobalt Blue ink. Matted the panel with blue and added pearls to the flourishes and ribbon tabs to the edge. Used pop-dots behind the matted panel.

I love it when clean and simple is also quick and simple.

Baby Shoes

2011-09-10T21:26:00.000-04:00

I find baby shoes adorable -- almost as cute as baby feet. So when I saw Really Reasonable Ribbon's challenge (#31) to make a baby card, I wanted to use a baby shoe image. I really thought I had a stamp of baby booties, but if I do it's lost in the stash, so I ended up just printing out some line art onto a pastel checked/plaid paper, and cutting out the shoe image.

The sketch is this week's sketch challenge layout from Splitcoast. I embossed the green and blue layers (Swiss Dot seems so perfect for a baby card) and sewed the green layer onto the base card. I added a pastel ribbon and button, and a clear sticker for a sentiment.

Cooking up a cowboy image

2011-08-29T13:14:00.001-04:00

I spent part of Saturday playing in the Virtual Stamp Night challenges at SCS. One challenge called for using a technique to create faux leather with masking tape and clear embossing. It's a technique I've done before and, while the results are fun, tearing up little bits of masking tape can get tedious. So, the two small diamonds on this week's Card Patterns sketch (#130) were the perfect size -- big enough to have impact, small enough not to take too long -- for me to use this technique.
The VSN theme this time was rodeo, and paired with the leather technique, a masculine card seemed appropriate. The image is one I simply found through a yahoo image search. A little plaid paper, a few eyelets and lots of piercing sponging around the edges completed the look.

Goodbye to OTWC challenge

2011-08-23T13:35:00.000-04:00

This week is your last chance to take part in the Off The Wall Craftiness Challenge. Kim is stopping the challenge, which I have participated in regularly since the start. We'll miss you Kim -- good luck with your future plans.

The color combo for OTWC#58 is navy and coral (see inspiration photo to the right). I combined the colors with the sketch for this week's CardPatterns sketch (Card patterns #129) to create this card.

The image is from Inkadinkadoo, stamped in SU Night of Navy ink. The squarish panel and the coral panel are both stamped with the same flourish background stamp to tie the pieces together and add a little depth and interest-- I used versamark on the coral and looks quite subtle on the photo.

I went punch crazy as well, adding punched corners to the square panel and using a new border punch on the white strip (it's a new punch for me, and it appears I'll have a bit of a learning curve getting things to line up on it.)

Hope everyone is having a great week.

Wish I were here

2011-08-22T11:14:00.001-04:00

Victorine Originals new challenge (challenge 15) is to use the theme "summer." Where I live, there's plenty of summer left. Unfortunately, there is no beach around, so I can only wish I was here.

I used the current CPS sketch, (CPS323) for the card.

The challenge this week at Magical Monday (There's Magic in the Air) is to use a scene, and this beach scene says "summer" all the way. The image is a new one from Purple Onion Designs, colored in pencils and OMS.
Clean and simple seems appropriate for summer.

CAS and pink and brown

2011-08-16T10:45:00.000-04:00

I rarely do one layer cards -- years of stamping have ingrained a desire to do some matting on every card into my brain. Today, however, I'm sharing a one-layer card. It's about as clean and simple as possible -- two stamps, one ink, a little Flower Soft and some ribbon.

What has me keeping it so simple? Really Reasonable Ribbon's current challenge (#30) is to keep it clean. The colors -- white, pink and brown -- are for the Magical Monday Challenge at There's Magic in the Air. Those colors made me think of spring, so even tho fall is (hopefully) coming our way, I went with a spring-like card.

The tree stamp is from Posh Impressions. The images are stamped in Colorbox Fluid Chalk ink, Chestnut Roan is the color. The Flower Soft Mix is called Sweet Pea, and I found a ribbon that picked up pinks and greens like in the Flower Soft.

I usually agonize over cards and where to place things, and it was kind of freeing to keep it to one layer.

Quick and Easy Birthday card.

2011-08-15T11:11:00.001-04:00

     I have a personal, ongoing challenge called "look what I found in my stash" where I'll go thru my stash of paper or embellies and see what comes up for air. Today, I found this super-cute, shimmery birthday-themed paper from Heidi Grace. And it worked perfectly with the theme for the current Victorine Challenge (#14), to create a birthday card.
     I used the current sketch for Card Patterns (Sketch 128) to create the card, but I simplified the layout a little to take advantage of the sparkly paper.
     Stamp is from Clearly Defined. Cupcake is stamped in Ranger Stream ink, colored with pencils and OMS, and I used a spica pen to add a little glitter to the candle and flame. My stash also coughed up some ribbon that sort of coordinates with the paper. The blue layer has been thru the Swiss Dot folder to give it a little texture and match the dots on the other elements on this card.
     As a member of one of the online stamping groups I'm in always signs off her posts -- May we live long enough to use up all our stash.

Christmas in July

2011-07-26T20:25:00.000-04:00

This week's Teapot Tuesday Challenge is Christmas in July -- create a card feturing a gingerbread man. I didn't have any good images, but luckily fellow SCSer Leigh, who runs Happileigh Scrappin, offered up this cute image for challenge participants.

The image is colored with pencils and OMS. The layout is this week's Card Positioning System sketch (CPS228). I added a scalloped edge and ribbon to the panel on the left of the cookie, and also did a little piercing in each corner of the main image. (Papers are from an old Hobby Lobby Christmas pad.)

I'm so proud of myself for being able to locate all my holiday supplies. I found an aluminum candy cane (from Michael's several Christmases ago) and added red and green gems to it, because this card is also for Victorine Originals Challenge #13 to add bling, and that's about as blingy as I get.

Kick back and relax

2011-07-20T13:28:00.000-04:00

I own a fluffy orange cat, and I can almost imagine him in this pose. He loves to stretch out on his back with the sun hitting his belly, and I'm sure he'd be happy to do so with an inner-tube cushion, as long as it was on solid ground, not water. OK, he probably wouldn't want an umbrella drink, but "carefree days" sure captures his life.
But back to the matter at hand. This card is for the Off The Wall Craftiness challenge #57, which is to make a "beachy" card. Additionally, it is for this week's Magical Monday Callenge at There's Magic In the Air -- this week's challenge is a sketch, which I had to tweak just a bit to fit my image.
That cute image is a free digi I picked up a while back, but I'm pretty sure it's Hambo. Colored with pencils and OMS. There's some Martha Stewart baker's twine wrapped around the edge of image, and the chipboard sentiment is from an old pack by Colorbok. Patterned paper is from My Mind's Eye.
Take it easy in the heat!

Birthday Collage

2011-07-16T13:08:00.000-04:00

I don't do collage very often, as I'm just not comfortable doing it. But the Ways to Use it challenge at SCS this week was to do a collage using at least four stamps. The sample cards inspired me, and this is what I came up with. (It is in part a CASE of the sample by Collette, challenge hostess).

It's also for this week's Magical Monday challenge to do a birthday card. (And it's really different from anything I made during my month as guest designer for Paper Cupcakes).

The puffy flower (Purple Onion Designs) is clear-embossed on gray paper. I overstamped with a script background stamp using Ranger Slate ink, wiping the ink of the embossing. Then I added the butterflies (Impression Obsession) in opposite corners using SU Eggplant Envy ink.

The sentiment is also stamped in Eggplant Envy ink. I used half-pearls to tie the sentiment in with the bottom of the card. The border punch is by McGill.

Bright and cheerful flowers

2011-07-12T14:45:00.000-04:00

Outside, it's about 97 degrees and any flowers in my yard are wilting. But in my stamp room, I can make them as perky, bright and cheerful as I want.

     This card was inspired by this week's teapot at Mother Mark's Teapot Tuesday. Usually I get inspired by Cindy's fun stories, rather than the actual teapot, but this teapot was so cute, I couldn't resist translating it to card form.
      The flowers and leaves are from an SU set, and I've lost track of where the bee is from (probably a grab bag of some sort or another). I arranged them close to how they appear on the teapot and colored with pencils. The yellow layer went thru the Cuttlebug with the Swiss dot folder, and since the bottom of the card "needed something," it got half pearls.
     The ribbon came from Mike's a few years ago -- it was among the Christmas clearance ribbon, and I was grabbing anything that didn't look "too Christmasy."
      The Victorine Stamps challenge is back, and this card is for Challenge #12 -- using flowers.
Stay cool.

A touch of '20s glamour

2011-06-27T01:03:00.044-04:00

Glitter and gel pen details

The Magical Monday Challenge at There's Magic in the Air has a true challenge for us this week. The challenge is "Blast from the Past," doing a card that reflects the era from the 1920-30s. Looking at photos from then (thanks to Yahoo's photo search), I found lots of women in suits and hats, wearing impeccable makeup. The Paper Cupcakes image called "dresser bureau" seemed to reflect that era. Doesn't the perfume atomizer and strand of pearls look like your grandmother's dresser?

Fun with feathers

In addition to coloring the image with pencils, I added a little spica glitter pen to the glass vase, silver gel pen on the silver on the jewelry box and atomizer hardware, and white gel pen for the pearls.

I also raided my husband's fly-tying goodies for a few feathers -- a "tip of the hat" to the hats of the 20s and 30s. (And I quite like the look of feathers on the card, and will have to do this again.)

This is my last card as June Guest Designer for Paper Cupcakes. Head on over to the blog to see how the design team handled this challenge, and take a shot at it yourself. One lucky winner gets 2 free images of her choice from Paper Cupcakes.

Thanks, Nina, for letting me be a guest designer.

Farewell to Etsy Inspired Challenge.

2011-06-26T15:00:00.001-04:00

After more than three years hosting the Etsy-Inspired Challenge, Ashley is ending the challenge. EIC was the first blog challenge I ever entered, and it's always fun because each challenge takes us to a different Etsy shop, usually one I would never, ever visit on my own.

For the last challenge, EIC141, the shop is called Homes and Weddings, and it features metal wire items such as place card holders. My inspiration for this piece is the silver wire heart-shaped table decoration.

The inspiration piece reminded me of this silver wire heart-shaped clip. I got the sketch from a Yahoo group I am in. It's a large tag with a smaller tag and library evelope on it. The large tag is clear-embossed with butterflies, and the smaller tag and evelope are decorated with punched butterflies. The silver heart is set off by matching ribbon.

Stamps: Inkadinkadoo (butterflies) StampinUp (sentiment)

Inks -- versamark; Memento Tuxedo black, VersaMagic Pretty Petunia (sponged on small tag)

Thank you, Ashley, De and the EIC DT --- it's been fun, and I will miss the challenge.

Inspired card

2011-06-20T01:00:00.000-04:00

This week's challenge at There's Magic in the Air is an inspiration challenge. Make a card inspired by the image you see over to the right.

I used the Paper Cupcakes image called Tulips in Bottles -- pretty appropriate, huh? I also got to use one of my favorite "supplies," a paint chip. I thought this one in various shades of blue was perfect. It came with holes punched near the bottom, so I used that area for embellishments -- weaving a ribbon through it and adding extra ribbon on the side. (This particular kind of paint chip is from Lowe's, but I don't know if that's the style still available at the store or not.)

The image is colored in pencils and OMS, and I sponged some blue ink on the edges of the oval, which is popped up on the scalloped oval.

Winner of this week's challenge gets 2 free digi images of her choice, so be inspired and make a card.

Home Sweet Home.

2011-06-13T01:01:00.000-04:00

Love this sweet little image, which is being introduced today by Paper Cupcakes. You can get it for free this week at the There's Magic in the Air blog.

The Magical Monday Challenge at TMITA is to "pick two" from a list of embellies and use them on your card. I chose ribbon and flowers. It's an easy challenge, and the winner gets 2 Paper Cupcakes images of their choice.

This card is the first I've made using my new (for me) sewing machine, which I picked up at a neighbor's yard sale for $10. I don't want to use my regular machine for paper, so this seemed like the perfect deal. I used it to zigzag stitch the patterned paper to the main card. The paper is from the Twitterpated Collection by Pepples, and I think it's the perfect match for this little house. Image is colored with pencils and OMS.

Masculine cards

2011-06-06T01:00:00.001-04:00

Woot, woot. I'm the guest designer this month for Paper Cupcakes and the Magical Monday Challenge, found at There's Magic in the Air. This week's challenge is to create a masculine card.
My card features the Paper Cupcakes image "On the Road Again." I did a little "out of the box treatment" with the front tire and exhaust coming out the back when I cut the image out with nesties.
The striped paper is from the Safari Kids collection

from Die Cuts with a View, and I used coordinating solids from my stash. The image is colored with pencils, and there's some Glossy Accents on the frog's eyes. My favorite detail on this card is the hubcabs -- I had these fun beads in my embellishment box, and they fit perfectly -- it seemed like a good "masculine embellishment."
The tickets are also from Paper Cupcakes -- the set is called Summer Tickets and there are tons of different designs on the file. They are great fun.
Head on over to There's Magic in the Air. The blog features a free digi image every week. Additionally, all cards posted for the challenge are entered in a random draw for two free Paper Cupcake images of your choice.

Texture all the way

2011-06-04T17:13:00.005-04:00

I made this card for a couple of challenges. It's a case of a card by jandjccc at Splitcoast, who is the subject of the week's Queen for the Day Challenge. She's a big user of embossing, so it was natural to pull out the cuttlebug folders for this card.
This is also for the current Off the Wall Craftiness Challenge (OTWC54), which features the color combo of brown, blue and white. (see inspiration photo at right).

Both the stamps are from Club Stamp. I used the Cuttlebug Script folder on the background and Dotted Swiss on the heart. The ink is Colorbox Chalk Chestnut Roan. Ribbon is from Michael's.
See you all Monday when I start my term as June Guest Designer for Paper Cupcakes and the Magical Monday Challenge at There's Magic in the Air.

Hidden sentiments

2011-05-27T15:55:00.004-04:00

The Technique Lover's Challenge at SCS this week was hidden sentiments. You simply attach the main image by a brad, so it swings up to reveal the hidden sentiment underneath. How easy is that? This week's Card Positioning System (CPS219) sketch worked perfectly for me to try the technique.

Details: Stamps by Impression Obsession; paper by Cosmos Cricket; Inks are SU Kiwi Kiss and Stampcraft Baby Pink. Other supplies: mini brad, nesties, piercing tools.

Make your own flowers

2011-05-24T08:26:00.004-04:00

The theme this week for the Magical Monday Challenge is "make your own flowers." I went with a simple flower punch for the flowers on the bottom of this card, adding the centers with a marker. (There's always a free digi at the challenge, and the winner gets to choose two Paper Cupcakes images.)

The card is a CASE for SCS's Queen for the Day challenge, which honored one of my favorite stampers -- sleepyinseattle.

The Details: Sentiment by TPC Studio, flourish by Autumn Leaves. Stamped in Chestnut Roan chalk ink. Ribbon by KI Memories. Paper tearing by me.

Embellished Circles

2011-05-18T15:28:00.006-04:00

I've been wanting to try a technique from the latest Technique Junkies newsletter for a while. It's called embellished circles, and the title pretty much says it all. As part of my haul of goodies from last week's yard sale (see previous post), I have a new pack of Autumn Leaves stamps that are all variations on circles, so I'm fully prepared.

I used the color scheme from the current Off the Wall Craftiness challenge (OTWC53, inspiration photo at right.)

I like the fun, casual effect of the technique.

Supplies -- Large circle is Impression Obsession, the rest are Autumn Leaves (except sentiment).

Inks -- Colorbox Prussian Blue; Ice Blue and Dark Moss; Versamark Sand and Bamboo.

Bow (Martha Stewart), rhinestones, silk flower and mini brad.

Enjoy the ride

2011-05-16T17:26:00.004-04:00

I hit the jackpot while I was out visiting yard sales last week. One of the vet organizations (American Legion or VFW) had an entire table full of brand new stamping/scrapbooking supplies. They were selling stickers 4 packs for $1 and clear stamps 2 packs for $1. I got 4 packs of Martha Stewart premade bows, rub-ons, etc, and 2 packs of Autumn Leaves stamps. I should have bought more.

I used the ribbon colors my color inspiration for this card. The theme was inspired by the current Etsy-Inspired Challenge, EIC 168. The store this time is called Bear Creek Designs, and it features hand-felted little critters -- talk about cute! I was inspired by this needle-felted horse. (I'd be tempted to adopt him and bring him home if my son were younger,)

Carousel horse stamp from Sweet Impressions, colored with pencil and OMS. Sentiment is computer-generated. Ribbons by Martha Stewart (who makes much prettier bows than I can, what a surprise!)

On an angle

2011-05-11T16:40:00.000-04:00

This week's challenge at There's Magic In the Air is a sketch challenge. I don't put elements at an angle very often (I've spent way too much in my life checking pages to make sure everything is straight to intentionally put things askew), so this was a fun change.

The image is a digi from Paper Cupckaes, colored with pencils. The sentiment from a set I picked up at Mike's on deep discount -- the pack says TPC Studio (that's a new one to me). The distressed paper is from my stash, and I love it -- it's so wonderfully summery. There's piercing a round both the angled pieces.

Happy Birthday, Bro

2011-05-05T14:37:00.005-04:00

May is a big birthday month in our family, so this is a good month to find inspiration for birthday cards. I made this birthday card for my brother, thanks to inspiration from a couple of challenges. I used the same printed papers as for a father's day card I made, so I guess the Father's Day card goes to my FIL -- not that I seriously think my dad and brother would notice the similarities in papers. (Would yours?)

The sailboat inspiration is from this week's Etsy Challenge (EIC137). The shop is Imagine Studio, and it sells some amazing art prints. I took my inspiration from this one of three boats.
The layout is this week's Mojo sketch, MOJO189.

Finally, this qualifies for this week's Magical Monday Challenge, to make a birthday card.

Supplies: Stamps -- Stampin Up and CTMH. Ink -- Momento Tuxedo Black; colored pencils and OMS, border punch, red bakers twine, tiny ruby faux gems.

Out to sea

2011-05-02T17:08:00.005-04:00

I don't even know the name of this SU set, but I've always liked it, and I picked it up for a song at a crafting consignment sale. One reason I like the set is that the images all work for masculine cards, like Father's Day.

This inspiration photo for the current Off the Wall Craftiness Challenges (OTWC52) helped nudge me to the nautical theme (see photo to right), and I had this pad of Making Memories paper that perfectly fit the color challenge -- yellow, red and blue.

The sketch is from last weekend's mini VSN at SCS. I just took some baker's twine, doubled it up and knotted it as the long embellishment. The star is simply a brad I found in the stash.

The image is stamped with Memento Tuxedo Black, colored with pencils and OMS.

More Butterflies

2011-04-22T08:10:00.004-04:00

Here's another quick card. The color scheme -- orange, green and yellow -- is for this week's Magical Monday/Paper Cupcakes challenge. That cute cupcake and butterfly is from Paper Cupcakes -- and wouldn't you like to have pretty cupcakes like that at your Easter get-together? (Be sure to visit the blog -- there's a free sample digi there.)

The orange ribbon was inspired by this week's Etsy Inspired (EIC135) shop, Creating is Fun. This is a shop full of ribbon (including some awesome crocheted stuff) and other items that would make great embellies. I will have to go back and go shopping there.

I used the sketch from this week's SCS Clean and Simple Challenge. The image is paper pieced using various bits of subtly dotted paper from Marcella K. The bottom half of the base card is embossed with the Swiss Dot folder. The ribbon is also from Marcella K, and that's my new McGill butterfly punch I've been showing off.

Easter fun

2011-04-20T13:10:00.005-04:00

Easter is coming so late this year, the weather where I livewill be summer-like rather than spring-like. Here's a quick and simple Easter card.

The design is the current sketch from Card Positoning Systems, (CPS214). The sketch calls for do-dads betwen the diamonds, and it was a perfect chance to pull out my almost-new butterfly punch (rescued from my local Big Lots, where the stamping/scrapping supplies seem to be routinely abused by shoppers so I rarely find anything useful.)

The card was inspired by the current Off The Wall Craftiness (OTWC51) challenge. As you can see from the photo at right, those colorful Peeps are the color inspiration.

Supply list.

Stamps -- bunny from Stampin' Up; sentiment from Purple Onion Designs

Punch -- McGill.

Ink -- I inked the stamps with a marker to match the butterflies.

Have a happy Easter.

May Day

2011-04-15T14:52:00.006-04:00

The theme for the card of the month swap I'm in is May Day. Once again, I found myself turning to the trusty "image search" at Yahoo to complete a COTM card. I turned up a sweet line drawing of girls at a May Pole. With a little cropping to focus on the girls in front, I think it makes a pretty good image.

Colors for this card are for Victorine Originals Challenge #11 -- green/purple and white. (Green and purple is my favorite color combo, so that was easy.)

Magical Monday Challenge (Paper Cupcakes) is to incorporate fabric and stitching into the card. The bow is made of tulle and gives the card a light, frilly touch. I put stitching around the purple layer, which actually looks like a fabric print. (True, it's faux stitching, but it looks pretty realistic to me, including the fact I didn't get it straight, just like I never get real seams straight.)

Sketch is this week's SCS sketch challenge layout.

Pastel pleasures

2011-04-13T15:13:00.006-04:00

I love pastels. They're pretty and easy to work with, so I'm always happy to use them. This three-fer card uses the lovely pastels for this week's Off the Wall Craftiness Challnge (OTWC50) -- see the inspiration photo below.

It's also for this week's Etsy Inspired Challenge (EIC134), Think Fast Designs, a shop that sells both jewelry and fabric items. I loved this vintage-looking quilt that incorporates these pastel spring colors and also features a mix of prints with polka-dots, inspiring my dotted panel.

Finally, this card incorporates this week's Mojo Monday Sketch (MOJO186).

Supplies: Stamp by Inkadinkadoo; sentiment computer generated. Striped paper is by Heidi Grace. Yellow ribbon is by Martha Stewart; plaid ribbon is from Michael's. Nesties, Swiss Dot embossing folder and border punch also used.

Going Round and Round

2011-03-29T14:07:00.005-04:00

This week's Etsy Inspired Challenge (EIC132) store is called Fresh Metal Jewelry and it features beautiful jewelry not of metal but of fabric. Really, these are quite equisite with hand-sewn flowers in a variety of different colors.

Since blue is my favorite color, it's no surprise I was drawn to this Blue Blossom necklace as my inspiration piece.

I decided to try a round card, so I just cut two of the largest scalloped circle die I own, and used a mini brad so the pieces will swing to the left and right to open the card. The flowers are clear-embossed to give a little of that tone-on-tone look of the inspiration piece.

Flower stamps -- Autumn Leaves

Sentiment: CTMH

Ink: Versamark and Memento Place

Accessories: Clear EP, McGill butterfly punch, mini half-pearls, mini-brad, and scalloped nesties.

Maybe I'm overthinking it

2011-03-24T13:53:00.008-04:00

At first, I thought the color combo for the current Off the Wall Craftiness Challenge (OTWC49) was a little odd -- red, green and yellow (see inspiration photo below). Then I started looking around, and I saw the colors everywhere. Seriously, I was flooded with ideas that were all too complex and didn't work out.

I finally settled on this layout, courtesy of week's CAS challenge at SCS. And it also qualifies for the current Victorine Originals Challenge (#10) to use a circle on your card.

Ink: Kiwi Kiss

Dragonfly: Inkadinkadoo

Sentiment: Impression Obsession.

Supplies/tools Nesties and eyelet punch in two sizes to make the little flight path for the dragonfly.

Monochromatic music

2011-03-19T19:30:00.003-04:00

I made this card for three challenges - the Sketch Challenge and Teapot Tuesday at SCS and Magical Monday. Teapot Tuesday's destination for this week's cards is a pre-teen girl who is undergoing treatment for cancer. Among her favorite things are music and the color blue, so it was pretty easy to decide the direction to go in. Magical Monday's challenge is to create a monochromatic card, so I kept it all blue.

The stamps are all from Club Stamp, including the sheet music, which is actually only a few lines that I stamped over and over down the page. The ink is Colorbox Chalk Prussian Blue. The finishing touch is silk flowers, which started out white. Sometime in the past I had sponged blue ink on them and that worked perfectly for the monochromatic theme.

Mixed media? Me? Really?

2011-03-09T18:26:00.004-05:00

This week's featured store for the Etsy Inspired Challenge (EIC129) is called Desired Things, and it's a shop full of mixed media items such as jewelry. The artist uses fabric, beads, shrink plastic and other media, along with paint, stamping and other decorative items to create some very appealing and unusual necklaces, bracelets and pins.

Well, collage doesn't come easily to me, but this shop really inspired me to try something that is just the tiniest bit different. Using this lovely broach as inspiration, I started by brayering pink and lavender ink on glossy paper, then siver embossed the dragonflies. The purple panel is embossed with a script folder. The black strip is a piece of screening material left over from when we changed out the screens on the porch (I guess that's the "mixed media" part).

I used the layout from this week's Card Positioning System sketch (CPS208).

Dragonflies from Inkadinkadoo; sentiment from Impression-Obsession.

Going old school

2011-03-07T14:44:00.003-05:00

This week's queen for the day stamper at SCS does lots of tearing on her cards. I learned tearing at the very first SU party I ever went to (the SU demo jokingly described it as a "highly technical" trick), and for I while I probably tore every piece of paper I laid hands on. That kind of fell by the wayside, and it was fun to have an excuse to do it again when I made this card.

In CASEing a card by Luv Flowers at SCS, I used the colors from this week's Off the Wall Crafitness challenge (OTWC48). This week Kim has us using the pretty pastels of pink, yellow and blue, and how can you go wrong with such springlike colors. They just called out for a sweet flowery card.

You can see the OTWC inspiration photo at right.

Purple and more purple

2011-02-28T16:40:00.005-05:00

This week's Off the Wall Craftiness (OTWC47) challenge was to use purple -- dark purple and light purple -- and white in a card. (See in the inspiration photo at right). I combined that with a VSN challenge to use a background stamp without using the whole stamp. To meet that challenge, I inked a script background in light purple, die cut ovals from it, then added a flower silouette in dark purple.

The layout for this card is based on Card Positioning System's current challenge, CPS207.

Credits: flower stamp by Endless Creations, sentiment by CTMH, script background unknown. Inks are Versamark Petunia and SU Eggplant Envy. Ribbon is Martha Stewart.

Monochromatic

2011-02-22T14:51:00.002-05:00

I don't know what it is about brown, but it always looks good on a monochromatic card. Seriously, no one lists brown as their favorite color, but put a bunch of shades of brown together and it looks great.

This card was inspired by this week's Etsy Inspired (EIC127) store, Claylicious. As you'd probably guess from the name, it's a pottery shop. I was inspired by this mug, both for the color and the theme.

This card also qualifies for the Stamping for the Weekend Challenge (SFTW #4) to make a monochromatic card.

Main image by Inkakinkadoo, stamped in Chestnut Roan, with Sand Beige and Creamy Caramel sponged on the edges. Sheet music (source unknown) stamped in Creamy Caramel and sentiment (CTMH) in Chestnut Roan.

Sponging up

2011-02-21T14:05:00.007-05:00

I don't know why, but I don't do much sponging of ink. I like the way it looks but I guess I'm ususally in too much of a hurry to get the card done. Anyway, the Queen for the Day stamper at SCS this week is a big sponger, and to honor her properly, I had to do some sponging around the main image in this card.

The colors for this card are taken from this week's Off the Wall Craftiness Challenge (OTWC46). You can see the inspiration photo to the right, although, as usual, my colors may be a little more muted.

The giraffe (Rubber Stampede) is stamped in Color Box Chestnut Roan ink and embossed with clear EP. Papers are from Making Memories. I did some piercing in the upper corners, and added a few brads to repeat the diagonal line of the dotted strip. And of course, lots of sponging in SU Bliss Blue and Color Box Cadmium.

color inspired

2011-02-16T11:45:00.003-05:00

Gotta love this week's shop featured by Etsy-Inspired Challenge (EIC126). The owner of Glow Girl is a victim of the recession, a 50+ who lost her job she expected to keep til retirement and had to start fresh. She makes fabric items such as coupon organizers, and this tapestry coupon organizer inspired me to pull out this wonderful K&Co. paper that I have.

The owl was inspired by this week's Teapot Tuesday Challenge at SCS.

The owl stamp is from Hero Art and the sentiment from Impression Obsession. Ink is ColorBox Chalk amber clay. Embellies include a couple of faux gems which I used for the center of the flowers and some piercing. The owl image has a litle flower on her belly, and I had a tiny flower sticker on my table that fit there perfectly.

Vintage -- and organized

2011-02-14T11:12:00.006-05:00

This week's Off the Wall Crafitness Challenge (OTWC45) is to do a vintage or heart card. The inspiration photo is at lower right. I decided to go vintage, with this stamp of a vintage dress form, and lace and other Victorian elements. Unfortunately, the photo doesn't show the TONS of sponging around the image panel, the card edges and the lace. It really does look quite vintage.

Dress form stamp is from Lost Coast; sentiment from Endless creations. Faux stitching around main panel. Adhesive lace from K&Co. Sepia ink on Dress form and sentiment.

The layout is this week's Card Positioning System sketch CPS 205. CPS is celebrating its 4th anniversary this week.

Organization is a good thing! Last weekend I organized all my tiny embellies in a bead organizer I had bought about 18 months ago. For once, when I went looking for the tiny buttons, I knew exactly where to look and didn't waste 20 minutes digging through piles of supplies. Why did I wait so long to use that organizer???

Playing with new toys

2011-02-09T16:09:00.008-05:00

The rubber stamp show was in town last week. I only picked up a few things --one was a clear stamp set Impression-Obsession was clearing out. I love this tall, thin base and simple flowers.

The layout is this week's Card Positioning Sketch, CPS 244. The colors come from this week's Off the Wall Craftiness (OTWC44) inspiration photo (at right). And the inspiration comes from this week's Etsy Inspired Challenge (EIC125) shop, Daisy Petal Designs, which is a shop full of cute and girly things, mostly to wear in your hair, although my inspiration piece is a brooch.

Stamps both from the same I-O set, colored with pencils and OMS. The red panel is texturized with the Cuttlebug textile plate. Narrow, sheer ribon completes it. It's quick and simple, but for once I used new stamps without letting them sit for weeks!

It's vimful!

2011-02-01T11:50:00.003-05:00

The theme for a COTM I'm in this month is "at the movies." Having no appropriate stamps, I did a search for "vintage movie posters" and then searched movies from the 30s at the site I ended up at. I was looking for black and white posters, and figured movies in the 3os were B&W, so posters would be too. Actually, about 99 percent that I found were in full color. This poster for "Putting On the Ritz" was the closest I could find. When I tried changing it to all B&W however, it was really boring, so I printed it out in the original coloration.

(The writer part of me has to point out the wonderful wording on this poster -- "The Idol of Broadway in a tuneful song & dance extravaganza. Dynamic! Vimful! Glorious!" "Vimful" seems to have totally left the lexicon in the past 75 years, if it ever was a common word. "Vim" itself is rarely used, and only as part of the quaint expression "vim and vigor." ) Hmm, I would have guessed the star would be Fred Astaire, too.

Card is made using Card Positioning System Sketch 203 (CPS203). For RESQ68, it has all sorts of lines, including a line of half-pearls, a line of piercing along the edge where the two papers meet, and of course the line of stylized whatever you want to call those deco-style decorations on the paper (from Making Memories).

Watercolor inspired

2011-01-26T14:00:00.004-05:00

I've been playing with my watercolor crayons after being inspired to pull them out for this week's Etsy Inspired Challenge. I think I need to spend a lot of time playing with them to get a good understanding of what they can do, but I'm relatively happy with this Etsy-spired piece.

This week's Etsy store (EIC123) is Nanny's Room, owned by an Arizona artist who works mainly in watercolors. I was inspired by this pendant of her's, and after doing lots of hunting among my collection of floral images, decided this one from Stampin Up's Nature's Wonders set gave me the space I needed to try blending some water colors.

Rope border, a few graduated half pearls and a tiny bit of piercing finish it off.

Birds on the Brain

2011-01-22T17:54:00.006-05:00

Seems like I've done a lot of bird cards lately -- maybe I'm longing for spring. This card is for this week's Off the Wall Craftiness Challenge (OTCW42) and also for this week's RES-Q challenge (RESQ67). I cased a card for this week's Queen for the Day challenge at SCS for the layout.

The orange and blue color scheme is the challenge at OTWC this week (see the inspiration photo at right). RESQ's challenge this week is dry embossing.

As I was working on the card, my husband reminded me that his sister, a singer, was having a birthday, so happily I could turn it into a birthday card for her.

Details -- bird stamp and sentiment from SmArtWorks; sheet music is unknown. Ink is Ranger "Stream" color. Ribbon from Target.

Inspired by birds

2011-01-17T16:17:00.006-05:00

Two cards, five challenges. I love it when a problem turns into an opportunity.

The owl card uses this week's Card Positioning System sketch (CPS201). The colors were inspired by this week's Off the Wall Craftiness challenge (OTWC41) colors -- purple, black and lime green (see inspiration photo at right). Yeah, the potential for a Halloween card was definitely there, and I'm happy with the alternative I up with.

The owl (Inkakinkadoo) is black embossed on purple paper as is the sentiment (SmArt Works). Green layer features a punched rope border. There's paper piercing by the bird and up in the upper right corner of the card.

I originally had planned to use the perched bird on this card and enter it for the Etsy Challenge as well, but it was too wide because of the sentiment. So, I set it aside, and then found it would work for the SCS technique lovers challenge (silhouettes); I used the SCS CAS sketch for this weel as the basis for the layout, and it's still an Etsy inspired card (EIC122). This week's Etsy shop is Modern Bird, which features silver jewelry -- much of it with bird images. I was inspired by this pretty necklace.

This bird is also from Inkadinkadoo, and I recycled Kim's color combo because it matches the awesome ribbon.

Snowed in, so I'm stamping

2011-01-10T19:23:00.005-05:00

We woke up to 4 or 5 inches of snow and a layer of ice. Where I live, that's a snow day for sure. Looks like tomorrow will be another one. Happily, I found a little time to stamp.

This card is a three-fer. The basic design is this week's Card Positioning System sketch (CPS200). The colors come from this week's Off the Wall Challenge (OTWC40). As you can see from the inspiration photo (right), the colors are tan, white and burgundy.

Finally, the vintage French inspiration for the card is from this week's Etsy Inspired store (EIC121), La Pomme, which specializes in vintage French items. I was inspired by all the wonderful vintage French ephemera, including this sheet music.

The image is from Lost Coast, stamped in maroon Colorbox Chalk ink. The darker tan layer is embossed in French Script and sanded to give it a more aged, vintage look. I also incorporated some maroon ribbon and flowers into the card.

A little mermaid

2011-01-05T21:03:00.004-05:00

You really have to see the Etsy-Inspired shop (EIC120) for this week. It's called Muffa, and it features handmade miniatures that are incrediby small. Some are crocheted (and as a crocheter, I cannot imagine how hard it is to to make anything that tiny), and others are made of oak. I was inspired by this cute mermaid.

I used CPS sketch 199 for the basis of the card. The images are both from Faerie Song Art stamps. The mermaid is colored with colored pencils and OMS, and this was my first attempt at doing an out-of-the-box cut with my nesties. Tan layer was embossed with the Swiss Dot folder and sanded. There are touches of glitter pen on the bubbles around the mermaid and the stars around Dream.

Back to stamping

2011-01-04T16:59:00.005-05:00

Happy new year everyone.

What with the holidays and a house full of guests, it seems like weeks since I stamped. It was so nice to finally get back to my craft desk and make this card.

This card is for this week's Off the Wall Craftiness challenge (OTWC39), which uses the colors of black, white and silver. (That's the inspiration photo at right) Black and white is such an elegant combo, and silver is just icing on that cake.

This typewriter is a new one I picked up at Michael's dollar bin. I love the vintage look, and it called to mind this sort of art-deco paper from Making Memories. I simply matted the typewriter on metallic silver paper and added a couple silver brads. Can't get any easier than that.

Ready for Spring

2010-12-21T15:23:00.005-05:00

OK, enough cold. I'm ready for spring. Luckily, several challenges this week let me indulge that urge. First off, Kim introduced pink along with Christmas red and green for this week's Off the Wall Craftiness challenge (OTWC 38) -- see inspiration photo below. And Etsy Inspired Challenge (EIC 119) this week looks at the beautiful pendants made by artist Ling Glass, which feature glass and delicate metalwork. I liked this one called "love stained glass pendant." Finally, this week's Teapot Tuesday challenge was to do something artistic or painterly, so I made a still life.

Stamp is an old one, purchased from the company now known as Sparkle and Sprinkle. Sentiment is by Impression-Obsession. It's colored with pencil and OMA. The Ling Glass pendant gave me the inspiration to use the heart-shaped clip, to which I added a little gingham ribbon. (Someone else liked that pendant too. It moved from "for sale" to "Sold" between the time I picked it out as an inspiration and the time I'm posting this card.)

Merry Christmas everyone.

Merry merry

2010-12-08T10:19:00.004-05:00

It's time to get serious about making Christmas cards (and doing everything else Christmas -- I am so behind this year....).

I used the current Card Positioning System sketch (CPS196) for this card, which also qualifies for this month's SmArt-Word Challenge, "merry."

The flourish is from Autumn Leaves, stamped in Versmark and covered with Winter Wonderland (sparkly-white) EP. There are little green gel dots at the ends of some of the swirls. The ornament is by Stampabilities, done in StaZon and watercolored. I used a glitter pen to add some glitz to the ornament and ornament holder. The sentiment is taken off another stamp -- I used a marker on the part I wanted to stamp and hoped I got the placement right when I added it to the image.

Striped paper is from a Christmas stack from Hobby Lobby -- several people have told me they liked the appearance of crimped paper it gives.

2010-12-06T16:40:00.005-05:00

This week's Off the Wall Craftiness challenge (OTWC 36) is a monochromatic challenge -- using shades of brown. (The inspiration photo is to the lower right) Actually, I like monochromatic brown, which is kind of a peaceful calming combination.

My monochromatic brown card will probably be a birthday card for my Dad. I've probably given him a shirt or tie in every shade of brown in the card -- he's a real traditionalist when it comes to clothes, so brown is right down his alley.

There's only a little stamping on this. The sentiment is from SmArt Works, stamped in Chestnut Roan (Colorbox fluid chalk ink). I've had that marbled paper for ages, and haven't wanted to cut it before, but it worked perfectly for this challenge. (And marbled paper is a pretty tradional design, too, along with the polka dots.)

Simple Cards

2010-11-18T15:45:00.003-05:00

The theme for this month's SmArt-Word Challenge is "Simplicity." I had this idea for a CAS card for the holidays, and this was a perfect chance to make it. It couldn't be simpler, really. It's a one-layer card. The angel's dress is paper pieced with vellum, and there's a little piercing around the edges. I used glitter pen on the angel wings. That's it for embellishments.

Stamp credits -- sentiment is from Serendipity, angel is unknown to me.

Girly Christmas

2010-11-14T18:10:00.004-05:00

This week's Off the Wall Craftiness (OTWC33) colors are springy pink and grass green. (See the inspiration photo below -- it sounds like Kim is trying to put winter off as long as possible.) Nothing says Christmas like pink and green, right? OK, I just have Christmas cards on the brain, but I also had this plaid paper that worked perfectly for the challenge, so I paper pieced the tree. The card is also for a VSN challenge calling for "floating sentiment" (the sentiment is popped up on pop-dots and "floating" into the main image.)

Once I'd gotten all that done, I needed something down in the lower right corner corner, and added a few ribbon tabs. And since it still needed something, a little paper piercing. (Seriously, I so rarely go into these things with a plan, it's amazing anything ever comes out useable.)

I kind of like it, non-traditional colors and all.

Let's try "elegant"

2010-11-01T19:22:00.004-04:00

This week's Off the Wall Craftiness challenge (OTWC31) challenged us to use the "Halloween" color combo of orange, black and white. But Halloween is history now, so I got as far away from Halloween as I could. Instead, I went elegant, focusing on the black and white with just a hint of orange. (And elegant realy seems more fitting for the inspiration photo at right, especially the chandelier.)

The flourish is from Purple Onion Designs, embossed with black detail EP. The layout is CASEd from a recent "queen for the day" challenge at SCS -- she used a long quote in place of an image. The sentiment is stamped on a tiny acrylic oval, adding just a touch of orange to the color scheme.

Non-traditional Christmas colors

2010-10-23T16:07:00.011-04:00

This week's Off the Wall Craftiness Challenge (OTCW30) uses the colors of brown, white and green (you can see the inspiration photo below). I used them to make a Christmas card in somewhat non-traditional colors. The card is also a CASE of this week's Queen for the Day at SCS.

The stamps are really old ones -- the tree is from SU and the other a cheapy from Hobby Lobby. I used winter wonderland (sparkly white) EP. I love how it shows up on dark colors, and I use it a lot instead of white ink (which I have no luck with). The lace is an adhesive paper lace from K & Co. and the snowflake is actually a button.

Early holiday card

2010-10-18T09:39:00.004-04:00

To me, it's really WAY too early to start thinking about Christmas (even though I end up doing a bunch of holiday-themed writing assignments about now every year). However, I kind of got in a Christmas groove for VSN over the weekend at SCS. I used the current CPS sketch (CPS 189) as the layout for one of my VSN cards.

I went with a silver and navy color scheme. Angels stamp is Stampabilities, and the stars are an SU background stamp. I used a detail silver EP, though I got a little more stray dots than I like. The ribbon is a quick way to work in a sentiment.

In a way, this echoes one of the first Christmas cards I made after I started stamping. I used the angel stamp and the star background stamp for it, and there was blue involved. I think I stamped the angels in navy blue, matted on navy and then matted with white stamped with navy stars. (Back then, I did production style Christmas cards, but I find that boring and make everyone different now.)

In honor of fall

2010-10-12T10:46:00.008-04:00

It's finally starting to feel like fall, my favorite season of the year. A couple of different challenges inspired me to make a fall-type card.

This week's inspiration colors for Off the Wall Craftiness (OTWC28) were goldish yellow, white and brown. (See the inspiration photo at right below.) And this month's SmArt Word challenge is "brown" so those colors immediately made me think of doing fall leaves.

I used this week's CPS sketch (CPS188) for the layout, which made me want to use a quote in the center. I chose this one from SmArt Works -- it's actually part of a birthday set, but "revel in the gift of time" seems so appropriate to fall to me. The sentiment is stamped in chestnut roan chalk ink

I stamped the oak leaf (SU) in cadmium yellow chalk ink repeatedly on white paper, then cut the curves. I decided to distress the edges, both to add texture and because hand-cut curves look, well, uneven.

I stamped another oak leaf in the chestnut ink, colored it with pencils and added gold microbeads to the acorn. It's cut out and popped up (see detail photo).

Piercing to the rescue

2010-10-04T12:56:00.005-04:00

This week's Off the Wall Craftiness (OTWC27) challenge colors are light blue, and medium and light brown/tan. Awesome colors -- seen in the inspiration photo below.

I used the colors in a card I CASEd for the Queen for the Day challenge at SCS. The stamp is by Hero Arts -- isn't she cute? I got the ribbons ages ago in a fiber swap, and actually was able to find them right away when I wanted them. (Can't tell you how unusual that is.) I had finished the card and taken photos of it, but I kept thinking that it looked unfinished. I decided to add the piercing around two panels. Piercing to the rescue, once again. It's a great way to finish a piece, especially when layers aren't matted. Just my 2-cent advice for the day.

A little fairy dust

2010-09-26T19:13:00.003-04:00

This month's SmART Words Challenge is the word "juvenile," which SmArt Works owner Susan said could refer either to a card featuring a child or a card intended for a child.

What little girl doesn't love fairies, so this card is designed with a little girl in mind. Lots of delicate pastels, and glittery fairy wings should appeal to girls.

Stamps are from Faerie Song. I colored the flower fairy with pencils and OMS, and used a spica pen to add glitter to her wings. All the papers are from Cosmos Cricket. Stacked a couple of Prima flowers and attached them with a mini brad -- you have to imagine the fairy dust yourself.

Pastel paradise

2010-09-25T17:25:00.005-04:00

This week's colors for the Off The Wall Craftiness Challenge (OTWC26) are lovely sherbet pastels. Love them, because they are such happy colors. You can see the inspiration photo below.

The butterfly is an old A Muse stamp. The colors are SU Yoyo Yyellow and Rose Romance, and a light blue from a Colorbox pigment set. I found grosgrain ribbon that matched pretty closely as an accent. With the pretty colors, I wanted to keep it simple.

Favorite color combo

2010-09-20T16:03:00.005-04:00

This week's Off the Wall Craftiness Challenge (OTWC25) is one of my all-time favorite color combos -- pink and gray. Kim added a little twist by using an inspiration photo that has both a pale pink and a darker, rosier pink. (See below).

Thematic inspiration comes from this week's Etsy Inspired Challenge (EIC106) shop, Pegasus Maiden, which is the place to go for stunning hair accessories that feature feathers. They are all simply beautiful, but I chose this lovely, delicate dusty rose one as my inspiration.

In honor of Pegasus Maiden, I stamped feathers (from SmArtWorks) with Versamark on both the gray and pale pink layers. The bird stamp is from Inkadinkadoo, stamped in SU Rose Romance. And how perfect was it to find that bit of two-tone pink-gray ribbon I have been holding onto for ages.

doggone it.

2010-09-16T12:03:00.007-04:00

I was working on several challenges with this card, and intended to do the colors for this week's Off the Wall Craftiness challenge (OTWC24). Unfortnately, I relied on memory -- I knew it was a corally orange and a blue, and went with a light blue. So, just pretend the background is actually navy blue (or as my neighbors might say, think Auburn U. colors).

The inspiration photo for the OTWC challenge is to the right:

Both of the stamps are from grab bags, so I'm not entirely positive where either comes from. I think the hydrant is DRS and the dogs might be Viva las Vegas. The ink is SU cameo coral. I also used a piercing tool, Swiss Dot embossing folder, mini brads and twine.

Sketch is from last week's SCS sketch. Theme was this week's MMTPT.

Rose among thorns

2010-09-07T15:44:00.005-04:00

It has been busy, busy, busy for me. Looks like it took a 3-day weekend for me to finally make it to my stamping supplies. I combined several challenges to take advantage of the rare stamping opportunity.

The colors are inspired by this week's Off the Wall Craftiness Challenge, OTWC23. As you can see the inspiration photo, the colors were deep red, a medium blue and black. I'm finally learning how to handle color challenges -- my first impulse is always to use LOTS of each color, and that hardly ever works. This is a less is more kind of challenge.

The image is inspired by this week's Etsy Inspired store, Glamasaurus, which features unique jewelry -- some fun, some vintage, some glamorous. My card for EIC104 was inspired by these rose ear studs.

The sketch is CPS sketch #183. The actual sketch features lots and lots of horizontal lines, but I pared it down to the 4 lines of sentiment and two lines of ribbon. Less was more, here, too.

Rose stamp is from Inkadinkadoo. Sentiment is an old one from SU that I've been using a lot lately, cause I like the thought behind it. Accessories include white eyelets and thin silk ribbon.

A little fishy

2010-08-18T15:39:00.006-04:00

[Did you ever notice how colors sometimes change in a photograph? Case in point, this card. The scalloped circle is purple but it insists on being photographed blue. Not sure why, because the rest of the purple looks purple. ]

This cute little fish guy is for CPS 120 and Off the Wall 20. OTWC20 is a color challenge incorporating light blue, purple (hence the concern about purple) and white. You can see the inspiration photo below.

This fish is actually a pre-painted little wooden piece, mounted on a nestie. I used mini brads for his little breathing bubbles. Waves are from a little Zimprints stamp I've had forever -- I just thought that would be a fun way to do the lines the CPS sketch calls for (colors are Versamagic Sea Breeze and Rubber Stampede Metallic Purple.)

That's it, classic clean and simple.

Soaring with Etsy

2010-08-12T20:39:00.004-04:00

The Etsy Inspired Challenge is celebrating 100 weeks. Wow! I started doing the challenge one Saturday when Ashley and I were both VSN hostesses at SCS, and I noticed her little tagline about the Etsy Inspired Challenge. I think it was like EIC15.

This week's shop is Cathy Walters, a photographer who makes really interesting pendants. I was inspired by her pendant called Soar, which features a hot air balloon. Those things fascinate me -- every once in a while one flies over my house, and several years ago, one made an emergency landing in a neighbor's yard. (That counts as big excitement in my neighborhood.)

This is a digistamp from Bird's Blog, colored with pencils and OMS. The buttons were added for the Ways to Use It Challenge this week at SCS, and the layout started to be the SCS sketch challenge for the week, but my image was too big and I had to eliminate some elements from the sketch. The papers are all by Making Memories.

The hummingbirds have arrived

2010-08-10T20:41:00.004-04:00

Combining several challenges here into one card. The color scheme comes from Off the Wall Challenge 19 OTWC19 (see inspiration photo at right). The color combo was pale pink, pale yellow and a limeish green (I had to substitute SU Kiwi Kiss for lime).

I combined that with this month's SmArt Word Challenge, which is "bird." I chose to do a hummingbird in celebration that we have a ruby-throated hummingbird coming to our hummingbird feeder. This is the first year we've had one actually come to our feeder (probably because I actually got it out at the right time of year for once.)

Finally, the RESQ challenge for this week was "tape it up." The lacy strip running is actually a fancy adhesive strip.

The details -- stamps by Impression-Obsession; Inks are SU Kiwi Kiss and Stampcraft Baby Pink; accessories are nesties, lacy strip, Swiss Dot embossing folder, and black half pearls in two sizes.

Bright for me, anyway

2010-07-24T20:27:00.007-04:00

The SmArt-Word Challenge for July asks us to use "bright". Hmmm, bright colors are a little out of my comfort zone, so I've been pondering this challenge all month. As luck would have it, Kim's colors for this week's Off the Wall Craftiness Challenge (OTWC17) are bright pink, turquoise and purple (as you can see in the inspiration photo below).

Well, since I was prodded from two directions, I decided to have a go at it, but I counterbalanced the brights with a good bit of white to get more in my comfort zone. I CASEd a card at SCS by MariLynn (this week's Queen for the Day) and made it much more of a CAS than hers, in working on this card.

The fabulous pink butterfly came from a prize pack from Kim for winning a previous OTWC. (Thank you Kim!) It's from the Gilded Bee, an Etsy store. Once I decided to use the butterfly, it was fairly easy to add the other colors as accents/frames for my simple card. What do you think?

Quick and Easy

2010-07-22T20:41:00.003-04:00

I made this card for this week's MotherMark's Teapot Tuesday Challenge. It's for a little girl in New Zealand, daughter of an SCS member, who had her tonsils out. She loves hearts, so I'm giving her hearts. That explains why this card is much more "cutesy" than I usually do.

This was a quicky, using the current Card Positioning System Sketch CPS176. I used an old SU image, and an acrylic heart I've had for ages. The blue and green on the heart matched the printed paper almost perfectly -- how lucky is that? The lacy ribbon is an adhesive paper ribbon I picked up at Tuesday Morning, and it is pretty cool stuff. (I saw it one day, resisted the urge to buy it, then went back the next day to pick it up. Since it was Tuesday Morning and I only saw one package of the stuff, I knew it wouldn't last long. I'm still mad at myself for passing up some highly-discounted border punches at TM, which were gone by the time I came back for them.)

Sea-glass inspired

2010-07-20T09:36:00.004-04:00

The shop for Etsy Inspired Challenge #97 (EIC97) is called Mermaid's Tear Jewelry. Isn't that a wonderful name? The store specializes in jewelry made from sea glass, and I love this stuff because most of the color palette is blues and greens, my favorite colors.
I was inspired by this lovely necklace in shades of blue. It inspired me to use my favorite two-toned blue ribbon; which also has a silver element for the silver in the pretty pendant.
The layout is the CAS sketch for this week at SCS, and I incorporated the "sea" idea as well by stamping seashells on a sand-colored paper. A button and twine finish it off.

Gray and pink irises

2010-07-18T18:40:00.007-04:00

This is my card for Off the Wall Craftiness challenge #16. The colors this time are pink and gray, which is a combo I love. Here's the inspiration photo on the right.

I used the colors to do a CASE at SCS honoring hobbydujour's work. I borrowed her layout and used a wide ribbon, which is kind of her trademark. She's also much better at tying wide ribbons than I am. Everything else is changed.

The iris stamp is one of the first I ever purchased. It's fun to pull it out every now and then and find new ways to use it. The two grays are actually two sides of double-sided printed paper, and they look much more gray in real life -- the photo made the colors a little off.

A three-fer

2010-07-12T16:16:00.004-04:00

This is a simple card for three challenges.
The sketch is CPS175.
The colors were inspired by the Off the Wall Challenge, OTWC15, for this week -- teal and tangerine.
It's also for Etsy Inspired Challenge #96, an Etsy shop called Octavia & Brown, which sells vintage items, such as tableware. I was inspired by these lowball glasses, especially the color and the criss-cross pattern, which inspired the crossed twine on my card.

The details: Stamp is from Faerie Song's Michelle Perkett plate. Used colored pencils and OMS, and a spica pen for the glitter. Accessories include twine, mini tag punch and paper piercer.

A bright, sunshiny day

2010-07-09T10:11:00.003-04:00

Let me just say, having kids out of school sure eats into the crafting time. And that's one reason I'm finally getting around to posting my card for EtsyInspired this week, even tho I actually started it Saturday when the challenge went up.

This week's Etsy Inspired Challenge (EIC95) uses the Etsy shop kimmieprout. Kimmie makes polymer clay buttons that are, well, cute as buttons. Seriously cute stuff in this shop.

I was inspired by a set called Sunshine, and pulled out this Michelle Perkett stamp from Faerie Song. Sun is stamped and paper pieced and matted on a scallop circle. The mini-tags are attached with twine. The card seemed sort of bare in the corners, so first I doodled in hot pink along the edges, and when that didn't seem enough, I added some corner detail using a doodling stencil. Not my usual style, but I think it's kind of cute.

Diamonds and Butterflies

2010-06-21T15:14:00.004-04:00

This card doesn't really look like my typical card, but I like the way it came out. It's the result of combining three different challenges.

Etsy Inspired Challenge EIC93 is a shop called White Birch Designs, which sells lovely jewelry, mostly made from beads. I was inspired by this one called Black and White Flower Necklace. I loved the combo of black, white and silver, especially the bold diamond shapes. That was pretty much the guiding element in putting the card together.

I used the sketch from Card Positioning Systems, CPS 172. And for RES-Q Challenge RESQ50 -- a celebration of getting to the 50th challnge (we had a choice of several old challenges to choose from), -- I chose adding a felt embellishment, because I thought the pink butterfly brought some real life and contrast to the card.

I used two different diamond stamps -- the one embossed in silver on the left is from DRS; the one on the right is from Studio G. The sentiment is from SU. Other ingredients: silver brads, silver metallic paper and nesties.

go ahead, make my day.

2010-06-20T10:33:00.005-04:00

This week's challenge for Kim's Off the Wall Craftiness blog OTWC12 is to use mint green, black, white and possibly red. I combined her challenge with the Queen for Day CASE at SCS to create this card. (It's cased from one by zgirlsgranny, but I changed colors, theme, layout, stamps and embellishments, so it is more "inspired" by Linda's card)

Love the light-green dotted paper here, and I think this was the last piece I have. Poppy image from Stampin' UP and the sentiment is from SmART Works (the owner sent a goodie out to everyone who participated last month in the SmART-Words challenge, and this was part of what she sent). And since Susan was nice enough to do that, I'm entering this in the June SmART Words challenge to use ribbon.

I took Kim's challenge to be "really daring" and add a touch of red to the combo, and the other colors really make the red pop.

Baby, it's hot outside

2010-06-16T09:24:00.004-04:00

Yikes, it's been 90+ for a week, with no end in sight. How about a popsicle to cool down?

The Technique Challenge at SCS this week was to create a one-layer card. If it's one layer, it has to be CAS, right? Somehow, clean and simple seems like the way to go when the themometer is showing 94 degrees.

I used CPS sketch 171 to create this simple card, which features ice cream treats from Studio G. Colored them with pencils and OMS, added a little pierced frame and a few gem-stones, and it's done.

Fun with new techniques

2010-06-13T13:46:00.005-04:00

I created this card for this week's Off The Wall Craftiness challenge, OTWC11 which is to use brown and robin's egg blue on a card. The inspiration photos included a bird's nest, so I pulled out this bird's next stamp by Impression Obsession. It's stamped with Colorbox Chalk chestnut roan ink, and sponged on the egdes with SU Blue Bliss.

I used a Technique Junkies technique called torn frames to highlight the image. Now, normally, I don't go for distressed anything, but I really like how this came out. I added some silk flowers (sponged with the SU ink) and a little tag. Once I had all that put together, I decided the card needed a little more, so I tried faux stitching -- piercing holes around the edge and connecting them with gel pen. I must say, when you're at just a short distance away, it really does look real.

Neither TJ techniques are "new" -- as in from the latest newsletter -- but I hadn't tried either of them until now, and I am really pleased with what they add to this card.

Sponged dragonflies

2010-06-09T17:32:00.003-04:00

Purple and green -- especially pale purple and an olive or celery green -- is one of my favorite color combos. I have a nice stack pack of papers in that combo that got buried in my stamping area and I recently uncovered it. (Someone at SCS refers to this as "shopping in your stash" -- what a great way to put it.) (I should note the base piece photographed much more blue that it is in real life.)

I used the papers to make this sweet and simple card for CPS sketch 170. The dragonfly stamp is an old Stampcraft one, colored with pencils. I added some piercing to give the dragonflies a flight path and sponged Versacolor Petunia ink around the edges. The sketch calls for scallops along a horizontal layer, so I pulled out the rope border punch, which always adds a nice touch.