ICS31

This is a quicky for Inspirational Card Sketches, ICS 31. I used a set of stickers a friend gave me, and stamped the background with snowflakes. That's an old All Night Media stamp; the ink is Ranger demin blue -- I stamped about four generations with each ink-up.

The stickers are by Stick-Abilities.

Etsy 51

The Etsy Inspired Challenge #51 is Red Crow Arts, a shop with handpainted pottery, raku and handcrafted clay pendants. I was inspired by a clay pendant called Tree of Life.

I did this card using masking and sponging on the color. The warm colors are all pigment inks, and the green is a dye ink. (No technical reason for that, those were just the colors that worked best. I actually thought the pigments would spread better, but I got good coverage with the green.) Am I the only stamper who doesn't own a brayer???

The big panel is glossy cardstock. Stamp by Impression Obsession. I stuck the leaves on because it needed something, but I'm not certain they will stay. What do you think?

CPS130, FTTC30

Yes, it is one of the goofiest images I own. I got this stamp of a, um, voluptious couple dancing in a grab bag I purchased from another stamper years ago, when I first started collecting UMs. It isn't the type of image I'd usually choose, but I've kept it around, and it came in handy this week, when I created a card for MotherMark's Tea Party Challenge, based on the game Clue.

The layout I used is CPS130. The half-pearls are for Flourishes Timeless Tuesday Challenge #30.

The image is from Viva Las Vegas (I'm pretty certain, anyway), with the sentiment from KI Memories. Half pearls from the Flourishes shop. Dp is from Making Memories.

I'm way behind this week; I've been helping out at my church's yard sale for missions. Volunteers got to shop at a presale today and I resisted buying the rubber stamps someone donated (they were really small stamps -- about 1-inch images, but one was a set of about 25 Christmas stamps for $2, I'm sure I could have found something useful in there...)

Etsy 50 ICS 30

The Etsy Inspired Challenge's EIC50 shop this week is Mrs. Kwitty's Cottage, which features sort of vintage-inspired cards, bookmarks and other items. I was inspired by a cute little bird tag.

I based my card in Inspirational Card Sketches #30, stretching and shrinking the three squares to fit my design. The paper the tag is had flowers similar to the paper I used for the bird, which is embossed in black detail EP. The pale orange layer has a sort of vintage fabric look, which fit in well with the overall feel of Mrs. Kwitty's, I thought.

The felt flower was a last-minute inspiration -- the color matches so well and the shape echoes the flowers in both the dps. I love it when that happens.

Bird is by Inkadinkadoo. Joy is from Another Stamp Company. Don't know who made the modern floral dp, and the vintage-y one is from a stack by Provo Craft.

This one just grew

This is one of those cards that started out one way and ended up totally different. The inspiration is Etsy Inspired Challenge #49, an Etsy shop called MelissaKate. Melissa Kate makes cards and prints. I chose this pretty original painting of tulips for my inspiration piece. I was thinking of doing my card in red and white, until. ...I realized the tulips in the painting are pink.

Plus, I had purchased a pack of Making Memories papers on clearance at Michael's and it had this cool die-cut paper that I thought would look good on the Card Positioning Sketch #129. It was silver, which would work with pink, so the color scheme ended up pink, silver, black and white.

This is what I came up with. True it doesn't look much like the inspiration, but it does have pink tulips.

The tulip stamp is by Endless Creations. I colored it with markers, spritzed with water and stamped in on watercolor paper to give it a painterly quality. The tulip pieces are edged with silver. So is the edge of the die-cut. The ribbon is from Target and the little pearls in the corner are from Flourishes.

ICS 29

It's Saturday; my husband is out fishing and my son is at a sleepover, so I get to stamp. Yay!

Here's my version of Inspirational Card Sketch #29. I used it for the first VSN challenge at SCS -- we had to use flowers and a circle.

Tulip stamp by SmARTworks, sentiment by Flourishes. The papers are from My Mind's Eye.

Have a good weekend, I'm off to stamp some more.

Another paint chip card

I used one of the paint chips I had left over from my VSN challenge for this card. The changing colors on the chip adds a lot of interest to the card, I think.
The elf is from Faerie Song. I stamped him three times in StaZon black ink, then trimmed the paint chip and rounded the corners. The Live Laugh Love is another Faerie Song stamp – but the words are stacked one on the other, so I cut them into strips to spread them over the space available. The polka dot background paper matched the colors in the paint chip and also reflected the dots of the elf’s shirt. The base card is a very dark purple, eggplant would probably be the best term for it.

Don't forget: Virtual Stamp Night this weekend at SCS. There are a couple challenges Friday night and a full menu on Saturday.