Etsy Inspired #38

This week's Etsy Inspired Challenge #38) is Bacon Square Farm (now there's an interesting name, wonder what the story is?). This Etsy site sells home decor items, many made from recycled items including barn wood and recycled pieces of metal (such as door knobs and faucet handles.)

My inspiration piece was a birdhouse decorated with a recycled white doorknob. So how did I end up with a butterfly? Well, my former neighbor used to have butterfly houses -- I always thought the idea of a butterfly house was very odd, but it's really stuck with me, I guess.

The butterfly is white embossed on vellum, which is attached to mulberry paper. I made the background paper by sponging different colors of orange chalk onto white CS, then created a grid pattern (a TJ technique). There are minibrads on the corners of the dark strip. Butterfly is by Stamps on Fire, sentiment is Another Stamp Co. (Silly me, I just realized I used "inspire" on an inspiration card.)

Card Maps card

I entered this card into Card Maps 3rd anniversary contest. You could use any of their sketches from the past three years., I used one from December 08.

To make the tag, I stamped the rose on Vellum with Versamark, then embossed in white. I colored on the back side of the vellum with pencils and OMS. I love the delicate, understated look this gives. I also inked the edges of the tag with lavender ink.

Other supplies include narrow satin ribbon, mini brads and a decorative edge scissors. (The rose is Endless Creations).

I didn't win, but I think it's a pretty card just the same.

CPS 117, time

This is a card I created for the Card Positioning System Challenge, CPS117. It's also for a "Time" swap I am doing.

Originally, I made the card all in brown, but it looked kind of depressing, so I changed the half circle to blue. Then I added the blue ribbon in the tag to tie the blue in. Then I decided I needed more blue and added the brads.

Stamps are from Club Stamp. I stamped an old-fashioned watch and roman numerals in Soft Wheat on white cardstock, then overstamped the saying in Sepia. I also sponged Sepia ink around the white card stock, the print dp and the blue circle. The vellum tag was stained with Walnut ink. The little timepiece (and the tag it's on) is leftover from a workshop I did at a stamping show a couple years ago... I knew I'd have a use for it evenutally.

Etsy Inspired and Sheetload card.

Well, here it is, my second time doing the Etsy-Inspired Challenge, and darned if I didn't do another fruit card. Sorry, I love fruit, and I haven't used these stamps in a long time.

Anyway, this week's challenge (#37) is sunbasilgarden, which makes really cute soaps. Many of the design team were inspired by the flower soap, and I wanted to do something different. So, my inspiration was the watermelon soap (which seems to have disappeared from the site -- maybe it looked yummy to lots of people?)

The layout for my card comes from the May Sheetload of Cards sketch. This month's sketch included a scrapling, which are always fun to do.

Sentiment is from Purple Onion, the watermelon is another old stamp I've had for ages. The watermelon is stamped on watercolor paper with StaZon, then colored with watercolor crayons. I used a Fiskars border punch, and the gingham ribbon came from a yard sale where I bought tons of old ribbon (some actually useable) from a little old lady. The black half beads are from Hobby Lobby.

Twisted Thursday card

I made this card using Twisted Thursday sketch #11. (Colors were inspired by the Clean and Simple Challenge at SCS this week to use black, white and a bright. I've been wanting to try this color combo for a while and I love how the bright pops against the B&W).

It's a pretty simple card. The cup is paper pieced (it was too hard to cut out the handle so I filled it in with a marker. ) There's a row of paper piercing below the sentiment. Black emblossing thread is tied in the button holes.

Nestie envy and a quick solution

I've found myself really coveting nesties lately. I love the look of matching layered circles or ovals, and am coming to appreciate some of the other shapes as well.

I do have some pre-cut ovals and circles that I picked up a few years ago at the Paper Cuts booth at a stamp show. Unfortunately, they just don't nest as well as Nesties, and I have have a limited range of colors (mostly white and cream) as I had to buy them in packs of 25.

During VSN, I played around with these shapes and found I could easily create a scalloped border for them. How? Simply trace the oval or circle onto another piece of cardstock, then take a scallop-edge scissors and carefully cutting out the shape. Cut with short strokes, moving the scissors/paper frequently so the bottom edge of the scallop is always hitting your traced line. The result isn't Nesties-perfect, but it really looks pretty darn good

One tip: trace your circle on the "wrong" side of the paper if are using printed paper or two-sided paper, so you don't have to worry about your pencil lines showing.

Here is a card I created for VSN using this method. I have some other decorative edge scissors, maybe I should experiment.

Etsy inspired #36

I tried my first Etsy Inspired challenge. The subject this week is Dog Bone Art, which is apparently famous for an adorable Pirate Cupcake.

I, however, took my inspiration from some cute plush bananas they have. I have had this banana stamp (and it's one banana) since I started stamping. It was a find at Big Lots for a buck. (I also got an orange and a watermelon slice). I used basic masking to create the bunch. It's colored with pencils and OMS, sentiment is computer-generated.

I went clean and simple, and I think it made a cute little card.

Shout out to Sheetload

The current issue of Sheetload of Cards features Markie's Mom from SCS as the guest artist. Don't you love this sample she created for the cover? Also, this month's sketch includes a scrapling. Scraplings, if you don't know, are made from the "scrap" left when you cut a half sheet into a 4 and a quarter-inch square card. Scraplings are ton of fun to make. Check it out.

Get ready for VSN

It's VSN weekend at SCS. I've had the privilege of being one of the hostesses this go-round. Actually my challenge was several weeks ago as part of the mini-VSN day.

I came up with an usual challenge called blackjack, where various elements of a card were given a point value (stamped image 5 points, layer 1 point, etc) and challenged people to use the scale and create a card that would win at blackjack, meaning equal 21 points. Basically, it was a variation on a limited supply challenge.

Here is the card I created as a sample. Main image is by Autumn Leaves, and the sentiment is from a Faerie Song plate called Faeries Frolic. (I used several of the images from the plate in various challenges for the VSN mini). Points were 3 layers = 3 points, 2 stamped images for another 10, 2 patterned papers at 3 points each added another 6, and the 2 brads were worth a point each, for a total of 21.

I went out to look for yard sales this morning. I came across a little old lady who was selling a bunch of stuff super cheap. She had rolls of ribbon priced at 10 cents -- and that meant if she had 10 different ribbons wrapped around one paper-towel-type roll, you got them all for 10 cents. I grabbed several rolls. I'm not sure how useful some of it might be -- the satin is kind of old and faded looking, and stained where she had the ends taped to the roll. But there were a few I had to have, including a double-sided satin in my favorite shades of celery and a pale peachy-pink, as well as a red-and-white cotton gingham. Both of them appear to be in good shape. Once I find a use for them, I'll post a picture.

Going digital?

I tried my first digistamp the other day. It was a free download from Hambo Stamps, and I used it to make a card for the Fun and Silly Card Contest in my Yahoo group.

Here's what I came up with. The sentiment is computer-generated, circle-punched and matted with two other punched circles.

Image is colored with colored pencils and OMS.

The orange layer is punched with a Fiskars border punch.

That bit of ribbon (turquoise on one side, lime on the other) came from a robotics competition my son's team competed in. Another team had used little bits of ribbon on some hand-outs, and I salvaged a few for my stash. (I'm so bad....)

Designer paper is MME.

What do you think.