Etsy Inspired #42

This week's Etsy Inspired Challenge #42 focuses on photography by Tony Carlisle. He is a nature photographer and I really enjoyed his work. My inspiration in this photo. Since I've done lots of butterfly cards lately, I used the flower for my inspiration.

This card is done with markers, direct to rubber, then spritzed and stamped on watercolor paper. The flower stamp is by A Country Welcome and it's sort of my go-to stamp when I want something solid and bold. The sentiment is pre-printed vellum.

To me, this card is all about the image and the pretty colors, so I wanted to keep the embellishments simple. (I tried ribbon first, but I didn't like the way it looked, so I decided a few simple pearls and piercing would do the trick.)

A fairy in the great outdoors

This week's Flutterby Wednesday's (FWB63) theme was to put a butterfly or fairy in an outdoor setting. I thought this stamp from Faerie Song was perfect for the theme.

The plant she's playing among looks like dandelion to me (having spent my life fighting them in lawns and gardens I know that leaf formation), so that's how I colored it. Then I thought perhaps it was thistle? I just did an image search, but I couldn't tell for sure. There were a variety of flower forms shown, but I couldn't get a good look at the foliage. Anyone have an opinion?

The card is pretty simple -- the only real embellishment is a little glitter dust on her wings. The image is colored with pencils and OMS.

Etsy Inspired #41

The Etsy Inspired challenge this week is to find inspiration at PotatoPatch, which features clothing for infants and babies. The owner is a stamper at heart -- she carves potatoes and stamps the images on onesies and shirts. I knew I wanted to do something with the cute blue elephant because I had a sticker with a blue elephant. I was thinking about making a bookmark when I wandered over to SCS and found out -- horrors -- they'd had a VSN mini on Friday night and no one told me. One of the VSN challenges was to make a pull-treat box, but the hostess suggested using a bookmark if you didn't have any treats on hand. Was she reading my mind?

I kept everything simple, to meet the VSN time limit and because I'd never made one of these pouches before. I used stickers on the bookmark, pasting them on a pre-cut tag I had. I sponged lots of ice blue Colorbox chalk ink onto the tag to give it some color. The little "treat box" is pretty simple, but I made a bellyband to carry out the Etsy-inspired theme. The saying is spelled out from an Impression-Obsession alpha set, and the little elephant is from a DRS grabbag I bought at a stamp show a few years ago.

SFTW Time of the Season

This week's Stampin for the Weekend Challenge (#3) is based on the titles of a couple of my favorite songs. We were to find inspiration in "Time of the Season" or "Whiter Shade of Pale" (or "Please Mr. Postman," a fun song but not on my personal top 20.) While pondering that, I realized I'd missed a VSN mini at SCS. One of the VSN challenges was to create a card in brown, yellow, white, red and green. Sounds like fall to me. So, I took my inspiration from VSN to create my SFTW card, Time of the Season, for my favorite season, fall.

The main stamped image is from Chapel Road Art Stamps, featuring a Walt Whitman quote about leaves. There's a little glitter on the leaves that you can't see in the photo. I also used a stamped strip I had made earlier (and came across while cleaning up my stamping area.) To make that leafy strip, I colored a maple leaf stamp (All Night Media) with markers, spritzed with water and stamped for a watercolor effect.

To finish it off, I added a maple leaf brad and some piercing.

IC sketches, Flourish Timeless Tuesday

If you look through my stamps, you might think I have a thing about corsets. This is very odd -- I'm not even a fan of Madonna. But I have several stamps featuring corsets and dress forms. One is a wonderful vintage ad for a corset, but unfortunately due to its size (more than 5 inches long), it's really hard to come up with a good design to incorporate it into a card.

Flourishes Timeless Tuesday Challenge this week gave me a perfect opportunity to pull out these stamps. The challenge was an inspiration challenge based on posters designed by Kimberly Poloson. and I chose a corset ad. My stamp with the vintage corset ad would have been perfect theme and look-wise, but I decided to use dress forms for ease in size.

For the layout, I used Inspiration Challenge sketch #21.

I went with some vintage-looking paper from My Mind's Eye, as well as browns and tans. Ink is Chestnut Roan Chalk Ink from Colorbox. (Aside, I love the Colorbox Chalk Inks). I used a script-background stamp to creat the strip behind the main image. Note the embellishments -- I've been wanting to use snaps as an embellie for a long time, and they seemed so appropriate for this. I have a bunch of them and, seriously, when was the last time I actually sewed one on something?

CPS 120, SFTW

This card uses the Card Positioning System sketch #120,

It's also for Stampin for the Weekend's challenge to use a digital image -- that cute little turtle is from Whimsie Doodles. So is the saying.

I colored the turtle with pencils and OMS. There's a little piercing under the sentiment.

Ribbon and papers by Marcella K. Faux rhinestons are the final touch.

Etsy-inspired butterflies.

This week's Etsy-Inspired Challenge #40 focuses on Naturally Felted, which sells reusable lunch and snack bags. I chose a bag that was decorated with pink butterflies.

This card features my variation on a technique from the latest Technique Junkies Newsletter called "Heavenly Holes." I created little flight paths for my butterflies. What do you think?

Is there such a thing as faux CAS? Maybe I created it. This card really has the clean look, but it also has 7 layers, so it's not that simple..

Butterflies are by Impression-Obsession, Sentiment from Another Stamp Company. Layout by me. Pencils and OMS.

Crinkled and twisted

Yesterday's challenge at SCS was making crinkled paper flowers. It's a great way to use up scraps and gives you a funky embellishment. I combined that with the Twisted Thursday sketch to create this card. I ended up grabbing scraps for a couple of the layers as well, so the effect is a little, ummmm, Bohemian might be the word I'm looking for.

No stamping on this one, just the flower, skeleton leaf and some chipboard embellies.

Owl challenge you...

Another three-fer. This is for the Etsy-Inspired Challenge #39, Cincy Creations, which features baby items such as little hair bows and onesies. Since I never had a girl and don't use hair bows myself, I gravitated toward the onesies and found a cute one with an owl on it. That's my inspiration piece for this card.

The layout is based on this week's Card Positioning System Sketch, CPS119.

The color scheme of purple and yellow is for Stamping for the Weekend, which launched its first challenge Friday.

This card took a ridiculously long time to make, mostly because I stamped the owl in about 6 different versions trying to find a purple ink that worked. I was using yellow checked paper and I ran out of it before I found a good color, but I kind of like how the striped paper emphasizes his eyes.

Owl stamp by Inkadinkadoo. Hello is from Purple Onion Designs. The shimmery paper is from Hobby Lobby and the print papers are by Provo Craft. Tiny buttons by Dress it Up. Prima flower.

Mojo flipped

This is the second, "improved" version (above).

I have a new job/freelance client, and it's really eating into my crafting time. I'm finding myself more and more prone to combining challenges.

This one is a three-fer. It's the Technique and CAS challenges from SCS for this week, plus Mojo Monday sketch 90. The technique challenge was to color an image on acetate, and CAS was a color challenge.

I created one version Monday night, but I wasn't completely happy with it. This morning, I tried again, turning the sketch on it's side and moving and separating the embellies. I think it looks much better.

Stamp is by Stamps on Fire. Stamped with black StaZon on acetate, colored with a Sharpie pen.

The white layer is embossed with the Swiss Dot folder.

Another sketch flutters by

I made this card for two challenges, icsketches #19 and Flutter By Wednesday, which required a fairy or butterfly.

The image is from Faerie Song Art Stamps. She is colored with pencils and OMS. There is a little pink glitter on her starry headpiece and the little eye-like circles on her wings.

The dp is from My Minds Eye. I've been holding onto the flowered paper because I thought it was so busy, but when I put it on the card with everything else, you can hardly see it. (Truth is, that happens to me a lot. I guess I have to get over my trepidation about using bold papers, because usually you don't see enough of the paper for it to actually come across as super bold.)

Mojo 89, another mermaid

After yesterday's unsatisfactory mermaid card, I remembered I have another mermaid. I used her for this week's Mojo Monday sketch, Mojo89.

That fish sure gets around. I recycled him from yesterday's card, and picked up the colors for this card from his coloring.

Stamp is by Vicki Einkoff (I don't think that's spelled right, and I am not sure who owns her stamp line these days...). The textured turquoise paper is Club Stamp. Half pearls by Hero Arts.

The "little" mermaid

I made this card for CPS118. I love this little mermaid stamp from A Muse, but it really is little.

Every time I use it, I have problems because it's too tiny to make a good central image.

I'm not terribly pleased with this card. The mermaid is too small, the fish embellie is too big, and I'm not sure my rows of rick-rack convey the idea of waves, which was the original thought. Can't win them all, I guess.

Mermaid is by A Muse. (She has clear gitter on her scaly part, although it photographed more goldish). The fish stamp is from Hero Arts, and the wooden fish is another one of my yard sale finds. (I got a baggie of wooden items, including fish and flowers.)