Etsy inspired# 55 copper inspired

This is for Etsy Inspired Challenge #55, The Salty Cat Co, home of lovely metal jewelry For the first time ever, I think, I used the prize item as my inspiration piece. The prize for this challenge is a gorgeous copper bracelet, and I love the look of embossed copper, so that's what I did.

My brother-in-law's birthday is coming up, so I had him in mind when I made this. The leaf stamp is from Autumn Leaves (how appropriate!), the popped-up birthday greeting is from Endless Creations. Metallic copper c/s and copper brads finish it out. Easy, peasy.

EIC54, I heart flowers

This week's Etsy Inspired Challenge, #54, sends us to an Etsy shop called I Heart Flowers, which offers both lovely photos of -- what else? -- flowers, and jewelry. I love filigree work, so I was drawn to this filigreed piece as my inspiration. That gave me a chance to try a new Technique Junkies technique, called Alcohol Ink Foil. The foil is the "filigree," and I tried to pick up the jewel colors in my flowers -- pinkish and yellow.

The stamp is from Impression-Obsession, and that's the cuttlebug textile plate.

If you don't normally do the Etsy challenge, check it out. I Heart Flowers has donated a gorgeous pair of earrings for this week's winner. (pick me, pick me!)

ICS34 For the birds

I did this card using ICS sketch 34, which is a lovely and versatile sketch I can see revisiting many times. I made the card for the Featured Stamper challenge at SCS this week, as well.

The stamp is inked in Versacolor Bamboo on the leaves,; the bird is mostly SU Baroque Burgundy, but that was puddling on the clear stamp so I also added a little bit of a red (on one of those little 1-inch square pads you get with cheap sets of stamps). Ribbon is another one of those clearance "Christmas" ribbons from Michael's.

Must say, paper piercing is the world's cheapest, easiest embellishment and it really helps add a finished feel to things.

Basket case

I did this card for Teapot Tuesday this week, using the current CPS card sketch, CPS 133.

The stamps are from DRS, I purchased them in a grab bag more than a year ago, and this was the first time I've ever used them. They were still in a little baggie, waiting for me to put Tack-It-Again on them and put them in my filing system. (Bad me, letting poor defenseless stamps sit around like that.) The sketch calls for a curvy element at the top and bottom, and the line of trees worked perfectly for that.

Inks used were Chestnut Roan chalk on the baskets (the colored with pencils and OMS); SU Forest Foliage on the trees. Ribbon from Hobby Lobby.

EIC52

For this week's (first anniversary) Etsy Inspired Challenge, EIC52, we were supposed to find our own Etsy shop for inspiration. I found a pottery shop called MudFairy, and used the Dragon in the Clouds candy dish (see photo below) as my inspiration.

The card features a stamp from Faerie Song Art Stamp's new Dragon plate. I was inspired to make the dragon purple from MudFairy's design (I decided this dragon didn't look anything like Barney, so I could get away with a purple dragon). It's watercolored with markers, and the stamp has such lovely, fine lines I may have overwhelmed them.

Sketch is from SCS's sketch challenge 245, but I took pretty extreme liberties with the sketch..

CPS132 Ladybugs

So, is there any color combo as unbeatable as red, white and black? (And I'm not even a Georgia fan ... the colors are pretty inescapable where I live.) This week's Teapot Tuesday Challenge required ladybugs, so the color combo was almost a given. I used the Card Positioning System Sketch #132 for my layout.

The ladybug is an old Stampcraft stamp. I black-embossed in on the white and on a red print, then paper pieced it, die cut it and speckled a little black on the squares. (Oh, let's be honest, I was covering up for stray black EP). I put the sentiment block (Hello from Purple Onion) at an angle because everything was just so straight and symmetrical. I added a button for this week's Doubledog Dare challenge to use a button on your card. The size is about 6 1/4 by 3 1/4 -- it's made to fit in a "letter" envy.

Penguins for ICS32

Here's my card using Inspirational Card Sketch #32. I love this penguin stamp from Lasting Impressions. I got that ribbon from Mike's a couple years ago -- it was on mega clearance among the Christmas items, but really, there's nothing Christmasy about it. That taught me to check out seasonal items for supplies that can work as non-seasonal.

We're going camping for the long weekend. Hope everyone else has a good weekend.