Have a cup

I made my own background paper by stamping the cup on a diagonal in rows (or stripes). The main image is paper-pieced. The cup is by Inkadinkadoo and the sentiment is by Hero Arts.  I added a couple of ribbon tabs to pick up the polka dot theme and called it done.

This card is for these challenges:
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday -- food and drink
Papertake Weekly  -- spots/stripes
Word Art Wednesday #196 -- anything goes
Craftyhazelnuts Patterned paper challenge -- use patterned paper
Sister Act #119 -- anything goes

Rock on

I had fun combining this cute image with a bunch of different challenges, including the Sketch Saturday Sketch, the Time Out theme -- rock around the clock, and Loves Rubberstamp's theme to "Make it sparkle."  They all made sense together.

The image is from Bugaboo, colored with pencils and sparkled up with loads of silver Stickles. The metal-rimmed, star-shaped tag (de-tagged by removing the string), made the perfect embellishment.  I just ran the sentiment off on my computer. (That's the understatement of the week. I spent 45 minutes fixing a paper jam, then trying to persuade the printer that it was not, in fact, still jammed. ERRGH)

I'm entering these challenges:
Sketch Saturday --sketch 349
Loves Rubberstamps #139 -- let it sparkle
Time Out challenge #25 -- Rock Around the Closck
City Crafter #249 -- Love metal
Word Art Wednesday #171 -- anything goes
Sister Act #94 -- anything goes
Simon Says Stamp Monday -- anything goes

Vintage Valentine

My normal style is not vintage, although I greatly admire all those talented stampers who do fabulous vintage. In fact, I admire them so much I gave it a try with this Valentine themed card.

The cupid stamp (I think it's probably a very old Impression-Obsession image, simply because my first purchase of unmounted stamps was a grab bag from I-O, and this dates to about that time) looks like an old-fashioned Valentine to me, so that encouraged the effort to make it look vintage. The image is stamped in Sepia on a cream -colored snippet, and I sponged Distress Tea Dye ink around the edges.  I colored certain areas of the image with colored pencil  to give it the look of an old hand-colored post-card. In person, you can see a little better that  her skin a has pinkish glow and her wings are white. There is obviously pink on the heart, which is also embellished with some pearls.

The image is mounted on a pink snippet, which is layered over half a doily (also sponged with Tea Dye ink) and a snippet of patterned paper -- it's practically covered up, but it has script on it.

Along the edge, I put in a strip of beautiful May Art crocheted lace, and over that a sweet plaid ribbon and bow.

I would like to enter these challenges:

Crafty Sentiments -- Girly
Loves Rubberstamps #134-- No black ink
Pixie's Snippet Playground #159  -- snippets
Crafting for All Seasons #93-- ribbon, lace, and pearls
Sister Act #88  -- anything goes
Word Art Wednesday #165  Anything Goes

Paper-pieced butterflies

Since I won the Butterfly Challenge a few weeks ago (thanks to Ms. Random.org), Mrs. A asked me to guest design for the Butterfly Challenge #19 that starts today. The challenge is "paper-pieced butterfly." Here's the funny part -- I love paper-piecing, and I have my fair share of butterfly images, yet none of them really lend themselves to paper-piecing.  I finally decided to work with an Inkadinkadoo image of a flock of butterflies, and try piecing a few of them -- the ones that had the more open patterns on them.
The butterflies are stamped in Navy, and the printed paper is from Lime Rickey by Basic Gray.  Once I'd cut the oval, there was a partial butterfly at the top, which I chose to cover with a punched butterfly.  (I put a solid orange butterfly behind the print/punched one so it didn't blend into the background.)  I also used the old trick of running the edges of the paper along an orange ink pad to get a little line of color there.

I'm entering this card in these challenges:
Loves Rubberstamps #127 -- Things with Wings
Papertake Weekly -- Soooooo Girly
Clear It Out -- anything Goes
Word Art Wednesday #159-- anything Goes
Sister Act #83 -- anything Goes
CHNC patterned paper challenge, November -- patterned paper.

More pumpkins

I liked the die-cut pumpkin I made last week so much that I made an even smaller version, using the very smallest of the Nestability ovals.  I used it as the embellishment for the current Sketch Saturday challenge.  In fact, I went kind of wild on the pumpkin theme here.

The image is from Paper Cupcakes, colored with pencils.  There's brown flocking in the center of the sunflower. That's pumpkin washi tape across the middle.

I'd like to enter these challenges:
C.R.A.F.T. #282 -- Autumn
Sketch Saturday #333
Die Cut Divas (Oct)-- Change of Seasons
Word Art Wednesday #155-- Anything Goes
Sister Act #80 -- Anything Goes

Never enough purses

I've had this set from Purple Onion for years, but I still think it makes a fun card.  The sentiment is:
A girl can never have ....
too many fabulous handbags, too many stylish shoes, or too many incredible girlfriends.

The various purses are stamped in a ot pink, and they all decked out with the teeniest, tiniest little pearls I've ever seen.  The papers are from this humonguous 12x12 stack I bought ages ago and will never be able to use up.

I am entering this card in these challenges:
Crafty  Hazelnut's Patterned Paper Challenge/October, use patterned paper
Sister Act #77, anything goes
Word Art Wednesday #152, anything goes.

A little rain

Here's a card to cheer someone  up a rainy day.  I added a few touches of yellow to add a ray of sunshine.
The layout is the current one from Sketch Saturday (#329). The cute image is from Crafty Sentiments, colored in pencils.  There is paper glaze on the puddle the bunny is standing in, and the umbrella is paper-pieced with a hound's tooth patterned paper that picks up the colors from the cloud-and-rain patterned paper. I used white gel pen to doodle around the edges.  The bow is made from crinkled seam binding*.  The blue glass beads are on a small stick pin.

* To get the crinkled look, simply wet a length of seam binding, scrunch it up into a tight ball (I tie mine with a bit of string) and let it dry.

This card is for these challenges:
Sketch Saturday #329
Clear it Out -- use gray (papers are stash item)
Whoopsi Daisy -- two or more patterned papers (clouds and hound's tooth)
Word Art Wednesday #151 -- anything goes
Sister Act #76-- Anything Goes
Inky Impressions #178 -- anything goes

Interlocking gatefold

I read about interlocking gatefold cards -- where the image and frame over the gatefold interlock -- on SCS and decided to give it a try. I went with a Halloween theme.
To create the interlocking elements, I white-embossed the mummy/cat/witch (awesome image from Impression-Obsession!) on black paper, then cut it out with a label nestie. For the frame, I cut a larger square of purple, used the same nestie to create the opening, and used a corner rounder on the corners. After that, it's a matter of precisely lining elements up, and adhering the frame on the left part of the gatefold and the center panel on the right.  I think you can get the idea from the photo.
The card is embellished with stickles and some plastic spiders.
I am entering the card in these challenges:
Simon Says Monday -- Witch Kraft
CRAFT 274 -- animals
Inky Impressions 174 -- anything goes
Sister Act 72 -- anything goes

Watercolor poppies

One of my fave techniques is faux watercoloring -- color with water-based makers directly on the rubber, spritz with water, stamp, and you look like you know what you are doing.  Rubbernecker Stamps has a whole line of stamps designed for just this technique, including these lovely two-step poppies here.  The sentiment is from an old SU set. The markers were Distress markers, but any water-based maker will do, including the cheap ones your kids use.
I went technique heavy on this one, as I also dry embossed the green base layer and sanded the embossed layer. It's Coredinations paper, so I got a nice, slightly lighter shade of green that highlights the embossing.
The layout is Sketch Saturday's current sketch, #324, and I liked that I could use a doily for the circular element on it.
I'm entering this card in these challenges:
Sketch Saturday #324, sketch
Sister Act #71, Anything Goes
Crafty Girls #25, Anything Goes
Word Art Wednesday #146, Anything Goes
Inky Impressions #172, Anything Goes

Summer on the water

What better place to spend a hot day than on the water?  That's what this card is all about.  As you can see, I had a hard time photographing the embossing on this -- of about 20 attempts, this had the least irritating shine on it.
This card features a watercolor wash in sort of ombre -- dark at the bottom, getting gradually lighter toward the top -- and a bunch of splatters.  I used reinker in a Ranger color called stream.  The sentiment says Daydreams.  I'm so proud of myself for having thought of that.  The stamp comes from a bunch of one-worders like that (Believe, Inspire, etc -- I think they are from Another Stamp Company, which may not be around anymore), and I don't believe I have ever used Daydreams before, but wouldn't you like to be out on a lake daydreaming the day away? The man in canoe image is from Victorine Originals.
This card fits the bill for a number of challenges, so here goes:

Clear it Out -- Embossing
Simon Says Wednesday -- Summer
Pixie's Snippet Playground #137 -- watercolor paper and the matting are both snippets
PaperTake Weekly Challenge -- spots and dots (spots on the watercolor wash, dots on the ribbon)
Word Art Wednesday #145 -- anything goes
Sister Act #69 -- Anything Goes.

A little more summer

It's the first day of August. After all these years, I still can't get used to the idea that school starts next week. Call me old-fashioned, but Labor Day will always seem like the natural start of the school year.

Here's a sweet summery image for you.  I have no clue who makes this image -- I got it as an RAK. It was stamped on watercolor paper with Stazon, and I was happy to find my pencils and OMS worked on it; otherwise I was going to have to paint it with reinkers and I wasn't sure how that would go.

The sketch is from this week's Papertake Challenge, although I turned it upside down, because that darker strip just made the card look too top-heavy when it was on top. The image actually had little butterflies drawn in, but they got lost when I cut the image into an oval, so I added a few punched butterflies as the element along the edge. I edged the wings with a little ink so they'd show up against the yellow background. (The papers are all from a Stampin Up pack.)

There is a layer of yellow-edged lace under the ribbon, which makes this card quite girly and adds a little needed width to the ribbon.

I'm entering this card in these challenges:
Die Cut Divas August Challenge, Hot August Nights
Clear it Out, Yellow (yellow stash is paper and lace)
Butterfly Challenge #12, Summer
Papertake Weekly #92, Sketch 92
Word Art Wednesday #143, Anything Goes
Simon Says Wednesday, Anything Goes
Sister Act #68,  Anything Goes

Ice-cream-colored room

HGTV is kind of the default TV station in our house, which really has nothing to do with this card, except to say you just don't see bathrooms like this on HGTV very often. And speaking of not seeing things very often, that is sort of the challenge at Simon Says Monday Challenge. Specifically, the challenge is "I ought to use this more," using supplies or techniques we tend to overlook. I have several in this card, including:
Digi images (this one by Bird). I automatically look through my rubber or clear stamps first.
Ribbon. In proportion to how much ribbon I own, I don't use enough.
This die. It's a lovely frame, but most images aren't that big, so I don't use it much.
Glossy Accents. I used a ton on the mirror in this image. I can go months and months without using the stuff, but when I use it I love the shine.

The image is colored in pencils, and there's some silver gel pen on the claw feet on the tub, and on the frame of the mirror, which soaked up the last of the gel in the pen. (Yippee, an excuse to go to the craft store).

For Clear It Out Challenge, we were supposed to use the color of our favorite ice cream flavor. Mine is mint chocolate chip, hence the pale green. I also like anything with raspberries, so that's the purple-ish color.

I'm entering this card in these challenges:
Simon Says Stamp Monday -- I Ought to use this more
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday -- anything goes
Clear It Out -- Favorite Ice Cream Color
Word Art Wednesday #138 -- anything goes
Sister Act #62 -- anything goes

Rainbow of parrots

I love rainbows, including rainbow colors on cards, so when I saw The Alley Way Stamps latest inspiration challenge, I was all in. If you follow the parrots from right to left, you'll see the old rainbow ROY G. BIV in neat little pairs on the birds: red/orange; yellow/green; blue/violet.
I knew I wanted to use bright colors, so I decided to try paints instead of my usual pencils. (No matter how bright or dark I think I've colored something, people always leave comments: "Love your soft colors.")  I found an old set of dry watercolors (so limited I had to mix my own orange and purple). Just for fun, I flicked a contrasting color on each parrot rectangle.
Since I set the parrots to dry  before assembling the card, a though occurred to me while they were drying -- why not use Glossy Accents on the eyes?  It worked out brilliantly; they look like goggly eyes, only better.
The parrot is from TAWS set Land Ho; the sentiment is a freebie download from their  website.

The card is entered in these challenges:

TAWS BE  Inspired #53.
Simon Says Monday Challenge: Paint 
Creative Inspiration 269:  Bold,Bright Colors
Word Art Wednesday #136: Anything Goes
Loves Rubberstamps #107: CAS
Sister Act #60:  Anything Goes

The Fault in our Stars

It's Virtual Stamp Night weekend at SCS, and one of the challenges was to do a card inspired by a book. Since I just finished a re-read of The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, which I wanted to do before going to see the movie, that book was fresh in my mind and a perfect choice for this challenge.
 Briefly, the book is about two teens who meet in a cancer support group. They are both fans of a reclusive author who lives in Amsterdam, and one of the teens uses his "Make-a-Wish" to get them a trip to Holland so they can beet the author. At that point, he gives the girl a bouquet of orange tulips as a hint.  So I made this card with a bouquet of orange tulips.
While the book may sound depressing, it's not -- it does have sad moments, but it has hilarious moments as well. So, the sentiment "Live as if everything is a miracle" seemed appropriate.
For this card, I used Feeling Sketchy Sketch 91, but I angled the strips to leave lots of room to draw attention to my lovely sentiment.
Any paper with color is a snippet; I chose two oranges plus an orange print; the orange plaid turned out to be a brilliant idea when I realized I could use a little contrasting blue to make the whole thing a little less "aggressively orange" (which is how I think Hazel, the heroine, describes that bought of tulips).

I have not seen the movie yet -- if you have, what did you think of it?

I would like to enter the card in these challenges:

Pixie's Snippet Playground #128 -- use snippets
Feeling Sketchy #91 -- sketch
Word Art Wednesday #135  -- anything goes
Papertake Weekly -- anything goes
Loves Rubberstamps Challenge 106 -- anything goes
Sister Act  #60 -- anything goes

Black and yellow

Black/white/yellow is a good color combo that isn't used nearly as much as black/white/red.  Here's a birthday card I made with that color combo.

The daisies (from the Stampin' up set that absolutely everyone has or had) are stamped with Cadmium Yellow chalk ink on  yellow/white dotted paper, just to add a little more interest to the image.  The sentiment is from the same set. The layout is Sketch Saturday's current sketch.

The filigree butterfly die is from Simon Says, and I used a leftover snippet of some black/white dp for it.

I would like to enter the card in these challenges:

Sketch Saturday #311
Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge: Botanical
Butterfly Challenge #8: Bingo -- die cut/butterfly/dp
Creative Inspirations #266: Birthday
Word Art Wednesday #133: Anything Goes
Sister Act #58: Anything Goes

Antique car

I don't know why, but I love antique cars. I think it would be fun to actually ride in one (though probably not very comfortable). This image is from Rubbernecker, and I thought it would make a good Father's Day card.

The image is black embossed, and I learned that EP and OMS don't play nice together. It could be because I colored the image immediately after embossing it, so possibly the powder didn't totally set up (?), but the OMS caused it to smear and mess up my pencil coloring. (I'll have to do some testing with images that were embossed a while ago to see if that hypothesis holds up.)

I chose all the colors out of the background paper. The blue strip is embossed with a Sizzix folder. The sentiment is simply computer-generated, die cut and mounted with another circle of the same size that is offset a little. Tan grosgrain ribbon seems masculine enough to me. I did some sponging with distress ink around the main image because the white was just too stark.

I would like to enter the card into these challenges:
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge:  Travel/vacation
Crafty Ribbons #90, Drive Time
Simply Create Too #63: Father's Day
Word Art Wednesday #133, Anything goes
Sister Act #58, Anything Goes
Die Cut Divas May -- Die cuts plus an embellishment (ribbon and glitter pen)

A fishy BDay

Today is my son's birthday. Since he enjoys flyfishing, I created this card with a rainbow trout.

The image is a digi from QKR. It's colored in pencils, and popped up on pop dots. That's baker's twine with a nautical knot.  The feathery fly is a sticker.

I used Fealing Sketchy sketch 90 for this.

I am entering the card in these challenges.

Feeling Sketchy #90
Paper Crafting Journey -- For a man
Sister Act 57, Anything Goes
Word Art Wednesday #132, Anything Goes
Crafty Girls, Anything Goes

The Robot says thanks

Just a brief moment of motherly pride -- my son's robotics team won third place in a huge international competition last week. And, since some folks hear "robotics" and think stupid fighting robots they've seen on TV, no, this is a big deal in the world of engineering. The competition's sponsors include NASA and Northrop Grumman.

The kids were supposed to send postcards from California back to the companies that donated money to the robotics program at their high school, but in the excitement of winning their division, that sort of fell through the cracks. When I found out, after they got home, I said I'd make thank you cards for them to send out. 

In all, I made five cards of three different designs, using the same major elements. I don't have a robot stamp, so I found this robot on a coloring page when I went online to look for an image.  (I added the 1961C on the robot because that's the team's number in robotics competitions -- 1961 is for their school, and they are team C).  The binary spells out Tha -- the start of Thank you -- (and I learned that there is different code for capital and lower-case letters. I was kind of surprised to find out there was such as thing as a capital letter in binary, actually). I'm sure no one could read it, but I actually did the research to make sure it is correct.

The sketch is the current one at Papertake Weekly Challenge.

The card is for these challenges:

Papertake Weekly, sketch #89.
Simon Says Wednesday, Anything Goes
Sister Act Card Challenge 55, Anything Goes
Word Art Wednesday #130, Anything Goes

Stairstep scene

Is it my imagination or is there a sudden influx of cards featuring fancy folds around the Internet?

This is my attempt at a fancy fold, a side stairstep card.  (You can find directions at SCS if you've never done one.)  I wanted to make it look like a little scene of a room, and it took more work than I expected.

To start, I used paper from "The Sweetest Thing -- Tangerine" collection from My Mind's Eye to create "wallpaper".  The collection also has a pattern that looked like woodgrain, so I used that to make a hardwood floor. I had the die-cut window (an RAK gift) at hand.  I watercolored an outdoor scene to put behind it, and added a snippet of lace as windowdressing.

The plant is a die cut (cut into two pieces and artfully arranged to look like a healthy houseplant), and the urn was stamped on a snippet of terracotta paper and cut out. There are tons of lovely chair stamps out there, but unfortunately, I don't own any of them, so I found some line art of a chair, printed it on brown card stock and again on another co-ordinating piece from the MME set, and paper-pieced the lovely upholstered wing chair.

The card is for these challenges:

Love's Rubber Stamps #100, Fancy Folds
Pixie's Snippets playground #121, use a snippet (the lace, plant and urn are all from snippets)
Word Art Wednesday, #128, Anything Goes
Sister Act #53, Anything Goes.

Caged Bird

I got this bird and cage die on clearance -- after everyone else was tired of it, probably. This is the first time I've used it on a card and I sort of went all Tim Holtzy, with lots of ink applied DTP and layers of stamping. (Well, OK, Tim would have lots more color and lots more stuff on it....)

For the background, I stamped text in Versamark and applied clear EP on it. (My clear EP is getting a little dirty and probably needs to be replaced....) The edges of that panel are sponged in Creamy Caramel.  The cage and bird were die-cut with cream paper. I applied some copper-colored ink directly on the cage, and added a brown ribbon on top. For the bird, I stamped a music score stamp in Creamy Caramel and a darker sepia and applied the sepia ink around the edges. I also stamped the two layers of white flowers with the musical score.

The card is for the following challenges:

Really Reasonable Ribbon #93, Monochromatic with Ribbon
Crafty Ribbons #85, anything goes with Ribbon
Feeling Sketchy #87, sketch
Simon Says Monday Challenge, Winged Things
Simon Says Wednesday Challenge, Animal Antics
Sister Act card challenge #53, Anything goes.