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.

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.