Thinking of You Tree

I had a bit of a Mojo Block when it came to prepping for our last Monthly Stamping Day.  I had no trouble coming up with the first card, but just had no idea where to go with the second!  So I picked my favorite paper pack (Veranda Creative Basics; CTMH), my favorite sentiment set (Very Square Sentiments; Mint Motif), and a random new stamp (from Naturally You; Unity).  Here's what I came up with:

I got really ambitious and put together all the bows for the girls, since I was pretty short on this green ribbon.  I definately need to find some more, because this is a go-to color for me!  The teal mats are just scraps from my stash, and they matched the paper perfectly.  I used a textured paper from my stash for the stamped panels, and the texture gave the tree a nifty bark effect when I colored it.  I think it turned out pretty well for coming together at 11:00 at night!

Thanks for looking!

Cheers!

Foxi Oxi Snowflake!

The last challenge for the Mini VSN was to use the Foxi Oxi technique.  You squeeze your ink pads to get a little ink on the lid, then use a waterbrush to "paint" the ink onto a piece of glossy cardstock.  Then you sprinkle OxiClean over the glossy cardstock and spritz it with water to activate it.  Let it sit for about 30 seconds, and it bleaches out a nifty pattern in your painted background!

I bought the OxyClean spray, and I think the granules would have a more obvious effect for this technique.  I stamped the snowflake in Versamark and embossed it with Pearl White embossing powder.  I thought the powder would be more WHITE, but instead it's almost clear!  It's very pretty, but a little plain for photographing.  So I took a sponge and inked up the edges of the snowflake so you could see the detail, and I really love the way the embossing kept the painted background!  The way the ink seperated into different colors is my favorite part of this card.  The matting paper is all silver Stardreams paper, and the two teal patterned papers are the two sides of a single sheet of BoBunny paper.  LOVE that stuff!!  A little help from the Bling Fairy and voila!

Thanks for looking!

Cheers!

i{heart}papers Challenge 3

Thursdays challenge for the i{heart}papers Birthday Bash was to make a card that is a gift card holder!  Here is what I came up with:

I've been mulling over an idea for a gift card holder for a while now, mostly to find a way to use up the leftovers from when made these cards.  I had an 11x4 strip of paper left over for every pop-up card I made, and I experimented with a few folds to finally get this design right. 

I used this weeks Sketch Challenge over at Kenny K's for the layout, and used one of the new digis as well.  I felt pretty guilty about having cut into fresh sheets of 12x12 paper, so I decided to use more of it on this card!  Maybe I'm not such a rebel after all! ;)  The matting paper and snowflakes are all from the same paper I used to mat yesterdays card, this is just the other side of the paper.  I cut the silver circles using my Nesties to layer under the snowflakes, because they seemed to get lost in the busy pattern of the paper. 

I used my Prismas and OMS to color her in, and there are a few tiny touches of a silver pen on her belt, earring, the ribbon on the mistletoe, and parts of the gift bags.  I think I might go back and add some flocking to her coat and boots, and maybe make some sparkle flocking for her hat!

Thanks for looking!

Cheers!

i[heart}papers Birthday Bash!

i{heart}papers is celebrating their second birthday this week!  To celebrate they have a couple of fun games going on; Tuesday was a scavenger hunt,  yesterday was a card sketch, and today was a challenge!  Here's the card I came up with for the Sketch challenge:

I have been trying all week to figure out a layout idea for on of my Make & Take cards for this Saturday, with no luck.  I knew I wanted to use this stamp and these Heidi Grace papers, but I just could not get the stamped image to come out the way I wanted it to!  I finally broke out my trusty silver embossing powder and voila!  The blue paper I used on the mats and label piece is a beautiful, shimmery, two toned piece of cardstock from The Paper Company Studio.  The other side of the paper is a little darker, almost a teal, and it was difficult to decide which side to use!  The Snowflake is from CTMH, and the sentiment is from SU!  I wanted to keep this pretty simple and classy, since most of my Make & Take cards tend to be a little.... *ahem*.... shall we say involved?  I liked that this one can be mass produced pretty easily and will be very flat to mail. 

Now I need to warn you, you might want to brace yourself..... are you ready??

I used NO SCRAPS on this card!!  That's right, every piece of paper on here was cut from a brand new, fresh sheet of 12x12 cardstock!!  **GASP!**  I know, I know... what's the world coming to?  I finally gave myself permission to use some of my NEW papers, instead of limiting myself to my stash.  What's funny is, I actually have scraps of a paper almost identical to the dotted paper, except that it's flocked!  Come to think of it, I think I have a shimmer paper that's almost identical to the snowflake paper as well!

Thanks for looking!

Cheers!

Joy Angel

The next challenge for VSN over at Splitcoast was An Angel's Favorite Hiding place, inspired by this quote:

Ever felt an angel's breath in the gentle breeze? A teardrop in the falling rain? Hear a whisper amongst the rustle of leaves? Or been kissed by a lone snowflake? Nature is an angel's favorite hiding place. ~Carrie Latet

Here is what I was inspired to create:

I have had this set of angels from Stampendous sitting on my table for weeks due to my stamp-indexing efforts.  I had visions of paper piecing of chalking her, but with a 45 minute time limit I reached for my trusty Prismas!  i think I spent more time cutting her and her wings out than I did on the whole rest of the card!  There are tiny little gold pearls in her halo, and although it's hard to see, the blue and greens match the poinsetta swirl paper.

Thanks for looking!

Cheers!

Winter Pastels

The next VSN Challenge was Calming Pastels.  You guessed it!  The challenge was to use pastels on your card, and bonus points for using Flower Soft!

I got this fabulous new Flower Soft from i{heart}papers, and thought it would be a great accent on a die cut snowflake!  I used a glue dot and LOTS of ScorTape to cover the top of a large brad, then pressed the Flower Soft into the adhesive.  I also used the Dove Grey Fun Flock on her earmuffs, the trim on her boots and coat, the pom-poms on her scarf, and her hand warmer muff thingy.  I used a Spellbinders die to cut out and emboss the snowflake, and of course, all the papers are scraps from my stash!  It's hard to tell, but the geen paper is a very soft lime paper from Stardreams, so it has a LOT of shimmer and shine in person!

Thanks for looking!

Cheers!

Inspired by my Little Man

This weekend while I was stamping for VSN this little guy was causing all sorts of trouble, so I told him to be good or I'd show the world what kind of trouble he gets in to!

So since I was in a very Christmas-y mood for the VSN, I was inspired to break out one of my Fluffles stamps to make a Little Man themed card!  Here's what I came up with:

The challenge for this card was to use the Spotlight Technique to highlighted a portion of the stamped image.  I used grey Fun Flock on the little guy after using a warm grey Prisma pencil to color him in.  The Fun Flock is more of a dove grey, and as you can see the little guy is not so pale.  I also used my Prismas to color in the ornaments and star, but when I added Crystal Lacquer over the top, the colors faded to very pale shades.  I ended up coloring over the Crystal Lacquer with my Bic Mark-It's and I was surprised at how well the color took!  All the papers are scraps from my stash (of course) and I wanted to bring the green matting out so I stamped the tree pot on the green I used for the mats.  It looked a little plain with just the clear embossed outline, so I used my VersaPen and clear embossing powder to highlight the center section of the pot.  One more card off my to do list!

Thanks for looking!

Cheers!

VSN Mini is here!

The VSN Mini kicked off at Splitcoast tonight at 6 pm EST, here's the first card I came up with:

The challenge was to be inspired by three photos of Cloud 9 Design papers.  I just so happen to have a TON of Cloud 9 paper, since it's one of my favorites!  One of the samples to choose from was a sparkly candy cane paper.  I used my favorite Just Right stamp set for the cup and the border sentiment.  This swirl paper is actually from Cloud 9 as well, maybe I should get bonus points! ;)

I used a Martha Steward marker to color in the candy cane, and when I covered it with Crystal Lacquer the color bled a little bit.  The end result reminds me of the cinnamon candy canes my mom used to buy, they were pink and red instead of white and red!  I also used Crystal Lacquer to cover the cup, and used a silver gel pen to color in the snowflakes on the cup.  I used Liquid Applique to create the whipped cream on the top of the mug, and used some of my iRock bling for the bottom corner.  I kept this pretty simple so far as layout is concerned since there's a 45 minute limit, and I put a lot of detail into the focal image.

Thanks for looking!

Cheers!

Christmas Hottie

As soon as I saw this little beauty from Kenny K, I knew she'd be fun to do an alternative color scheme for a Christmas Card!

The two patterned papers are from DCWV, and the sparkly pink and black papers are all scraps from my stash.  I think they're all from Stardreams, but not completely sure on that.  It's hard to see, but I used Crystal Lacquer on her boots and belt, and used white Fun Flock on all the fur trim and pom-poms on the image.

I used this sketch from Splitcoast for the basic card design, and had fun breaking in one of my Martha Stewart punches!  I also used CTMH Bubblegum ink to sponge inside the Nestabilities die I used to cut the white rectangle.  All in all, I like the way she turned out!

Thanks for looking!

Cheers!

December Daily - what's inside?

Here's the progress I've made so far for my December Daily album:

I used the front and back cover from a clear 6x6 acrylic album, and I plan on stamping a flourish on the front with white StazOn ink.  I'm also playing with adding a chipboard snowflake or some bling to the front cover, but that's going to be on another night when I'm not so tired! ;)

I trimmed the paper scraps to fit on the template pages I printed off, and adhered them to the backs of the white cardstock.  I then used my Handy Dandy Crop-o-Dile tool to punch all the holes for the book rings to go through.  I will DEFINATELY need larger rings for this book, since they current ones are already full and I don't even have pictures inside!

I plan on also doing some flat-ish embellishments on each square of patterned paper to dress it up a bit, but I do still want this to fit on a bookshelf when it's done so I can't go overboard!  I also want to leave some room for ephemera from whatever activities we do in December.  The hubs and I are actually making plans to *do* stuff this year, instead of being Grinches and staying home!

Thanks for looking!

Cheers!

December Daily 2010

I've been a fan of Ali Edwards' blog for a couple of years now, and each year I drool over her December Daily album.  She documents every day in December from the 1st through the 25th, and includes journaling and bits of ephemera in her albums.  They're absolutely FABULOUS!!  Well, after chickening out for two years now, I've decided to take the plunge and get started on mine!

The trick is to get the prep work done well in advance, this way the actual "work" to be done in December is minimal, and this way we can actually ENJOY the month!  Nothing saps a project of the Fun Factor quite like it feeling like Work!

I raided my stash of Christmas Scraps and pulled out a 6x6 acrylic album for my base.  I put together a quick template in Word for the photo pages, but I had a hard time finding a font I loved for the dates in the lower right corner.  I ended up printing them all as blanks, then I'll use my favorite number stamp set to fill in the dates!  Turns out that the number stamps are a perfect fit! 

I'm trying to keep this project very simple so I don't let my "need for perfection" allow me to procrastinate on this until February!  I'll try to get all the base pages done and basic embellishments on, then all I'll have to do is add the photos and journaling.  This is a bigger December than the past few, since the Hubs and I are celebrating a milestone anniversary this year.  I figure I'll do my book from December 1st through 31st, that way I can document our New Years as well.  I told the Hubs that this means I'd like to actually go *DO* some holiday things this year instead of being hermits all winter!  We'll see what kind of "fun" I can con him into!

Thanks for looking!

Cheers!

My new toy

Christmas came a little early this year.  We've been saving up to get a new printer that would actually be able to print photos nicely, and my recent Digi Stamp obsession spurred us to take advantage of a great deal at Office Max this weekend!

The hubs was even excited because it's wireless, and with the push of a couple of buttons you can scan something straight to his desktop in another room.  (Insert eye-roll here)  I'm so glad it doesn't take much to make him happy!  Now I'm off to print some new digis and get to coloring!

Cheers!

Fall Birthday

Here is a card I did for a customer that wanted a fall themed birthday card for her Grandmother. 

I CASE'd this card over at The Ink Trap for the layout, since she's such a big image.  The background paper I chose for the card is also pretty busy, so I  kept the embellishments pretty minimal.  The lace rose was made by gathering the lace ribbon with a needle and thread, then sticking it to a circle of cardstock that was liberally covered with glue dots! 

I've been hoarding these brads for AGES so I figured it would be a classy center to the flower.  The mat paper is a fun shade of bronze from Stardreams (I think) and it matches the dots in the DCWV patterned paper perfectly!  The leaves for the flower were punched using my 2 Step Bird Punch from SU! and the green paper under the lace is border punched with one of my many MS punches.  I was surprised that the scallops in the lace matched the punch exactly!

Thanks for looking!

Cheers!

Birthday Cutie!

I've definately found a new addiction!!  I stumbled across Kenny K's digi stamps when I visited The Ink Trap blog a few weeks ago.  Holy Hannah that Cheryl makes some FABULOUS cards!!  Anywhoo, the Kenny K Krafty Girlz blog sponsors a challenge every week, and this week's challenge is Bling It On!!  Here's what I came up with:

The digi stamp is Queens Cutie from Kenny K, and she is the first of what I'm sure will be MANY digis in my collection from him!  I also CASE'd this card over at SCS for the layout.  The background papers are both from Basic Grey, and I used a new Martha Steward punch to do the border.  I tried to punch through both layers at the same time so my pattern would match up, but that didn't work so swell.  It punched partway through, so I was able to use that as a guide when I seperated the two pages and punched them individually.  I used a Spellbinders die for the label shape, the Birthday sentiment is from Verve Stamps, and all the bling is from iRock courtesy of the Bling Fairy!  The flowers are all from Prima, and I used my SU! Piercing Template to do the edges of the card base.  I used a Bazzil In Stitches template to mark where I wanted the bling flourish to be, then set the stones individually.  I think it turned out pretty cute! 

Thanks for looking!

Cheers!

Technique Challenge: Holly!

The technique for this week over at Splitcoast is You're the Splitting Image.  The technique includes splitting an image into pieces and using them on a card.  I'm STILL indexing my Christmas stamps, so this set is sitting on the top of the pile.  I thought it would make a good image to split apart!

I totally CASEd the Hostess Sample card for the challenge, but what can I say, Toy's card was beautiful and inspired me!  I used my D'Vine Swirl embossing folder for the base piece, and lightly inked with CTMH Chocolate.  The ribbon and the sentiment are also from CTMH, and the holly border is from Hero Arts.  I used my Labels 8 set from Nestabilities for the sentiment, and traced the die onto the green matting paper and cut it out.  Too bad they don't have a Labels 8 and a Half!!  The tiny gold pearls are from my stash, and the card base is my favorite Clove cardstock.

Thanks for looking!

Cheers!

SCS Sketch Challenge

So indexing all these Christmas stamps has me singing Chrismtas Carols, and it's only the beginning of October!  I was browsing through the challenges over at Splitcoast and am a sucker for Sketch challenges, and the Sketch for last week is actually number 300!!!  Hard to believe there's been 300 sketches already!  They're giving a ton of prizes away to the participants, and here's the card I was inspired to make!

I had a hard time figuring out what to use to give this a little more pop; I was trying to bring out a little bit more of the red without making it too powerful.  I embellished a punched snowflake with a grommet-thingy from CTMH.  I'm sure there's a technical term for it!  The snowflake was a little plain without it, but any brads or bling just made it look funny.  This was a little more understated and kept the details of the snowflake! 

Thanks for looking!

Cheers!

What a sweetie!

I have COMPLETELY lost my voice today from an irritating cold this week, and look what the Hubs brought me to cheer me up!

I love that man!

Cheers!