Vintage Clean and Simple

I haven't done a challenge on SCS in FOREVER.  So, today I decided that I would check out the challenges and lo and behold!! I think I covered both the CAS challenge (to layer two different shapes on your card, but keep it clean and simple) AND the Try a New Technique, Very Vintage. 

This idea started with the flower.  I have been wanting to use my Spellbinders Daisies since I got them!!  I tried cutting them out on regular cardstock and embossing, but it just did not have the look I was going for (which is all the fluffy hand made flowers that I have been seeing on other's blogs!)  I finally remembered some wonderful coffee filter flowers that Sherry Cheever made, so I opened up my package of filters that were bought just for this technique!! I swiped distress inks in Tea Dye, Old Paper and Antique Linen across my pad, but instead of misting with water, I misted them with Tattered Angels Glimmer mist in Old Lace.  I used my heat gun to dry them then layered three on top of each other, folded the filters in half and cut using my Daisy dies.  I layered the different sizes and smooshed, lifted and worked the layers until I got a look that I liked.  I then pulled out a build a brad from SU and layered on a large 1/2 backed pearl from the Pretties kit and used that to hold the flower together.  I made a 6x6" base from a piece of textured vanilla paper from my DCWV neutral stack.  A piece  of  retired  of Spring Silhouettes dp from SU  was cut slightly smaller than the base and I sponged some Distress ink in Tea dye around the edges.  I then die cut Sizzix Flowers and vine and Scibbles Swirls from a piece of SU Wild Wasabi and then spritzed with Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist in Olive Vine.  While that was drying, I die cut twice using SU's Top note, first in Soft sky then again in the base color from DCWV.  I sponged around the edge of the soft sky layer with Tea Dye and the entire vanilla layer with Old Paper.  I stamped the main image from Just for Fun Stamps® using Distress Vintage Photo and layered everything and finished off with the addition of some 1/2 backed pearls.  Supplies:  Paper:  DCWV neutral stack, SU Spring Silhouettes, soft sky and wild wasabi.  Inks:  Distress inks in antique linen, tea dye, old paper, vintage photo.  Accessories:  Sizzix Big Shot, dies Flowers and Vines #3, scribbles swirls, SU top note, Pretties Kit, Spellbinders Daisies S4-058, Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist in Old Lace and Olive Vine.  Stamps:  Just for Fun® A child's heart E3150

I think this card would make a great "Teacher appreciation" card!!

I enjoyed participating in the challenges again!  I need to try and make this a habit! LOL!!  I'm now off to find my desk top again...it would seem that while all the different ideas were trying to emerge from my brain, my hands forgot to put stuff away!!

Happiness

I'm still trying to play in SCS Dare To Get Dirty challenges. While cruising blogs last night, I came across this wonderful creation on the Cosmo Cricket blog by Natasja. It was the perfect inspiration to get a few more challenges done!! This card combines a sketch, texture, non-traditional sized card, paper tole and a color challenge to use black and white with only about 15% red. And if I stretch....the challenge to use dies/punches.

This card actually started out to be a wedding card. BUT!! In all my "hoarding" goodies, I did not have ONE STINKIN' wedding sentiment that the style of this card. I even drug out some stickers~~but NOOOOO!!! All my stickers seem to be geared towards little boy layout/projects (go figure). So, I had to change this card to an anniversary card. Only I don't think that I would ever give this to my DH. Too frou~frou for us. Now to find someone who will appreciate all the pretties on this!! hehe

This is a 6x6 square card (good thing this would require a "box" to give....don't think I'd ever find an envie to fit it!!). I used SU's 12x12 textured white for my base. Then I cuttlebugged the background squares from more of the textured cs. I made my roses out of real red and whisper white card stock (I just drew my spirals like Natasja shows on her video). I had in my head three of each color to represent past, present and future joining together (you know, like the anniversary rings that you'll see in magazines?! This was when the card was still a wedding card. But I guess it could represent the same on an anniversary card). The leaves are free hand cut (that does not sound proper) from scraps of the textured CS. Then I got out my favorite embellishment of late~~my Pretties Kit (I'm going to have to buy a new kit pretty soon at this rate of use!!) and strung the pearls and baubles on silver 26 gauge wire. The scalloped black circle and large white circle were cut using my Spellbinders nestabilities dies. The sentiment is a rub on from the retired Cherished Memories rub on set. In all honesty, I will keep my eye out for another sentiment/style that I like better and will probably replace this. I really don't like it, but again~~I had nothing that was even REMOTELY close to what I had in my head for this!! Everything is adhered with glue dots.

Despite the so-so sentiment layer, I am pleased with how this came out overall.

Ok!! Now that I've totally made my craft area a disaster zone, I'm going to ignore this mess and try and get the needed fixings for dinner going in the crock pot.

Hope your week is starting out grand!!

Decking the Halls In July

Anyone still hanging around wondering if I'm ever going to create again?!! Geesh....I'm tellin' ya~~it's just amazing what one must go through to not only get a card made but posted too?! (But, but, MOM!! We want dinner now!! We're s..t..a..r...v...i...n...g!!!!)

Well, never fear. No children (or Toad) went hungry. All creativity and posting was put on hold until all pushed themselves away from the table proclaiming that they could not eat another bite.
I was pretty determined to make a card today. Printed out the sketch challenge from SCS last night and even came up with an idea. But then!! The Ways to Use it challenge threw me for a loop. First of all, Christmas in JULY?!! HELLOOOOO!!! I barley get Christmas out in December!! Secondly, my idea was SOOOO not Christmas. But!! I revamp the thinking and here is what I came up with:

I flipped the sketch to work with another challenge that I added to the previous two~~ use only SU (current or retired) product. I believe I have mentioned that I am a demo for SU, but I'm more the "hobby demo with a few friends/customers" than I am a business demo. But lately, I have gotten into the habit of combining all kinds of wonderful goodies from different manufacturers to make my cards. I just thought that it might be interesting to see what I could do with SU only.

Now for all the details: I used the the SU exclusive texture plate for the dotted layer (I ended up lightly misting the paper with water to get a more distinct impression). The swirls were stamped first in versamark then heat and stick was applied and heated (think that is why they call it HEAT and stick?!! snort). Dazzling diamonds glitter was then sprinkled over the warm sticky glue. All the matting layers are Wild Wasabi (that has to be one of my favorite colors. I am soooo sad that it is retired!). Made the scalloped border with the scalloped edge punch and added the dots with my white pen (not sure on that one...but what is done, is done). Decided to pull out (wait....are you sitting down? This is gonna knock you for a loop) BOTH my silver hodgepodge accessories AND the pretties kit!! I know, I know!! I've been hoarding both of these kits, but I finally decided to see what happens when you actually USE the stuff you buy!! Pulled out the old silver cording and looped it behind the main panel and through the hodgepodge to make my dangle for the pretties. All the stamps came from the Season of Joy set. Supplies: Paper: Whisper White, Wild Wasabi. Inks: Wild Wasabi. Accessories: Big Shot, SU exclusive texture plates, heat and stick, dazzling diamonds glitter, silver cording, silver hodgepodge kit, pretties kit, scalloped edge punch, white pen, 1" circle punch.

Thanks for stopping by again!! I'm going to go do the dishes from dinner and maybe think about doing the "original" card idea that I had. I don't know.....two cards in one day after such a long hiatus might throw me into a tailspin that I'll never find my way out of!! hehe

I'm glad for Quickies

Hold on to your hats~~I've got ANOTHER card for you today!! Last night while I was skimming through some of my favorite blogs I came across this great card by Jenn Balcer. Immediately I knew that I had to do this easy sketch and which paper I wanted to highlight.

I made my card a 5x5 square as I wanted to show off more of the designer paper by Me and My Big Ideas. The black swirls on this paper are FLOCKED!! OOOOOOO!!! I just LOVE it!! Can't keep my grimy little fingers from touching it!! This is the paper that made me buy this pack!!

I started with a base of Baja Breeze, and then a slightly smaller square of black. Cut my three panels and layered. Customed dyed the large Pretties Kit flower with Baja Breeze reinker and colored the smaller black flower with my black copic marker. Added the ivory pearl......then dug out my Cherished Memories rub ons (that I just had to have and had yet to ever use! (insert rolling eyes here_____)). All in all, I think this card took me about 10-15 minutes to complete (which for me~~ is a record!!) Supplies: Paper: SU Baja Breeze, Prism black, M&M Big Ideas Specialty Paper pack. Inks: Baja Breeze reinker. Accessories: Pretties kit, SU Cherished Memories rub ons.

The weather is cold, wet and gloomy. Which means that DH is not going to be working outside today. He mentioned something about cleaning the house (sigh.....) Guess I should be happy that he'll help ruin my Sunday, BWHAHAAAA!!

Altering Dreams

The end of the school year is just around the corner and since I was such the flake for Teacher Appreciation Day (*I did send a plant....just no card....no tag.....nothing handmade. Is that allowed when you paper craft?!) I decided to alter some clipboards that I have sitting around. I wanted something that was a bit different than the usual altered clipboards that I have seen. Then inspiration struck (yes, it about knocked me over).

I went to Staples and bought some cork on a roll vs tiles (since this was just an idea, I needed to give myself plenty of material to experiment with!). I made a template to go around the clip and cut the cork. I used a mixture of acrylic paints in two/three different shades of brown (I put a bunch on a paper plate and dabbed my brush here and there in the paints). I tried using mod podge to adhere the cork board, but that wasn't working so I ended up using 1/2" red sticky tape along the cork board edges (between the two, it's sticking good!!). I then covered the bottom half of the clipboard with My Mind's Eye "Backyard "Just be You" Paisley/Teal designer paper. Used1/4" red sticky liner along the edge of the cork board to place the ribbon border. Using the patterned side, I made a "frame" for a photo that the ribbons can hold in place. I am still playing around with the grunge look that Tim Holtz does so well (actually, I believe he calls this "wrinkle free distress". Sherry Cheever just did a tutorial for this on SCS this week also. So, I decided to use this technique to alter some small, plain notepads that I had bought in bulk. I took some whisper white card stock, cut it to make a "cover" for the notepad. Using distress inks in Peeled Paint and Faded Jeans, I spritz them then placed my cover in the wet ink. Dried using my heat gun and repeated. I then stamped my French Script using the Faded Jeans and off stamped it before stamping over the cover. The hummingbird is from Tim's set Flight of Fancy (it was still out on my desk from the last project. Sometimes it works out not to clean up in between creations! hehe). I then used the "spray" from SU's Garden Silhouettes and stamped using Encore copper and embossed with copper EP. Stamped the sentiment (and yes, it is slightly crooked!! grrrrrr!! Hate when I do that!! That is what happens when I don't use my stampamajig!) Here is a close up of the note pad/photo area:I used a small scrap of the dp to make the RSVP pen look "purdy" and matchy. The ribbon to hold the pen is looped with glue dots and adhered. The final touches were using a large flower from the Pretties Kit and dying it with the distress ink (I swiped the ink on my craft sheet, spritzed with water and laid my flower down in it and "smooshed" until it was covered). I used one of the "diamond" brads for the center and added a couple of ribbon leaves. All were adhered using Glue Dots Super Strength dots. I thought that the cork board needed a little sprucing up so I found a couple of swirls from my grunge board collection and covered them with distress stickles in Peeled Paint and after finally letting them dry completely, I adhered those with glossy accents. Supplies: Paper, MME, Whisper White, Chocolate Chip. Inks: Ranger Distress Inks in Peeled Paint, Faded Jeans, Vintage Photo, Encore copper. Accessories: Copper EP, Pretties Kit, Grunge board accent elements, Distress Stickles in Peeled Paint, ribbon, glue dots, red sticky tape, heat gun.

I have another one of these to make. I'm trying to decide if I take the "easy" way out and just CASE everything I've already done or pull out all the papers and go for round two in a different pattern. Guess you'll know what I decided if I post another one or not!! hehe

Thanks for stopping by!! Hope that you all are having some free time this long weekend for some creativity!!

I've Finally Cracked!!

I found a weekend sketch challenge on Jenn Balcer's blog and thought it would be a good one for a Mother's Day card. This card is a 5x5 square card. I decided to pull out some DP from Me and My Big Ideas that I've had staring at me for a while. This came from a cardstock "book" and all the papers have some special embellishment (on this particular sheet, the light "grey" in the background is flocked!! I just keep touching it! After finally getting the courage to cut it (YIKES!! What if I was to ruin it?!!) I thought that I would use one of my favorite sets and pulled out Garden Silhouettes from SU. Used my Bravo Burgaundy and Old Olive markers and stamped the image on Whisper White. I then used a small stencil brush with Barely Banana (I would have used a sponge dauber, but that would have required me to move my lazy rear and get it from across the room, whereas the stencil brush just happened to be on my desk! hehe) and worked it along the sides. I then scraped the edges along the Burgandy stamp pad.

I then thought I would pull out an old technique and do the cracked glass. Uggghhhh!!! First time I "cracked" it, I got a little over zealous and actually cracked a piece of the glaze off. So, I re-heated the glaze and cracked again. But the spot that came out wouldn't hold the glaze. Got the VersaMarker out and finally got some glaze to stick. Cracked again. But then the edges got a little thick. But it is what it is!! I was not in the mood to start all over!

I cut a thin strip of the DP and made my strip across the bottom. I used the mother's day stamp from SU's All Holiday's to stamp the sentiment. It looks a little faded over the flocking, but I was pleased that I was able to stamp over that portion without too much trouble. I got out my much neglected Pretties kit and colored one of the flowers using a copic ciao marker. Layered everything and put the sentiment strip on dimensionals. Wah-Lah!! One down!! Supplies: Stamps: SU's Garden Silhouettes, All Holiday's. Paper: Whisper white, Bravo Burgundy, Designer paper from Me and My Big Ideas. Inks: Bravo Burgundy and Old Olive marker, Barely Banana, Archival Jet Black. Accessories: Stampamajig, Glassy Glaze Enamel, heat gun, stencil brush, Pretties kit, copic ciao marker, dimensionals.

Thanks for stopping by! Have a crazy week coming up as I have to work 4 of the 5 weekdays!! That is going to make my day "off" a MUST stamp day!! I still need a couple of more cards for this coming week! Cross your fingers that my mojo will decide to stick around!!

Inspired by Textures

I'm BAAAACK!!

I got some new toys this past week, just in time to try and come up with an idea for a workshop that I had this past weekend. Wellll, inspiration was only part way there. I knew I wanted to use SU's Inspired by Nature and was hoping to use my new texture plates. The problem was, I couldn't come up with a layout idea. So, once again, I turned to Splitcoaststampers to find the answer. And what a beauty I came across!! My card was inspired by this card by Dawn, a.k.a TreasureOiler on SCS. Now Dawn is a Dirty Girl Alumni, so of course my inner wanna be Dirty Gal was drawn to her card, hehe!!

I didn't want to try and figure out the frame for this card as this was going to be for a workshop that consisted of a couple of gals who really haven't stamped. I took Dawn's basic layout and color scheme BUT I didn't have any designer paper that would wow. So out came the texture plates. BUT~ not enough "pop" for me. So I played around with an idea. I took my ink pad DIRECTLY to the texture plate then embossed. YES!!!! It mad the subtle texture POP!!! (insert major happy dance here________!!!) Now, someone else may have already come up with this idea, but I haven't seen it used yet. And I love the results. This is the card that we madeDidn't this turn out GORJUS?!! (I hate trying to type accents btw!) This was just perfect for what my gals wanted to do!! Supplies used: Paper: Kiwi Kiss, Whisper white. Inks: Old Olive, Basic Black, Pink Pirouette. Accessories: Big Shot, SU Butterfly die, Textures plate, Pretties kit, Paper piercer, sponge daubers, grosgrain ribbon, glue dots, stampamajig, scalloped edge punch

Now here is here the only bummer deal about this card: the image pretty much covered up all that LOVELY texture. So, today I played around with another idea. Here is that result:

Let's just pretend that I'm Jan Tink for just a moment (yes, I know that this is REALLY pushing the envelope, but imagination is always good for the soul!!) ISN'T THIS JUST GORJUS!! YILMS!! (yes, I love myself too, right now! hehe)

After several tries at using the inkpad directly to my texture plate and getting kinda streaky results, I used my BRAYER (major lightbulb moment!) and got rid of the streaks. BUT!! There is a catch to this technique: you have to be VERY, VERY careful when you put your paper down on your inked plate. It it slides, even a teeny, tiny, itsy bit, you will get small smudges on your embossed area (ask me how I know this! Just don't ask how many times it took to get this section! hehe). But the effort is SO WORTH it!! This is a PERFECT technique to make your own FABULOUS designer paper!! It is just lucious IRL!! (ok, before you fear that my head may blow from all this self congratulations: let me put that to rest right now. Somehow, over the 30 min that it took me to tie that ribbon on this card, my sentiment slipped up a bit from it's original position. Then I realized that my cut edges are frayed as I need to replace the blade on my cutter. So, this card is NOT perfection, BUT IT'S DANG CLOSE BABY!!! lol) Supplies used: Paper: Very Vanilla, Chocolate chip. Inks: Chocolate chip. Stamps: SU's Warmest Regards. Accessories: Big Shot, Texture plate, brayer, scalloped edge punch, paper piercer, Spellbinders die cut tag, sponge dauber, ribbon.

Thanks for stopping by! If you decide to try this technique, please link me your creation! I would love to see what you do with this idea!!