Jenn Diercks send me this amazing scrap card as a thank you for the blog candy she won.
She has a tutorial with step by step instruction on her blog Stamp your Heart out! She also has more pictures of it there as well. It’s simply amazing. Thank you Jenn….you totally blew me away!
I have two more gorgeous thank you cards to share. Click on More if you want to see them.
Yesterday I challenged Kimberly VanDiepen to make a card with the same stamp set and designer paper to see what we would come up with. Kimberly is a wonderful person, sweet friend and a Navy wife. I admire Navy wives. They have it TOUGH. Kimberly especially. It seems they have moved every year since I know her. She is a Stampin’ Up! demonstrator and is sooooo good, she earns cruises even though she moves so much. Kimberly is an amazing stamper. I love everything she does. She doesn’t only create wonderful cards, she is an incredible scrapbooker as well! Make sure to check her blog! You will put it on your favorite list, if it’s not on there already. I promise!
Well…I wanted to make the challenge fair and not pick the Paper and Stamp set myself. I asked Jenn Balcer to pick it for us. She did, and boy oh boy was it a challenge. I think I hadn’t had a harder time with a challenge since I did Emily’s color challenge: Amethyst, Bashful Blue and Real red. Jenn picked the Sarah Designer paper and Big Blooms stamp set.
When she first said that I thought….easy peasy. I love Big blooms. Well…..three card sketches into it I almost gave up. Nothing seemed to come together. My trash can was full of rejects!
I finally came up with this one. My card base is Certainly Celery. The top part is dry embossed with the Bodacious Bouquet dry embossing template. Besides the blue designer paper from the Sarah package, I also used a strip of yellow paper from the Spring Flower designer pack.
I am really into round shapes right now. I can’t help myself. And ever since I have been playing with acrylic stamps, I love the look of circular greetings. I stamped hello friend around the main image. Both hello and friend are from Amazing to Zany! So are all the words on the smaller circle on the bottom right.
Besides Big Blooms I used Little Pieces as fillers in the main image and flower center. I used So Saffron, Regal Rose, Brocade Blue, Certainly Celery and Basic Black ink. The flower center is a So Saffron Brad. I added rose grosgrain on the bottom of the yellow strip as well as a little paper piercing….every card can use a little of that.
I am glad that challenge is over and I kinda like what came out of it. Thanks Kimberly for playing and thanks Jenn for the CHALLENGE!
Make sure you check out Kimberly’s card on her blog. She totally rocked this challenge and made it look easy to boot!
I have the never ending birthday…..Thank you so much. Here are the Birthday greetings that came yesterday in the mail. I also got some amazing thank you cards for Blog candy and a gift to a friend…I will post those tomorrow!
Kandi Williams send me this beautiful bella card. Her SCS name is kandicejo.
Click on more if you would like to see the other two gorgeous cards. Like always…they are listed in alphabetical order.
Renee Clark Says: I check your blog everyday! Great candy. Right now I keep using Delight in Life a lot! Cheers!
The Random Integer Generator spat out #388. I started counting from the back and Renee was IT!
I made yesterday’s challenge card in Cameo coral to send with the goodies. This time I stamped the Flower in Black Stazon on Cameo coral. I spritzed the cardstock with water and sloppily colored the flowers with Cameo coral reinker before cutting it out and highlighting it with the white gel pen.
Thank you all for playing. It was fun to read all your comments and discover some new great blogs!
My next blog candy will be a “BIG DEAL” and will happen at 200,000. You don’t want to miss that one.
Now that is one easy challenge. I use those tabs all the time!!!
After reading your comments on favorite stamp sets, I was in the mood for using the Doodle this set. My blogging friend Ally doesn’t like the roundish flower in this set, so I decided to use it and hopefully show her that this flower can be pretty too.
I started with stamping three flowers in black on Cool Caribbean cardstock. I sprayed over the images with water and sloppily colored it with Cool Caribbean reinker and aqua painter. I then cut them out and added white highlights with the white gel pen.
Next I took a 2 1/4″ x 5″ strip of white cardstock and stamped the swirl stamp all over in black. I then colored those in with Celery reinker. The white paper was still a bit too white for me so I made my aqua painter really wet, added more celery reinker and flicked it’s brush over my finger to add speckles to the cardstock. I repeated the same with black ink. Yes…..my finger looks nasty now. But I was too lazy to get my Spritzer tool. I layered the stamped cardstock on a 2 1/2″ x 5 1/4″ piece of black cardstock.
I still had a cool caribbean trifold card base in my scrap pile. The cardstock for this measures 6 ” x 9 1/2″. It’s scored at 3″ and 6″. I stamped Paisley in Caribbean on the front panel. It still seemed like something was missing. I don’t know if you know that, but I am not really confident in my doodling. But I thought some black doodles around the main image would look good. The doodles from the set wouldn’t work because I wanted it to look like a border. So I took a DEEP breath and doodled away with my Pigma Mircon pen. I like how it came out.
The flowers are attached with dimensionals. Before taping the main image on to the front panel, I added celery cardstock on the bottom panel and stamped happy birthday on it from the Amazing To Zany set. I use that set all the time! LOVE it! To add just a little more black to the bottom piece, I used the dotted strip from All in a Row. Another set that is absolutely wonderful!
I stamped Congrats from the same set on a small piece of certainly celery cardstock and stamped the swirl stamp over both celery cardstock pieces. I taped the tab under the main image. A piece of white organdy ribbon ties the card shut. I placed the bow on the left hand side next to my Happy Birthday and then secured the ribbon by taping the main image over it.
I hope you like it. Ally? How about it? You still dislike this flower?
It’s time for some freebies again. I am so close to 150,000!!!!
This time the winner will get:
I will draw the winner on Tuesday morning, after I come back from a dentist appointment (for Rebecca, not me). If I haven’t hit 150,000 by then, I will draw the winner the morning after I reach that milestone.
Please only one comment per person! Let me know your favorite Stampin’ Up! set as of right now.
I know they change all the time. At least they do for me! I think right now I have to say Big Blooms, Office Accoutrement or the Doodle sets. I always love to play with new stamps! I sure wish we had another mini catalog coming out before the new big idea book. This is one LONG stretch without new SU stamps!
Off I go to the beach. I can’t wait to read about your favorite sets!
I love Julie’s work. I check out her blog all the time. She makes the cutest card. So I was not surprised at all that she was picked for today’s featured stamper challenge. Bethie knows what she is doing. *grin*
I picked this card of Julie and cased her layout. I really liked it. Julie mostly uses strictly Stampin’ Up! merchandise, so that’s what I stuck by ….. well, except for a tiny bit of stickles on thewater drops.
I started with stamping the The Cat’s meow image in stazon on watercolor paper. I used watercolor crayons to color it in. Then I sponged first mustard, then rust and then a tad of chocolate around paper. I messed up a bit by trying to fix the colored shadow under the tip of the tail of the cat. It turned a bit yellow instead because of the sponging. DUHHH!!! I still kept the image. I don’t think it’s that bad, plus I was in a bit of a rush since we have plans to go to the beach.
I layered the image on black cardstock, then on Natural Ivory. The patterned paper is from Friends & Flowers simply scrappin kit. The hardware is from the Antique Brass Hodgepodge hardware kit.
Words are from Warm Words and Amazing to Zany! Finally I made a Stampin’ Up! card again. Wohooo!!!! I added crystal effect over the water bowl, and stardust stickles over the water splashes.
This morning Rebecca stamped a little and wanted me to post her card to her BFF on my site….so if you want to see Reba’s card, click on more.
Jeanne Streiff posted today’s challenge. She wanted us to get inspired by this purse:
The purse immediately reminded me of the gorgeous Tres Jolie paper I bought when I went shopping back in San Antonio with Jenn. I love that paper and can’t wait to get more when Joy and Daisy finally stock it in their store!!!
I pulled out the paper and decided to put it on my entire card front. I needed a relatively big image to make the stripes not look overpowering. The sweet Inky Attics turtle I got from Jennifer as a birthday present was still sitting on my table. Rebecca made her birthday invitations yesterday with that image (and lots of bright gel pen colors and big amounts of glitter….she called them their wacky turtles).
I cut out a circle out of watercolor paper, stamped the turtle with black Palette ink and sprayed the paper with my water bottle to wet the paper a little. Then I colored the image with Stampin’ Up!’s classic reinkers. For the bottom part I mixed a drop of bordering blue with a drop of taken with teal to try to match the color of the paper.
My card base is a 5 1/2″ x 11″ chocolate chip retangle folded in half. The front is scored one inch in and folded over. I stamped the fold over with Paisley background in chocolate chip. I used the cutting tool kit from Stampin’ Up! to distress the edges. On the inside of the card is a 5 1/4″ square of the same paper as in the front. It is double sided and I used the other side for the inside.
I paper pierced around the image and on the right side of the inside to tie in the stitches on the purse. The paper piercing looked a little sad on the main image, so I decided to add a kind of Morse code border.
I had planned to place the flower on the right hand side of the image and the saying on the bottom left. Well….while taping the turtle image down I smudged the image with some chocolate chip ink I had on my fingers (ARRGGHGHHH). So I switched it around. The flower went on the top left of the image, and I had to move the saying to the right. I decided to make a buckle card. I used a 1″ x 3″ strip of watercolor paper, rounded the edges with the round tab punch, stamped paisley with bashful blue and then watercolored over it with the same color. Once it was dry I stamped Thinking of you (Wordsworth) on it. The buckle is only held by the ribbon, which is…of course…May Arts ribbon.
If you are interested in a tutorial for the Explosion box card, click on More. I don’t want to post a big long thread on the front page, so I don’t clog up the email of my subscribers.
Those Crafty Secret stamps are GORGEOUS! (If you are looking for them, check out SweetMissDaisy’s online store. She has lots of gorgeous Crafty Secrets merchandise. ) I had to try out my new Cherub set.
I wanted to write this tutorial for my blog since two fresh and fun freebies ago. Well…today I took pictures for it. I thought I share the final project with you now….and then write the tutorial. I hope to have it posted tonight!
This is the top view of the box. I love that little Cherub. I got the set because my MIL LOVES cherubs. Loves them, loves, them, LOVES THEM. (you know….we crafters never run out of excuses why we need something!) I didn’t think I would like it as much as I did. The set comes with some three adorable cherubs, smaller swirls (like the corner ones on top and the middle edges of the lid) as well as bigger ones ( box bottom), angel wings, the word Love and a heart.
I stamped my little cheeky cherub on watercolor paper with black Palette ink. It really works well with acrylic stamps. Much better then black stazon. Then I colored the cutie in with blush blossom for his skin, skin shading and wings with pretty in pink, hair with more mustard and close to cocoa, book with creamy caramel and surrounding space with bashful blue classic ink and aqua painter (all Stampin’ Up! products). I sprayed my watercolor paper with my water mist bottle before I started coloring. I layered the image on on a black Mega Oval Scallop punchout from Urchida.
The lid top is made with Tres Jolie paper from My Mind’s Eye. I can’t wait for Daisy and Joy to get their My Mind’s Eye order into their store!!!!
The bottom of the box is made with Always Artichoke cardstock by Stampin’ Up!. I stamped the bigger swirl on it with Black VersaMagic Dew Drop ink.
I cut the lid edges with a scallop scissor and added the scallop border stamp with the Black Dew drop.
