2010 May » fresh & fun

Funky Weeds

Challenge, Flourishes, LLC, Just For Fun Rubber Stamps, Nestabilities 12 Responses »

May 312010

This is a card I just gave up on. I made it for a color challenge on SCS. I really liked the center piece, but I just couldn’t finish the card in a way that I was happy with . For the center piece I added a few drops of Gold Metallic Alcohol ink fixative on my craft sheet. Then I added Wild Plum, Butterscotch and Rust Alcohol Ink close by and then topped it with Blending solution. I dropped a piece of Glossy cardstock glossy side down into the mix and twisted it.

Once the background was dry I stamped the Wildflower from Just For Fun Stamp with Jet Black Archival ink. I cut the image out with Classic Circle Nestabilities. It was layered on a slightly bigger black cardstock circle.

The circles were layered on So Saffron Designer Paper that had been cut with Label 1 Nestabilities, that had been stitched to a slightly bigger black layer in that shape. A Kraft Taffeta bow was attached with a glue dot on the left hand side of the image. A small butterfly was punched out of Dusty Durango cardstock with a Martha Stewart Butterfly punch. It was sponged with Rusty Hinge Distress ink, adhered to the center piece and topped with Gold Liquid Pearls.

The card base is a quite big. I kept on adding layers because it just didn’t quite look right. I ended up having a 4 7/8″ x 9 3/4″ piece of Basic Black cardstock as card base. It was topped with a 4 1/2″ square of Dusty Durango cardstock that was sponged with Rusty Hinge Distress ink. On top of that is a 4 3/16″ Kraft cardstock square. The edges were distressed.

The sentiment is from Flourishes Tag Lines stamp set. It was stamped on Jet Black Archival ink. It was cut with Petite Oval Nestabilities and layered on a sponged Dusty Durango scallop oval. To tie in the Gold Liquid Pearl on the butterfly, I added a few more on the sentiment.

For the inside I used the same layers as on the card front. I swapped out the So Saffron Designer paper for So Saffron cardstock. I ran out of that paper. I stamped the Wildflower image in Rusty Hinge on the right hand side and added another butterfly.

Thanks so much for stopping by. Have a wonderful Memorial day! Hugs and smiles

Featured Stamper Challenge - Nikki Tanner

Challenge, Copics, Flourishes, LLC, Nestabilities 14 Responses »

May 302010

This card was created for another Featured Stamper challenge. The featured stamper was Nikki Tanner. I picked her “Sometimes you’re the cat” card, changed the color scheme, the stamp set and added some stitching and embellishments. The colors I used fit the Just For Fun Stamps Color Challenge for last week.

I knew I wanted to use the new Guiding Light set from Flourishes for this case. I thought it would look great with Graphic 45 Le Romantique paper. I stamped the sentiment, then the image in Tuxedo Black Memento Ink on Neenah Solar White cardstock and colored it in with Copic Markers (BG01, BG10, BG72, B21, W1, W2, E31, E41, E51, E53, E55). The image was cut with Circle Nestabilities and airbrushed with Copic Marker E31. It was then layered on a slightly bigger Chocolate Chip circle that had been (surprise, suprise) sponged with Walnut Stain Distress Ink. The bottle was covered with Glossy Accents.

Four 2″ squares were cut out of Graphic 45 Le Romantique paper and stitched to a 4 3/8″ Gina K. Pure Luxury Ivory cardstock square. The edges of the small square as well as the ivory square were distressed. Martha Stewart twill was taped around the center and tied with brown Burlap String. Three buttons (Basic Gray, My Mind’s Eye and Bo Bunny) were attached to the lower right corner with natural colored burlap string. A Sprocket Gear was adhered to the top left corner. The main image was attached to the layers with dimensionals.

As always, the inside of the card is kept pretty simple. A 1 3/8″ x 4 1/4″ piece of Le Romantique paper was sanded, then stitched to a 4 3/8″ square of Ivory cardstock. The light house stamp from Guiding Light was stamped over it in Antique Linen Distress Ink. A small My Mind’s Eye button was adhered to the lower right corner of the paper.

Thanks so much for stopping by! Have a wonderful day! Hugs and smiles

Cupcake inspired Pizza Box

3-D items, Challenge, Flourishes, LLC, Nestabilities, Scor-Pal, Video Tutorial 11 Responses »

May 292010

I created this Pizza box for an Inspiration challenge on SCS. Steph sent us to Amy Atlas website and blog to be inspired. Amy has amazing creations posted there. I picked this darling cupcake as my inspiration piece.

The box it was sitting on gave me idea to make the finished image a pizza box. I haven’t created one of those in a while and I really like them.

To start out with I stamped the solid image from Flourishes new Cherry Blossom stamp set in Fired Brick Distress ink on Ducks in a Row Patterned paper. It was embossed it several times with clear embossing powder. Then I cut it with Circle Nestabilities and layered it first on an Vanilla Circle, then on a scalloped and sponged Ruby Red cardstock circle. The sentiment is from the same stamp set and was stamped in Walnut Stain Distress ink.

The box was created out of a 6″ x 11″ piece of Chocolate chip cardstock. The edges of the box top were brushed with the Watermark Resist Pad from Ranger for a slightly darker look. It was layered with a 3 3/4″ Kraft cardstock square. The square had been stamped with the Damask stamp from Fanciful Flourishes in Watermark ink. It was stitched and Kaisercraft Pearl Pearls were added to top right and bottom left of the layer.

For the bellyband I started out with a 1 1/2″ x 11 5/8″ piece of Vanilla cardstock. It was scored at 1 1/8″, 5 1/4″, 6 3/8″ and 10 1/2″. I then layered it with a 1 1/4″ strip of Ducks in a Row paper. The paper was sanded and stitched to the Vanilla strip. Silk May Arts ribbon was tied around the belly band and the main image was attached to the band with dimensionals.

Here is a video for the visual learner:

Orange Gerber Daisies

Challenge, Flourishes, LLC, Nestabilities 19 Responses »

May 282010

Today is Virtual Stamp night at Splitcoaststampers! It started at 5 p.m. EST. Come on over and play the challenges with us! The 6:00 p.m. challenge is to create a card with the Serigraph technique. We had to use flowers for the embossing. Usually the background looks a bit harsh, so I decided to soften it up a bit. I also didn’t emboss small images, but one big one.

For my background I started by brayering Wild Honey Distress ink first. Next I brayered Spiced Marmelade over most of the rest of my cardstock. I then used the blending tool to soften the edges of the brayer lines. I embossed the big Gerber Daisies image in white and cut the image with the largest of the Classic Square Nestabilities. Next I sponged the edges of the cardstock as well as around the centers of the flowers in Fired Brick ink. The image was first layered on a 3 5/8″ square of White cardstock, then on a scallop square cut out of Wild Cherry Cardstock, sponged with Fired brick ink.

The card base is a 4 1/4″ x 8 1/2″ piece of Sour Apple Cardstock folded in half. Giving it all Meaning was stamped all over in Shabby Shutter Distress ink and the edges were sponged in the same color. Two green buttons were attached to the upper left corner with embroidery floss and a gingham ribbon bow was attached to the bottom left.

The inside of my card was sponged with Shabby Shutter ink as well. A sponged 3 15/16″ square of Wild Cherry cardstock was topped with a 3 3/4″ square of Whisper White cardstock that had been sponged with Wild Honey ink and stamped with Giving it all Meaning. The sentiment and butterfly are from the Gerber Daisies set and were sponged in Fired Brick.

Grab your brayer and dye inks and get stamping! I hope to see you over on SCS tonight! Here is an older video for this technique for the visual learner:

Celebrating a BIG Number

Blog Candy 31 Responses »

May 282010

Today I hit over 400,000 in hits. Coupled with the 1,100,000 that I had before my last counter croaked, that’s an unbelievable 1,500,000 visits to my blog. I want to say thank you with this bit of goodies.

Included in this pile is:

One pack of Vintage Brads from Stampin’ Up!
Two copic Ciao Markers (B23, B85), courtesy of Marianne Walker
Three Ranger Adirondack ink pads (Espresso, Watermelon and Rasperry). I got these at Ranger U and already have them.
Two Cuttlebug Embossing Folder (Leafy Branch, Bird Call)
Two Basic Grey Chip Stickers (Urban Prairie, Euphoria), courtesy of Eclectic Paperie
One Our Craft Lounge Set (Bear-ly Fishin’)
Tim Holtz Alteration Die Hanging Sign (I can’t make it work for me)
Stix 2 Seed Bee’d and Fine Glitter (gold) and one roll of Ultra Clear Tape, courtesy of Stix 2

To enter this blog candy, you will have to make a card…..for one of today’s or tomorrow’s VSN challenges. The fun starts at 5 p.m. EST. A new challenge will be posted every hour until 11 p.m. and then again Saturday starting at 12:00 p.m. You can enter the blog candy once for each challenge card you made. Just add your challenge card link as a comment to this post.

I will draw the blog candy winner on Monday at 6:00 p.m. Have fun tonight. I am planning on participating in as many challenges as I can. Hugs and smiles

Friends with Flair - Earth Fairy

Challenge, Nestabilities, Unity Stamps 25 Responses »

May 282010

I am so excited that I can participate in Unity’s Friends with Flair again. It’s been too long! I made this card for the Sketch Challenge on SCS two days ago. As soon as I saw the sketch, I thought of this fairy. I think she is my favorite Unity stamp ever. I don’t know why, she just really speaks to me.

I started by stamping the background Giving it All Meaning in Antique Linen on a 2 1/4″ x 3 15/16″ piece of Natural Ivory cardstock. Next I stamped the fairy from the KOM Simply Magical in Walnut Stain Distress ink and embossed it with clear embossing powder. The edges of the layer were sponged and distressed. The layer was stitched to a slightly bigger scalloped Chocolate Chip layer, cut with the Long Rectangle Nestabilities. I can’t help myself. I LOVE stitching on cards. I love the way it looks.

The card base is a 4 1/4″ x 11″ piece of Kraft cardstock folded in half. The edges were sponged with Antique Linen. A 3 3/4″ x 5″ piece of Cosmo Cricket Earth Love Paper was distressed, sanded and then stitched to a 3 15/16″ x 5 3/16″ piece of Chocolate Chip cardstock. The edges of that layer had been distressed and sponged with Walnut Stain Distress Ink. Three little Basic Grey button were stitched to the upper right hand side with natural Burlap string.

The horizontal strip is also from the Earth Love paper pack. It was cut 1/2″ wide and layered with some long rectangle cutout I still had in my scrap paper. Kraft Taffeta ribbon was tied into a bow and topped with another Basic Grey Button to finish off the card.

For the inside of the card I sponged a 3 3/4″ x 5″ piece of Natural Ivory cardstock with Antique Linen, stamped it in the same color with Giving it All Meaning and the fairy and stitched it to a 3 15/16″ x 5 3/16″ piece of sponged and distressed Chocolate Chip cardstock. The patterned paper strip measures 1″ x 3 3/4″ and was sanded, sponged and then layered on a chocolate chip cardstock strip. One side of the chocolate chip strip had been cut with long rectangle Nestabilities.

Thank you so much for stopping by. Check the Unity blog to see who else is participating in today’s Friends with Flair blog hop. Have a great weekend! Hugs and smiles

Encaustic Butterfly

Challenge, Inkadinkado, Nestabilities, Verve Stamps 17 Responses »

May 272010

I have another Encaustic card to share with you. This one I created for the sketch challenge on SCS. The background was created with yellow, red and orange wax on top and green and a bit of brown wax on the bottom.

The background was layered first on Basic Black Cardstock, then on a scalloped textured white rectangle cut with Long Rectangle Nestabilities.The Butterfly image is from Inkadinkado and was stamped on the background with Jet Black Archival Ink.

The card base is a 4 1/4″ x 10 1/4″ piece of Old Olive cardstock folded in half. A 3 1/2″ x 4 1/2″ piece of The Thrift Store October Afternoon paper was sanded and stitched on a 3 7/8″ x 4 3/4″ pieces of Basic Black cardstock. The top right corner was stamped with a stamp from Verve’s Accent Notes in Jet Black Archival ink. The horizontal piece is a 2″ square of Thrift Store paper. It was also sanded and stitched to a 3/16″ bigger piece of Basic Black cardstock.

The sentiment is also from Accent Notes. it was stamped on Textured White cardstock and cut out with Petite Oval Nestabilities. It was layered on black scallop oval. A bow out of double sided May Arts ribbon finishes off the card front.

The layer sizes on the inside of the card are the same as on the card front. The horizontal layer is 1 1/4″ wide was sanded and then stitched on the inside layers. The Verve Accent stamp was stamped on the top right and the Inkadinkado butterfly on the bottom left.

Thanks so much for looking! Have a great day! Hugs and smiles

Back to School

CAS, Challenge, Lawn Fawn, Nestabilities 16 Responses »

May 262010

I had a BLAST making this card for a Way to Use it Challenge on SCS. We were to make a card decorated with black pen. I started by stamping flowers from Lawn Pawn’s Petite Florals in Jet Black Archival ink on a Label 1 Nestabilities die cut out of Whisper White cardstock. Next I started doodling with a black sharpie until the entire piece was covered.

The background was layered on a 3 7/8″ basic black cardstock square. Three of the corners were corner rounded. The card base is a 4 1/4″ x 8 1/2″ piece of Core’dinations cardstock.

The sentiment is from Unity’s Rockin’ it Unity Style. It was stamped in Jet Black Archival Ink on Whisper White cardstock. I cut the left hand side banner style and added a Basic Gray ribbon to the left side of it.

I finished off the card by adding Silver Kaisercraft Rhinestones in the center of the flowers and Startdust stickles over some places.

Thanks for stopping by! Have a great day! Hugs and smiles

Featured Stamper Challenge - Cathleen Torina

Challenge, Nestabilities, Stampendous 11 Responses »

May 252010

Sunday’s Featured Stamper was Cathleen Torina. If you haven’t checked out her gallery, grab something to drink, settle in a comfy chair and check out her gallery. Her work is amazing. I browsed her gallery for quite a while on Sunday before I settled on casing this card. Mostly because I had that frame stamp from Tim’s Mini Ornates and I haven’t used it yet.

My card base is a 5″ x 10″ piece of Chocolate chip cardstock folded in half. The edges of the card front were sponged with Walnut Stain Distress Ink. The edges of a 4 1/2″ square of My Mind’s Eye Laundry Line Patterned paper were sanded, sponged with Old Paper Distress Ink and then stitched to a 4 11/16″ square of Vanilla Cardstock. Ivory Silk May Arts Ribbon was tied around the layers before those were attached to the card base with dimensionals.

The frame stamp is from the stamp set Mini Ornates. It was stamped in Walnut Stain Distress ink on Vanilla cardstock and embossed with Walnut Stain Distress Embossing Powder. The sentiment is from the same set and was also stamped in Walnut Stain ink. The frame was cut out and sponged with Old Paper Distress ink. It was adhered with dimensionals first on a Vanilla Oval, then on a scalloped Chocolate chip oval that had been sponged with Walnut Stain ink. Both ovals were cut with Petite Oval Nestabilities. Kaisercraft Pearl Pearls were added all over the card to finish it off.

For the inside of the card I cut a Chocolate Chip strip with Jumbo Scallop Borderabilities. That was adhered under a 1 3/8″ x 4 5/8″ strip of Laundry Line paper. That was stitched to a 4 5/8″ square of Vanilla cardstock. Prima Flowers with a Recollection Brad center finish off the card.

Have a wonderful day! Hugs and smiles

I miss the beach!

Challenge, Copics, Die-namics, Nestabilities, Our Craft Lounge 16 Responses »

May 242010

Every time I see a card made with OCL’s Treasured Friend set I get a bit home sick for the beach in Destin. I LOVED going there and was dazzled every time by the gorgeous white sand and beautiful turquoise water. I made this card for last Friday’s OCL’s sketch challenge as well as Friday’s Free For All challenge on SCS.

For this card I stamped the oval image in Rich Cocoa Memento Ink on Gina K.’s Pure Luxury Ivory cardstock, cut it out with Classic Oval Nestabilities and colored with Copic Markers (E00, E02, E41, E43, Y26, Y28, R00, R02, R81, R83, BG01, BG02, BG11). It was then layered on another Ivory oval, cut with the next size up die. Next is a piece of Kraft cardstock cut with Label 13 Nestabilities. I left the die on the cardstock and sponged it first with Vintage Photo, then with Walnut Stain Distress inks. On top of that I stamped the sand dollar image in Frayed Burlap.

The card base is a 4 1/4″ x 11″ piece of Kraft cardstock folded in half. The edges of the front as well as the inside were sponged first with Vintage Photo, then Walnut Stain Distress Ink. Once the ink dried, the edges of the card were sanded to show some of the Kraft cardstock. A 3 3/4″ x 5″ piece of Ducks in a Row Patterned Paper was distressed and stitched to a distresssed 3 15/16″ x 5 3/16″ piece of Gina K. Pure Luxury Ivory cardstock. Those layers were adhered to the card base.

Another piece of Ivory cardstock was embossed with Cuttlebug’s Textile Texture embossing folder, then cut with Label 8 Nestabilities. It was cut down a bit and stitched to a Kraft cardstock Label 8 die cut, which had the edges sponged with Vintage Photo and Walnut Stain Distress ink.

The sentiment is also from Treasured friends. It was stamped in Rich Cocoa Memento Ink on Ivory cardstock, cut out with Petite Oval Nestabilitiesand colored with Copic Markers (E 41, BG11, BG01, BG02). The flower was created by using a basting stitch on the top of the Lace, gatherering it up as far as it went and stitching the ends together. The flower was adhered with Scor-Tape and topped with a Bo Bunny Button.

To finish off the cards I added a three Pearl Kaisercraft Pearls in each corner.

For the inside of the card a 1 3/8″ x 3 15/16″ piece of Ducks in a Row Patterned Paper was distressed, layered on a piece of Kraft cardstock that had been sponged and cut with Scalloped Scallop Die-namics and stitched to a 3 15/16″ x 5 3/16″ piece of Ivory cardstock. A sand dollar image was stamped with Rich Cocoa Memento Ink on the lower right of the patterned paper.

Thanks for stopping by. Have a wonderful day! Hugs and smiles