Sunday, August 24, 2008

Merci, Thanks and Thank YOU!

I have so much going on at the moment and I'm behind on everything.... The fun thing about being on a design team is that you get to work with a lot of great, new products. The down side to being on a design team is that you have to produce things with those products.... I'm behind on my assignments for both my design teams, so I ended up making a card this morning that includes several things I needed to use. It's a card I made for Scrap Chic Boutique, using two different Basic Grey papers and a stamp wheel - a three-fer! I decided that I would jump start my design by using Beate's sketch for this weekend. Plus I managed to use a few things from my stash that were collecting dust, so all-in-all it was a pretty successful endeavor!

Hope you have a great week. I'm going to be really busy with work through Wednesday, and then we are taking the rest of the week off to spend the holiday weekend with my mom, who will be having a birthday later this month. I'm looking forward to having a few days to relax, eat some good food (my mom is a GREAT cook) and spend time with family.

Hope you have a great week! Thank YOU for looking!

Card Details:
Patterned Paper - Basic Grey - Granola (Grain) and Ambrosia (Smoke)
Solid paper - Marco's Paper - Stardream Stationery
Stamp - Roller Doodles - Glitz Designs
Flowers - Heidi Swapp Ghost Flower; self-adhesive felt flower - Queen and Company
Paint - Making Memories - Cornflower and Steel
Ribbon - Making Memories
Ink - Versacolor Polar Blue
Dew Drops - The Robin's Nest

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Cat with Kittens

This is a card I did for Repeat Impressions featuring this beautiful mama kitty with her two cute little babies. The image was colored with Copic markers. I recently picked up the Copic airbrush system and played with it on this card. It takes a bit of practice, I have to admit...The airbrushing was done with multiple markers, but I'm afraid I don't recall which colors. I cut the image and the sentiment out with my Nestabilities and then left the die in place while I airbrushed the background to leave the white border.

There's not much to it, otherwise - Kraft card stock base, pattern paper background (I liked the Oriental theme of the paper with the Siamese kitty), some satin ribbon and a few dew drops and you're done!

Thanks for stopping by!

Card Details:
Pattern paper - Basic Grey - Lilykate - Bamboo
Stamps - Repeat Impressions
Markers - Copic
Ink - Memento Rich Cocoa
Other - ribbon, Copic airbrush system, Nestabilities, The Robin's Nest Dew Drops.

Monday, August 18, 2008

Happy Birthday, Leigh Ann!

This is a birthday card I made for a very special someone. It's for my niece's 15th birthday, which is today. This card is actually a three-fer - it's Leigh Ann's birthday card, it's my submission for the July Inchie Inkling challenge and I used the Stampin Diva's sketch from a couple of weeks ago.

I used half of a 12x12 sheet of DCWV scalloped paper as my card base. All of the other papers are from Basic Grey's Oh Baby Girl collection. The glittery striped paper I used for the butterfly is from Making Memories Garden Party collection. The focal image is Lockhart Stamp Company's Itty Bitty Lavender. The sentiment and the frames around the lavender image were cut out using my Nestabilities and I also used my ticket corner punch on the sentiment. Copics were used to color the lavender image and then I highlighted the flowers, stems and bows with my Spica markers for a little extra shine. The butterfly was created with my Martha Stewart butterfly punch and I added a few self-adhesive rhinestones down the center to create a body for her. I finished it off with a few butterfly and flower brads.

Here's my favorite picture of Leigh Ann and me, back when she was just three or so. I love the expression on her cute little pudgy face. She is growing up to be a terrific, athletic, smart and beautiful girl. Niece Leigh Ann, I hope you like your card and I hope you have a wonderful birthday!

Hope you all have a great week - I'm just happy to be spending it at home. This has been a travel-filled summer for me and I'm weary of being away. Hopefully I'll have some time during the week to make some new cards and post them here. Then maybe Jenny will stop nagging me...

Thanks for stopping by!

Card Details:
Cardbase - DCWV
Patterned Paper - Basic Grey; Making Memories
Stamps - Lockhart Stamp Company (lavender); Stampabilities (sentiment)
Ribbon - May Arts
Brads - Making Memories
Punches - Martha Stewart; Stampin' UP!
Rhinestones - My Mind's Eye
Markers - Copic; Copic Spica
Ink - Versa Magic Chalk Ink - Eggplant; Memento Tuxedo Black

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Home is where the heart is...

This is a really simple little card that came together quickly. The card base is a ready made notecard from Amuse Artstamps. The stamps are from Repeat Impressions. The chair was stamped on some paper from the Basic Grey Oh Baby Girl collection. The layers were cut out and embossed with my Nestabilities.

That's about it....just wanted to post a little somethin', somethin' from the road!

Hope you're having a good week. Mine's been ridiculously busy. And the Olympics are making me stay up way too late at night. Tonight I'm going to head to bed 'early'.
Thanks for coming by!

Card Details:
Card base - Amuse Artstamps
Stamps - Repeat Impressions
Ric Rac - Cosmo Cricket
Designer Paper - Basic Grey
Charm - Art Parts

Sunday, August 10, 2008

With Sympathy

Sympathy cards are always a bit tough to do, especially when the recipient is a male. Sadly, I've had to do 3 of them this summer for co-workers and a client. This one I whipped up this morning before I headed out of town. The background is made up of several images from Cornish Heritage Farms' Nature's Silhouettes set. The different images were randomly stamped using a variety of inks and colors. The sentiment and its border were cut out and embossed with my long rectangle Nestabilities.

Not much to it, but hopefully it will provide a bit of comfort to the recipient.

Thanks for stopping by! Have a good week!

Card Details:
Stamps - Cornish Heritage Farms
Inks - Clearsnap Colorbox Chalk Ink - Burnt Sienna; Tsukineko Versamagic - Wheat, Aloe Vera, Pumpkin Spice; Tsukineko Brilliance - Cosmic Copper
Other - Spellbinders Nestabilities

Thursday, August 7, 2008

You take the cupcake!

Here is another card using the same Hambly overlay I used on this card. Let me just tell you, it was a bear to score that transparency and get a good, tight fold on it. It didn't want to stay closed! I've recently jumped on the Scor-Pal bandwagon and it did a good job with the scoring, it's just that the transparency is pretty thick.

It's a pretty simple card, although you do have to give a little thought to setting it up so that it looks good from all sides. For the inside, I cut a piece of plain white paper, just slightly smaller than the cupcake paper on the front of the card, so it wouldn't show from the front.

I played around with another inchie for this card. The frosting was made using Liquid Applique. A little bit of red Crystal Laquer for the cherry on top, some pink glitter and no-hole beads for the 'sprinkles' and your cupcake is complete and looks good enough to eat....almost... ;-) The best part about this cupcake is there is no mess to clean up in the kitchen and no extra pounds on the midsection!

Thanks for stopping by - you take the cupcake!

Card Details:
Patterned Paper – GCD Studio
Transparency – Hambly
Stamps – Lockhart – Cupcake and border; Impression Obsession - Sentiment
Inks – Adirondack Pitch Black
Markers – Copic and Copic Spica

Other – Spellbinders Nestabilities; Liquid Appliqué – Marvy Uchida; Crystal Lacquer; Ribbon; Glitter – Amy’s Magic ; Glass no hole beads

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Can we get your vote??

On Friday, Tim came home from work and told me I needed to go up the driveway and around the corner to the church and then come back. He had this very sheepish look on his face, and while I hated to burst his bubble, I didn't have time to go do that. Come to find out, the reason for his request was this:

Our very funny neighbor, who obviously has too much time on his hands, had posted this sign at the beginning of our street, in preparation for today's runoff election in our county. We are not sure which one of us is running, or what it is we are running for (Tim assumed it was for dog catcher), but we do know that Chuck is the winner of the funniest neighbor contest.
Now, can we count on your vote?

Monday, August 4, 2008

Happy Day!

Happy Monday! I created this card for the store this weekend using a little more of the paper I used for the last card I posted. I also played with one of my new Lockhart Company inchie stamps. They are fun to color and go fairly quickly due to their small size, so they are good for coloring practice! I colored a white flower border strip with some chalk inks to get it to match the paper better.

One of the other items I was asked to use on a card for the store was the pink Heidi Swapp Chandelier Crystal that is hanging from the flower border with the sentiment attached. The sentiment was cut out with my new Stampin'UP! word punch, as were the border pieces for it. I cut the largest border piece with the punch and then cut a little off the end of the sentiment and the middle border piece to have them graduated.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope you have a happy day!

Card Details:
Patterned Paper – KI Memories Bloom Trellis
Solid Paper – Marco’s Paper – Stardreams Stationery
Stamps – Lockhart Stamp Company; Amuse Artstamps
Flower trim – Doodlebug Design paper frills
Inks – Memento Tuxedo Black; Colorbox Chalk inks – Amber Clay and Burnt Sienna
Markers – Copic Spica
Colored PencilsKoh-i-Noor

Other – Spellbinders Nestabilities – classic squares; Ranger - Yellow Stickles; word punch – Stampin’ UP!; Gamsol and paper stumps

Friday, August 1, 2008

A home without cats....

...is like a garden without flowers....
I love this sentiment and stamp. This is the first card for my first round of Repeat Impressions design team assignments. When I returned home last Friday from being on the road all week, I had a lovely package from Wendy with 28, count 'em 28, stamps with which to make cards. That's a LOT of stamps! So, this actually started out as a card for Scrap Chic Boutique, since this background paper is from my current assignment for the store, but after the card was finished and had a few emails with Wendy, I decided I need to send it to her because you really need to see it in real life to appreciate it - the picture doesn't do it justice. The finished card measures 6" x 6", which is a bit large for a 'normal' card anyway.

All of the flowers in the stamped image have been colored with Copic markers and then I used Copic's Spica glitter pens to add a touch of bling to them. It's impossible to get that really fine glitter to show up in a photo. I really love all the bright colors, which is not really my 'normal' style.

So if you head to a rubber stamp show in the future and Repeat Impressions has a booth there, look for this card because it is supposed to end up being displayed in the booth! Have a great weekend - I know I will since I'll be working on more cards! I've got a lot on my plate at the moment, including another card with this paper for Scrap Chic Boutique, but it's all fun!

Card details:
Patterned paper - KI Memories - Bloom Trellis
Card base - Basic Grey - Oh baby
Stamp - Repeat Impressions
Ribbon - SEI
Brads and eyelet - Making Memories
Markers - Copic
Ink - Memento Tuxedo Black