PPRS March Sketch Challenge and C4C129

I made a card for this month's sketch challenge over at Prickley Pear Rubber Stamps and my card is also for this week's Crazy 4 Challenges (C4C129) challenge, which is to use owls on your card, and the Paper Dolls' Challenge #46 - Spring Bling. 

I used images from Prickley Pear's Birdcage set and also used the coordinating Birdcage die.  I stamped the birdcage using Versamark ink and embossed it with gold embossing powder.  I hung the birdcage from the limb from the set and added a bunch of pink rhinestones to the flower centers and the feet of the cage.  The owl is popped up on a foam square.

The sentiment I used for the inside is from Impression Obsession and I used a little scrap of the patterned paper to finish it off.


Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Anniversary!

Today is our 26th wedding anniversary and this is the card I whipped up for Tim.  The bunnies, sentiment and scalloped circle border stamps are from Papertrey Ink (Daily Designs and Daily Designs Sentiments).  For the second card in a row, no patterned paper was used in the making of this card!  The background image is Impression Obsession's Ornate Floral Cover-A-Card stamp, which I stamped using SU Riding Hood Red.  AND I found a way to incorporate a little satin ribbon on a guy card by running it through the scalloped circle mat and a heart shaped ribbon slide!

This card qualifies for the current Papertrey Paper Dolls challenge #38, which is to make a wedding or anniversary card.

Thanks for stopping by!

Belli Challenge #96 - Sketch and Something That Moves!

It's time for another Belli Challenge! This week's challenge is a combination - a sketch challenge, plus something that moves.  In keeping with the Belli philosophy of using long-held items from you stash, I pulled out this ready-made shaker box with the palm tree and waves in the background.  I have had this shaker box from Magic Scraps for probably 5 years...from back in the days when I thought I was going to be a scrapbooker! 

I tossed in a fish charm and starfish and sand dollar buttons and then added some sand to make up my moving element.  Here's a closer shot of it:

I stamped the sentiment, from Impression Obsession, directly on the background paper, which is from Webster's Pages Seaside Retreat 6x6 paper pad.  I added a strip of striped paper, also from this collection, leftover from a previous card and layered it with some fish ribbon from American Crafts.  The ribbon and the shaker box were both white, so I toned them down by sponging them with some Old Paper and Vintage Photo Distress Inks.

For the inside of my card, I used a scrap of wave paper from my stash and added one of the Webster's Pages Journaling Cards, also from Seaside Retreat.  I stamped my sentiment, from Papertrey Ink's Birthday Basics set, directly on the Journaling Card.  I attached them both to a piece of ivory card stock that I had cut the top and bottom edges of using an EK Success border punch.

We'd love for you to play along!  All you have to do is make a card or other project using this sketch and include something that moves.  You can make a shaker card like I did, or a spinner or waterfall card, or you can use an image that appears to be moving.  Most importantly, use something old and neglected out of your stash! 

To play along, link your project over on today's Belli Challenge post.  Make sure you also head over there to check out what the rest of the Design Team made using the sketch and something that moves!

 Thanks for stopping by!

Who Loves You?

This silly card was made using four little owl stamps, from the Paper Source, Impression Obsession, Inkadinkado and Sassafras Lass (Oliver and Friends).  I used the Inchie Inklings Inchie Card Sketch #3 for my layout and stamped each owl on an Inchie square, colored them with Copic markers and then matted them with two different shades of green card stock. 

The patterned paper and matching ribbon are from Adornit's Fern Collection - Owls All Around.  The sentiment is from Cornish Heritage Farm's U R A Hoot set.  Pretty simple, fun little card!

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Birthday Wine Tag

Happy Thursday!  A good friend of ours, and fellow wine lover, had a birthday this past weekend, and since he already has EVERYthing he needs, we usually give him a bottle of wine.  Instead of making a regulation birthday card for him this year, I made this wine bottle tag using my new Grape Scene stamp from Stampendous.  I colored the scene with Copic markers, and paired it with my favorite Graphic 45 Botanicabella paper (this one is called Eden's Symphony).   The card stock is Papertrey Ink's Terracotta Tile.

For the back side of the tag, I used three different stamps.  The top sentiment is from Impression Obsession, and the other two stamps are from Papertrey Ink's Birthday Basics set.  I cut a leftover strip of the check side of the Eden Symphony paper using a Martha Stewart border punch and then layered a strip of the reverse side of it on top.  The narrow strip at the top is the leftover piece from using the border punch - waste not, want not!

Hope you're having a good week!  Thanks for stopping by!

Music Valentine

Happy Monday! Hope you had a nice weekend! Last weekend I picked up this Impression Obsession Music background stamp and whipped up this card with it when I got home. I didn't get around to posting it last week and then on Saturday I saw that Our Creative Corner's challenge for this week is music, so I'm glad I waited!

Pretty simple - I stamped the music in SU's Riding Hood Red on some textured card stock and then added the matted patterned paper layer. I added some gold beads to each of the scallops on the bottom border, a row of heart ribbon along the top, the sentiment layer and a couple of chipboard hearts that I edged with a gold paint pen. I added a couple of heart shaped rhinestones to the hearts and that's about it!

Thanks for looking and enjoy your week! Please stop back by on Wednesday for another Belli Challenge!

Happy New Year!

Well, another year has flown by! I hope it's been a good one for you!

This is a birthday card I made recently for one of our wine lover friends, but it could easily work as a New Year's card, too (with a different sentiment inside, of course)! The small grape cluster is from Rubber Stampede and the wine vine stamp is from Impression Obsession. The patterned papers are from Papertrey Ink. The images were colored with Copic markers.

Here's a peek at the inside of the card. The sentiment is also from Impression Obsession. The scallop border punch is from Stampin' UP.

Thank you all for following my little blog this year. I really appreciate your support and nice comments! Have a wonderful and safe New Year's and I'll see you back here in 2010!!

Happy New Year!

Happy Birthday

Last week I started out planning to make a card for the Impression Obsession challenge, which was to make a white card. Unfortunately, I ended up using a sentiment from Endless Creations, so this card didn't qualify for the challenge, but at least I achieved my primary goal, which was to make a birthday card for my sister-in-law.

The card base is from a DCWV Box of Cards, the card stock is from Stampin' Up and the inks I used were all Versamagic Chalk inks. The Wreaths and Garlands set I used is acrylic, so I was able to shape the main garland image in a circle on my acrylic block and then add the two toned flowers around it. The stamped panel was cut out using a Blossom Nestabilities die, then mounted to a scalloped circle. I added a Swiss Dot embossed panel in the center to tie my pink silk ribbon around, then mounted the stamped image on top of that and added the bow.

Hope you had a Happy Birthday, Melissa! Sorry this was late.

Enjoy your week - thanks for stopping by!

Papertrey Ink WCMD Challenges

Good morning! Happy hump day! It's been a dreary week here so far and it has just started raining again.

Papertrey Ink issued four challenges on Saturday for World Card Making Day. I managed to make cards for two of the four challenges. My first card was for the third challenge, which had a theme of India, including gold, sequins, jewels, etc. This foil background paper from SEI's Moravia collection reminded me of this vine image from PTI's With Sympathy set. I stamped it in Versamark ink and heat embossed it with American Crafts' Gold Bling embossing powder. The flowers and the butterfly were punched out of copper foil, stamped with Versamark and also heat embossed with the gold Bling embossing powder. Gold beads were added to the centers of each.

The second card was for the fourth challenge, which was to use Dotted Outlines and/or Masking using an Australian theme. Since I am a SCUBA diver, when I think of Australia, I think of the Great Barrier Reef and fish. I used PTI's Polka Dot Basics set to outline my fish from Impression Obsession and to create the polka dot background panel. I masked the fish image to creat the polka dot outline and I used a white gel pen to do the dots at the top and bottom of the main background panel. I added three teardrop shaped dew drops in the upper left corner for water drops and to balance my sentiment.

Thanks for looking!

Happy Mother's Day from the cats...

We are very fortunate to have wonderful neighbors who take care of our cats for us when we are away. Since they are surrogate 'parents' for them, the cats give them Mother's Day and Father's Day cards each year... ;-) This card is this year's Mother's Day card. The stamp was perfect to depict our three cats, who all have coloring that is black, gray or a combination thereof.

One of the fun things about the Krafty Kats group I belong to is that each month we take turns putting together a kit of papers and embellishments for each member and the next month we have 'show and tell' for all the cards and projects that were made using the kit supplies. There is usually so much in each kit that we end up with lots of leftover scraps and embellishments, so I'm trying to use them up. The black and white components of this card are all from one of our previous kits.

Our cats are all females, and since this is a Mother's Day card, I added some pink accents. I also used last week's sketch from Splitcoast Stamper's sketch challenge. I don't know who the patterned paper is from, but the floral papers are double sided, which makes them good for this kind of layout. I used a Martha Stewart punch to cut the edges of the black and white vertical strips, then adhered them to the floral panel and wrapped some grosgrain ribbon around the seam. I then layered a black flower sticker strip on top of the ribbon.

The cat image was cut out using an oval Nestabilities die, then I doodled some circles around the edges and colored them in with a pink Copic Atyou Spica marker. I then matted it on black and pink layers that were cut out using the Labels Three Nestabilites. Each of the mats also has doodling on the borders. The flowers were matted on a pink scalloped circle to make them stand out more and a black and white flower button was affixed to the center with a pink embroidery floss bow.

I added some of the same elements to the inside of the card. I matted the corners with the polka dot scalloped paper and added the pink matted floral paper panel. The sentiment was stamped using a pink marker and then I went over it with the pink Spica marker to give it a little sparkle.

It's a busy card, but it was fun to make and I used up quite a bit of the leftover kit! Hope your week is going well. Thanks for looking!

SC215 - Best Fishes!

This card was made using last week's sketch from Splitcoast Stampers. The fish stamp is from Impression Obsession, and I colored it using a new product I recently bought, called Shimmerz paints and Blingz. They are water-based paints that are very shimmery and come in 35 colors. I started out purchasing four colors, so my palette was a bit limited, but I thought they would be perfect for working with my fish stamps. They are fun to work with, so I'm sure I'll be getting some more colors soon!

In addition to filling in the stamped image, I used it to paint the edges of my card and both of the Nestabilities Labels Two panels. I also used some blue Taylored Expressions' Tiny Twinkles for the fish's bubbles and added a few Dew Drops in the bottom left corner of the card to balance it out. The patterned paper is from my stash and the two shades of teal card stock are from Prism.

That's about it. Hope you're having a good week so far! Thanks for looking!

Best Fishes

This is a birthday card I made for a friend, who is also a SCUBA diver and cat lover. I used the sketch from the World Card Making Day sketch challenge over at Splitcoast Stampers.

This is the first time I've used this stamp and I just love it. I also love the Baja Breeze color from Stampin' UP!, which is what I used for the mats for each of the four top panels, the ribbon and the ink. The patterned papers were from my stash.

It's a simple card, but I liked the colors together.

Thanks for stopping by!

Card Details:
Patterned Paper: Scenic Route
Card stock: Stampin' UP!
Stamps: Great Impressions - scuba kitty; Impression Obsession - sentiment
Ink: Stampin' UP! Baja Breeze
Ribbon: Stampin' UP! Baja Breeze

Thinking of you

Once again I find myself in need of a sympathy card - too many of them lately. This one is for one of my clients whose 30 year old wife died unexpectedly a week ago. Very sad.

This photo is of the front of the card and the envelope, which was stamped on the front, and on the back flap, to match the card.

I received a box of supplies from Stampin' UP! while I was out of town last week and was able to immediately put them to use on this card. All of the paper and the inks I used are from Stampin' UP! but the stamps are from Repeat Impressions and Impression Obsession.

I started out by stamping the Foliage in Old Olive on the card panel then I stamped the sentiment using Really Rust. I love the Stampin' UP! names - they are almost all alliterations. The papers are from the Haiku and Muirfield paper packs.

Here's a shot of the inside of the card:

Originally I only had the larger of the two strips of green paper across the top, until I accidentally got some of the Really Rust ink on it, so then I covered that up with the striped paper....most of my cards are an exercise in fixing a mistake of some sort...

Anyway, I really like these colors combined with this stamp set and will definitely use it again. Oh, and I used the sketch from last week's Sketch Challenge over at Splitcoast Stampers.

Hope you had a nice weekend! Thanks for stopping by!

Card Details:

Designer Paper: Stampin' UP! Haiku and Muirfield

Card stock: Stampin' UP! Really Rust and Old Olive
Stamps: Repeat Impressions (Foliage Positive and Thinking of You) ; Impression Obsession (With Sympathy)

Inks: Stampin' UP! Really Rust and Old Olive

Other: The Robin's Nest Dew Drops

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

Some more design team work

Here are a couple of other cards I've made for my current design team assignment, which was SEI's Poppy collection.

The first card was made using the Pelican paper. It reminded me of ocean waves, so I thought a fish stamp was appropriate:


Patterned Paper – SEI – Poppy – Pelican
Ribbon – SEI
Stamps – Impression Obsession (fish); Inkadinkadoo (sentiment)
Inks – VersaMagic Chalk Ink Dew Drop – Ocean Depth
Other - Copic Markers; Spellbinders Ribbon tag; Dew Drops – Water; Marvy Scalloped Punch; Ranger Stickles

The second card was made using both sides of the Rattan paper, which is the same paper on the card from my last post:

Patterned Paper – SEI – Poppy – Rattan
Stamps – Paper Salon – Bloom Builder
Inks – Ranger Distress Inks – Tattered Straw; VersaMagic Dew Drop Chalk Ink – Ocean Depth

Other – Spellbinders Nestabilities

Thanks for looking!

Be gentle....

This is my first time blogging....please be gentle!

I have no idea what I'm doing or where this is going to go, but wanted to start a blog to post photos of my card creations.

My adventures in papercrafting all started when I decided to create a scrapbook of a trip we took with some friends to Oregon's wine country during Thanksgiving week of 2004. I thought it would be a great Christmas gift for them for that year..... I finally finished it and gave it to them in May of the following year, but by then I was hooked on paper crafting. Gradually my interest in scrapbooking gave way to the more instant gratification of card making and stamping.

I am currently on the card design team for my local scrapbook store - Scrap Chic Boutique in Decatur, Georgia. It has been a great challenge for me and I'm enjoying it immensely.

So, without further ado, here is my first card, which I made as one of my design team assignments for Scrap Chic Boutique:

Details:
Designer paper: SEI Poppy Rattan
Scalloped mat: Marco's Paper Stardream Stationery
Inks: Ranger Distress Inks - Tattered Straw,
Colorbox Q Cat's Eyes - Peacock
Stamps: Flower - Paper Salon - Bloom Builder; Sentiment - Impression Obsession
Other: Dew Drops - The Robin's Nest; Ribbon - JoAnn's; Jump Ring - Tim Holtz; Silver Leafing pen - Krylon; acrylic tag

Thanks for stopping by!