Fly

I have spent much of this week recovering from last weekend's hard drive crash, so I'm a little behind in some of my posting here.

I made this card for the Color Throwdown (the colors were Stampin' UP!'s Bordering Blue, Elegant Eggplant and Barely Banana) from last Wednesday, but didn't get it posted in time to participate. I also used the sketch from last Friday's Cupcake Challenge (TECC70), and now that they run through Friday, I'm just squeaking this in on time for that!

The sentiment stamp, the 'fly' stamp and the butterfly corner flourish are from The Angel Company and the butterfly trail is from Hero Arts. The butterflies were punched using two different Martha Stewart punches and gemstones were added to each for their bodies. The ribbon is from Martha Stewart, too. The patterned papers are from the Memory Box Poppyfinch collection and the card stocks are the three Stampin' UP! colors from the color throwdown challenge.

Hope your week is going better than mine! I did have the opportunity to go see the Jersey Boys show this week and it was terrific. If you have the chance to see it, I highly recommend it.

Have a great weekend and thanks for looking!

It's a triple!

I really enjoy playing along with some of the challenges out there, but I have to admit that if I try to combine too many of them with one card, I get a bit overwhelmed. Plus, there are so many out there, it's hard to keep all the challenges straight. At any rate, I was able to combine THREE challenges in one card, so I'm feeling pretty good about it!

I started with the color challenge over at Creative Belli Blog - Apricot Appeal, Certainly Celery and Cameo Coral. Then there was the FTTC15 Timeless Tuesday challenge over at Flourishes - make a birthday card. So I sat down with my new Sweet Pea set and the three colors of paper and tried to find some patterned paper to use and I found the perfect piece - Lavish from Fancy Pants' Aged Florals line. Once I colored the image, I had all the components, but how to put it together? Then along came Taylor's Friday Cupcake Challenge, which was the perfect sketch for all my elements. Once all of that was out of the way, everything came together pretty quickly, although I had to fudge on the sketch a little with the placement of my flower to make it balance out.

The sentiment is from Flourishes Flourished Word Set and was cut out using a Spellbinder's Ribbon Tag Trio die. While I had it, the butterfly and my Sweet Pea image in their respective dies, I airbrushed them first with a pale yellow Copic marker and then with a pale yellow-red marker around the edges. I matted my floral image on a scalloped circle of Cameo Coral, then a circle of Apricot Appeal and then a Certainly Celery Labels Three layer.

For my scalloped edge layer, I decided to use my new Martha Stewart Cornice border punch. But a single layer of it seemed too boring, so I used it to cut a layer of each of the three colors of card stock and then stacked them on top of each other. It was still missing something, and then I spied my jar of Sweet Pea Flower Soft - how appropriate! So, I ran a layer of glue along the Cornice border and added some Flower Soft.

For the final touches, I pulled out my Martha Stewart frond punch and punched a couple of fronds out of Certainly Celery, and layered them under my flower and added a button with some Scrapper's Floss tied in a bow. A couple of Dew Drops in the corners of my Labels Three mat and a few of Taylor's Tiny Twinkles for the butterfly's body and you're done!

Sorry for being so long-winded - thanks for hanging in there with me! Have a great weekend!

Happy Easter Basket

I made this card to play along with this weekend's Cupcake Challenge over at Taylored Expressions. The basket of flowers, Happy Easter sentiment and chicks are from Flourishes' Signs of Spring set. I colored the images with Copic markers and added a little Sweet Pea Flower Soft to the hyacinths in the basket. I stamped the two chicks separately, cut them out and popped them up with some foam squares.

The image was cut out using my Labels Two Nestabilities and I used my Stampin' UP! Really Rust marker to add some dots around the edge of the main panel. The flower is from Stampin' UP! and was airbrushed with a Copic marker to match the mat color. I topped it with an orange button, tied with some Scrapper's Floss. All the papers are from Basic Grey's Marrakesh 6x6 paper pad.

Here's a close-up of the Flower Soft. It's pretty neat stuff and adds some nice texture and interest to flower images.

That's about it for this card. Hope you had a nice weekend and that your week is getting off to a good start!

Thanks for stopping by!

I'm Baaaaaaack.....

Hello, it's me.....the bad blogger.....I'm back after my trip to the Craft and Hobby Association (CHA) trade show and a two-day bout with a nasty migraine. This was my first experience at CHA and it was quite overwhelming. There is so much to see and do at the show that it's impossible to see and do it all. I was so engrossed in it all that I didn't get many pictures, unfortunately.

The first day there, I had a class with Suze Weinberg, called Melt Art Workshop. I have owned all the equipment and supplies for the techniques we learned for over a year and had never taken them out of their packaging, so this class was a great introduction. Here is the finished product - a Grungeboard book that we painted with Ranger Metallic Paint Dabbers. To that, we added a Grungeboard flourish, some rub-ons and the three pieces of melt art that we created:

During the class, Suze noticed the butterfly necklace I was wearing and insisted on getting a mold of it, so here is a picture of Suze, me, my necklace and her mold of it!

One booth where I spent quite a bit of time gawking was the Ranger booth. They had great demos and make-and-takes, but there was always a line for the make-and-takes, so I didn't bother. I did get a front row space watching the incomparable Tim Holtz doing some demos of his new Grunge paper and other products, and I finally remembered to get out my camera and snap a few shots:

And last but not least, I had the opportunity to spend about 20 minutes talking to Debbie Olson, one of my absolute favorite bloggers. Here we are at the make and take at the Just Rite Stampers booth:

So, it was a great experience, in spite of the fact that I had a cold. Thank you to Laetitia and Tonya from Scrap Chic Boutique for letting me tag along with them to the show - you ladies are the best!

And, while I was at the show, my sister had a birthday. Here's the card I made for her:

This is Sassy Suzie from Stampin' UP! I've had this set for about a year and it had never seen any ink, so it was high time. And since she is my OLDER sister, it seemed like a good occasion to use this set!! I used Taylor's sketch from January 16th (TECC51) for the layout.

The image and the first part of the sentiment were stamped on Papertrey Ink Stamper's Select and colored with Copic markers. I colored the edge with a purple Copic marker to match Suzie's top. The second part of the sentiment was cut out with my double ended ribbon dies from Spellbinders and then airbrushed with a Copic marker while still in the die. The background paper is some fun scalloped-edged paper from American Crafts.

I added some Stickles for her necklace and earrings to give her a bit of bling! The three lavender strips are embossed leaf paper from The Paper Company. I added black brads on the ends of the strips and put it all together. Pretty simple, but fun. And a good dose of purple for someone who loves it.

Sorry I've been out of commission for so long, thanks for bearing with me! I will do better this week, I promise! Thanks for looking!

Taylor's Cupcake Challenge and Tim Holtz Mask

This card was made using the sketch for Friday's Taylor's Cupcake Challenge. I needed to make a card using the Tim Holtz Flourish mask, so I used it to make the background for this card.

I thought I was being really clever when I pulled the mask off its original sheet, which is the mask material adhered to a transparency. There was a lot of unused area around the flourish, so I decided to try cutting my own mask in that space. I ran four different Spellbinder's dies through my Wizard three separate times and it still didn't cut through completely. I used a craft knife to finish off the cuts, which didn't work too well on one of the shapes and I ended up throwing it away.

I used the three remaining 'masks' to make my three elements on the left side of the card instead of the squares that were called for in the sketch. As you can see by the top flourish, the adhesive on my 'homemade' masks wasn't nearly as strong as it was on the real mask on the right side, so some of my ink ended up under the mask. Oh well, live and learn. I hate wasting things, but in this case, it just wasn't usable. I threw the makeshift masks away as soon as I finished this card!

The real mask, on the other hand, works great and was fun to use. I sponged two different shades of Distress inks over the masks to give that vintage look. The Santa postage stamp image was also stamped with Distress Ink and cut out with my postage stamp decoritive edged scisors. The edges of all the layers were sponged with Distress Inks. I topped the card off with that fun reindeer ribbon - I don't know who makes it, but I love it and only have two reindeer left!

Hope you've had a great weekend. I managed to make six cards, which is a lot for me, so it's been a good one for me! Thanks for looking.

Card Details:
Card stock: Papertrey Ink Kraft
Patterned paper: The Paper Studio - holly; red check - unknown
Stamp: The Paper Source
Ink: Ranger Distress - Antique Linen, Frayed Burlap, Vintage Photo
Misc.: ribbon, decorative edge scissors, Tim Holtz Flourish Mask

Joy

This card was made using Taylor's Cupcake Challenge sketch from last Friday.

The card base is kraft card stock from Papertrey Ink and the three paper strips are the same paper I used in the last card - Glitz Design Kringle Flourish.

The wreaths are the center of an Outlines stamp and were colored in with my Copic markers. They are mounted using foam tape on 1 inch circles of Core'dinations Black Magic, which I lightly sanded to make the red show through the black.

The joy sticker is from Me and My Big Ideas. Three little bows were added on the left side to finish it off. A very simple little card.

Hope you have a good Monday! Thanks for looking!

Card Details:

Patterned paper: Glitz Design - Kringle Flourish

Card stock: Papertrey Ink's Kraft card stock; Core'dinations Black Magic

Stamp: Outlines

Sticker: Me and My Big Ideas

Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black

Markers: Copic

Ribbons: Making Memories; JoAnn

Happy Pumpkin Day.....again!

This card was made for Taylor's Cupcake Challenge for this weekend. This was a fun sketch, although it always throws me a bit of a curve ball to figure out which papers to use and where each one should go. After trying several combinations including additional pattern papers from the BasicGrey Ambrosia collection, I decided to limit it to just these three as it was getting a bit busy.

The pumpkin was stamped on some rust colored cardstock so I didn't have to color it. I did add a little yellow Spica pen glitter to his eyes, nose and mouth, as well as on top of the sentiment. Each of the squares was cut out with my Nestabilities, as were their scalloped mats. I used my perfect layers to cut out the mat for the sentiment. The center square, the pumpkin and the sentiment are all adhered with foam tape to make them stand out a bit. Add a bow and bam, you're done!

Hope you're having a nice weekend! I'm definitely on the mend from my cold and am looking forward to a busy and productive week that will hopefully include a little stamping and coloring time. Have a great week!

Card Details:
Patterned Paper: BasicGrey Ambrosia
Cardstock: Prism Desert Coral Dark and Kraft
Stamps: Repeat Impressions
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black
Ribbon: EK Success Overtone House
Misc.: Nestabilities, Spica yellow pen

Butterfly Wishes

This is my entry for Taylor's Cupcake Challenge this weekend, although I didn't use a cupcake image....I needed to make a card for Scrap Chic Boutique using the butterfly die and the patterned paper, so this sketch worked well.

I finally got around to using the CrafT Products Metallic Rub-ons that I bought at a stamp show a year ago....they are very fun and I'll be sure to use them some more. I used them on the embossed butterfly and I think it really makes the textures pop.

There's not a whole lot to this card (I seem to say that a lot....). I stamped a flourish in the bottom left and upper right corners because I have a hard time with white space. All of the swirls in the flourish stamps were colored over with my clear Spica marker, as were the purple swirls in the patterned paper. I also scribbled it all over the butterfly - I wish all the sparkle showed up in the photo.

The mats were all cutout with my Nestabilities. A little bling in the center of the butterfly and that's the card. Thanks for coming by. Hope you have a great week!

Card Details:
Paper: Glitz Design Gigi Swirls; green, purple and pale yellow card stock
Stamps: Autumn Leaves Elegant Flourishes; Savvy Stamps - sentiment
Bling - Heidi Swapp Pink Jewels
Marker - Copic Spica clear
Ink - Ranger Adirondack Eggplant
Metallic Rub-ons - Craf T Products