Paper Crafter's Library - designer spotlight

If you are looking for my post for day3 of Winnie & Walter's April/May release, please click here.

Guten Tag! I'm delighted to be in the spotlight over at Paper Crafter's Library today! If you haven't been there, you must check it out. There are tutorials, company and designer spotlights, and my favorite feature - the trend watch!

Here's a peek at the projects I created.

Wanna learn more about "ghost stamping"? I'd love it if you headed over to check out my post and have a look at all the other great inspiration to be found. Here's the link to the Paper Crafter's Library blog. Or you can follow their Pinterest boards.

Thanks for coming by.  Happy May Day Eve!

guest star at Winnie & Walter - premiere Addie's Garden

Have you arrived here from day three of premiere happenings for Winnie & Walter's April/May release?  If not, be sure to check out the stamp set and the beautiful projects The Talent and my co-guest star, Maya have created with it. Ready for some artsy floral stamps? They're all the rage these days.

Today Winnie & Walter are premiering - In Bloom: Addie's Garden.  Please take a moment to go see the full set here.

My first card combines my love for randomly-stamped backgrounds with sentiments heat embossed on black CS. The sentiment is from The Big, the Bold and Comfort.

I added some color to the blooms with watercolor pencils and my water brush. A few fussy cut vellum leaves add some dimension.

On the next card I finally tried the stamping-in-Antique-Linen-and-then-watercoloring technique. I've been so chicken, but when this cool leaf outline image jumped out at me from the set, I thought about creating a pattern with it. That idea became this sympathy card.

My pattern turned into a pond. And my "Pfingstrose" turned into a "Seerose"! Well, "a rose is a rose is a rose", right?  Once again, I created a sentiment using the wonderful set, The Big, the Bold and Comfort.

I stamped the leaf multiple times, flipping it around as I went. And then I grabbed some blue and purple watercolor paints. The real ones. In a tube. I'm happy with the result considering it was my first attempt. I enjoyed it so much that I heat embossed a few blooms and watercolored them too!

Including the hydrangea. I am a total sucker for the blue/purple ones. I buy one every year. And kill it over the winter. And have to buy a new one. Get the picture? This watercolored hydrangea adorns another sympathy card.

My stem is hand-drawn with a Versamarker.  I stamped the leaf with Versamark onto acetate and then stamped onto CS to get the mirror image.

I chose the words "sorry for your loss" from The Big, the Bold and Comfort adhered them to a lined acrylic block and stamped multiple times on my cardbase, using the lines on the block and my cutting mat to keep things straight. Kinda. I blended some Stormy Sky and Shaded Lilac Distress Inks onto the base to soften it. For a bit more interest I wrapped some gold thread around the stem.

One more cutaways card to sneak into this post. Using the fabulous leaves from Maggie's Roses.

And I stacked "prayers" from The Big, The Bold and Comfort cutaways with two black and one metallic light pink layer.

I'm entering these cards to the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge where it's Anything Goes this week.

Tomorrow I'll be sharing the last sets from Winnie & Walter's April/May release. They also happen to be my favorites ;)

guest star at Winnie & Walter - premiere Lola's Bouquet

If you're looking for my mixed media card for The Card Concept, please click here.

Back for day two as a guest star for the Winnie & Walter April/May release! If you missed day one you can find it here, and the Big Giveaway is here. Ready for some floral stamps?

Today it's about a stamp set created with Joni A. of The Talent - In Bloom: Lola's Bouquet.  Yay, Joni! It's a multi-step stamping set, you can see the full set here.

I created several cards. Here we go.

CAS. Me likey.

Pretty simple with masking. I stamped the sentiments from The Big, the Bold and Friends then nestled the vase from In Bloom: Lola's Bouquet into it. I masked the vase and stamped the blooms and their centers in black. Then I drew stems with a Sharpie. I replaced the mask with its negative and stamped all the dots (from Scenery: Big Bang Confetti) with yellow, red and blue inks. Voila!

Can you say Murano glass? There are actually teeny tiny dots in In Bloom: Lola's Bouquet which you could use for this technique too.

Simon Says Clean and Simple at the Wednesday Challenge blog. OK. I'm in!

Next, inspired by this pin, and using the roses from this set, I created this card.

Clustered the roses, some red, some pink and some left black and white. In a nod to the first Kate Spade inspired card I ever made, I decided to adhere the panel to a yellow base. Thus the embossed sentiment (from The Big, the Bold and Friends) in yellow too.

The strip of PP along the edge is B/W, (but glossy and reflecting the light goofy in the photo). I added a couple tiny pieces of B/W washi and a gold die cut heart to fill the empty bottom corner.

Ready for more? The next two were Maria-trying-to-think-outside-the-box. The first stamp in the set that actually caught my eye was the filler image that immediately made me think of dandelions. Maybe cuz it's that time of year again ;)

I stamped some of the bloom outlines in two shades of yellow on my creme cardbase. Then I watercolored a panel sky blue and created my meadow scene, mixing heat embossing and dye inks. The wafting seeds (headed for my yard, no doubt) are actually those three little dots you can see near the top middle of the set! Just love those little dots.

Another image I love is the one I've stamped in two-tone yellow in my meadow scene. Isn't that fabulous? I added a sentiment (will premiere on Friday) and a touch of washi and called it done.

Even further outta-da-box... did you notice the rectangular vase in the set? (There are over 50 stamps in this set, folks!)

I channeled my inner Mayuri and had a go at it. I was also inspired by Shirley B. and Darnell K. Can you guess how?

The sentiment is part Sugar Rush and part gotta-come-back-on-Friday . Yep, more individual words, but in a fabulous new font.

Channeled myself here. The solid red rectangles were stamped using the reverse of the vase stamp. The impression wasn't great although I had used some foam adhesive to fill in the hollow area of the rectangle when I applied it to my acrylic block. So I grabbed a star stamp and added a few stars to the red rectangles. Complementing the die cut stars from Big Bang Confetti cutaways.

News flash: my Cutaways arrived this morning so I ran to my Big Shot, grabbed the Fiction paper pad from Basic Grey and created these two cards.

I used the Audrey Cutaways for the scalloped edge mats and butterflies, In a Word: Hello and on the second card The Big, The Bold Friends.

Whew! If you stuck around til the end, vielen dank! If you're hungry for more, come back tomorrow for another lovely floral set.

guest designing at card concept 34

If you're looking for my post for Winnie & Walter's April/May release, please click here.

Are you up for another mixed media card for the gals over at The Card Concept? I've really enjoyed exercising my mixed media genes this month ;) Check out this sweet inspiration photo.

So what did I take away with me? A present, a tag, baker's twine, stripes, a rose hanging over the upper left corner of the photo... This is what I created.

No fully-loaded mixed media card this time, but rather a "cassy" one. CAS + messy = cassy.
I've still used mixed media - Glimmer Mist, watercolors, twinkling H2Os. And I've got techiques - dry embossing, heat embossing, watercoloring, splattering. And texture and dimension - dry embossing, heat embossing, twine, die and fussy cuts, and even a sentiment sticker.

Here's a closeup of the shimmer thanks to the turquoise Glimmer Mist splatters and the H2Os on the watercolored rose from STAMPlorations.

There were lots of lovely entries to the last challenge with its graphic photo. Hope to see just as many this time around too. Thanks for having me, Card Concept!

I'm joining in the Everything Goes challenge at Inspiration Journal and I'm hooking up to Simon Says Monday Challenge which is Anything Goes and also to the Wednesday Challenge where it's about Clean and Simple this week. I don't think it's written anywhere that mixed media cannot be CAS ;)

Thanks for looking.

guest star at Winnie & Walter - premiere Comfort & Friends

You may recall back in January I got all wild and crazy playing in the 1st Birthday Bash challenges over at Winnie & Walter. Well, Maya and I were chosen as lucky winners, and get to join the Winnie & Walter team as guest stars for the April/May release! Let me tell you,  I am over the moon to be sharing with you what I've created with these wonderful products. There are sentiments, florals and graphic images. How perfect, eh? Let's get the party started.

Today it's about two new sentiment stamp sets - The Big, the Bold and Comfort as well as The Big, the Bold and Friends - which continue the fabulous W&W tradition of individual words, some bigger in handwritten fonts and some smaller in typewriter fonts. You can see the sets here.

You'll see The Big, the Bold and Comfort, which is perfect for those oh-so-difficult sympathy cards, later this week. I've used The Big, the Bold and Friends on two cards today.

I used many of the adjectives from the set to create a card for a fantastic friend. I stamped the words in Adirondack Willow ink on creme CS before adding an angled panel of Me and my Big Ideas PP at the top of the card.

To finish it off, I added a fussy cut bloom and leaves from Addie's Garden being released this week (gotta come back on Thursday!), gold embossed onto vellum.

Next, is a card made with the first "big" word that jumped out at me from the set. "Hugs". I love hugs ;) I went mixed media this time.

My mixed media piece was inspired by Shery R. I made it by scribbling gelatos onto a piece of CS and blending them with a wet finger. Then I stamped a Multifaceted BG (come back on Friday!), and then I stenciled some gesso through a Bubbles stencil. Kinda makes you want to say things like "groovy" and "far out", eh? Attached it - with adhesive along the top edge only - to a deep orange CS base.

For the sentiment I heat embossed in gold onto vellum. Again ;) Attached this panel to my mixed media piece with strips of two different gold polka dot washi tapes. Added a few gold glitter stars die cut with Winnie & Walter Big Bang Confetti cutaways too. Here's a closeup of the yummy gold embossing on vellum. I must say, I am always impressed with the clean and crisp images of these sentiment stamps. 

I hope you liked what you saw. There is a ton of eye candy over at the Winnie & Walter blog, as well as generous giveaways. You must check it out here and here.

See ya tomorrow I hope!

I'm hooking my first card up at the Anything Goes challenge #141 at Addicted to Stamps. I'm hooking my second card up at Virginia's marvelous Layers and Dimension challenge.

STAMPlorations inspiration #14

A little venture in paper piecing and spotlighting today. Another inspiration card for you using the wonderful little houses from STAMPlorations The Bee's Knees Houses. But this time instead of masking them to create a village, like you might remember here, I chose to spotlight one house.

I put three houses onto my acrylic block and stamped them onto my cardbase. Then I stamped them again onto another piece of CS and die cut the tag from it.

Since this was a housewarming card for my cousin who is a MSU fan and MSU colors are green and white, I had to paper piece the house with green paper. I stamped and fussy cut a couple times - the glow in several windows, the roof, the door - then adhered everything to the house on the tag.

Then I grounded all the houses with a strip of grass using American Crafts glitter washi tape. I added some to the tag too, trimming it to fit the curves.

Then I added the family's initial (in UofM colors cuz I'm a UofM fan!) on a tiny tag, used a wisp of twine to attach the two tags and popped the tag up on dimensional adhesive.  A couple clouds in the sky completed my spotlight neighborhood scene.

Have you joined us over at STAMPlorations on the Inspiration CASE Playground yet? If you feel like CASEing this card or any of the other cards which have appeared in April Inspiration Project Posts, be sure to hook up in the gallery at the Inspiration CASE Playground. A random winner will get a $15 gift certificate to STAMPlorations or her choice of two ARTplorations stencils! Shery R. is so darn generous ;)

day 5 STAMPlorations spotlight - Smallbirds

Welcome to day 5 of Spotlight Week - this is the last of five new sets in this release. Ready?

Here is today's spotlighted set - The Bee's Knees Smallbirds designed by Shirley B. You may recall some of her cards a while back, made with her homemade kingfisher stamp? Well that gorgeous sketched bird made it to a stamp set. See him in the lower right corner? Yay!

Here is what I did with those two little birdies next to him.

"Aus zwei mach drei!" The cool thing about those birdies is that you can use the reverse of the one facing right to stamp the solid color of the birdie facing right. Get it? That's what I did for the red bird! Then I used the reverse of him to stamp the solids of the other two and so on. Gotta love the rich saturation of Adirondack ink colors, eh?

The bits of grass? Those are kingfisher's tail feathers!

I was inspired by my sentiment, which is from Noteworthy, so I chose loud colors. And loud patterns of washi. Check out what the other gals did, including our special guest star this week, the one and only Darnell K. It's been such a pleasure having her. (Maybe Shirley will include a Hitler hummingbird in one of her next sets!?!

Hop around and leave comments (open until April 27th), there are great prizes up for grabs as always!

STAMPlorations

Darnell - Guest Designer

Becca

Cornelia

Deepti

Maria

Monika

Sari

Shery

Shirley

Vicki

day 4 STAMPlorations spotlight - Heaven Sent

It's day 4 of Spotlight Week - five new sets, one to be spotlighted each day this week. Ready?

Today's spotlighted set is - Heaven Sent - a baby set with unique illustrated images and sweet handwritten sentiments. I think it's so touching that Shery designed this set as a Mom-to-be.

Here is what I did with it.

My fave design of late, randomly stamped images all over the BG and a sentiment as the focal point. This time I stamped the bear in Willow, Pool and Aqua Adirondack dye inks then went over them lightly with a water brush to soften 'em up.

A heat embossed sentiment, and a bear heat embossed blue on blue and fussy cut, finished it off.

BTW, as I was trimming the zig zag edges of the sentiment banner with my scissors, I trimmed off a tiny strip. See where it went instead of into the bin? Yep, frugal is my middle name.

Check out what the other gals created, including our guest designer Darnell 's classic beauty. Hop around and leave comments, there will be prizes!

STAMPlorations

Darnell - Guest Designer

Cornelia

Deepti

Julie

Maria

Monika

Shery

Shirley

Vicki

Wei Wei

I'm playing at Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge where the theme is Due Date. This card can go out when that day has arrived. (I was lucky.  No waiting til the due date for me. My kids both arrived two weeks early.)

I'm also joining the Watercolor challenge at Challenge Up Your Life.

See ya tomorrow! Thanks for stopping by.

day 3 STAMPlorations spotlight - Noteworthy

Welcome to day 3 of Spotlight Week - five new sets, one to be spotlighted each day this week. Ready?

Here is today's set - Noteworthy - another great handwritten set designed by Shery R.

Here is what I did with it when I saw "reach for the stars". Remember this card by Julie E. over at The Classroom? Well I blatantly CASEd it!

Check out Julie's video to see how it's done. Sooooo easy (but you will get really inky fingers ;) I used Studio Calico rub-on gold stars. And hit my moon with some Wink of Stella. See it twinkling in the photo below?

I love all the sentiments in this set. And the mix of fonts used with the handwriting. Check out what the other gals did with it, including our special guest this week, Darnell K. of the Playhouse. Hop around and leave comments by April 27th, there are great prizes up for grabs!

STAMPlorations

Darnell - Guest Designer

Becca

Cornelia

Deepti

Julie

Maria (you are here)

Monika

Shery

Shirley

Vicki

Since I have no stamped focal image, I'm joining the Ohne Motive challenge #130 at Cards and More too.

And I'm joining the lovely ladies at City Crafter challenge #258 where we are to pick any element of Ros's gorgeous card to use for our card. I've got lots of stars in my night sky.

Have a wonderful day.

calling a nest a basket i am

Have you joined us at The Mixed Media Card Challenge yet? It's all about flowers this month. And I actually made a card with not only the flowers, but also the optional element of basket!

Sort of.

Cuz I don't have a basket stamp. Or die. At least not that I know of, which obviously means I have too many of each. But I have this trusty old bird's nest that I like to use. And I've also got "a thing" about putting bird's nests - or baskets - on top of ladies' heads. So all I needed were the flowers...

And some tissue paper that my latest stamps arrived in (which I dabbed some light pink pigment ink to) and a Martha Stewart hydrangea punch took care of that!

A side view...

So what's mixed media about my card? Well stamps and inks and

Techniques: stamping on PP, masking, heat embossing
Dimension: tissue paper blooms, sentiment on vellum, sequins
Texture: clear embossing paste through ARTplorations Shutters stencil on BG and heat embossing

You can see the clear embossing paste catching the light in this shot - upper left corner and on the right by that green swirl...

I recycled (tissue paper) and included LOTS of flowers so I'm hooking up at Mixed Media Mojo's April challenge.

And since this card is on its way to someone's birthday that I missed... I'm joining the Due Date challenge at Simon Says Monday.

day 2 STAMPlorations spotlight - Baby Bump

Welcome to day 2 of Spotlight Week - five new sets, one to be spotlighted each day this week. Ready?

Here is today's spotlighted set - The Bee's Knees Baby Bump designed by Shirley B.

Remember a Toyota commercial from way back? "You asked for it, you got it, Toy-o-ta". Well, when I saw this set in development I was reminded of this card. So I asked Shirley if she could maybe work a little baby bump into the set. She did! So I had to give it a go. Here is what I did with it.

Now, DH saw this laying on the table and it evoked a "Huh?" from him. I'm figuring it's cuz he didn't "get it". And I'm telling myself that the card recipient would definitely "get it" since she'd have a baby bump, right? But that moved me to have another go at it.

Scaled the panel with the profile down a bit and placed "her" along a stripe. Chose pastels. Added some polka dots to underscore the baby theme and a sentiment with the word "baby" in it. Didn't even show it to DH. What does he know, right?!?

BTW, my PPs are from docrafts Papermania - Spots and Stripes. I am loving the colors and patterns.

Check out what the other gals did with Baby Bump, including our special guest star this week, the awesome Darnell K. of the Playhouse. And, Shery promised to share some exciting baby news with us today too, check it out. Don't forget to leave comments, there are great prizes up for grabs as usual!

STAMPlorations

Darnell - Guest Designer

Cornelia

Deepti

Maria

Monika

Shery

Shirley

Tenia

Vicki

I went with beige rather than gold cuz it would have been overpowering on the simple design, but I was inspired by this lovely picture  inspiration #273 from Stampin' Royalty.

And my baby shower card is surely welcome at Addicted to CAS #61 ...

Thanks for looking. Hop along! BTW, free shipping on STAMPlorations orders over $15 until April 30th! I love deals like that, don't you?