vielen thanks

There's a story behind this post. DD is on a week long ski trip with her Advanced Sport class from high school. She left with a cold. Turns out she's coming home with a slight concussion.

If you're a mom, you can imagine my state when her teacher called us. His first words, "don't panic". Yeah, right.  Well he took her to the hospital and the doctor said he found nothing bad in the X-ray so she could go back to the hotel. Lucky girl. Thank goodness for helmets. Also lucky that it happened at the end of the second to last day.

She comes home today and I need to thank her teacher (who is also our neighbor) and her girlfriend who stayed back at the hotel to keep an eye on her while the others went out on the town Wednesday night. So two quick projects were born.

I just had to try the watercolor-resisting-rubber-cement technique from Make it Monday. If you still love the magic of heat embossing, you'll like this too!

I chose my colors from the Colour Q challenge and decided to use some Winnie and Walter products too to play at their 2nd anniversary bash. The first project is going to the Anything but a Card challenge. The second to Over the Edge. (BTW, even if you're not playing, head over to that gallery and check out Cris G.'s masterpiece. I'm predicting an earthquake from all the jaws hitting the floor!)

This is what my piece looked like when I'd given it three layers of watercolor and two layers of rubber cement.

And then I die cut words with W&W cutaway to dress up the presents. On this one I added a PTI Scene It sunrise and a heat embossed STAMPlorations "thanks" to my wrap of PP.

For this I die cut a PTI wine bottle tag and stamped it with Versamark using HA Striped Cling BG before adding the word die and a heat embossed sentiment from Klartext Karten. Since he is also an English teacher, I figured he'd get a kick out of this mish-mash. It's kinda how I talk ;)

Just realized the green here looks so grass green. It's more spring green. Weird. Here's to the joys of parenting! Happy weekend.

PTI march blog hop

I'm hopping with the Papertrey Ink March hop based on the inspiration photo above. Won't keep you long, there's lots to check out in the gallery.

The elements which caught my eye were the fern (cuz I have Meadow Greens) and that soft pink bloom off to the side (so I decided to use Year of Flowers: Violet. Then I noticed the graphic shapes and lastly the tiny butterfly (Love Lives Here) down beneath the plate.

Wrapping the thread around the panel was a nod to the textiles in the photo. Thanks for stopping by. Happy hopping.

I'm playing at Kathy R's 30 Day Coloring challenge

And at SSS February Work it Wednesday where it's about Florals and SSS Wednesday where it's Anything Goes.

STAMPlorations Art Marks release hop

 

Hello and welcome to the mini hop celebrating the release of Art Marks, definitely a great set for mixed media artists, but pretty cool for CASSY (CAS/messy) folks as well. See those splatters. And arrows. And great scribbled circles. Lots of fun to play with for great color combos or watercolor effects. Or a giant bunch of craziness like on my creation.

I grabbed a gazillion Adirondack dye ink colors and picked a stamp and stamped it a couple times in a couple colors. Then picked another stamp and repeated. I decided to use the "fly high" sentiment so pulled out the ARTplorations Some Birds stencil and applied some embossing paste selectively through it once I was done stamping.

Notice below how the dye ink absorbed into the paste when it dried? Coolio. I added a heat embossed sentiment on a black snippet and a couple nail-polished wood veneer arrows and that's it!

This set is available 10% off until March 2nd. Check out the rest of the DT projects here and leave comments by the end of day Friday too for a chance to win the set. Happy hopping!

I'm hopping over to the challenges at:

Inkspirational - POP (If my pops of color aren't enough, my stenciled birds pop off the card as does my sentiment!)
Simon Says Monday Challenge - Inspired by a Song (If you don't already, watch this video and you'll have an Ohrwurm thanks to Gary Barlow)

gold glittered eggs

Saw this and this. Made this.

Couldn't have done it without some PP scraps and my PTI Egg die.
AND dear, sweet happy-dancing Bev who sent me some chunky gold glitter. Vielen dank, Bev!

What do you think of my sentiment? I die cut a Lifestyle Crafts feather to stamp on. Those teensy letters are from one of those cheapie self-inking stamps (thanks, Aldi) you can use for your return address. It ran out of ink, but I figured I could keep and use those letters one day. Enter one day. But do me a favor and if you buy one just to use the teensy letters cuz you're a stamper and you just have to have one, don't just toss all the letters into an envelope. 41 minutes just to find 11 lettters. Geesh!

I'll be quick and head over to:
Time Out where the B/W photo has been in the back of my mind all week

Inkspirational cuz I think my gold eggs kinda "Pop" off the card

A Blog Named Hero - A Bit of Sparkle

spotlight on grawlix

Know what grawlix is? Check out my spotlight over at STAMPlorations to find out...

I'm taking my watercolored outhouse to Kathy R.'s 30 Day Coloring Challenge.

STAMPlorations inspiration #62

Welcome to some STAMPlorations inspiration. I've made two cards out of one stamped image from New Beginnings and here is the first one for you.

New Beginnings

Maybe cuz I'm a Lake Huron gal at heart, but I just love this image. I applied Distress Inks to Neenah CS and stamped the image in black Versafine. Then I decided that was just way too much goodness for one card, so I die cut a chunk out of it. (Come back for my next inspiration post to see what happened to that chunk!)

This design emerged. The image again, heat embossed in white onto black CS, also creating a black mat around the inked panel. An extra seagull and some washi, all on a kraft cardbase.

"Morning has broken", Cat Stevens, remember? I'm playing with Simon Says Stamps Monday Challenge to be inspired by a song. We in MI have this saying "Red sky at night, sailor's delight, red sky in the morning, sailor take warning." Being on Lake Huron (facing the East), a sunrise like this doesn't always mean good things to come, but it sure is purty.

I hope you've enjoyed this. The DT has created some great cards this week. You can check them out here.

I'm hooking up at Kathy R.'s 30 Day Coloring Challenge.

At Penny Black and More - Anything goes with a Stamp and Die

And to the Home challenge at Addicted to CAS, cuz for me "home" is still MI and my lake ;)

At Addicted to Stamps and More - Anything Goes.

well hello red

I did a long overdue clean up of all the little die cut pieces laying around my craft room.  Well, they've been hoarded into a shoe box at least. What do I do with them now? I'd love to know how you keep your "extras" - you know those pieces you cut from three different PPs before deciding which one you want to use...

Anyhoo, I've a tag card for you today. With lotsa red. Remember this month's challenge over at the Mixed Media Card Challenge?

Everything but the kitchen sink... a painted tag, a woodgrain stamping snippet, leftover gold foil die cut pieces, punched leaves, heat embossed sentiments and a die cut flower up top. Oh and some raffia. To make it a card I scored a second manila tag about a 1/2" from the top and applied adhesive to it before sticking the two tags together.

Whether this will go in the mail as a card or get hung around a bottle of wine remains to be seen... either way it's cool to be able to write on the "inside" rather than on the back of the tag. Heck, the recipient could even remove the back piece and re-use the tag!

I'm also playing in the Winnie Walter 2nd Birthday Bash "Anything but a Card" challenge. Hope I qualify.

And at Just Us Girls #330.

As well as at new-to-me Double D. What a great inspiration photo!

On another note, Bonnie and Loll are starting a new challenge that might interest you if you're more CASSY (like me) than full-blown messy mixed media. It's called CAS Mix Up and you can check it out here.

STAMPlorations inspiration #61

Channeled my inner Mayuri (after taking her Craftsy class) to do some "kaleidescope stamping" with this stamp set and some Distress inks in beachy colors of blue, orange and yellow.

Love Letter in the Sand

Was going to stamp my sentiment on a circle and adhere it over the points where the seashells all met, but then decided to die cut a window and stamp the sentiment inside. I like how it turned out. One layer, ya know?!?

To make it a bit more beachy, I stamped some grungy dots from Mixed Media Grunge and watercolored over them with more brown. Took my leftover DI/water mix from the acrylic block and flicked it onto my card front.

There's lots more STAMPlorations inspiration for your enjoyment here. Thanks for coming by.

I'm heading over to Paper Players #282.

it's a happy blue world

I love Pinterest Inspired Challenge. The last inspiration photo totally spoke to me and this month's is no different. Had to play along and it was the perfect chance to give my new watercolors a test drive.

I heat embossed Penny Black Retro Pattern BG stamp onto watercolor CS. Then I went to town randomly watercoloring the little spaces. No thinking. So soothing. Thanks for the 30-Day Coloring Challenge Kathy R.!

It's amazing how just by adding a bit more water, you get such a range of hues with the colors. Strong stuff those Gansai Tambis. Added the sentiment from Bold Blooms to qualify for the current Mix It Up Challenge at Ellen Hutson. I'm also joining in at Seize the Birthday (without candy toppings) cuz I plan to use this as a masculine birthday card.

And then I dug out this bridal couple who had come to live at my house just before Shirley B. brought out her bridal couple stamp set. They kinda got lost in the shuffle. But don't they look great paired with some Essentials by Ellen loveliness? And a touch of color to her bouquet.

My sentiment is heat embossed "best" and die cut Merry and Bright. I'm joining the Cupcake Inspirations, Simon Says Wednesday (One Layer), Challenge up your Life and Stempelkueche challenges too.

papertrey's 9th anniversary

The weekend got away from me but I managed to create two more cards for the celebration over at Papertrey.

The first is for the challenges Paper Crafting Alphabet and Color Pop. What creative challenges these are! Even if you can't play this time around, they are great for jump starting your mojo.

My Alphabet Challenge was to use the letters F-I-S which corresponded to frame, impressing and stitching. Check. And since my Color Pop colorswere Summer Sunshine, Canyon Clay and Berry Sorbet, I chose to die cut my bunnies in these colors and make a two-fer.

I hope you "get" my card. The bunnies are waiting for THE Easter bunny ;)

The Sampler Challenge took me the longest. Time pressure this morning actually made me spurt to create and this happened. I actually really like it.

Can you tell Miss Cutie Patootie really liked our walk along the Rhine this morning?

love cupcakes and you

Happy Valentine's Day to all you lovelies! I hope your day is filled with chocolate and flowers and more chocolate... (I gave up chocolate for Lent. Wonder how many times I will have broken it by the time this goes live?!?!?)

Anyhoo, when I saw this inspiration photo from Cupcake Inspirations, I couldn't get my eyes off that creamy (maybe even cream cheese) frosting. Yum. Oh a gold cupcake liner doesn't hurt either.

A squirt of bold coral Kesi Pschhiitt (yeah, go ahead, say it) which is an opaque spray ink available in fabulous colors. A snippet cut with Little B Block Out. A gold embossed STAMPlorations Sketched:Cupcake with puffy frosting. And a red glitter Amuse heart with a Memory Box "u" cut out of it. Voila! Lotsa product. But lotsa scrumptious white space.

Join the fun over at Cupcake Inspirations. STAMPlorations is this week's sponsor.

I'm playing in the following challenges:
Simon Says Stamp Monday - Spritz and Spray
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday - One Layer
CASology - #184 Valentine
Stempelkueche - #37 Love is all Around
Mod Squad - From the Heart

Here's to a love-filled L♥VE day!