guest designing at ATSAM

I'm excited to be joining the folks over at Addicted to Stamps and More after winning a challenge a couple weeks ago.

The theme for this fortnight is an easy one - Birthday.

I made a card for a little cousin who happens to love hedgehogs. I used a die, a background I made with leftover Easter egg dye (!) and a stamp.

MFT Happy Birthday Block die

Action Deutschland Hedgehog stamp

pigment inks, sequins

Pop over to the Addicted to Stamps and More blog for more inspiration. Thanks for having me as a guest, Kylie.

addicted to ... hummingbirds

When I saw the hummingbird stamp in The Birds and The Blooms, the current Stamp Club set from STAMPlorations, I knew it would grace my Dad's Father's Day card this year. But how?

I figured Dad would like a "simple" watercolor version since he thinks many of my designs are a bit "kooky". So I gave the no-line-watercoloring another go. Stamp the image with Antique Linen Distress Ink. Watercolor it. I used watercolor pencils since there were lots of tiny spaces. Geez Louise, this nearly killed me.

I googled "hummingbird illustration" and selected one that reminds me of the one who hangs out at Mom and Dad's. Enter my problem with spatial thinking again. The illustration was facing left. Mine is facing right. And so my creative session went!

I'm so not thrilled with the result, but the wonky black mat and that wonderful sentiment saved it for me. He's certainly not going to praise my watercoloring skills (he was a graphic artist) but maybe he'll be awed by his presents. This ridiculous thing for starters (thanks, Darnell K.) And a 7 lb. bag of corn cobs to go with it!

And I must practice or hang up my paint brush.

I'm joining the fun at:
Addicted to Stamps #145 where the light and airy birds and branches inspired me.

Addicted to CAS #63 where it's all about birds!

Happy Hump Day!

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 #13

Hello.

It's time for some more inspiration from the girls at STAMPlorations. 

Remember, we'd love for you to join us in our Inspiration Playground with a CASE of one of the many cards that we share with you throughout the month on the STAMPlorations blog. You can find the linkup for April's Playground here.

Maybe you want to get oh-so-inky and give this new-to-me technique a try?

Alcohol inks and acetate. But probably not the way you're thinking. I was intrigued when I saw Tammy T. trap the ink between two pieces of acetate, creating the look of liquid in a bottle. Are you intrigued yet? There is a wonderful tutorial for this technique on her blog.

This time around the DT is pulling out some of the older stamp sets. I chose Bloom Sketches Daisy 2 (with a sentiment is from Daisy 1). The angle on this bloom is just perfect and so realistic. Agree? I had to use it to go with my realistic water in the jar!

All my bloom needed in addition was a stem, a table to sit on and a bit of color to its center! I must admit this technique is amazingly cool. Captivating.

FYI, the alcohol ink eventually dries out, so be sure to mail it while it's still purty :)

I'm hooking up at these challenges:

Muse #113 - loved Michele's blues and stylized blooms and watery looking background

Addicted to Stamps and More #140 - keeping it simple with flowers on a wooden table I am

House of Cards April Challenge - Is that not a cool photo? My card doesn't have the butterflies (I nearly put a tiny red punched one on, but it didn't fit the bill) but does have the vibrancy.

Shopping our Stash - Lost and Found - My alcohol inks had been neglected far too long!

Thanks for looking. Have a wonderful weekend.

it still ain't over...

Back with a couple more of my CAS watercolor cards, like here and here. Today it's about hot stuff and hot colors.

Hot, right? Amy Tangerine Associate die meets Paper Smooches sentiment. And the red spectrum of the rainbow watercolored paper.

I'm playing at:

ATCAS #56

ATSAM #130

CASology #132

 And here is a hot version of yesterday's card.

QuicKutz monogram die meets Lawn Fawn sentiment and the red to yellow spectrum.

Playing here:

Bright and Beautiful

Lawnscaping #99

There's more to come. I've changed the design up a little too. Thanks for visiting.

CAS watercolor

I have a problem with watercolor. When I've created some gorgeousness with it, I have a really hard time not plastering an entire card front with it. Take this, for example.

Grabbed a sheet of watercolor paper and my kids' old watercolors and created the one on the left. Cuz it was such fun, I created the one on the right too, using a bit more pigment.

I had seen this card of Kylie's and just loved the ombre look on her die cut. My plan was to create a set of super CAS cards for my mom. So I die cut some word dies from vellum and used them as a guide for where to place my dies for the color gradient I wanted.

My plan also included combining die cut words with stamped words. Took me the longest to decide on the right sentiment/font combinations! This is what happened.

Dee's Distinctively meets Papertrey

WPlus9 meets STAMPlorations

Paper Smooches meets STAMPlorations

Amy Tangerine meets STAMPlorations

Essentials by Ellen meets Avery Elle

And may I introduce the set for my mom. I think they are going to be right up her alley. Do you have a favorite?

 I'm joining a few great challenges:

CFC 136

HSL Feb Sketch Challenge

Anything Goes

and Addicted to Stamps #129 - Clean and Simple cuz yep, they certainly are! Happy weekend.

CAS CASE

Revisited another design of mine for this set of cards. I decided to make a set as a hostess gift, and of course waited til the last minute, so another CASE was in order.

Grabbed the wonderful Geometric Borders from Aha Arts and went all Christmassy with it. Paired it with some of my favorite Christmas sentiments from Technique Tuesday's Jingle All the Way. Picked two different red/green combos andused them with some Delicata Gold. Easy peesy.

Joining the CAS fun at:

CAS on Sunday #49 - Christmas
Addicted to Stamps and More #126 - Anything Goes (with a love twist - I didn't twist)
Stempelkueche #9 - Stretch your Stamps

Ready for Christmas?

joyful and merry magic

This week I'm playing with the Joyful stamp set from STAMPlorations (Which is on sale. Just sayin'.) Have a look.

It's such fun. Not just cuz of those four larger images, but look at all those words in that old typewriter font. Does that not look like fun waiting to happen.

Must admit, the very first thing I noticed was the "ho!", quickly followed by the "fa la la" above it. (Just keep watching!) But the first image which called to me was the wreath. I love how sketchy, yet dense, it is. I used it for a non-holiday card here. Today I went Christmas. With a twist.

Do you recall "magic slider" cards? Like this beauty which was around blogland awhile ago. Here's my version. That's the wreath stamped in platinum StazOn on acetate with red Sharpie berries that you're looking at in the frame.

And then the magic begins...

Voila!

Silly me. I didn't photograph the CS tag under the acetate, so you just have to imagine it's stamped in Adirondack Bottle green and I sprinkled fine red glitter on droplets of glue to make berries. Had to keep this extra height on the CS tag in mind when constructing the secret compartment, but thicker foam adhesive did the trick. 

I remember being in awe of this technique once I finally got my head around it. Recently I've made two and DD just requested one for her girlfriend. Guess I'm not the only one who likes magic!

I'm playing in these fun challenges:

Inspiration Emporium where the December challenge is titled "Happy Holidays"

Addicted to CAS - where the code word is "tag". Got two actually ;)

Addicted to Stamps and More where this is the lovely photo inspiration

Two more photos to share with you. 25 years ago this is what things were looking like at the Berlin Wall as it started to "come down". 

Image Source

And last night, over 300,000 people celebrated in Berlin. Part of the celebration included releasing 8000 balloons which had been lined up along the site of "the Wall".

Image Source

Happy Unity Day, Germany!

beauty markers (Craft Stamper, ATSAM, SSS)

I love this technique. Apply various colors of waterbased markers to a stamp (TIP: works best on a rubber one), spritz with water and stamp. Then spritz and stamp again. Two images for the price of one. And usually the second is purtier.

I have to say that this time, cuz I sent out the first one without taking a photo of it for you to see and decide for yourself. Duh.

Here's the second print.

A bit hard to imagine the blooms and berries in the negative spaces, eh? Wanted to share the stamp set with you, but I can't find it on the web, so... I think it was Hero Arts.

I'm joining the fun at:

Take It, Make It - October Multicolored Stamping
Addicted to Stamps and More - #117 Make your Mark
Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge - Letter "O" for ombre

Fall break has arrived in these here parts. Yippie. Happy weekend everyone.


Supplies:

Paper:  cardbase The Paper Studio

Stamps: Hero Arts, sentiment PTI

Ink : markers, Hero Arts

Tools: 

Other: water

i saw a butterfly (RIC, Dazzling Divas, ATSAM)

What do you see when you look at the latest fashion photo from Runway Inspired Challenge?

Well forgive me for this one, but at first glance I thought skinny model here was wearing giant wings (maybe it's something about the position of her arms. Or just my eyes.) Ping. Butterfly. Then I got the whimsical, light and airy overall feel of the photo thanks to that sheer backdrop. Ping. Vellum. Then the black "outlines" on the outfit and finally the XXL black clunker on her finger.

Which all turned into this card. Which is yellow and black, cuz my mind's eye assumed this was yellow. (Must really be my eyes!) 

Stamped the sentiment and then the stems of the STAMPlorations tulips in black on card. Heat embossed tulips yellow on vellum and backed the vellum strip with PP. Stitched and adhered to card. Die cut butterfly from Add a Little Dazzle metal sheet in black and adhered it with glue dots. A strip of PP along the bottom was the finishing touch.

I'm joining:

Dazzling Divas #46 Fall or Anything Goes

Addicted to Stamps and More - #116 Anything Goes

Just as a reminder, the October challenge over at STAMPlorations is open 'til the end of the month.

Appreciate your visit. Enjoy the weekend.

Supplies:

Paper:  Bringmann, vellum, PP MME and Pink Petticoat

Stamps: STAMPlorations, 

Ink : Versamark, Versafine

Tools: die Hero Arts

Other: embossing powder, sewing machine