alles gute - twice

Been busy with card production for some special requests (love that this gal enjoys giving handmade cards!) I was asked to make cards for various occasions and asked for little tips from her to make my creation process easier. Do you do this too?

First up - a card for Dad. Should have to do with books or printing. This happened.

I went with printing. Mainz is our next big city and Johann Gutenberg (of moveable type fame) is its favorite son. I had to go with the scrambled letters BG (Hero Arts Alphabet Soup) and then the die cut letters in red cuz that's the color of the city emblem. See how my brain works? Or scatters may be a better word!

Put a piece of torn vellum over the BG to help the shiny red letters shine better. Then added Altenew German Label Love secondary sentiment.

Remembering Jennifer M.'s prompt to always make multiples, I created this version too in case the red and gold are too much.

Wonder if she'll choose the red or blue version. Do you have a favorite?

I'm playing at:

A Blog named Hero - Anything Goes

cat on a hot tin roof

I'm CAS(E)-ing a sketch for you today. Twice actually. My first idea did not turn out as I'd hoped. But I like what happened then.

Back to the beginning... I was lucky to win some Rubber Dance stamps over at Craft Stamper TIMI and I chose the whimsical houses designed by Susanne R. For some reason (never try to understand what goes on in my head... which reminds me... did you see this at Ellen Hutson?)...

...how 'bout that chocolate?!?... and while I was washing dishes and thinking about the framed-with-florals sketch and wondering how I could work whimsical houses into my creation, I remembered creating a village with masking like on this card and as the village came into my mind's eye so did the cat stamp I recently picked up as well as "cat on a hot tin roof" so it was a done deal. Lots of roofs and cats instead of florals. Following?

So I masked and stamped away. And stamped and fussy cut cats. And agonized for ages over the "frame". Geesh. What'd I come up with? A circle. Brilliant, eh? And the sentiment (I wasn't going to NOT use it, cuz punny), well it sure isn't the right size/shape. But. Please meet card #1.

Rubber Dance houses stamp

Kaisercraft cat stamp

MFT radial circle die

distress oxides

Actually, I forgot to mention that I first spent an hour putting these Rubber Dance rubber stamps onto EZ Mount. Been ages since I'd done that! Remember that sticky goo?!? And while I was at it I did the same with some rubber stamps I ordered from Alisa Burke (know her?) ages ago. Um, yep. Finally. Surprised the rubber hadn't cracked. But that, my friends, remains for tomorrow's blog post... Stay tuned.

So. One of the stamps I'd mounted and cut was a trio of houses. A trio. Like the florals framing the frame on the sketch! Lightbulb. Meet card #2.

Simply Graphic frame die

Technique Tuesday hello die

watercolors

Weird. I know. But me likey better. Used a snippet of gelli plate print for the die cut. And gave the houses a touch of watercolor. Dad's neighbors have sold their house. I think this may be heading their way.

So. Did I freak you out with the glimpse inside my head? If so, sorry. I'm playing at a couple other challenges too which may have added to my brain stress.

CASE this Sketch - #254

Rubber Dance - January

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday - Add a Sentiment
Pixie's Crafty Workshop - Snippets (circle frame and blue rectangle, "hello")

freestyle collage - a CASE of myself

DS's girlfriend just celebrated her graduation and a card was in order. I decided to CASE myself and do a freestyle collage on this one cuz horses are a huge part of this gal's life. And I love my little horse hoofprint stamp!

Pulled out a Heidi Swapp watercolor themed 6x6 PP and die cut Technique Tuesday "Say It -hello" and Memory Box Parker Alphabet "abi"(which is short for Abitur, the A levels) from PPs. Die cut Papertrey Cloud from the creme colored cardbase and then stamped and masked the rest.

Used Viva Decor Rose. Technique Tuesday Alphabet. And my no name horse hoofprints (from Aldi). BTW, the triangle pattern on the vellum snippet is Kaisercraft Texture Triangle. It's great for adding that "little extra touch". Added the date stamp to personalize the card even more.

I did photograph this one flat too, but ended up liking the stand up image better. Seems to show the dimension better... What do you think?

I'm playing at:
Pinspirational - #194 (gave me a push in the color direction)

Time Out - Celebrations (graduation)
Inkspirational - Rural (cuz... hoofprints!)
Creative with Stamps - Celebrate

Hope you had a great 4th of July weekend. We're finally enjoying some nice summer weather here in my neck of Germany. Hope it continues! Thanks for visiting.

deepti's popped hop

Have you heard the news? There's a new Buckeye in town!

Congrats to my teamie Deepti M., on the birth of her little boy, Siddharth. Hope he'd like this. I hope his mom does ;) The STAMPlorations gals are celebrating with a little hop. You can make a card and hook up too if you'd like! I'm sure it'd make the new mom happy.

This was actually "born" as a byproduct of another project. I had used a die cut piece of vellum to apply Versamark through for heat embossing, and rather than tossing it, I flipped it over and pressed it onto a piece of scrap CS and brushed Perfect Pearls over it!

I used that panel to die cut a PTI tag from and worked with that to make my card. The blue tag was also cut from a scrap of watercolored CS.

The stamps are from Kaisercraft Pitter Patter, a great set. I gave the hand and footprints the Perfect Pearls treatement too, and heat embossed the sentiment. Embellished it all with a brad, feather and tassel.

Join us in celebrating Deepti's new baby, won't you?

spotlight on random stamping. again.

I'm up on the STAMPlorations blog with a tutorial on random stamping. On a large size piece of CS. To get a set of four cards outta the deal. Cool, eh? Check it out here.

I used the color combo from Colour Q, which has already closed but which was fitting for this rustic ensemble.

orange to mix it up, purple to stop it

It behooved me (huh, where did that come from?) to throw my hat in the ring when I saw the Mix Up at Ellen Hutson Classroom - Essentials by Ellen and WPlus9.

And I hoped to support Becca C.'s Hop to Stop domestic violence. What a great idea to make people aware of this problem and perhaps encourage victims to do something to get out of a bad situation... Thanks for putting this together, Becca.

So two cards for you.

I've used the pocket and sentiments from WPlus9 A Pocketful and the blooms from Essentials by Ellen Bold Blooms. And some ancient Bo Bunny PP. Notice my enamel dot in the center of the solid bloom? Yep, a DIY fail.

Then lots of purple cuz that's the color of National Domestic Violence Awareness month. Did you know one in three women will experience domestic violence over the course of their lifetime. That is a staggering number. Please join the hop if you can. You can send your cards to Becca and she will pass them on to her local Community Violence Convention Center for their use. How great is that!

I used the long “ray” from Avery Elle Bright Days to cover card, staggering images and stamping from the top and bottom. When done, I inked the stamp with my darkest purple, kissed it with the PTI  Sketched Shapes striped banner stamp and stamped, repeating a few times for interest. Misted it all with water/Perfect Pearls mixture to soften. Then I stamped triangles from Mama Elephant Trifecta along top and bottom with platinum StazOn. Stamped a sentiment from Kaisercraft Today with white pigment ink and offset with Versamark which I heat embossed platinum. Now that's a lot of purple.

I'm sending the first card over to Simply Create Too where it's about "Halloween colors" and the second to Papertrey Make it Monday where it's about "Stripes" and Avery Elle AEIU where it's about  "Pink". I'm counting Adirondack Raspberry as part of the pink family ;)

Mixed Media Card Challenge #1

Oh the fun we're gonna have! Have you heard? There's a new monthly challenge in town, The Mixed Media Card Challenge (MMCC for lazy me) and our first challenge starts today. Woohoo.

Wondering what it's all about? Basically a card with ...

TEXTURE

DIMENSION

TECHNIQUES

Check out this link. Challenge owner, Shery R., has elaborated on what we are expecting of you.

I am thrilled to be a part of the design team cuz there is some amazing talent creating some amazing cards here. You must check it out - even those of you who don't like to get inky fingers (yep, I know you're out there ;))

Each month there will be a new challenge with a theme. And an additional element which is optional. So the theme of Challenge #1 is "A Touch of Nature" (optional element: tag). Which basically means create a card,  reflect nature (however you interpret that) and include a tag in some way if you'd like. And rememer ...  texture, dimension and techniques.

Here's what I made.

And here's what I did:

1. Stamped card base with triangle BG using gray, teal and purple. Just inked up the stamp randomly.
2. Stamped white CS panel with triangle BG in black.
3. Distressed panel with gray, teal and purple.
4. Stamped panel with coffee stain stamps using water.
5. Stamped panel with small leaves using gray, teal and purple. (should have taken a photo here)
6. Stamped black leaves on panel and onto card base.
7. Mixed embossing paste with black acrylic paint and applied through doodle and dots stencils.
8. Die cut tags from panel.
9. Paper-pieced tags onto card, a few with foam adhesive.
10. Stamped sentiment onto vellum, applied purple ink to reverse and stapled onto card.
11. Scrubbed inky fingers ;)

Texture? Yep, embossing paste, staples.
Dimension? Yep, sentiment on vellum, raised tags.
Techniques? Yep, distress inking, stamping with water, paper piecing.

Messy. But I'm still claiming that it's a CAS card. Thus "cassy". Me likey.

So, how 'bout it? Give some technique you've been dying to try a go. Or pull out those old acrylic paints. Or grab or make a stencil. Channel your Dyan Reaveley and get messy. Make a card. C'mon and join us!

p.s. You're gonna love this... the challenges run from the 1st to the 25th every month. EZPZ.

Supplies organize your life:

Paper:  cardbase The Paper Studio, Neenah

Stamps: triangle BG Kaisercraft, coffee stains STAMPlorations, tiny leaves Alexandra Renke, big leaves Claudine Hellmuth, sentiment Kesi

Ink : Distress Iced Sprice, Peacock Feathers, Shaded Lilac, Memento Black, StazOn

Tools: dots stencil TCW, doodle stencil Pink Paislee, die PTI

Other: structure paste, acrylic paint

using up scraps (SSD, MIM, ABNH)

Chevron strips - lots of them.  And shipping tags (I use them often to stamp off onto, thinking I will use them later as a tag or part of a card.)  All laying around my workspace.  What to do?

The sketch challenge #149 at Skipping Stones Designs gave me inspiration.

Took a tag which had been stamped with acrylic paint.  Wondered if distress ink would resist it and was silly happy when it did.  Just one more reason to love distress ink!  Thus the tag element for the sketch.

Dies are amazing creatures.  Are you, like me, sometimes amazed by the byproducts?  Like the row of triangles left over when you die cut a chevron strip.  Of course you never know when you might be able to use them.  Thus the stripe element for the sketch.  Offset, cuz it's my newest fave.  Voila!

Most time consuming?  The bling.  Yellow?  Blue?  Small?  Larger?  Square perhaps?  Bingo.
And because I paid a bit more attention to the inside on this one, I'm playing at Papertrey's Make it Monday #86 too.

Ohh, just realized there is still time to hook up at A Blog Named Hero "White Out" challenge #13.  Everything here began life white!

Enjoy your day.

Supplies :

Paper: cardbase Papermania, CS Neenah, shipping tag 

Stamps: Hero Arts, sentiment Kaisercraft, inside PTI 

Ink: Distress Inks

Tools: die MFT

Other:  ribbon Sew Sweet, bling

sending fishes (Retro, YCU, SSS)

See fish.  See fish swim.  See fish heat embossed with clear powder (=shiny)  and then painted with Distress Inks used as watercolors.  Yep - a favorite technique with a new twist - after seeing Heidi V.L.'s beautiful card.  I was going to use watercolor pencils, but I only have a few standard colors.  Couldn't resist the spectrum of colors with Distress Inks...

The stamp actually did all the work.  I just colored it in.  Paintbrush.  Water.  Made me feel like an artist.  Again.  Oh the fun I'm having lately!  A sentiment on a piece of patterned vellum (cuz I couldn't bring myself to cover up too many fish) with a little strip of PP for interest.   Ta da.

Playing with the Retro Sketches Challenge #30:

And Young Crafter's Unite challenge #14 to Learn Something New:

And Simon Says Stamp, again.  Why not try to beat the odds ;)

                                        

Have a great weekend!  A special shout out to my followers.  So nice to see your smiling faces every day :)

Supplies believe in your dreams:

Paper: card base Buttinette, CS Neenah, PP scrap, vellum

Stamps: Stampout, sentiment Kaisercraft

Ink: Distress Ink, Versafine

Tools:

Other: clear embossing powder

i like neon! repeat (SSS, Moxie Fab)

Neon's gotta hold of me now.  And I had scraps.

 Not much to say here.  Scraps from this card.  Embossing plates.  Heart punch.  New Kaisercraft stamp which was "not expensive" but squishes a little too much when you put too much pressure on it (notice the stray embossing powder stuck to the squished Versamark.  Oops.  Couldn't clean it up without taking off half the "be".)

Adding this to the bunch over at Simon Says Stamp's challenge to be trendy and the Moxie Fab challenge "Repitition."  I'm tryin'.

Supplies be yourself:

Paper:Papermania

Stamps: Kaisercraft

Ink: Versamark, highlighters

Tools: embossing plates Sizzix, heart punch The Paper Studio, corner rounder EKS

Other: embossing powder Zing