guest designing at card concept 32

Lucky me, joining the lovely and incredibly talented ladies at The Card Concept this month. And getting to play around in the Mixed Media category too!

If the inspiration photo for challenge #32 doesn't make you happy, don't know what will. For me, it evokes feelings of summer. Those blooms. The Ball jar. I can just feel the breeze coming in through an open window...

So how did I approach this Mixed Media-wise? Well wanting to use multiple mediums and techniques to create texture and dimension, first I stamped my card front with Stampendous Floral Tapestry. Then I watercolored a couple blooms with orange. (And later, cuz I'd forgotten it, a couple leaves with green. Consider that my pint. As in, gallon-quart-pint, remember that?)

Then I dabbed orange acrylic paint through a Craft Emotions Folklore Flowers stencil. BTW, anyone know a trick to get the dried paint off the stencil??? I waited too long and soap and water aren't working and the design is very delicate so I can't really scrub it!

Next I applied gesso over the front. Twice. I was going for a floral-wallpaper-in-Grandma's-house feel and I knew I needed it subdued in the center where my focal image was going to be...

Enter focal image. A NBUS Tim Holtz Bell Jar die. But first I applied alcohol inks to acetate - I forgot to snap the photo before I die cut so just placed them back into the remnants to show you. Die cut the bottoms from woodgrain PP.

So in case you didn't notice first time around, go back and check out the sweet cupcakes surreptitiously posing in the background of the inspiration photo... I had originally planned to house a nice big sentiment under the bell jar, but then STAMPlorations Sketched Cupcake came to mind and...

I heat embossed the image on white CS and turned it into a chocolate cupcake with vanilla frosting! Fussy cut it and adhered it to my card.  Popped the bell jar base up on foam adhesive, capturing the bottom edge of the acetate too. Created a tiny tag punched with a border punch to mimic a doily and stamped the sentiment onto it before attaching it to the acetate with twine. I used a bit more foam adhesive on the back of the tag to hold the tag in place and attach the top portion of acetate.

TIP: Adhering acetate with dimensional adhesive allows it to really add some WOW to your card but visible adhesive is a problem. Hide it behind other card elements!

Thanks mucho for coming by today. I'm so happy I could share my Mixed Media project with you.  Can't wait to share my next guest designer project with you on April 15th.  I hope you'll peruse the Card Concept DT's works of art. Don't you love to learn more about card styles with every new challenge?

If you stop by later today, I'll be sharing another Mixed Media project - more flowers...

I'm hooking this card up over at A Sprinkle of Imagination (I've used Sailboat Blue and Stream Alcohol inks) where it's an Anything Goes this time around. And I'm joining the fabulous fun at Darnell's NBUS #4 too.

ETA: Have you seen Virginia's new challenge? #14 Layers and Dimension. I'm in.

winnie and walter mojo overload #2

You saw one sparkly gold "baby" card in this post. Here's the one that actually came first. Hang letters on a line? Don't have to ask me twice ;)

I got the "baby" vibe from the upper left photo in the collage from Lea's Mood Board. The rest followed :) My favorite detail is that teensy group of dots from the Big Bang Confetti set which I stamped a few times in gold. See em? Kinda look like little galaxies of stars, don't they?

And then I tackled Gayatri's CAS freestyle collage challenge. 

I love the look but find it difficult to pull off. I think the "less is more" maxim rings true for freestyle collage. The items have to work together well. And in this case, remain CAS.

I started with the "blessings" stamp from The Big, Bold and Blessings in amuse Lemon Whip (which you can barely see in photos) on my cardbase. Then I used the ink to stamp a rose from The Big, Bold and Extras which I fussy cut. I've decided the outlined leaves are my favorite stamp from this set ;) You'll see them again soon.

Some Heidi Swapp gold splatters, a snippet of a black/white ribbon as a frame and a sentiment banner finished off my "blessings on your birthday" card.

I'm taking the baby card to the "New" challenge at Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge blog. My new die from Little B is from SSS.

And to Curtain Call's "Winter Wonder".

Since both stamp sets on the second card are new schtuff, I'm going to Darnell's playhouse again.

And I think the second card also works well for Virginia's View #11.

Check out the birthday bash here. There is so much inspiration to be found. CU tomorrow.

winnie and walter mojo overload #1

Take the disappearance of PCS submission call stress, add a couple weeks of quiet Christmas holidays and a fabulous birthday bash of challenges at Winnie and Walter and what do you get? A parade of cards from me.

Happy first birthday, ladies! The design team over at W&W is so talented, and each gal has created a challenge. I actually only intended to participate in four (cuz I would LOVE to join them as guest designer!!!) but my mojo took over...

The first to catch my eye was Lea's mood board.

Saw the soft sweater up top and thought "classy baby card." Ran with the gold glitter letters idea and this card was born. Stamped "blessings" from The Big, Bold and Blessings in amuse Latte on cream CS. Notice the heart on the rocking horse in a nod to the burgundy from the mood board? I've another take on this challenge coming soon, too.

The next was the light and airy collage put together by Laura.

That mint blanket also spoke "baby" to me (we have a couple coming soon in the 'hood) and I just love the abundance of white space with a tiny touch of black, so this is what I created. I used The Big, Bold and Blessings, The Big, Bold and Happy and Big Bang Confetti on this one. TIP: for a great effect include the secondary sentiment on a snippet of contrasting CS in conjunction with the big script sentiments, which in this case I heat embossed onto vellum and fussy cut.

For mint I like to use Distress Ink Evergreen Bough, watered down. So while I had it out, I was moved to give Heather's color combo of white, silver/gray, mint/aqua and blue a try.

A somewhat gradient mint BG created by applying DI to an acrylic block, spritzing with water and then stamping. TIP: If you let the DI air dry rather than using your heat gun, the result is much smoother and less splotchy. Silver embossing and silver washi tape. Blue on the circle holding the "a" and for the non-embossed portion of the sentiment. For this card I also needed some words from The Big, Bold and Extras.

I'm off to enter these fun challenges too:
Virginia's View - #11 Clean Slate

And the gold baby card is going to AAA Cards - #31 Use a little Gold

Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge - Old and New (old tissue paper combined with new Little B rocking horse die) on the first baby card!

And since the Little B die is new, I'm going over to the playhouse and Darnell's NBUS challenge.

Whew. Thanks for coming by today. Does one of these cards strike your fancy? Speaking of which, Kelly G. prompted me to do a Top Ten of 2014 post, so watch for that this weekend...

36 to go (WW, Lawnscaping, NBUS)

Have you seen this inspiration photo for the Playdate over at Winnie and Walter? Gorgeous, don't you think? Speaking of Winnie and Walter, isn't it incredible how they designed a stamp that is instantly recognizable all over blogland.  Know which stamp I'm referring to? The Big and Bold series.  Those sentiments - I used them here - are wonderful.

But, today it's not about those sentiments ;) It's about my invitations for our "161" party, 'member? So I pulled out those colors of ink, the Big Bang Confetti stamp set for its maiden voyage and my Party Time Dieversions die and went to town creating. Seriously.

Found my inspiration in the W&W gallery. Here are my first two invites for this challenge.

Some ink-to-acrylic-block-misted-and-squished-to-paper technique for the BG. Some heat embossed twinkles. Some sequins. And the die cut.

And this one is a pocket. I 'm planning to PC generate the who/what/when/where info for the inside of the invites, but on this design I can fold it up and stick it in the pocket. Isn't this fun?

I'm playing at Lawnscaping Challenge - Embossing

and have you seen this? Ms. NBUS herself, Darnell K,  has a 500 followers celebratory challenge going on right now to break out the NBUS and U it! (Should you have no clue what I'm talking about... click on the link. You'll be very happy you did ;)))

I'll be back at ya tomorrow with more invites using W&W and these scrumptious colors. Thanks for looking.

Supplies for #1:

Paper:  CS Bringmann

Stamps: Winnie and Walter

Ink : Distress, Versamark

Tools: die Dieversions

Other: sequins

Supplies for #2:

Paper:  CS Neenah, PP Lawn Fawn, vellum

Stamps: Winnie and Walter

Ink : Distress, Versamark

Tools: die Dieversions, wonky border die MFT

Other: sewing machine