STAMPlorations sketch #14

Here's a fun sketch for you, brought to you by STAMPlorations.

I'm using it to continue my mission of 40 invitations to our "161" party.  Only 16 to go, BTW. This is what I did with the sketch and the soon-to-be-released set called Sentiment Builders: Celebrate. There are 24 - count 'em, 24 - individual words you can use to create sentiments! Thanks for designing this set, Shery R. It's perfect for me on my mission ;)

Have a look at the DT creations here, as well as our oh-so-talented Guest Designer Deepti M.'s beauty here. You've got til June 27 to hook up.

Thanks for coming by. Have a great day.

Supplies for party time:

Paper:  CS Bringmann, Neenah, PP Pebbles

Stamps: STAMPlorations 

Ink : Distress inks, Versamark

Tools: die Dieversions

Other: scoreboard, white embossing powder

22 to go (CTS, Iron Craft, MIM,Colour Q)

Someone please tell me again why card challenges are only open for a week??? Seems I just saw this sketch at CTS, thought "oh cool, I like that" and today it's already closing!

Miss Ellie got spayed yesterday morning (poor groggy thing) and my day was crazy just watching/helping her. But I snuck down to the basement in the evening ;)  I made six cards. SIX. I'll keep it short.

Let's just call this first one Swiss Cheese. What can I say? Everyone was doing rectangles so I had to do circles! 

I'd remembered a great 12x12 paper pack (Seen and Noted by Pebbles) I'd won last year and pulled it out to combine with some bright colored CS for "Swiss Cheese". So then I opted for the PP rectangles myself on #2. Put some vellum behind the die cut to tone down the PP.

So what else could cascade down the side besides rectangles?  How about party balloons? After struggling with their placement in a vertical design, I figured out it was much easier if I flipped the sketch ;) Added wispy strings to each balloon - fun IRL.

Make it Monday #168 was stuck in my cabeza, so pulled out the balloon stamp from Birthday Style, added some reinkers to two folded baby wipes and used it as a stamp pad to create this card. I heat embossed a stem from Garden of Life as the strings on this one.

TIP: Don't just throw away your baby wipe stamp pad - that would be such a waste ;) I pressed the ink blob to CS when I was done and die cut my sentiment from it. I also have two dry baby wipes waiting to be turned into flowers or something somewhere down the road.

And since my soon-to-be-released STAMPlorations stamps arrived in the mail yesterday and were screaming to be tried out, I grabbed the colors from Colour Q #245 (although I think looking at it on my PC now, the Starfruit color is more green - I thought it looked like yellow. Oops) and made this one. The theme of the July release is "birthday". Let me just say... sketchy, large word, wonky cake. Interested? Hop with us on June 26 to see all the stamps in action and maybe win some.

TIP: Or check out this deal here. STAMPlorations is offering the whole July release until June 20 at 30% off!

Bringing up the rear we have the oh-so-expected washi tape variation. I partially heat embossed a CHF BG on the front of my Soft Stone CS (nice stuff - NBUS) before adhering the washi and die cut. Although most of my washis are bright and bold, I went with nearly all neutrals for this card.

Done! I'm also joining the Iron Craft challenge #2 with a couple of these. I actually saw the sketch over there for the first time as part of the Inspiration Board from Mayuri's segment. That's where the B/W on the last card came from as well as the use of the turquoise/yellows in the first cards.

a party in a card (CARDS)

Sharing a sneak peek of a card of mine published in the January 2014 issue of CARDS magazine. It's on their blog today.  Check it out here.  They sure do stage wonderful photos, don't they?

Back to the cookies...

we interrupt the regular programming...

...for my first published card!!!

It's kinda crazy.  If you start to play the submission/publication game there are three things to get your head around:

1.   You have to be in the mood for Christmas in Spring, Valentine's Day in Summer, etc.
2.   You need to know your supplies.  Did I mention you need to know your supplies?
3.   There are lightyears between submitting and seeing your project in the magazine!

But the wait is over.  You can see it here or in the Birthday Creations  edition of Paper Crafts Magazine on page 55.  (Still pinching myself!)

As I mentioned in this post, I kept to a theme/technique for my cards when I submitted for the first time. Thought that if they kept seeing the die cut "hb2u" idea it might grow on 'em ;)  I doubt that that makes any difference to tell you the truth.

Funny thing about this card was that it came together as an afterthought!  Some of the die cut letters that were left over from the die cut negatives that I used on other cards for the submission were laying around in a little pile on my ironing board... and looking at them I got the idea for the "Scrambled Happy Birthday." 

I do like this card as I look at it again.  Guess it's a good one to have as a "first."  I was a little nervous, wondering if it would actually appear in the print issue or just the digital one.  DD was embarrassed at the book store when we were flipping through the issue and I saw it was actually in the print issue and I may have let out a little shriek!  There it is, paired with a great "29 forever" card from Wendy S.   Of course I wonder why this card and not another from the bunch I submitted, but hey, that's not my job. Oh, this was kinda nice too!

Thanks for sharing in my happy news today.  There is a great blog hop going on at Paper Crafts Connection. Check out some of the great cards from the issue as well as newly-designed ones based on some cool sketches.

Supplies Happy Birthday:

Paper: (solar white) Neenah, (gray graph paper, backside of Seen & Noted 4x6” phrase cards) Pebbles

Stamps: Hero Arts

Pigment ink: (Versafine Smokey Gray) Tsukineko, (Iris, Carrot, Curacao, Lemon from the Vitamin 10-pad collection) Aladine

Accent: (white iridescent sequins 5 mm) Eurocrafters, (yellow iridescent sequins  6mm) Rayher

Sticker: (Yellow Chevron washi tape) Bella Blvd 

Dies: (Circle Stax Set 1) Dienamics, (Parker Lower Case Alpha, Parker Numbers) Memory Box

yippie... (CASE, Inspired By)

...I've used up some letter stickers!  That's certainly not what you were expecting, eh?  But after thinking of "the best laid plans..." and "neglected children " as post titles, it occurred to me that something positive occured here.

Backtrack.  DS takes a final exam in German today.  Four hours long.  DD has a Math test and let's just say she and Math don't get along well.  And there's this saying in German that loosely translates to "the shoemaker's kids have the worst shoes in town".  I'm whipping out cards all the time, but rarely for my own kids.  That's about to change.

Since I had two cards to cover and Alicia T.'s bitty bag had been playing in the back of my mind, this is what I did.

Printed the "yes you can" (nod to a certain presidential campaign) then placed the "you" stickers on one card and misted with blue Dylusions and the "can do it" stickers on the other card and sprayed with pink Dylusions.  Took the letters off the cards and adhered them to the "other" card - get it?

TIP:  If you want the letters to look clean after they've been misted... they probably won't.   Maybe they would if you wiped them quickly with a baby wipe.  But I didn't.  So I now have some yellow-misted-pink  stickers back in my stash replacing the clean ones I had to pull out to use on the blue card!

I'm hooking up at CASE Study - #141.  I had Maile's hearts in mind when choosing the colors to use for the two cards and I just love the words-on-top-of-gobs-of-color idea.

And I saw this cool photo at Inspired By #45 and that stark "E" at the top inspired me to use strong black letters in the pink mist with the design flowing from upper left to lower right.  Cool photo Laurel.

Thanks for visiting today.  May the sun be with you this weekend, wherever you are.

Supplies you can do it:

Paper: CS Bringmann, copy paper

Stamps: none!

Ink: Dylusions

Tools: 

Other: letter stickers Pebbles and KI Memories

kate spade (RIC, CFC, Moxie Fab)

Kate Spade - now this is a designer I could love.  Tailored fun.  How's that for a description?  You should check out her other outfits at style.com.

Image Credit

My initial take was "stripes, see-through panel in the middle with a funky stamped image on it, strip of yellow."  Yeah, the DT had the same idea...  Off to the mental drawing board.  I zoomed on Barbie's t-shirt and LOL - a polka dot handbag, a pink sprinkle donut a hot dog and a gray poodle.  (I seriously WOULD LOVE to own this t-shirt.  If I see the price I'll probably choke...)  This is what evolved.

Used an older sketch from CASE This Sketch.  The B/W stripes had to stay.  The yellow became more than a mini skirt.  Red and white polka dots?  I can't refuse.  And the fun and funky came to play in the form of speech bubbles and the pink sequins.

Also playing at:
CASual Fridays - #92 Color Blocking (though I'm not sure this really qualifies...)
Moxie Fab - The Speech Bubble Challenge

Have a great weekend, friends.

Supplies thank you:

Paper: CS American Crafts, PP echo park

Stamps: Hero Arts

Ink : Versafine, Versamark 

Tools:  heat tool

Other: sequins, pin, speech bubble sticker Pebbles

smile! (Moxie Fab, HIMCR)

You may remember this photo from yesterday's post.

My mind, working in its strange ways, decided to use this photo as the inspiration for a bday card for a 60-year-old.  Male.  Trust me, he can handle it.  

There's a Camera Craze Challenge over at Moxie Fab so I upped the ante by limiting myself to the one camera related stamp set I own.  Which I can highly recommend if you don't want to overdo on this trend.

Probably more for scrapbooking than bday cards, eh?  I remembered an old Retro Sketch that I really like and revisited it.  This is what happened.

A scrap of magenta on a white cardbase.  A "polaroid frame" (you can make this pretty easy without a die).  A cool chalkboard speech bubble from the Pebbles prize pack I won from Paper Crafts that I heat embossed with one of the sentiments from the stamp set.  And for the main image I stamped the camera in red, masked it, stamped "memories" as a BG using generational stamping and then heat embossed the camera image slightly offset.  Brought in some more funkiness with some KI Memories letter stickers and washi.  I'm likin' it.

Hooking up at Hiding in My Craft Room where she is challenging us to use embossing.  Don't have to ask me twice :)

Thanks for stopping by.  I read that an average person in the UK is caught on surveillance camera 300 times a day!  Whoa.  So smile!  Ya never know...

Supplies for smile ur 60!:

Paper: CS American Crafts, magenta scrap, PP K&Co

Stamps: Maya Arts

Ink :Jenny Bowlin, Versamark

Tools: square die Sizzix

Other: embossing powder Zing, chipboard Pebbles, letter stickers KI Memories, washi Bella Blvd.

home sweet home (YCU, Retro)

Just received my first Neat and Tangled stamp set "Sweet Home" and the challenge #17 at Young Crafter's Unite is "Something Sweet".  Hmm, sounds like a card to me.

Ingredients:  PP from Pebbles, debossed Neenah CS and some stickers that I remembered I had, don't know the manufacturer.  Sentiment from Neat and Tangled.

All cooked up to the current Retro Sketch #46.

What a fabulous sketch for using up scrap PP or smaller stamped images.  Which I didn't.  But I may!

Have a great day.  We are (finally) getting snow.  Yippie!

Supplies for home sweet home:

Paper: CSNeenah, PP Pebbles

Stamps: Neat & TangledI

Ink : Versafine

Tools: embossing folder CuttlebugI

Other:  foam stickers