MMCC #31

Well hello 2017! First the crazy rush to get ready for Christmas. Then a couple quiet days with family around the tree (and dining room table - seems all we do is eat!) Then the nice and laid back days between Christmas and New Year's. And suddenly here it is, January 1st, 2017!

I wish all of you lovelies who still stop by the blog nothing but the best for the next 365 day trip around the sun!!!

It's no surprise we're starting off the new year at the Mixed Media Card Challenge with this theme.

I went CASsy with a housewarming card using watercolors!

Stamped some STAMPlorations Shirley's Houses in gray and one with black on watercolor paper. Messy watercolored it with Gansai Tambi red, orange and yellow and fussy cut it. Gave the windows a welcoming glow with sparkling H2Os. See the sparkle below?

Before adhering the house I masked the two houses and stamped the foreground with Stampendous Floral Tapestry. I applied embossing paste (colored with yellow acrylic paint) through ARTplorations  Clouds and stamped my sentiment from Stampendous Baby Girl  to look like a plume of smoke from the chimney.

There you have it. CAS yet a little messy! Again Happy New Year and thanks for coming by here! I hope you'll have time to join us at the MMCC this month.

I'm joining these fun challenges too:
Basteltraum #48 - Watercolor
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge - Anything Goes
Time Out #73 - "With Each Sunrise we are given a Chance for a New Beginning"

CASEplorations July

Welcome to the July installment of CASEplorations. You know the routine. We select one cool card from the blogosphere for your and our CASEing pleasure. Meet this month's card.

You likely saw this on the STAMPlorations blog. It's a quintessential Tenia N. (of Jazzy Paper Designs and also my DT teamie) card, don't you think?  I am always in awe of the edginess of her creations. But let me tell you. It was a challenge to channel Tenia and try to come up with something half as cool as her card. Here's my attempt.

Went with the new home idea. And Tenia's concoction of colors. And dots and washi and shiny textures.

I must say, the first item that caught my eye on Tenia's card was the enamel chevron up top. That's why I clear embossed the ones from Chevron and Arrows, after sponging two purple inks through the Bubbles stencil through a circle mask. Fussy cut a heat embossed house from The Bee's Knees Houses and grounded it with washi. Used some words from Christmas and New Year for my sentiment. Added some hearts with washi up top and an enamel heart down by the house.

Remember, if you feel moved to CASE Tenia's card of my card (I'd be thrilled) or any of the DT Inspiration Projects coming up during July, you can hook up your creations in the Inspiration CASE Playground. It's open until August 5th. Hope to see you there. You could be a lucky random winner!

STAMPlorations inspiration #14

A little venture in paper piecing and spotlighting today. Another inspiration card for you using the wonderful little houses from STAMPlorations The Bee's Knees Houses. But this time instead of masking them to create a village, like you might remember here, I chose to spotlight one house.

I put three houses onto my acrylic block and stamped them onto my cardbase. Then I stamped them again onto another piece of CS and die cut the tag from it.

Since this was a housewarming card for my cousin who is a MSU fan and MSU colors are green and white, I had to paper piece the house with green paper. I stamped and fussy cut a couple times - the glow in several windows, the roof, the door - then adhered everything to the house on the tag.

Then I grounded all the houses with a strip of grass using American Crafts glitter washi tape. I added some to the tag too, trimming it to fit the curves.

Then I added the family's initial (in UofM colors cuz I'm a UofM fan!) on a tiny tag, used a wisp of twine to attach the two tags and popped the tag up on dimensional adhesive.  A couple clouds in the sky completed my spotlight neighborhood scene.

Have you joined us over at STAMPlorations on the Inspiration CASE Playground yet? If you feel like CASEing this card or any of the other cards which have appeared in April Inspiration Project Posts, be sure to hook up in the gallery at the Inspiration CASE Playground. A random winner will get a $15 gift certificate to STAMPlorations or her choice of two ARTplorations stencils! Shery R. is so darn generous ;)

STAMPlorations sketch #26

There's a new neighbor in my parents' hood. Actually the daughter of the original builder/owner has decided to make it her retirement home. So happy for her and her hubby. And for my folks. Now there is someone else living along the beach year round.

And there's a new sketch up at STAMPlorations.

So I grabbed my cute little houses from Shirley's The Bees Knees: Houses and created a hood.

Know how I made the grass? With the roof of one of the house stamps (one I didn't stamp on the card)! Got some new Memento Luxe and Radiant Neon inks to play with (on sale for around €3 at Scrapmalin for any of you on this side of the pond) and voila!

For my sentiment I hung a vellum banner with alpha stickers and a PC-generated secondary sentiment with some stitching. Put a strip of cheery washi along the bottom of the inside of the card (a la Kate). Easy peasy, as they say! And a great idea for using up some of your washi stash. I'm hooking up at Challenge up your Life #6.

And since my world consists of life here in Germany and life back in Michigan, I'm hooking up to Addicted to CAS #50.

This is a great sketch, even rotated :) Won't you join us for the challenge? Check out the cards from the DT and our guest designer, Maria, at the STAMPlorations blog.

gotta love legos (Inspired by)

I stumbled across the inspiration photo at Inspired By and just think it's so cool (maybe cuz I've stepped on my share of Legos with bare feet in my lifetime).

Image Credit

Squeaking in under the wire here, but I made a card.  Quickly too when I opted to go with one stamp set.  Maybe the only furniture stamps I have.  Then again, maybe not.

Wishing a new homeowner oodles of love in their new abode.

I'm lovin' all the green on cards lately.  A nasty blizzard covered all ours up around here yesterday.  Happy Spring - someday!

Supplies new digs:

Paper: CS Bringmann, scraps

Stamps: Paper SmoochesI

Ink : Colorbox, Versafine 

Tools:  heart punch, embossing folder Cuttlebugl

Other: glue dots, washi

mint is in (Moxie Fab)

I've never been fond of mint - unless it's the filling in After Eights.  But DD decided not too long ago that it is her color of choice for an upcoming bedroom re-do.  I tell her it might be tough cuz you don't see a whole lot of stuff in mint these days.  Then along comes Moxie Fab and proves me oh-so-wrong.

This is one of the photos included in the Minty Fresh Challenge.

from etsy

I was in awe of the freshness as well as the serenity of the photo.  And oh-so-symmetrical.

Enter my new little PTI dies.  A church becomes a house with a warm brown polka dot door.  (Remember that show back in the 70s - or was it even earlier?!?)  The aura in the sky becomes a flower stamped in Amuse Lemon Whip which, by the way, is a great color. You can use it as pale yellow or cream.  I even used it to stamp the bits of grass to the left and right of the house to ground it and play off on the supports in the photo.  Then a sentiment fitting to a house stamped in mint.

Minty fresh?  Thanks for visiting.

Supplies you're moving:

Paper: CS Neenah, PP Fancy Pants

Stamps:  PTI

Ink: Amuse, Tsukineko

Tools: die PTI

Other:  

happily ever after... in your new home (watercolor paper)

Here's another peek into my creative process.  Have these things laying around.  Recognize this item?

It's what's left of the sheet that peel-off postal stamps come on.  And of course I've saved a few thinking "I could do something with this."

Enter this photo in my Living & More magazine:

And my brain thinks "Hey, I could go with that for this week's Tuesday Trigger at Moxie Fab."



I needed a Congrats on your New Home card for my cousin.  Normally I would jump all over the polka dots in this trigger photo.  BTW, Retro Mama who made this piece has a fabby blog.  Great inspiration.  But I chose to take items of the trigger and go with an artistic card.

I had such fun with this card. How did I use the trigger?
green, blue sky, red roses, curtains like fabric, polka dots on the curtains, woodgrain table, twiggy tree like the delicate fence and an overall home-y feel

Used watercolor paper.  Marked off the area where my "window frame" would go and then painted the landscape with Distress Inks as watercolors.  Stamped the tree.  Applied the window frame.  Stamped, dry embossed and stitched on the vellum.  Scored some wainscoting and swiped some Antique Linen Distress Ink across the panel.

Since I have no furniture stamps (how perfect would one of those chair stamps I've seen in blogland have been) I had to build something.  My table was an hourglass stamp in its previous life.  Fussy cut it and added a tabletop.  Stamped and pencil  colored the roses but had to freehand my vase.  Painted it too with Broken China Distress Ink.  LOVE that color.

Decided to use this wedding sentiment.  Thought it was appropriate since my cousin found this beautiful, old house they will probably stay in for many years.  Thank goodness for the quality of Hero Arts stamps - they stamp beautifully.  Which is a darn good thing cuz you don't want to ruin your entire card with a half-stamped sentiment.  I'm good at that.

TIP:  I've cut clear stamp sentiments apart to be able to use the words more freely.  But another good idea is to put a piece of cellophane tape over the area you don't want to use, ink it up, remove the piece of tape and then stamp.

Thanks for visiting.

Supplies:  happily ever after
Paper: watercolor paper, CS Coredinations, vellum recycled envelope 
Stamps: brocade Prima, branch Inkadinkado, roses/sentiment Hero Arts, hourglass Limited Edition
Ink: Distress Inks, black Versafine
Tools:   sewing machine, scissors, scoreboard Martha Stewart
Other: embossing folder Cuttlebug