day 5 ARTplorations stencil blog hop

Welcome to the final day of the ARTplorations stencil blog hop. Hope you enjoyed it. Did you see my card for day 1? I told you how I had some "glow" in mind, but couldn't move past the CAS white version.

Well I moved past it.

Slightly different placement of the stencil. Some extra stamping of text and black dots. And lotsa "glow" created by smearing gelatos around with a damp finger. Not as cute as Melissa P.'s original tag was for the MIM segment, but an interesting technique.

Thanks for looking. I hope you left comments along the STAMPlorations blog hop and even made a card with a stencil for the Flash Linky Party. Shery is so generous with prizes. Check out the deets here.

I'm playing with the ladies over at Seize the Birthday with this Anything Goes birthday card.

And at Simon Says Stamp Wednesday's Anything Goes challenge.

day 4 ARTplorations stencil blog hop

Welcome ! We have been exploring the plethora of beautiful designs available in the shop. My card today uses Daisy Dance, which was designed to work with the daisy image from Bloom Sketches too.

If you saw my project for day 3, you know I had a spatial thinking issue with this stencil. I had to give it another go.

Distress inks with ink daubers, the stencil AND the stamp this time. And I'm very pleased with the result.

The heat embossed white sentiment on vellum is nothing new, but this piece of vellum was laying around when I reached for vellum and I decided not to trim it and attach it along the top like I usually do, but rather with a strip of stitching down the left side. I love how the air underneath it diffuses the BG a bit. I also love that new-to-me DI color, Victorian Velvet which is behind the daisies.

So today and tomorrow are extra days over at the blog. But you can join in now by making a card with a stencil and hooking up here. You can also check out my teamies' extra projects and the prizes up for grabs.

I'm playing with the gals over at Seize the Birthday where it's Anything Goes.

Thanks for coming by today. Have a great day.

return of the wonky cake

Wanted to share a card with you, very similar to this one. Seems to be the year for DD's friends to be hitting the magical sweet 16.

Stuck with the pink and orange color combo, multi-inking the STAMPlorations Birthday Cake stamp for the BG. Heat embossed the sentiments (Technique Tuesday and the numerals from We R Memory Keepers) on pink CS.

Added a layer of vellum and some sequins strung on metallic gold thread too.

Playing at:
A Blog named Hero where it's Bright and Bold  this time around.

The Card Concept #31 where it's about (cup)cakes! I've created a freestyle collage design.

Seize the Birthday where the focus is on the sentiment.

I'm pretty much over jet lag and can see the pinnacle of Mt. Laundry on my laundry/craft room floor (our washing machine went kaputt while I was in Michigan!) so I'm hoping the creative juices will get to flowing normally soon. Thanks for coming by today.

FYI, Here's the view that greeted me at 6 a.m. on my first day at my parents'. Whether reflecting off open water or jagged pieces of ice, the morning sun creates diamonds on the lake...

CASEplorations february

It's a two-fer post day today. For my Mixed Media Card Challenge please scroll.

Cool header, eh? Shery's talents extend beyond stamp and stencil design as you can see ;)

Welcome to the STAMPlorations girls' first CASEplorations post. We figured if we were asking you to join us on the Inspiration CASE Playground, then maybe we should do some CASEing too. So the first of every month we'll have a CASEplorations post. You never know, maybe we'll be CASEing one of your cards!

I personally love to CASE. So let's get right to it.

If you hang out in blogland, you surely know Julie Ebersole. Of Hello, Mondays in the Classroom at Ellen Hutson fame?

Well, check out her card. It just makes my heart smile.

Source: Julie Ebersole

So when I set out to CASE it ("copy and share everything"- more or less), I started by noticing the various elements - cupcake, pink, lotsa white, gold thread and sequins, black banner and splatters, doodling. I looked at it a couple times and then headed to my craft room.

I couldn't resist using a cupcake cuz I had the perfect one from Sketched: Cupcake but the splatters and cupcake for a birthday celebration morphed into a party which morphed into a shaker card in my brain. So I followed that thought and enclosed my cupcake inside a shaker.

I stamped the cupcake on white CS and on a scrap of watercolored CS. Added a bit more pink to the frosting before fussy cutting it and adhering it to the white one. Made some splatters on my cardbase and then it was shaker assembly time.

Gathered some pink and gold sequins and black star confetti and placed them and the cupcake on my card front. I used the Lil Inker Stitched Rectangle dies to cut one frame from CS and two from craft foam as well as a piece of acetate. Used Matte Medium and glued together CS frame, acetate, foam frame, foam frame, and cardbase - in that order. Put an acrylic block on it to dry overnight.

In a nod to the doodled line around Julie's card, I went over the stitches on the frame with a thin black marker. Added a couple star confetti pieces outside of the shaker too.

I love how the font on the one portion of my sentiment is the same as a part of Julie's! I heat embossed it in white onto black CS, using part of the sentiment from Vignette: It's your Day.

TIP:  Stretch your stamps by selectively inking. Before inking it up, use tape to cover up areas of a stamp you do not want to use . Just remember to remove the tape before stamping :)

As a final nod to Julie's card, I wrapped some metallic gold thread around the sentiment which I cut into a banner shape similar to hers.

I hope you enjoyed hearing how I approach a CASE. Take another look up top at Julie's card and mine. See a resemblance? Then it's a CASE!

Remember, that's what it's all about over at the new Inspiration CASE Playground. Pick a DT card from the CASEplorations post on the first of the month or one of the Inspiration Project Posts (2nd and 4th Mondays and Fridays), CASE it and link your card up to the Playground gallery for the month. You could be the lucky random winner of a great prize.

Oh, and should the green fingernail in the photo have you irritated (Cornelia), this was the reason for it. Helau!

I'm squeaking in at the last moment at CASology 131 (not sure if a shaker qualifies as CAS) but it sure is birthday. And cuz it's all about shakers at Virginia's View February challenge! And at Seize the Birthday- Anything Goes.

STAMPlorations sketch #22 (ATCAS, Seize the Birthday, CASOS)

Welcome to a new sketch over at STAMPlorations. This is what she looks like. Harmless, right?

Leslie, of The Crooked Stamper (great blog name, eh?) is guest designing with us this time around and she has a really fun design over on the blog. As do my teamies. Have a looksee.

Here's my card. Make that "cardS".

So ever since my family's "161" party back in September, I've had combo birthdays on the brain. Saturday we were invited to a party for a couple, both of whom turned 50 this year. Thus my "celebrate 100" card.

And, well, my folks have birthdays within two weeks of each other and are sharing a present this year (we're sending them to see Michael Grimm who won America's Got Talent back in 2010 - sure hope they enjoy it. Tangent.) So they're sharing a card too.  Celebrating 173. Those are the words "one, seven, three" stamped on the BG of this one. Blows my mind that the four of us plus Ellie plus our anniversary added up to "161", and the they are celebrating "173" with birthdays alone!

Had some fun with heat embossing and watercoloring on these cards. Used a line stamp, curved and stamped twice to create a stem for the beautiful daisy from Bloom Sketches.

Nice sketch. Easy sketch. Give it a go. Don't forget, there are prizes to be had ;) And there's a never-ending Anything Goes challenge too if you use STAMPlorations stamps!

I'm hooking up at:

ATCAS - #50 Vellum (I would be lost without vellum - love the stuff)

Seize the Birthday - Anything Goes

CAS on Sunday - #44 Emboss it

up in the sky (Lawnscaping, Seize the Birthday, TCEC)

Quick one. A birthday card for a six-year-old gal. Lawn Fawn PP. Some balloons and some clouds. And a part of a sentiment stamp from Stampendous from which I have certainly gotten my money's worth. (It's actually from a baby set.)

Toughest part was deciding on which PPs to combine and then tying those stinkin' little threads!

I'm joining the fun at:

Lawnscaping Patterned Paper

The Cutting Edge #12 cuz I'm up in the air (and have clouds!)

Seize the Birthday without toppings

Supplies:

Paper:  Bringmann, PP Lawn Fawn

Stamps: Stampendous

Ink : Versafine

Tools: balloon and cloud die PTI, number MFT

Other: thread

sketched and unexpected patterns (WW, Seize the Birthday)

So can you tell from the photo where I'm going with this card???

Playing along with three more of the challenges for WCMD (or week) over at Winnie and Walter. Kelly G. is on the design team and I just love how that girl's brain works. She is hosting one of the challenges called "Unexpected Stamping."

I had a card published where I used tiny alpha stamps to stamp a "pattern" inside the negative of the Simon Says Big Hello, thereby creating the word "hello" on my card front. Kinda like Jennifer M. stamped through a stencil here.

Well I did something similar now, but more along the lines of masking. Cuz I decided to combine Kelly's challenge with Julie's - which was a sketch. Check it.

And cuz I couldn't leave well enough alone, I tried to make my result be very graphic. Cuz Shay's challenge over at W&W is called "Pattern Play." Whew. Here she is. Actually, he cuz I also tried to give it a masculine feel ...

Die cut the smaller circle from copy paper and stamped the heart from Clear and Simple through it, then heat embossed blue. Masked it. Die cut the larger circle and stamped "happy" with Hero Arts Soft Granite (love that gray!) through it. Masked it and used Post Its to mask for the banner which I stamped with Artemio polka dots and heat embossed green. That was about all the masking my non-spatial-thinking brain could handle.

TIP: When using this technique, it's wise to use solid-ish stamps to fill in the openings so that you get maximum coverage around the edges/outlines. This helps the eye see the intended shapes better. Notice the lower part of the "happy" circle? That tiny bit of a tail of a"y" barely defines the edge of that larger circle between the banner and blue circle.

Moving along...Added the "birthday" sentiment along the curved bottom edge and a teensy die cut heart and strip to the inside.

And cuz it's a birthday card, I'm hooking up at Seize the Birthday where there's no specific topping.

Now if this were going to my Dad, I'd be in trouble. The card doesn't stand up! Either I send it to someone who does not display birthday cards on their mantle, or I better put a piece of acetate inside the front flap ;)

There's still time to play at W&W. The challenges are open until Saturday. Thanks for looking.

Supplies:

Paper:  Bringmann, digi PP Melstampz

Stamps: Artemio, Clear and Simple, Winnie and Walter

Ink : Versamark, Hero Arts

Tools: circle die MFT, heart die Amuse

Other: embossing powder

exploration STAMPlorations sketched: simple gift (Craft Stamper, YNS, Seize the Birthday)

For day 3 of my exploration STAMPlorations, I'm working with this stamp set,

SKETCHED: Simple Gift

this card of Shelly K.'s which inspired me, and these challenges:

Seize the Birthday - Stars and Stripes (no toppings for me on this card)

Craft Stamper Take it Make it - Emboss Resist

Your Next Stamp - #14

Created two masks of the gift, placed them on the CS and stamped the sentiment randomly. When dry, I heat embossed the gifts and then inked them with rainbow colors. Put the masks back on and splattered with black Heidi Swapp spray ink. Rounded two corners and I was done.

I'm lovin' these sketchy stamps for artsy techniques like distress inking or watercoloring. More rainbow action coming your way tomorrow... And rumor has it there might be a giveaway ;)

Thanks for looking.