winnie and walter mojo overload #3

Four cards for the Winnie and Walter birthday bash today. Let's get right to it.

First up, Shay's "One" challenge. I may be stretching it a bit here but ignoring black, I used only one color of ink - Delicata gold!

Next, think-outside-the-box Kelly's In Rotation challenge. Basically CASEd myself here, but added some interest with dry embossing after my images were stamped.

I'm joining the Anything Goes #10 challenge at Stempelkueche with this CAS card.

How about some ombre? That's what Vanessa challenged us to do in her Gradient challenge. She's shared some wonderful inspiration photos on the W&W blog. I chose to work with Antique Linen, Old Paper and Pumice Stone distress inks for a change. Embossed the sentiment with Liquid Platinum and strategically placed a few sequins next to the camouflaged die cut and stacked heart.

And lastly today, the master of Distress Inks, Mayuri, challenges us to use them to create a pattern. I put a slight twist on it by including masking. (Told ya I love those leaves from The Big, Bold and Extras!)

I'm taking this card to Virginia's View - Clean Slate. Sure there are some bright colors, but a whole lotta white too!

Appreciate your visit. If you come by tomorrow you'll see my last two cards for the birthday bash and on Sunday my 2014 Faves post. Have a great day.

a little ditty about joe and donna

As in Joe Cocker (how poignant that the new STAMPlorations stamp set yields this sentiment?).
And Donna Mikasa. Yep.

If you came looking for my mojo overload post, just scroll down a bit. My mojo is still going super strong, so I'm sneaking a second post in today because I absolutely wanted to:
1. play with my new STAMPlorations stamps
2. join Kara's 200 Weeks of Inspiration challenge and
3. join the fun at the first MFT challenge being headed up by Susan Opel

So I chose:
1. one of the Bold Sentiments: hashtag authentic stamps
2. this card of Donna M.'s to CASE and
3. the MFT sketch which I admit I'm following loosely. Very loosely ;)

Used my MFT Patterned Triangle BG to white emboss watercolor paper. Watercolored using the wet to wet technique. Heat embossed the sentiment with gold onto vellum and adhered the CASEd three gold sequins. Voila!

BTW, I had intended to cut down the panel and round the corners in a nod to the sketch, but I couldn't bear to get rid of any of that beautiful watercolor.

Great idea for a challenge, Kara. Will have another go at it soon. And I will also join my friends at Happy Little Stampers, who are challenging us to watercolor this time around.

Thanks for visiting, friends.

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...

STAMPlorations sketch #25

Welcome to the first STAMPlorations sketch challenge of 2015!

Looks like lotsa layering, right? I tried to make it one layer. And nearly succeeded.

Went birthday rather than Valentines. Took the sets, Rosebuds, Sentiment Builders: Celebrate and Bold Sentiments: Hello and did some stamping, masking, inking and embossing. Couldn't resist adding that strip of printed vellum, thus adiosing the one layer card ;)

Wanna see the reason for the crappy lighting? See that wonderful white stuff on the front lawn?!

The challenge runs until January 16. Here's what you can win. Winner (picked by a challenge design team member) will get 3 digi stamps and a guest designer spot. (Be sure to check out our guest designer Kim M.'s creation for this challenge here.) In addition, 2 Top picks (picked by a challenge design team member) will also be invited to guest design.

Don't miss the new products and deals over at STAMPlorations.

And since I've made a birthday card, I'm hooking up to the first Seize the Birthday challenge of 2015.

STAMPlorations january challenge

Time for a new year of challenges at STAMPlorations. There's a lot of news over on the blog you may want to check out. Cool new stamps in January. And new products like stencils and digi stamps. Shery R. is so creative. And productive!

On to the January challenge...

Doesn't get much better than that, right? Stamps. And inks. Pulled out my dye ink (Old Paper Distress), embossing ink (Versamark) and alcohol inks (lemon, butterscotch and lime) and summoned my mojo back from Christmas break ;)

I was intrigued by this card of Cornelia's. I began with a piece of DCWV shimmer CS and the alcohol inks. After adding the drops of ink I added some mixative and love the soft and shimmery result. I actually ended up using the reverse of the CS cuz it was even "softer". Die cut the Lil Inker stitched circle and heat embossed the sentiment from Typografia: Encouragement.

For my cardbase I first ran it through my Big Shot debossing the arrows with an embossing folder, then gently swiped the dye ink over the raised area. A strip of PP along the bottom and the token three enamel dots finished off this dreamy card.

Did your mojo disappear over the holidays? If so, give it a kick start with some stamps and inks. This challenge is open until January 31.

The winner (voted by the design team) will win two stamp sets if she used STAMPlorations stamps, one  if she didn't, plus a guest designer spot. A new addition is that the top picks will win three digi stamps and the option to be a guest designer too. 

I'm joining the Simon Says Wednesday Challenge which is Anything Goes and the AAA Card Challenge to Use a little Gold.

Mixed Media Card Challenge #7

Happy New Year 2015!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Let's hope it's a good one.

And which theme could be more appropriate for January over at the MMCC than "New"? The graphic led me down the road of starbursts and I even managed to get some "Tissue" in there too. Can you guess what it is?

Got the mixed media groove on. Techniques - splattering distress stains, die cutting. Dimension - die cuts and tissue. I dried the baby wipe that I sopped up the extra stain splatters with and then ripped out an oval to "ground" my die cuts, although the "twenty" kind of "floats" since the tissue is only adhered under the black die cut negative! Texture -  some blue staples I picked up at Walmart ages ago, embossing paste.

Looks kinda crazy, but happy. My wish for us all in twenty 15! Thanks for visiting today. See you at the MMCC. And I'm hooking up to Simon Says Stamp's Wednesday Challenge where it's Anything Goes over the holidays.