simply create too 85

What's your favorite color combo? Use it and show us your project over at Simply Create Too in challenge # 85.

I really can't say what my favorite color combo is. I love colors and so many work so well together. One that I think is underrated is yellow and purple. I see lots of it these days in the form of pansies adorning people's patios.

I've captured that inspiration on this thank you card using posies from Techinque Tuesday (using the reverse of the stamps to stamp the solid colors) and a die cut from Cuttlebug.

Join us at Simply Create Too, won't you?

bleeding tissue and puffy stickers

The next challenge for iNSD that I am joining at Winne Walter and Pinkfresh is Make your own Background. This would logically have been the first one I jumped at, but there were just too many possibilities!

Enter Loll, who told me about Eileen, who has a video about bleeding tissue paper. Frugal gal that I am, recycled tissue paper (from gift bags) became the starting place for my first card today.

Bleeding tissue paper gives you a variation on the watercolor look. It is so cool. And fast. And can be so wonderfully pastel. TIP: Use crepe paper if you want more vibrancy. To the blue, pink and yellow splotches I added some frosty pink splatters and tiny white stars using Sugar Rush. Voila! A background.

I stamped and fussy cut the cupcake from the same set and gave it a topper of sequins (cuz I'm joining the Sequins challenge too) and cuz they shine so purty :) And this was obviously a girlie card so I die cut "celebrate" from Big, Bold Party from metallic silver CS. When I saw the cardboad (from a package of cookes!) it matched the silver perfectly so I went with some recycled cardboard too. You can see the sparkle on the splatters and die cut and even the WoS on the cupcake frosting better below.

So next up, Puffy Stickers. I don't have a lot of these but I did recently pick some up at my dollar store cuz I found them so nice and graphic.

How to incorporate little French puffy stickers onto a card?



Tried to incorporate some Francais, but didn't have a huge choice of messages to go with the "hello" from In a Word Hello. I went with "thinking of you" from Artemio floating on a banner (Big, Bold Extras) from the top of the Eiffel Tower!

I'm going over to SSS Wednesday challenge where it's all about Sentiments this week. My die cut sentiments pretty much take center stage. Card #2 even has two sentiments!

Hope you enjoyed. Au revoir!

lotsa white

I'm still having fun with my Winnie and Walter goodies and playing in the iNSD challenges WW and Pinkfresh Studio are holding. Ready for lotsa white space?

My inspiration came from the lower right and upper left photos from the Mood Board challenge - light and airy white on white like the gown and a touch of yellow like the washi tape. This is actually going to the same sweet girl I made this canvas for.

I layered white embossing paste through a stencil sent to me by the lovely Loll to my cardbase. I layered In a Word Hugs, which was watercolor paper smooshed with Distress Inks and splattered with gold, onto three layers of yellow CS to achieve a glow behind it. Notice the sweet little butterfly perching on the "s"? From Essentials: Audrey.

Isn't that light and airy dimension wonderful? The roses and leaves are from Maggie's Roses.

Then there is this Card Sketch challenge. Hard not to go with circles, but I ended up using stars.

Notice the multifaceted star? Like Kelly G., I had perused the facets of the Multifaceted die cut for geometric shapes and found this wonky star! Even used some of the "fallout" to make my little stitched banner under the sentiment :)

The stripes behind the focal image were made with clear embossing paste through the SSS Diagonal Stripe stencil. The other stars were die cut with Sizzix Star framelits die from tissue paper and CS. My sentiment is composed of a stamp from The Big, The Bold and Extras and a word from ARTplorations Hello and Company.

Notice the hole in the turquoise star? I'm playing here.

 And I may be pushing the limits of CAS, but I'm hooking up at Happy Little Stampers.

Lots to do today. Hope the sunshine sticks around. Enjoy your day.

gobsmacked

OK, not sure if I'm using that word correctly, but it's what came to mind when I used that tiny little row of hearts die from Winnie and Walter's Essentials: Audrey for the first time. It's so darn adorable!

Let me back up. I'm playing. No due dates, just playing! And I saw the barrage of challenges at Winnie and Walter and Pretty Pink Posh in honor of interNational Scrapbook Day as well as the sketch at CAS(E) this Sketch #121.

And this is what I created.

The word die is Winnie and Walter Big, Bold and You. The scalloped edge panel, tag and tiny row of hearts are from Essentials: Audrey. For my gold I heat embossed Multifaceted on the tag, added a strip of washi up top and attached the word with gold metallic thread. The aqua I smooshed onto the panel. I don't think you can miss the neon pink!

Thanks for visiting today. I hope you enjoyed the last couple card-heavy weeks. Another bloggiversary has come and gone. I think I feel a giveaway coming on ...

Mixed Media Card Challenge #11

If you're looking for my Winnie & Walter April/May release post, click here.

If you're looking for my CASEplorations post, click here.

And another one bites the dust. Month, that is. Yes, April whooshed by and it's already time to wish you all a  "Happy May Day". Spring has sprung, the leaves have popped on the grape vines here in our valley and summer is on its way (seems that some years May is the only summer we have here in Germany ...)

We have a new challenge at The Mixed Media Card Challenge. Show us your mixed media cards with "Wings" and an optional element of "Foil" - which seems to be all the rage these days.

Must admit I had only seen the theme and not the graphic when I started thinking about my card. I was planning to create a Confirmation card and was therefore thinking angels. I ended up sticking with the angel idea, but created a baby card instead.

 Where's the blue or yellow or pink, you ask?  Had to go vintage here with those shoes!

I first stencilled some stars onto my cardbase with Tea Dye through a Crafter's Workshop stencil. Then I inked the cardbase with Antique Linen and Tea Dye and an applicator tool. Spritzed it with some Burnt Orange Glimmer Mist and added some embossing paste through a Tim Holtz stencil. When that was dry I stamped some teensy dots and rings from STAMPlorations Mixed Media Grunge randomly, also with Tea Dye. Whew.

Then to the easy part! Tore a piece of vellum. Curved and heat embossed a sentiment from PTI Tweet Talk. Heat embossed some wings from an ancient Crafty Secrets Cherub set and colored them with a Copic marker on the reverse. Heat embossed, fussy cut and lightly watercolored the baby shoes which are also ancient and from A La Carte, before adhering them to the vellum with glue dots.

Stitched the vellum to my cardbase and now I need a new baby boy in the neighborhood!

Stamps, ink, techniques, texture, dimension? Yep.

I'm joining in at PTI Make it Monday #210 where it's about using vellum to soften backgrounds. You may have noticed, it's one of my favorite materials to work with ;)

And I'm playing at Colour Me #69 where they have this lovely natural palette up for offer.

Thanks for looking today. Hope you'll join us at MMCC this month.

CASEplorations May

If you're looking for my mixed media projects today, they're here.

If you're looking for my Winnie & Walter April/May release projects, they're here.

Happy May Day! As you read this I am out doing our Three Tower Hike through our beautiful wine valley that is in full bloom right now. But it's CASEplorations time over at STAMPlorations today and that's why you're here. We've got a quiet beauty up for the CASEing this month , check out the DT's CASES here.

We're CASEing Kim Makortoff of Art Keeps Me Sane. You probably know her, maybe even from the STAMPlorations blog. Kim joins us frequently with her beautiful creations. Check out this beauty we've chosen to CASE. Isn't that white on kraft splendid?

Source: Kim Makortoff

On to my CASE. I've used kraft and white, the Mother's Day theme and some blooms... plus a little bit more for my card.

First I stamped three roses from Blossom Overture tone-in-tone along the edge of my kraft panel. I went a bit crazy with the Mother's Day card idea and created my own subway art sentiment (and heat embossed it in white) from Blossom Overture, Sentiment Builders: Thank You, City Girl, Sentiment Builders: Happy and Subway Art : Mom's the Word.

Added some stitching, Me and my Big Ideas PP and an enamel heart and voila! This is off to poor Mom who is having issues with her WiFi. And the problem is, neither she nor Dad (Dad conveniently keeps himself out of all technology-related issues) really have a clue about any of it. Gotta give 'em credit for "doing" iPads and Internet at all, I suppose.

I'm joining the Anything Goes mayhem at Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge. Gotta give those gals credit. They are busy, busy, busy.

Remember, if you feel like CASEing this card, or any of the DT Inspiration Projects coming up during the month of May, you can hook up your creations here. We'd love to see what you come up with.

guest star at Winnie & Walter - premiere Facets

What a whirlwind week it's been! I hope you've been following all the premieres of the Winnie & Walter April/May release.  If not, be sure to check out the gorgeous projects created by The Talent, as well as the Big Giveaway and the previous days' premieres here. It's been my pleasure designing with this release and I hope you've been inspired to start creating with these trendy and versatile sets too.

Today is fun! Graphic, cool fun! Winnie & Walter are premiering - Mini Scenery; Multifaceted + My Precious + Sparkle + True.  Please take a moment to go see the sets here.

I didn't know where to start. All that facetted goodness. And handwritten sentiments!

Before we get to the stamps, let me show you what I did with the cutaway Mutlifaceted.

Got in over my head on this one. Started out thinking shaker with gold sequins. Ended up with an acetate card with too many glue squishes. But anyhoo... die cut it from black, removed most of the triangles and adhered acetate with matte medium. Then had to adhere a second sheet of acetate cuz I had cut the other exactly the size of the die cut and how to attach a card back????  I needed a flap to fold over at the top and attach to a piece of black CS. And thus, the glue, squished between the two acetate layers :(  I'm curious... What would you use to attach a die cut like this to acetate?

But did you catch my faux foiling?!? I topped my stacked The Big, the Bold and Friends die cut with PP (from a Teresa Collins Studio Gold 12x12 pad) which is large stripes of gold and white. I placed the die so that it appears that just the bottom of the word was foiled!

"Fabulous" from The Big, the Bold and Friends was stamped onto and fussy cut from another sheet of PP from the pad.

On to the stamp sets. I had seen a color combo in a magazine and decided to use it with this design. I inked the star from True with dye inks and stamped along a pencilled guideline.

I used words from True and My Precious to create my sentiment, stamping "hero" onto a gold die cut star to emphasize the theme. Wouldn't this be great for Operation Write Home?

Then it was time for some Sparkle too. This set actually came out with the last release as a freebie, but is available for regular purchase now. It works great with the party-themed stamps of the last release as well as the facetted stamps of this release.

I combined Sparkle with My Precious to create sparkle and shine with glittered embossing powder on vellum.

I chose this color combo in a nod to Taheerah's color crushes on the 2015 Pantone palette. I used Adirondack inks in Cranberry, Butterscotch and Pool. Softened them around the edges with my water brush. And gave the gems a shot of Wink of Stella too.

My last creation goes out to the lovely Julie and Shay at W&W. 

This card was born in the aftermath of the gems. I used the same colors to watercolor the heat embossed hearts. If you're a follower, you know I'm oh-so-frugal-practical. So instead of cleaning up the ink leftover from watercoloring the images, I grabbed a scrap of watercolor paper and brushed them onto it. Meet my background ;)

Then I just arranged the hearts near their color blocks and added some words from True stamped onto vellum. I heart you, ladies!

Well, it's a wrap! I hope you have enjoyed this week as much as I have. I had a blast creating with the April/May Winnie & Walter release and I hope you will too! The products go on sale tonight at 10 p.m. Don't miss out. All that's left is for me to send out a great big thanks to Julie and Shay for having me as guest star this week. Thanks gals!