STAMPlorations october release hop

Welcome to the final day of the STAMPlorations October Release week! Hope you've been checking out the four new stamp sets all week. There's such variety. And humor!

I had some fun with Distress Inks for this release. May I introduce my card using Power of Words.

I couldn't resist a little emboss resist and a galaxy BG when I saw the "to the moon and back" sentiment in Deepti's set. If you want to know more about my galaxy making, check out my Spotlight project post here.

When I'd finished my background I die cut the Crazy Double Stitched Rectangles and before adhering the panel I stamped a couple trio of stars from Balloons and Banners.

With Faith Expressions.

Here I took the stencil Peony Number Two and dabbed pinks and yellows through it. When I removed the stencil, TIP: I went over the white line areas with light pink to soften it all up a bit. Added a sentiment from Shery's set heat embossed with Ranger Liquid Platinum powder. Love that stuff!

Then there's Funny Kinda Love.

Don't ya just love the humorous sentiments? I fell in love with this heart so I ombre-inked some Neenah CS, stamped the image and fussy cut it. Stamped the sentiment on my cardbase and adhered the heart with foam adhesive. Packs a punch in all its simplicity, doesn't it?

And lastly Fairie Door.

Shirley's little fairy just needed a garden so I pulled out Folk Flowers and stamped around a penciled rectangle shape. Then I cut away the inside section. On a panel of Neenah white CS I stamped the fairy and masked her. Then I pounced pink and purple Distress Inks (there's a bokeh-y effect to the BG but it's hard to see here). Removed the mask and gave her a wand and fairy dust. Adhered the inked panel to show through the cut away "garden".

To accentuate the fairy dust, I added some gold Smooch accent ink on the inked panel and continued it onto the card front too. When the clear ink dries, you're left with tiny specks of gold glitter. Nice and fairy-like :)

Be sure to see what the rest of the team made! You'll find links to all our projects here. Prizes? Yep, Check out all the ways you can win them on the STAMPlorations blog. And special for blog followers release week hop participants, until November 1st all orders of at least $12 ship free worldwide with the code OCTSTAMPWEEK.

Thanks for hopping! Have a great day.

it's a purple world

Quick post today. Last day out in the vineyards for me this season. I think and hope. But I managed to make a card for two challenges and want to share it with you.

I used Map Love from Concord and 9th. Stamped the earth in the second lightest Shades of Purple Altenew ink. Heat embossed the sentiment. Then I took a wide flat brush and brushed clean water on the cardbase. This softened up the earth a bit. I smooshed some of the lightest ink onto an acrylic block and picked it up with my brush and dabbed it onto the wet areas. Did this cuz I wanted to join the Watercolor challenge at Where Creativity Meets C9. BTW, the heart was a leftover, cut from Modern Edition Paper Route pack.

And why did I choose purple? Cuz I wanted to join Becca's Hop to Stop (domestic violence, that is) and purple is the color of Domestic Violence Awareness Month.

Hope you have a lovely weekend planned. Stay tuned for the STAMPlorations October release hop later today!

STAMPlorations inspiration #102

Another round of inspiration from the DT today at STAMPlorations, as well as a new release going on. I've used the stamp set being previewed today for today's card.

Kept it very simple. Heat embossed the wonderful framed flowers onto neon pink CS, trimmed it and backed it with a narrow black mat. Stamped the sentiment directly onto my cardbase and voila!

There's so much power in the image heat embossed onto that pink, don't you think?

Thanks for dropping by today. I'm joining the challenges at:
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge - Think Pink
Inkspirational - Black plus one other color

time for a christmas tag

Things have been pretty crazy around here - grape harvest, visitors and such. But it's a rainy day and I'm getting a little crafting in today. I was so inspired by Leigh's tag over at Tag It Challenge #58 that I had to give it a go.

I strayed from the fall feel of Leigh's tag, but kept that wonderful white embossing on the colored CS. And a pop of red! Of course I couldn't not add a red nose to my Rudolph from CUTplorations Christmas Reindeer. The snowflakes are from the coordinating stamp set.

I die cut Crazy Double Running Stitch Rectangle, added a snippet of washi and punched a hole which I threaded baker's twine through. The heat embossed tree and sentiment are from Oh Christmas Tree.

(I actually put a pocket to hold a gift card on the reverse - but forgot to take a photo. Always a good way to get more out of your tags.)

I'm also hooking up at Happy Little Stampers Anything Goes with Dies.

STAMPlorations inspiration #101

Time for more STAMPlorations inspiration on the blog today. I was inspired by this card I saw in blogland. Like, I spent a couple hours catching up on blog visiting and commenting, and after all that time that one card was still stuck in my mind.

So I made this.

I chose to use a Bird of Paradise (cut with the coordinating die) as the B/W image and backed him with a repeat-stamped heat embossed sentiment from the same set. After heat embossing, I masked off a rectangle and applied Peacock Feathers, Tumbled Glass and Twisted Citron Distress Inks. Gave the bird a few colorful feathers and voila!

There's a great array of projects in the Inspiration Post over at STAMPlorations today. Be sure to check them out.

CUTplorations october - reminder

Have you played with us yet in the CUTplorations die cut challenge over at STAMPlorations?

When I made my first card, I had leftovers. Leftovers don't go to waste at my house ;) So this card happened. I disregarded the dark background and went the way of red-yellow-and-green-things-hanging-in-the-air!

I actually saw the strip of red neon paper that I'd cut the word out of for my first card and it was just too cool to pitch. So I plopped one of the leftover Birthday Word into it and built a card around it. I had die cut the hearts while making my first card too, using up the extra space on the paper strips. They reminded me of the heart balloons from Dee's Balloons and Banners, so I pulled that out and did some stamping and then string drawing with a marker. Added a sentiment from Kathryn's Big Wishes and voila!

Wafting balloons like rays of light floating through the air... does it work? Hope I've inspired you to play along with us. If you already have, thanks! Wanna play again?!?!?

I'm playing at Seize the Birthday with this one - it's Anything Goes this time around.

spotlight on the journey from inspiration to card

Curious to hear how I make my way from the initial inspiration to a card? Check out my Spotlight post over at STAMPlorations to see how this card came to be...

p.s. Part of the reason this card "works" is cuz our brains have been programmed through experience to, for example, think "zebra" when we see black and white stripes. If you're interested (and can understand German) this is a really cool segment from a really cool neuroscientist.