Mixed Media Card Challenge #18

If you are looking for my CASEplorations post, click here.

If you are looking for my RIC#97 Guest Designer post, please click here.

I remember when I first started designing for the Mixed Media Card Challenge I said I was going to embrace the "cassy" (CAS and messy). "Messy" as in, you might get dirty fingers while doing it.

This is the last MMCC for 2015, with a theme of "Celebration" (as in, can you believe in a month we'll be wishing each other "Happy New Year"?!?)  and an optional element of "Vellum".

So meet my cassy card. I apologize for the photo quality - you cardmakers will totally get this - our skies today are offering nothing but "charcoal" and "concrete" as gray hues. Geesh!

How does this qualify as cassy? Lotsa white space, but I got dirty fingers stenciling the embossing paste and masking the presents (from STAMPlorations Party Mates)! How does this qualify as a mixed media card? Well in addition to stamps and ink, I've got

TEXTURE - glitter CS stars from SSS Hearts and Stars, vellum, embossing paste
DIMENSION - foam adhesive, paste, vellum shaker balloon from SSS Balloon die
TECHNIQUE - embossing paste through stencil made from Papertrey Birthday Style die

See that sparkle and shine from the glitter CS, metallic embossing paste and gold and silver sequins? It's a party on a card. Join us with a mixed media card for MMCC #18 won't you?

I'm joining the big parties at:

SSS Wednesday Challenge. It's anything goes.
Sweet Stampin. They're celebrating 6 years and looking for sparkle and shine!
Addicted to CAS #77. They're celebrating 3 years and looking for dimension!

CASEplorations december

If you are looking for my RIC #97 Guest Designer post, click here.

December may be the month of Christmas, but this year in blogland I'd say it's also the month of coffee. Agree?

So who better to have as our muse at CASEplorations in December than Miss Amy Tsuruta of Tsuruta Designs! She is such a pillar of our cardmaking community with her fresh creations and sweet comments. And she is, of course, the source for all things coffee. Did you see she is a member of the new DT at Coffee Loving Cardmakers? No surprise there! Which is why we are CASEing this card of hers in December.

BTW, you can check out Amy's CASE of herself and leave her some love here.

Image Source. Amy T.

And here is my CASE. I went with the color scheme and the steaming coffee cup from a great little set STAMPlorations Eat, Drink and be Merry in a pattern. Just a somewhat different pattern.

Watercolored over the top of white heat embossing. Die cut the panel with Lil Inker Stitched Rectangle die and adhered it to a kraft cardbse.

Check out what my teamies created and join us this month with your CASE! The gallery is open until Dec 31st. You could win a $15 GC or two stencils.

I'm hooking up at:

SSS Monday Challenge - Gentlemen cuz this one's going to DH. I should add "pumpkin spice latte" as a secondary sentiment! I'm drinking one a day with my homemade syrup from this recipe, BTW.

SSS Wednesday Challenge - Anything Goes

guest designing at RIC

I'm thrilled to be joining the incredibly talented team over at Runway Inspired Challenge this time around. RIC is one of my all-time favorite places to play. I love "getting vibes" from the oh-so-cool runway outfits that Jennifer selects and then transforming those vibes into a card.

Ready for the runway walk for RIC #97?

Of course I got all excited when I saw that graphic asymmetry in bold colors! But then I noticed the, what I imagined to be, vintage damask wallpaper at the back of the room. The kind my friend had in his apartment in Paris.  Well, Altenew is sponsoring this challenge, and I just happen to have Persian Motifs which I thought would be perfect for a background. Au revoir bold and graphic. Hello gold embossing and watercolor.

And then I zoomed in on the purse. Lacy lilac goodness on orange. So I violet heat embossed a lacy pattern from CHF onto my sentiment die cut from Winnie and Walter Hello.

Meet my card. This is what I enjoy about RIC. The journey of making a card.

I'm joining the lineup at SSS Wednesday Challenge where it's Anything Goes this week. I hope you'll join in at RIC #97. It's open until Dec 11th. Thanks for coming by today.

STAMPlorations inspiration #49

I've caught the paint-your-own-watercolor-striped-background bug that seems to be going around. I mean, stripes... they're the next best thing to polka dots, right?

So for my inspiration project for STAMPlorations I've done that. And then I decided to create a wheelbarrow full of posiesinsettias. How did I do? Can this pass for a Christmas card?

I stamped the image from Friends and Flowers in Antique Linen Distress Ink on watercolor paper then colored the blooms with coral and red Zig Clean Color Brush Pens. For the leaves I chose dark green. I made the edges of the blooms less round and more jagged. I'm callin' 'em poinsettias!

Since it might have been the spark that caused my wheelbarrow of poinsettias, I thought I'd share with you a blast from the past (2007) when my kiddies were still so sweet and had their fun decorating cutout cookies... Actually DD still helps me every year.  Anyhoo, notice the poinsettias on the corner of the island? My standard decoration every year. I glued pine cones around the outside of a plastic bowl and then I buy 3 mini poinsettias to set in it. You get the "abundance of poinsettias" look for cheap. Just sayin'.

Can you see the touches of golden shine - the heat embossed sentiment from Sentiment Builders: Christmas and New Year, the bloom centers and the strip of washi at the bottom of the watercolored panel? I even put some gold watercolor over the top of the wheelbarrow but it doesn't show in the photo.

I'm hooking up at Addicted to Stamps and More where it's Make your Mark this time and Simon Says Stamp where the Work it Wednesday for November is about Christmas. And where the Wednesday challenge is Anything Goes.

giving thanks mini blog hop

Hello and welcome to a mini blog hop several of us STAMPlorations girls are doing today!

It's definitely that time of the year. We just had our big turkey dinner on Sunday so now I'm in the middle of eating up leftovers. And you can't have missed all the "thanks" and "Thanksgiving" challenges happening in blogland. Well here's my contribution.

Do you get a table/tablecloth/place setting feel? Cuz that was my goal. See the lovely gold touches?

I must tell you, this card was actually a byproduct of another project. The SSS Giving Thanks die came to live at my house last year. Well it earned its keep, being the star of this year's place cards. You can check them out in this post.

So I took one of the leftover negative images and used it as a stencil to ink up my "tablecloth" on this card. I inked the area a bit smaller than the die originally is, to accommodate my 4x4 pattern of wonky squares from Vignette: Retro Mod Shapes. I used Dried Marigold, Spiced Marmelade and Ripe Persimmon Distress Inks to sponge the BG. I stamped the squares with SSS Audrey Blue and Khaki. Then highlighted a few with Delicata Gold.

I gold embossed the place setting from Vignette: Eat Drink Be Merry onto CS and swiped Audrey Blue ink over it before cutting it into a square.

I gathered up the die cut letters to create "thanks", inked up the bottom half and adhered them. Bon appetit!

Hope you have time to head on over to STAMPlorations and check out the hop. If you comment on all the stops by Nov 27th you may win a stamp set of your choice. And there's a sale going on too. Happy Thanksgiving!

spotlight on glitter and embossing paste

Feeling the need for more sparkle and shine on your Christmas cards? I'm up with a Spotlight over at STAMPlorations using a stencil, embossing paste and glitter. Check it out here.

oh those colors. oh that texture.

Howdy friends! Have you seen the mood board over at Ellen Hutson's Pinsights Challenge?

How exquisite are those colors? Absolutely gorgeous. I had a technique in mind involving embossing powder so I was limited to colors I have, but this is what I came up with.

Stamped a few elements from STAMPlorations Mixed Media Elements on my creme cardbase. Laid down the ARTplorations Honeycomb Delight Reversed and applied clear embossing paste. Removed the stencil and sprinkled brown, copper and teal embossing powders onto the wet paste.

I hit it with a heat gun which caused the powder AND paste to melt a bit leaving a nice bumpy texture. Perfect since I'm playing at the Mixed Media Monthly Challenge where it's about Texture this month.

Then I die cut words from Essentials by Ellen Merry and Bright from woodgrain and glitter papers and used the positive of "be" and the negative of "happy" layered onto a swatch of vellum for my sentiment. Inside reads "it's your birthday". 

Cool colors. Lotsa texture. Another card for the guy stash! Thanks for visiting today.

I'm also joining in at Ingrid's Mixed Media World  for challenge #9 "Anything Goes".