Sassy Birthday

    Hi! I made today's card for my Aunt's Birthday and since she requested a funny card I used Dyan Reavele's Say It How It Is Set as it cracks me up. Then I kept with the theme and used Dyan's mists in Lemon Zest, Postbox Red and Bubblegum Pink and her smaller sized stencil, Dotted Flowers for the flowers.
    I started with a white standard sized piece of watercolor paper and used the sprays from a distance to make a mottled look. Next, I sprayed the edges with water through the flower portion of the stencil and pulled away some of the ink with a paper towel to create a watermark look. Once that was dry, I stamped over those areas with the flower stamp from Dyan's Background Love set in Charcoal Hero Arts Ink. Then I got to Doodle!! All of the white around the flowers was just added ad lib. To finish the card off, I stamped the sentiment on a white piece of cardstock scrap and sprayed it with yellow mist and cut each piece apart and adhered them. Finally, I adhered the panel to a white card base and all done!

Dynamic Duos Challenge #59

    I've been waiting for this duo since I've started doing these challenges because I've wanted to combine grey and orange. I've seen it pop up so many times lately in patterns and papers and decor. It's a really great unexpected combo that I just love for some reason :)
   So, here's the LINK to the challenge where you can see all of the submissions.

    There are just a ton of really great combos on this challenge. Grey and hot pink would have been fun to do as well. But, I'm under the wire so here's my one shot!

    I the base of the card is made with American Crafts cardstock in Charcoal and the paler grey and white are from my scrap stash, as was the ribbon. (I love when I can finish off scraps!) I embossed the background with a folder from Cuttlebug and I die cut the light grey panel with my brand new My Favorite Things die, Peek-A-Boo Trio. Now I have those three little circles to make something else! From there I stamped the 'smile' sentiment from My Mind's Eye's set Be Happy. For the 'inside' I stamped the flower and butterfly from a Martha Stewart set and the heart and dashes from Mama Elephant's So Breezy set in Memento Tuxedo Black ink. To add some orange, I used my new inktense pencils set and picked up the Tangerine and Ink Black pencils and my water brush to create the color and shadows. I added a few more details with my white gel pen and a dash of Stickles in Silver to the heart because it was getting a little lonely being just grey.
    I hope you like the card and have a happy 4th of July!!
 ~Rachel

Runway Inspired Challenge - Burberry

    I'm sneaking this one in under the wire tonight! Here's the challenge LINK and the inspiration picture which you can always click on to see the challenge as well. This time our challenge is from Burberry! Love them.

    And here's my take on that lovely skirt in my card!

    This one was a toughie for me. I just love, love, loved that skirt and the embossing and I racked my brain to try to come up with a way to make it. I think I came really close in using a piece of Bazzil cardstock in Pear and two colors of Distress Stain in Pumice Stone and Brushed Pewter. I sprayed water over the piece of cardstock and liberally applied the stains. Once it was dry I added the embossing with a folder from QuickCuts (Sorry, I don't have the actual name) and some Heidi Swapp mist in Gold to pick up the zipper in those fabulous shoes. After that came the hard part...what to put on the card. I had really no sketch or idea where I was going with this one so I started with the paper flowers and the paper doily. They were inked in Antique Linen Distress Ink and then the flowers were stamped with a script pattern. I added the pearls after adjusting their color with alcohol inks and then decided on the lace, pin, jute and tiny tag that happened to be on my desk. Once that came together, I was able to add a few more pearls to fill in the gaps and to draw attention to that lovely ribbon from my stash. I seriously think that came off of a set of stationary...
    Here's a closer look at the inset of the card.

    I hope you like the card. I wish it would not have taken nearly as long, but it's a process and one that I'm learning. I think I'm going to go quilt for a while to relax my brain...or maybe sleep :)
    Hope you have a great weekend!! ~Rachel

Dynamic Duos #58

    Hi! I'm entering in a new card for the Dynamic Duos Challenge #58. Here's the link to the challenge or you can click on the challenge colors below.

    And here's my card!

    I made my card base with three Copic Markers in Y68, R08 and YR20. I drew lines across a white sheet of cardstock into a plaid pattern. I added a bit of ribbon and buttons from my stash and a small strip of the background under a sentiment from Hero Arts.
    I hope you like it!

Tuesday Trigger Vintage Vagabond

    I was so sad last Sunday when I thought I had missed this Tuesday Trigger. It's a great picture. I had a lot of ideas but making buttons like the plates was my favorite. So, I was in luck when I found out this was a double week! So, here is the link to the challenge and the trigger photo.

    And here's my take on the trigger.

    My favorite parts of the card are the embossed buttons I made using the letter 'E' from an alphabet stamp  based on the plates and the hammered brads in the center. So, I wanted to make them the focal point of the card and made sure by cutting the rectangle from the background. I made the background with a crackle stamp from Impression Obsession and embossed it in black. I also edged the banner and filled in the background with Brushed Corduroy and Frayed Burlap inks. Finally, I wanted to make the card a bit softer so I added a pin and some jute twine on the edge of the banner.
    I hope you like it!

Dynamic Duos #57

    Happy Thursday everyone! Today I'm submitting my newest card creation, not the second newest, because that one stunk to the Dynamic Duos challenge #57. You can play along with the challenge by clicking HERE or on the badge below, which is much more fun in my opinion. 

                                            

    But, I'm kind of late to the game this week due to the copious amounts of family event cards I make in June. It's crazy, everthing is in June, including my mom's birthday which is today! My dad's is Saturday so I'll probably load that card sometime soon because it's a riot! Anyway, onto my card which uses inks to create the color combo this week.

    Sorry for the wonky picture. I keep trying different rooms of my house to take the pictures and I've just not gotten the right one yet. I did find a new setting on my photo editing program to get the blue out of my picture though this morning, while I was running really late...

    Anyway, to make the card I just stamped four of the images in the Hero Arts So Kind stamp set in Memento Black Ink and Color Box Chalk ink in Lime Pastel. Then I white embossed a sentiment from the Simon Says Stamp July Card Kit stamp set and adhered it with some dimensional adhesive. The only trick to this card, I think, is to make sure the center points of the diamonds are all on the same parallel which I kept straight by adhering my card back to my grid cutting mat while I stamped. That was just enough guide to keep them in line. 

    I really love this stamp set and had pined over it for a while because it reminded me of a design that I think Famous Barr used to use in maybe the 70's or so on their shopping bags. I haven't been able to find any images of it but it was the bag we used to keep some camping storage in when I was little  and I always loved the vintage design of that bag. Someday I'll come across it or I'll ask the right person about it and find that image again. So cool!

    In the meantime, thanks for stopping by! I'm going to keep trying to figure out where my first card went wrong...but it's making my brain hurt.

Runway Inspired Challenge #37

    Hi again! I'm posting today to play along with the Runway Inspired Challenge #37. You can play along using the link (Here). The fashion this time comes from Fashion East and is quite fabulous. I just love those shoes :)

    And here's my card:

    I wanted to recreate the 'newsprint' and 'read all about it' feel of the image so I started with the obvious, newsprint. :) I also wanted to recreate the feeling of stacked lines running across the page like the words are on her dress. So, I used some newsprint snippets for the letters, the A Birdie Told Me Stamp set from Lawn Fawn and Hero Arts ink in Wet Cement. I also cut strips from some scraps of watercolor paper and ran across them with a Cherry Red Gelato and only smudged it a bit and a Black Soot distress marker and only blended it with a water brush a bit. I added the word bubbles with a bit of dimensional adhesive to have the words 'pop' out and all was done. But then I looked at it sideways and realized I missed an opportunity for doodling...and we just can't have that so I added the free handed lines around the outside and then called it done!

    I'm really happy with how it all came together and I hope you like it too!
    Thanks for stopping by!

Pink and Brown Birthday

    This week I'm playing along with the Dynamic Duos Challenge and making my mom's birthday card at the same time. You can click on the image below to play along!

    The colors of this challenge reminded me of classic shabby chic cards with lots of textures and definitely ribbbon. I don't think I've ever made a shabby chic card that didn't include ribbon. Like ever. So, onto my card:

    One day I'm going to get this whole 'take a great picture of your card that actually looks like your card' thing down. For now, here's the best I could get with the cloudy day we have here.

    For this card I used my brand new Distress Paint in Victorian Velvet. After I stamped the background from Impression Obsession, I daubed a bit of the paint on my craft sheet and added a few spritzs of water to make a white wash type consistency and covered the background and set it aside to dry. After it was dry, I added Frayed Burlap Distress Ink around the edges. To create the ribbon, I cut a piece of seam binding in half and colored it with Distress Stain in Victorian Velvet and lots of water. I love the sun bleached look you get when using the stains and water. So pretty. Finally I die cut a scrap of white cardstock with a Sizzix die and covered the die with Tarnished Brass Distress Stain and Stamped my Sentiment on the negative from the die in Frayed Burlap. Then added some distressing in the same two colors and put all the pieces together.

    I hope you like it and thanks for stopping by!

Tuesday Trigger - Feather Weather

    Hi again! I'm trying out a new challenge this week from the Moxie Fab Blog. There's some really, really great inspiration on this blog and this week's Tuesday Trigger Challenge is based on this amazing photo:

                                                   

    It's just beautiful and you can check out the challenge and all the submissions here: Moxie Fab Tuesday Trigger Challenge. 
     So, here's my rather close interpretation of the challenge. 

    I just loved the birds the way they are and I loved the grey tone on tone and how it worked so well with the gold beads. I was able to pair Hero Arts's Wet Cement ink with Perfect Pearls in Heirloom Gold to create the background and the image of the bird.

    Here's a close up of my birdie and the Perfect Pearls together:

     First, I stamped the bird from Martha Stewart with Perfect Medium on watercolor paper and then applied the Perfect Pearls and spritzed it with water to get them to set. Then I colored the bird with a combination of Mustard Seed, Crushed Olive, Peeled Paint and Broken China Distress Inks and my Tim Holtz water brush. Once he was dry, I fussy cut him out and he was ready to go. I created the background right on my card base with Hero Arts Birds and Flowers background stamp in Wet Cement ink and lightly dusted it with the same Perfect Pearls and set it with water. It gives the whole image a beautiful shine when it hits the light.

    Then, I moved on to the branch by cutting it from Grunge Paper and Tim Holtz's Bird and Branch Bigz die. I applied Frayed Burlap Distress Embossing Powder to the whole branch and once it was done went over it with Pumice Stone Distress Ink to fill in the gaps left by the release crystals. The flowers were made with McGills' Paper Punch in Mini Petals which again I applied Perfect Pearls to and some actual pearls that I tinted with a Copic Marker in Y28. Before I adhered anything, I also created the background panel from Spellbinders Labels Twenty-Five and inked the edges with Pumice Stone Distress Ink and stamped the love. from My Mind's Eye's Be Happy stamp set in Wet Cement Ink.

     Finally, I pulled it all together with some jute tied in a bow and my Tombow Stamp Runner and Mono Multi Glue and a few dimensional adhesives for the birdie.

    There were quite a few more steps to this card that the last few I've made which I will hopefully create posts for in the next week! Anyway, I hope you like the card and thanks for stopping by. Feel free to comment and let me know if you love it or hate it or have any questions!

Rachel

A Little Birdie

I have three great stamp sets that all have the cutest little birdies on them! Lawn Fawn's A Birdie Told Me and Critters on the Savannah and Mama Elephant's Rustic Spring. This week at Dynamic Duos the colors are a very pretty blue and black (Click here for the challenge). Here's the badge for the challenge:

I also noticed that the Lawnscaping Challenge for the week (Click Here for the Challenge) is a clean and simple design with Lawn Fawn products, which I love!

So, here's what I came up with:

The only trick to this card was to stamp the sentiment and the 'talking' birdie first on the card and on a piece of separate cardstock and a piece of masking paper. I stamped the sentiment next and then applied the fussy cut mask to the word bubble. Then I just stamped the other birds randomly to create a background from the three stamp sets and then peeled back the mask and added the birdie that I colored with two Copic markers in B06 and W3. I finished it by adding the birdie with a pop dot and covered him with some glossy accents.

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you like my card and have a great day!!
Rachel

Runway Inspired Challenge #35

    It's Friday which means I'm frantically creating a last minute card for the Runway Inspired Challenge Blog!! This weeks challenge (Click here for a link) is based on this photo from the runways of Miu Miu.

   I loved three things about this entire image immediately, the handbag, the dotted scarf, and the yellow dress of the previous model in the background. I decided to grab the closest matching Distress Inks in Squeezed Lemonade, Worn Lipstick and Tumbled Glass to go with the colors in the photo I also had to find some very tiny polka dot and stripe stamps. I used Technique Tuesday's Passion for Polka and Simon Says Stamp's Like Your Style to fill in the hearts. I also got my shipment from Two Peas in a Bucket yesterday which had my new Lawn Fawn Heart Dies!! I did some clever masking and die cutting and added some washi tape and a bit more Tumbled Glass ink with the help of Mama Elephants Basic Borders stamp and viola! Just a sentiment and heart from Lawn Fawn's A Birdie Told Me and a dash of Distress Marker in Worn Lipstick and I was done.

   I hope you like the card! It was a ton of fun to make and when I was finished I had a Julie Ebersole 'Happy Clapping Monkey' moment. Which was awesome. You can check out her amazing cards here @ PaperTruffles.

Dynamic Duos Challenge

    I've been gathering my inspiration lately from my outfits and the shirt I had on last week had just the right colors and design. Plus I had multiple compliments on it so apparently others agree. So, I noticed that Dynamic Duos (Click here to see the Challenge) is having an anniversary this week and so any past color combo was open for submission! Yay! I filed through all of the color combos that I never got to do because I'm silly and started this blog far too late and found this one:

   These two colors matched my shirt perfectly and I was able to add in some cream as well. Yay! So, I came up with these two cards.

    For the first card, I cut a negative from the background piece with my Slice and adhered it to a standard sized card base in black. Then I added a small strip of black cardstock from my scraps and wrapped it a bit with some American Crafts twine. Then I stamped the Best Wishes sentiment from TPC Studio's Brush Stroke Greetings and matted it on some Bazzil cardstock. It's quite simple but I like it and it's so far removed from everything else I generally do.
    The second card took forever because I was trying too hard to an unhealthy extent. There are about 499 gagillion paper punched and colored with every type of distress ink in Ripe Persimmion and Black Soot flowers all over my craft table that are still orphaned. So, leaving those behind I instead picked up my Dylusions stencil again and inked the leaves in Distress Ink and added glossy accents on a handful of them to add some variation and interest and to match the embossed sentiment which was stamped from Mama Elephant's Nursery Deco set. To recreate this card would take like 6 minutes...the first version however, yikes. But here they are!
    P.S. Apparently, to my camera, red orange just becomes orange...sad.

Runway Inspired Special Challenge

    This week on the Runway Inspired Challenge Blog, they are hosting a baby shower and gave us this picture to pull inspiration from:

    I pulled inspiration from the tiny polka dots on her dress and her little gold shoes all offset with her black leggings for my card.

    I started the card by embossing my Hero Arts Life of the Party Stars stamp on a piece of cardstock in Embossing Tinsel in Gold. Then, I pulled out my Slice Machine and the Nursery Rhymes Cartridge to cut the words from white cardstock. I added Black Soot Distress Ink directly to the cut outs and then went over it again with a Distress Marker. Next, I used my Baby Cartridge and cut out the three stars and the baby shoes. I covered each piece in Tarnished Brass Distress Stain, let them dry and edged them with a Black Soot Distress Marker. Lastly, I punched out a few more stars and left them white but edged with the same marker and added some gemstones to the shoes and tied them to the words with a piece of black thread.
    I hope you like the card and thanks for stopping by!

Mother's Day One Week Early!

    I am usually so very terribly bad at saving everything until the last minute, especially with cards that I have to make for specific people. I want it to become more than it just is - a card. However, every great once in a while I get an idea and I stick to it and I finish it way before the last second. The gift that goes with it is another story...

    So, here's the card I made for mother's day one whole week early!

    Everything on the card came from my Simon Says Stamp May Card Kit which made coordination so very easy. To color the flowers, I used three Distress Markers in Fired Brick, Victorian Velvet and Spun Sugar and my Ranger water brush after I stamped them on watercolor paper with Staz On black ink. The leaves were colored with Shabby Shutters and Forest Moss markers in the same manner and then all the pieces were fussy cut which went rather easy.
    It's hard to see but the sentiment is embossed with Antiquities Antique Gold distress powder and looks so very classy. I love that gold is trending right now. I usually catch myself using silver on every project, so this makes me stretch a bit!
    The only other step to altering the pieces in my kit was to punch the border under the piece of lace which I did with a Martha Stewart border punch. I then used my paper distresser to smooth the edges after punches to better mirror the lace. Then I added Victorian Velvet ink to the bottom and around the base piece of the card. I then finished the card by adhering all the pieces using adhesive, some clever positioning and some pop dots on the smaller flower to make it contrast a bit and not get lost next to the bigger flowers.
    I was really happy with how this turned out and am only sad because I don't have a challenge to submit it to!

More Invitations!

    My little sister is graduating with her Bachelors in Nursing in two weeks!! She and I made invitations for her pinning ceremony and commencement this weekend. Funny thing is, her school colors are red and black, which means the invite was red and black, just like the last card. Sad thing is, I have roughly 3 more ideas for cards that are red and black. Lucky thing is, I just got some neon Hero Arts inks! Anyway, here's the invite:

    My sister went through all of my stamps (Lord!) and found this sentiment from Dylusions The Right Words set. (I'm sensing yet another pattern...) I put the sentiment on a white piece of cardstock and cut it out with Spellbinders Wonky Rectangles and edged the die cut with Brushed Pewter Distress Stain. Then I cut the black piece and embossed it with a folder from The Paper Studio. Finally, it was attached to a standard sized red card stamped with Hero Arts Aged Print Frame in Aged Mahogany Distress Ink which is now all over my hands! To add a bit more and a nursing theme we punched some hearts and covered them with Stickles.

    I hope you like the invite and I hope to either start a black and red series or delve into the neons!

Now for Something Totally Different

    Last week I did two things. 1) I ordered Dyan Reaveley's Mini Couture stamp set and Luscious Leaves Mask and 2) I found the Runway Inspired Challenges blog. So in playing along with Challenge #34 pictured first, here's what I came up with below:

  I wanted to do something totally different and I've loved everything I've ever seen Dyan create. Just crazy beautiful wacky stuff! Wonderful. So here's how I created my Runway Inspired homage to Dyan:

    First I stamped the dress on white cardstock and then again on a piece of masking paper. I cut the mask out around the inner folds and across the top of the skirt to mask off the outer portion of the skirt. Then I used my Stamp a ma Jig and the Tiny Backgrounds stamp from Unity to add the spotted pattern. Then I removed the masks and added Copic Markers in R05 and R08 and 110 with a white gel pen to color the dress.
 
    To create the background, I used Black Soot Distress Ink and a very small rounded ink dauber to add ink through the stencil for the runway and the leaves inspired by the print of the dress from Reem Acra. Then I created shaky lines on the leaves and runway squares and added Black Soot Distress Stickles as well.
  
    While that was drying, I stamped the sentiment from Dyan's Say What You Mean stamp set and fussy cut it out. Finally, I stamped the dress one more time on the background and then added the dress with pop dots as well as the sentiment. Finally, I adhered it to a red card base. The card is a standard size which fits Dyan's Mini Stamps just perfectly. I can't wait to 'design' more dresses with the set. I just love, love, love that set!!
 
    I hope you like the card and my branching way out of my comfort zone!

Shower Invites are Done :)

    Yay! My friends and I made 50 invitations yesterday and they look great! I hope the mom to be loves them. Luckily, they weren't too hard to make and we had a great time. So, drumroll for which one won out....Emily picked the vertical design with the brown background!
    If you'd like to make one just like it, here's how we made it....but you don't have to repeat it 49 more times :)
    First, cut a piece of The Paper Studio 12x12 paper in brown polka dot into a 6" x 4 1/2" rectangle. Then cut a  piece of white smooth cardstock to 5 1/2" x 4 1/4" and ink the background with Tumbled Glass and Peeled Paint Distress Inks. To mask off each section when inking, cut a piece of cardstock at a curve by hand and place each section down while inking. But, before inking the blue, stamp the baby giraffe from the Mama Elephant Nursery Deco set on the hill and on a piece of masking paper with Memento Dye Ink in Black. Cut the giraffe from the masking paper with an exacto knife leaving a small border around the stamp and place the mask over the stamped image on the white cardstock.
    To make the big giraffes I had to get a bit creative. The Critters on the Savannah set from Lawn Fawn comes with the giraffe facing right, but not left, so I stamped it and scanned it as a .jpeg then mirror rotated it in MS Word and resized it until it matched the stamped size exactly when printed. The ink finish looks a bit different but, when the giraffes are colored with two slightly different color schemes, it looks somewhat intentional...I hope. I colored the giraffes with Copic markers and used YR21 (which I completely ran out of....) or Y21 and Y35. Then for the spots I started with E33 and then added E15 and E18 for shading. The baby giraffe was colored with Y21, Y35, E51 and E33. I cut out the giraffes with the matching die from Lawn Fawn and my Big Shot machine.
    To create the strips on the side, I cut a strip of yellow gingham paper to 1/2" and a piece of chocolate brown to 1/4" and a piece of orange polka dot paper to 1/4" after punching the edge with an EK Success border punch. All of the papers were from The Paper Studio and adhered with an EK Success tape runner since the adhesive is clear and the strips were so thin.
    For the last detail, emboss the "Baby Makes Three" sentiment with Versamark ink and white embossing powder. and cut the ends into a banner either by hand or with the corner of a square punch and adhere it to the card with foam dots for some dimension.
   I really think they turned out great and I'm really happy that they are done!!

Mama Elephant Sketch Challenge

    One of the main reasons I started this blog was to have an easy way to enter the tons of awesome challenges I've seen on the blogs I follow. A new company that I've come to love since they first started last year is Mama Elephant. Their stamp sets are just awesome and are so clever in the 'extras' they put in the sets. There's just so many ideas that I can pull from just one set. Anyway, they are hosting a sketch challenge on their blog and here's a link to the challenge if you'd like to play along: ME Sketch Challenge
    And here's the sketch:

    I loved this sketch immediately and played around with a lot of ideas but I wanted to use just one stamp set on the card to add a second challenge. All the stamps are from the Nursery Deco set which is one of my go to sets not only for the adorable teddy bears and giraffes but for the great sentiments as well. So, instead of using a literal interpretation of the sketch, I flipped it on its side and created a mirror image. So, the three dots became my three bears and the vertical line became a horizontal shelf. I also snipped the "Hello Sweet Baby" stamp apart so it could be stacked and stamped for the sentiment and changed to doily background into pennants.
    So, to make the card! I used the Fact and Fiction 6x6 paper pads from Basic Grey for the pennants and shelf and stamped them with Frayed Burlap Distress Ink. Then I cut them out with an exacto knife. The bears were then stamped on smooth white cardstock with the same ink and colored with Copic markers. I added some glossy accents to the larger bears' noses and feet for some shine. Then I embossed the "Hello Sweet Baby" with Zing Chestnut embossing powder and cut the piece of K & Company yellow cardstock into a banner. To keep with the outlined/stamped theme going, I used a ruler and a distress marker to outline the banner. Finally, I added all the elements with glue or pop dots, for the bears, to a piece of cardstock from My Minds' Eye's Dolled Up 6x6 pack and adhered it to a note card.
   Thanks so much for visiting and for checking out my card! Yay for my first sketch entry!

Baby Shower Invitations

    Next weekend I get to make 50 each of one of these designs or some form of them. Unfortunately, I have no idea which one I like best or which one the designs Emily, the mom to be will like. Any ideas/suggestions?

Pattern Play Day 3

   Day 3 of class asked us to pick a 'hard to use' pattern for a card. The piece I chose was from Prima Marketing's Madeline 6x6 pack and contained all of the inchie squares on one sheet. Together it looked very loud and was what I would consider hard to use. It also begged to be pulled apart, so this card came together pretty quickly with a piece of dark brown Bazzil card stock and another sheet from the Madeline stack.
  So, on to the directions. First I cut out the piece on the right from the 6x6 pad sheet. The bottom of the piece had a really pretty border that I only had room for a portion of, so I trimmed it at the edge and left the lace portion to even out the top border. Next, I stamped the sentiment from the March Simon Says Stamp card kit stamp set entitled Flower Friend in Coffee Archival ink. Luckily, the brown scrap was already cut to size and I just ran up the side with my pinking shears and added the faux stitching with a white Signo gel pen. 
   Finally, came the crazy bold patterned paper. I cut each section apart and laid the pieces in the order I wanted and glued down all the pieces except the ones that were on the 'top' of the stacks, which i added with dimensional adhesive. Lastly, I went adhesive crazy on the back pieces and added them to a cream colored piece of cardstock. Of course, I had to try to make a blunder, but I wanted to draw more attention to the sentiment, so I added a few Mosaic Crystal Stickers...and then I added a few more...
  And there you have it!

Pattern Play Day 2

   Day two of the Pattern Play Online Card Class was all about using patterned paper and paper piecing. I really like what Jennifer Rzasa did with her flower and I hadn't used my February Simon Says Stamp Card Kit enough yet so that's what inspired me to make this card.
   The papers I chose followed Kristina's formula again like Day 1's card and I chose three sheets from Prima Marketing's Madeline Collection and Simple Stories' Documented 6x6 pads. I also chose an extra sheet from the Prima pack that was covered with the butterflies I fussy cut out to have some matching embellishments to go with my flowers.
   So, here's how I made the card. First, I stamped the large flower twice and the small flower once from Simon Says Stamp's Like Your Style set from the February card kit in Walnut Stain Distress Ink. I used my exacto knife to cut out the flower pieces then I edged the flower pieces with an E49 Copic Sketch marker. To finish them, I glued the first two layers together and used a pop dot on the center. Next, I stamped and embossed the flourish in the background from Inkadinkado's Sketchy Flourishes stamp set and used Ranger's Embossing Pearl in Silver. (I intended it to be white since the powder is white, but the silver made it subtle, so I didn't chuck it out.) Lastly, I arranged all the pieces on the card and cut out the sentiment strip from the same pack as the background paper and went Tombow Mono Multi-Glue crazy. (It's my favorite part!) I thought it needed something else that I might later regret, so I added the three pearls from The Paper Studio becuase they were still on my table and some Stickles in Diamond to the center of the flowers and two of the smallest butterflies. I actually don't regret it!
   I think my favorite part of this card is the small blue patterned paper strip I cut from the same paper as the flower pieces because it looks like a row of butterflies sitting across the sentiment. Funny, right?
  Hope you like it!

Nursery Critters

    Here's a card I made for my husband's cousin for her baby shower that was supposed to happen this weekend, but because of the weather, it's been postponed. But, that gave me a chance to take a quick picture and add it to my blog. It was a really simple card to make with Lawn Fawn's Critters on the Savannah stamp set and matching dies. I first die cut the giraffe and zebra from Inkadinkado's masking paper. Then, I stamped the giraffe and zebra on a piece of white card stock with Memento black dye ink which is perfect for Copic coloring! No bleeding. After those were dry, I placed my masks over the two animals and stamped the tree in the background and the little birdie.
    I colored the scene with too many Copics to remember the colors. I'll try to keep them handy next time for a checklist, but I did choose my background paper first which is from Cosmo Cricket's Material Girl 6x6 pack. I used the tones in the paper to choose my markers from my handy color checklist. Love that thing (and coloring in the boxes when I get  a new marker)!

   Next came the 'Polaroid' die. I don't actually own a die for cutting Polaroids, but I do have a square die and a paper trimmer. I used a square die from Spellbinders and some smooth white card stock and trimmed a 1/4 inch border around the opening and left some excess at the bottom to stamp the sentiment from Mama Elephant's Nursery Deco set. Finally, I added some adhesive and called it done! I hope you like it!

Online Card Classes Day 1

I've taken quite a few Online Card Classes over the past year and this weekend was the first time I've been able to play along. Many thanks to the impending snow storm! This card is from Day 1 of Pattern Play. I took a few cues from all three technique videos to make my card. First, I started with three different patterned papers like Amber's video suggested and following Kristina's formula of Large/Med Size Print + Med/Small Print + Semi Solid = Contrast. I chose three papers from Prima's Botanical 6x6 pack and My Mind's Eye's Sunshine 6x6 pad. After selecting these, I dug through my stamps and chose a sentiment from TPC Studio called Vintage Greetings. I then took Jennifer's advise and added Frayed Burlap Distress Ink to the two panel pieces and the sentiment label, cut from a set of Sizzix dies to create some dimension and differentiation between the three papers. Finally, I added a few pearls from The Paper Studio, some Tim Holtz trimmings and a doily from the baking section at Hobby Lobby and was quite happy with the results! Now to try some paper piecing with pattern papers!