Watercolor Peace

This was the final card I did for VSN. Boy was it a challenge too! The idea was to use the blurred watercolor technique found here. Discovery: I love to watercolor, but I am not good at this technique at all! It was really difficult to get it right, and I'm still not happy with the final product, but it was worth trying. If any of you have any ideas at all how to fix this and make it better, please feel free to comment and make suggestions....please!!!

Thanksgiving Card Patterns Sketch challenge

I found this blog that is new to me and is a lot of fun. It's over here. This is the sketch challenge for this week they have posted over there. It's a very unique and fun sketch.








I really love the colors of autumn and this was a fun one to experiment with. I got out my nesties and my sizzix texturz plate and went to town. I love textures as well, so I had fun putting those in here. The card base is handsome hunter. Then on top of that I put another piece of handsome hunter that was embossed with a texture plate. The circles are all nesties, and the flowers come from my three flower punch. For a little more fun and texture, I added brads and frayed twill that I also stamped on.


Stamps: Happy Blessings
Paper: Handsome Hunter, Old Olive, Very Vanilla, Chocolate Chip and Crushed Curry
Ink: Dusty Durango, Crushed Curry, Old Olive
Accessories: Antique copper brads, twill tape, nesties, texturz plate, and stampin' write markers.

Dear Friend Victorian Style

So another challenge posted this weekend was to make a card that resembled a particular historical era of costume clothing and there must be pearls on the card. Well, I love the clothing of the Victorian era. It doesn't seem to me that many defined eras had more beautifully romantic and feminine clothing than that time in history. So I found my inspiration in this era. In my scrap box, I found this beautiful lace. The picture really doesn't do the lace justice. It just feels so soft in your hand as well. Then I decided to finally use some things in my pretties kit. I have yet to find much of a use for the hat pins and flowers, but they all came together here. It seems the victorian era used a lot of hats, pins, pearls, lace, flowers, etc. So I put as many in here as I could throw in. Then I found the sentiment in this retired stamp set and it just worked beautifully with this card.

Stamps: Dear Friend
Paper: Very Vanilla, Whisper White
Ink: Soft Suede
Accessories: Pretties kit, and some scrap lace.

Friend to Friend

Well, I decided to participate in another challenge. I know, I know, but this was only a sketch challenge. No big deal. Right? Wellll.....it turned out a bit of a tricky one. LOL. But I think I got it. I decided to venture into some more of the new in colors. Until this card, my bermuda bay stamp pad remained unopened. Gasp! But, alas, I found it a use. The color is very pretty and vivid, but it's so bright, and I like earthy. So I pulled out some of my Unity stamps to try to find one that would work on this layout, and this is what came about. The stamps come from the June 09 kit of the month from Unity. Prima flowers and a rhinestone brad (have you figured out I like sparkles LOL) were the finishing touches. The layout can be found here.

Stamps: Unity Kit of the Month June 09 Perfect in Every Way
Paper: Stampin Up melon mambo designer paper, whisper white, bermuda bay, kraft
Ink: Bermuda Bay, Melon Mambo
Accessories: Petals a Plenty embossing folder from SU, rhinestone brad, half back pearls, prima flowers.

Let's Give Thanks...

Yet another card for this last VSN was made using the emerging color technique found here. This is actually a very simple technique to do and would be easy to make into a one sheet wonder. I chose to work more with the new in colors as I have not used them much and these three make beautiful fall colors as well. That brown is what happens with soft suede when the color is very concentrated. It's such a rich and beautiful brown, don't you think? The stamp set is a retired, but much loved one. So I pulled it out as well for this one. There really isn't much to say about this one. LOL



Stamps: Stitched Exotics, Holiday Best (hostess set)
Paper: Crushed Curry Cardstock, Whisper white
Ink: crushed curry, dusty durango, soft suede
Accessories: retired hodge podge hardware buckle, clear embossing powder, brayer, Martha Stewart baker's twine.

'Tis the Season

Card 2 in the VSN challenge cards I completed is a bit non-traditional in colors, but it still has a very Christmas-like feel to it. The challenge here was to find inspiration in the 8.5x11 scrapbook page gallery over at splitcoast. So this layout came from there. I used a bit of emboss resist on the angel and she looks so elegant! Also I used one of the new in colors for this one. i really like the feel of how it turned out. This one looks complex, but believe it or not I did complete it in the 45 minutes allotted.

Stamps: Inkadinkadoo clear stamps, Stampin' Up! Medallion background
Inks: Rich Razzleberry, versamark
Accessories: gold embossing powder, Martha Stewart border punch and snowflake punch, dew drops, Stampin' Up shimmer paint
Paper: Rich Razzleberry, Barely Banana, Whisper White

Japanese inspired Criss Cross and color throwdown challenge

Today I decided to challenge myself a bit. I needed to make a thank you card for a very nice person who so generously gave each member of our family a very nice set of chopsticks from their recent trip to Japan. He is very interested in Japanese culture and just recently married a Taiwanese lady who he met while studying in Japan. So I got on the internet and looked at Japanese clothing for some inspiration. I discovered that the shape and style of a kimono lends itself very well to a criss cross card. I added a band with a layer of satin ribbon on the bottom in resemblence of the sash around the waist of a kimono.

This color combination of very vanilla, old olive, real red, and chocolate chip really seemed to fit as well, and it just so happens it is a color challenge listed for today at color throwdown's blog. I love this blog and find a lot of color inspiration there. This is the first time, though, that I've actually submitted anything for their competitions. The card the fits inside the criss cross was stamped in olive green and chocolate chip. I found the turorial for the criss cross card here.

Stamps: all SU retired stamps--Garden Silhouettes, and Wonderful Words
Paper: SU DSP scrap, real red, chocolate chip, and very vanilla
Ink: Old Olive Chocolate Chip
Accessories: SU chocolate chip satin ribbon, boho punch, square rhinestone brad

Christmas Peace

Well, it came and went and I actually got to do a few. what? Oh, I'm talking about VSN over at splitcoast stampers. It was a masquerade ball theme are there were a lot of really challenging challenges this time around. The challenge for this card was to use ruched or gathered ribbon somewhere on the card and the card itself had to be a case of something in the gallery. I found the card I wanted to CASE and I have to say this one looks nothing like the original other then the theme and layout. For my card I used stamps I bought at a craft store (I believe these are inkadinkadoo ornaments). They are stamped with encore inks and then embossed with holographic powder. Not really a lot to say about this card. It's pretty simple.

Stamps: Inkadinkadoo clear stamps, dollar bin stamp from craft store
Inks: Encore gold and silver, soft suede
Accessories: gold cord, rhinestone brads, gold metallic ribbon, holographic embossing powder
Paper: whisper white and bridal specialty paper from Stampin Up!

Baby gift card holder

A friend of mine asked me to make her a gift card holder for a friend who is having a baby girl. Since I have a boy, I wanted to make it as girly as possible. I found this template on SU's demonstrator website so I printed it off and used it to make the card front. For the card base, I used some retired SU designer paper and made a folded gift card holder. The inside has a pocket in the crease of the card. The dress is also out of some retired SU designer paper. White taffeta ribbon is a must for anything frilly, and of course you have to have some sparkle which is where the rhinestone brad came in. I used a gel pen and marker for the stitching and belted accents.

Twilight inspiration

So I have a friend who I love dearly, but she has an obsession--anything Twilight. She can tell you just about anything you ever wanted to know about the movie(s), actor(s), characters, or books. So of course when her birthday came around, it was obvious what track to take with her card. Twilight. Since I don't have anything Twilight as far as stamping goes, it was time to put the thinking cap on and find some inspiration. So I took the colors from the books--everything is red, black and white, and drew on my memory from when I read the whole series and this is what I came up with. I wanted something earthy, classy and elegant all at the same time. So I found these gorgeous papers from Basic Grey and Stampin Up. The sentiment is heat embossed in red. It's really hard to see, but on the sides of this stand up card, I stamped the pine tree line from Noble Deer set all along the top edge of the red and white paper. Then I added a wolf (because you have to Jacob), and a deer (because that's what the Cullens' like to eat that's close by). Voila! A twilight inspired card.

Dasher, my friend...

I just really love this stamp and will be using it a lot. This time, I embossed him with gold embossing powder and kept the card layout really simple. He is embossed on a piece of soft suede cardstock that has snowflakes from the Serene Snowflakes set stamped in Soft Suede in the background. The white piece on the side is the reindeer from the Winter Post set embossed in gold as well. The background of it has Serene Snowflakes stamped in Pretty in Pink. The card base is pretty in pink with white and soft suede as the other two card stock colors. For the edge of the Dasher piece I took some sticky strip and adhered it to the sides. Then I heat embossed gold powder on the sticky strip for a rough metallic frame. The ribbon on the sentiment is white taffeta. I love this color combination and this is one of my more favorite cards.

Lovely Tree

I liked the way this card turned out in spite of the fact that my little one declared it as "not good mom, not good at all." Such a critic at such a young age! Anyway, I used lovely as a tree and stamped with versamark and hten heat embossed it with gold embossing powder. The bird is from an old retired SU set (I think it's called Wildlife Reserve). The sentiment is from the Four Holidays set out of the current mini catalog, and the snowflakes that are versamarked are from Winter Post. The bird on the front sits in a cut out circle so he is actually inside the card, but seen in both inside and out.

another top note gift card holder

Here is another top note gift card holder just like you saw in a previous post. This was the final design for this card holder, and is my favorite by far. The base of the card is ruby red. The medallion stamp is stamped in real red and offset on the front. For the sentiment I used the holiday hostess set and stamped in real red on kraft card stock, punched it out with the large oval and then sponged the edges lightly with real red. A punch of a scallop oval sits behind the large oval to frame it in. This is attached to the white organza ribbon with a piece of silver twine. For the hinge, I used just a single rhinestone brad. Inside is a pocket made of designer paper to match the front of t

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he card.

punchy monkey

Here is a cute little monkey I made as a surprise for my little one's lunch box. It turned out pretty cute and was really simple to make. His head is a 1 3/4 inch circle of chocolate chip, and the close to cocoa is a 1 3/8 inch circle punch. the nose is a large oval. The ears are 1 inch circles with 3/4 inch circles set inside them. The eyes are 1/2 inch circles with 1/4 inch circles set inside them. The features and accents are all drawn in with a chocolate chip marker and a white gel pen. Then a small band was made to fit around the mini candy bar.

Razzleberry Medallion

I have been experimenting with non-traditional colors this year for some Christmas cards, and I have to say I like the look of Razzleberry for Christmas cards especially with whisper white. Those are the only two colors on this card. This one is extremely simple to do. The new medallion background stamp from SU is one my very favorite stamps of all time, and it shines here in such a simplistic form. It is stamped in Razzleberry as well as the sentiment from the four the holidays set. The edges of the whisper white are sponged lightly with razzleberry and then mounted on a card base of razzleberry. The ribbon is whisper white taffeta.