celebrate in bold colors

Have you seen the bold and beautiful inspiration photo at Cure for the Monday Blues?

Not having enough bold and beautiful embossing powders, but wanting to work on a black background, I came up with another option.

Not having the word celebrate in a Winnie and Walter set (it's just coming out), I used one from Altenew's Super Script. Stamped it with white pigment ink and then took a paintbrush and watercolors and carefully painted over it. Vibrant, eh?

Added a heat embossed secondary sentiment and a strip of zebra print PP for some oomph.

Are you playing? Winnie and Walter are sponsoring the challenge in honor of their first birthday!

I'm also hooking up at Simon's Work it Wednesday for January where it's all about "New". Painting with watercolors on white pigment ink is new to me!

grab it

Just quick to share a card I made for the Cure for the Monday Blues challenge over at birthday girl Taheerah's. And to thank Shelly K. for the "sweet greeting" she sent me - a Teresa Collins paper pad with great neutral patterns. Here's what I did with it.

I was looking at the place setting, thinking knives and forks, when I noticed the fish net type pattern of the dinner plate. So I heat embossed it gold.

The rest happened while perusing the paper pad. I like the love idea and how the little tickets in the PP mimic the place card. And also support the love theme.

Thanks for looking. Off for more Mardi Gras stress!

winnie and walter mojo overload finale

My last two creations for the Winnie and Walter 1st birthday bash are up today. I've had such fun playing along. Are you playing yet?

My first card is for Julie's Shaker challenge. And I decided to use a W&W facebook freebie too (details can be found on my link to the birthday bash).

This was such fun. I started with the image. Masked around it and applied Tumbled Glass Distress Ink to frame it before stamping the secondary sentiment. I really love the typewriter font used on many W&W sets. Then I searched for some PP in green and found this pattern from Basic Grey PB&J. Die cut my frame with Lil Inker stitched rectangles. TIP: Use a frame die cut from craft foam and adhered with Matte Medium in place of foam adhesive to avoid sticky edges for sequins to stick to. I have a skinny paintbrush dedicated to Matte Medium which works great in small areas.

Added some orange and pink sequins, and my shaker in W&W colors was nearly finished. I added a balloon die cut from patterned vellum with a metallic string on the front for some extra fun.

I'm also playing at Cure for the Monday Blues. Happy Birthday, Taheerah!

And at Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge where the theme is "New". I used my new SSS balloon die on my shaker card.

Last, but not least, a tag. I wanted a smaller canvas to work with the fabulous leaf stamps from The Big, Bold and Extras. I think the tag can adorn a plant given as a gift so I chose to use "natural" ink colors. I'm hooking up to Mayuri's Distress Inks + Patterns challenge with this.

If you've followed my posts the past few days, I hope you've enjoyed my projects. And I hope you are inspired to join the party at Winnie and Walter. See you over there. And if you're interested, come back tomorrow for my Faves of 2014. Although if you are one of the luckies, you're probably on your way to CHA... If you are, enjoy. And share please!

layer it on, baby (STAMPlorations)

Is it really already November? Besides the fact that today is my Daddy's 88th birthday, I am not ready for November cuz that means Christmas is right behind and then it'll be summer again!

Anyhoo, STAMPlorations has a great theme for this month's challenge:

My cardmaking (and menopausal) self loves layers. Light and airy layers that is...

I started with this wonderful wreath from the Joyful stamp set. Not ready to ink it up in green just yet, and having seen this delightful inspiration photo from Cure for the Monday Blues

I created a comfy, cozy fall card to send off to my aunt and uncle. This photo reminds me of them and their lovely home. And therefore I'm also hooking up to Simon Says Stamp Wednesday's challenge Thinking of You.

Wanna count the layers with me? I've got a cardbase, a stamped sentiment BG spritzed with a good coating of water/Perfect Pearls mixture, a swatch of tissue paper which is all nice and gold-ink-splotched from squishing into leftover spray ink from another project (which you unfortunately can't see in the pic), a gold-ink-striped vellum banner, my heat-embossed-on-vellum wreath, a die cut branch and a teensy gold birdie perched on it. I think that may be the longest sentence ever posted on my blog. Sorry Hemingway.

So how will you interpret "layers"? Grab those scraps you've got laying around and put 'em on a card. Or do some layered stamping. Give it your best shot and join us this month.

As always, there are prizes to be had. I f you are chosen winner of the November challenge you will win two stamp sets if your project used STAMPlorations stamps, one if not. This would be a good time to remind you that the oh-so-fabulous-and-perfect-for-endless-techniques November release (watch for it soon) is available at a great bundle price ($42) until November 11th.

And since it's a busy time of year, in November you will not be required to play in all of the challenges to win the random prize. Each entry will get you a chance at the prize of three digi stamps coming soon to the STAMPlorations shop. Digi stamps. Less tactile but definitely more versatile...

I'll be back next week with more creations made with the Joyful set. Hope to see you. Happy weekend.

a bright spark (CMBC, HOC, Virginia's View )

Did you guess from this sneak peek where I'm going with today's card?

It's over to the Cure for the Monday Blues Challenge #31. Here's the fabulous inspiration photo.

And here's what I got from it. The headboard immediately jumped out at my cuz I have the PTI art deco frame die! Then I got the color blocking of the wall, yellow and white. While my eye was there the red vase jumped at me and I knew something bright red had to appear on my card. Then I noticed the cushions on the bed - purple piping and ikat-ish.

So this happened.

Crappy weather. Crappy photo. But if you look closely you'll see that I stamped a barely there ikat pattern on the white portion in a nod to the pillow. And I painted the stacked die cut frame with purple nail polish. See the shine? I love that trick.

Why did I angle the frame? I honestly don't know. It just looked boring when straight.

Thanks for a great inspiration photo, Taheerah A. And thanks for looking friends.

I'm hooking up over at:
House of Cards - October Challenge "Punches and/or Dies"
Virginia's View - #8 Clean and Simple too.

Supplies:

Paper:  Bringmann, DCWV

Stamps: PTI

Ink : Amuse

Tools: frame and sentiment die PTI, heart die Amuse

Other: nail polish

triple embossed (WW, CMBC)

Well I think it's here to stay. Embossing paste that is. Used to be we had two kinds of embossing - dry and heat.  (TANGENT: Did you see Tim H.'s wunnerful interview where he says embossing got him hooked on cardmaking. I paraphrase.) But I think now that embossing paste has come to town, let's call it three.

There's a "Stamps and Embossing" challenge during October over at STAMPlorations. I made another card using stamps and embossing. Triple embossing even. Can you spot all three?

The peach damask is white embossing paste colored with orange acrylic paint and applied through a stencil. The pink is dry embossed after swiping Spun Sugar Distress Ink onto white CS  and I fussy cut the heat embossed sentiments. Voila!

Since I missed WCMD on Saturday, I've been playing catchup. I'll have a couple more cards coming at you this week.

I'm hooking this card up at Cure for the Monday Blues #31 cuz I think the colors are appropriate and the textures remind me of the comforter and rug. But I've got a better one coming ;)

The colors are from Gayatri's challenge over at Winnie and Walter:

So much great inspiration out there after the WCMD weekend. Are you making cards? See you shortly.

Supplies:

Paper:  Bringmann

Stamps: STAMPlorations, Winnie and Walter

Ink : Versamark

Tools: stencil Prima, die MFT, embossing folder Lifestyle Crafts

Other: embossing paste, orange acrylic paint, gold spray ink Heidi Swapp

pattern-tastic (CMBC)

Not too long ago I was complaining that challenges were disappearing from blogland and now it seems a plethora of new ones are popping up.  I can't keep up!

If you didn't know Taheerah A. before, you certainly got to know her during the farewell blog hop for Cath of Moxie Fab. That mammoth operation would not have gotten off the ground without Taheerah's efforts. Well, have you seen Taheerah's latest endeavor - Cure for the Monday Blues Challenge? Some of the most gorgeous inspiration photos like this latest one:

Not to mention the killer cards that girl creates for her own challenges and the other design teams she has taken by storm. I'm finally playing along (this is already CMB #3) with a card I made for a submission call.  Species "reject" but I think it fits the bill here perfectly.  And I spent way too many minutes deciding on the arrangement of my focal image which is somehow Taheerah-esque.

Here 'tis:

Used the Simon Says Stamp Diagonal Stripe Stencil, but only in one quarter of the card front, and a sponge dauber to ink the stripes in Chipped Sapphire, Salty Ocean and Broken China. Rotated 90 degrees and repeated. Then I slopped on some modelling paste through a Crafters Workshop chevron stencil. Then I added that funky ikat PP circle (why? no clue but once I'd tried it I couldn't not do it!) before adhering the shadowed gold glimmer Papertrey Hello die cut.

Enough patterns for ya?!?!?  Are your eyes wonky now?!?!?

Thanks for a great new challenge, Taheerah. And the rest of you should play along in the next one. Here's hoping you don't get the Monday blues to begin with ;)))

Cardstock: (cardbase) Buttinette,  (navy) American Crafts, (bronze metallic) DCWV 

Patterned paper: (ikat from Print Shop) Studio Calico 6x6

Dye ink: (chipped Sapphire, Salty Ocean, Broken China Distress Inks)

Dies, embossing folders, brass templates: (Diagonal Stripe stencil) Simon Says Stamp, (Chevron stencil) Crafters Workshop, (hello die) PTI

Tool: (spatula), (circle punch) EKS

Other: (white structure paste)