Vintage Fluffles

I'm almost positive I made this card based on one from Sharon Johnson's blog . . . but I can't find it anywhere! I remember it was a sketch challenge, and that the three embellishments arranged vertically along the bottom right edge was part of the sketch, along with the overall layout, but I am not sure of the who or where or when; I just know I loved the sketch and found it very fun to work with!Using a double-sided patterned cardstock, and coordinating solid cardstocks from Stampin Up's 2006 In Colours made this card really easy and relaxing to create. I received the stamped Fluffles image in an image RAK -- so sweet! I cut the image out using my oval Coluzzle template, and after colouring it with my Prismacolor pencil crayons, and gently sponging Brushed Corduroy Distress Ink around the egdes to soften the starkness of the white cardstock the focal image is stamped on, I layered that onto a scalloped oval punched out of white cardstock. If you look closely, you can see that I coloured around the insides of the scallops with a light blue Prisma, to keep in the theme of the overall look of the card.

I always place the card elements together first without gluing them down, and when I did that with this card, I realised sponging the edges of ALL the layers would tie everything together really well -- I think this is the first time I've tried that, and just love the results. I also did a little rough rubbing of the inkpad around the edges of the patterned paper layer, and made the Buckaroo Blue card base recede a little by stamping a small flower from a Studio G clear stamp set in Frost White pigment ink randomly all over it.

Paper: Stampin Up solid cardstock (Buckaroo Blue, Vintage Violet), white cardstock (Domtar), double-sided patterned cardstock.

Stamps: Stampendous Fluffles and snail, "hello" by Inkadinkado

Ink: Brushed Corduroy Ranger Distress Ink, black, Frost White by Colorbox

Other: Giga scallop punch by Marvy, Threading Water border punch by Fiskars, Prismacolor pencil crayons, ribbon by Offray, sponge by Royal & Langnickel, foam dimensionals.

Warped words

I saw this phrase on a tshirt online, and instantly had this card idea. Finally got around to doing it last week, and here it is. :) It was a lot of fun, and a great "excuse" to use things I tend to hoard, like the large eyelets by ProvoCraft, and the silver metallic Bazzill cardstock.


After stamping the sentiment in black using a Studio G photopolymer alpha, I crumpled the silver cardstock by lightly misting the back of it with water and wadding it gently into a loose ball. After uncrumpling the paper, I added some strategic folds wherever I felt like to add more depth and visual interest to the light crumpled look. It didn't take long for the cardstock to dry; I might have hit it with my heat gun, but also might not have. Once it was dry, though, I rubbed Brushed Corduroy Distress Ink lightly over top the silver cs, mostly to highlight the fold lines. After that, I rubbed Tattered Rose Distress Ink a little more firmly over top to add some subtler "lowlights" (to borrow a term from hair colouring-ese). Sounds kinda nutso, but the pale pink tones work really well in this application; I've done it in the past with other projects and love the effect.

The silver cs is matted onto brown cs spritzed with Memories Mist in Espresso, then mounted onto some light grey Bazzill Smoothies cardstock that I stamped with some funky geometric shapes by Inkadinkado. I ran a black Brilliance dewdrop along the edges of the card layer to increase its visual weight; it really enhanced the look of the card, and helped balance the visual weight of the textured silver cs.

Those crazy-addictive Studio G clear stamp sets

I always have a hard time resisting those cheapie little dollar sets of clear stamps at Michaels. After all the time I've spent waiting for the store in town to get them in, and selecting which ones to buy once they finally DO come in, I've hardly used any of my Studio G sets! When I made this card, my crafting goals were to:

• use those Studio G stamps!
• create fun monochromatic images by using the same hues of ink and pencil crayon
  

I started off by stamping my Flourished card base by Martha Stewart in Swan using the large and small flower images from the daisy Studio G set to make a background. I added a little taxonomic and visual variety with a butterfly and dragonfly from Hero Arts' "Thoughtful Messages" clear stamp set. I coloured the images and added some grey shadowing using my Prismacolor pencil crayons (just straight colouring, no fancy odorless mineral spirits technique on this card).

Because the stamped images are all on the small side, I thought an ATC for the focal point would be the easiest way to go. I stamped a background of flowers on white cardstock (2.25" x 3.25") using a small flower from the Hero Arts set to create a background for the sentiment. I doodled a border on this layer to help draw the eye from the busy-ish card base to the focal point, then matted the white cardstock layer onto a scrap of Bazzill Bling shimmery pink cardstock that I'd stamped with the small flower in pink ink. After I added the fun ribbon, I adhered the ATC to the card base using foam dimensionals.

Stamps: Studio G daisy set, Hero Arts "Thoughtful Messages" set
Inks: Ranger Distress inks in Broken China, Worn Lipstick, Shabby Shutters, and Spiced Marmalade
Paper: card base from Martha Stewart, white cardstock, Bazzill Bling pink
Other: Prismacolor pencil crayons, ribbon, green pen, foam dimensionals

Trio of cards from Blossoms and Butterflies

I managed to knock out another little project! I'm on a roll -- first the canvas clock, now this one!! I picked up a fun and pretty paper stack by DCWV called "Blossoms and Butterflies". It's nice, thick paper, and includes embossed, glittered, and foiled designs. For this project, my criteria were:

1. use papers from B&B stack
2. use stamp set I got for a good price from Hobby Lobby and haven't inked up at all
3. use some coordinating bling and brads I picked up the same time I got the paper stack
4. base cards on SCS sketch challenges

This first card is based on SCS sketch challenge 201. The sentiment layer is popped up on foam dimensionals. I made the jaggedy matting layer by stamping on and trimming the white sentiment cardstock layer down to size, then laying it on the matting cardstock and tracing around it lightly in pencil. Using my Dragonback Fiskars decorative-edged scissors, I cut the matting by carefully lining the bottom of the cutting edges with the pencil line. I've seen this kind of matting edge done elsewhere and really like the effect, so I was happy to be able to give it a shot myself!

Stamps: sentiment from clear set at Hobby Lobby -- if someone could let me know which company they're by, I'd appreciate it! I threw away the packaging.
Paper: colourful butterflies on brown, green with blue stripe and flowers, and yellow blossoms and butterflies on white patterned papers from DCWV Butterflies & Blossoms paper stack. Brown cardstock base, white cardstock.
Ink: Chestnut Roan fluid chalk ink by Clearsnap.
Other: yellow brad with white flower on it by Spare Parts, small sunshine punch to make cardstock flower, Lemon Ice Stickles.

This card is based on SCS Sketch challenge 199. I knew I just had to showcase this lovely glittered cardstock on one of the cards, and this sketch was perfect for it! The large panel is popped up on foam dimensionals here. To make that panel stand out even more, I also ran a blue inkpad around the edges of the matting layer to define that edge. I really liked the card with just the main panel and the sentiment panel, but in order to conform to the challenge sketch, I needed to include a vertical panel on the left. I got around this by using lightweight vellum stamped with yellow ink for that third panel. How sneaky!

Stamps: circle cluster and concentric dots from Circles & Dots set by Inkadinkado, mystery stamp set from Hobby Lobby.
Paper: glittery flowers, blue flower, and yellow blossoms and butterflies on white patterned papers from DCWV Butterflies & Blossoms paper stack. White cardstock, vellum.
Ink: Lime Pastel, Blue Lagoon, and Yellow Citrus fluid chalk ink from Colorbox Queue

This last card is based on SCS sketch challenge 117, and took approximately fifty billion hours to finish. The pink swirly foiled patterned paper is so fun and eyecatching, but also a little overwhelming and out of my comfort zone. I had to pull out some of my shabby chic/distressed techniques to tone down the fuschia a little bit. I did several things to the edges of the hot pink layer:

• sponged with Broken China Distress Ink
• sponged with Vintage Photo Distress Ink
• doodled a border
• stamped over the doodled border with a dotty flourish in Starry Night Palette Ink

Possibly the hardest part of this card was finding a suitable colour for the card base. I finally wound up using an ecru-coloured cardstock for the base and stamped it with a background stamp in Vintage Photo, then stippled Vintage Photo around the edges, and then finally ran the edges along my Chestnut Roan inkpad. This was just one of those cards that you spend FOREVER on and don't really get much satisfaction from finishing because you were so focused on averting disaster, you can't really like the results. Know what I mean?

Stamps: sentiment from Inkadinkado clear set, dotty flourish along border from Circles & Dots set by Inkadinkado, butterflies on focal layer by PSX, daisies on focal layer by Studio G, dotty flower background stamp by Judikins.
Paper: blue flower, and hot pink swirly foiled patterned papers from DCWV Butterflies & Blossoms paper stack. White and ecru cardstocks.
Ink: Vintage Photo and Broken China Distress Inks by Ranger. Chestnut Roan fluid chalk ink by Colorbox. Starry Night Palette hybrid ink.
Other: blue bling around edges of focal layer by Spare Parts, bling along swirl in bottom right corner from Michaels.

Sending Joy

First off, I've gotta say I have the coolest friends ever! I posted my excitement about being featured on the Unity blog on Facebook, and my friend Matt C (not a stamper or cardmaker by trade) made sure he got to see this card of mine and said it was awesome! Kudos to Matt and all supportive and encouraging friends of stamp addic- er, stampers!

Onto stamping! I was so excited to get to sit down and make a card using my awesome Fabriano Aquarello watercolour paper! I was never very comfortable making one-layer cards without using a card base that was either substantial or fabulous, or in the case of Aquarello, both! Sharon Johnson posted a flat card challenge on her blog yesterday, and I wanted to try it out the other night! When I started this card, all I knew was that I wanted to use at least one stamp from the October KOM from Unity, and whatever happened after that was gravy. :) The pink swirly stamp is stamped along both the front and back, and I also punched the border along the front and back edges.

Stamps: swirly from Unity's Thinking About the Good Times kit, angel from Unity's Friendship, Love, Miracles kit, green dots and yellow sparkle from Technique Tuesday small Loves Me, Loves Me Not set, both sets of letters from Studio G (by Hampton Arts) mini alpha sets.

Ink: yellow pigment ink by Inkadinkado, green chalk ink by Clearsnap, Coffee Bean by Brilliance, Tattered Rose Distress Ink by Ranger, Starry Night by Palette.

Paper: Fabriano Aquarello watercolour paper.

Other: Prismacolor pencil crayons, Threading Water border punch by Fiskars.


Other news from today.... I had two (!!) doctors' appointments today and only spent four hours at work. It was a quiet day at work anyways, so it was not a problem I don't think. Both doctors' offices are down by the Michaels, so of course I had to go in between appts during my lunch hour to see if they'd gotten in the new Martha Stewart stuff, and they had!!!! The sheep punch and one of the new stamp sets were already sold out! I had a tough time deciding between the cupcake, owl, and elephant punches, but had to get that cute owl. :) I wasn't quite sure how the "double punch" worked, but I found out as soon as I got to the parking lot! It cuts the outline out, and embosses the owl's eyes and tummy. I don't know how I'm going to use this thing, but I'll sure as heck have fun finding out!

With supper, Sheldon and I (and Fozzie too! He liked the fighting and desert scenes) watched the second movie in the 1972 "Lone Wolf and Cub" series. I remember watching samurai and ninja movies with my folks when I was young (back when glaciers covered North America :D) and it is very enjoyable to watch the genre again. The good ones are like Clint Eastwood westerns, except Japanese.