Happy We're Friends

I've been making most of my cards lately using the "Out & About" 12x12 glittered paper collection by My Mind's Eye, partially because I love the paper, but mostly because it's been easily accessible on my craft table. :) Plus, I have the coordinating Prismacolor pencil crayons set aside and handy, so it's been easy to stamp and go to town. :)

I started out simply stamping the tree (from the May 2009 Unity KOM) going just a titch off the edge of a 4.25 x 5.5 piece of white cardstock. The white was a little stark in contrast with the patterned paper I wanted to use, so I sponged some Brushed Corduroy Distress Ink over it to tone it down a bit. After I coloured the tree in, I trimmed the white focal layer down as small as I could while still fitting the tree on, and completed the scene with the bird (Unity November 2008 KOM) and "happy" (Unity May 2009 KOM).

The tree scene needed to be beefed up a bit for the card design to work for me, so I framed it with the pompom edging stamp by Inkadinkado in Bamboo Leaves by Memento. Layered that on a fine white cardstock matting, and adhered it to the glittery pink cardstock using foam mounts for dimension. I happened to come across my glue pen, and thought to myself I might as well use it and some glitter, so made the pink flower petals *pop* with some white glitter I got from the dollar store. I totally love the effect IRL, but it's been hard to get a photo that does it justice.

Scenic advent calendar

I've been working on an advent/countdown calendar for the past few weeks, and I'm happy to have pretty much finished it up this morning. I haven't seen anything quite like it in all my online searching, but my design was inspired by some Kinder and Lego advent calendars I'd seen where you build a three-dimensional scene with each day closer to Christmas. I made my own version of this concept using

• foam core board (two 13"x12" pieces to make the panels)
• 12x12 cardstock and patterned paper
• self-adhesive holographic paper
• clear velcro dots
• Frost White pigment ink by Colorbox, Platinum Planet Brilliance ink
• various stamps and printouts from online colouring book websites
• an easel-style stand, which I've seen at Hobby Lobby and Michaels in the frames dept
  

This is the calendar without any countdown pieces on it. The pieces are going to be kept in a little snowman tin I got from Michaels that is meant to hold gift cards, etc.
This is the calendar with all the countdown pieces attached. The idea is at the beginning of December, you are 25 days away from Christmas, so for December 1, you would put the little image marked with #25 onto the space on the scene that is marked with #25, and then add a piece a day until on Christmas Eve day, the scene is complete. Below are some closeups of the two sides of the calendar.




After I stamped, coloured, and cut out each countdown piece, I glued the number to the image and then laminated them for durability using some Scotch self-laminating pouches I picked up from Sam's Club. You don't need a heat laminating machine for these; you just place whatever you want laminated in between the two halves of the pouch, peel off the protective paper to expose the sticky backing, and then press the two halves of the pouch together around your item.
This angel tree-topper is for the day 12 days from Christmas. I found this great image on an online colouring book site, and coloured it in using Prismacolor pencil crayons.
I'm using some more foam core board and velcro dots to hold the two calendar panels together. This is a pic of the back side of the calendar; both halves are attached to a third large piece of foam core board that holds them together.
The mountain in the scene I created is based on the mountain that was in my backyard when I was growing up. :) Its name is Stekyawden/Roche de Boule, which you can see a proper picture of at http://www.panoramio.com/photo/10265467. I claim no credit for the above photo -- I just found it on the panoramio website!
This is a detail pic of the clear adhesive Velcro dots I used to hold the pieces on the calendar. The hard half of the dots is actually quite clear -- here the dot is adhered over top of a number I wrote with ultra-fine Sharpie. The fuzzy half of the dot is not clear though; it is opaque white. I got my pack of dots for ~$10.75 US at Hobby Lobby; the pack said it contained approximately 76 dots, but they counted both the front and the back halves separately so in reality there are only about 38 pairs of dots. Both halves are self-adhesive, and I think they are awesome. They aren't very bulky (they're thinner than the regular strips of Velcro), the hold is strong but not so strong it's hard to separate the two halves, and the adhesive backing is very sticky.
Here's a closeup of the snowy bits, which I made using white cardstock stamped repeatedly in Platinum Planet Brilliance ink using a retired Stampin' Up background stamp featuring hearts and swirls.
Here's a bit of a closeup of the sky, which I made using some ProvoCraft designer cardstock stamped with some Scraptrends snowflakes in Frost White pigment ink. This pic gives a good impression of how thin the Velcro dots are -- the calendar pieces are almost flush with the calendar!

Now that this baby is done, I can move on to other (quicker) projects and post a little more regularly to my blog! :)

The evolution of a card, aka my random method of creating

This evening (while Sheldon was marking quizzes and we were listening to Car Talk and WWDTM podcasts :D) I was able to make a card for today's SCS Inspiration Challenge. I always love seeing the inspiration pieces for this challenge, and try to participate regularly as time and mojo permits.

I wanted to make my card on a white card base because I love the look of the white solid furniture against the yellow walls in the third inspiration picture. I was flipping through my little box of card bases and found these embossed, square card bases I'd gotten in a grab box from The Angel Company a couple of years ago. Originally I wanted to make a yellow and white card, but upon closer inspection of my yellow-coloured inks and papers, I decided to change my plans and go with the bright pinks in the second photo. The butterfly is of course from the Unity kit Friendship, Love, Miracles, and the use of that image was the only thing I was certain about in this whole design. After colouring in the embossed square frame with my Gelly Roll glaze pen, I decided to trace the pen around the butterfly as well to give it more visual weight. My little card was still a little plain, so I stamped a pattern around the edges the easiest way I could, using wee little flower centre stamps from Technique Tuesday's small Loves Me, Loves Me not stamp set.

After stamping all those little dots, I was ready to call it a card, and Sheldon thought it was pretty cute at that point. BUT, I was not completely happy with it, so I sat back down and grabbed a bottle of Stickles. The most obvious choice would have been my go-to colour, Frosted Lace. I decided to fling caution to the wind and, remembering that pretty yellow bedding set, opted instead for Lemon Ice Stickles. I had NO plan on what I would do with the Stickles; I just started off filling the centres of the largest dots, took a look and decided it needed a little more so filled in the centres of the small hollow dots, took a look and felt I was almost there, and finished up by putting a drop of Stickles in the small solid dots too. After all that dotting, I was in full-on Stickles mode! I was like, "Ok, what else can I Stickle here? Well, there's the empty squares in the frame, and there's the butterfly's wings. Nah, those aren't dotty enough. How about doing the dots in the butterfly's wings? Perfect!" So there it was -- done and done! In retrospect I like my crazy and impulsive little card!

I did spend most of today crafting, but I am waiting for my other project to dry and hopefully will have it up for tomorrow! I am so chuffed about it -- I started working on it a few months ago, hit a stone wall, then had an AHA! moment today looking at an inspiration challenge from a couple of weeks ago and now I'm almost done!

And now for something completely different..... I think it's pretty apparent that I LOVE Unity Stamps. I am so happy to have found them and their awesome products, because they are one of the big things that revitalised my enthusiasm for papercrafting and stamping. Well, not only do I love Unity, but so does my cat Fozzie!! He is soooo appreciative of how they understand his little kitty soul and send him the most perfect gifts! In the pic he is lying on some of the paper my first kit of the month was padded with. He has literally loved that paper to pieces! For a few days, he had also gotten a hold of the padded envelope that my second kit of the month came in, and was using it as a pillow while lying on his paper "bed"! No word of a lie!

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.

Manliest pink trees you ever saw!

This is my card for the Unity Challenge Wednesday, where we were to make masculine cards. I received this totally awesome 'happiness' stamp as a free gift with my first order from Unity. When I realised it was the same length as these mini giggle grove trees from the September Kit of the Month, I wanted to have the trees growing out of the word happiness! It was super-easy to line these up withOUT using any kind of stamp positioner; I did a test stamping of the trees just out of prudence to make sure the trunks ended where I thought they did from the back side of my acrylic handle.

I coloured the trees in using three shades of Prismas (Blush Pink first, followed by Pink around the edges, followed by blending using the Blush Pink pencil crayon again, followed by some highlighting around the edges with Dark Umber to make them blend in more with the papers). Then I topped the leafy parts off with a convex layer of Liquid Glass by Plaid -- love the effect now that I'm comfortable using this product!!! To tone down the stark white focal layer, I stippled the edges with Shabby Shutters and Vintage Photo inks. To help balance the patterns in the background layers, I also doodled a dashed border using the Burnt Sienna Prisma. To finish it off, I mounted the focal piece on dimensionals, and it looks really cool in real life.

Stamps: Unity gift 'happiness', trees from Unity's September KOM

Paper: True Thyme cardstock (SU, retired); white cardstock by Domtar; Saturate, Instill, and Condense patterned papers from Basic Grey's Infuse collection.

Ink: Coffee Bean Brilliance ink, Dark Moss fluid chalk ink by Clearsnap, Shabby Shutters and Vintage Photo Distress inks.

Other: liquid glass by Plaid, Coluzzle circle template, stipple brush, Prisma pencil crayons.


And now for something completely different -- a pic of my cat Fozzie!!! He LLLOOOOOVVVVES doing the faceplant into his Daddy's arm!!!!!

World Cardmaking Day -- Unity Style :)

I'm finally getting around to posting the cards I made for World Cardmaking Day a week ago!!!!! Sheesh, blogmaking can be tough to schedule in! I've spent my crafting time this past work week finishing up the bits and pieces I left lying on my craft table, and trying to tidy the area up a bit too. With all the embossing powder and glitter wiped up, and my double scrubber stamp cleaner washed up, I am a happy stamper again!!!

ANYWAYS, you can find all the specifics about SCS's world cardmaking day challenges here. I did all of them except for the colour challenge, which was too complicated for me with a bunch of colour names I didn't have and didn't feel up to trying to match. In the Unity forum on Splitcoast, they gave us the extra challenge of using our Unity stamps for the challenges. Everyone who did all seven challenges using Unity stamps was entered into a drawing to win a prize, but by the time I hit challenge number seven I decided I wanted ALL the cards I made to be FUN and not stressful, so I let go of the seventh challenge and the chance to win a prize. I had a whack of fun making the cards tho!!!!


I made this for the sketch challenge. I was breaking in my new Making Memories rotary precision paper trimmer, so I found trimming the narrow strips to be a little stressful, which then made me anxious about perfectly lining up the three strips. I used my 12x6 Fiskars quilting ruler to make lining up the strips easy to do; I just taped the card base to the ruler using low tack tape, then used the grid lines to align the paper I was adhering. And can I boast a little and say this is my first attempt in memory at "paper piecing"!!!! As soon as I saw this nice open-image purse with nice smooth edges, I thought it was made for paper piecing!

Stamps: Shopaholic kit from Unity (purse, sentiment, and insanity warning)

Ink: Milled Lavender Ranger Distress Ink, Graphite Black Brilliance

Paper: Close to Cocoa, black and white cardstocks, one sheet of double-sided patterned paper by Memory Stor

Other: Black pigma pen, Black Diamond Stickles


I made this for the featured stamper challenge; this is the card of Sherry's that I used for my inspiration. I used the same stamp and layout, but rounded the corners of the trees layer and its matting, used brass snaps instead of pewter brads, and omitted the "LOVE" gong up the right side of the inspiration card. I've never participated in a featured stamper challenge before -- it's a lot of fun, especially when you and the stamper have similar tastes in stamps!!! :D The trees were stamped on grey cardstock identical to the grey matting layer; I wanted to make the trees white by colouring them with my Prismas. To give this card a little depth, I sponged Vintage Photo ink around the edges of the red cardstock.


Stamps: So and So Loves... by Unity

Ink: Coffee Bean Brilliance ink, Vintage Photo Distress Ink

Paper: Close to Cocoa, red and grey generic cardstocks, brown cardstock from Provo Craft.

Other: white, red, and grey Prismacolor pencil crayons, brass snaps by Making Memories


I took the layout and colour scheme for this card directly from the Coldwater Creek catalogue cover linked in the inspiration challenge. I even chose a focal image that consisted of three like things, and coloured them using the same colours as the three leaves from the catalogue cover. :) I lllooooovvvveee inspiration challenges, and enjoyed breaking out colours I dont usually use!

Stamps: Unity September Kit of the Month (trees, sentiment), maple leaf from All Night Media

Ink: Sunflower Palette Ink, olive Versamagic chalk ink, Coffee Bean Brilliance ink

Paper: Morning Marigold cardstock by SU (retired), white and black generic cardstocks

Other: Prismacolor pencil crayons


The challenge for this card was to use a stamp of a tree, or an item related to trees. I decided (as I often do :D) to keep my layout simple and go gangbusters creating textures and depth by using a variety of stamps. I ran a bead of liquid glass over the three after I coloured it, and also painted a thin coating of the glass over the green strip to make it stand out and give it more visual weight IRL. It doesn't really show up here that well, tho. I was so pleased that I had an inkpad that perfectly matches one of the blues in my Pebbles i-kan-dee chalks! I stamped the corners in the ink (natch) and used the matching chalk to soften the stark white of the cardstock and draw the eye to the tree. I didn't use anything like a stampamajig to stamp the corners on my card -- all I did was align the edges of the corner stamp with the grids on my acrylic handle, then with the inked stamp lying on its back on the table, I carefully-ish placed the cardstock down using the gridlines to help me line it up.

Stamps: Unity September Kit of the Month (tree, butterfly, swirly pretty thingy, bubbly corner)

Ink: Graphite Black Brilliance ink, Blueberries & Chocolate fluid chalk ink Queue by Clearsnap, Versamark

Paper: Not Quite Navy and the bright green from that colour family cardstocks by SU, white cardstock by Domtar

Other: Prismacolor pencil crayons, liquid glass by Plaid, clear embossing powder by PSX, shimmer chalk by Pebbles


I'd never made a nested circle flower before, either! The instructions said to use five circles, so I cut my smallest one first and used it as a guide to cut my next layer, but all the cutting was done just by eyeballing it to get a bit of a fun, asymmetric look. By the time I cut my third circle, I figured I had better watch out or I wouldn't be able to fit the flower on a card, or even worse might injure the recipient by sending them a five-pound paper flower card, so I started cutting the layers a little tighter. Before gluing the circles together, I distressed the edges with my fingers and fingernails, and inked along the edges with olive chalk ink to give them a little more definition. The grey layer needed a little more oomph to keep up with that massive bloom, so in addition to using the Threading Water punch, I also doodled dots along the edges.

Stamps: Unity September Kit of the Month (butterfly, swirly pretty thingy), sentiment by Hero Arts

Ink: Blueberries & Chocolate fluid chalk ink Queue by Clearsnap, Versamark, Olive chalk ink by Versamagic

Paper: Not Quite Navy cardstock by SU, grey generic cardstock, Fruitcake by Basic Grey

Other: clear embossing powder by PSX, dark green pigma pen, fancy brad from the crafting section in Zellers, if you can believe it!


On this one, where the challenge was to avoid the use of patterned paper and chalks/pastels, I decided to use a variety of papers to add interest. :) On the card base, I tried out creating a scalloped border using a corner punch for the first time ever, and probably for the last time too, at least the last time doing it all around the edge of a card made from a whole sheet of CS! Even with the mix of paper textures and the scalloped edge, this card was a little plain for my tastes until I added the blingy brads and applied lace stickles to the three flower clusters that are part of the quotation stamp.

Stamps: quotation from Unity, large butterfly from PSX

Ink: Tattered Rose and Faded Jeans Distress Inks

Paper: Not Quite Navy cardstock by SU, grey generic cardstock, vellum, pink mulberry paper

Other: blue pen, blue crystal brads by Making Memories, diamond lace stickles, large corner rounder punch by EK Success

So there's my giant post of my Unity WCMD challenge cards. I am so appreciative of my husband, who not only was happy to see me participate in the challenges and make a bunch of cards, but also things all of them are beautiful! Isn't it funny how when we look at are cards, we mostly see what they are NOT, while if you ask anyone else, they just see the awesome things you did!

Two challenge cards in one day!

I'm just loving the inspiration pieces that SmilynStef found for this week's Inspiration Challenge -- Domino Paint Palettes. I made a second card for this challenge using my Unity Sept KOM. This time, I chose Room 34.


This is not exactly a "wild riot of prints" that I used with the "controlled colour palette" of pale blue with oatmeal-ish brown, but I just loved the idea of making a linear border with the giggle grove image. The ribbon came about because I was concerned the card would be a little too plain for my confidence level to give to anybody, and the sentiment is from a Hero Arts clear set that I use on just about every card I make, it seems like.

ETA: I'm sending this card to my brother for his birthday. :) He and his wife are in forestry, plus I like this card so much it is "family-worthy". :D Inside, I stamped a larger trio of trees image from this same stamp set and coloured them in in browns using my Prisma pencil crayons -- they look like a yummy chocolate forest!

Stamps: giggle grove of trees from Unity Stamps, sentiment from Hero Arts.

Paper: pale blue cardstock from Fiskars "Country" cardstock pack.

Other: brown organza ribbon by Offray.

Received my Unity KOM today!!!!!!

After a slight delay, I received this month's Unity Stamp Co. Kit of the Month!!! It got here only two days after being shipped out, woohoo!! Today is the day my favourite challenge at SCS, the Inspiration Challenge, releases new challenges, so I made my challenge card using my new stamps of course. :D I used Room 13 as my inspiration, and took a cue from the little description for that room and used white to balance the green colour scheme and strong visual impact of the swirly pinwheel background. I love these images, and wanted to let them take centre stage.




Stamps: swirly pinwheel, polka-dotted scallop border, and giggle grove of trees from Unity's September stamp kit of the month. "hello" from a Hero Arts clear stamp set.

Paper: white cardstock by Domtar, white card base by Halcraft.

Ink: Ranger Distress Ink in Shabby Shutters, Versamagic chalk ink in Aloe Vera

Other: Prismacolor pencil crayons to colour in the leafy bits of the trees.

My other major achievements of today are:

• I ***finally*** got to the post office to mail off my Dad's birthday card (his bday is at the beginning of AUGUST!) and a parcel of altered mailboxes to my sister's family. They've been sitting in my craft room for a couple of weeks now and with my husband's help, I finally got it together enough to make it to the PO today.
• Finished up two other cards that basically just needed to be assembled.