January Stamp Club Challenge

Our challenges for January are to use any sort of plaid on your card and a sketch challenge. I combined the two to come up with this card.

 

I'm not totally pleased with the plaid. I have this stamp to create plaids which has been in my stash for 16 years! The ink is too bold to go with the patterned paper behind it but I was too lazy to change it out;) The main image and sentiment are from Flourishes new set called "Snowy Days". I colored portions of the skates with Copics and added glitter to the pom-poms. The punch is from EK Success. I die cut both ovals using Spellbinder's large and small oval nestabilities.

Hope you had a very merry and have a safe, heathy and happy 2013!

Spring Birdie

I was on a mission this summer to find these wooden birds at Michaels and finally found them at a Michaels in Madison. Woo hoo!

 

I stamped a Hero Arts background stamp in Versamark Ink and embossed with clear embossing powder. You could also use white embossing powder with this technique. I then heat set the powder carefully so the wood didn't scorch. Once the powder and wood cooled, I rubbed various colors of Gelatos over the embossing and wood and took a paper towel to rub the Gelatos off the embossing and smooth out the color. Added bling for the eye and done. This was a fun project to make and you could change it up with various background stamps and different colors of Gelatos.

Gift Exchange

Three friends and myself get together once a month and play canasta. We have a great afternoon of gabbing and playing cards. In December, we go to this fabulous tea shop for lunch and exchange gifts.

 

This year I collaged these photo holders for my friends. Lotsa fun to go through your stash of ephemera and put your pieces together. Phyllis made her fabulous soap for us, Karen made us a beautiful calendar for 2013 and Barb made us awesome quilted handbags. Very lucky to have these great friends in my life!

Stamp Club Christmas Card Exchange

I somewhat copied this card from a long ago Somerset Studio. I have had these stamps in my stash for years and have used them in other various holiday cards over the years. The main image is from now-defunct Stampa Rosa but have seen the stamp available from another company. After the holidays, I will take the time to do a search and post.

 

The girl was chalked to achieve softness and the remainder of the image was watercolored as was the Hero Arts stamp bordering the image. I added copper and white Pearl Pen dots to the entire image and border. This picture shows the white Pearl Pen better.

 

Another Stamp Club Challenge

Joyce challenged us to use trees on one of our projects.

 

I took an idea from a card I made at Archiver's a couple of years ago and changed it up to a tag. I first stamped the trees image from Tim Holtz/Stamper's Anonymous and the sentiment with Frayed Burlap Distress Ink. I then sponged Scattered Straw, Stormy Sky and Frayed Burlap Distress Inks as shown. I added ultra fine green Flower Soft to the trees and then made some snow flakes with a glue pen and glitter. Have a good weekend!

Stamp Club Challenge

Joyce provided our stamp club challenge for this month and here's my take.

 

I found these yo-yo's in my craft room attic this fall and put them to good use creating this Christmas card. Pretty simple and straight forward.

Speaking of Joyce - she posted all of our Christmas cards for our exchange. Take a look here. We have a very talented group of fun ladies.

Stamp Club Challenge

I was a good girl for our November stamp club sketch challenge and followed the sketch to the "T" including using fabric. Very proud of myself:)

 

The base cardstock is dark green and the kraft cardstock is SU's crumb cake. The green Christmas tree fabric has been in my stash forever. I cut the fabric with the Memory Box ornament die and the overlay in crumb cake was also a Memory Box die. I stitched the fabric with tan thread and stitched the crumb cake cardstock in irridescent green thread. The sentiment is from Inkadinkado. The holly embossing folder used on the crumb cake is from Sizzix. I completed the card with fiber from my stash and bling from Dazzles.

Halloween Cat

I've been experimenting with sponging Distress Inks and air brushing with my Copics along with this fun, solid stamp from Stamp Francisco.

 

This first card was sponged with Distress Inks (below photo - and yes, I know, I misspelled "sapphire").

 

This second card was air brushed with Copics (below photos). I think I like the effect of the air brushed Copics over the sponging of the Distress Inks.

 

 

Both cards were punched with the Martha Stewart spider web punch on orange card stock and mounted on a 5 x 5 black folded card.

Unfortunately, I've finished creating Halloween cards. They're just too much fun to make. Before you know it, Christmas will be here and I have many cards and projects to create.

Happy trick or treating!

Gift Card Holder

It was my turn this month to bring the shoe box to our stamp club. I chose this gift card holder which I saw on-line but neglected to note which website. I used SU's crumb cake card stock as the card base and some discontinued SU holiday paper I bought from a garage sale this summer.

 

This holder will fit into an A2 envelope. I used Marianne's Designs poinsettia die and Tim Holtz's pine bough die to embellish the front. The tag stamp is from Hero Arts.

 

You would also stamp a sentiment on the inside left. You can get very creative with embellishing this project.

Once Upon a Midnight Dreary

Love making Halloween cards!

 

This large image stamp is from Stampendous and I believe is a new release this year. I stamped it in tuxedo black Memento ink onto SU's crumb cake cardstock. Colored a little bit of the hat with orange Copics and mounted the image onto black cardstock. I punched the bottom of the black cardstock with the Martha Stewart spider's web punch. The brad embellishment is from My Minds Eye Lost and Found collection. I raised the entire piece on a crumb cake card.

Happy Halloween Quoth the Raven!

Another Stamp Club Challenge

I'm ahead of the game for our October stamp club challenge so yay for me! After I had this card completed, I realized it was supposed to be a sympathy card.....whoops! But anyway, here 'tis.

 

The stamps are new from Just Right's set Shabby Chic Autumn Leaves. On a piece of glossy cardstock, I created a background with alcohol inks using reds, greens and oranges. I then stamped the three leaves on the created background cardstock and cut out. The background paper behind the oval and strip is Beau Jardin Poppy from BoBunny and is from a few years ago. (Liked it so much, I stocked up before it went out of circulation:)

I stamped the sentiment (from the same set) on white cardstock cut with the new Spellbinder's Floral Oval. The white strip through the center was embossed with the leaves folder from Sizzix. I bent the leaves and pop-dotted. The gold leaves findings are from my stash.

I really like the sketch that you provided Ann.

Happy Halloween!

Ya, ya, I know, a little bit early but I love creating Halloween cards.

 

The main image and sentiment are Northwoods Rubber Stamps from last year's fall release. I colored the main image with Copics and added orange Stickles to the buckles and pola dots. I cut the images with Spellbinder's Deckled Edges Rectangles. The tape is from Michael's and their Reflections line. Mounted the images on designer paper, purple cardstock and Certainly Celery cardstock from SU.

Looking forward to seeing the "girls" at stamp club tonight and sharing our creations.

Autumn Stamp Club Challenge

It was my turn this month to provide the challenges for our stamp club. I followed the sketch except for the length...couldn't help myself but to create a longer card since I had a particular idea in mind. It's been several months since I used my stencils, no more shims pad and some metal from Spellbinders.

 

I used the maple leaves stencil from Dreamweaver's and ran it through my Cuttlebug using the No More Shims pad. I cut the the maple leaves into three separate sections and began the process of manipulating the metal with various metalworking tools. Once done, I filled the back side of the leaves with filler specifically made for this process.

The white base cardstock is 7x8-1/2, scored and folded to 3-1/2 (fits in a no. 10 envie). The embossed vellum is from Penny Black and edged with a gold foil pen. I placed strips of gold metallic cardstock behind the images along with silver metallic cardstock but with Spellbinder's Fancy Labels. Added a few pearls for a finishing touch. This was a fun card to make and must remember to pull out my stencils more often!

Brown Eyed Susans

I created this card with stamps from Stampin' Up and Hero Arts. I started with water color paper spritzed with water. I colored the SU stamp with various colors of Distress Markers and then spritzed the stamp with additional water and stamped the damp water color paper.

 

Once the paper was dry, I inked an older Hero Arts word stamp with Tea Dye Distress Ink and then wiped some of the ink off the stamp prior to over-stamping the brown eyed susans. I cut the image with Spellbinder's Labels Eight along with some designer paper with the next size up Labels Eight. Layered these onto 5x7 white cardstock and rounded the corners. Added a bit of ribbon and done. Simple and speedy card to use for birthday or just as a note card.

Another Stamp Club Challenge

Found this post yesterday that I had forgotten to post! CRS strikes again! This was another challenge for last month's stamp club. We were to create a Christmas card without using the traditional colors red and green.

 

I used gold and brown to create my 5" square card. I used glimmer paper as the base and then added metallic gold for another layer. Both of these were punched with a round corner punch. The designer paper is from My Mind's Eye and cut with a large scallop die from Spellbinders.

The deer die and swirl die are from one of Sizzix's Tim Holtz designs and cut from glitter paper. The brown strip of paper through the center was punched with a Martha Stewart punch.

I'm a little ahead on making my Christmas cards this year (yippee!) so it won't be such a crunch at the end of the year.

Sketch Challenge

I went kinda crazy creating cards for our August stamp club sketch challenge. I decided on a theme of butterflies but didn't know which butterflies to choose so made four cards! The first card (which I should have placed on a darker background for the photo) is using butterflies from Jenni Bowlin. The designer paper is Gossamer from Memory Box and embossed with a Darice butterly embossing folder. The die cuts are Postage Stamp from Spellbinders. The sentiment stamp is from Impression Obsession.

 

The second card has butterflies from Prima and the designer paper is Jubilee - once again from Memory Box.

 

The third card uses some butterflies from an unknown source. The designer paper is from Bo Bunny and I once again used the sentiment from IO.

 

The last card uses Little Yellow Bicyle butterflies and the designer paper is Jubilee from Memory Box.

 

In Sympathy

I created this card for a friend whose aunt passed away.

 

I made a mask with scrap paper placing first the circle on my cardstock to create the sun. I then used two orange and two yellow copic markers along with my airbrush system to spray the entire white cardstock starting with the darkest orange on top and working down to the lightest yellow on the bottom. I then removed the circle and placed the negative on the cardstock and sprayed some orange and yellow copics on the "sun" to tone down the whiteness. I overstamped this with SU's grass stamp with green ink and then stamped the sentiment (source unknown) in black ink. Layered the card front on black and then a green card. Wish the best for my friend since it has been a difficult time for her.

Blue Bird and Butterflies

I somewhat case'd this card from an Our Daily Bread designer. The main image is Bird and Butterly Labels from ODBD and cut with Spellbinder's Labels 18 die. The image and sentiment (Flourishes) are stamped with Memento's Paris Dusk ink.

 

The blue dp is embossed with the swirl CB folder. Both designer paper papers are from Teresa Collins' Everyday Moments collection. The label behind the main image is one of Spellbinder's Fancy Tags 2. I finished off the card with embellishments from Maya Road (flower ribbon), Martha Stewart butterfly and border punches and Memory Box pearls. The overall card size is 5x5.

Granddaughter's Birthday Card

I created this birthday card for my 3 year old granddaughter's birthday using Honeypop stamps and paper.

 

I used Spellbinders dies to cut the scalloped rectangles and the tag.

 

The balloon on the inside is created with the Honeypop paper. Lotsa fun to make!

Happy Birthday, Barb!

I created this birthday card for my friend, Barb, whose birthday is this week. We are in stamp club and play cards...have lotsa fun together!

 

The designer paper is from Graphic 45's line called Olde Curiosity Shoppe and mounted on Bazzill cardstock. The corners are punched with an older decorative corner punch from McGill and black rhinestones added to the corners. The stamped image is from Penny Black called Awakening. I stamped the image in tuxedo black from Memento and colored with Copics. The sentiment is from Flourishes and the die is from Spellbinder's Fancy Tags. All the stamped images were distressed with Antique Linen Distress Ink. Hope Barb has a great birthday week!

Pearls and Perfume

I made this card for my sister's birthday which is in a couple of months. (She won't see this post:)

 

The card is 5-1/2" square and the designer paper is from BasicGrey called Plumeria. The perfume bottles stamp is from PSX and one of my "keepers". I colored the bottles with copics, cut out and then applied Crystal Laquer and let dry overnight. The base cardstock is a sage green and then layers of burgundy and lighter burgundy cardstock. The edge is punched with a Martha Stewart punch. I raised the image with pop dots and added the pearls.