Wednesday, August 30, 2017

AF 2017 Guest: Jessica Frost-Ballas: Bronze

I have to admit I don't think about using metallics that much in my daily stamping.  However, I do love the look of it.  I should use it more often.
I used Danielle Flander's beautiful card for inspiration.  You can see it here.  I had some gorgeous pre-embossed paper in my stash which I used for my card base. I brush some watermark ink onto the flower cents and embossed them with bronze embossing powder. The doily was something I also had in my stash.  The Color Pop Autumn kit was used for the rest of the elements in the card.  The sentiment was cut from bronze paper.  Brown sequins also add a bronze element.   This card has such much texture it begs to be touched!

Thanks for looking!


Share:

SAF 2017 Guest: Stephanie Gold: Cotton

I absolutely loved how Stephanie turned that cotton ball into cotton candy.  However, I mail most of my cards and didn't want to have to send a card like that in a box.  I decided to turn my cotton balls into clouds.

I scribbled a little bit of a light blue Clean Color Real Brush Maker on the cotton ball and then spritzed it with water.  After they dried I could easily manipulated the cotton balls to form my clouds.  I used the Sunshine and Rainbow kit to make the rest of my card.

Thanks for looking!


Share:

SAF 2017 Guest: Rebecca Luminarias: Paper

Rebecca did a splendid job showing us how to turn simple paper that we use everyday in our card making into fabulous embellishments.  I decided to select another of the take 10 inspiration photos for my card.  I choose this one:
This was definitely outside my comfort level but I just loved the pop of yellow with all the gray/green colors.  I decided to try and mimic the great card by Nicole Heady here

I just love the way it looks like a door.  The panels are embossed with one of the Mix and Match scallop dies.   My wreath was composed of Bitty Bouquet and the sentiment is from Just Desserts.  I used Rebecca's paper strip bow technique to add to the wreath.

Thanks for looking!





Share:

Papertrey Ink SAF 2017: Take Ten Warm Up Challenge

It's time once again for Papertrey Ink's annual Stamp-a-Faire challenge. I have been participating in these challenge for several years now and was very exicted to continue the tradition.

The first challenge  is called Take Ten because you had to:
  • Select one of the TEN inspiration photos/color schemes from below.
  • Take TEN to sketch your card and make a plan.
  • Use TEN to collect supplies, trim paper, etc.
  • Then TEN more to actually create and assemble your project
I decided to use the following piece for my inspiration:
I knew immediately I wanted to use Beautiful Berries:  Spring for my card.  I also was inspired by Wanda Guess's stunning card here.


Thanks for looking!



Share:

Tuesday, March 14, 2017

Papertrey Ink packaging challenge

Rebecca Luminarias has a wonderful feature on the papertrey ink blog.  She shares with us how she decorates her packages.  She truly is an expert.  She adds soo much texture making a package that is a gift itself.  I decided to make a tag to add to an Easter basket.  I was inspired by her the pretty peach, gold and pink colors.

Originally I had used a peach and white diagonal grid paper for my tag but the paper was double sided and in the end I preferred this floral paper so I used that instead.  I made pocket using my fuse tool to hold the seqins, glitter and beads for my shaker tag.  Tag sale #4 and Shaped sayings completed the tag. 
Thanks for stopping by!  Please come back again!

 

Share:

Papertrey Ink March 2017 release day 3 challenge

It's finally time for Papertrey ink's March release. The release was postponed due the overwhelming response to the January sale.  I can't believe it's finally here.  Not only are tons of new great projects being released but also there are lots of challenges going on.

I'm cutting it down to the wire here.  It's dark and I apologize but my photo isn't very good.

The day 3 challenge is to dig out your favorite floral set and create a project.  I had a hard time choosing but finally decided on the florals from the Garden Gate kit.  I was lucky enough to purchase the flower stamps and die during the January sale.  Plus a great friend of mine cut me the lattice which enabled me to create this card:
It's inspired by a gorgeous card by Betsy Veldman.  Click here to see her card.  I did add a little bit of wink of stella shimmer maker to the flowers.
Thanks for stopping by!  Please come back again!



Share:

Saturday, February 25, 2017

Papertrey Ink Feb 2017 blog hop challenge

It's time again for the Papertrey Ink monthly blog hop.

Once again Nicole picked such a gorgeous and inspiring photo.  I didn't have a lot of time to make a card and really wanted to preserve the elegance of the photo.  I definitely struggled with this.  I decided to try some foiling.  I got the supplies to do so for Christmas but haven't had a chance to try it.
I am not totally thrilled with the design of my card but woweee that foiling it wonderful!  It's very hard to photograph but in real life it's super shiny.   It's flat and looks soo much more professional looking than embossing.  As Jennifer McGuire has shown on her blog.  I used flitter glue and an ink blending sponge to apply glue to my sentiment stamp then stamped it using the MISTI.  I then applied the foil over the stamped image and ran it through my laminator using a piece of copy paper folded in half as my carrier sheet.     If I didn't get a good impression then I stamped again in the same spot which is really easy using the MISTI and then added the foil and ran it back through again.   I also did this for my flower centers.  I used a toner sheet to die cut PTI's nostalgic notions border (no longer available).  This worked even better than the stamping.   I used PTI's art with heart stamp set (no longer available)  for my flower decoration.  I stamped the leaves in PTI  saffron spice.  The flowers were stamped in Momento's sweet plum and PTI's raspberry fizz inks.  The sentiment is from PTI's painted petals stamp set (no longer available). 

Gotta run! Thanks for stopping by!  Please come back again!
Shelly


Share:

Monday, February 20, 2017

Papertrey Ink is Celebrating 10 years Part 2!

As I mentioned in my previous post PTI is celebrating 10 years in business by having several challenges.  I have listed some of the cards I made for these challenges in my previous post in case you missed it.  I will now do the rest in this post.
2010:
I actually was kindly given the hand stamp along with the die from Love Lives Here.    So I was able to make a card similar to Betsy Veldman's.
You can see more details about her card on her blog HERE.   I really appreciate the kind friend who gave me this hand stamp and die.  I belong to the event leadership committee for the Relay for Life to raise money for Cancer research.  It takes many volunteers to make this event happen.  So I wanted to create a card to thank these volunteers for lending a helping hand.  Betsy's card was too perfect not to copy.

I must have made my circle smaller than Betsy's because it just didn't fill the card well.  So thus I added the banner cut with the striped paper and some baker's twine to fill in the space.  The sentiment was generated on my computer and cut with the double ended banners die.

2011:
I didn't have any of the featured stamp sets but I was inspired by a gorgeous card by Laurie Schmidlin.
You can see more details about Laurie's card on her blog HERE.   I really liked how Laurie cut the thanks out of her floral background and popped it up a bit.   I decided to do something similar using the Color Pop Florals kit.

I didn't have the "thanks" thick and thin die so I used the hello version instead. I felt my colors popped better on black so I used that as my background.  I heat embossed all the flower and leaf details using white.
It's really hard to photograph.  But if you click to make the image larger you can see the wink of stella marker shimmer I applied to the flowers.  It really is quite pretty in real life.

2014:
Beautiful butterflies was one of the featured stamp set for 2014.  I was thrilled!  I just ordered the dies to use as a craft to make some items to sell at our Spring church and craft sale.  So  I got to work making one.

I just thought these turned out too cute!  The middle body of the butterfly is a chapstick.  I didn't come up with this idea.  I saw it on Beth-A-Palooza's blog.  Check hers out HERE.  I decided to do this as an alternative to candy treats for Easter baskets. I stamped the Happy Spring onto a tiny tag die cut.
Sorry these aren't very good photos.  I am in a rush to meet the deadline. I will be making a ton of these for the craft show.  So I will post better photos when I get those made.

2016:
Tulip Time is one of my absolute favorite sets.  I couldn't wait to pull it out to create another non candy item for our church's Spring craft fair.
That is a post it note holder with a mini pen.  I got the instructions from a video tutorial from CraftTestDummies.  Check it out HERE.  I think these would be great to give to teacher's, hairdresers, postal workers for Easter.  It's a nice practical gift that won't add calories to your hips!  I used a stencil with my clarity stencil brushes to lightly make a background for my tulips.  I love how this turned out and I can't wait to make it in different colors!

Okay I've gotta run. Thanks for stopping by!  Please come back again!
Share:

Papertrey Ink Celebrating 10 years!

My absolute favorite stamping company is Papertrey Ink.  I buy 95% off my supplies off of them.  This Feb PTI celebrates 10 years in business!  To celebrate PTI has been posting challenges every day since Feb 10th.  They are celebrating the past, present, and future.  Every day they have posted a year starting with 2007 up to 2016.  They showcase popular stamp sets of the year featuring cards people have created using these stamps in the past and also one of the current DT posts a new project.  If you have one of the featured stamp sets then the challenge is to create a new project using it.  If not simply use one of the inspiring projects posted to make a new project.   Unfortunately, I came down with the flu so I was unable to meet my goal of participating in all 10 challenges but I did get some done and will split them up into to posts so not to make the posts too long.  I am in a rush so I will be back with more details later.

2007:
I didn't have any of the featured stamp sets but was inspired but a lovely card by Dawn McVey
You can see more details on her blog.  HERE.  I really liked the way Dawn used her Zig brush markers to color the solid stamps and stamp them behind the outline.  I decided to try and mimic her look by using Flutterby Friend.

I pulled out a scrap of patterned paper for my scallop and pulled the colors from it for my flowers.  I purposely used the Zig clean color real brush markers with water to extend the color beyond my outline image.  This is a first for me as I normally never stray outside of the lines.  I do like the end result though.
I added some pearl colored puff paint to add little dots to the center of the flowers.

2008:
Once again I didn't have any of the featured stamp sets but I was inspired by a wonderfully whimsical card by Lizzie Jones.
You can see more details about her card on her blog HERE. I really liked the way Lizzie used the Text block die to make a shaker element. I decided to do the same with a text block birthday die.
I used my son's fuse tool to make a pocket to hold the sequins.  I filled the pocket too full though as I always do.  I just think it's soo fun finding little elements to fill the pocket and get carried away!  The cake is from Paper Clippings:  Birthday.

2009:
Yet again I didn't have the stamps features but I was inspired by a very elegant looking card by Laurie Schmidlin.

You can see more details about Laurie's card on her blog HERE.  I loved the embossed diamond grid she did and the bold graphics contained in each diamond.  So decided to do something similar using the Woodblock prints stencils.  Laurie mentioned she would love to do this design in many colors.  So I decided to try it in three different colors.
I used fancy foliage detail dies to enhance my think big favorites sentiment.  I heat embossed the sentiment and the leaves were  cut out of metallic cardstock.  A few sequins finishes the card.
I think that's enough pics for now.    Thanks for stopping by!  Stay tuned for more PTI 10th anniversary cards in the next post.






Share:

Thursday, February 09, 2017

Make it Monday 275: Stamped Dangles

This week's Make it Monday challenge over at Papertrey Ink involves stamping dangles.  Amy shows exactly how to do the dangles in a great video HERE.

I actually really enjoyed this technique.  It is so wonderfully whimsical!  It's totally unlike my usual style.  They key here is to just stamp and not worry about lining things up perfect. The lines and bows are drawn in by hand for a very free form look.   I had fun looking through all my stamps to find images I could stamp to mimic "beads".  This definitely gave new life to all those tiny stamps I often neglect.  I very rarely do one layer cards.  I had to restrain myself from adding some glossy accents to give some dimension.  I am also not good with white space.  However, I really did like the end result of my card.  The scallop card base adds enough interest without the need for a dimensional layer.  I liked these so much I made 4 of them.

I thought it would be fun to do them in different colors.  This would make a unique gift set!
Supplies listed and linked below:

Warning I used 10 colors of ink and 9 different stamp sets.  If you try this technique keep track of which stamp went to which stamp set.  I of course didn't do this.  I just attach them all in a group on a rectangle acrylic block.  Now I need to figure out where they belong!  UGH!


PTI Paper Tray Stamp Set (Vault)

PTI Paper Clippings: Birthday Stamps

PTI Garden Gate stamps (no longer available)

PTI Sweet Holiday Wishes

PTI Splits: With Love stamps

PTI Frienship Jar Flowers

PTI Center Style: Feminine Stamps

PTI Wonderful Words: Birthday Stamps

Hero Arts Exclusive PRAYERS Stamps and Dies Set

PTI Aqua Mist Dye Ink

PTI Berry Sorbet Dye Ink

PTI Green Parakeet Dye Ink


PTI Harvest Gold Dye Ink

PTI Hawaiian Shores Dye Ink

PTI Melon Berry Dye Ink

PTI Pale Peony Dye Ink

PTI Pure Poppy Dye Ink

PTI Tropical Teal Dye Ink


PTI True Black Dye Ink

Thanks for stopping by! Please come back again!
Share: