Fall Mums

Happy Wednesday! I'm finally getting over my lousy cold...luckily just in time for today's Print Candee October Blog Hop. If you're not coming from Jen Wills's blog, you can start at the beginning on the Print Candee blog. Here's the order in case you need it:

Print Candee Blog

Jen Wills (Guest Creative Team member)

Me

Marion Vagg

Kalyn Kepner

Jackie Rockwell

Therese Calvird

This month's theme is "Fall and Spring" (since it's fall here and spring for some of my Print Candee teammates in Australia). I saw some beautiful mums in the Print Candee store that were so inspiring, and here's the first card I came up with:

Aren't they gorgeous? The mums stamp is "14 Chocolate Flower Blossom Motifs" from Life is Groovy. All I did was layer them in Photoshop and added my own sentiment. ETA: The font is Chanel from dafont.com.  It only took me about 15 minutes to get the card base done (well, maybe 20, but that's only because I was fiddling with the font). I printed the image on PTI Rustic Cream and added some bling from Prima and twine from May Arts--easy as pie.

I always seem to use colored images (or colored inks) on white or cream, but I I decided to see what the images would look like on other cardstock bases. First up, I tried the image on kraft:

Hmmm....more subtle. I also tried dark brown (it had a Versamark-like look) and pink (pretty, but peach would have been better). Finally, I made a card set using ecru-colored textured Bazzill. I changed up the sentiments and otherwise kept them super simple:

As part of the hop, Print Candee is offering three giveaways: two $10 gift certificates to the Print Candee store and one $15 gift certificate to Two Peas in a Bucket. For a chance to win, leave a comment. The more comments you leave along the way, the more chances to win. Plus, there will be a prize drawn just from the Print Candee blog, so be sure to visit their blog! You have until 11:59 EST on Saturday, October 29th to leave a comment for the prizes.

Have a wonderful rest of the day. Thank you so much for taking the time to visit! Next up in the hop is Marion.

The Never-Ending Card

Happy Wednesday! Last weekend, I began a card. For whatever reason, though, cards have not been coming together easily for me lately. Four days later (on and off, of course), I got the card the way I wanted it, and after all that fussing and a zillion steps, the card turned out really CAS:

The card started out with the digital Hero Arts Sillyscape brush, and made the cityscape. I've never used brushes before and I only have Photoshop Elements (it seems that most tutorials use Photoshop CS5), so there was a definite learning curve. I altered the color and opacity of the stamp and then "stamped" the image twice in a row. With some fiddling, I was able to get the two images to look seamless. Yeah!

After I got the cityscape, I made a mask and blended Distress Inks to make the night sky. I added glitter below to make it look like snow, and then went over the entire panel (with the mask still on) with a Smooch glittery mist to make it look snowy. The glitter and the misting don't really show in a photo, but here's a close-up where you can see how the image stamped twice in a row looks like one image:

I made the sentiment in Word (Two Peas' Journaling font...probably my fave) and die cut the frame. I added a little ribbon, and voila. Of course, there were about 50 more steps in the trial-and-error phase. LOL!

I'm entering the card into the Hero Arts October contest of holiday cards using non-holiday stamps.

Thanks so much for looking! Have a great rest of the week!

Peter Piper

The newest Bows and Berries challenge, Inspirational Colours, is based on a picture from Design Seeds:

I started making one card and then it morphed into an entirely different card (anyone else do that?). Here's what I ended up with:

The cool top of the tree is Sun Love from Bows and Berries. Yep, it's a sun that I turned into a treetop and colored with Copics to look like fall (well, the inspiration colors actually). This cute stamp could be used as a planet or a ball...there are all kinds of possibilities. Here's a close-up:

The awesome sentiment is from Unity's "Fly...Free" set, which is probably my all-time favorite kit (and a kit which I used for a pub coming out next month--woo hoo!). The little tree trunk is the Teardrop Tree die from My Favorite Things.

If you like these pretty fall colors, please join in with the Bows and Berries challenge...the details can be found HERE.

Thanks for looking! Have a great day!

Together Forever (For Real)

Just a quick post to join in with Unity's Friends With Flair.

My brother-in-law got engaged last week to a very sweet woman. I'm really happy for them...they were both burned pretty badly in their first marriages, and it's nice to see my brother-in-law so happy again. When they told my in-laws about their engagement, they both said they wanted to do everything they could to make it work. With that idea, I made a card to celebrate their engagement:

I used Unity's October 2009 store KOTM ("Wonderful...You") for the hearts and the sentiment. The hearts were stamped, embossed, and fussy cut, and the cardstock panel was dry embossed with the PTI Linen IP (squint, squint). The natural twine from May Arts finished the card.

Thanks for looking! If you get a chance, join in with Friends With Flair. Have a great weekend!

It's the Great Pumpkin!

Yesterday afternoon, when I stepped outside to walk to my daughter's school, it really hit me that it's fall. While it's been "hot" here, the sun was lower in the sky and it reminded me how quickly the days are shortening. Yikes! I love fall, though, and I'm excited for Halloween.

I've had an idea floating around in my head for a Halloween card, and I love how it worked out. In fact, I liked it so much, I made three variations! Here's the layered version:

While there were several steps for making the pumpkins, they were pretty easy to make. I used my dwindling stash of Amy Tangerine and AC Nightfall papers and die cut ovals with my Nesties. I played around with the layers and then stitched them onto the card base.

For the background, I stamped the Dash Pattern background stamp from Hero Arts with Versamark. I used PTI's Edgers #1 to make the bottom strip and then adhered the strip of paper from Studio Calico's Autumn Press at the bottom. I made the sentiment in Word and printed it onto the patterned paper. I totally dig how the brown and black look together...it's not a color combo I ever use, but I'll be using it again.

I'm linking this card up to the E.A.D. Designs "Be Thankful Color Challenge" that I saw on Amy's blog. There are other colors peeking through, so I hope it counts. If you get a chance, check out the challenge!

I had extra pumpkin layers, so I made more cards. Here's the CAS version:

On the base, I printed the sentiment (Two Peas' Journaling but expanded), but otherwise used the same Hero Arts stamp and patterned papers. The orange base paper is also from Autumn Press, and the twine is May Arts (love their natural twine!).

Lastly, here's a small card (4 1/4" square). I went WAY out of my comfort zone (more like out the door and down the street):

I started with the same base but then painted the edges, used several Distress Inks to provide depth, and (shriek!) distressed the edges lightly. To me, the edges looks like fog--I love how it turned out! Like the CAS card, I made the stem of the pumpkin out of brown cardstock.

Here's a close-up of the layers on one of the pumpkins:

The layered pumpkins have so much texture (and movement). I thought I'd link up to the Moxie Fab World Textured to Perfection Challenge (especially the last card with the painted and inked edges).


I wanted to pass along that Print Candee reached 1000 fans on Facebook, and to celebrate, they are having an amazing giveaway on their blog. They are giving away a $100 Amazon and $50 Michael's gift certificates (wow!). Go to THIS post to check out how to leave a comment to enter, and while you're there, check out the blog!

Thanks for looking! I hope you're having a good week!

Chevron Feather

I grew up in the Phoenix area, and I still love the southwestern motifs--the colors, the angles, the repetition of patterns. So even though the the Moxie Fab World Tuesday Trigger is a dessert, the colors, the rustic feel, and striped layers reminded me of a southwestern vibe:

So, playing with the southwestern feel and stripes, I came up with an idea based on a feather. I must say I find some irony in the fact that I thought of a feather when I looked at an overloaded dessert (maybe I thought it was a low-cal dessert). Anyhoo, here's this card:

This card is actually my second version. The first one had the feather's quill, but there were some wonky issues with balance (it didn't look right unless I made the card about 9" tall). Oh well...live and learn. In this version, I eliminated the quill and ran the chevrons all the way down. I also left the chevron edges unglued to make the edges more feathery, so some of the points are a little curled up.

The chevrons are over a golden shimmery Bazzill that I misted with Mr. Huey's Cream. It's a little hard to see the misting in the photo, but here's a close-up:

The sentiment is from Technique Tuesday's Studio AE's August set (isn't it a fab stamp?). I also added a thin strip of wood veneer along the side. Beside the fact that I am addicted to my husband's stash of veneer lately, I think it works with the rustic look of the card.

Thanks for looking!

Come if You Dare

This week on the Create blog, Paige put out the challenge to create a Halloween party invitation. I love Halloween parties. Actually, I just plain love Halloween!

I was all set to make a CAS, fun card, but while I was putting away a Unity stamp from another project, a stamp caught my eye. So, I changed my card entirely and came up with this one:

This card was pretty simple to make (other than the sewing...my machine is having tension issues). First, I created the sentiment in Word and printed it on Basic Grey patterned paper. Then, I broke out my stamp positioner and used it to stamp the Unity bird/frame image from the "When I'm With You" KOTM. I was holding my breath that the sentiment would be in the right place! Then I die cut the stamped image and at die cut another frame behind. Here's a close-up of the stamped image:

If you look carefully, you can see that the cream is actually patterned paper with writing on it. I went around the patterned papers with my sewing machine and added some twine and a My Mind's Eye button.

I'm joining in with Unity's Friends With Flair this week. If you get a chance, play along!

On a personal note, I found out that the big Federal grant I wrote in June got funded--woo hoo! It was a pretty good size grant (about $3 million), but unfortunately, I don't get any of the money (I wrote it for a client). I wish I could write grants for myself, but there aren't a lot of paper crafting grants out there. Ha!

Have a great day!

Poker Christmas

I wanted to write a quick post to join in the Moxie Fab World Card Play Challenge.

When I was about 8, my grandparents taught me how to play poker. They never went to casinos or were gamblers, but they had grown up in the pre-Depression-era playing card games and wanted to share all of the fun poker games.  Every time I visited, we played for several hours a day (for money, no less), and I learned a lot! Playing was all fun, and I'm sure my grandfather folded good hands on a few occasions to let me win. Although I never play anymore, I have very fond memories of playing cards with them. Sorry to ramble on!

I inked up my Unity Suzi Blu stamp again to make a card based on playing cards:

Her dress is (obviously) made from a playing card, and the heart in her hand is fussy cut from the five of hearts. In the stamp, she's holding flowers in her right hand, so I masked the flowers to only show her hand.  Otherwise, I just paper pieced the rest of her outfit and colored her with Copics and colored pencils. Here's a close-up of Suzi:

Very stylish! I wish I could wear her outfit!

I went back and forth on the sentiment, but I really liked this one from Waltzingmouse Stamps. It's a little quirky for a Christmas card, but I'm the type of person who likes a little quirkiness now and then (okay, maybe all of the time).

Once I finished the front, I liked it so much, I decided I would frame it for Christmas decor. Of course, I realized after I had cut the front panel that it's a non-traditional size and will require a mat. I wish I would think of these things in advance--ha ha!

Thanks for looking! Have a great day!

Trick or Treat

Happy Monday! Bows and Berries has a new challenge starting this week, based on a Halloween inspiration pictures (see here). I decided to use the new "Thumbs Up Monster" to make lollipop covers for Halloween treats:

Now I had visions of cranking out 24 of these covers for my daughter's class, but after envisioning the kids ripping them apart in .02 seconds to get at the candy, I think I may be coloring this little guy in Photoshop for the class treats. [That's the great thing about digital images!]

Here's a close-up of the orange monster:

And here's a close-up of the yellow monster:

He is so cool! If it hadn't been a Halloween picture, I probably would have put him on a surf board or given him drumsticks (stay tuned for that!). But, I wanted him to hold something in the other lollipop cover, and since I am certifiably addicted to the toothpick flags the past few weeks, I made one for him to hold. The sentiment is from the PTI Tag-Its.

I don't normally let my 5 1/2-year-old daughter get near my Copics, but she wanted to help color the monsters. She did a great job! Here's one that she colored:

Isn't the blue and orange cool? I love it!

So if you get a chance, visit the Bows and Berries blog and try the challenge! There are some great inspiration pictures from the Design Team.

Have a great day! Thanks so much for visiting! :)