Bright and Dirty

Teapot Tuesday is all about hearts this week!  Mothermark has posted a brightly colored and cute teapot and has challenged us to bring hearts to the tea party for crazykim's sweet little girl in New Zealand who just had her tonsils out and could use some cheering up.  Generally, children gravitate to the bright, bold colors, so I was glad to see them in the inspiration teapot.  Here's wishing Georgia a speedy recovery and that she'll enjoy receiving all these cards coming her way!

I used Stampin' Up heart and circle punches, as well as my heart embossing folder in this CAS design.

I have a TV theme song for my next card.  Do you recognize it?

Who can turn the world on with her smile?

Who can take a nothing day, and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile?
Well it's you girl, and you should know it
With each glance and every little movement you show it

Love is all around, no need to waste it
You can have a town, why don't you take it
You're gonna make it after all
You're gonna make it after all

Did you recognize these lyrics? If you guessed the Mary Tyler Moore Show, you would be right! This was one of my favorite TV shows from the 1970s. The color panels on the left represent the colors used in the Mary Tyler Moore opening titles.

The image is black embossed, and she reminded me of when Mary would fling her hat in the air with a big ol' smile on her face that she had "finally made it after all!"

My last card in this post is for several challenges, one of which was to use gingham in our creation.  Whenever I see gingham, it reminds me of Gingham Girl, aka Schirmcat, aka Kelly, so I had to give my sweet Joline (My Favorite Things) image blonde hair in honor of Kelly.

I'm not sure how well you can see them, but the flower has red glitter on it, and her black patent leather shoes are shined with crystal effects.

If you're a Fan Club member on Splitcoaststampers, now is the time to be checking out all the terrific Dare to Get Dirty challenges that the Dirty Dozen members and alumni are hostessing this week!

Dare to Get Dirty

Dare to Get Dirty, you ask?  Well, if you're a Splitcoaststampers (SCS) fan, you already know that this is a week of challenges being hosted by the Dirty Dozen gals.  This is actually day 2 of the challenges, and I believe there are about nine of them posted already.  I compiled three of the challenges into my altered project above.

Kittie747 posted a Lost and Found challenge to use something around your home into your design.  I chose to decorate this Staples envelope box:

DeborahLynneS is hostessing the A Piece Offering challenge to use paper piecing on our project. I actually paper pieced this entire box, in my opinion. The flowers on the front of the box were cut out from this same set of SU designer paper.


AmberDawn's challenge is entitled In Touch with Texture. My texture includes my embossed leaves, my ribbon, my buttons, and my flowers popped up on dimensionals.

As my friend, Cindy (Mothermark), would say...."42,000 hours later and I've finished!"  I think I am way too much of a perfectionist to engage in making too many of these.

Here are some other views of my gift box.  The first one is a close up of the flowers I cut out of the designer paper and popped up on dimensionals.  My leaves were punched with the 1" circle punch, embossed with dotted swiss embossing folder, and punched again to shape the leaf.

I am terrible at tying ribbon.  Even with my Bow Easy, my bows never look quite right to me.  This is how I chose to do the ribbon.  I adhered it with Aleene's Tacky Glue and sticky strip tape.

Supplies:
Stamps:  Yummy, Time Well Spent
Cardstock:  SU designer paper, striped dp, bottom of envelope is reinforced with Pretty in Pink cardstock
Ink:  Memento Black
Accessories:  striped ribbon, circle punch, dimensionals, flower border punch, sticky tape, Aleene's tacky glue

I had so much fun getting together with my friend, Lynn, this morning.  We had a scheduled craft date and wanted to work on making one of the stationery boxes we saw demonstrated on Splitcoaststampers (SCS).  Long story short:  I so wish I had videotaped our session so I could show you all the errors we made.  We would have made for a terrific video tutorial on how NOT to make a stationery box!  We got to laughing so hard that we had tears streaming down our cheeks.  I still have to embellish/decorate my box and make the cards for the inside and just may show you the end product when I do complete it.

I did have a chance to make a card in honor of our Queen for the Day before I hooked up with Lynn this morning.  Anne Ryan is the Queen for the Day challenge hostess on SCS, and she chose Sallie, aka hobbydujour, as this week's Queen.  Sallie has a fabulous gallery, and I was surprised to learn that she's only been stamping about a year.  As challenge rules dictate, we are to select a card to case from the Queen's gallery.  I chose her latest upload called Birdie.  I changed colors and images using this classy and elegant image by Rubbernecker.  The background collage stamp is also by Rubbernecker.   As I wrote in my post on SCS, this image reminds me of our QFTD challenge hostess, Anne. I've never met Anne, but I can tell that she oozes class and elegance as does this image.

The image is watercolored with Pale and Perfect Plum reinkers and watercolor brush, except for the skin tones on her face for which I used Copic markers.  I added Martha Stewart glitter to her collar for some added pizzaz.




This next card I made for the Free for All challenge on SCS to use snowflakes and pearls in our design.  I really wanted to do something out of the ordinary and came up with the idea of using a black embossed background accented with gold Perfect Pearls.  My friend, Em (aka StampMuse) sent me this terrific gold metallic paper, and the angel image and sentiment are both by Rubbernecker.  I colored her with Copic markers and added gold glitter to the top of her wings.

Thanks for stopping by!  I hope you've had a terrific Saturday!

A Monochromatic Sketch

Thursday brings me to my weekly CCEE (Cheers & Challenges Electic Ensemble) challenge with my friends.  Joanne Grzelak is our July hostess, and she has given us a month of weekly sketch design with a twist challenges.  Here's this week's sketch design and the twist is to make our card monochromatic in color.

Here's my card:

I, obviously, went with blue using SU's Bordering Blue cardstock.  I white embossed  my Fifth Avenue Florals onto vellum cardstock.  I colored the flowers on the back of the vellum using my metallic pencils and blender pen.  I added shading with Adirondack Denim blue reinker and blender pen.  After I finished coloring, I ran the piece of vellum cardstock through my Cuttlebug with a diamond platter embossing folder.  The dual embossing (heat and dry) I did on the vellum was part of a technique challenge on Splitcoaststampers by my friend, Joan.  I adhered the vellum cardstock onto white cardstock with white brads.

Other supplies I used are the SU bird and oval punches, Spellbinder's Fancy Tags die, organdy ribbon, sponge, and dimensionals.

I hope you can find some time to play along with us this week.  There's no time limit.  Check out the details and my friends' beautiful creations on our CCEE blog here.

An Electic Mixture

Here are a few cards I've made this week and finally getting posted to my blog.

1.  This is for our weekly CCEE challenge hosted by JoJot to create a summer-themed project using this sketch design.  I love getting together with family and friends on a beautiful, summer day and having a cookout or picnic.  Please be sure to check out the designs my friends made on our CCEE blog; we'd love it if you played along with us, too!

2.  I made my next card for one of the "funnest" challenges ever on Splitcoaststampers (SCS) called Teapot Tuesday.  Mothermark is the challenge hostess, and man, is she funny!  She always has these terrific teapots for our inspiration and associates some pretty goofy stories to go along with them.  It's been great to see the number of challenge participants growing and how everyone gets into the goofy groove, as I call it.  We have so much fun!  You can get the details on this week's challenge here.

This week, we were going "dotty."  I stamped directly onto black and white polkadotted designer paper.  I hand drew the hills and outlined with slashes and x's, which is not my original idea.  I got the idea from Cathy (aka Mutnik) when she was featured stamper on SCS a while back..  I colored the entire scene (except for the sun) with a mixture of watercolor wonder crayons, followed by reinkers and blender pen.  The sun was made with my 3/4" circle and boho blossoms punches.

3.  My last card was for yesterday's sketch challenge on SCS, as well as using the distressed linen technique that Gina K demonstrated on Stamp TV.  Basically, you do an emboss resist technique on designer paper and then color with distress inks.  It was fun to do!  I started with a piece of Basic Grey's Nook and Pantry; I have a small piece of it laying at the base of my card so you can see how my background paper started out. I clear embossed this Rubbernecker shasta flower onto the designer paper, let it cool, then I sponged my distress inks (tattered rose and weathered wood) over that. I really like the effect of how you can still see the original designer paper pattern after you've embossed and sponged it with ink.

I stamped an extra shasta flower onto bordering blue, cut it out, rubbed wax paper over it to give it a little shimmer, sponged the outer edges with the weathered wood distress ink, bent back the edges of the flower with my bone folder, added hematite glitter to the center, and popped up on a dimensional.

I black embossed my sentiment (also by Rubbernecker) on vellum and adhered that to the back of my die cut oval panel. 

I always appreciate your visits and comments; thanks!  Have a great day!

Paper and Vellum Posie

Hello, dear friends!  Thanks for stopping by my blog today.  I hope those of you who celebrated Independence Day yesterday enjoyed your day.  We had fun by having family over on Saturday for a cookout and to celebrate June and July birthdays.  It was such a beautiful day weather wise for us.  We had clear, blue skies with warm temperatures accentuated with a light breeze to keep us comfortable as we sat outside. 

Anywhooo, as a result of the holiday, I have today off from work, and I plan to make cards!  The first card I completed today is for two challenges on Splitcoaststampers:  (1)  the Clean and Simple challenge to choose one of the outrageously beautiful wedding cakes from Carrie's Cakes.  Here's the cake I chose because I love black and white accented by pink; and  (2)  the Technique challenge to make our own paper posie.  Here's my card:

I used my 1/4" circle punch on black cardstock to add the larger dots to my dotted paper, and I cut 3/4" strips of black cardstock for the stripes on the top layer.

and here's a couple close ups of the flower I made:

And, if you're interested in knowing how I made my posie, here are the parts I used to make it:

Supplies:  vellum punched with the five-petal flower punch and one of the boho blossoms flowers embossed with dotted swiss embossing folder; regal rose cardstock punched with the scalloped circle and the 1/4" circle; pink glitter; glitter glue; barely banana brad. 

The vellum and cardstock was sponged with regal rose ink on the outer edges.  You can see in the photo how I cut slits between every two scallops on the regal rose cardstock.  This helps with shaping your card once you're ready to put it together.  The vellum five-petal flower petals were folded upwards with my bone folder and then just the tips bent backward to shape them.  For the little boho blossoms piece, I added tiny dots of the glitter glue and applied the pink glitter for a bid of sparkle.

I'm off to do some more creating.....possibly using stamps this time!.....and plan to stop by your blogs later to see what you've been up to!

Oompa Cat

Hi!  I hope you are having a fantabulous weekend; I appreciate your visit to my blog today.  We have family due to arrive shortly for a cookout, but I did have a little time this morning to participate in the Inspiration challenge on Splitcoaststampers.  Stef gave us another terrific website for our inspiration called Oompa.   I absolutely love the darling artwork by Noelle Dass at Oompa!!! All of her animal drawings are adorable. I chose this Cat Blue Print for a friend who is a cat lover.

I replicated her cat image using punches and Nestabilities. I made mine a full body image adding the kitty's paws.  Isn't he funky?


Cat Parts:

ears = five-star flower punch
eyes = double circle punch
face = oval Nestabilities
neck = arrow punch
body = circle Nestabilities
paws = 3/4" circle punch
whiskers = free-hand cutting

I inked up my dotted swiss embossing folder with Night of Navy and ran my Bashful Blue cardstock through my Cuttlebug. I added additional sponging around the cat to outline it like Noelle did in her drawing.