Season’s Greetings

Hi all!  Today I have a card made for the Verve Customer Card Carnival:

I used the Ornamental Christmas set and some papers from MME.  The sentiment is from the same set and the banner die is from Spellbinders.  I hope you like it and TFL!

To Risk

Today's card was made for the Waltzingmouse Sketch Challenge:

When I first saw the sketch I thought there was no way I could do it, but then an idea popped into my head and here's what I came up with (you can click to enlarge to see all the detail):


The sentiment is called To Risk and is from Verve Stamps. I got out my super old (and discontinued) Mostly Animals stamp positioner (which is a fixed positioner so you can stamp your image multiple times without worrying about it moving) and stamped the sentiment in blush ink, then smeared a little olive ink on parts of the stamp with my finger and stamped again. It might have been easier just to ink my stamp with the 2 different inks at once, but I was worried that the colors would mix and get muddy. I knew doing it in layers this way would keep the colors separate and clean.

The 2 bigger butterfly punches are both Martha Stewart and the tiny one is a Fiskars hand punch. The ribbon is hand-dyed and scrunched seam binding that I've been seeing everywhere and had to try! I love the results so you'll be seeing a lot more of this stuff on my cards from now on, especially since the roll came with 100 yards!! I hope you like it and TFL!

La-La’s Weekly Wednesday Challenge #7

Yay! It's time for another La-La's Weekly Wednesday Challenge! This week we have a special challenge that was set by all of our guest DT members! Each one got to choose an "ingredient" and then we combined them all into this week's recipe:

Karin: 2 different patterned papers
Kimmi: strawberries, chocolate & cream (red/brown/cream) Color Combo
Marcea: embossing (dry or heat)
Paul: scallops
Sue: paper piercing

When I saw the color combo and that we had to use two different patterned papers, I searched my stash for the right papers and found some really old stuff from Making Memories. Looking at the paper made me think "old timey" so I decided to do a little different coloring style for this card (kind of like sepia):


The sketch is from Jen del Muro.

I stamped Pumpkin Lala in Papertrey's Dark Chocolate ink and then did a little coloring with a dark brown Prismacolor colored pencil and just a tiny bit of odorless mineral spirits. I colored in the pupil entirely so I just dotted back in the highlights with a white Inkssentials pen.

The flower was cut with a Cuttlebug die from the polka dot patterned paper, cut with scissors to open up the petals a little, and then the petals were rounded a bit with a stylus. To keep the rounded part from flattening, I glued three 1/8" hole punches behind each petal. I dyed a light brown Prima flower with Dark Chocolate ink to match and the sentiment from Verve (Hello Pumpkin set) was also stamped in Dark Chocolate.

Final touches: I embossed the circular piece with the Cuttlebug Birds and Swirls folder, distressed the edges of the square and circle pieces, added a scalloped border with hand sewn cream seed beads, tied a button to the center of the flowers with crochet thread, and pierced each of the top corners. I hope you like it!

We'd love for you to play along! All the details can be found on the La-La Land Crafts Blog. TFL!

Woven Easter Basket Card

I haven't played with my Verve stamps for a while, so I decided to break them out and participate in this month's Project Parade, which is to create an egg-stra special spring project. Unfortunately I don't have any of their Easter stamps, so I used my Cricut for the egg-stra part, and the Petals & Stems set for the spring part. Here's what I came up with:

The basket and eggs are from the Doodlecharms Cartridge. I used Design Studio to make the basket into a card and size it exactly how I wanted, and then I also cut a regular basket so that I would have an extra layer to sandwich the eggs, hide the back of the weaving, and also for the detail cut lines on the basket. I cut 3 extra lines on the regular basket in between the cuts that were already there. I used my trimmer to cut a bunch of 1/2" and 1/4" strips, and then wove them into the basket.

For the eggs, I cut 3 regular eggs, and then 3 flipped eggs so that I could make them double-sided. I didn't want stark white backs when the card is opened. For some extra dimension, I shaped them a little and put a big foam circle in the center of each to puff them up. Here's the open view:


The sentiment was done with (appropriately) Doodlebug rub-ons. The card is approximately 4 1/4" x 5 1/4" so it fits nicely into an A2 envelope.

Last note: I used a tip from Jody Morrow to briefly hit the ribbon with my heat gun to get that wavy look. It also relaxed the tails a bit so they weren't just sticking out straight to the sides. Thanks for the tip Jody!

Other materials used: patterned paper - DCWV Nana's Nursery Baby Girl; ribbon - May Arts; buttons and floss from my stash.

Fluttering By Envelope Card

I created this card for the Verve Stamps' Celebrate Amy W Challenge which was to make a bright, cheerful, colorful card in honor of DT Diva Amy Westerman who will be leaving the team.

I just picked up the K&Co. Berry Sweet paper pad at a local craft store yesterday and thought the funky bright prints would be perfect for this challenge! I also thought that the Fluttering By set would go nicely with the paper.

I saw a card that looked like the back of an evelope while browsing through a Close To My Heart catalog and loved the look so I decided to try it. I really like how it turned out, so I will probably be doing more of them in the future. TFL!

Other materials used: white cardstock - Georgia Pacific; ink - Graphite Black Brilliance; ribbon - May Arts; Dew Drops - The Robin's Nest; Nestabilities.

You're Amazing

Today's card was made for 2 different challenges: the Amy R. Friday Sketch #26 and the Verve Stamps August Project Parade which is to use pink and brown.

I used one of my new Verve sets, Artful Elegance, for the flower center and the smaller brown strip, and then I embossed the bigger brown piece with the D'Vine Swirls embossing folder. I traced over the embossed Swirls with a clear glitter pen and also drew in some lines on the Prima flower for just a bit of sparkle.

The finishing touches are the sentiment from the Thankful Blossoms set and the pearl Dew Drops.

Just Because

Today's card was made using the Meet the Verve Divas Part 7 sketch.

I used the Fluttering By set and all the patterned papers are from the Nana's Nursery Baby Boy paper pad. I know you're probably getting sick of this paper by now, but I just love it and I got the 12x12 pad, so I've got a ton of it!

Other materials used: ink - Graphite Black Brilliance (Tsukineko); circle and petite scallop circle Nestabilities; Dew Drops; black cardstock (Stampin' Up!); ribbon (local craft store); Black Spica glitter pen; AB rhinestones.

Still More Verve

I realized yesterday while finishing up my Anni-VERVE-sary challenges that I was doing mostly "scrappy" cards with almost no stamping and no coloring! I can't remember the last time I actually used my Copics!!

This card is more of the same using Sketch #7. Since I didn't want to just keep using the same images over and over again, I decided to do a few of the sketches with the focus on the sentiments. I thought this one went perfectly with this Daisy Bucket Designs paper from their Love You line.

Other materials used: Thankful Blossoms - Verve Stamps; Ruby Red cardstock and ink - Stampin' Up!; ribbon - May Arts.

Even More Verve

Another Anni-VERVE-sary sketch card, this time for Sketch #9.

Materials used: Thankful Blossoms and Wonderful Wishes Remixed stamp sets from Verve Stamps; Studio K patterned paper from K & Co.; Aqua Mist cardstock and ribbon and Dark Chocolate ink from Papertrey Ink; faux drops from Michael's.

More Verve

I'm really trying to do all 12 of the Anni-VERVE-sary sketch challenges, so you'll be seeing a LOT of these Verve sketch cards for the next week!!

Here's my take on sketch #5--->

Also, the Meet the Verve Divas Part 4 challenge was to make a tall skinny card (longer than 5.5"), so this fits that challenge also since my card is 6.25" tall!

All the patterned paper is from the DCWV Nana's Nursery Baby Boy 12x12 paper pad (I love this one just as much as the Baby Girl version!!). The striped sheet actually has a lot of glitter embedded in it and is super pretty in person - I just wish I could capture it better on film!

Other materials used: Thankful Blossoms and Wonderful Wishes Remixed stamp sets - Verve Stamps; Apricot Appeal cardstock, Only Orange and Mellow Moss ink - Stampin' Up!; May Arts ribbon; 1/16th" hole punch.

Happiest Dragonfly

Today's card was created for the Anni-VERVE-sary Sketch #4. I copied the sketch exactly and had a lot of fun with it - Julee's sketches are always really cool and original!!

I used 2 different Verve sets - Thankful Blossoms and Wonderful Wishes Remixed. I've only got a few Verve sets so you'll be seeing me use the same images a lot during this challenge series. Hopefully I'll find some original ways to use the stamps, like today's dragonfly.

So my idea (hopefully I'm the first one to think of it!) was to make a dragonfly from the stem and leaves in the Blossoms set and I really like how it turned out!

You can see the dragonfly a little better in this close-up shot. I stamped the small and large leaves 2 times each onto the purple paper then cut them out. I stamped the dotted stem (only partially inked because it was too long for my dragonfly) on the green paper then glued the bitty rhinestones and leaves over it. Lastly, I applied some green stickles over the lines on the leaves for a little sparkle (you can see that way better if you click to enlarge).

I hope you like my idea and my card! Thanks for another great sketch Julee!

Other materials used: white cardstock - Georgia Pacific; patterned paper - Basic Grey (Lucky line); Graphite Black Brilliance ink; Nestabilities.

Verve Challenges X2

As you can guess from the title of this post, today's card was created for 2 Verve challenges. The first was the July Product Parade challenge, which was to make an ATC.

I just recently got the Thankful Blossoms set and really wanted to play with layering the flowers. I tried the larger size first, but the resulting flower was too big for the ATC, so I made another flower out of the smaller size and it fit perfectly.

The patterned paper for the background, flower, and leaves are all from an old Studio K paper pad. The flower has 4 layers popped up with a combination of foam and 1/4" hole punches, and the little leaves are partially popped up using 1/8" hole punches.

First I ran my scissors blade over the base cardstock's edges, then I sewed the background paper to the base cardstock and used Antique Linen Distress Ink all over the threads and edges to tone down the white color of the cardstock.

The second challenge was the Meet the Verve Divas Challenge #3 which was to use at least 3 buttons.

I took the ATC above and turned it into a full-sized card for this challenge. You may have noticed that I added a bit of Tulip dimensional pearl paint to the flower just on a whim. I was going to add a half pearl, but the flower was already so tall, I didn't want that much extra height (although I may already have to pay extra postage because of the flower!).

One last note - I taped the wide organdy ribbon around the base layer and then took an extra length of ribbon to make the knot. Instead of just trying the extra bit around the other ribbon (which would have really scrunched it up because it's so wide), I punched 2 holes on either side of the base ribbon to tie my knot through. I don't like knotting ribbon and then glueing it to my cards because they usually fall off. I much prefer to actually tie them to something on the card to keep them secure. TFL!

Other materials used: white cardstock - Georgia Pacific; buttons - SEI; Mellow Moss ink and pink organdy ribbon - Stampin' Up!; Dark Chocolate ink - Papertrey Ink; Graphite Black Brilliance ink - Tsukineko; Waxy Flax - Close to My Heart.