Nature Silhouettes

I'm a little ashamed to admit that I've had this set for a few months and never even cut it up until tonight! I'm still doing challenges for the Dare to Get Dirty series on Splitcoast so that's why this card looks to be a little out of the ordinary for me.

Materials used: Nature Silhouettes stamp set - Cornish Heritage Farms (Kim Hughes Collection): patterned paper - 7 Gypsies; Green Galore ink and cardstock, Very Vanilla and Basic Black cardstock - Stampin' Up!; black and white Brilliance ink - Tsukineko; ribbon - Pink Hedgehog Papercrafts.

So Totally Happy

I've been playing in the Dare to Get Dirty challenges on Splitcoast (only for Fan Club members) and this is one I finished tonight -->

I've been really busy lately with some family stuff, so I've been combining challenges to try and get them all done. I got 2 different challenges done with this card - make a flap card and use the colors pink and black with some faux stitching.

I just adore this sentiment stamp - the saying is so sweet and I love the fonts they used. Can you believe it's from a Studio G dollar set?? It also has some flower images with it, one of which I used to stamp the inside. Oh, and if you think the word happy looks a little weird, it's because I traced over it with a glitter pen and couldn't quite photograph it right. It looks really pretty in person!

I deviated slightly from the tutorial for the flap card because I didn't want to use a magnetic closure. Instead, the flap tucks behind the flower and the whole ribbon/button/flower piece can be moved up and down to either secure the flap or release it. You can see how it looks open in this picture.

To finish it off, I cut a piece of plain white cardstock which I stamped with one of the matching little flowers from the same stamp set. This card was really fun to make so I'm sure I'll make more in the future! Thanks to Rose Ann Reynolds for the tutorial!!

Other materials used: patterned paper - Basic Grey Sugared collection; flowers - Heidi Swapp; black cardstock and button - Stampin' Up!; ribbon - Pink Hedgehog Papercrafts.

Watercolored Tulips

I've been really itching to try watercoloring ever since I saw this tutorial by Leslie Miller (one of my stamping idols!). I am also using a Whipper Snapper image and I really cheated by copying the shading from the colored label on the stamp!!

I have to say that it wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be. The couple times I tried previously, I used plain cardstock and as soon as it got too wet, the paper would pill up and get me really frustrated. Well, with the watercolor paper, it never pilled up even though I played and played with it.

I'm really happy with how this turned out, but it took waaaaaay longer that I thought it would (a few hours!!). I know I'd probably get faster with practice, but I really have to be in the mood to spend that much time coloring one image!

Thanks so much to Leslie for the inspiration and awesome, really easy to follow tutorial - You ROCK!!

Other materials used: Rose Red cardstock and waterbrushes - Stampin' Up!; ribbon - May Arts; brads- SEI, glitter pen - Sakura.

AMYRS33

Today's card was made using the Amy R. Friday Sketch #24. I just got the Bitty Baby Blessings set from Papertrey (yes, I'm a little behind the times!) and wanted to ink it up, so I did!

I'm also still obsessed with the Nana's Nursery Baby Girl paper pad so here are a couple more of the patterns. (I just got the Baby Boy version in 12x12 so you'll probably be seeing that pad in action soon too!)

Not too much to explain except the main part of the carriage was paper pieced and popped up, as were both wheels. The little Baubles are from Stamping Bella and the ink and cardstock are Berry Sorbet, also from Papertrey.

A new award!

I am so thrilled to have received this award from 2 wonderful bloggers: first from my SBS-13 sister Jo, and then from Donna who can always make me smile with her awesome DoodleFactory cards.

The rules of this award are:
1. Only 5 people allowed.
2. 4 have to be dedicated followers of your blog
3. One has to be someone new or recently new to your blog and live in another part of the world.
4. You must link back to whoever gave you the award.

You may already know that I am always a rule breaker when it comes to awards so I simply cannot start following them now! I would like to dedicate this award to all of my SBS-13 sisters and hope that you'll go and visit all of their blogs as we have such a talented group with a very wide range of styles!

Next, please go visit Donna's blog as she is pretty new to visiting my blog also and does such wonderful cards!! AND she recently became a DT member for Starving Artistamps and you can get a discount code from this post or you can find it in her sidebar.

Thanks so much to Jo and Donna - it was so sweet of you both to think of me!!

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.

Another Just Rite Christmas Card

Here's my take on Sketch #74 over at Card Positioning Systems -->

I don't think there's much to explain. I used the same set-up on my Just Rite stamper that I used on these cards, just stamped in red ink instead. TFL!