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!

Two Scoops Boo!

Renae at Two Scoops Rice Designs is having a World Cardmaking Day Contest right now so I decided to play! I used the Ms. Pepperpot free digi that she offered a while back and came up with this:


I paper pieced her hat and dress and did some layering with foam tape and scrap cardstock. You can see the dimension better here:


I added Stardust glitter pen to all the dots of her hat and dress, her belt buckle, and also to the black streaks in her hair, and a bow made of silver cord to her hat. The paper strip was punched on both sides with a Martha Stewart border punch and the velvet ric-rac is from May Arts.

Lastly I used glitter alpha stickers from Making Memories and a beaded hanging charm. All patterned paper is Basic Grey Eerie. I hope you like it and TFL!

Winner and Starving Artistamps Sketch Challenge

First up today I'm excited to announce the winner of my card giveaway from the Your Next Stamp Blog Hop! I just wanted to thank everybody for stopping by my blog and for all of your wonderful comments!! Reading all your sweet words about my cards really brought a huge smile to my face and makes stamping just that much more enjoyable!! Anyway, on to the winner!!

I decided to use slips of paper instead of a random generator because I think it's fun! Here's the result:

(Sorry for the smudgy ink - I folded up the paper before letting the ink dry!)

And just to be clear, because I had 2 people named Jodi entered, the winner is this Jodi:

Congrats Jodi!! Please email me (link is in the sidebar) with your mailing address and your choice of card from my blog hop creations and I'll get that right out to you!

Thanks again everybody - it was such a fun hop and we hope you'll all join us again for the next one!!

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And now onto today's card! This month's sketch challenge at Rubber Stamp Chat is being hosted by Starving Artistamps (home of the DoodleFactory stamps) and there is a CRAZY fab prize to be won so I had to play! Here's what I came up with:


I used Squirt who is one of my fave DF characters because he's so cute! I did just a bit of coloring with Copics then cut him out and popped him up on foam boosters. I die cut the Quickutz letters 3 times each and glued them together so they'd have some dimension also, and lastly I added Bella's Baubles to the bottom right corner. The patterned paper is all from Sassafras Lass. I hope you like it and TFL!

Happy Birthday Pepper

I've got another Pile It On! card for you today. This week our theme is "let them eat cake!" - have some kind of pastry on your project, and our sponsor is Stamps and Smiles. I used their Sketch #34 and here's what I came up with:


I stamped Pepper with Cake twice then colored with Copics. The bottom layer is completely cut out and popped up with foam boosters, then I added extra hair, muzzle, hooves and cake (complete with candle flame!). You can see the dimension better here:


Lastly I added some Stickles to the candles on the patterned paper and the candle flame in the image, glitter chipboard Thickers, and a bit of May Arts ribbon.

Other challenges:

• PaperPlay - #36: "Spot This"
• Three Clovers - #32: use a number
• Secret Crafter - #51: "Animal Antics"

I hope you like it and TFL!

Peter the Clown

It's time for another Softpencil Thursday! This week the DT got to work with this cute set called Peter with His Clothes. It comes with Peter (already wearing one outfit), three full outfits, two hats, and two pets! Here's what I came up with:


As soon as I looked at this outfit, I thought it was meant to be pajamas, but I saw a clown costume! Our design element this week is "about you" which means our favorite colors, techniques, etc.. My fave techniques are paper piecing, cutting out images and popping them up, sewing on my cards, and lightly distressing the edges of panels. I also used a fave embellishment (ribbon) and coloring medium (Copics).

Little details: I added a 1/8" hole punch for his clown nose and flocked the little top of his hat!

I used a Limelight sketch (I know it's late, but I really liked the sketch so I used it anyway!), and also met the requirements for the Kaboodle Doodles Challenge #14 - 1 solid cardstock, 2 patterned papers, 3 embellishments, and use a digital image. This challenge is being sponsored by Softpencil so I had to play! I hope you like it and TFL!

Other materials used: patterned paper - My Mind's Eye; sentiment - Your Next Stamp (Happy Days Mermaid set).

La-La’s Weekly Wednesday Challenge #6

If you're looking for the Your Next Stamp blog hop, it's the post directly below this one! Thanks!

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Yay! It's time for another La-La's Weekly Wednesday Challenge! Before I get to this week's challenge, I'd like to thank everybody who played in the Embellish It! challenge last week! The entries were all fabulous and I really enjoyed seeing everyone's take on my theme! Congratulations to the Top 3!

And now onto this week's challenge which was set by Sheila and is paper piecing. Paper piecing is one of my favorite techniques so I was happy to see this theme. Here's my card:


I used the adorable Witch on the Broom Rosie, more of the Basic Grey Eerie paper pad, and a sketch from Stamps and Smiles. I pieced her hat and cape and did a little cutting of the main image so that her hair would go over both to look a little more realistic. Her skin was colored with Copics, her eyes and the cat's eyes were done with Copics and colored pencil, and the rest was done with colored pencils and odorless mineral spirits. I popped up an extra cat and broom bottom with scrap cardstock. Here's a close-up so you can see everything a little better:


The moon was cut with a circle Nestability and lightly chalked with a little color around the edges. I added a lot of zig-zag stitching, silvery-purple May Arts ribbon, and glitter chipboard Thickers. I hope you like it!

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

Don't forget that there is a shipping special at La-La Land Crafts for the month of September - US orders of $50 or more get free shipping and international orders get a shipping discount. Here's a link to the store! TFL!

Your Next Stamp Blog Hop!

Hi everybody! Thanks so much for joining us for the very first Your Next Stamp Blog Hop! Your Next Stamp has a whole bunch of Fall, Halloween and Christmas stamps that were just released so the Starlets have whipped up some yummy eye candy for you using many of the new stamps!

If you didn't start at Karen's blog and work your way here, you'll definitely want to go back: If you comment at every stop on the hop, you'll be entered to win the grand prize of $50 of stamps - winner's choice, along with free shipping! We also have a "mystery" blog where one commenter will win a stamp set of their choice (with free shipping), but we're not telling you which blog it is! And, if that's not enough yet, each of the Starlets will be giving away one of their hop projects to a random commenter at their blog!

Here's the hop order again in case you missed it:

Karen
Amy
Simonne
Cabio
Maylee
Lana
Ryann
Kerri
Maureen (you're here!)
Stephanie
YNS Challege Blog

The hop will run through midnight EST Sunday, September 27 and then all the winners will be drawn on Monday, September 28. ***The giveaways are now closed. Thank you!***

One last thing to mention before I get to my cards: Karen is offering FREE shipping until Thursday, September 24 at midnight EST so you can go shopping for the new releases (which are all available now), as well as any previous stamps that you can’t live without and/or other products carried in the store! The coupon code is PARTY.

And now, without any further ado, on to the show!

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I’m a big fan of the reality show "Top Chef" and love it when the chefs prepare things three ways, so I decided to do my new release cards three ways! [All pictures can be clicked to enlarge.]

My first card is a clean and simple card done with colored pencils:

I used the set Yummy Pie which came with the pie image and the Thanksgiving sentiment. Both were stamped in Dark Chocolate ink and then I did some very simple coloring with Prismacolor colored pencils. Blending was just done with the pencils themselves, no odorless mineral spirits! I added a bit of patterned paper from the DCWV Rustic stack punched with a Martha Stewart border punch, and then a piece of ribbon.

My second card is a little more complicated and was done with watercolors:

I used Little Isabel with her Friend Snowman, which also comes with a really cute snowflake border stamp that I didn't use on my card. I colored with Peerless watercolors and added some flocking to her coat trims and the snowman’s hat top, and also glitter to the snow line. You can see those better in this close shot:

I did some crazy straight stitching all around the outside, then added a little trim and foam Thickers letters that I covered with Stickles. I added more Stickles to the snowflakes in the patterned paper, which is from Imaginisce (I used one sheet of double-sided paper called Comfy Cozy), and finally I added the focal panel with foam boosters.

My final card is the most complicated - it has lots of layers and 3-D cut out parts and was colored with Copics:

I used the set Windswept Fhiona which comes with a sentiment and a bunch of little images like the mushrooms. I used a sketch from Mercy's Tuesday Sketch Challenge (yes, I just finished this card today!) and 5 different papers from Basic Grey's Mellow line.

Fhiona was stamped multiple times and colored with Copics. Then I cut out different parts and popped them up with scrap cardstock. I also popped up the mushroom caps and the leaves were stamped on patterned paper and cut out. (A little note - the leaves came attached to the Fhiona image, but I cut them off so they could be stamped separately. Of course I can still stamp them all together like the original just by sticking them all together on the acrylic block before inking.) The finished Fhiona was stuck on with foam boosters. You can see all the layers of Fhiona here:

I added a torn piece of patterned paper for the ground, some Prima bling for the wind and a piece of ribbon.

I seem to be a little obsessed with distressing lately - almost all my cards have at least one piece where I roughed up the edges with my scissors and these three cards are no different! All of them have distressed edges on at least one layer; the third card has distressing on every layer! So they all qualify for the Cupcake Craft Challenge which is distressing. The third card also qualifies for the My Time To Craft Challenge which is Autumn Fest.

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Some final info before you go: If you join our Yahoo Group before October 1st, you'll be entered to win a $20 stamp shopping spree at Your Next Stamp!

Our challenges will be starting on October 7 on the new YNS Challenge Blog. There are a couple stamp sets you can win and you'll find all the details here-> YNS Challenge Blog.

Whew! That’s all for now - I hope you liked my cards and thanks for visiting!

Your next stop on the hop is the amazingly talented Stephanie!