TEAPOT TUESDAY & TECHNIQUE - Symmetrical Sun

During VSN at Splitcoast Stampers, Challenge #2 was to focus on the Symmetrical part of the sun.. the repeating pattern of the rays coming from around the circle of the sun.

Another Christmas card idea came from me.. and was inspired by THIS card on Pinterest. The card was designed by Anne Marie Hile at Stampin' Anne

The repeating pattern behind the circle is the scallops! Above, you can see the items I used. The variegated blue ribbon was from my stash. I had enough to make 7 duplicate cards. The snowflake is a Martha Steward punch. I used Recollections cardstock. The patterned paper is Vintage Blue Snowflakes from Paper Studio.

That cute little snowman is from a set called Christmas Fun (SU- 1992). I cut him out with the #2 circle on the Spellbinders Circle set then coated him in Dimensional Glaze. The sentiment you'll see later is from the Christmas Greetings set (SU 2010)

Here you can see that I didn't quite cut out the snowflakes completely. I lopped of their heads. I started by centering one on the blue strip, then placed 2 on either side to for the snowflake border. Then the copped off section was covered with the ribbon.

Here's the finished card:

I was really happy with how this one turned out. I might have to adhere the snowman circles in place better before mailing. They want to curl up. But an easy fix.

Creative Blessings!

Kelly

Teapot Tuesday & Techniques - Christmas Wreath

After seeing someone make a wreath using this punch, I had to have it. So I bought one - about eight years ago! I've used it for other things... a sprig here and there in flower arrangements on cards. But never for what I bought it for... until Virtual Stamp Night last weekend on Splitcoast Stampers.  

Our theme was Here Comes the Sun. Our first challenge was to showcase a circle on the front of our card.  Before I go any further, let me explain that I usually try to use as many of the VSN challenges as possible to do my Christmas cards. Not participating last year is why I was scrambling in December to get cards done. Not this year!

A Wreath is a Circle so I thought this was the time to dive into the wreath made from this bough punch. My card made Favorite of the Week on Splitcoast. I think, partly, because everyone thought the card was complicated. From what I understand, people are gluing EACH INDIVDUAL bough into place. Um.. there is an easier way.

Step 1: Cut a circle base.

I used Circle #2 and #3 from the Spellbinders Circles. #3 cut the large base, then #2 cut the center out, leaving me a frame.  This is a great way to use up scraps!

Step 2: Punch out bunches of boughs in 2 different shades of green. This adds depth to your wreath, without having loads of layers. I punched about 100 from each shade while I was watching YouTube craft videos.

You will also see the glue I used. I bought this bottle at $ Tree:

Step 3: use a removable glue dot and adhere the frame to your craft mat. Then run a bead of glue on the perimeter  of the base. Then apply your first layer of boughs. I used 9-10. If I'd spread them out a bit farther, probably 12.

I suggest letting this set up just a bit before moving on to Step 4. You do not have to, but it does help prevent you pulling boughs back up with your slightly sticky fingers. 

Step 4: Apply dots of the glue in various places around the first layer. Then lay in your alternate shade of boughs. As you do, tuck them under each other and give them a slight press into the glue. The glue is going to dry clear so no worries.

Here you can see my glue dots ready for the next layer.

I set 6 frames out on my craft mat to production line the process:

When all was said and done, this is the card I finished with:

I uses Recollections cardstock in white and a grass green. The white mat is done with the Swirling Snow embossing folder (Darice) The bow is punched from glitter cardstock from SU using their Festive Wreath die. Since doing this card, I've gone back and added 3 dots of Red glitter stickles in a cluster at points around the wreath for berries as well as a dot at the base of each of those little 3-leaf points on the bracket of the sentiment to bring everything together. 

Next Thursday, Challenge #2 was all about Symmetry and replicating the sun's rays. 

Creative Blessings!

Kelly 

Magazine Monday

Good afternoon!

The weather here today was gorgeous, so instead of going down into the 'dungeon' studio, I got outside. When I did come back in to play, I found two challenges which I could use on today's Magazine Monday.

1) I knew I wanted to use one of the images from Sandie Huggett over at The Outlawz Creative Freebie Challenge. I never seem to get my cards in over there in time. I'm surprised they still let me play.

2) S2S12C - The Stamp 2 Spend Challenge at Splitcoast Stampers - Use our favorite pizza as inspiration - and make it round. I'm a garbage pizza person. You'll notice I've picked up the green pepper colors in her socks, Italian sausage on in her shoes color and her dress the color of warm tomato sauce swirled with melted Mozzarella. Her hair also brings in the extra cheese.

3) While cruising for a magazine with an inspiration card, I found a dreams card in the February 2012 issue of Crafts n Things magazine. It is a design by Sue Czosek. Sue was inspired by a design of a Borders gift card holder. She used it and a sheet of newsprint to create a beautiful round card. Sue's card was a 5.5" circle. I used a 4.5" circle and then a 4" oval mat.

4) And lastly, since Valentine's Day is approaching, I might need one or two more cards to share so I went with the heart theme. Where I have used hearts (Sizzix Sizzlet), Sue punched flowers from news print and inked them to coordinate with her color scheme.

On Sandie's original image, there was a halo above the faerie an where I have the puffy hearts going off to the side off of her hand, they were actually a print part of the image. I chose to cut them away to give a cleaner cut to the main image then added the puffy hearts in their place.

I used SU Real Red CS and DP (inside covers), My Minds Eye Candy Stripe and DCWV - sentiment The image was colored with Derwent watercolor pencils. I added EK Succss puffy heart stickers.

I love how she turned out and I hope you do to.

Artful Thursday... plus

Plus I'm backing up to actually show my Teapot Tuesday card for this week. It was another one of THOSE weeks where what I had in my head just would not transpire to something tangible. I finally ditched my original concept completely and found a new jumping off point.

The card this week goes to Betty. She lives in AZ and has been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. She loves flowers and her nickname is Sunshine. So I went with Daisies and yellow.

I chose a sketch from the SCS Sketch Challenge (SC36) and tweaked it by adding the sentiment bar at the bottom. I also went looking in the SCS Color Challenge (SC36) and found the pairing for the base color of Daffodil Delight I'd chosen to work with. SC36 suggested Concord Crush and Pear Pizzaz. I LOVE Pear Pizzaz and have been ordering a pack every time I place an order because it's an In Color and will be gone this year. The sentiment stamp is from a set from Studio 112. The Daisy is one I picked up at $Tree years ago.

Then there's the Art Journal project Michelle over at the Paper Dog and I are playing with. After Saturday's fiasco of trying to draw a face on the cover, I'm stalled. I loved my cover then after I attempted the face it looked horrid. No, this wasn't the inner voice. I truly looked like an alien. So I painted that area back over with white gesso, then a layer of vintage rose acrylic before adding a piece of the original paper back into place.

Next week when I'm not so focused on working on my current novel, I'll have time to sit and play with the face more. Only after I've sketched something I can look at, will I add it to the cover... hopefully for next Thursday's post.

In the mean time, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the collage.

Creative Blessings!

TeaPot Tuesday!

Yep, I'm finally getting in here with a TeaPot Tuesday Challenge post. I'm not sure if I'll get to post the actual picture of my card today. Depends on whether I can get it done to upload before storms take over my day. They say we're in for severe weather. I'm hoping it holds off til this afternoon. So I'm posting a picture of one using the same stamp I'll be using for this challenge.

The concept behind TeaPot Tuesday started at SplitcoastStampers using a teapot as the inspiration for your card. The hostess has sinc

e exhausted her personal collection of 100 tea pots and now searches on-line for teapots to share with us.

When we're not using tea pots for our inspiration, we are directed to make/ share a card with someone who could use some cheering up. A Random Act of Kindness (RAK), if you will.

This week's card is for a 'young' woman by the name of Kay in Canada. Kay is 91 years old and has had some challenges since breaking her elbow back in February. At first they didn't want to operate because of her age but have since done the surgery and she's healing fine. She also suffers from Vertigo and has been in the hosp

ital the entire time because she lives alone and wouldn't be able to do for herself with only one hand... things like use her walker to get around. They were discussing assisted living but that too has changed and she'll be going home in the next day or two with a visiting care assistant. Yeah! She must be thrilled. From what I read she's very independent. LOL

Kay loves cards and those cute little funny animal forwards. One of the things she's missed most in the hospital is her computer. She's been active on the net for a couple of years. She loves her email and computer games. Sounds like my grammy (stepmom). Like most women, Kay loves flowers so I'm going to make a card similar to this one:

I don't know the name of the stamp company. I bought the stamp from a LSS going out of business. I like to stamp the image as is, then stamp another image to cut apart and paper piece in to give the dimensional effect of stepping out of my garden shed and into my garden. May my garden truly look like this someday.

I hope Kay enjoys it.

Tomorrow, I'll finally be posting pics of my new kitchen curtains for Needlework Wednesday.

Creative Blessings!

Magazine Monday!

Wow!

It felt really good to get back into the Studio this morning and work on a project. It didn’t take long to clear the desk and pull open a magazine I’d been looking at last week.

Isn’t it funny how you start with something and wind up totally different from where you began? For this week I went to the October 2009 issue of Scrap and Stamp magazine.

They did a 2-page feature of former Our Daily Bread Designs designer, Kelley Holland. First off, her work is BEAUTIFUL! Layers, texture, well-coordinated colors. Kelley blends everything into a work of art. If you’d like to see an example of Kelley’s work, you can check out her GALLERY at Our Daily Bread Designs.

By the pictures in the magazine spread, it looked as if all of her samples were square cards. I don’t work with square cards mostly because I don’t want to have to buy/ make square envelopes. So I went with the traditional rectangle.

A monochormatic card in browns and caramels first caught my eye. There were 4 layered tiles in the corner positions with a larger centered tile for the focal image. I thought cool! I’ll do it in caramels and red and use a Pooh bear image for the Ronald McDonald house RAK. I pulled my Pooh Bear image and got ready to pull cardstock.

Oh wait! (my mind has caught a delicate one on the other page) This one is really pretty. Elegant and simple. Base white, matted pink and then a matted white that had been run through the CB dotted swiss and edged with the MS Lace punch. Kelley then used a scalloped oval in the Spellbinder in pink to mat a slightly smaller duplicate in white. She stamped a sentiment on the white oval and added a shaded pink grograin ribbon about 1.5” down from the top of the card. The hinge of the card was at the top.

Although she used a religious sentiment I thought it would make a perfect baby card. But while pulling images, I had yet another epiphany. One of the gals in our S2S thread at Splitcoaststampers put out a challenge earlier in the year to make a batch of Sympathy cards. With that in my head, I was off.

I liked the oval scalloped mat. I don’t own any Spellbinders but I do have Lacey Labels for the Cricut . This is what I came up with:

I used Very Vanilla and Almost Amethyst (retired SU) CS from Stampin’ Up . For my image, I selected Garden Collage (retired SU). Everything was edged and stamped in Vintage Violet.

Because the card front was larger than the CB folder, I only embossed the bottom 4” and left the remainder plain. Since I used the MS lace punch, I decided against ribbon. I thought about the ribbon, but I liked the scalloped edge of the MS punch playing off the scallop of the mat. What do you think?

Not where I started, but I like how it evolved into something that might bring comfort to someone when they need it.

Creative Blessings

Kelly

Magazine Monday...

... with a twist.

First off, I apologize for not posting last week. The week passed in a blur of trying to get the attention of a literary agent and making my house presentable for weekend company. Oh yeah, and hubby came home on Wednesday after being gone on the boat for 3 weeks. I didn't tend to any business at all last week.

Today's Magazine Monday isn't from a magazine layout. A couple weeks ago I took part in Virtual Stamp Night (VSN) at SplitcoastStampers (SCS). I had a blast! Over the course of the two days, I completed all 17 challenges based on the theme You Make My Heart Sing. Seventeen Hostesses took a turn at offering up a challenge based on the theme. I had a couple of favorites.

The first challenge asked us to create a card based on the layout of the 4 champers of the heart. For some reason, my mind went directly to Easter LOL. I made this card for the challenge and liked how it turned out so much I made 20 more for a Easter card front challenge for Ronald McDonald House.

I used a combination of Studio G stamps (carrot and sentiment) and the bunny/ basket from Hello Spring (Retired SU) I'm still trying to use up as much of my Valu CS as I can so I eventually work exclusively with SU. The cardstock was from the ValuCS Garden collection. I added texture with the CuddleBug Dotted Swiss folder.

But one card really surprised me. I was challenged to use a technique I'd never done before (well, not on CS anyway) and to make it for a guy. The Soot Technique required using a candle flame to burn off the glossy finish on Glossy Cardstock to give you a black/ sooty effect to dry-stamp into. I knew I had to use the STAG from Noble Deer (Retired SU) The scorched edges were an accident but wound up adding to the overall effect.

This card was chosen for the Honors Award! I was soooo surprised. One card is chosen from each challenge for the award. I didn't even knew there was such a category! LOL I think what surprises me most is that it was on a technique I'd never done before.

This technique reminded me of the old burnt paper bag technique I learned years ago from Aleene's Crafts.

Because my three-year-old granddaughter is here for two weeks, instead of a magazine layout next week, I'll showcase a couple more cards from VSN.

Creative Blessings!

Magazine Monday!

Happy Monday, everyone!

After a storm moved through here in the wee hours of the morning, disconnecting my power for a few hours, I'm happy to see blue sky, sunshine and have power again. :-)

Friday night and for almost 11 hours on Saturday I had a BLAST at Virtual Stamp Night (VSN for short) over at Splitcoaststampers. Awesome hostesses put together a series of challenges - one new posting every hour - around the theme, You Make My Heart Sing. I'll try to squeeze in some of my favorites of the SEVENTEEN cards I made for the event. But it was one of the participants' take on a texture challenge that had me thinking. Then when I went magazine cruising for this week's card, the VERY FIRST one I came across lent itself to the technique. I had to do it!

This week I used Christmas Crafts for Kids - a Better Homes and Gardens publication from 2002.

Here's the sketch:

The sky blue background with blue and white snowflakes almost looked like a stamp resist. The mitten on the outside mimics a row of 3 hanging 'clothes line' fashion across the center of the opened card.

What I liked: The busy background and the layers

What I didn't like: Lack of real 'image and lack of texture. The background was busy but it was too flat for my taste.

So I inked up the inside front of my Cuddle Bug snowflake folder with Bashful Blue ink (SU), then proceeded to emboss the front panel with textured snowflakes. I loved how it came out:

Instead of one big centrally located, multi-layered panel I did 2 separate panels to incorporate an image and make it more Christmas rather than just winter. I haven't settled on an inside quote yet. I'm still shopping. But for the most part, I have 12 of these made to complete the Christmas Card Challenge for February at SplitcoastStampers.

Are you thinking Christmas cards? I guess now is as good a time as any to remind you there are only 10 months till Christmas!

Creative Blessings

New Creations

FINALLY!

I was so excited to have the house to myself a couple weeks ago with nothing on the agenda except create. I managed to create 9 of the 17 cards for the Splitcoaststampers AUG. VirtualStampNight challenge. Each of the challenges had something to do with summer. Many suggested using a specific technique.

The first one I'm going to show today were were given a color pallet to work with and what we think of when we think summer. For me, it's camping. Of course, now that my house sits amongst 24 acres of timber I don't camp as much as I'd like. But I have the view from my back yard on any given clear night. The stamps I used were from 2 different SU sets. In The Sky is a retired hostess set and the other is one of my favorites... Lovely As A Tree.

One more card to show you. This one was to be reminiscent of the beach. We were to use a shell of some type. The only 'shell' I had was a stencil from the art box I used to use for daycare. I pulled out the light box, dry embossed several, then cut them out. The flip-flops are a Michaels $1 stamp. The netting in the background is drywall tape!

I'll be going into town in the next week and be able to share more with you. I've recently taken part in an A-Z Grunge tag swap. I made 26 identical tags for each the letter R and the letter W. In exchange I got 2 each of every letter of the alphabet made by some very creative gals. Can't wait to show you!

Creative Blessings!