Magazine Monday! - Rainbow Birthday!

   I found an article in the May/June 2007 issue of RubberStamper (now Crafts n Things) called Drags to Riches. The designer was by Candy Davis (only search results for Candy gave me links to a nude model from England hehe) So I apologize for not being able to link to the artist.
   Candy made a very easy card POPPING with color! It will make a perfect birthday card for someone.

Working with a 4.5x5 card front:

Cut your yellow mat 5.25 x 4
White mat – 5”x3.75”
Cut a piece of CS 2” x 1.25” . Use a piece of repositionable tape to mask it into the center of your card front.

You can do the technique a couple of ways.
1) Use spots or ink petals
2) Makeup sponge and standard ink pad.

Candy used the full-sized ink pads from SU and just drug one corner across the card front. I used the spots.

Drag your ink pad from the center of the mask out to the edge of your card front.  Candy used YoYo Yellow, Real Red, Brilliant Blue. She also used a piece of ¼” Real Red grosgrain ribbon through the center horizontally. I chose not to use any ribbon on mine

When you've completed your way all around the card, remove the center mask and stamp your sentiment.

For my colors I wanted something a bit more pastel. I used Daffodil Delight, Melon Mambo and Tempting Turquoise. My Birthday stamp is from Katie & Co. I could have run something around the center, and I still might - depending on who it goes to. I can tell you it doesn't look as 'plain' in person as it does here.

Creative Blessings!
Kelly

Magazine Monday

Happy Monday, everyone!

I spent a blissful afternoon in the Studio yesterday. I thumbed through magazines and found all the card inspirations I’ll need for every Monday through 2012! And made several of them, besides. I should have taken time last night to get today’s post together but until my husband called around 9:30 last night, I had no clue what time it was and suddenly very tired. I love how I can get lost in my creative world.

Today’s card was inspired by Cynthia Hillstrom’s card, You’re a Dear Friend, featured in the May/ June 2007 issue of RubberStamper Magazine (now under Crafts n Things).  Cynthia used mostly Close to My Heart products. Her base was a mottled blending of cherub pink, baby pink, shell pink and lavender. She used a varigated pink/ white checked ribbon and 3 pink heart brads.

I liked the layout just as it is. I don’t do 4x9 cards very often and this one just spoke to me. To fill the long slender white mat, I instantly thought of SU- Nice n Narrow stamp set. This particular set has the flower, baby carriage and a Christmas tree. I need a card for my MO monthly stamp loop and thought the flower and a bright yellow would bring a Happy Hello to my recipient this month.

I used SU Daffodil Yellow, misc. yellow grograin ribbon and LePlume markers. The sentiment is from SU Lots of Thoughts.

Creative Blessings!
Kel

Magazine Monday

Things are going to get crazy the next couple of weeks. We're going to Nashville to pick up Adrian on Friday. She'll be here the next 2 Mondays. I'm working hard today to type up the posts so I can still share some pieces with you.

I made good use of the VSN challenges earlier this month. One of the challenges was to create a Sympathy card. We don't like to think of ever having to need them but they are a part of life. I just keep reminding myself this is my way of hopefully giving comfort to someone in great pain.

I chose a design by Keri Lee Sereika in the Oct. 2009 issue of Crafts 'n Things magazine.

She showcased three beautiful cards inspired by supplies she had on hand. That's what I encourage the S2S group on SCS to do all the time. Don't buy more until you've made use of what you have. And if you are going to buy new, will you really use it? Or will it be added to the stash of 'someday' projects?

Keri used a lighthouse stamp from Scene It! Beacon of Hope by Cornish Heritage Farms Her card, entitled Never give up hope used a beautiful lavender-swirl paisley paper and a plum cardstock from Prism Papers.

Following Keri's concept of 'use what you have', I went to my DCWV Old World slab. I chose the blue nautical print and paired it with SU Marina Mist. For my image, I chose the Garden Collage from SU and stamped it in Marina Mist. Two pearls seemed like the perfect accent with this image and sentiment.

This was a simple layout but sometimes, simple is the best and when you need a card last minute, it's nice to know beauty and simplicity can pair nicely to bring comfort to someone else.

I have no clue what was up with my camera that day but regardless of what I did, I couldn't get a decent photo of any card. Some days are like that and we just roll with them :-)

Magazine Monday

Draggin' in here late with my Monday post. I've had the card done since last week but today has been crazy. When not working in my studio, I'm also a freelance writer and for the next two weeks I'm connecting with Texas musicians. Today, I just got lost in some pretty intense eyes and awesome voice. hehe

Today's card is a take on a card by Carolyn King. I found the card as part of her collection of coffee/tea themed cards in the February 2008 issue of Crafts n Things magazine (pg118-119).

For this card, Carolyn rounded the corners of the base and all the mats except the sentiment mat in the bottom right corner. She used SU cardstocks beginning with a Chocolate Chip base. She then added a layer of Old Olive topped with a layer of Whisper White. From there she divided the card in three horizontal areas. The top 1/4th is a mat of drown designer series paper. The bottom 1/3rd was a striped soft green desig

ner paper. To bring the 2 sections together, she created a band by layering a floral dp on chocolate chip, using it as a wide ribbon. She then centered a Chocolate Chip scalloped circle, matted with Old Olive then a coordinating DP circle. In the center of the circle she matted her stamped image on square mats.

I chose to flip things a bit, using items from the swap kit.

I turned everything vertical and eliminated the multiple layers. Everything except the sentiment (Studio G) came from the kit. The cup is from SU Morning Cup.

I'll try to get my behind out of bed earlier in the morning and have the Teapot Tuesday card posted at the beginning of the day.

Magazine Monday

Bob has gone back to Chicago, the house is quiet and I can get back to a working routine. Saturday night while he was at a Lodge meeting, I had four hours to live in the studio. I enjoyed some uninterrupted creative time while 70's music on the Direct TV/ Sirrus channel kept me company.

I started by looking through past card swap kits I've received and decided to start with January of this year and work my way back... all the way to April of 2011. Yeah, it's been that long since I've been able to keep up with the kits.

The card kit from January was all about tea and coffee. Yum! Talk about inspiration.

Flipping through my magazines, I found a LO in the Oct. 2009 issue of Crafts n Things magazine just perfect for one of the items in the kit... 3 individual coffee/ tea cups.

Ya'll know I'm not a big fan of non-traditional shaped/ sized cards but I seem to be doing more of them lately. Probably because the inspiration card calls to me. Do me! Do me! This particular card and LO was a 5"x5" card from Michele Boyer entitled Happy Anniversary. She used more vintage-toned DP and her images were 3 Dogwood flowers. Michele is a very talented paper artist. Aside from having her own blog, Paper Cuts, she has been featured in multiple publications and on-line company sites. I knew her name was familiar. Checking out her blog showed she is a Dirty Dozen alumni at SplitcoastStampers! If you really want to be inspired, check out Michele's GALLERY.

The papers is from Martha Stewart, the cups from TeaCup Parade by Printworks and the sentiment in the corner is from a Studio G coffee set. I colored the cups with Derwent WC pencils, popped them up for dimension and placed them over a vintage trim. The mini brads (Recollections) on the sentiment echo the black knots on the trim.

I hope you find inspiration and make time to play today!

Creative Blessings!

Magazine Monday

This week’s card covers Magazine Monday and the September challenge from the Paper Bloggers Unite! Thread at SU.

I chose Elizabeth Allen’s card from Crafts n Things Oct. 2009. You can see another of her cards at Penny Black. I also hope you’ll take time to check out their website and browse their catalog. I liked Elizabeth’s LO, though I did eliminate 1 layer from hers to create mine. Where I have black stickles, she used black brads.

I used SU Very Vanilla and Old Olive and ValuCS Orange. The SU Seasons of Thanks images were stamped in Memento Rich Cocoa. Back to watercoloring with Derwent watercolor pencils and Crayola colored pencils. I used a rich chocolate velvet ribbon for some texture.

I'm still waiting on the call from my daughter. So as of now, we'll cross fingers I get to make the Teapot Tuesday post tomorrow. :-)

Creative Blessings!

Magazine Monday - Really!

Happy Monday Everyone – Oh wait… it’s Tuesday (and evening at that). Monday was just nuts! I’m still trying to get the garden situated and the heat lately has been crazy hot. We were 103 yesterday… didn’t drop below 100 before 9 p.m. Tired of this already.

Add to this I have a visiting teenager. I’ve not seen Kassie in two years so we have lots of catching up to do. Luckily she likes to craft with me – still at 14! I’m so proud of her. She got in late Thursday night and we’ve been on the constant go doing stuff since she got her. Which means Monday was my catch-up day for business. All I managed to accomplish toward today’s post was to cull the magazines for the card I wanted to do.

My inspiration for the card this week came from a swap I’m in. Our challenge is to create a card showing our favorite things. I love flowers. Not necessarily daisies, though they are very pretty. My favorite is actually roses or lavender. But I loved the stamp set I bought and thought it would fit perfectly.

I LOVE Crafts n Things magazine. I get so many cool ideas. This week’s card came from the April 2008 issue and has been changed very little. Tracy Sauer’s card is called Twinkling Daisy. She used linen background, stampng the harlequin image in the same place I did with Certainly Celery. For her main image, she used a single large daisy

flower stamped using Twinkling H2Os in white and yellow against a harlequin patterned paper (the pattern is shadowed on a black background then the white daisy stamped in the middle). She matted the image on Certainly Celery CS then on black CS. Where I used the Pear Pizazz Ribbon Seam Binding (SU spring mini 2011), she used a sheer green swiss dot. I replaced her black accent knot on the beaded safety pin with a snag of white to offset the white mat.

I chose So Saffron as my base, stamping the harlequin image from SU Background Sampler in Certainly Celery. The image is from Studio112, a $1 stamp line distributed by K & Co. It’s called Love Grows in my Garden. Rather than brads, I let Kassie add the light green Stickles in a diamond pattern – her idea – to mimic the diamond pattern in the harlequin design. Told you she was crafty!

I’m really happy the way this card turned out and I hope the recipients in the swap are too. What do you think?

Magazine Monday - on Tuesday

Good morning friends.

I'm sorry I didn't get this posted yesterday. I spent the entire day in a funk. I thought it was because I'd gone back to bed at 5 a.m. and not gotten back up til 10. Going back to bed in the mornings will give me that 'drugged' feeling so I try not to do it. I found out later, it was probably had more to do with a soul visit from a dear friend.

A couple months ago I posted an eagle 'get well' card that I'd made for my friend, Wally Bailey. I've known Wally, his wife Sonja and their families (both immediate and extended) for over 20 years. Yesterday we all had to say goodbye to the husband, father, grandfather, our friend. It's a difficult time and my heart aches for them. The only thing I know to do from this distance is to offer up prayers of healing and to pour my feelings into my art.

We had been told on Friday it was about making Wally comfortable. So the first card I made yesterday morning was a sympathy card I knew I'd need. I just didn't realize how soon.

The card was inspired by the March Card Kit Swap Soni and I both belong to on Splitcoaststampers. The Kit Hostess for March 2011 was Dody and she sent a great envelope of things to play with. I came up with 7 cards mixing and matching Dody's items with my own images and paper scraps.

The design idea came from the April 2003 issue of Crafts n Things Magazine and artist Melanie Douthit. She is a talented freelance artist who morphed into using scrapbook supplies in her art. I hope you'll take a few moments to click on her name - linked to her blog.

Here is the sketch from the inspiration:

And here's what I came up with from Dody's kit. This is the only card of the seven I didn't add anything to except Wild Wasabi card stock to accent the yellow and the scalloped circle Dody included.

I'm going to miss Wally. All of us who knew him, will. But it seems appropriate the items to make this card came from within Soni's circle of card artists to send her comfort and love.

Magazine Monday

Normally I find the CAS card in the magazine and let it be my inspiration. This time I went in reverse.

For this week’s Magazine Monday I’m combining a couple of challenges… my own and the one at Stamp2Spend (Splitcoaststampers thread). I asked the thread members to create a card using CHERRY. It could be an ink/ cardstock color – as long as that was it’s official name – or use the image of a cherry(s) in some way.

I found a strip in a DP from DCWV Sweet Shop slab. And what doesn’t go better with cherries than either chocolate or whipped cream. I went for chocolate with this card and combined it with SU DP from the Brights collection.

With these elements before me, I went snooping through the pages and found this layout in STAMP IT! Cards 2005. It was entitled Happy

Hanukkah by Nicole Keller. Notice how the mats are large and the bottom one overlaps both the center band and part of the other.

I worked with a scan A6 card and smaller sentiments so mine didn’t have to be that large. I came up with this:

I tried various embellishments on the card but nothing seemed right. When I took them away, the basics seemed to be all I needed. What do you think?

Tomorrow I’m going to introduce you to a regular Tuesday feature so I hope you’ll stop back by

Creative Blessings

Magazine Monday!

Happy Monday!

I’m really enjoying Magazine Monday. It encourages me to go through the stash of magazines I have and actually try some of the projects that have caught my eye.

This week I pulled out the Feb. 2008 issue of Crafts n Things magazine. The designer, Lindsey Botkin is multi-published in magazines and is a SplitcoastStamper member . I hope you’ll check out her blog and her GALLERY. She does great work!

Here is a sketch of the card Lindsey created. If you can get a hold of the magazine, check out her color scheme. It is pretty and went well with the verse image she used.

She used Dutch Girl Collection – Audrey papers, black buttons, a white heart, and narrow

black organza ribbon with white polka dots.

I kept the sketch as it was but changed it up a bit.

I substituted the buttons for bling to help pull the bling from the sentiment mat. I also chose to go with a more Victorian look with the lace and color tones.

The papers are from a K & Company vintage slab.

What magazine do you have stashed back for 'someday'. Pick your 'Someday' and play!

Creative Blessings!

Kelly

Magazine Monday!

This week we're going to visit Crafts n Things Magazine

I'm in a swap at SplitcoastStampers to create Valentines for the children at Ronald McDonald House in Little Rock Arkansas. I have the most adorable stamp set from Stampin Up called Greeting Card Kids. I've combined it with some $1 stamps from Michaels and HEARTS stickers from EK Success . The CASEd pic (removed for copyright purposes) is from February 2008 Crafts n Things Magazine.

In making these cards for kids, I've modified it a bit but the basic sketch is there. I used ValuCardstock in Baby Girl and Seaside collections. The stripe through the center is from ThePaperStudio. I stamped my own DP on the Baby Girl CS using a $1 stamp and SU Regal Rose. Both the little girl and the sentiment are matted on the SeaSide mint green. After coloring with Memory Maker pencils, I added a puffy heart sticker to her hand and smaller ones as an accent.

I made 5 of these for Ronald McDonald House - Little Rock AR. I have 5 I'm doing with the little boy from this same set. I used the school boy but eliminated the bundle of books from the image and placed a heart in that hand. I'm using Blue tones of the CS. I've also created this same layout in Lavender using a bear image. He appears to be drifting through the sky with a bundle of heart shaped balloons. Hopefully 15 children will like what I've created for them and make them smile when there are days they just don't feel like it.

So, What's in your Magazine?

Creative Blessings!