Hello Flutterby

Time for another Flutterby challenge. This week is an open week, but make sure to include a butterfly or fairy. I kept my card rather CAS again (I'm really digging this style). The white raised base was embossed with PTI's Linen plate to give it a subtle texture. I then stamped the sentiment in the lower corner. I die cutted the butterfly out on white and then stamped it. To give it some depth I curled the wings and then used dots to make sure they stayed raised. The butterfly and sentiment is from PTI's Pretty Peonies 2012 annv. set. I simply drew the trail with a black multi-liner and then decided the card need a little something extra so I tried my hand at the scattered bling look. I like it but think I still need to perfect this as it seems to be an art form. Be sure to join in the fun over at the Flutterby challenge blog.

Clean Chalkboard

Another quick post as I actually got the energy to craft today. This card was inspired by Kristina's card found here. I loved the embossed dots framing the image and sentiment. Claire from WMS is hosting a chalkboard challenge using WMS stamps and I thought I would combine the style of Kristina's card with the chalkboard technique. Not the best but I like it. I tried to add little "chalk" drawn snowflakes/stars. I don't think they showed up too well in the picture but IRL it is a soft pretty effect. I did color the flame with copics and added a itty bitty bling to emphasize the sentiment.

We Bee-long together

Here is my second card (and another one I had lots of fun making) that I submitted to the publication call. It is a contender as well for the contender blog hop, lol. I put it towards one of the sketches because it was more outside the box instead of a literal interpretation. However, now that I am looking at it again, it might have been better for the scene call. Oh well, live and learn :P

I embossed the base with PTI's hexagon plate because well, bees go with hexagons right. I created the sky scene with some cute little clouds using TSG Day and Night set. After stamping them I coated them with glossy accent so they could dry and then sponged light blue distress ink over it to create the sky color. LOVED doing this and so see me doing it again (in fact, this is the second card I did this with). The bees are Paper Smooches. I took their free digi bee and printed it twice, once a little smaller and flipped to be the girl bee. Before cutting them out I colored them with copics and coated the eyes and wings with more glossy accent. To create the frame I simply created a computer generated sentiment to play on the bees and cut it out. The sky was glued behind it with the heart and bees popped up with some dots. The whole frame was popped up as well to allow for some sweet little handmade banners to peek out from the side. I stamped the hexagon image on the blue banner in a medium blue and then sponged a lighter shade over it for a two-tone effect. The golden banner was simply created by sponged a yellow and orange ink over white cardstock and then taking a white gel pen and adding the lines.

This one might just be my favorite one. After having gone through one publication call I only wish I could get some creative feedback about how I submitted my works. You know, where could I improve: is it in my photographing skills, my write-ups, or even my artistic skills. Since I don't think they do that because they get so many works I will just continue doing my best and having fun. That's the important part anyways!

In need of some sunshine

ETA: I found an amazing blog hop for those who threw their hat into the publication ring and didn't get picked up. It's called The Contenders blog hop. How fun is this :)

 

So I tried my hand at a publication call. I didn't get the call. Oh well, at least I tired and I had fun doing it. Many things could have turned their head like poor photo quality or even my write up on the cards. It did kinda stings that I didn't get any of my cards picked up but I will get over it. Now I can show them on my blog, lol. I ended up submitting four cards and over the next couple of weeks I will post them here. In the meantime, here's the first one.

 

This card was fun to create and it wasn't your normal card size and it was for a sunshine call. I tried to think beyond the usual. This one came in at 3 1/4 x 5 1/4. To get the cloudy day look I embossed some clouds from PTI's Up Up & Away. I sprinkled some silver embossing powder into the mix so that I could get more of a grey sky kind of thing. I think it came out more cloudy than grey sky but it's all good. Once you open the vellum layer you see the sunshine that was peeking through the clouds. I created the sun with PTI's Hello Sunshine. The sentiment is embossed in silver.

When I get some more free time (and out of my funk that seems to be staying around longer that normal) I will try more calls because I really did find it fun.

1 Sketch, 3 cards

Time for another FBW challenge and this time it is a sketch one. I must admit that I had fun with this one. In fact, I had so much fun that I created three cards in three sizes with it. Keeping it short and sweet today so here are the cards :)

I tried keeping them elegant yet simple. Hope you are able to join in the fun this week!

Winter White

Update: The pictures have been added now :)

I had lots of fun with this week's challenge at Flutter By Wednesday as it is Winter White. To celebrate the fact we are in the middle of winter the challenge will be to create an all white card while including either a butterfly or a fairy. You may color your image if needed though.

When I first saw this challenge I got giddy and nervous because it has been so long since I last did an all white card. I love the look of them but many time find it a struggle to create on my own. To really pull off an all white card I think there needs to be lots of texture and so that is just what I used for my card.

For the very first bit of texture I ran a 4.25 x 5.5" piece of c/s through my cuttlebug with the PTI hexagon impression plate to emboss those lovely shapes (I really do need to play with this plate more). For the next layer I used a scallop type border punch and then coated the edges with glitter (gotta have some bling with a white on white card cause it reminds me of snow sparkling in the sun) with the layer on top of it I white embossed the large flower from PTI's Pretty Peonies Annv 2012 set. From that same set I used the matching die to cut out the frame and then stamped and embossed with glitter the frame. All of this together made the perfect backdrop for some sweet little butterflies that I punched out of white carstock. To give the butterflies some depth and demention I tucked a large one behind the bottom of the frame and then went up and around with the smaller ones making sure that one their bodies and not their wings got glued down. To add some stablity to the wing I added little bits of foam dots. Love how it looks like they are taking flight. I also added some bling to their bodies so the sweet little things weren't so plane. To finish it off I decided against a sentiment on the front as place another wee butterfly in the lower corner. Hope you are able to come and flutter with us.

Trying Something New

For the first time ever for me I just submitted four projects for a publication call. I had ideas for more but time got the best of me, lol. I think I was able to salvage my project for this. I have never done this before and had fun creating the projects. Three of my four images went through with no problem; however, the last one decided to be a little bugger. Hopefully it will get solved before the deadline. Only time will tell now.

It's that time again

Time for the amazing Waltzing Mouse Christmas Cards Challenge. This year we are doing this a little differently. There were several of us on the WMS forum that enjoy these challenges and we were sad to hear they may come to an end so we got together and decided to do together with each of us hosting a month or two. As per Lynn's brilliant writing here are the details:

What is this monthly challenge all about?

It's our goal to motivate and inspire you to work on your Christmas cards year round - month by month - so that you can sit back and sip your hot cocoa when December arrives, instead of burning the midnight oil trying to get those cards completed at the last minute. We hope that you will agree that "slow and steady wins the race".

On the 10th of each month, the challenge hostess for that month will announce the Waltzingmouse Stamps Christmas Card Challenge theme right here in this forum. We have a variety hostesses, who each possess their own particular creative style and it will be great fun to see what idea the hostess will have for us to spark our own creativity.

Here are a few basic guidelines for the monthly Waltzingmouse Stamps Christmas Card Challenge:

• A new challenge will be issued on the 10th of each month in the Playroom Forum.
• Each card must contain some Waltzingmouse Stamps’ images but need not be exclusively WMS images.
• Once you have created your project, upload it to the 2013 WMSCCC gallery - and if you have a blog, we would love for you to post it there too!
• Feel free to grab the WMS Christmas Card Logo for your blog sidebar and/or your blog post if you are so inclined.
• You may make as many projects as you like for each challenge. We encourage you to make batches of cards since our end goal is to have enough hand-made Christmas cards for each person on our “list”.
• You may play along when and if you want – make it suit your schedule. For example, challenge cards for January may be uploaded anytime in January or in June or even September...whenever you have them completed. There is no monthly deadline.

Let's get the Christmas mojo flowing!! We hope you will play along with our challenge.

This month's was the talented Anya's and she presented us with this amazing sketch as our challenge.

 I love a good sketch challenge and was excited to get to work on this one. I have used up most, if not all, of my stash for this past Christmas so I really need to get to work this year (I need something like 55 cards). That equals to 4-5 cards a month; however, I have only done two for this challenge. I need to get cracking, lol. I combined this sketch with the popular chalkboard technique to get a slightly rustic feel. The hollies and berries came from WMS's Bright Season on the upper panel. The little holly leaves came from WMS's Little Lantern while the sentiment is from Compliments of the Season. The background frame is from WMS's Holiday Label No 14. To add a little something to the kraft frame I stamped it using PTI's kraft ink and WMS's Text It background. Then to add a little more texture since the lower panel of kraft looked so sad and unloved I embossed it with PTI's woodgrain background (after I wiped the kraft ink pad over the raised parts). To get the lines I simply used a white colored pencil. Be sure to check out the WMS gallery for more inspiration and while you are at it, won't you come along and play with us.

Fluttering By with an Open Challenge

I just learned a very valuable (and should have been a duh) lesson: water and completed cards do not mix. I just completed four chards for a publication call (my first one) and spilled water all over the table they were sitting on. Hoping I can salvage them since I won't be able to recreate them in time. If nothing else I learned to keep my water off my work table and completed cards away from both water and work table.

Enough about my mistakes. It is time for another Flutter By challenge. This week we are sponsored by Buggaboo Digi Stamps and it is an open challenge (just make sure you have a butterfly/fairy on it). There are some super cute digis in the store too. For my card I used a Clean & Simple sketch (one of my favs too). The butterflies were stamped from PTI's Beautiful Butterflies as well as the sentiment. To work with the sentiment I created a rainbow effect with the butterflies. I didn't want my sentiment to be the only black thing so I backed the white layer with a thin black layer. Love this effect. Hope you are able to flutter with us this week.

Chalkboard take 2

As promised, here is the second take on the PTI Make-it-Monday chalkboard challenge. During my trials of the larger chalkboard look as stamped a few times on scrap black paper. As I was cleaning up I discovered a strip that I thought would be big enough on a card front without taking up the whole thing. I really like how the flowers from PTI's Sweet Life turned out with this technique since it is a multi-stamp layer set (the flowers have a total of three layers that can be used to create a beautiful flower, I just used two of them here). With the flowers and sentiment I didn't feel the need for flourishes. I did doodle very lightly some rough looking leaves as I wanted them to appear that the artist didn't really like them and tried to erase them. I also added the wood feel using PTI's woodgrain embossing plate. I lightly inked the raised part with kraft ink to help add to the depth of the grain.

WMS Secret Sister Christmas Card Exchange

I participated in WMS's card exchange this year. It is a little something some of the forum gals came up with. Make a Christmas card using some WMS stamps and send it to them without their knowledge. This was the second year they did this and my first year to join in. My lovely card that you see above came from the talented design team member Lynn Mercurio. I love how she decorated the star as a backdrop for the sweet little snowman and that crackle brings it some rustic charm. Thank you Lynn for my sweet card!

Looks like I was ahead of my time

I had created this card back in May of last year and I giggle when I look at it now because of how popular it is becoming now. When I look at the above card now I see so much more potential it has. PTI's Make-It-Monday challenge this week is to use the chalkboard technique on a card. I thought I would give it a try again. I ended up coming up with two card designs too. The card I created for today is a full card front chalkboard. I used PTI's The Sweet Life for the sentiment and flowers and Beautiful Butterflies for the butterfly. The swirl is Inkadinkado's Dot Florishes.

For the second one I took away the bling. Not sure which I like more though as the bling did give it a little something extra. I also felt that the whole thing should be backed by something instead of just having a floating chalkboard, but that is a card for tomorrow.



The newest Flutterby member

I love butterflies and many of my cards can be seen with at least one on it (sometimes they are hidden). I have played along many times with Flutterby Wednesday's challenge blog and am honored to have been asked to play along as a member. For this week's challenge we are challenge you to play "in the new". This may be interpreted as using something new to you or even to use the theme "new" (i.e. new home, new baby, new marriage, etc). I went with the using something new for this week. Right before my little blog/craft break I ordered a butterfly set called Beautiful Butterflies by PTI. Once I got it I wasn't able to play with it until now. The leaves I used to create my pattern paper came from PTI's The Sweet Life while the leaves in the scenes came from Flutterby Friend and the sentiment from a damask set. For the black strip that I used to back the dyed green ribbon I used a new to me technique that I learned from Jennifer McGuire: color your glitter. I applied regular glitter to a sticky covered black strip of c/s but didn't like how it muted the black so with my trusty black copic and pounced the tip over the glitter until it was all colored a nice dark black. The tip of my copic is fine too. I also applied the glitter to the white card base after I had sponged the edges with black soot distress ink. I used a strip of vellum cut into a banner for the sentiment so that the ribbon could still be seen.