Celebrate Something

Whatever it is that you want to celebrate go for it! That's the theme of this card. I found out that Curtain Call is back and for their welcome back challenge they gave us a nautical inspiration collage. Now let me let you in on a little secret...I own not one nautical stamp. This proved to be a bit of a challenge for me to get in on the fun.

I decided I would pull from the colors of the inspiration: blue, yellow, green, with just a touch of kraft/brown. While going through my stamp to see if I could use something for the nautical vibe I came across my WMS Off Beat Background. In this amazing set there is a stamp with two stripe for creating plaid, well I used them for the stripes that one typically sees with the above theme. I simply masked off the thin strip. I went with blue stripes since that royal blue purse was the first thing I saw and then the yellow shorts. I wasn't in the mood for an all stripe card so I kept digging through my stamps and came across PTI's Heart-2-Heart #5. This set is a sweet little banner building set, and what boat isn't complete without some little flags/banners. I didn't want my banners to be all one color so I pulled three from the picture. Since my blue wasn't as bright as the purse, I went with a softer yellow, and my third was the green from the palm peeking through in the above picture. The striped flag is still blue to carry that theme through (and because I wanted it to be my dominate color) while the heart banners are the soft yellow. I knew the green would be a tad brighter so I kept the green banner down to only three (and if you noticed they are placed in a pleasing triangle). I used the lined flag image to stamp it onto white c/s and then with a watercolor brush and watered down ink I painted in the flags. The sentiment was stamped in the stamp blue I used with the stripes and flags to finish it off. However, once I layered it together i felt it was missing something. I inked a strip of white c/s with the yellow ink and layered it just so that it is peeking from under the flags/banner and then with foam dots I put the image panel down. Still not right, so I die cut three small hearts from kraft c/s and covered some of the hearts on the yellow flags. I figured kraft was very nautical since it is used for straw hats, warfs, boats, etc. The other hearts I color with a glitter pen and then went over with glossy accent to help define them. For the finishing touch I add some brown faux stitching down the side with the stripes and yellow was and round the bottom corner of the card. I great card that could be used for a baby shower or just because.

Red, White, and Blue Summer

It's the 17th and that means it's waltzing time! WMS is having it's monthly waltz and the theme is Summertime Fun. I love to play the WMS's stamp set My Island, but I figured I would try my hand at creating a summertime card WITHOUT using that stamp set this time. I had lots of fun creating last months cards for teachers without using typical teacher themed stamps that I just had to try it again.

I must admit though that time got away from me this month and I almost forgot about the waltz, so I may have cheated just a little. Living in America means celebrating July 4th, which just happens to be in the middle of summer, so I used that as inspiration. Ya'll know Bitty Banners is one of my favorites so of course that was my go to stamp set.

For the bottom banner I white embossed the polka dot strip from WMS's Off Beat Background and then sponged red on top and blue on the bottom. After I layered them on the white cardstock I decided it needed something else. I decided to use the same sponged look for the background of the card. I simply sponged red in on the top part and blue on the bottom making sure I left some white in the middle. The sentiment is from PTI's Flipping Out set and was white embossed. Once I had everything like I wanted I still decided that it needed something more, so I trimmed the sponged c/s to allow for a frame and layered it on top of a new white card base. Much better.

Life's a Journey

Nothing profound to share, just a card I created last night. I made this after we got home from vacation because I just couldn't go to sleep. I was going through some challenges and came across these two:
CAS-ual Friday's challenge of being inspired by maps.
Clean & Simple Stamping sketch

I pulled out one of my favs from Waltzing Mouse Stamps: Bitty Banners and paired it up with PTI's Framed Out #5. The tag reminds me of a well worn map while the sentiment is all about it. I used three different banner dies to get them all slightly different. I think the only thing I would do differently next time is use a red or navy bow on the tag. The white is washed out I think.

Have a wonderful Father's Day!

An apple for a teacher

The WMS waltz this month that was all about teachers and the end of the school year inspired me to make yet another teacher card. You may see several more teacher cards and/or teacher gift ideas. This one is much more typical: includes an apple. Most people think of apples when they think teacher. The apple is from a teacher set by PTI while everything else is from WMS.

Not sure why my card looks crooked as it isn't IRL. I sponged the black background for a chalkboard effect as I thought it made this a little classic meets modern. The white on either side of the black were stamped in Tumbled Glass with WMS's Text-It  after stamping it off once. The red "thanks" was stamped with Free Spirit Sentiments. The cute little banners are from WMS's Bitty Banners (another love of mine). I really like the red triangle that was created with this design and how the black really works with out overpowering the whole thing. I may just make enough of these for the teachers in my department for the end of this year too. In fact, this one is going to a company that supported a grant we wrote and won.

What is blue, green, and yellow?

...this week's Flutterby Challenge, lol. We are challenging you to create a project using the colors blue, green, and yellow with your butterfly or fairy. I had so much fun creating this one that I think it might be my favorite one for the month. I created the banners stamps from WMS and Hero Arts. The butterfly and sentiment is from PTI. A nice CAS card for springtime.

I hope to see ya'll fluttering with us over at the challenge :)

Oscar Inspired 2013

Claire over at Waltzingmouse has presented a fun challenge to create something inspired by one of the gowns on the Red Carpet from the 2013 Oscars. I used to love watching the Oscars. In fact, there was a time when I use to know most, if not all of, the movies that were nominated. Since kids I haven't gotten out as much, lol. The last few years I haven't been able to watch the Oscars, but I still love to see what was worn. I took my inspiration from the very classy Catherine Zeta-Jones. I love the tone on tone look with the gold and cream. She looked elegant as all ways.

For my card I chose to go with the classy look. On the vanilla cardbase I used PTI's Damask Designs to create a cascading effect similar to Mrs. Zeta-Jones's dress. I heat embossed the damasks in gold but then thought it would distract from the dress, soI decided to tone down the background by layering a sheet of lightweight vellum. For the dress I heat embossed the dress outline from WMS's You're Lovely in gold, cut it out, and then heat embossed the flourishes in gold as well. I was trying to achieve the same look as the Red Carpet dress here. After embossing all I could I then went over the top portion with a gold metallic pen. For the banners I simply used a banner die to cut them out from some scrap vellum. For the bottom banner I colored it with the same pen as the dress. I heat embossed the sentiment (from You're Lovely) and then used the same pen to add gold to the edges. I layered them underneath the dress and popped the dress up with foam dots. To balance the card a little more I added some cream ribbon to the top (although I think a gold one might have looked better). A classy card for a classy lady.

P.S. wouldn't this look amazing as a 50th wedding annv. card?  May have to do that next :)

Spread the love take 3

As promised, here is my last card (ok, three cards) for the Spread the Love challenge Amber of Damask Love created. My blog crush that inspired this card is another than Kristina, the master mind behind Friday Focus, Make a Card Monday, and so many other inspiring videos. Her style is amazing and clean. Love that her designs can be messy, fun, serious, for the young and the young at heart. In honor her and the challenge of using colors that I don't normally go to, I created three cards.

The colors above are beautiful together and they make me think of springtime. I don't, however, normally go to them when I create my cards. Not sure why though because they really are pretty together. Now, I don't have exact colors so the ones I used below where the closest I could come to with what I have :)

This first card was my attempt to create movement on my card like I see on some of Kristina's. This one was really a stretch for me as I don't normally do this I think. While I like the idea, I think that I needed a bolder sentiment as the one I used really gets lost in the circles.

Sorry for the bad picture. I just couldn't seem to get a good one, even after photo editing

The second card started out wonderfully. I love banners (the ones from WMS are some of my favs) and the clean look of masking for layers without the bulk, but with the sentiment so far down I decided it was too stark so I played with idea of making it a square card. The results of which is below. Of the three the third is my favorite. I think the size of the card works well with the three banners and the sentiment. The slightly rounded corners softened it up just a touch which made it feel more airy to me.

Time for some WMS Christmas

The 10th of this month has come and gone, but I have only now been able to play along with the new WMS Christmas Card Challenge. This month's challenge was to use hearts. Being in the CAS mood as of late I did just that with the challenge: kept it simple. I ended up creating four of these cards too. The sentiment is from WMS's Seasons of Love and the sweet little banners are from WMS's Bitty Banners. The sketch is from CAS(E) this sketch; however, I am posting it a tad late.

Just a short and sweet post today. Trying to find the energy to craft more. That and trying to find inspiration for a craft challenge in a magazine. We shall see where it takes me :)

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!