Something Old, Something New

Happy New Year everyone!  Thanks so much for stopping by today to see what I have made for our latest Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge.  This week we want you to show us something old and something new on your artwork. 

I created a little art piece that can be stood, hung or have magnetic strips placed on the back to stick to a refrigerator (jumbo refrigerator magnet - LOL).  I have used lots of favorite oldies (Fabulous Flourishs stamp, Elegant Flourishs die, Tag and Bookplates die, LOVE stamp from Stuff to Say, Picket Fence distress crackle paint) on this project, but my"old" highlights are the four wonderful vintage buttons sent to me recently by my friend Marcy Kaminski from the En Papillote Arts blog.  She sent me such a beautiful RAK - a huge amount of vintage buttons and lots of yummy lace and crocheted work.  The buttons I used here are from that stash.  

My "new" is the tattered rose created with her newly acquired Tattered Pinecone die and the seam binding dyed just for this project with a blend of Aged Mahogony and Tattered Rose distress inks. I used the tattered pinecone die to cut out a book page which I then painted with white gesso and then dry brushed some Aged Mahogany distress ink on it.  Then later I also dry brushed some gold acrylic paint dabber on the edges of the flower.  I wrapped the flower around a toothpick very much like Tim Holtz does in his tutorial for the tattered pinecone, but left it a little looser and also kept squishing it upward so it is flat on the bottom not elongated like the pine cone is.  

The flourish and bookplate were cut from chipboard and painted with Picket Fence Crackle Paint.  When dry I dry brushed the with Aged Mahogany and again with gold acrylic paint dabber.  The background paper is plain old copy paper that I aged by pouring a little coffee into a baking sheet (with sides so it doesn't run off) and coating the paper.  Leave a few puddles of coffee on the sheet of paper and put into a 250 degree oven for 15-20 minutes (check often).  It comes out looking so cool.  I stamped it with the Tim Holtz music stamp and Sepia archival ink before I poured coffee on it.  After it came out of the oven I stamped the flourish stamp with Versamark and gold embossed it.  I adhered it while it was still a tad damp with Claudine Hellmuth Multi Medium Matte.  The seam binding dyed just for this project with a blend of Aged Mahogony and Tattered Rose distress inks.

The image is another of my digital layering experiments.  The cherub is from Luna Girl and I erased the surrounding background and layered it over the post card - love the way it came out!

Now it's time to check out what the other designers have made over at Simon Says Stamp and Show.  And our ever generous sponsor is giving awaya  $50 shopping voucher.  You can't win if you don't play so get going on your something old, something new project right away!!

Thanks so much for stopping by and for all the lovely comments!  Wishing you and yours a blessing filled New Year!

More Love

This week at Simon Says Stamp and Show, we want you to Show Some Love.  So are you tired of my vintage Valentine's Day makes yet?  I hope not, because I am loving making them.  I was going to say three and out, but I think you just might see a few more vintage Valentines from me before the big day. 

So how about showing us some LOVE this week over at Simon Says Stamp and Show?  That shouldn't be too hard, right?   Everybody is doing Valentines this week so get with the program and get your LOVE project entered.  Our fabulous sponsor, Simon Says Stamp, is giving away a $50 gift certificate to some lucky random winner, and I do mean lucky!  I wish I could throw my name into the drawing because I would LOVE to have a $50 shopping spree at Simon Says Stamp.  Have you seen all the amazing new Tim Holtz products that are being introduced at CHA?  Simon Says will have them real soon.  

Okay, enough already and on to the dets.  My images are from a Luna Girl CD that I have had forever.  I fiddled around with PhotoShop Elements and managed to erase their backgrounds and then layered them over a vintage post card.  After liberally smearing them with Vintage Photo Distress Ink, I also stamped a few image stamps around the edges for good measure, most of which were from the Tim Holtz Urban Grunge and Odds and Ends sets.   I dyed some white lace with Broken China Distress Ink, which I also used to make the handmade flower, to sponge over the grunge heart and to stamp the LOVE stamp.  The heart and wings are cut from Grungeboard and I added a little element made from a felt flower, a silk, flower, a ribbon flower and some cheese cloth.

I also had to add a multi-layered paper flower cut with the Tim Holtz Tattered Florals die (gee, I hope that die never wears out.  Maybe I should purchase a back up - LOL!).  I really liked the fact that this vintage Valentine wasn't in the traditional red or pink colors. 

Now go get busy and show us some LOVE over at Simon Says Stamp and Show.  You just might win a $50 shopping spree at Simon Says Stamp!

I want to give a warm welcome to all my new followers and a heartfelt thanks to those who come here day after day.  I can't tell you how much your support means to me and how encouraging all your lovely comments are.  I LOVE you all!

A 3-D Valentine Project

Hello!  Today is a very special day at Our Creative Corner.  We are excited to welcome five talented new designers to our team and today is their very first challenge.  Our wonderful host, Wendy Jensen, has challenged us to make a 3-D Valentine project.  Oh my, what to make?  I'm really fresh out of project ideas.  And for Valentine's Day, I wanted to do something vintage.  Finally I decided on a very Victorian style Valentine's greeting with this cone shaped "envelope" and a tag type greeting tucked inside.  I have to say that this design is not my original idea.  I saw these at Christmas on Anne's Paper Fun and thought the cone-shaped "envelope" would work great for a Valentine.  

To make this, I started with an 8" heart shaped doily, traced it on to a sheet of K&Co. designer paper and cut it out, giving me two hearts of the same size.  I made a tri-fold out of them and then took a 6" heart shaped doily and stamped the Classified Ads background stamp from Whimsey Stamps on it.  Then it was misted with my homemade Vintage Photo glimmer mist and when dry, it was wrapped around the two larger folded hearts.  I threaded a piece of shabby seam binding through the holes around the top of the smaller heart and added a toile piece stamped from Gentler Times (SU retired) colored with Copics.  A sweet vintage cupid was added to the front as well as a handmade flower made with the Tim Holtz Tattered Florals die and a vintage style SU brad.  

A little pull-out tag type greeting was made for the inside featuring another vintage Valentine image, cut with a Spellbinders heart and adorned with several pieces of ribbon and lace.  The sentiment is from SU's Holiday Best set.

Thanks for stopping by for a visit today.  I hope you will stop by the blogs of all our new designers and wish them well.  We have a lot of cute Valentine's projects to share with you so be sure to stop by the OCC blog too.  

Challenges Entered:
Sugar Creek Hollow - Sweet Vintage Valentine
Tag Tuesday Challenge - Valentines
Creative Cottage Challenge - Shaped Cards
Charisma Cardz - Valentines/Love
C.R.A.F.T. Challenge - Trifold Card with a Tag Insert
Meljen's - Put Your Heart on It
If the Shoe Fits - Anything Goes - Except a Card
Crazy4Challenges - Vintage or Shabby
J.U.G.S. - Handmade Flowers
Speedy the Cat's Friends Challenge - A Valentine Card
Soartful Challenges - Victorian Romance

To Someone I Love

This week's challenge at Pile it On is "To the One You Love". I made this card to send to my daughter who is away at college. I wanted to do something vintage and girly for her. I have had this heart with the beautiful rose chintz pattern cut out and sitting on my desk for a couple of days. I had used the DP for another project and the heart was just one of those elements that you cut or make and then they really do work for the current project so you set them aside. But I didn't really set it aside. I had it propped up on my craft table because it was so pretty and have been looking at it all week. This just seemed to be the right project to use it on. I silver embossed the Letters of Love (SU) on Mellow Moss and cut them with Labels 1 Nesties. All the DP is digital paper printed on my home printer. I embossed a layer of Very Vanilla and sponged it with Creamy Caramel. The main element is from SU's See it With the Heart set stamped on vellum with Tim Holtz Vintage Photo ink and trimmed out. It's layered over a Very Vanilla heart. The leaves were cut with a Sizzix die purchased from SU, cut from Mellow Moss CS and then silver embossed with a filigree pattern. Add some pearls, end caps and Prima flowers and this card was ready to be photographed and posted. Here are the challenges I have Piled it On to this week:

• Crazy4Challenges- Be My Valentine
• Fussy & Fancy - Hearts
• Stampin' for the Weekend - Love is in the Air - Valentine's Preparations
• Stamp Something - Love SomethingsCRAFT
• Gingersnap Creations - Romance
• Raise the Bar - Heart to Heart Talk
• Charisma Cards - I Love You
• PaperPlay Challenges - Love Notes
• C.R.A.F.T. Challenge - Valentine's or Love
• Just Buggin' - Love Ya
• Creative Craft Challenge - Roses are Red
• Simon Says Stamp - Photo Inspiration (red rose)
• Humble Pie - Love

I hope you will take time to stop by the Pile it On blog to see what the other teams members have whipped up this week for your inspiration.

Blessings,

You Make My Heart Sing!

Before Valentine's Day comes, I needed to make a couple of cards suitable for guys. I think I've pretty much run the gammet with feminine Valentine's cards for this year and it was fun making one for a guy. Since this is my month to be hostess over at Our Creative Corner, I thought a good first challenge would be to make a masculine Valentine.

I wanted to do a vintage guy card and what I actually had in mind was a photo or an ad for an antique car with a sentiment of "You're a classic" or something similar. But when I came across this motorcycle ad, the ideas started popping and I had to go with it. This image came from Heidi at Shabby Chic Papirskatter. The CS is Night of Navy and Bordering Blue with some gray DSP also from SU. The sentiments were both computer generated. I actually created the seal myself on the computer. The square sentiment was cut with Labels One Nestabilities and the frame stamp is from Waltzing Mouse Stamps. They have a number of what they call Nestie Friendly stamps - stamps that work perfectly with Spellbinder's Nestabilities.

I used aluminum foil for the Diamond Plate EF since I don't have any of the craft foil sold for that purpose. The way I did it worked, but not great. I used three layers of foil. I was afraid they would separate so I spread a very thin layer of glue between each layer. Then I glued a sheet of cardstock to the bottom layer. I let the glue dry for about an hour. Well, let me warn you, glue between foil takes FOREVER to dry because no air gets in there. When I pressed the foil with the EF and Cuttlebug, it squeezed the glue out the end of the embossing folder. What a mess - I had glue all over!!

The wings and heart are Tim Holtz Grungeboard type chipboard. I painted them with Distrss Crackle paint - white that I mixed a drop of Night of Navy reinker into. When dry, I pressed them into my gray stamp pad to grung them up a bit. I really like the way the paint came out - sort of verigated in color and then has the dark gray on it. Grunging things up is one of my favorite crafting activities - LOL!! The screw brads came from Michael's and probably the silver key did too. The winged heart brad is by Marah Johnson for Creative Imaginations. That's about it for this card. Let me know if you have any questions.

And right now, hurry over Our Creative Corner and check out the Valentine each of the DTs have made for a man in their life.

Thanks for stopping by. Wishing you a fabulous weekend!

Challenges entered:

Crazy for Challenges C4C23 - Be My Valentine

Bee Crafty - Romance (must include a digi - mine is the LOVE seal I created on my computer)

Stampin' for the Weekend - Love is in the air - Valentine's preparations

Stamp Something - Love Somethings

Your Next Stamp Challenge #9 - Charms

CCEE - Hearts & Charms

ABC Designs - I Love You Sweetheart

Gingersnap Creations - Romance

Drunken Stampers - Valentines with a twist of metal

Humble Pie - Love

With Love, From Me to You

Last Wednesday, when I posted my guest design team card for the Creative Inspirations Wednesday Challenge Blog, I thought my time with that team was over. But the lovely Nat, the blog owner, emailed me and asked me if I would like to join as a full time member. Of course, I said yes, and here I am with a weekly Wednesday post for Creative Inspirations. Here is my first card as a full fledged member of the design team. The challenge this week is Pink & Cream. It should have been a realitively easy challenge, right? NOT!! I had something in mind when I sat down to create and it just was not working out. This is the card that I struggled until 2 a.m. on the night before last. I had several lovely vintage Valentine images loaded with pinks. But my paper didn't match well with the pinks, I couldn't find any pink DP I was very excited about, tried doing several different elements with silver embossing, my desk was littered with rejected elements and cut paper. I finally found this MME DP in my stash but it didn't go well with the candy pink CS I had cut, so I ended up going with deep rose accents. When I made that decision, things finally started to fall into place.



Not too many supplies or tools on this one. As I said, the DP is MME, the cream CS is Very Vanilla and the rose is Rose Red. Dies used were Cuttlebug and Spellbinders, plus two CB embossing folders. If you want to know any specifics, leave me a question in the comments and I'll post a reply.

I hope you will stop over to the Creative Inspirations Wednesday Challenge Blog to see what my new team mates have designed for this week's Pink & Cream challenge. There are some really wonderful samples there. And while you're at it, stop by their blogs and get acquainted with my new teammies!

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see you again for my next scheduled post on Saturday.


Challenges:
Raise the Bar - Old Paper
Pink Elephant - All About Pink - In Honor of Ella
Frosted Designs - Embossing Challenge
By the Cute & Girly - Love
The Corrosive Challenge - All You Need is Love

Cute Daisy May - Valentine's theme in pink and neutral

Update: This card was featured on Card of the Week.

Everything & Always

Good morning friends! Thanks so much for dropping by to view my weekly Tuesday posting. I'm sorry to be running a bit late getting it up this morning. If the truth be told, I was up until 2:00 a.m. struggling with a challenge card for later this week and then went to bed forgetting to schedule this morning's post. I guess sometimes I get too obsessed with certain projects - LOL!!

So here is my design team card for Creative Card Crew. The challenge this week given to us by DT member Sam is to make a Valentine card. This challenge was lots of fun for me. Sometimes cards just seem to fall together. As usual, this card doesn't look much like the idea I had in mind when I first sat down, but I really love the way it came out. Red is my favorite color and you have to admit, this card is a red indulgence!

I dug way down into my stash and came up with this designer series paper from SU. I've had it for at least three years and tend to hoard it because the reds are so lovely. This cool paper ribbon has been sitting on my craft table since Christmas. I have had it literally 10 years. I don't know if they even make the stuff any more. I found a bundle of it with my Christmas wrapping gear this year and grabbed it for my cards rather than pack it away again. Two stamp sets were used - SU's Always and a Verve set my DD gave me for Christmas called Thankful Accents. A couple of Spellbinder dies and a Martha border punch also contributed to the design of this card.

This week's challenge at Creative Card Crew is sponsored by Crafty Addicts. You can win this sweet stamp to be given away by random drawing. This challenge is now biweekly so you have until February 15th to play in the challenge and participate in this drawing. I hope you will stop by and see what the other wonderful ladies in the Crew have contributed.

Challenges:

Fussy & Fancy - Hearts

Stamp Simply - Bleeding Hearts (red hearts)

Stamp Something - Delightfully Delicious Somethings

Papertake Weekly Challenge - Love Actually

Blessings on your day,


Update: This card was featured on Card of the Week.