Friday, March 31, 2017

Love those cats. Just Add Ink 353



Now we are going way, way back.  This stamp is at least 15 or more years old.  It's from Paula Best, she is quite the artist, especially with animals.    I don't think she even makes stamps anymore, but does other arts.

The theme for this weeks Just Add Ink is critters, so I dug this out.  See the rest of the team's cards HERE.





It is a pretty simple card, stamped my image and cut out of the Layering Squares, then cut my black from Stitched Shapes square.

Stamped my flourish, used dimentionals to pop up my image, and that is pretty much that. I did add in some little dots for interest.  Colors for this are Pink Pirouette, Wisteria Wonder, Emerald Envy, Basic black.

Thanks for coming by.





Monday, March 27, 2017

GDP080, Thank you card.



Happy monday morning.    I'm having fun getting back to challenges again.  This morning the GDP challenge pulled me in. We are CASe'ing Louise Sharp.  I know it's easy to think that CASE means to copy, and while it can, most often a challenge wants to see what you can do with the idea.  I think the GDP really wants you to take away what you want from it.  They do say that in the discription.  I love Louise's layout.   I changed it some but not a lot.  I hope you like it. Here is Louise's card.
Now to explain my card. I used a standard A2 card base, 4 1/4x51/2.  I cut mine long ways, and folded at the top.  My second layer is 4 1/8x5 3/8. 
To get this look on my tag layer, I took the smaller rose from the Rose Garden thinlit set and used copy paper to cut it out.   You want a thin paper or plastic so that you are able to get into all the inside edges.

I took my very large round brush, brushed it gently across my ink pad and then over the top of my cut out rose.  You get color transfer very slowely this way and don't get those hard lines.  I continued, until I had the color built up to where I liked it.

I then cut my piece down to the size I liked, rounded the corners, punched a hole in the top and added the linen thread bow.
For the sentiment I wanted the same rounded look, so after stamping my little sentiment I took my 1/2" hole punch, instead of putting the paper in normally I slid it in from the top to get this look on each end.

I also brushed the brush across my pink layer once I had embossed.


Sunday, March 26, 2017

Friends Like Us, Just Add Ink challenge 352


I'm trying out a new to me card challenge site, Just Add Ink.  Cute name, loved the colors and was dying to use some new stuff.

I had such a good time with this, love that little kitty, just my style.  I like whimsical cats and ones who show off their personality.  This little guy covers both I think.
Here are the colors, and you can find them HERE

Thanks so much for coming by.

Products: SU, Gorgeous Grunge, Lace doilies, Petite Petals stamps, Petite Petals punch.  Waffle Flower Flora Cat Play stamps.

Saturday, March 25, 2017

Celebrate You, FMS280


It has been a little while since I've posted to my blog.  Life has just gotten in the way for awhile. But it was a good thing.  We had good friends stop and stay in their coach.  We spent a lot of time showing them the sights, and just visiting.   Any time left over I needed to recoup, I am far from where I would like to be with my energy and strength yet.

So, this week at FMS the sketch is so open to most anything. I had several ideas in my head, but this is something I haven't done in some time so I went with it as we do have the perfect stamp set for it.

When I first started stamping, way, way back in the dark ages, we used to make our own backgrounds, there was no (gasp) pattern paper.   I choose 2 leaves and one flower for my background, then looked over the colors until I found 3 I liked together.

Here is the sketch for this week:

The leaves have 2 stamps each, one for the base and one for the veins in the leaves. I used the same color for the veins, after I was done stamping all the elements. You could use a darker color, up to you, but I liked the subtle effect here.

I used a bit of black twine for some contrast and a stitched oval framelit for my sentiment.
There is a die set for this as well and I thought about cutting one of two pieces to layer under the sentiment piece, but it seemed busy enough to me.   I generally keep my on the simple side.

I hope you enjoyed, please check out all the cards, they are all wonderful.

Thursday, March 9, 2017

Oh Happy Day, FMS challenge 278, card 2


I just can't decide which one I like better, this one or yesterdays black and white card.  What do you think?

I just had so much fun with this technique I had to try it  with  different colors.
For this one I used Rich Razzleberry and Sweet Sugarplum with the Blooms and Bliss DSP. Then I had a hard time decided if I liked it better with a white flower or this razzleberry flower.   I really do love the pattern in the DSP a lot!

If you haven't seen the first one, just scroll down after clicking on the header of this blog. That will open it up to all content. Or just go HERE.

Here is the challenge again and you can click on the link to go to FMS.

Wednesday, March 8, 2017

Freshly Made Sketches#278, Happy Birthday


Happy Wed everyone.  I've been doing about 2 cards a week for my blog and picking and choosing which challenges I want to play with.   FMS has been one I've done a lot.  They have some awesome sketches.   They also have an awesome team, you  just have to check out this weeks team cards!

In the SU occasions catalog there is a new set called Special Reasons  and a matching die set called Stylish Stems Framelits. The really neat thing you can do is die cut the flower into your top layer so that it stays a flower and not just a big cutout.   I really wanted that look for this card, but budget and all, you guys know about budgets, I haven't gotten it yet.

But, I do have the May Flowers dies so I set out to create the same thing here.  And it worked!  I die cut my flower in my top layer, punched out the inside pieces keeping the outside edge attached. As you see it worked great.   It is just a matter of sticking your flower back into its hole.

I do love black and white every so often, it's just so classic, but I also love just a pop of color. So, my sentiment is done in Watermelon Wonder.  BTW, it is one of the incolor sets and will be  leaving us at the end of May, so if you want them or need cardstock to match or refills, you might want to take care of that pretty soon here.

The banner I used for the sentiment actually cuts out like this, however all in one color. So, I stamped my sentiment, cut it out of white, then cut one from black and put them together. I love how it worked out.    I sure hope you do as well.   Thanks for stopping by, and if you have any questions just ask them in the comment section, then you will have to come back for your answer though as Blogger does not give me a way to reply directly to you.

Here is the sketch, and you can find the challenge here:

Monday, March 6, 2017

Mojo Monday 487, Small things


This was a fun card to make.  It took awhile to come up with something I was happy with, but I love how it turned out.  I did the Mojo Monday sketch this week.

After the colorful background, I decided I wanted to do black and white to offset the colors and bring your eye to the front.

The flower was die cut from the Flourish Thinlits die set, and layered over one of the Stitched Shapes.

Here is this weeks sketch:


Thanks so much for stopping by!

Wednesday, March 1, 2017

Thinking of You for Freshly Made Sketches 277


I just received a pack of this set of ribbon in the mail yesterday.  It's gorgeous.  Very, very soft, a bit thicker then what we normally think of as ribbon.   The color is so right on.  It comes with the Sweet Sugarplum and Whisper White.  The die set that goes with the stamp set, Flourishing Phrases, has the flourish as a die as well as being able to stamp it. I decided to stamp it out and add the die cut flower over top.  I did use Always Artichoke, but be careful.

I used the Shimmery White paper instead of reg white so I could us an Aqua pen if I decided to do that, but I ended up stamping in die ink so I used the blender pen.  Rule of thumb is to use 2 mediums if you are going to be using water or alcohol as well as ink.   The blender pen will work with the die ink except that you really have to be careful, as it will bleed the colors.

So, my colors for this card are Soft Sky, Old Olive, Always Artichoke, Sweet Sugarplum.
Here is the sketch for FMS as well as the link if you would like to go check it out.
Do go and give it a look, the team's cards are so cute!