Friday, December 31, 2010

Bloggers Challenge 184

I almost missed Bloggers Challenge this week. I completely lost track of time. This weeks challenge is reuse/recycle.  Since I didn't realize that it was already Thursday, I had given no thought to what I was going to do. In fact, I was sitting at my table replacing calendar pages in my yearly wall calendar. I almost threw away the old pages (shame on me) when it hit me (twice) that it was challenge time and that I needed to recycle something. That's how the background of this card came about. I adhered the old pages collage style to a piece of cardstock and sprayed with glimmer mists.  I then distressed the edges and put Vintage Photo distress ink on the rough edges. I die cut the label from grungepaper using my Vagabond (tsk tsk, showing off) and painted with antique linen crackle paint. I highlighted the cracks with walnut stain. The numbers came from a grungeboard pack. I painted them with liquid pearls. The sentiment was printed on my label maker. I love it when everything comes together.

Finally...don't forget to mark your calendars and plan to join members of the Kitchen Sink Crew as they welcome you to the Grand Opening of the KSS Forum/Gallery this Friday, New Year’s Eve. The KSS Crew will be in the forums from Noon to Midnight EST, there will be plenty of fun Challenges, Games, Prizes, and Giveaways - Hope to see you there!!! Check HERE for location information. I'm very excited about this event. I've been asked to be a Guest Designer at Kitchen Sink Stamps for the month of January. Check back on my blog on Monday for my first posting.




 

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Kitchen Sink Stamps Crew Challenge 30-2


Artwork by Maria Colosimo
I have discovered the cure for the common cold. Well, maybe not the cure, but it sure made me feel better this evening. I went down to my studio and stamped. Tonight is the last hour to enter the Kitchen Sink Crew challenge. The challenge is to CASE one of the crew member's work. Today I chose to CASE a card that Maria did back on September 13th. I wanted to do something non-Christmas and I loved the look of this simple, but elegant card. The ivy stamp set is such a pretty one. My one concern on these CASE cards is that I am totally ribbon challenged. I have two drawers of ribbon, but I can never find what I need, so I had to improvise.
I have a stack of other cards I wanted to CASE, but I think that this will have to be it for this challenge.

Color recipe: (All inks used are Adirondack)
Ivy --  2 lettuce, 3 meadow, 4 bottle, 1 willow

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Kitchen Sink Stamps Crew Challenge 30


Artwork by Lisa Somerville
This month's Crew Challenge at Kitchen Sink Stamps is to CASE a card done by one of the KSS Crew members. I chose to CASE a card by Lisa Somerville. I remember when Lisa first posted this card. I thought it was really cute and thought about casing the idea back then. The main images are from Build a Garland and the sentiment is from Christmas Lights. I learned something very important today about doing a CASE. It's not as easy as you would think, especially when you choose a card done by one of the best.
My Color recipes: (All inks used are Adirondack)
Pine branch -- 1 Willow, 2 lettuce, 3 meadow 4 bottle
Gingerbread Man -- 1 hazelnut, 2 ginger, 3 espresso
Cranberries -- 1 watermelon, 2 cranberry, 3 raisin
Popcorn -- 1 sandal, 2 lemonade, 3 sunshine yellow, 4 caramel

Monday, December 27, 2010

Tag time Part 2


Tag 7

Tag 8

Tag 9

Tag 10

Tag 11

Tag 12






















It's Boxing Day and I'm excited to say that I have completed the 12 Tags of Christmas. (Oops, midnight just chimed so this post will actually publish on the 27th) No, I didn't quite keep up, but I thinks it's an accomplishment to have done them all. I've learned a lot and remembered even more of the things I've already learned. It's been a very busy, but happy season.
I have a few more things to do to finish off this year. Hopefully I can start early on my New Year's resolution. I want to get my studio into some semblance of order so that I can have play dates over for fun and stamping. Right now it is only somewhat usable for me, and then I have to use space very creatively. This week is a good week to start since many of the challenges are taking a holiday break.
Wish me luck!

Friday, December 24, 2010

Alice in Winter Wonderland

I missed the last two weeks Oh Alice challenges and I really missed them. This week I wanted to participate. I made it within minutes of the close of the challenge, but here I am. This week's challenge is winter wonderland. I chose to use the pine trees and sentiment from Artistic Outpost's Sleigh Ride.  Alice is from Oxford Impressions. The window is a die cut from Heartfelt Creations cut out using my new Vagabond. (oops, I had to get that in). The background colors are done using the pulled glimmers technique from TJ. The snow is highlighted using a Viva Pearl Pen. This was a fun card to put together. Alice is in a winter wonderland.

Bloggers Challenge 183

Merry Christmas everyone. This weeks Bloggers Challenge is Christmas. I made this card for a special friend of mine. It was created in the style of Tim Holtz using stamps from Tim, background paper from his paper stack covered with a distress ink smoosh. The whole card is covered with rock candy distress sticlkes so it really sparkles.  Hope everyone has a happy holiday!

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Stampotique Challenge

The challenge at Stampotique was to use die cuts or punches. Old Santa is stamped using an Artistic Outpost stamp from Snowy Woods, one of my all time favorite stamp sets. The focal image was diecut using a Spellbinders die. The holly leaves surrounding the image were punched using the Martha Stewart holly berry punch. The background paper is from Club Scrap.

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Compendium of Curiosities Challenge 24 Rock Candy Distress Stickles

 This Compendium of Curiosities challenge was the Rock Candy Distress Stickles technique from p. 47 of Tim's book. I absolutely love Rock Candy Distress Stickles. I'm on my third bottle (and stickles go a long way). I decided that for my collage background I would use papers from the seasonal paper stack (and a little from Vintage Shabby) The background distress color is Victorian Velvet and the edges are trimmed with Aged Mahogany and Walnut Stain. I used a favorite Santa image from Tim's line. I hope Santa has an easy and safe trip.

Friday, December 17, 2010

Bloggers Challenge 182



This week the Bloggers Challenge was a sketch challenge. (Lisa, this was a cool sketch.) I kind of started backwards with this one. I had this background paper which I really wanted to use. Even though it has a distressed look, it also has sparkle. Besides I like deer. For my image I chose this wintery scene from Heartfelt Creations. I thought it was the kind of place you might find the deer wandering about. Since I'm still working on Christmas, I thought the jingle bell punches worked well, and of course, the sentiment is definitely Christmas. I can't wait to see how the other group members interpreted this scene.
I came very close to not being able to play today. My Internet was down for about 24 hours. Six of those hours I spent on the phone trying to get it back up and running. Fortunately, as you can see, it was successful...draining, but successful.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

12 Tags of Christmas 2010 -- Tags 1 thru 5

Tag 1
Tag 2
Tag 3
Tag 4

Tag 5

For the last several years, Tim Holtz has shared with us his 12 Tags of Christmas. It's an exciting and challenging time. Last year I pretty much kept up. This year Tim has finished Tag 12, but I haven't. I'm really enjoying the tags, but I'm a bit time challenged. I've finished the first five tags so far. If you've been following the tags, you'll notice that I have tried to keep very close to the actual tag created by Tim. I try to treat this activity as if I were sitting in a class with Tim. I follow his examples and instructions fairly closely. I figure that if I learn or review the technique by following Tim, I can branch out on my own whenever I choose. I'm enjoying making the tags. By being so far behind, I can savor the activity so much longer.

Monday, December 13, 2010

Ornaments


I have to thank my friend Lisa for the inspiration for these ornaments. I had seen one she made and loved it. When I saw the porcelain ornaments at Michaels, I just knew I had to try my hand at decorating them. All of the stamp images are from Heartfelt Creations. I stamped the images on the ornaments with black Staz-on ink. I used my Creative Inspirations paints for the color. The shimmery paint is perfect for Christmas decorations. The finishing touch was to paint the sides with antique gold paint. They have the look of vintage porcelain ornaments. My daughter and grandson put up the tree last night. I'm off now to add these ornaments to the tree.

Friday, December 10, 2010

Bloggers Challenge 181 -- Birthday

Today's Bloggers Challenge comes right on time. Yesterday was my Dad's 90th birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAD! We are having a big family celebration on Sunday. I thought this was a perfect sentiment for Dad since he may be 90 in years, but in body, mind and spirit he is considerably younger.
My card is simple. The background is Shimmersheetz embossed using the numbers folder. The numbers are highlighted with blue Stazon. The sentiment is computer generated and die cut with a Spellbinders label die.

Friday, December 3, 2010

Off With Their Heads




"Off With Their Heads" is the challenge at Oh Alice this week. It's a crazy and fun challenge where the challenge is to alter your stamps and mix it up a little by giving them a new head or body. It took me a little thinking for this one, but suddenly the lightbulb went on. I thought about the kids books where the pages are divided and when you flip the top or bottom part of the page different heads are matched with different bodies. The characters on this project are the white rabbit (top photo), the caterpillar, the Mad Hatter, the Cheshire cat, the Red Queen, and the frog messenger. Depending upon which page is flipped, you might get the Mad Hatter's head on the frog messenger's body or the Cheshire Cat's head on the caterpillar's body or the Red Queen's head on the White Rabbit's body. You get the picture. There are 36 possibilities, so I'll stop here.

Red and White Ornament Card



The challenge at Bloggers Challenge was ornaments. I guess this may be a bit of a stretch, but I used an ornament as the focal image on a card. It is a swing card and the ornament does hang on the card. It's fun to twist the ornament around several times and watch a person's expression as he/she opens the card and the ornament spins around. The color choice was based on the Play Date Cafe color challenge of red and white. I wish you could see the paper in person. The red ornament is made from very shiny metallic cardstock. The white is paper I received from Paper Temptress. It is absolutely luscious. The base card is some red shimmery cardstock I had in my stash.
This card also fits the Created By Hand challenge. The theme is Christmas countdown. To me the hanging of Christmas decorations definitely denotes the countdown to Christmas.


Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Try That Technique--Marker Watercolor

I made this atc using the Marker Watercoloring technique from the June/July Technique Junkies newsletter. This was the Try That Technique challenge for the week. I must admit that I have never actually created anything with this technique. I tried a couple of times, but didn't like what I did...perhaps I should have used watercolor paper then like the technique calls for. It does work. I used Old Santa from the Artistic Outpost Snowy Woods sheet. Along the side is a strip of tissue tape from Tim Holtz products. The sentiment is highlighted using a Tim Holtz fragment. I may be getting into the spirit of Christmas finally.

Monday, November 29, 2010

Tag time

Simon Says Stamp and Show...a tag. My tag gave me a perfect excuse to use the filmstrip die from Tim Holtz. It worked wonderfully with some postage size transparency images I had from ArtChix. I used the pulled glimmers technique from Technique Junkies, only I used Perfect Pearl mists. I used the pine and pinecone stamp and a snowflakes stamp from Tim's stamp line. I thought it turned out to be a very cheery tag.

Sunday, November 28, 2010

Healthy Eating

The Critter Sketch Challenge 41 is Food. I thought that I needed to share something healthy after all the food I consumed over the Thanksgiving holiday. I had a Club Scrap stencil of an apple which I thought was perfect. The sentiment is also from Club Scrap. It's a favorite of mine.

Joy




The challenge at Color Throwdown was to use the colors so saffron, rich razzleberry, and old olive ( or similar colors). My tree was stamped and embossed on olive paper with stickles for the ornaments. The stamp is from Club Scrap. The large ornament is the carved ornament die, one of the Tim Holtz dies, cut together with the magnetic JOY die. The background is a very sparkly paper. The die cut and tree is sprayed with dazzling diamonds glimmer mist. If you don't like sparkle, this is not the card for you.

Browns

Two challenges this week had brown as part of the challenge. At Play Date Cafe the challenge was to use the colors brown, grey, and silver. I have to say that these were not my favorite colors, but a challenge is a challenge. Created by Hand gave the challenge "Giving thanks/shades of brown". The interesting thing about this card is that I used the stencils and paste technique from the Oct/Nov 2003 Technique Junkies only I used sand paste from MuddPuddles. The sentiment stamp is from Kitchen Sink Stamps.

Saturday, November 27, 2010

Double Distress

The Compendium of Curiosities challenge this week was Double Distress from p. 40 of Tim's book. This challenge matched perfectly with the challenge at Simon Says Stamp and Show which was distress inks. I've been wanting to use my postcard embossing folder for a while. This was the perfect opportunity.  I used crushed olive and pine needle with a touch of frayed burlap and black soot. The script and sentiment are TH stamps. The pencil is from Club Scrap. The oval , postmark, and stamp are stickers from my stash. Memo pins hold the stamp and postmark. This was fun.

Friday, November 26, 2010

Caterpillar to Butterfly

The challenge theme at Oh Alice this week is Caterpillars or Butterflies. In addition we are supposed to use a dictionary page or definition. For my background I used a page from an old dictionary. I stamped Absalom the caterpillar from Alice with embossing ink on the page and embossed him with clear embossing powder. I used a rainbow pad and roller and covered the page with ink. The ink wipes off of the embossed image so Absalom shows through the ink. At the end of his caterpillar life Absalom turns into a beautiful butterfly.

Bloggers Challenge 179


This week the challenge at Bloggers Challenge was a color challenge using rust, blue, and mustard.

I had a set of die cut house ornaments to assemble, so I decided to work on them using the color challenge. I realize that my rust actually photographed more red, but it is really a rust color and the roof on the blue house looks rather pink even though it is white. I used my Creative Inspirations paints to color all of the houses and roofs (except the mustard house and the rust house's roof.) In addition to the color, I played around a  bit with texture. The mustard house was painted with crackle paint and has an adobe-like finish to it. The rust and blue were embossed with different embossing folders. The roof of rust house is covered with a sand mixture giving it a very rough texture. The white house was stamped using blue ink. Each of the houses has a loop to hang them on the tree and on the back is a hole which can be used to put a Christmas light in to light them up. It was a fun project to work on.
I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving . 

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Artistic Outpost Introduces Jane's Countryside

This will be a somewhat lengthy post today, but I hope you'll read through it. There's lots of good information including new stamps, a fabulous sale, and a great challenge.

A wonderful new set of stamps is being released today from Artistic Outpost. The sheet is called Jane's Countryside and is available both unmounted or mounted on EZMount.
Jane's Countryside is Artistic Outpost's homage to Jane Austen, and the tortured romantic tales that she told in her timeless novels, such as Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Emma. This collection features Edwardian ladies dressed in their finery, original quotes from Jane herself, and a regal manor that could have served as the Austen family home.  Coordinating elements include a cameo, key, and a lacey ATC sized background.


Isn't she beautiful standing in front of her regal manor in her elegant clothes? I used CI paints to color the image. I wanted the vivid color against the bright vintage background paper. Because the stamps are unmounted, I was able to curve the sentiment around the bottom of the image oval.

Please visit the other Design Team members to see what they have created with this wonderful stamp set. Gerrie Johnnic, Lisa Somerville, Judy Hayes, Lynn Stevens, Stephanie Severin, Suzanne Czosek

Did I mention sale earlier? Artistic Outpost wants you to start your holiday shopping with us!
From now until November 30th, we're featuring 10% off all rubber stamps, and that's not all! For every $50 you spend, we'll send you a special $10 gift code** (GC valid on purchases January 11 - 31st 2011). Better yet! These gift codes stack! If you spend $100 you will get a $20 certificate, spend $150 get a $30 certificate, you get the idea! Remember, in the US you get free shipping when your order totals $50 ($150 internationally).
Please use the coupon code BlackFriday to receive your 10% reduction on your rubber stamp purchases. **Gift Codes will be emailed to you in December.
*Please note if you order more than 6 sheets of EZMount cling foam, free shipping will not apply. These items are bulkier and require extra shipping costs.
 
There's just a few more days left to enter Artistic Outposts November Referral Program. We'd love to see what you've been creating with the Artistic Outpost images! Click HERE for details on the November Referral Program.
We'll be changing up the Referral Program just a bit for December....Since we know how busy the next few weeks are, we wanted to give you a little advance notice of the changes for December.  For the December Referral Program, we'd like all entries to feature Home Decor/Ornaments or Holiday related projects using Artistic Outpost images.  The Artistic Outpost Design Team will be posting projects using these themes also in December to help inspire you.

Monday, November 22, 2010

Artistic Outpost Sale

Artistic Outpost is having a sale!

From now until November 30th, they're featuring 10% off all rubber stamps, and that's not all! For every $50 you spend, they'll send you a special $10 gift code** (GC valid on purchases January 11 - 31st 2011). Better yet! These gift codes stack! If you spend $100 you will get a $20 certificate, spend $150 get a $30 certificate, you get the idea! Remember, in the US you get free shipping when your order totals $50 ($150 internationally).

Please use the coupon code BlackFriday to receive your 10% reduction on your rubber stamp purchases. **Gift Codes will be emailed to you in December.

*Please note if you order more than 6 sheets of EZMount cling foam, free shipping will not apply. These items are bulkier and require extra shipping costs.

Play Date Cafe Challenge 56


I love the color selection for this week's Play Date Cafe challenge.  We were to use red, olive, and turquoise in our creation. For my card I decided to use the cardinal from Heartfelt Creations and the holly flourish. The background is a piece of My Mind's Eye DP. I had fun using the Perfect Pearls Mists to give a sparkle to the parts of my card. I used Interference Red on the cardinal, turquoise on the background, and perfect pearl on the focal panel. The colors are so alive with the sprays.

Girly girl with Butterflies


The latest Stampotique Designers Challenge is Girly Girl. I thought that this theme went so well with the Ink on my Fingers Sunday Challenge theme which was butterflies. Although we didn't have to use Stampotique stamps in our artwork this challenge, I wanted to use this image from them. I thought she fit the theme well. To emphasize the girly theme I used lots of pinks, some lace and scallops, and flowers and butterflies.The large butterfly is die cut from very sparkly paper. Of course, the scan doesn't show the sparkle. The little butterflies are on ribbon and have been colored to match the card with Creative Inspirations paints. The ribbon was attached to a strip of paper lace. The image was painted with CI paints and the scallop was edged with the paints. I'm actually more of a butterfly person than a girly girl, but I think the card represents well.

Friday, November 19, 2010

Giving Thanks


This week the theme for Bloggers Challenge is Giving Thanks. I thought it would be fun to make a swing card for my project. I'm not sure my photography shows off the card very well, but at least you can get an idea. When the card is totally closed, the flowers and butterfly are what you see. When you open the card, the center swings around and you see the sentiment. The background paper is shiny and a lot of the dots are sparkly.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Time for Tea

Can you guess what the theme at Oh Alice is. Well, it's "Nothin' but Tea and Time on our Hands." I decided to make a clock in the shape of a teapot using Alice characters for the 12, 3, 6, and 9 spots. Yes, it is a working clock. The teapot is made of grungepaper colored with distress ink. To make it more sturdy for holding the clockworks, I attached an old CD to the back for support. The letters are grungeboard painted white and highlighted with a Diva Pearl Pen. The other numbers are represented by gold crystals. The characters are stamped on white cardstock, colored with COPICS, and covered with glossy accents. I guess I should go and check what time it is.

CCC22 with Snowman

Alcohol Ink Splatter is one of my favorite techniques and it is this week's Compendium of Curiosities Challenge theme. (See p52) in Tim's book for the how-to. Since I wanted to use the snowman die with my card, I used somewhat lighter alcohol inks and silver for my metallic. Oops, more silver came out than was supposed to, but I really like how this turned out. Lucky accident! Another bit of luck was the theme for Created Byhand--Snowmen! I have every version of Tim's snowman. I think he's so cool.  The movers and shapers die (LOVE) really adds a great touch to my friend the snowman.