a change of pace.

You know I love my critters, and all of my cutesy stamps, but once in a while I get asked to make something more "elegant."  Hee hee.

There are a lot of bits and pieces on here, but I think by clustering them, and keeping them neutral, it all works.  I started out with a cream card base, and layered an SU patterned paper over-top.  It's called "presto patterns" - I think it's retired now - and made to look like emboss-resist when you rub ink on it.  Tumbled glass distress ink brought out the Shakespeare quote (I see "Puck" in there, and yes, I know it's "a midsummer night's dream", Bethany...)  I also rubbed distress inks (antique linen) on my doily, my stamped-woodgrain-heart (PTI stamp and die), and my "thinking of you banner".  The rolled rose is the only pop of color on top of the neutral cluster, to bring balance to the bright blue underneath...

Thanks for looking!

i just want to say hello.

hello.

oh, baby!

Just a quick card, filled with lawn fawn cuteness for a baby-card-in-a-hurry.  I already had the critters and tree cut out, waiting to be assembled on some kind of project (that's how much I like those little lawn fawn stamps - just color and cut them out for no good reason - they'll eventually end up on a card!)



supplies
stamps: critters in the 'burbs (lawn fawn), A to Z (SU!)
ink: memento black, bashful blue (SU!)
misc: sentiment is an old SU rub-on

back to school...

in less than a week!  Where did the summer go?  Sofia is off to grade 1, with her crazy list of 20 no.2 HB pencils, 4 40-oz glue sticks, 8 32-page Hilroy notebooks, and on, and on, and on.... this isn't kindergarten anymore for sure!  And Thomas - heading into his 2nd year of preschool...with his tiny preschool backpack and 1 kleenex box... I'm excited to see what they'll both learn this year!

In honor of the whole back-to-school rush, I used this week's MIM technique to create my faster-than-lightning bus.  Sofia was appalled when she spied my out-of-the-lines coloring!  I think she might have even muttered to herself, something about how she never colors out of the lines anymore... ha!  Kids!

Just for that, here's a even more close-up view of the bus:

I used "generation stamping" to make it look like the bus is in motion.  I inked up the bus only once and stamped it at full strength on the right.  Then, without re-inking, I stamped it again a few more times, each time moving my hand slightly to the left.  I think the freestyle coloring works really well with the generation stamping technique!

Have a great Friday, and a wonderful weekend!

summer in a jar.

It's PTI blog hop time!  The inspiration photo was summer-in-a-jar for me... her cute gingham dress, the jar of preserves, the garden flowers, and the books!  What a lazy, perfect day she will have... all by herself (I'm pretty sure that's the appeal right now, with my 3 little ones screaming at me even more than usual lately... I could use some of that quiet - hee!)

Here's my take:

A gingham-dress-turned-sky, and a jar full of garden-freshness.

I loved the ribbon that was tied around the neck of her jar, so I stamped onto my seam-binding to mimic the look.

Thanks for looking!

Happy day.

I have another card using the emboss-resist technique for you today - and another floral embellishment!  It feels like I've been putting a lot of flowers on my projects this week ;)

I started with a vintage cream card-base, and clear-embossed the sheet music images over the entire length of the card front.  I rubbed tumbled glass distress ink over the entire area.  Here's a closer look at the embossing:

I distressed a paper doily with antique linen distress ink, and layered a tag-sale 4 shape over it.  On the tag, I stamped images from Button Boutique before adding my floral embellishment and a "turning a new leaf" die-cut piece.  I nabbed the sentiment from my stash of old SU rub-ons...

The flower was so easy to create!  Here's  photo step-by-step:

I punched a 1.75" scallop circle shape, and burnished it with my bone folder (ignore the blatant Martha Stewart product placement!) until the fibers of the paper broke down enough to gently pull them apart.  I then scrunched each scallop circle and placed one on top of the other.  You can mold them even better if you gently mist them with water... Add a rhinestone or button in the center, and voila!  Another kind of floral embellishment.

Thanks for looking!

another wedding card.

I don't have much chatter for you this morning - something about the first day back from vacation, back to being alone with the 3 kids for the first time in 2 weeks... it's all I can do to catch my breath!

This is the 3rd card I made for my cousin Julie's wedding - less a week to go for her big day!  My sister has claimed this one for her own :)

I dusted the box of some of my SU stamps - time to give them some love as well... I stamped the "ornate blossom" image onto some cream cardstock and clear embossed it.  I then layered a hero arts text background, and an old SU background stamp called "sanded" over the top.  The embossed image "resists" any ink you lay over it - I love this technique!  I then went to town with a few colors of distress inks, until I was happy with how it looked.

Hope you like it as much as I do!

CAS-ually embossed.

This week's CAS-ual Fridays challenge is: embossing!

In all honesty, this is my 3rd attempt at a card for this challenge.  I decided the first 2 that I made were pretty, but definitely not clean-and-simple.  I can't seem to heat-emboss without adding layers of stuff on top.  You'll see what I mean when I share the other cards... Anyhow, for this challenge, I dry-embossed instead:

I am so in love with this card... and my new camera lens :)  I added a 50mm lens to my Canon and the blurred background it gives is just the sweetest for photographing my cards... I can't wait to learn a bit more of what it can do!

The vintage cream cardstock (PTI) was embossed with an SU embossing folder.  It gives such a gorgeous texture!  I die-cut an angled label and stamped on it in tumbled glass distress ink with the coordinating image.  The sentiment is from a PTI mat stack set.  The same vine border that lays horizontally across the card was used to cut melon berry felt, and rolled into that scrumptious flower.  Nichole Heady showed how to create one on her blog - it's worth the effort!

on the cool side...

The latest PTI princess challenge was to create card using either only warm or cool tones.  I immediately went cool - the blues of the ocean and the greens of summer found their way onto my card...

I stamped the newsprint background over my white mat, distressed the edges, and cut into it with my "turning a new leaf" die, and popped it up on foam squares.  In the negative space, I stamped the coordinating leaf image.

Thanks for looking!

One layer.

Do you ever make 1 layer cards?  Do you find it easy?  I find it pretty difficult to created enough interest on a card with no layers - I think my foam squares were feeling a bit put out that they stayed in their drawer for this one :)  But they call them "challenges" for a reason, right?  And it's the new one over at the lawnscaping blog.

I have to admit that I planned this one out completely in my head before I ever put ink to paper.  I stamped the banner and the cat images and then created masks for them so that I could stamped the word "meow" repeatedly in shades of grey.  The sentiment and envelope pattern background in pink, and it's one cool & girly card.  (My husband did question the coolness of it, but what does he know about cards, really.)

Supply list
stamps: (lawn fawn) bannerific, critters in the 'burbs, smitty's abcs, (hero arts) envelope pattern background
paper: (PTI) grid lines cardstock
ink: memento black, (SU) basic grey, going grey, blushing bride, various copics

CAS-ual wedding.

Having caught up on all the laundry and cleaning that obviously didn't get done while we were away, I thought I'd jump into one of my favorite weekly challenges: CAS-ual Fridays!

I flipped the sketch and hope I didn't veer too far away from it altogether...

I think this will be the wedding card that I give to my cousin for her upcoming wedding.  My mom already claimed this card for herself :)  This card was inspired by one I had seen on Carrie's blog some time ago.

I started out by stamping my kraft base with PTI's sheet music background stamps.  The next layer, SU's baja breeze cardstock, was stamped with the text stamp from PTI's background basics: hearts.  A-M-O-U-R was stamped using lawn fawn's quinn's abcs and colored in with copic markers.  I cut out the center of the letter "O" and popped the whole panel onto foam squares, allowing some room for glittery red hearts underneath.

I know it's quite casual for what will be a very elegant celebration, but that's never been my style - I love a quirkier wedding card!

Forever love

We're back from the beach!  One week in sunny, beautiful VA beach was exactly what our little family needed... the memories will last a lifetime.

In a little under 2 weeks, my cousin Julie will be married!  So, that means a slew of wedding cards on the blog.  Why a slew?  Because I have to create one from me, one from my mom, and one from my sister.  Of course.

It took so long for my new PTI order to get to me that it was my first time playing around with these goodies! I used the half & half die collection, the vine die, the wonderful words die - all PTI.  The half & half die strip was embossed with my favorite SU square lattice embossing folder.  When distressed, it shows off even more wonderful texture!

The roses are MFT, the mini-rolled-rosettes.  A little bouquet of flowers for the bride and groom.

I die-cut the vines from a very subtle patterned paper (sorry, I can't reference it!) and left enough room on the right to stamp a strip from the coordinating set.

I hope you like it!  I have to admit that after a good 10 days of not crafting, I felt a little rusty trying to create this one.  

And, because I miss it already, here's a shot of Sofia lugging the boogie board back into the ocean for another run...

Have a great day!

dog-gone it!

I had so much fun making my long birdie card, that I wanted to create another card in that 4x9 size.  I stamped the adorable dog from lawn fawn's "critters in the 'burbs" and fussy cut it out before coloring him in.  He was mounted onto some PTI gridlines cardstock with foam squares.

I used PTI's 2.5 inch circle die collection to cut the kraft medallion layer, and then snipped some scrap patterned paper (I think it's leftover SU, but not sure).  The long white layer was stamped with PTI's chevron stripes and then distressed.  That was mounted to a layer of early espresso cardstock and then again to riding hood red (both SU).

I'm counting this as my final entry into the lawnscaping challenge!

Thanks for looking!

we're having...

A whale of a time!

Ok, so I made this card before we got to the beach.  But we are having a wonderful time!  We've been coming to VA beach since I was a child - my dad used to say things like: "oh, you have a rash?  Wait until we hit the ocean."  "sniffles? don't worry, it'll be gone once we sit outside at the beach."  Hilarious, right?  He really is like the dad from "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," only instead of spraying us with windex, he's talking about the beach's magical properties :)

I'm so thankful for the chance to share that magic with my own children!  There is something healing about watching kids play at the beach - the sand in their chubby toes,  their chicken legs running with a bucketful full of water - spilling most of it on their way back... we're loving it!

I whipped up this super-simple card before leaving so that it wouldn't be all chatter and no card-eye-candy...  I used lawn fawn's "critters of the sea."  The smiley-whale was colored and cut out, and mounted with foam squares over the polka dot ocean.  I just noticed I have kind of a US patriotic theme going with my colors... I must have already been heading south in my mind...

Thanks for looking!

Christmas in August...

Our family is off to the beach this morning!  A 14-hour drive with 3 kids in the back of a Honda Accord.  We have DVDs, we have snacks, and we have the hope that we'll arrive in VA beach with our sanity intact - ha!  As we leave for a waterfront week, enjoy this Christmas-y creation!  I'm entering it into a challenge over at SimonSaysStamp and also counting it as entry #2 for the lawnscaping challenge.

I used lawn fawn's "cozy christmas" to make this almost-monochromatic card.  I stamped the fireplace surround onto kraft cardstock and did some copic-marker highlighting...  

I then stamped the stockings onto chocolate chip cardstock (SU) and detailed them with my kids' names... you know, Pottery-Barn-style.  (My sister is obsessed with all things monogrammed and personalized... especially PB stuff!)

Here's the entire card, in all of its Christmas glory!  I used a martha stewart punch to create my green garland, and distressed the leaves with some brown ink.  The white mat was stamped with my vintage wallpaper stamp (marketstreet stamps) - doesn't it look like fabric wallpaper?  I also distressed all of the edges.  The sentiment is SU.

Thanks for looking!

say cheese!

Excuse me while my photo develops...

Eeek!  I had the idea of making my own little polaroid picture - what do you think?  The one that comes with the "say cheese" set (lawn fawn) is too big for the camera to spit out!  I drew and cut the tiny polaroid out and then stamped on it using PTI's tiny treats: birthday images.  Some distressing around the cake helped to define the "picture area."  I cut a slit into the camera using a craft knife and mounted that layer onto my card with foam tape so that the recipient of this card could "play" with it a bit!

Have a great day!

lawnscaping challenge - it's distressing!

Lawn fawn stamps? distressed inking or edges?  Yes, yes, yes!  I broke out my lawn fawn stamps for the newest lawnscaping challenge and had some fun... I made enough cards to share with you over the next few days.... so be prepared... cute critters and a Christmas card (even though I missed the whole "Christmas in July" bit, right?)

I inked up, copic-colored, and cut out the barnyard critters... and that fence!  I colored and cut it out also... what I learned is that my craft knife is a smidge on the dull side... I kept wishing that I had the PTI fence die - but this one turned out pretty cute, I think!

The clouds backgrounds is a Hero Arts stamp - I inked it up in pool party ink (SU) and used tumbled glass distress ink around the edges.

The kraft base was also stamped with a Hero Arts background (envelope pattern) and was then distressed using white ink.

Thanks for looking!