Vintage-y Birthday

Tonight I decided to play with some of my as-yet-unopened SU goodies from the Occasions Mini. I opened my Attic Boutique Side Notes and my Attic Boutique DSP and started to fondle the papers. So pretty!

Sketch. I needed a sketch to inspire me. I sifted through my pile of neglected sketches and chose this one from Skipping Stones Designs:

Too bad it's over a week old! Sigh. But it's still a nice sketch and I still used it to make this:

There are four different paper patterns here, which is why I chose this sketch. And yeah, I added the Pool Party seam binding, mostly because it's such a perfect match. :)

The tag I used from the Side Notes was white-white, and it clashed with the yellow-ish colors in the papers, so I dirtied it up by sponging some Sahara Sand over it:

and I also rubbed it onto a stamped-off Parlor Prints background to give it a pattern-y look. Yes, my Crumb Cake ink is still MIA. :( The sentiment is from Sincere Salutations. And those tiny yellow tickets are a strip of three tickets I took apart and stuck on (in numerical order, of course) for the bling element of the sketch. They are also from the Side Notes pack. Lots of fun stuff in there!

In other news, I watched another stamp carving class this evening - we'll make a Damask stamp! Whoot! I hope I don't draw blood. I'll be sure to post it once I get it finished.

Thanks for stopping by!

MFT Sketch (not)

I set out this evening to accomplish one thing: to make a card. I wanted to combine the SCS Color Challenge of Pool Party + Island Indigo + White, and I chose the current MFT sketch to use as a starting point. Here's the sketch:

 And here is my card:

You should immediately notice I'm missing an element. This is what happens when you have so much s-crap on your table that part of the sketch is obliterated from view. :( I suppose that bird would count, if I had it on the other side, but I didn't WANT it on the other side.

I also stretched the sketch elements by saying that cage is the center rectangle. I was going to put it on a white rectangle, but then decided against it.

I have this thing about birds and cages, which is why you've never seen me stamp a bird in a cage. I didn't even buy that set. However, I like a bird sitting on top of a cage, so that's what I did here.

As for the stash, I had to open my 12x12 pack of the 2011-2113 In Color papers and chose the Island Indigo for the main panel and the Pool Party for the smaller panels. The die-cuts and sentiment are from MFT. The pearls - excuse me ... stickers* ... are from Archiver's - thanks, Libby! Thanks also to Silke Ledlow who told me I could find these at Archiver's. I <3 the Interwebz.

Here is a closer shot of the sentiment, so you can read it:

Sortof.

I think I'll go stamp something else. Thanks for stopping by!

* I have been combing the Web for anything that even resembles a silver "pearl", and have found nothing. My wonderful LSS even ordered me "silver pearls", but they are matte, not chrome-y. When Silke sent me the link to Archiver's, we noticed they are called "stickers". No wonder we couldn't find them! Sheesh - semantics. Dear stores, If you want to sell more "stickers" that look like "pearls", add a key word. Please. Love, Me.

Go Around Me

I love some good irreverence, and my bloggy and tweepy pal, Libby sent me an irreverent stamp (THANK YOU!), so it HAD to be used, and right away!

I followed (pretty much) this week's Mojo Monday sketch:

Okay, they said round or square, and I went with rectangle, but I made this in the spirit of the sketch:

When I first saw the sentiment, I knew immediately I needed to pair it with this stamp from one of my GinaK sets. And I do encounter one of these women at least once a day. Some day, soon, I hope that's me. :)

I paper-pieced the car, and I just noticed I forgot to go back and color the bumper silver or chrome. Oh, well. Oh, the sentiment is from Art Impressions.

Happy Hump Day! And thanks for stopping by!

Carving homework - Bracket Stamp

Last night I carved the next stamp in our lesson series - a square bracket:

We had the option of cutting down the outer part to just outside the image, but I know me pretty well, and although it was part of our lesson, I took the other option and left it intact. There's one in every class, right?

Here's the card I made using my new stamp:

Yes, the original image was symmetrical. No, I didn't trace it very well (it was 10 pm, people). Yes, I'm calling it "rustic". 

I followed the current Sweet Sunday sketch:

Now I need to tell you about the parts-is-parts I used. That sentiment is stamped on a banner I cut out of a piece of craft wood. I got this idea when looking at links tweeted from the floor of CHA*, and they showed packages of wooden banners with sentiments on them. HELLO! MFT die + wood + stamp + ink = FREE! Hmph.

The papers are from my still-out Memory Box valise pack. The flower has been on my desk for weeks, just waiting for the right project. Oh, about the stamped image... I stamped it on vanilla and cut it out by hand (it's rustic, after all) then stamped a not-yet-cleaned mesh background stamp over it (had a little red on it), then stamped over it again with River Rock - SOMEONE STOLE MY CRUMB CAKE INK PAD! Grrr, Can't find it anywhere. (See what all you neat people miss out on?)

So there you have it! Now I need to go upload my homework so Teach can critique my work.

Thanks for stopping by!

*CHA = Craft & Hobby Association. All the stamp and paper and embellishment companies get together and show off their new stuff. As of now I need most of it. This one doesn't allow the public in. Some of them do, and OMG, I am so not going, ever. Can you say "enablement"? I don't need help with that.

SOS #37 - People or Bugaboo

Peeeeeeeople. People who need peeeeeeople ... Sorry, it popped into my noggin. Welcome to this week's challenge over at Shopping Our Stash: People. You need to have a person, or personS, on your card. Alternatively, you can use a Bugaboo image, since they are our sponsor this week. AND, because this is a sponsored challenge, you could WIN something!  :)

People. I've got people. In fact, I've got Bugaboo people, so yeah, I'm over-achieving a bit here. HOWEVER, there is a lot of stash used, so let's see that card, then I'll go into the spiel. Here she is:

The papers are new - from my now-opened Basic Grey indie bloom. I'm using up the (gah) pink papers first. The rest of them are quite lovely. :D The stamp images are from an old-but-never-used stamp set, and yes, I'm very proud. More new stuff: I used a few of my new Copic colors: YR27 on the pearls, and BG90 on the background, which you might be able to see if I could take a decent photo. For more old stuff: the SU photo corner punch retired years ago, and the yellow buttons are from an old SU box of Fresh Favorites. Yeah, they are that old. They might be Apricot.

This card is loosely based on this week's Taylored Expressions sketch:

I said "loosely".

Now it's your turn! Go into your stash and find something either "people" or Bugaboo, make a card, then come back and link us up over at Shopping Our Stash so we can see what you've made!

Thanks for stopping by!

Belated Birthday

For my last project tonight, I pulled out this sketch from Card Positioning Systems:

and opened my new pack of Cosmo Cricket Clementine papers (which is just so yummy!) and this came out:

The small panel with the sentiment is from the pack, too (the panel is, not the sentiment); I trimmed it down a little. I like the little green hill and flowers on that panel - it looks so right. The sentiment is from Paper Smooches.

My Happy Accident of the moment was when I went looking for a button and saw the package of unopened Cosmo Cricket Material Girl buttons hanging from the hook on my lamp that is my accessory overflow. Okay, one of the overflows. See:

Since the button package was not re-sealable, the contents have been put into an old SU embellishment container and have been stowed ... somewhere else. At least it's one less thing hanging there. Baby steps.

Alrighty, then. I think I'll go do more laundry so I can go to work tomorrow.

Thanks for stopping by!

A Tri-Shutter Card

One of my tweepy and bloggy pals, Cindy (aka: The Crafty Frugalista) makes these a-ma-zing tri-fold cards, and I've been wanting to try one for a long time. Since I'm still in my jammies, and haven't done much but stamp today, I used this as an excuse to give it a try. She makes it really easy by giving you detailed directions with measurements and pictures and everything.

This is not just a tri-FOLD card, although it is cut and scored exactly like the one I made earlier today if you fold it that way. But no, hers is unique in how she cuts and folds the center section, making it a tri-SHUTTER card. Here's what I just made so you can see what I'm talking about:

You probably want to go to her blog and see some of hers - like this one, or this one, or these. Here's the view of mine from the top:

 Please pardon all the s-crap laying around. My ghetto photo studio now doubles as a stamp-carving station. I told you this place was small.

Part of my problem was I had two pieces of patterned paper in the "WTH was I thinking" pile, and I decided to use them both; they were of the same family, but they didn't go with each other. Here is the card I made with the other one (not quite finished):

I lacked a coordinating patterned paper for the center panels, so I made do with white scallop squares for the sides and a rectangle for the center. I believe this one may also be a birthday card.

One of the reasons I don't scrapbook is the huge pallet. Um, I see a card with three - THREE - panels that must be addressed, and my head hurts. I do believe I shall only make these for special occasions, but I'm glad I tried it! I think YOU should, too!  :)

Thanks for stopping by!

Sketchy Sympathy

Sometimes I let my crafty supplies drive my card-making decisions. I spied the now-retired SU Notebook Edge punch (or whatever it was called - I'm too lazy to go look it up in an old catalog) and decided I needed to use it on a card. I love the old thumb-style punches.  Sigh.

I pulled out this week's Freshly Made Sketch:

... for the border options, then I just needed to decide on the main image. For those of you who put everything away after each card you make, this will not make any sense at all. For the rest of you - and I do believe you are in the majority - I saw this ink pad still out on my desk:

and decided it needed to be used. I dragged it across a piece of white, then decided it looked like earth and sky, and therefore needed a silhouette stamped on top of it. This is what eventually came out:

I love the Pool Party seam binding, but I'm not loving it wrapped around the black. It loses most of its appeal. I colored some pearls with my B05 Copic, and stuck in a sentiment. I like this ink so much, I might go for a do-over with a different border approach. We'll see. I might be distracted before that, but something will happen, besides more laundry, of course.

Thanks for stopping by!

Scrappy Guy Card

So I realized yesterday that my younger son's birthday is this week, and I needed to make him a card. You know how that goes, right? I might have a bazillion birthday cards laying around, but they aren't "special" ... made just for him. I'm convinced this is why I don't send more cards; they all have to be special, and I simply run out of time!

I just made this:

 The card is 100% from the stash, including the card base, and yes, I am very proud.  The base has been languishing on my crafty desk for weeks. It's part of an old kit from which I used the parts, but not the bases, both of which were folded textured cream card stock. I've used one of them for sentiments - cut it up without a care, and this one I wanted to use intact.

That's a belly band holding it closed. Here it is open:

The DSP was in The Heaplet, and it is now mostly gone. (yay) It's two-sided, so I took advantage of that and just used pieces from both sides. I mitered those inside corners myself. (yes, proud, again)   The stars are on purpose, mostly because I totally botched that one corner. I think it looks like I meant to do that. Afterwards, I decided it would have needed something, anyway, so there you go! :D  Since I had the stars on the inside, the belly band decoration was an easy decision.

Okay, I'm going back in for some more!  Thanks for stopping by!

MFT Sketchy Birthday

I've been a stamping fool today, but most of the cards have been for the Feb & Mar VSN challenges, so I can't reveal them until their appointed times. Oh, the humanity! :(

I made one that is based on this week's MFT sketch:

and I made a second one (different, but based on the same sketch) so I could POST SOMETHING already. And here it is:

Naturally I can't leave well enough alone, so I turned it. No, not to be different, but because the size of the remnant of that poppy paper was less than 5.5 inches, so it would only fit in this direction. Sometimes you just have to make do and let your supplies dictate your path.

Recipe: SU Domestic Goddess DSP and Poppy Parade card stock; Misc white card stock die-cut with the small MFT Open Scallop Doily; Circle DSP cut with a Nestability; Sentiment by Paper Smooches; Brad by SU.

BONUS Happy Accident: The SU brad PERFECTLY matches the DSP. I was looking for a button, and was ready to MAKE a button out of the DSP, when I spied this brad (from a SAB set). Sweet.

In other news, it is 8:00 pm and I'm still in my jammies. HOWEVER, I have accomplished a lot today, including bagging up all the cards I've made the past week or so, posting seven of them in my Etsy store, and I'll take the rest to Chloe's tomorrow and do inventory. Then I'll come home and stamp some more. There's challenges piled up in there! :)

Thanks for stopping by!