Tuesday, September 30, 2014

SOS #171: Sunshine On A Cloudy Day

Happy Tuesday! It's time for a new challenge at Shopping Our Stash. This week's theme is Sunshine On A Cloudy Day, and we'd like you to use a sun or clouds on your project.

Is anyone else humming this right now:



You're welcome.

For my card, I used both:


I needed an excuse to break out my not-yet-used MFT Sun, Moon & Stars dies, and this was perfect. I've used clouds on a sponged sky before, but not with a sun.

I cut the sun from one of my UFOs, which was an embossed paper colored with a rainbow. I don't even remember how I made it, but the orange & yellow part became a sun. I die-cut a few clouds from some textured card stock and put them at different levels under and over the sun.

There are a few more drawn birds than usual, and that's because I found a spot of ... something ... on one of the clouds, so I drew a bird over it, then another, then one on the card base, then two more to keep it an odd number. Sigh.

You know how you just KNOW you have a sentiment somewhere, but you look at your collection of sentiment sets and dread looking through them? Yeah, I was there. This is the first "you are my sunshine" I came across, so it got used. I may or may not have others. One of these days I'll figure out an index system. Actually, I made an index many moons ago, but then it got way out of date, and I gave up. Perhaps it's time I begin again. I'll keep you posted on that effort.

So, I think you should play along with us this week at SOS. Why not pop over and see what the other ladies have made to inspire you, and leave them some comment love?

Thanks for stopping by!






Monday, September 29, 2014

Suck It Up, Cupcake!

I love when I find new irreverence. Check out this card I made using a new set from Taylored Expressions:


I looove the expression on the critter's face, and that saying rocks! I didn't have to do much but stamp and die-cut the critter (yes, coordinating dies!), color him, and put him on a strip of patterned paper.

I followed this now-expired Clean and Simple challenge sketch:


I made the card in time, I just didn't link it up in time. The card might have been buried in my stack of un-done challenges that I just purged from my desk so I could function.

Go ahead, click on that link below (Ellen Hutson carries these in addition to getting them directly from Taylored Expressions). You know you want to. :)

You will see this set again very soon. I think I need some irreverence to spark my waning mojo.

Thanks for stopping by!

Stuff I used: Basic Grey Hey Girl 6x6 paper pack, miscellaneous black card stock, and the following:



Saturday, September 27, 2014

September ODBD Challenge

Once again, I've failed to keep up, and I almost missed the chance to make a card for the Operation Write Home Our Daily Bread Designs monthly challenge. Each month ODBD offers to pay for shipping for up to two boxes of cards to our heroes overseas. The only things WE need to do is get 50 people to post a card for the challenge. This month we're at 46, so I'm here to make it 47!

September's challenge is to make your own background, so I cheated and pulled one from my UFO pile and used it to make this card:


I made this by first stamping a Hero Arts background onto water color paper and heat-embossing it with white embossing powder. Then I used Distress Markers to color in the openings, one at a time. It was a technique I think Shari Carroll shared at some point, but I've sadly forgotten where. You color the marker onto two sides of the opening, then use a water brush to pull the color out and fill in the rest of the space. It makes a cool dark-to-light effect! It's tedious, but the result is lovely!

I have no idea why I haven't used this piece until now, but I'm glad I have -- easiest card ever! I just had to trim it and add a sentiment.

We still need a few more entries -- only one per person. And we can go over 50, too! :) If you have time, please make your own background and come on over to link up!

Thanks for stopping by!