SOS Challenge 42: Embossing or Meljens

It's time for a new challenge at Shopping Our Stash! This week our theme is Embossing. That can be dry embossing, or heat embossing, or both! Or you can use a Meljens image, since they are sponsoring us this week. LOTS of options! And if you don't have any embossing folders or fancy machinery, you could pull out some old-style brass templates and use a stylus to dry-emboss a design onto your paper or card stock. Personally, I think if you can even find your brass templates you should get bonus points.

Alrighty, then. Here's my card for this week's challenge:

I inked up the inside of a Sizzix embossing folder with Ranger Distress Antique Linen ink to get that colored background on the white card stock. I layered it onto Baja Breeze Bermuda Bay card stock, wrapped some Baja Breeze Bermuda Bay ribbon around it, and stuck it onto a Kraft card base.

The sentiment is from Paper Smooches, stamped in Versamark and heat-embossed with black embossing powder.

Now, about that flower. I thought the card was just fine without it, but there was a stray ... something ... on the embossed piece, and it just wasn't right. So I added the flower:

I cut it with an MFT die, and embossed the Baja Breeze Bermuda Bay part with my SU Lattice embossing folder, mostly because it was out.

Now it's your turn! Go dig out some embossing stuff, use it to make your card, then come back over to the Shopping Our Stash blog and link us up so we can see what you've made!

Thanks for stopping by!

Digi Papers + Bermuda Bay

One of my bloggy peeps, Mel, has been posting some fabulous digi papers over at her blog. I've downloaded several of them. She has bright patterns (chevrons, moroccan tile, vine outline),  ephemera, vintage - all sorts of goodness. I printed a few on linen paper to try them out, and today I used one to make this:

 I used the moroccan tile outline in blue raspberry for the center panel, and I've paired it here with retired SU Bermuda Bay card stock. I also tried my hand at the Punch Around The Page thing again, but this time I sacrificed a piece of white card stock, practicing until I got the measurements right to make a rectangle instead of a square.

I embossed the larger Bermuda Bay layer with one of my Lifestyle Crafts embossing folders so it wasn't so booooring. You can kinda see it here under all those punched scallops:

And no, I still haven't played the MFT sketch this week. There's still time. :)

Thanks for stopping by!

Mojo Monday - Take a Pill

I went looking for the current (not 2 weeks old - CURRENT) MFT sketch, but I got distracted by this week's Mojo Monday sketch:

and I made this:

It all started with my MS Punch Around The Page punches. My pal, Natalie, is the master of the Punch Around The Page punches (check out her SCS gallery - gorgeous stuff!), and since this is the only set I have, well ... that's what I used!

I chose a really, really busy piece of DSP from my still-out pack of SAB Everyday Enchantment papers (you want these - you really do) and punched around a 5" square. The insert in the package tells you what size papers will work to get the perfect meet-up in the corners, which is always my personal challenge.

So I had that red piece of DSP and the Vanilla textured card stock base. I stared at it a bit, and that's when I went in search of a sketch that would jump-start my mojo, and the Mojo sketch was it. How convenient!

The other pieces of DSP are from more of the same DSP pack - all small remnants that now live on a card. :) I always store the remnants of my SU DSP in the original package so I can remember what else they go with. These do NOT land in the Heaplet.

Here's some detail:

Flower and leaves were cut with dies from the MFT Prima Donna Petals set.  Sentiment is from the MFT Twisted Foursome set. Pearl is SU.

Okay, NOW I'm going to look for the MFT sketch. :) Thanks for stopping by!

Making A CASE Your Own

I've discussed here before that I don't ever really CASE a card 100%; I always change something to make it my own. Most of the time that's because I don't have the same materials - card stock, dies, stamps, whatever; but it's MORE because I feel I have to change it. I HAVE to.

To show you want I mean ... this week I saw two cards that sent me into CASE mode. First is this one from JoanB. It sent me off in search of a flower die-cut I could use. I REALLY wanted to get my paws on that Silhouette cut file, and I eventually found it, but not until after I'd finished my card. I even spent a few hours trying to draw my own in Silhouette Studio! In the end, I used a die from poppystamps and made this:

Not bad, not bad. The letters are from my MFT alphabet die set. I love the font!   There was still something that bugged me about this, and I realized it was the horizontal black strip ... it's wider than the letters, so it's "off". Of course, I needed a re-do:

Much better! And brighter! O-O For this one I used tiny black buttons in the flower centers.

I called it done.

Next was this card from Wendy W. Yeah, it was a green week. Here's my version, then I have a sob story for you:

I switched out the green she used for some Pool Party. This was crazy-easy to make and genius on Wendy's part. Ready for my sob story? Notice the ribbon I used? See how it's NOT black with white dots? That is because in my V A S T collection of every color ribbon but the one I need, I do not own a black ribbon with white dots. I KNOW!  So I thought I'd show you. :)

Here is my box of Every Color Neutral Ribbon But The One I Need:

I pulled out everything that looked like black with white dots:

From left to right:
- too skinny
- taffeta
- taffeta
- grey

Then I spotted this:

Nope - brown.

And oh, look - two whites with black spots:

But No. Black. With. White. Spots. Sigh. I called it a night and went to bed.

So this morning I convinced myself I needed to go to Mike's to fix this problem. I even showered before 9 am! Then I talked myself out of it, because I don't need no stinkin' black ribbon with white spots. I CAN BE DIFFERENT! So I layered a scrap of white taffeta dotted ribbon over a piece of black satin:

It's different, and I like it! :) You can also see my sentiment is different. I used (FOR THE FIRST TIME) my Four Frames set and used my Stamp-A-Ma-Jig to line up the sentiment. I punched the flowers from Pool Party.

I kinda like my versions of both of these cards. :)

Oh, and mark your calendars for next weekend: the March VSN weekend over on Splitcoast is Friday and Saturday, March 9th and 10th! I'm hosting one of the challenges, so be sure to stop by and play!

Thanks for stopping by!

Leap Day Challenge

Earlier today, my bloggy pal and tweep Lydia (aka: Understand Blue) was issued a challenge over on SplitCoast to create a card for Leap Day. The challenge was to use something that leaps. :) She asked us to play along, and I had an idea... but was trapped - TRAPPED, I TELL YOU - by the pesky Day Job.

When I finally arrived home, I was greeted by Happy Mail - my green Faber Castell Gelatos arrived! And they went perfectly with my original idea, so into The Captain's Quarters I went.

I wanted to play with a few other techniques using the Gelatos that have so far failed me.  This time I scribbled them onto some SU Very Vanilla card stock:

Then misted them and blended the colors with the brush that comes with the Gelato set:

Then I stamped my image:

I likey! Then I realized the images were too close together to die-cut them. I decided I liked the colors on the left better, so I went with those and re-did the coloring/misting/schmearing/stamping. In fact, I liked it so much I re-did it FOUR MORE TIMES until I got it right. ;/ Here is the final one:

Then, since the mess was still out, I tried coloring a glittery Thicker. here's the tool set I used:

 Water (in an old Flower Soft container), brush, Acrylic block, and Gelato pen/marker. I colored the Gelato onto the acrylic block, smeared it around with a wet brush, then painted it onto a glitter test letter:

It's pretty cool! I also colored the Gelato right onto the letter and wet it, and it looked the same, but was a lot messier. Then I decided against the green glitter letter idea for this card, and went with a stamped sentiment instead. Here's my finished Leaping Frog card:

 Yes, I think that bling was a stoopid idea. Too late. And another close-up of our green friend:

I'm off to post this to my Splitcoast gallery. You should come play! Use keyword SCSFBLY2012 if you do!

Thanks for stopping by!

SOS Challenge 41 - Sentiment or Bugaboo

It's time for another challenge over at Shopping Our Stash! This week we ask you to use a sentiment on your card. I KNOW, how much easier could it be? In keeping with the spirit of the SOS challenge blog, I thought about using a sentiment that hasn't seen ink yet, then I did it one better and used a set that hasn't seen ink yet, and it's a Bugaboo set, to boot! :)

Here's my card:

It all started with that piece of patterned paper retrieved from The Heaplet. The blue layers are SU Pacific Point. I stamped the image on a remnant of white, then cut it into a rectangle, thinking I'd put it over that die-cut oval, but it looked really bad. Then I got this idea I'd round the top edge with an oval Nestie, which I did:

But you can see I didn't do a very good job centering it. ;/ This, people, is how I get ideas for embellishments. I'd already colored her, so I was NOT starting over! I decided I needed to somehow balance the crookedness with ... something ... on the right side, so I used the skinny SU SAB ribbon and threaded it through the holes in the die-cut piece, and tied the bow.

At least it sorta looks like I meant to do that. Sorta.

This set has several sentiments, but I chose the snarkier one, of course.

Now it's YOUR turn. Go rummage in your stash and find an unloved sentiment, make a card with it, then come back to Shopping Our Stash and link us up so we can see what you've made!

Thanks for stopping by!

A Lattice Birthday

Last night I decided to play with one of my new Memory Box dies and whatever else I had laying around, which in my world is quite a lot. I started with a sketch, but went off target, so I just used it to get started.  Here's my card:

 The sketch was from Just Add Ink:

and you can see where it kinda fits, but then again ... not. My favorite part of this card is the die-cut lattice:

I've seen so many digital images and background stamps with this pattern ... I've even tried to draw one of my own in Silhouette Studio, but it didn't work quite right. I need more practice. But THIS die --- oooh la la! My only challenge is getting it to stick! I tried the Xyron, but because of all the open space, I have to do a lot of erasing with the adhesive eraser. Not fun. The one I tried and eventually trashed had four strips of the lattice and I got a bit grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, if you know what I mean.

I got smarter and only did one strip of lattice here, but I was still challenged with the adhesive options. I tried my glue pad, even re-glued the surface and rubbed it in reeeeal good, but it's either defective, or *I* am defective (distinct possibility there), or ... I don't know what. Darn thing wouldn't stick. I eventually went over it with the SU 2-way glue pen and leaned on it heavily for a while. It mostly stuck. You can see where the edges still stick up a bit. But I'm okay with that! :)  I'm in deep like with this die, in spite of its challenges.

And in this corner:

I'm pretty happy with this corner. This was me in full stash-shopping mode. :) That circle die (from MFT) had a big empty in the center, and I filled it with some green chipboard flowers I've had for ages, and I used TWO of them here! Plus another button from one of my Blue Buttons jars. Yes, I'm very proud.

Alrighty, then. By now you've realized it's MONDAY. Sorry I can't fix that for you, but try and have a good one. I plan to end my work day with a massaaaaaage, so I'm good. :)

Thanks for stopping by!

CASE x 2

I went into The Captain's Quarters a while ago, intent on trying a new technique, and instead I was distracted by the image of a card one of my bloggy pals, Paige, made. Paige, is my hero. She actually uses all her SU card stock and paper stash, and I am so very jealous on almost a daily basis. This is the card I CASEd (second one in her post), and here is my version:

 It's the same papers and basic layout, but I did the circle differently, left off the row of pearls, and added a sentiment. Because the glare is so bad, here is a close-up of the colors:

Not much better, I know. For those of you not yet hoarding the SU SAB papers, GET BUSY! OMGosh, I love them. The pack of 12x12 papers is one of the free items you can earn with your $50+ order though the end of March.

Because I don't get out much, I noticed for the first time the awesome green & blue pattern on the back of that orange paper, so I had to make a second card:

 These are more typical "me" colors, and as an added bonus, I used my Pool Party seam binding to match the papers and the Pool Party layer under the pretty papers:

Okay, NOW I'm going to go try that technique I mentioned earlier. I hope there's not another "oh, shiny" moment! :)

Thanks for stopping by!

Jingle Belles 12-05 - Stuck On You

The current challenge over at Jingle Belles Rock is Stuck On You! This week we were to include rub-ons or stickers on our cards. Fortunately for me, my 12x12 pack of Basic Grey Figgy Pudding is still out by my feet, so I used some of the remnants stored in the package, along with a few of the stickers in the pack, to make this:

 The rows of scallops were inspired by my pal Lisa's card here. My stickers are the ornament that's hanging from the ribbon and the star I stuck onto it. :)

Also, I used Thickers for even more sticker points! The thing with Thickers, or at least these Thickers, is they are smooth, and you have to rough them up a bit to ink them (or use StazOn, which I wasn't.) I first sanded the letters to remove the "smooth", then added a layer of Gesso and let it dry. I went back and sponged SU Crumb Cake ink on the letters to make them not so WHITE, then stamped them with the SU Weathered background stamp ink in Memento brown. Here's one up close and personal:

I kinda like those letters. :D  I wonder what I can do with some of my other Thickers. Hmmm ...

In other news, I need to move that pack of Figgy Pudding paper from in front of my feet, along with the 5 or 6 or 10 other packs, so I can actually stand at my desk instead of reaching for it. Sigh, a woman's work in never done.

So come on over to the Jingle Belles' blog and play along! And thanks for stopping by!

More New Toys

Despite the title of this post, I have taken great steps today to reduce the Want Monster in my life. I've decided I do not need every 6x6 Basic Grey pad made from this day forth, so I canceled my standing I WANT ONE OF EACH order. Now I will only use what I have and what I buy by the sheet. This will reduce both my current stash and the incoming traffic. Win-win!

I also ordered the complete set of Tim Holtz markers. Why? Because the pesky Want Monster saw all the cool stuff he did with them via enabling CHA videos. But today I checked to see if there was a wait list for them, and since there was, I declined the entire set and only bought 6 single markers and the white (picket fence). See?!?!?! Baby steps. Plus, someone else is now very, very happy to own the complete set! I win again! :)

I did, however, use those two steps to justify the purchase of another set of Faber Castell Gelatos, this time the blue/green set:

 Love them! Remember this card I made yesterday with the metalics? I made the same card today with these four new colors:

I might be in love. As soon as my winner-winner-chicken-dinner Green Gelatos arrive, I'll do this again. Once I run out of this Bazzill embossed card stock, I'll be embossing my own, but until then, I'll be lazy. :)

Thanks for stopping by!