Some cards, a new title and a question

Yesterday when I mentioned I had 2 new cards being published, someone wanted to know what kind of hit I would be now. After some googling and research I have concluded that I am a 4 hit wonder, as is Whitesnake: Here I go again, Is this love, Fool for your loving, The deeper the love.

Now for some eye candy:

Bunny slippers…..looks mighty comfy! I wanted her robe to look lived in so I created a faux chenile texture on it. This could also be what I needed this week, with both the girls sick and all of my back issues I need a big comfry robe to stuff all the tissues in.

This is just one of my favorite quotes! I love looking at it, reading it makes me feel good inside. The cards are pretty straight forward, MFT stamps on the first and Unity on the second. I’m tired so I want to scoot off the computer, I’ll come back with detail information in the morning.

Bloggers challenge and a little extra!

This week’s challenge is insects……pretty easy and fun for me, I love insect stamps! I guess the challenge would be picking out which one I want to use. I chose the ‘Fantastical floral’ set from Unity:

Ah, a butterfly! Probably the most “friendly” or non creepy insect around. Although I think a ladybug is people first choice for insects that don’t bother them. No, I haven’t been watching a marathon of family feud, lol.

And since I’m feeling generous again, I thought I would share another card made for a sketch challenge on SCS.

These little images are sooooo darling! And the sentiments are so fun……”Lovin from the oven”.

Those silly clear buttons. I just HAD to have them and I rarely remember to pull them out! I have developed a button obsession, infact I received a new bag o’ buttons today! YIPPEEE!

Oh, and I’ve got a special project that you can see over on the Unity Stamp blog. So if you haven’t been there take a peek!

Unity for cardmakers, scrapbookers and jewelry designers!

One of the things I love so much about the Unity Stamp images are they are so visually appealing! There is something for everyone! When looking through the images, what I like to see is versatility. Not just for paper crafts, but to see if I can extend it to anything else. There are so many images that are perfect for jewelry design, and I am so excited to share this project with you.

The picture below has the basic supplies; polymer clay, rolling pin, cookie cutters, embossing powders and inks. The rolling pin and cutters were all in the cake decorating dept. at Michaels, as they are used for fondant. But the roller comes with attachments on the end to allow you an even thickness and the cutters are sized right for what I have needed so far. PLUS they were all super cheap! After standing and staring at the polymer clay accessories thinking there had to be something cheaper……..I walked to the other side of the store!

You will roll out your clay and then cut in the desired shape, place on parchment paper lined cookie sheet and bake 15 minutes at 275. EASY!!!!

To stamp and emboss an image on the clay you need to use either a craft ink, versamark OR brilliance graphite ink. The brilliance is a thicker ink and holds onto the embossing powder the same as the craft or sticky versamark.

I used the round shaped tree from Tiny Trinity for this pendant:

Using your heat gun on this is similar to on paper, you want to watch the EP “change” and get glossy to know it is done. Then you can color it in! YEP, copic markers work on polymer clay! They have much more texture and look like painting, but I really like the effect.

I started with a pale olive, then added olive to it. You can see that it starts to look like stained glass, with the different colors peeking through.

I wanted to add even more texture, so I used some lace stickles on the tips of the leaves and poured microbeads onto it.

I have these punched metal tins from Making Memories that I love to use in jewerly. You can stamp on them, do photo transfers…..just ton’s of fun stuff. The sad thing is that they are discontinued and I have had to do lots of ebaying to keep up a good supply. I adhered the clay to the metal base with resin.

To finish the piece, I added half back pearls, some jewelry findings and platinum stickles around the pendant.

The great thing about using your stamps for jewelry is that you can make it as simple or detailed as you want. You don’t need the metal base, or coloring. Simply stamping and embossing then giving a sealant in resin would look fabulous.

I hope I have inspired you to look at your stamps a little differently. Take a look at your stamps, notice how the design looks on a smaller scale by stamping it and then punching out a small circle. The possibilities of stamping with clay are pretty big and I’m excited to share even more of those with you throughout the month!

Please let me know if you have any questions, or if you try this! I would love to see your creation!

A new favorite and an old favorite

Today I got the chance to play with my big order of fresh MFT stamps! I also picked up a pack of the memory box homespun paper and I just love it! I had been eyeing it for a while but decided to just get it this time. I also threw in 2 packs of petaloo flowers, jeweled florettes. I don’t know how I was missing these for so long! You get 80 flowers in a pack with crystals in the center!

Now you had to know that I would love the Flopsey charchter! After all I am the gal who made these for my ATC swap.

So I was giggling as the previews came in for flopsey! I KNEW I had to have him, and I just couldn’t wait to play!

The finished size is 4 1/4 squared. And I just have to make sure to dirty up the wheelbarrow, overalls, carrots (they are straight from the ground) and a touch of soil on his little tail! I can’t wait to see what other adventures Flopsey is going to have!

And because your visiting while I’m feeling generous, I have another card to share with you! (wink)

I’ve actually had this image colored for a couple weeks, but yet to put the card together. Luckily I didn’t forget about it and got busy while I had some time today.

Be sure to join me Thursday as I host the Unity Stamps project of the week! It’s a fun one!

Jacksonbelle Tuesday- color challenge!

I have a lot to post today and I’m super late doing it so these will all be short and sweet. This weeks challenge was a red, black and bashful blue color challenge. They are great colors but I cheated a bit with the black and swapped basic grey CS as the base. You all know by now how hard rules are for me to follow! Oh and I finally used my little corner stamps on this.

Be sure to check out all the other DT’s blogs for great inspiration! And Lindsey has the C-U-T-E-S-T line in right now from October Afternoon…….go check out the super cute stamps and papers! I’ll be back soon with some more fun stuff!

Details:

Stamps: Birds galore-Inkadinkado/ Corner stamps- Prima from Jacksonbelle
Ink: memento black, basic grey
CS: basic grey, real red, bashful blue, PTI white
Accessories: white pen, spica pen, CB folder, ribbon, punches, rain dots, dew drops from Jacksonbelle

Going to the chapel

I needed to make a gift for a couple of friends that are getting married soon and started to look through my stash. I had a 6 page accordian tag album that’s been sitting and waiting to be used and decided that now was the time to use it. There are several MFT sets used for this, Boho blossoms, Going to the chapel and Behind the scenes.

I wanted a lot of dimension on the cover, so there are lots of primas in various sizes, MAMBI rhinestones, pearls and dew drops. On the wedding dress I used some micro beads and decided to cover a few glue dots in microbeads and place them on the cover. They were very messy, but I love the way they look and feel!

And a closeup of the beads on the dress and some of the bead dots:

It was hard to get a picture of the album open, so here are the first couple of pages. The inside was lined with DSP from ‘ginger blossom’ and ‘apple cider’ and then stamped and more primas.

Each of the tags has an image and a sentiment. I thought it would be nice for them to be able to put special pictures on them, or just use them as a little journal to jot down some of their favorite thoughts from the wedding.

Now I just need to make a matching card! I hope you enjoy!

A challenge and a sketch

I’ve got 2 cards to share before I hop on the couch and watch 7th heaven!

This first card is for Jen’s sketch for you to try, usuing my unloved wendy papillion fairy and my beloved cosmo cricket “Honey Pie” paper from Jacksonbelle. I would link, but I believe she is out right now.

The next card is made for the Unity Stamp inspiration piece, this week we were to use the banner which has teal, caramel, circles and a flourish. At first I thought I would go with the colors, but I just wasn’t inspired. So then I found the circle and frame from my MM Audrey line and it just went together.

I used two kits on this, beautiful life and flirty flowers. Lots of distress inks and then my embellies from the Audrey noteworthy line from MM.

The weekend flew by waaaaaay tooo quickly. I have something that isn’t quite a card to show you tomorrow. It’s the result of some playing I did. See you tomorrow!

Chamomile

I got a little time yesterday to color and play while the ABA therapist was here for Audrey and Ava was content playing. I had yet to ink up this pretty image so I thought it was time I did!

I colored it with copics, of course and then went went over it with pearl watercolors. Not too shimmery but just a touch.

I am going to a swap tonight where I get to see Maren again, maybe AJ and meet Linsey and a few other Seattle area gals….how fun! Luckily I only need 6 cards for the swap because I haven’t figured them out yet, lol.

I hope you all have a great Saturday!

Deets:

Stamps: Chamomile- MFT
Ink: memento, copics, pearl H20’s
CS: sand, mustard, vine-rubber soul
Accessories: nesties, MM flowers, sewing machine

Where have I been, why I’m slackin’

So quickly to bring everyone up to speed……my week has been insane. Tuesday was spent in a car with my 4 year old running errands, then alone with the two kids the rest of the night. But 8pm I was exhausted and couldn’t think so I fell asleep on the couch. Yesterday, I was at the copic class all day and while it was fun it was also exhausting. After 7 hours of coloring I had ZERO desire to color or craft.

So now that leaves me with tonight and feeling oh so guilty about not having stamped much this week. So I decided to play in the MFT sketch challenge:

Pretty straightforward, stamps, ink, blah blah blah. Yes I’m tired again, thank goodness tomorrow is Friday!

I am HOPING I will have something else tomorrow and for sure this weekend. I have a 6 person swap to prepare for Saturday that I need to give some thought to.

Off to veg my brain!

Deets:

Stamps: Here’s the scoop-MFT
Ink: adirondack black, antique linen, tea stain distress, blue
CS: blue, yellow, rose-SU  PTI white
Accessories: CB folder, copics, tag and ribbon from Making Memories, Prima flowers and dew drops from Jacksonbelle embellishments

Blogger’s challenge Friday…….Get out your sunglasses

Because the future is BRIGHT!!!!! And so is this card;

The challenge this week is a color combo; pink, turquoise and GREEN GALORE!!!!!! I have been stressing about this color combo ALL WEEK! This is just so not my normal style and I don’t think it ever will be. I had to go to the SU website and look at the color before I could pick it out of my bright CS pack. I don’t have the ink, the marker….nothing just a few sheets that I had thought about recycling.

This card also fits into the MFT sketch challenge for this week. And speaking of My favorite things…………..

A girl remembers all her firsts: your first kiss, your first best friend, and the first time you talk to one of your stamping idols. I had the EXTREME pleasure of talking to Kim, THE Kim from MFT….she called me, on my phone, AT MY HOUSE!!! And it didn’t matter what she had asked of me I would have done it. Fortunately she asked me to do something legal and something that I wanted to do, she asked me to be on her new special assignment design team! Seriously, there are only a few people that Sean remembers who I’m talking about just by their first name and he knows who Kim is, there is only 1 Kim in our vocabulary.

Now I kind of think of this like CSI and all the other CSI shows: same premise, new actors, new location with some familiar faces showing up. You can find the links to the blogs and galleries of the other talented ladies on Kim’s blog and I will be linking them here soon.

So I hope you will enjoy the ride with me as I create some new projects for Kim and MFT. And thanks for letting me share my excitement and tooting my horn a little about all my good news this week.

Details:

Stamps: Icing on the cake, Essential Sentiments - My favorite things
Ink: white, turquoise, black, copics
CS: turquoise, green galore, PTI white, Prima ‘Caliope’ collection from Jacksonbelle
Accessories: nesties, CB folder, ribbon from stash, white gel pen, black spica, Prima flower from Jacksonbelle, WW punch