MFT sketch Monday

I’m just going to pop in really quick to share the card I made for this week’s MFT sketch.  I had a few pieces of Gretel paper from Cosmo Cricket left over and I just had to use them with the cowgirl!

The flowers behind the cactus are Prima Collage flowers from Jacksonbelle.  And you still have time to save 15% with the Promo Code JBE15 !

I hope you are all having a wonderful and relaxing weekend. I’m off to watch a movie and then go to bed!

Stamps: Ride em cowgirl- MFT
CS: sage, cocoa, PTI white, Gretel cosmo cricket
Ink: adirondack black, chocolate
Accessories: copics, brads, ribbon, punches, Prima’s from Jacksonbelle

Blogger’s challenge Friday……Traveling

The end of the week is here, thank goodness! So that means it’s Friday and blogger’s challenge day! This week’s challenge was a sketch challenge, which I find the most difficult. I hope I didn’t break any challenge rules by changing things a little because I just can’t stick to a sketch as it’s given!

I had to use my new MFT set “Going Places”:

Do you like the map? Notice how everything is green except Mexico, lol?! I guess my map is before global warming, at least that’s the story I’m sticking with! I also wanted to make it worn looking so I put some brown shading around the edges. I just imagined this gal as a jet setting model with her LV suitcase pulling out her map wondering where she is today. She’s obviously looking at Europe on the back.

The flowers are some more new Prima flowers from Jacksonbelle. These are from the artful collage assortment and there are super cool patterns and prints on them. Plus the package is cute sitting on my shelf!  

We have our last parent coaching appointment on Monday and then more testing and onto the home ABA therapy. I can’t believe it’s almost time to start and I’m so happy to get on with it! Tomorrow night Ava and I are having another sleepover slumber party only this week we are making cupcakes! She’s just so cute how excited she is to stay up late baking and playing games with mom.

Happy Friday!

Details:

Stamps: Going Places- My favorite things
CS: cocoa, barely blue-SU cosmo cricket DP
Ink: adirondack, tea stain, antique linen
Accessories: copics, ribbon, black brads, Primas from Jacksonbelle

Prima afternoon tea

I had ordered some new Prima flowers and paper kits from Jacksonbelle on Sunday and I got them in the mail today, hooray! The paper kits are so cool because they come with matching ribbon and flowers! I ripped open my two packs and spread them all out and then had to go play! I decided to pair it with the MFT sketch challenge for this week:

I went to afternoon tea on Sunday with my mom and this card reminds me of a tea room, all vintage and distressed. 

Two new things to tell you about:

1) Treehouse stamps is has it’s new releases, 2 full sets that you can view here. I should be getting my images tomorrow and once I do I’ll have some samples for you!

2) Jacksonbelle is having an Inkadinkado challenge! Visit the forum here for the details, so fun!

Details:

Stamps: Hot stuff- My favorite thigns
Ink: adirondack black, antique linen, tea stain
CS: vanilla, steel toe mary jane-Prima from Jacksonbelle
Accessories: copics, distress tool, sponge, flowers, ribbon and crystal, scallop punch

Bunny’s in the garden book

When I saw the set ‘Can ya’ dig it?’ from My favorite things I immediately wanted to make a book. My original idea for the ATC’s I created for the swap was to do mini books, but I quickly realized 10 mini books are NOT what I wanted to slave over. So I decided to make a book for me, just one. The guest designer challenge happens to be to create something with a focus on animals, so I thought this kind of worked perfectly for it!

I used Cosmo Cricket’s wanted paper for the front and back covers, and the pages are strathmore watercolor paper. The book is 5×5 in size, and I used my cropadile to punch the holes and 5/8 vanilla GG ribbon to bind it. I had wanted to use my bind it all, but decided that would look to hard and the ribbons would be a softer touch.

On the first page the bunny’s are peeking out of their home under the bush to make sure Mrs. Gardener is busy with her plants, it’s all clear!

They make their way into the garden and find veggies!

They keep searching and finally hit the motherload……..carrots!

They safely take their carrots home to the flower bush, with Mrs. Gardener no where in sight.

I wanted to watercolor this because I like the soft dreamy look it gives. Some of my favorite childrens books to read to my girls are watercolor and I wanted to recreate that feeling with this book.

I hope you enjoyed my little bunny book! I absolutely LOVE it and I might sleep with it under my pillow tonight~

Stamps: Can Ya’ Dig it, It’s a jungle, boho blossoms- My favorite things
Cardstock: Strathmore watercolor paper and Cosmo cricket ‘Wanted’, groovey guava from SU
Ink: archival black and stazon brown, stampin up reinkers, antique linen and tea stain distress inks
Accessories: sewing machine, nesties, white gel pen, watercolor brush, sponge

An exciting Thursday!

First up, there is so FUN NEWS to share………….

I will be joining Lindsey Botkin as a design team member for her FANTASTIC store Jascksonbelle Embellishments!!!! I am so excited! Lindsey has always performed outstanding service when I have bought from her. She carries some of my most favorite product lines and her member forum on SCS is just as sweet as pie.

I feel very blessed to join such an amazing group of women who are fabulous crafters. I hope we can all bring out the bestest in ourselves and others.

Another bit of fun news is I have joined the bloggers challenge group! So starting tomorrow you will get to see that weekly challenge. I love challenges and feel like I’d had my nose pressed at the glass the past few months watch as everyone played along. I’m very excited to start these and my first one is going live tomorrow morning!

Next up, some sad new……..

My run as Guest Designer with Gina k is over! The time flew by so quickly and it was over so fast. I had an amaizing time working with Gina and the incredibly talented design team. I will be forever greatful for being chosen. And I am on the edge of my seat waiting to see what is happening with the new DT members and what they create.

So there will be some changes made to my blog over the next few days. I will finally, FINALLY figure out an easier way for you all to subscribe. I also need to link my new Jacksonbelle design team members and my bloggers challenge members. So bear with me as I drag my husband into my blogging world for help.

 AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhh the ATC…………………………………………………….

First let me tell you what the guidelines were. We were to make 10 ATC with my favorite things stamps and at least one embellishment. Anyway I got it into my head that I was going to make a story book and that the front and back pages of the book would be the required ATC size and then it would open to reveal a scene.

When I saw the bunny in the latest Can ya dig it? set I immediatley thought of the Beatrix Potter stories. All those naughty rabbits stealing lettuces from the farmer, the kittens who loose their dresses. So I wanted to create a mini story book based on that. The actual ATC size is the nesty book front and back and then the middle is slightly smaller. Olive satin ribbon ties it closed. When it is closed it doesn’t really look like much, but once you open it I hope it makes people smile. I absolutley loved creating this scene and had a blast coloring away. Although for 10 of them, it was a bit much by the end.

I sincerely hope that those in my swap like these, the whole thing just made me so stinkin happy.

Tomorrow come back for my first ever bloggers challenge…………this one scared me!

Spa day

Not for me, the piggies!

I made this card on Monday for the MFT sketch challenge. I had been coloring all day finishing my ATC swap (which I will share soon!) and my hand was seriously cramping from holding onto my copics for hours. I decided to watercolor my piggies and give my hand a rest.

I LOVE pigs, they are one of my favorite animals. People find out I like pigs and then always get me pig stuff, so I can end up with an embarassing ammount of pink piggies. When Sean and I were first married, (not like were old married people now, lol!) we had two next door neighbors who were also pig collectors.  Their dogs and our dog were playmates and would play and go potty with eachother everyday. It was a couple months before we realized we all collected pigs. Although the other 2 gals were single and had their pigs displayed everywhere. Sean has been more reserved in the girly love for swine.

Well, I will be back soon with those ATC’s I’ve been talking about. I know I wont be doing anything like this again for an ATC swap!

I was in a watercolor mood….

Today I got some extra “me” time since Sean is on a mini vacation this week. So after the gym and my PT appointment I browsed a couple stamp stores and then headed home to create. I wanted to catch up on a couple of the MFT sketch challenges that I hadn’t gotten to and I also wanted to do some watercoloring. I realized that I had never watercolored my MFT stamps before. I had always used copics and paper piecing to color them so I wanted to give it a try. I REALLY like painting them, they are soooo much fun! I’m guessing you will be seeing some more watercolored images again soon!

 I really like the look of this with it’s rich colors. I used the boxer paper by basic grey as my starting point. I also wanted to give her a copper bathtub to soak in. I always love the look of a copper bathtub but I dread the thought of cleaning them! Maybe later when I have a live in maid to clean it and keep it shiny!

This cards colors were inspired by this beautiful Honey Pie paper. I am in LOVE LOVE LOVE with it! I feel that way each time cosmo cricket comes out with a new line.  I started out using soft sky ink for the sky but it looked a little aqua almost so I mixed it with a little bashful blue to get the shade I wanted. 

I know I had promised the finished kangaroo necklace but it’s still getting the final details on it. I’ll have it ready tomorrow!

I hope you enjoyed my journey into MFT with watercolor, I had a blast with it!

What I was up to last night

Last night was the release party on the MFT forums at Splitcoast, and I MISSED IT!!!! I can’t believe I missed the WHOLE thing! That’s just not right! But I got there in time to sign up for the new ATC swap, and I can’t wait to get my new stamps to start making mine.  And I took a peek at the MFT guest designer challenge and it just sounded like too much fun not to play.

The challenge is to use background stamps in unique ways and not for a background. So here’s what my brain came up with:

I used the pretty pattern BG from CHF on the pants, and the rain background from ‘Rain or shine’ on her shirt. I decided to cut her out of her box and have her yoga mat be a little rock pad island so she can sit in the middle of her pond. I stamped the lotus flowers once in black and colored them, then again in green for the bottom leaves to be green and cut them both out and popped them up.

When I was looking for pictures of lotus flowers on google I came accross a peacock and decided to turn the chicken from ‘Punny farm’ into a peacock! I used the stem bunch from ‘Punch a bunch’ and then drew the feathers with my copics and accented some of them with dew drops.

I made some bamboo out of the branch and leaves from ‘Its a jungle’ and I brought them down to where her face would be to give her privacy and take care of the head issue.

To be honest I am not sure how I feel about this scene. I made this last night starting around 10:30 and just went down to my craft room where there is no clock. When I finished and came up to load it, the time was 1:00 am! I went to bed dissapointed and thinking it was an ugly card and then when I woke up this morning I wasn’t even sure I had actually made it!

But I like doing things like this because it really pushes me to use things in different ways and try something new. So I’m happy with working on it so long last night.

I hope you all have a GREAT day…….tomorrow is Friday, yippee!

Pamper yourself!

Todays technique challenge is called tole, which gives lots of dimension! We were to stamp multiple images and layer them, 4, 3 and 2 times. I also decided to combine it with the MFT sketch challenge.

The bathtub was cut out and popped up 4 times, the bubbles were cut out and popped up 3 times, the legs are popped up twice. I turned the mirror into a frame and paper pieced the wall paper. I really love how all the colors look together, I would LOVE it if I had a bathroom like this!

I’m so excited since Sean and I went to Ikea this weekend! I found an AWESOME desk for me and a new storage unit! I am hoping to paint this weekend and install a shelf along one side of my craft room. I want it to have my sewing machine, photo box, paper trimmer and scor-pal on it, so it’s pretty long.  Right now I am thinking about painting a shade similar to PTI’s aqua mist, but maybe a little creamier and lighter. All the furniture is a brown black so it’s really going to pop against the light walls!

I only have one appointment today, but this week is going to be crazy! I hope I can get my to-do list done!

The DEETS:

Stamps-Time for the bubbly-MFT
Ink: adirondack pitch black, cocoa
CS: PTI white, cocoa, bali breeze DSP, basic grey
Accessories: copics, dimensionals, spica pen, stickles, ribbon, circle punches, slit punch

Inspiring flowers

I’m finding that inspiration challenges are a lot harder for me then sketch challenges. Maybe it’s because I rarely get to the one on SCS so when Beate started doing them I haven’t had a lot of practice. All I know is last week’s art piece was gorgeous but I could not make anything picture worthy. So I waited, and now this week made me sweat!

I decided to use the bali breeze papers, aqua mist CS and ribbon and then flowers from MFT’s “Boho blossoms”.

I wanted to create some movement on the card so I made the little whispy curly cues. I think there may be one or two too many. But I’m leaving it as is.

Again, it’s super late! So I am getting ready to hit the hay.

Tomorrow is Thursday! Hoooray, that much closer to the weekend!

Stamps: Boho blossoms-MFT
CS: aquamist, white=papertrey, bali breeze DSP-SU
Ink: eggplant envy, aquamist, tempting turqouise, old olive
Accessories: silver HPH, ribbon, dimensionals, sponge, punches, liquid pearls.