The Birds and the Bees ATCs

Our local ATC club is meeting this week, and our theme was "Idioms." I have lots of bird and bee stamps, hence my idea for my cards. I realized after I had finished that one of my stamps that I used is in itself another idiom, "You make my heart sing!" So it's a two-for-one, I guess, LOL!!

I used German scrap for the main bird image. The stamps sets I used were Sweet Bee from Cornish Heritage Farms' The Rummage Bin, Bird Notes (Medium) from Crafty Secrets, and Bloomin' Beautiful from Stampin' Up. I colored in the images using Copics and a white Souffle pen (for the pussy willows and the bees' wings). The background paper is from Basic Grey's Porcelain collection, and the card base is SU!'s Kiwi Kiss. This project was so much fun!! I highly recommend this theme for all of you who have a regular swap club... you can find sites with tons of idioms just by Googling 'idioms.'

Thanks for looking and have a great day!!

Winter Wonderland Week 9 - Christmas Tree Decorations

Here's my little paper ornament for Winter Wonderland's challenge this week, which is Christmas Tree Decorations. (Sorry for the bad pic, since the ornament is mostly white, I had a hard time coming up with a good way to photograph it.) I am woefully behind on these challenges (I've missed three!) but hopefully now that the summer is winding down for us, I'll get back in the groove.

I used a little Victorian clip art angel as the focal point, and added some platinum Stickles around the edge. The "wings" are some vintage velvet leaves that I got on Etsy (Paper Tales). I added a little crepe paper, some dangling snowflakes, a Grungeboard star with pewter Distress Crackle paint, and a Peace sticker. Very quick and easy, and very fun. Thanks to all the ladies over in Wonderland for another fabulous challenge!!

Home Sweet Home - Cornish Heritage Farms Make A Scene Challenge

This is my very first attempt at making a scene-style card. It's my entry for the Cornish Heritage Farms Summer Stamp Star Design Challenge, which for this week is "Make A Scene." I tell ya, my Stamp-a-ma-jig has been resting quietly in a drawer since I bought it about a year ago.... until today that is, when I gave it quite the workout!!! For those of you who have never built a scene with multiple stamps, here's my biggest tip: Gather up the stamps you are interested in using in your scene, and stamp them each onto a piece of acetate using StazOn, aligning them with your Stamp-a-ma-jig. Then you can use your acetate images to play around with the arrangement of your scene. It sort of lets you know ahead of time what works, what looks too busy, etc. When you are ready to put ink to cardstock, start lining up your foreground images using your acetate images and your Stamp-a-ma-jig. Carefully remove the piece of acetate, and line up your stamp. When you are ready to do the images that are further in the background, make a mask for each of your foreground images and adhere them to your cardstock scene using removable adhesive. Sorry I don't have photos of each step, but I was learning as I went along!! Anyway, it's a fun technique (and a little time-consuming until you get the hang of it :)).

For this scene I used two Cornish Heritage Farms stamp sets: The Homestead (from the Scene It! line) and Sweet Bee (from The Rummage Bin line). My Sweet Bee set was actually blog candy that I won from Julia Stainton's blog, so I was very psyched to use it for the challenge! :) I colored the images with Copics and Prismacolor markers. Other embellishments include Hero Arts flowers, Stampin' Up! Hodgepodge Hardware, Martha Stewart ribbon, and Making Memories brads. All paper is from My Mind's Eye.

Thanks for looking - hope you're having a great weekend!! (You may want to check out Cornish Heritage Farms' last Summer Stamp Star Design Challenge, which is One Sheet Wonder.)

Little Paper Shop Masculine Birthday

A little birthday card for my hubby. His birthday request was for cymbals to go with our Rockband drum set, so that inspired me to go with the "Rock Star" stamp set from The Little Paper Shop (the guitar, the U Rock sentiment, and the little border of notes). I stamped a music score in the background (Stampendous) and added a little badness with a skull from Inkadinkado. I then distressed the entire image and colored it with Copics. I stamped the guitar again on the card background. All patterned papers are from My Mind's Eye, and the inks are from Stampin' Up! (Riding Hood Red), Colorbox, and Ranger Distress.
Hope you have a wonderful, musical Saturday! :)

Cornish Heritage Farms Resist Challenge

A card I made for the Cornish Heritage Farms Summer Stamp Star Design Challenge, which for this week is to use a resist technique. I used clear emboss resist for the two background papers and the background of the main image.

For the bottom patterned paper, I randomly stamped SU's Soft Sky blue and Memories Mango pumpkin-colored inks on a white background, then clear embossed an image from CHF's Ornamental Beauty stamp set. I then went back over the paper with Versafine Vintage Sepia ink using a brayer. For the top patterned paper, I clear embossed another image from Ornamental Beauty, then smudged on the Mango ink. For the main panel, I first masked off the area where the image would go. Then I clear-embossed a text background, brayered Soft Sky ink over that, then stamped CHF's Tree Swallows Silhouette image in the area that was not embossed. (I had tried it with the entire panel embossed, but it was too busy - couldn't really appreciate the bird image.)

Other supplies include SU Baja Breeze, Very Vanilla, Whisper White, and Chocolate Chip cardstock, clear embossing powder, Prima Flowers, Martha Stewart and Anna Griffin ribbons, Making Memories alphabet stickers, and buttons and twine from my stash.

Thanks for looking and have a great day!