Compendium in Yellow, Orange, and Red

Hello crafters!  I got a little time to get inky today, so decided to combine two challenges.... Linda's Compendium of Curiosities Week 7 and Gingersnap Creations' Color Challenge - Yellow, Orange, and Red.  For Linda's challenge, we were to use Tim Holtz's Tinted Vision Fragments technique (shown on page 55 of his Compendium of Curiosities book).  The Gingersnap color challenge took me out of my box, 'cuz I rarely use orange outside of Hallowe'en, LOL!

Anyway, for this card, I used a beautiful fairy image from Oxford Impressions' Fairy Sweets plate, which I colored with Copics, and trapped her inside a round fragment, using Currant and Cranberry alcohol inks for the technique.  The flowers in the foreground are Magenta's Dogwood Bloom, and the clear embossed ones in the background are from Close to My Heart (the Treasure Life set, which was a special one month... don't know if it's still available).  The other background stamps I used are from the Glitz Design "Distressed" set.  I used lots of Distress Inks (scattered straw, mustard seed, wild honey, spiced marmalade, and fired brick).  A touch of Diamond Stickles went in the middle of the dogwoods for a little fairy sparkle.  Hmmmm.. I guess that's it.  I gotta tell ya, I had tons of fun using these warm, bright colors - way outside my box, but I had fun out there, tee hee!

Hope you're having a crafty weekend!

Christmas Colors in July....

......that's the challenge Louise has given us over at Kard Krazy for this week's Tag Tuesday challenge.  We are to use red and green - with a theme of anything *but* Christmas!  I pulled out the beautiful Soul of the Rose plate from Oxford Impressions, and took a little artistic license with this image by reddening her roses.  I stamped the lovely Waterhouse lady on matte coated cardstock, then colored her with Copics.  I added some cool diecut paper to the bottom, and did some distressing and stamping and adding of rub-ons.  I thought this charm from T!m's collection was the perfect sentiment.

Hope you'll have a chance to play along this week!

Mini Canvas Swap

Yikes! A week since my last post.  Life happens, in a good way, though. :)  I had to make nine 4x4 canvases for our ATC/Mixed Media group this week, and it was definitely a creative adventure, since I'd never made a canvas before.  The theme was "Nature", so I dug out some seriously ancient vellum paper with butterflies on it, some genuinely old sheet music, and my new favorite Stampin' Up! stamp from the Elements of Style set.  (BTW, sorry for the horrible picture... it's been dark and stormy here for the last 2 days, and I had to take these pics with a flash - yuck!) 

First, I painted all of the canvases a gold-ish color, then set to work with my gel medium.  The first layer was the sheet music, then the flowers, which I stamped on white tissue paper and colored with colored pencils before applying them to the canvas.  Next came those devilish vellum butterflies, which really wanted to warp and wrinkle (duh... it's been a while since I've worked with vellum).  Luckily they are smoothing out on their own.  The last addition was Tim's fragments with Graphic 45 tag elements behind them.  I still need to wrap the sides in twine (since they are rather thick canvases, I think they need some textural interest around the sides).  Can't wait to see what the other gals have come up with!

One other little card project..... this incorporated last week's Compendium of Curiosities challenge, but I never posted it (yes, lame... I'll try to be better next time!).  It's a birthday card for my hubby, using a Crafty Individuals stamp, some glimmer mists, some embossing, some of Tim's new papers (lovin' the calendar paper, oh yes!), and the "43" numbers (also Tim's) covered in vintage text - that was the challenge part.

A coupla challenges you may want to check out..... Gingersnap Creations has posted a new color challenge - Yellow, Orange, and Red (celebrating the relentless summer sun, perhaps?).  Louise has the new Tag Tuesday challenge up, which is "Christmas Colors in July" - to use red and green, but NOT in a Christmas-themed way.  And finally, the lovely Linda Ledbetter has the Week 7 Compendium of Curiosities challenge up... and you won't believe the prize!!  I'm hoping to play along in all of these..... after having been such a bad, bad blogger, LOL!!  Happy Craftying, Peeps!

PDCC #38 with Artistic Outpost

It's been ages since I've had a chance to play in the Play Date Cafe Challenge, but this one was simply too fun to miss!  This week, Play Date Cafe has challenged us to use this gorgeous color inspiration, *and* they are sponsored by one of my very favorite stamp companies, Artistic Outpost.

The images are from two Artistic Outpost sets that work beautifully together - Bluebird and Birds of a Feather.  I got out lots of inks - alcohol, distress, dye, Brilliance - and simply got inky, trying out different techniques and color combos. The green background is alcohol inks on glossy paper, run through one of Tim's new Alterations texture plates. I stamped the egg text in a dark dye ink, then went over the top of it with some distress inks and a little of the light purple Brilliance ink, to give it a shimmer.  The strip with the text and birdies was stamped in Brilliance ink (text) and dye ink (Memento).  Finally, for the main image, I stamped in the dark purple dye ink, then went over it with distress inks.  My fingers are purple and likely to stay that way for a while!

The little music charm is actually one of Tim's typewriter charms with a little punched out piece of vintage sheet music in it (a 1/2 inch hole punch does the trick).  A little twine ties it together.

Hope you get a chance to get inky today!

Tag Tuesday Challenge #59 - Hearts

The challenge this past week at Tag Tuesday was to make a tag with hearts.  Aaaahh, a heart challenge, turns one's thoughts to love, romance, passion, beheading, Hallowe'en.... No?  Then you haven't gotten your hands on the Graphic 45 Hallowe'en in Wonderland papers, LOL!  I've been sooo itching to use these, and I've done it just by chance.  You see, I had every intention of joining in on Linda's Compendium of Curiosities challenge last week, which was to use distress embossing powders, but it went horribly wrong.  You can see a bit of it in the form of the scrolls around the outside of this tag, but the dirty secret lies beneath the images.... scary, I tell ya.  So instead, I decided to salvage what I could of my Compendium of Curiosities disaster and go the Curiouser and Curiouser route instead! (......oh, shhh, I can hear you groaning from here!!! ROFL! Yes, somewhat bonkers today ;))  Thus a heart-filled Alice Hallowe'en tag with a little distress emboss stamping, a coupla bats, some distressing, some inking... you get the picture.  This will go on some treats for the kids come October if I don't lose it before then.

Will try to stop neglecting the blog so badly!!  My daughter is now required to be at school at 7:20, my son at 9:15, then I get in line to pick up my daughter at 2:00, my son at 3:30 - back and forth, and it's making me totally zonk out by 10:00 pm, which is when I used to start crafting.  Gotta get a new rhythm going ;).  Plus I've been neglecting all of your beautiful blogs - I'm determined to visit soon.  Hope your Monday has been sweet - back again tomorrow hopefully.

Gingersnap Creations Challenge - Use Markers!

It's Wednesday, so that means another brand new challenge over at Gingersnap Creations.  This time it's one that I know *many* of you will appreciate..... a Spicy Supply Challenge to Use Markers! 

Aaaah, we DO love our Copics, those of us who are addicted.... but for this challenge I decided to do something different.  (After all, there are tons of excellent tutorials on Copics out there, and I've never even been to a class!)  I've had this idea swirling around in my head for a while. 

For both the background paper (the damask-looking design) and for the bird, I used a combination of ink pads and water-based markers.  I first inked up the stamp (for the damask I used Desert Sand (Memento), and for the bird I used Baja Breeze (SU!)), then took a brown maker and drew all around the outside edges, as well as into the interior of the design to highlight it.  You can achieve this design on the outside edges of any stamp by doing the "rock and roll" method, where you lightly run a contrasting ink pad around the outside of the image.  But I wanted to get some of the contrasting color into the nooks and crannies in the interior of the image. 

Here's a close-up below that shows what I mean (you can click to enlarge).

As you can see, this is a very imperfect, shabby effect, but that's what I was after.  The damask background image is from Inkadinkado - I just inked, traced the edges, and stamped repeatedly to form the design.  For the sentiment, I inked up the words with Baja Breeze, then touched the bottom edges of the letters with a brown marker.

I used a brown Copic marker to edge both sides of the plain blue seam binding from Martha Stewart, to shabby it up and make it coordinate with the rest of the project.

So... time to get out your markers and play, LOL!  The other gals on the design team have come up with some positively stunning cards to inspire you over at Gingersnap Creations.  If you decide to play along, be sure to link up your project over there for all to see.  Have fun!

Gingersnap Creations Art Swap

Good gracious it's been a long time since I've posted!  My kids started school this past Friday (my daughter had her first day of middle school - *gasp*!) and we've been on an endless hunt for the stuff on their class supply lists.  Wouldn't it be great if the schools could give you a little hint as to where to find some of this specialty stuff? Like a zippered D-ring binder that has a six pocket accordion file on one side, with a briefcase-style handle.... huh?  A USB flash drive... (how big?).  Anyway, I digress....

These are my ATCs for Gingersnap Creations' latest art swap, which is ATCs with the theme "Soar".  I used mainly Artistic Outpost and Oxford Impressions stamps, and added some dictionary and thesaurus pages, glimmer mists, distress inks, and some brads and tags here and there.

I've been working on a few things that I can't share just yet, and mourning the closing of Cornish Heritage Farms.  It's so sad to see a company with such quality stamps close its doors, but Liz and Richard Pomeroy (the owners) are on an exciting adventure to a new location, moving the family and farm and switching life up a bit.  I wish them all the best.  They are still taking new stamp orders until July 15th, then they will stop making new stamps and liquidate the stock on hand starting July 16th.  So if there's anything on your wishlist, this is the last chance......

A few pictures from life in our household... here is a picture of the sun setting over Lake Erie, taken on our recent family reunion with my husband's family.

And a picture of our new "outside pets."  They have taken up residence in my bougainvillea that hangs on the balcony off our master bedroom.  These are two of the three baby cardinals that temporarily call our plant their home.  Makes watering the plant devilishly hard, LOL!

Hope you're having a wonderful weekend.  I'm determined to get some more crafting in this week!

Shabby Chic Ba{bee} Card

A quick little card today using the Sweet Bee set from Cornish Heritage Farms.  I went all shabby chic with this one, using papers from Pink Paislee's Queen Bee pad and Basic Grey's Capella.  I used soft ink colors (Memento London Fog, Distress Ink in Tattered Rose and Antique Linen), some tea-dyed cotton twill, a little glitter, some crinkly ribbon, and a vintage mother of pearl button.  Oh, and some tiny pearls, a teensy safety pin, and some stitching.  This was so much fun, getting all baby girlie!
Hope you've had a fun weekend!  We're still recovering - back to crafting soon, I hope. :)

A Lazy Holiday Weekend

Happy Independence Day Weekend, friends!  Hope you're having a lazy, happy, fun time with family and friends, and maybe a few fireworks tomorrow night.....  Hmmmmm, the kitties have never heard fireworks... hope they don't get spooked.

Maybe they'll sleep right through. :)

We're visiting with family, so I'm taking a little break from crafting and blurfing (eeeek, might be going into withdrawal!!!) I will be around catching up with all of your lovely blogs in a few days. Can't wait!

Beachy ATCs

A quick little post today, with some ATCs that I made with a gorgeous plate from I Brake For Stamps, called Beach Memoirs.  I had this set on my wishlist forever, then was lucky enough to win Blog Candy from sweet Della (thank you Della!!!).  I was thrilled to play with these stamps when they arrived.  For the backgrounds I used Glimmer Mists and a Tim Holtz compass rose mask.  I added a little tea-stained cheesecloth, and some punched sand dollars and starfish (Martha's). Nothing too fancy, just letting the stamps do the talkin'.

Happy Canada Day to all our Northern friends!