Pumpkin Tag and a Party (Project 12)

For today’s project, I have something a bit different – a tag.  I made this for the September tag swap over at Artsy Inkers.  Which, before I forget, we are having a party over at AI starting on Saturday called Inktoberfest.  There will be a variety of challenges for member to participate in as well as games.  If you ever participated in one of the stamping parties over at Two Peas in a Bucket, Inktoberfest will be like those.  If you haven’t, you should come over and check out Artsy Inkers.  There is a great bunch of stampers over there and we have a ton of fun during parties.  So that is my pitch for joining us at AI.  On to the tag.

 

I used my silhouette to cut out the shape from watercolor paper.  The image is by Impression Obsession and I cannot remember what ink I used to stamp it.  I think it was Memento Rich Cocoa.  I watercolored the image with Distress Inks in Spiced Marmalade, Mustard Seed, Mowed Lawn, Forest Moss, and Barn Door.

I created the base with used paper towels.  When I color with DI, I usually smoosh the ink on my craft mat, pick up the color with a brush or dauber, and when I’m done, I mist with water and wipe the excess up with a paper towel.  As a result I have some pretty paper towels.  So of course, I save them.   To create the base, I took a large snippet of white cardstock, applied Mod Podge, put the paper towel down and then coated it with more Mod Podge.  And I ran into some trouble.  The paper towel was 2 ply.  The glue didn’t go through both layers, so I had several spots that need more Mod Podge.  When I did the back of the tag, I separated the plies and applied them one at a time.  That worked much better.  And the colors weren’t bright enough if I used just one of the layers.

So when I went to add the focal piece to the base, I didn’t like how white the piece was.  So I added some Distress Ink.  I diluted  some Mustard Seed for around the image and inked the edges with Barn Door.  Finally, I added some liquid pearls to the image.

 

The leaves were punched with an EK Success punch from EK Success self-adhesive wood veneer paper and colored with Distress Inks.   The fibers are snippets that were RAKed to me ages ago.  The bow was created with my bow-it-all from ribbon from Really Reasonable Ribbon.

 

 

 

For the back, I stamped the same focal image.  I used Memento Ink in Rich Cocoa but I forgot that it needed reinking, so the image is rather faint.  I reinked the pad before stamping the leaves, which are by Inkadinkado.

I’m going to enter this over at Pixie’s Snippets Playground- Week 144.

Before I go, I know several of you have had some trouble following my blog.  Mary was nice enough to email me the fix she found when she was having trouble following me.  So here they are:

First - go to the blog you wish to follow, get to the Home section so you can copy & paste the URL for the blog…not just a particular post.

Then:

 1. Get to the reading list of the blogs you follow  (I had to manually go to the Dashboard, as my reading list does not always show up or populate)

 2. Look to the far right - there is a gear type of icon. Click it

 3. This brings up the list of blogs you are following. Scroll to the very bottom. Look for an orange block with the word ADD. Click it

 4.  Dialog box appears. Paste in the URL of the blog you’re trying to follow.

 5. NEXT (orange box) - click it

 6. Step 2: follow publicly - as whatever your google (blogger) id

 7. FOLLOW - Orange box.

 

Your picture should now appear in the following list of the blog you’re trying to follow and the new blog should now be in your following list.

Thank you everybody who has wished me luck with my etsy shop. 
Thanks for stopping by and please come again.

Grand Opening and a Shaker Box (Project 11)

I’ll start with the Grand Opening.  I’ve been toying with opening a shop on etsy for a while now.  At the beginning of this year, I started to seriously think about it and this summer I actually started working on projects for a shop.  Well I finally opened my shop this weekend.  Please stop by and check out my etsy shop.

 

Now, before I move on to today’s card, a warm welcome to Mary H, my very first follower.  She is a very sweet lady and has a wonderful blog: Carolina Cards by Mary H.  So check out her blog and say hi.

 

Today’s card is a shaker box card.  I started by using my silhouette to cut out the window in the green textured card stock.  I traced the window on the card base lightly in pencil to aid me in stamping the sentiment (by Inkadinkado) with Hero Arts shadow ink in Just Right.  I also used the pencil lines to place the foam strips on the card base.  I attached acetate to the back of the window.   I used a snippet of watercolor paper to die cut the leaves and branch.  Then I colored them with distress inks in Vintage Photo, Mustard Seed, Fired Brick and Spiced Marmalade.  Then I attached them so the leave were falling across the window.  Before attaching the window to the base, I placed glitter and leaf sequins in between the foam strips. 

 

 I ran into a bit of a problem at that point. The white of the foam strips showed through the window.    Here’s a picture:

 

To cover that, I used decorative scissors to cut several strips of yellow cardstock and framed out the window.  You can see what I did in the first picture.

 

I'm going to enter this card over at Pixie's Snippet Playground - Week 144.

 

Thanks for stopping by and please come back.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pumpkin Pie (Project 10)

Happy Fall!!!!  Fall is my favorite season.  Too bad it doesn't feel like fall here in Florida.  Oh, well.  That's why I make so many fall cards. 

10 Projects down - 40 to go before I can buy more stuff. :-) For today's project, I'm posting the card I made for the September kit in an envelope (KIAE) swap over at the new message board I'm hanging out on - Artsy Inkers.  There is a great bunch of stampers over there. 

I think I've explained a KIAE swap before, but if not, or if you've forgotten: you make 2 kits consisting of stuff that will fit in a regular envelope, one to keep and one to send.  Then you make at least one project from your kept kit and one from the kit you received.  For September's swap, the theme was harvest and the twist is that at least one of the projects had to include a recipe.

The kit items are the stamped background paper, the recipe image and the shrinky dink pie.  I stamped the background with Fiskar pumpkin stamps with Versamark ink.  The recipe is a stamp by Impression Obsession and stamped with Hero Arts Just Right shadow ink.  I trimmed down the recipe and mounted it on a snippet of kraft cardstock.  The twine is just tucked under the purple paper, not wrapped around.  Then I used a separate piece to tie the bow.  The orange textured cardstock is from my stash.  The buttons are from My Favorite Things.  And while I love the buttons and the price is great, I now have a lifetime supply of orange buttons.

The shrinky dink was cut with my silhouette and colored with colored pencils before shrinking.  Here's a close up:

I'm going to enter this over at Pixies Snippets Playground - Week 143

Thanks for stopping by and please come again.

Squirrels! and a Thank You. (Projects 7, 8, and 9)

I’ll start with the thank you.  Ms. Di over at Pixie’s Snippets Playground featured my Autumn Greetings card.  Thank you so much, Ms. Di.  I felt so special.  Now on to the cards:

 

So I have a fair number of squirrel stamps because my mother is affectionately known as the crazy squirrel lady.  She does wildlife rehab and has rehabilitated and released many squirrels over the years.  She currently has a permanent resident of a three legged squirrel named Tripod Nubbins.  So I’ve accumulated many squirrel stamps.

 

Card 1

 

I stamped the squirrel with Hero Arts Shadow ink in Just Right and layered it on textured cardstock squares, putting the brown square at an angle.  The top is actually orange but it looks more yellow in the picture. The purple textured cardstock is punched with a Fiskar border punch and I stamped the sentiment with the HA Just Right Shadow ink.  It still needed something, so I took the pieces punched out of the purple and attached three to the top corner. (Do they count as snippets?) I’ve got tons of little ziplock baggies full of the punched bits from when I use border punches.  I’m such a pack rat; I can't throw the bits out. I figure I'll use them eventually.  So at least I used a few on this one. The rest went in a baggie.

The squirrel is an Inkadinkado stamp and the sentiment is by TPC Studio.

 

Card 2

 

This little guy is a digital stamp by A Day for Daisies.  I used my silhouette to print him and then cut the shape out.  I colored him with chalk and sprayed with a sealer.  The pattern paper I found in a paper storage container I bought when I first started card making, about seven years ago, and that I uncovered when I was organizing my papers a couple of months ago.  So I’ve probably had this paper that long.  I originally planned on adding some paper flowers to this piece, but I just wasn’t feeling it.  I decided to leave this one fairly simple.

 

Card 3

 

For this one, I stamped the image on X-press It paper with Memento Tuxedo Black.  I stamped the big acorn on a snippet of X-Press It paper with Memento Rich Cocoa and the acorn hat on a snippet with Memento Tuxedo Black.  I colored the images with Copics (the list of colors are at the bottom of this post) and a silver metallic color pencil.  I fussy cut the acorns with my Fiskar fingertip craft knife.  I love that thing for fussy cutting.  It takes a little getting used to but once you do, the control is amazing.  I popped the large acorn with foam squares but I just glued the hat on flat.  I wanted a little dimension but I was afraid popping it up would hide the squirrel's eyes.  The stamps are by Inky Antics.  The pattern paper and textured cardstock are from my stash.

Here's a close-up of the squirrel's acorn cap.

 

Copics:

Acorns – E21

                E23

                E25

                E27

Squirrel – E11

                E17

                E19

Basket – YR20

                YR21

                YR23

                YR24

                YR27

 

I'm entering Card 1 and 3 over at Pixie’s Snippets Playground

 

Thanks for stopping by and please come again.

 

 

 

Autumn Greetings (Project 6)

I’m definitely on a fall kick.  In fact, I’ve got a bunch of fall cards finished that I will be posting over the next couple of weeks.  This card is inspired by a card I saw over on the Hero Arts website.  I love Hero Arts and their blog and gallery of cards is an endless source of inspiration.  Here’s a link to the inspiration card. 

 

 

The sentiment is by Inkadinkado and stamped with Hero Arts shadow ink in Just Right.  I embossed some kraft cardstock with an embossing folder by cuttlebug.  For the leaves, I inked a snippet of glossy cardstock with a variety of alcohol inks.  Then I stamped the leaves using StazOn in Black.  The leaf stamp is by Inky Antics.  Then I fussy cut the leaves.  The leaves are just attached at their tops, under the ribbon and lace.  

Here's a close up of the leaves and ribbon:

 

The lace is from Really Reasonable Ribbon and I dyed it using Distress Ink in Mustard Seed and because it was too yellow, I added some DI in Tea Dye.  The snippets of orange ribbon under the lace is actually some ribbon I snipped out of a dress.  You know those ribbon loops they put in women’s clothing to use to keep the item on a hanger?  But of course they don’t work very well for keeping the item on the hanger and when you wear the item, they end up hanging out.  I use no-slip hangers and cut the stupid ribbon out.  But I noticed that some of the ribbon is kinda nice. So instead of going in the trash, they go into my craft stash.     
 

The alcohol inks I used are:

Lemonade
Sandal
Butterscotch
Sunshine Yellow
Sunset Orange
Red Pepper
Cranberry

I'm entering this in the following challenges:

Really Reasonable Ribbon, Challenge # 102 Autumn Colors

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Week 141

Mixed Media Card Challenge!


Thanks for stopping by and please come again.



Funky leaves times 2 (Projects 4 and 5)

For today, I’ve got 2 cards I made using the same image but colored using two completely different techniques.

Card Number 1

The first card is one I made for the August vellum challenge over at Artsy Inkers.   So I’m a little behind in posting it here.

 

 



The image is by Impression Obsession.  I started by stamping it on watercolor paper with Versamark ink and heat embossing it with clear embossing powder.  Then I did a water brayer technique to color the image.  I inked my brayer using Kaleidacolor Autumn Leaves and then spritz it with water.  I rolled the brayer over the image and added more ink and water until I was happy with it.  I mounted it on a piece of bronze metallic paper.

For the card base, I used a piece of embossed colored vellum that has been in my stash for years.  Here’s a picture of what the vellum looks like.

I attached it to a base of an orangy-brown textured cardstock with glue dots in the corners.  It is always a challenge to figure out how to attach vellum to a project without the adhesive showing.  To hide the glue dots, I added the brown pearls.

 

Card Number 2

For this card, I stamped the image with Memento Rich Cocoa on X-Press It blending paper.  I colored the image with my Copic markers (the color list is at the bottom of the post).  I mounted it on a piece of orange cardstock from my stash that I cut with the deckle blade for my Fiskar paper trimmer.

 

The card base is actually a reject from a WSW14 fest challenge.  It was a reject, not because I didn’t like how it looked, but because it didn’t really show the technique of the challenge.  The technique was to take a piece of patterned paper and emboss it with an embossing folder.  Then you use a brayer to add Versamark ink to the raised portions and emboss with clear embossing powder.  Next you ink up the paper and whip the ink off the embossed portions. 

There were a couple of problems with this piece for showcasing the technique.  I picked a too subtle pp.  And I think the embossed lines were too thin to show the pattern of the paper.  So this didn’t get entered in the challenge and sat forgotten on my craft table.  I spotted it on my desk and figured it would make a great base for this card.  Oh, I used Distress Ink in Spiced Marmalade and Mustard Seed (I think – I did make this back in June) to ink it up.  And I think the pp is by DCWV. 

 

For the final touch, I added ribbon from Really Reasonable Ribbon from the August ribbon of the month assortment.  I really loved August’s assortment.  Lovely fall colors.  So I added a strip of ribbon to the bottom and then made a double bow using my Bow-it-all.  Have I mentioned how much I love that thing? 

Copics used:

YR04

YR18

YR68

YG95

Y08

Y17

R05

R56

  

I’m entering this card in:

Really Reasonable Ribbon, Challenge # 102 Autumn Colors

and
Mixed Media Card Challenge!

 

Thanks for stopping by and please come again.