AIR Party and Rudolph Days (Projects 39 to 41)

AIR15 is going along swimmingly over at Artsy Inkers.  And I made these cards for challenges over there. And since I made a bunch of Christmas cards, I'm going to join the fun at Rudolph Days.

Before I get to the cards, I have an update from my last post.  I mentioned cutting up the flower stamp, but I forgot to mention that I lost the smallest flower.  I looked, and looked, and looked and could not find that sucker.  So I gave it up for lost.  Then when I was working on these cards, I pulled my bone folder and there was the little flower stuck to it. 

The first piece was for the Paint It Challenge. The challenge requires that you create a background using the technique explained Here. Basically, you take a piece of dark cardstock, and stamp and clear emboss a background. Then you cover the whole piece with acrylic paint and when it is almost completely dry, you wipe the paint off the embossed areas.

 

I used a piece of dark red cardstock and stamped with a bunch of Stampendous Christmas foliage stamps. I used a metallic paint in champagne.

To finish the card, I die cut a snippet and stamped with an Inkadinkado sentiment. I inked the edges with a Spica glitter marker and added some gems. You will notice that I was not paying attention when I attached the ribbon, so the sentiment is hanging off the bottom. Oh well. The green ribbon is from Really Reasonable Ribbon (last October's club assortment) and the cream is from my stash.

This next piece isn't a card yet. I made it for the Warm-Up challenge, which was kinda evil. You had to start a timer with 20 minutes before clicking the link to the cite that explained the technique to be used. Here's the link. I spent a good 5 of my minutes picking the die to use. I actually cut both the reindeer (Cottage Cutz) and some flowers. I did the reindeer first and didn't get the flower piece finished before the timer went off. Eventually I'll finish that piece.

For my color choice I was inspired by Darnell's lovely poinsettia card. So I used Distress Inks in Pine Needles, Mowed Lawn, Barn Door and Fired Brick to create an ombre effect. The background stamp is by the Stampin Place and I reversed the ink order for inking the stamp. You will notice that the legs did not want to stay put while I was inking the piece. And I am still debating whether I want to go back with some white paint to clean it up. My buddies over at AI all seem to like the effect, but I'm not so sure.

Since the last piece involved inking and stamping over the die cut, I had a ready made reindeer. So I decided to make a card for the Clean and Simple challenge using the reindeer. I used a corner punch by Fiskar and then inked the corners of the card base. I glued on the reindeer and then stamped a sentiment by Fiskar. The white base looks textured in the picture but I think that is because I photoed it on my screened in porch. It is just plain cardstock.

I just realized I used a snippet to cut the reindeer, so I'm going to pop over to the Playground.

 

I'm entering these piece here:
Pixie's Snippet Playground
Rudolph Days
 

Thanks for stopping by and please come again.  And the party is going on at Artsy Inkers through June 7, so there is still time for you to head over there and join the fun.  

Party Time (Project 39)

In an attempt to tempt you over to the Artys Inker's message board to play along during our summer party AIR15, I'm going to post the sample I made for the challenge I am hosting. You still have plenty of time to join in.  The party runs through next Sunday, June 7.

 

The challenge is called Sentimentally Yours and I've challenged the players to make cards featuring sentiments. Mostly because I have a ton of sentiment stamps and I hardly ever use them, so I'm looking for some inspiration.

I started by creating the background. And to do that I started by performing some surgery on the stamp. It is from a clear set by Fiskar and is actually 6 flowers arranged in a curved line (you know for stamping in a corner). But I wanted to create a background with flowers all over and plenty of white space so I cut the flowers apart. I did create a couple of masks to make the clusters of three. I colored them with watercolor pencils.

The sentiment was stamped on the die cut flower (My Favorite Things) and is by Kolette Hall ($1 bin at Micheal's). I've had it forever and I'm not sure if I've ever used it before. I colored the flower with watercolor pencils and added some gems.

The grey ribbon is from Really Reasonable Ribbon from one of the monthly ribbon club assortments. The yellow was from Micheal's. I made the bow with my bow-it-all.

Update: I forgot to include the link to the cushions from Bed, Bath & Beyond when I first published this post.  cushions

Thanks for stopping by and please come again.

Party Time and Crazy Squirrel Lady (Projects 36-38)

I have been meaning to post these projects for weeks, but work has been crazy lately.  It is all I can do to force myself to exercise when I get home from work at night. 

Before we get to the projects, I wanted to mention that Artsy Inkers is getting ready to have a party again this weekend.  I know I mentioned Inktoberfest last October and Winterfest back in March.  Well, Artsy Inkers Reunion starts on Saturday, so named because this will be the one year anniversary for Artsy Inkers.  So I invite you guys to pop over and join in the fun.  I'm going to be hosting a challenge and there will be lots of other challenges to play along with.  A fun time will be had by all. 

Now on to the projects.  This is what I made for my Mom, the Crazy Squirrel Lady, for mother's day. 

Let's start with the gift bag. I took a white bag and inked it with Distress Ink in Shabby Shutters, Spun Sugar, and Picked Raspberry. Then I stamped it with a bunch of critter stamps using Memento ink in Bamboo.   The stamps are by Inkadinkado, TPC STudio, Hampton Arts, and Imaginisce.

 

 

For the present, I started with some 3-D stickers of woodland critters by Jolee's Boutique that my Mom picked up on Black Friday but had no idea what she was going to do with them. You can see the stickers here.   I told her that I would come up with something to make for her with them. And I finally came up with an idea. I decided to make a canvas with little windows for each of the critters.

I started with an 8 x 10 canvas. I used my silhouette to cut squares out of a piece of watercolor paper. I covered the paper with light weight spackle that I tinted with brown ink. 

 

Here's what the light weight spackle looks like:

In addition to adding paint to it, I add a little water to get it smooth enough to smear on the paper.

 

To add texture, I used a plastic knife. It wasn't quite the color I wanted, so I added some Distress Ink in Vintage Photo.  Here's what it looked like after I started adding the Vintage Photo.

 

 

 

Then I smeared some white gesso on top. I was going for a weathered wood look.

Then I applied Distress Ink in Tumbled Glass and Salty Ocean to create the skies. Starting with the deer on the bottom. I cut the birch trees with my silhouette and added some spackle to add texture. Then I added some modeling paste for the snow and added some glitter.

 

For the owl, I created the branch with air dry clay and a fondant mold. I painted it brown.

For the squirrel, I made the tree with air dry clay and a different part of the same mold as I used for the owl. The leaves and pine cone are from a die by Impression Obsession. I colored the leaves with Distress Ink in Pine Needles. I colored the pine cone with Distress Ink in Tea Dye and Vintage Photo. I added some Mod Podge so the paper will hopefully hold up better.

For the Hedgehog, I added some die cut holly leaves from a die by Memory Box. They were colored with Distress Ink with Pine Needles and added Mod Podge. I also added the modeling paste and glitter for the snow.

For the fox, I used the same Impression Obsession die to make the tree and added the modeling paste glitter snow.

For the dove, I just added the holly sticker to it.

All of the critters were attached with hot glue and I hot glued the frame as well. In fact, as I was putting this together, I burned my finger with my hot glue. I had to stop and ice my finger. I got myself good.

Now onto the card. I was inspired by a something I saw on the Hero Arts blog. I really liked the look of the cherry blossom tree. I picked a stamp set by Technique Tuesday that has a tree trunk and a bunch of different stamps for creating the canopy of the tree. I started by stamping the tree trunk with Staz-on in Timber brown. I didn't like the color, so I went over it with a paint brush and Distress Ink in Vintage Photo. Then I daubered Distress Ink in Picked Raspberry. Then I took the flower stamp and stamped it with Picked Raspberry. After doing that, I added Distress Ink in Tumbled Glass, Salty Ocean and Mowed Lawn to create the sky and grass. I added some leftover die cut grass (My Favorite Things die) I had lying around. 

 

 

To add some texture to the tree, I added some die cut flowers. They were also left-overs (Cheery Lynn die). I added a micro bead to the center of each flower.

I die cut the squirrel (Impression Obsession die) and colored him with chalk. I sprayed him with a sealing spray. For the bouquet of flowers, I had to cut the stem and leaves. I used snippets and colored them with Distress Ink in Mowed Lawn. The flowers were more left-overs (Cheery Lynn) and colored with Distress Ink in Squeezed Lemonade, Picked Raspberry, Peacock Feathers, Shaded Lilac and Dried Marigold. I added a clear micro bead to the center of each flower. 

Since I used a bunch of snippets for my die cut pieces, I'm going to enter this over at the playground.

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Weeks 178 and 179