Hello friends! As of Thursday, Fall has begun! It actually really does feel like Fall with the cooler temps settling in on exactly that same day too! I’m looking forward to all of the wonderful changes it brings with it! I enjoy going out in nature and seeing the trees change into their colors.
It’s also that time for a monthly Art Journal page and collaboration with my crafty friend, Carol (from Crafty-Stamper), so please check out her blog for more inspiration too! We’re trying to get creative by using up our never-ending stash piles! So here’s my Art Journal inspiration with the “SMASH OUR STASH” September prompt of “ANY kind(s) of scrap papers!” :
Like many crafters out there, I’m sure we all have those never-ending piles of papers! I especially have a very extensive collection of pattern papers and MANY within those piles of little left-over pieces that never seem to get used and just thrown back into the package! I not only have packages, but I also have several card kits that ALSO have packages of papers in them too…so I pulled out a past kit and was happy that I’ve used pretty much all of the left-over scraps from it! One down and a trillion to go!!😅
For the Background: The page is a 6″ x 9″ Canson 140# cold-pressed paper with the holes prepared at the top for later book binding. I’ve used Distress Oxide Sprays and used the left-over spray on my glass mat with water until I soaked up all the ink. I’ve also splattered some Gold and Ivory acrylic paints over top once dry. I stamped a couple of the tiny leaves with green ink for a bit of depth in the background.
For the Image Elements: I used the Simon Says Stamp “Woodland Whimsy” stamp set to paper piece all of the image elements with the tall trees on the right, the leaves, the bear, the bear’s belly and ears, also with the berry and leaf branches next to him. The trees were fussy cut with scissors and the other images were cut with coordinating dies. I’ve used Copic markers to add a bit of depth and dimension to some of it. Some were glued down while some were popped up with foam squares. I’ve also taken the Lawn Fawn Small Stitched Leaves dies to cut out a few extra and sponged around them to add to the scene. I’ve also used the same papers I’ve used to cut those leaves out and added it as a layer behind the two sentiment quote squares. The quote was printed out from my computer and the “Autumn” sentiment was cut out from pattern papers using the Lawn Fawn henry’s ABCs dies along with more papers to make an “off-set” shadow behind them.
The “ground” was just fussy cut with scissors and ink sponged around the edges. Lastly, I’ve taken some gold Stickles to create “berries” on the leaf branches and randomly over the page.
I really enjoyed creating this page as it has inspired me to go out in nature for a walk! I sure hope you’ve enjoyed it as well! Thanks for stopping in today!
Hello friends! It has been while since my last posting, but was having some back issues and hobbling around a bit which is never a fun thing to deal with, but I’m getting a bit better day by day. Hoping to get back to doing some crafting soon! I’m going to be working on an AJ page for tomorrow’s post…so stay tuned!
I realized that my giveaway had ended and I needed to pull some winners of the Taylored Expressions background stamps for 4 people!😀 So the way I drew out the names, I did sort of “old school” by printing out the names of everyone according to which stamp or stamps that were indicated via comments from the GIVEAWAY POST. So if you were only interested in one of the stamps, your name only went in the draw for just that particular stamp. If you indicated that you were interested in all of them, then your name went in for each one. I cut the names in strips, wadded them up and had my husband hand-pick out a name strip for each stamp. If there was a duplicated name, I would’ve had him draw another, but there was not any duplicates. Here are the winners for each stamp……..
WOOO-HOOO!!🥳🎈 CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL OF THE FOUR WINNERS!!!
If you are one of the winners above, please be sure to CONTACT ME via the form and share your snail mail address with me so that I can promptly mail out your stamp package to you! (I will also try contacting you myself to let you know you were a winner as well.) I would appreciate you contacting me as soon as you can so I can get your stamp to you. If I don’t hear from you within 2-3 weeks, then I will try to draw another winner to claim it.
I’m very sorry if you were not a winner THIS time, (blame my husband!😁) but you never know when I’ll have “extra duplicates” in my craft room that I’d like to share with a fellow friend! Thank you for your kind support! Happy crafting!🤗
Hello friends! Welcome to September! Really hope that you’ve had a wonderful Labor Day weekend and have had a great start to the month so far! I’m still trying to get my MOJO in gear as I really love this time of the year with all of the wonderful Autumn things happening both outside AND in the crafty world too! Really love when it starts up, but as it gets closer to the end of the year…I’m ready to skip right over it! LOL!
Today I have a fun post to share with some projects I made with several Inky Stamperproducts! They have a FB challenge to participate in every month and so I thought I’d share what I came up with. (Check it out and play along if you have any Inky Stamper stamps!) *Check out the store as well because there is a brand-new release that just came out!
This was a fun little scene to create on a mini slimline card! So, the Inky Stamper Inkspiration FB Group challenge THIS month (Sept) is to use more than just one Inky Stamper stamp set on one design. I really liked this challenge because it got me thinking of what to use and pull out several different images and actually use them! Looking forward to seeing what other people come up with too! So, for my scene, I’ve actually pulled out EIGHT different stamp sets!!!😮
To start with the background, I pulled out the *Housefly set with the squares image to clear heat emboss the background and then ink blend over top for an “emboss resist” technique. I took the *Rainy Day set and stamped the rainbow/cloud image and fussy cut the clouds to add on the background sky. For the “flying birds” and the “pattern” at the bottom over the green strip, I’ve used the *Pelican set. Of course, the main characters are different sets from *Rosie Solo and *Ralph Solo. For Rosie’s “hair”, I stamped the butterfly from the *Bug Catcher set to color and fussy cut it out which was then popped up over the flower she originally has. I also used this same set to white heat emboss the sentiment. For Ralph, I pulled out the *Snail set to stamp and color a heart which he is holding. I just made a slit around Ralph’s “hand” to help him hold the heart. And lastly, I pulled out the *Bee set to stamp, color and fussy cut the flower image. I cut off the stem and just attached the flowers with one of them popped up with foam tape. Lastly, I’ve added some sparkle to the butterfly on Rosie and the heart with Ralph using my glitter brush pen. I then added some sequins from the Fall Flowers sequins mix and filled the centers with some Stickles.
So, did I, do it? Did you count out the eight different sets? I think this mouse couple is too cute…and no… they aren’t the “real” mice, these are the good ones to have! 😁
Ralph is showing up again! I needed to make a humorous birthday card for my son and I’m sure he’ll get a kick out it! 😂 This is actually the first card I made for this month’s Inky Stamper Inkspiration FB Group challenge, but I didn’t use eight different sets like I did on the one above, I only used four different sets. However, I used REAL TP!
The background was created using some of the Doodlebug Gingham/Linen paper which the “bricks” image was stamped over with grey ink from the *Goat set. I also used this same set to stamp the “grass” border towards the bottom with another strip of green from the same Doodlebug paper pack. I just fussy cut the top of the grass strip to attach over the grey brick background. Of course, the Ralph inside the TP roll came from the *TP set along with the “pile of poo”💩 and the “Oh Crap!!!” sentiment that was white heat embossed over a black banner and popped up with foam tape. The balloon image came from the *Bunny set. I decided to attach a piece of the white Doodlebug twine and pop up the balloon with foam tape. I attached the other end to Ralph’s “hand”. Lastly, the fourth set I used was the sentiment at the bottom from the *Iguana set. (For that sentiment, I only used a portion of it from the stamp.) So that makes FOUR sets used!
The images on this card were colored using my CC Real Brush markers, I stamped the Ralph image again over the TP… yep, stamped directly onto the TP and fussy cut it out to paper piece over the image. Gives it the REAL look and feel of TP! 😉 I have die cut a black scallop frame to go around the scene and lastly, I’ve added some sparkle to the balloon and the tiny flies around the “poo” with a glitter brush pen. I didn’t want to add too much as this is a masculine style birthday card.
And then I have one last project to share that I actually made for last month’s challenge that I “squeaked” in just in time too! (See what I did there?!😂) Ralph is just so popular today! I had a plastic bag sitting around on my table that I kept moving out of my way and it was frustrating me, so I made this “container” to hold some crafty things to sit on my table! It’s actually a REALLY old tutorial from Splitcoast Stampers using chipboard coasters! I have SO MANY of those coasters and I was happy to use some up. CHECK OUT THE TUTORIAL HERE (P.S. The tutorial is actually done up by Taylor from Taylored Expressions, before her store years! That’s how old it is!)
The challenge last month was to use primary colors on your project which are the red, blue and yellow colors. Not realizing what the challenge would be for THIS month, it would actually fit in with that too! I used THREE different sets for this project. Again, I’ve used the *Ralph Solo set that was colored up and fussy cut out as this was done before the new die came out for him! (see top card) I took out several of the different Doodlebug papers to cover my chipboard coaster panels being mindful of the Primary Color challenge. Rather than leave the papers as is, I decided to pull out the *Inky Greetings set to stamp the splatter image in the coordinating colors with the papers. I also decided Ralph needed to be holding a pencil, so I pulled out the *Owl set and stamped, colored and fussy cut the pencil image which was added to Ralph’s “hand” by making a small slit for him to hold it.
I was happy to pull out some of my old punches to create the backdrop for “pencil holding Ralph” as well as using up those old coasters and some more papers and ribbon from my stash! (I’m really hoping to be doing more of this often!)
I know this was a long-worded post, but hope you enjoyed the projects and got some smiles too! Thanks for catching up with me today! See you soon!
We’re trying to get creative by using up our never-ending stash piles! So here’s my Art Journal inspiration with the “SMASH OUR STASH” September prompt of “ANY kind(s) of scrap papers!” :
