Christmas Non-Card Creations and Final ICAD Week 9 Results!

Hello friends and TGIF!! Hope you have some happy plans laid out for the weekend! I will be doing various things including helping my son move!

If you remember my post from last Friday, I shared some hand-made cards that I had entered into my local County Fair. There are a few other items that I’ve entered besides cards for certain categories and I thought you’d enjoy seeing a few other things that I’ve created just for the fair:

Vicki-Christmas Center Piece-Snowman Hat

My first project was entered into the “Christmas Centerpiece” category, and I was excited to see that I had won first place with this! Can you tell what I’ve used to create the “snowman hat” design?

Let’s take a closer look…

Vicki-Christmas Centerpiece-Snowman hat1

I asked hubby to save me one of his empty coffee cans and I’ve spray painted it in black. I’ve also bought a $1.00 charger plate from Hobby Lobby in black and then attached them together to form the snowman hat. Then I took some white paint and splattered the entire thing for a fun “snow fall effect”. I then began to decorate it by attaching some ribbon, pine tree sprigs and pinecones.

Vicki-Christmas centerpiece-snowman hat2

I bought a really pretty snowflake ornament with lots of sparkle to use as a center piece for the front of the snowman hat. The ribbon bow was attached below that and then the pinecone and sprigs were placed and attached in the center of the bow. (Even the plaid ribbon has some pretty sparkle in it!)

Vicki-Christmas centerpiece-snowman hat-3

For the pinecones and the “snow” over the top of the hat, I have used some embossing paste mixed with some texture stones to give it a thick snow appearance. While it was still wet, I’ve added some glitter to all of it. Love the way this turned out! It will be a great center piece at Christmas time! 🙂

And since I was in a Christmas mood, I also made another item for the Fair:

Vicki-Christmasbasket

This poinsettia basket was entered into the “handmade basket” category, and I was happy to see that I had won first place for this entry as well! For the fair entry, you can have a basket made of anything as long as it was handmade…so of course I made a paper one! 🙂

Vicki-Christmasbasket3

I remember a while back this awesome basket with a tutorial that someone had made from Heartfelt Creations, and I knew I wanted to give it a try. It is such a sturdy basket too as I’ve used some pretty heavy-duty paper to compile it together.

Vicki-Christmasbasket1

The papers that I’ve used are actually some pretty old ones from a past Stampin’ Up! collection. They’re double-sided and you can see the pretty poinsettia pattern on the other side from inside the basket walls. The poinsettia die was a purchase I had made from a sale item in a booth at that Stamp Convention I went to earlier this Summer. I love the embossing details it made with the poinsettia flower. I also took some white ink to pop them out a bit so they’re more noticeable. There is one on each side of the basket and a smaller one at the top of the handle.

Vicki-Christmasbasket4

I’ve used some gold foil paper for the center of the flowers and then added some gold enamel dots on random spots for the centers. I took some thin and narrow gold ribbon to the edges of the handle and then tied a triple bow with it and placed the poinsettia in the center. I just filled the basket with pinecones that I had on hand, but I could see so many things that this basket would work for! Maybe I need to make one for another Holiday too?!

Well although I made these for the fair, they will be nice to use for my own home and of course the photos do not do justice to what they look like in person! I had so much fun with these projects too! (I may still have another project or two to share with you from the fair entries…so keep watching!)

Lastly, I’m also very excited that I have fully completed my ICAD challenge for 2018!! Yay!! I cannot believe that I kept up with it the entire time and did a card for every single day the last 61 days in June and July!! I know that I’ve posted every week what I’ve done, and this is my final set for week 9:

Vicki-ICAD2018-week9

These were so much fun! Some days were really hard and others I zoomed right through it! I learned many things not only from other ICADians, but also about myself with art and how it affects me physically, mentally and emotionally. I am very surprised in more ways than one. Just when you think you don’t have it in you…you can surprise your own self! Have you ever done something like this? I urge you to try as it is such a learning experience.

Vicki-ICAD2018-completed

There is just NO WAY I would have enough room to get every single one of these cards in a photo shot! I had a huge ring binder that I kept them all on and they actually just barely fit on it! LOL! Such a fun thing to see all of these together at once and it will be great to go back and look at later too! Glad I wrote on the back of what each one was.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my post today and have been inspired in some way! There are SO many crafty things I enjoy doing…. there are just never enough hours in the day sometimes! LOL!! We crafters can understand that! 🙂

Thanks so much for dropping in, I really appreciate your kind thoughts and read each and every one! See you soon!

Christmas Cards from County Fair and ICAD Week 8!

Hello friends! TGIF is what I am thinking today! Whew!

I have lots of fun things to share with you all today…so please take your time to read, relax, sip on your beverage and enjoy! 🙂

First, I’d like to share a couple of Christmas cards that I had made earlier this month and I didn’t take a photo of them until (with the exception of one of them) because I was in a hurry to meet a deadline of course and had to wait until I received them back! (I will explain that as we go…)

Vicki-SU! Christmas Card-County Fair 2nd place

I am glad that I have started making up a few Christmas cards now because I literally ran completely OUT of any Christmas cards, I had last year and didn’t really have quite enough to send out all that I had wanted. Well, I’m going to be working DOUBLE hard on my Christmas from here on out because I have 2 craft shows that I’m going to be at, and I know I will really need some including several in a boxed-up form!

I have TONS of Stampin’ Up! products and I was happy to pull some things out and use it on my card here. I knew I wanted to go mostly white with this one because I wanted it to look elegant. I used some chunky silver glass glitter around the edges of my oval. Both the pine needles and outer pinecone where heat embossed with some clear glitter embossing powder. The embossing folder and ribbon are all from SU! too. I just used a wonky stitched rectangle die from My Favorite Things to cut out main panel.

This card won 2nd place at my local County Fair! (You can see more about that below)

Vicki-SU! Christmas Card - County Fair 3rd place

Here is another Christmas card that I made using some more of my Stampin’ Up! products that I keep on hoarding in my stash and don’t use! LOL! The only thing I did different was the background pine trees are actually a Tim Holtz stencil from last year and then the die cut pine trees along with everything else including the paper and ink are all from Stampin’ Up! I added some Stickles clear glitter over the die cut pines and though it’s hard to see in the photo, I sprayed the DSP with some shimmer spray.

This card ended up winning 3rd place at the County Fair!

Vicki-County Fair Christmas Card entries

Here are the entries that I entered in one category at my local County Fair this month. I won 1st, 2nd and 3rd all in the same category which was “Hand Stamped Greeting – Holiday”. They don’t award any more than this in any category. So, I was happy to see that I placed all three! Above, you can see that I have entered the bauble Christmas card I previously posted, and it ended up winning 1st place! You can see the close-up details of the card in THIS POST if you are interested or missed it.

I just needed to start making up Christmas cards and I thought this was a great way to not only get some done but make the most out of it by entering them for the fair!

And of course, since it’s Friday, it’s also time for my weekly ICAD results!! I only have ONE more week left of this 61-day challenge…. can you believe it?!! So here are the ICAD 2018 week 8 results:

Vicki-ICAD2018-Week8

As always, things are a bit random and weird, but each day the prompts inspire me to keep on going to my room and have a play with media!

For one of the cards, I have used a Chibilights Electronic and yes, it is showing as there is a reason for it! LOL! But I wanted to share that it DOES really work on my card:

Vicki-ICAD2018-Day55-circuit or network1

I just had to share that as it is the very first one, I’ve ever done that I got to actually work!! LOL! I was pretty excited! I will be back next week with my very final share from this!

Now you all know WHY I had random and spotted postings…I’ve been a busy stamper with getting projects done and ready for the County Fair (I’ve entered 16 projects and I will share more later on), and I’ve been getting samples ready for my challenge as well as my fellow Splitcoaststampers DDDT challenges getting ready to start soon.

I am tired now and I think I’ll relax with hubby this weekend! Tonight, we are going to go to a hot-air balloon moon glow in our area. The weather is beautiful for it! Hope you all have a wonderful and fun weekend too! Thanks so much for dropping in!

Challenges for Christmas card(s) at the top:

Use Your Stuff – Anything Goes with a Sentiment
Simon Says Stamp Monday – Christmas in July
Fab ‘n’ Funky – Christmas in July
Back to Basics & Beyond – Use an Embossing Folder (top card)
Watercooler Wednesday (WWC180) – Holidays

Crafting Retreat Hang-over Plus ICAD Week 7

Hello friends! Oh no…It’s been a week since my last posting! I have a “crafting hang-over” if there is such a thing! LOL! There were so many things to get done after my 3 day crafting stint and I just couldn’t get it all in! I ran out of steam!

For my 3 day crafting event, it was a local friend who puts together 3 days full of classes, prizes and food! I am still a true blue stamper to the end, but since it was mostly painting, I brought my painting supplies with me and not my stamping supplies. Here’s a mixed media sample I helped teach for a class:

Vicki-Halloween-AlteredBottle

I had a Jack Daniels bottle to alter and went with that for my sample. The advantage that I had compared to everyone else is that I had four flat sides which made it a tad bit easier to attached items to it. These girls were creative and made it work and had fun! The window that I put on even glows in the dark with some special glow-in-the-dark embossing powder! I then covered it with some glossy effects for a “window” look. They are all so cool looking and I loved seeing all the different results!

Vicki-Halloween-Alteredbottle1

A closer look at the bottle and turned to the other side, you can see all of the texture that I attached to the bottle with the flowers, embossing paste, gears, bats, etc. I was going for a steam punk look for the bottle portion (which is why I went over the texture with just a gold metallic texture paste.) and I thought it would be cool to make the green goo coming out at the top, so that was fun to paint with a metallic green. There were lots of little tips and tricks everyone learned along the way. It was funny because everyone didn’t understand why they were painting over everything they worked so hard putting onto the bottle. LOL! After the texture paste, there was the excitement!

Vicki-Halloween-alteredbottle2

This is just another side view of the bottle with the added texture I’ve put on it. I was able to collect some unique items for everyone’s bottle through my husband’s work in a manufacturing setting that had little metal pieces…no idea what they are, but it was something fun and unique to add texture to the bottle. And of course I had gears, buttons, stencils with embossing paste, flowers, etc. The windows and bats were all cut out with some dies that I had. That window die is actually from Lawn Fawn! The tiny bone sticking out on the window is of course Tim Holtz.

Painting Divas 2018

Here are some of the girls having fun with their bottles in class. They are very intently working on getting their bottles just right! 🙂 Of course it’s hard to get everyone together at one time in a photo, but there were a couple more people there including myself not shown.

Painting Divas-2018-Doris-mixedmedia bottles

Here’s a look at the bottles from class! I think everyone enjoyed this concept and I even had an additional bottle that I made they really enjoyed the other sample that I made too. So I made a different theme on this one:

Vicki-Mermaidbottle-main

For those that are not Halloween fans, I showed them a completely different look with the bottle. This is my “Mermaid bottle” that I’ve made with Patina Effect Texture Pastes and copper metallic paints. I used some sea shells that I have along with some rope, beads, texture paste, cheese cloth and lots of other little tid bits I had on hand. I got a cork and used it for the top of the bottle and added a gem on top. I really like how texturized the paste made the bottle look.

Vicki-Mermaidbotle1

Turning the bottle around, you can see more detail on the bottle along with the charm and tiny jar I have hanging down around the cork at the top. I painted a silver mermaid charm with some Mermaid Sparkle metallic paint of course and then touched up the edges of it some copper texture paste. For the bottle, I had a package of tiny bottles and I filled one with some blue sequins and made this tiny tiny label over vellum and attached it to the bottle. It says “Mermaid Tears”.

Vicki-Mermaidbottle3

On the back side of the bottle, you can see that I’ve made a little “path” for the beads and sea shells to flow all the way around it. I have taken a mermaid die cut and cut it out several times to create a dimensional look by adding several layers of cardstock together. I had her sitting on top of one of the stone pieces I’ve attached to the bottle along with some gems above her for a “bubble” affect. This mermaid die along with some of the stones, gems, pebbles, mermaid charm and the gem on top of the cork all came from a past card kit.

Vicki-Mermaidbottle2

And here is just another angle of the bottle before we come back to the front of it. It just gives you a better idea of what all the dimension is on the bottle and how I’ve highlighted it with copper metallic paint. I even had a little toy compass to attach to the front. I had a piece of decorative paper from an older paper collection that I cut of piece of to attach to the front of the bottle and then wrapped the rope around it. I gave it a bit of a white wash over it with paint so it fit with the theme of the bottle….old looking.

And finally, yes, when I got home I realized that I was behind on chores around the house as well as my ICAD challenge! So I sat down yesterday to try and catch up with those so that I don’t get too far behind! I’m happy to say that I’m all caught up and there is not many left to go either! Another 2 weeks and it will be complete!

So here are the results of Week 7 ICAD:

Vicki-ICAD2018-Week7

With the theme and prompts given this last week, I didn’t expect mine to be as colorful as they are, but some of them turned out very colorful! I also enjoyed playing with some things I rarely get out to play with!

So now you know what I’ve been busy with this past week and maybe you’ll excuse me not being around so much! 🙂 Hope you’ve enjoyed my mixed media projects. I’d love to know what you think! Have you ever tried mixed media? Do you like the concept of it? Just curious how many of you out there enjoy it! Thanks for stopping in!

Challenges I’d like to enter my bottle(s) for:

A Inky Mess – Just For Fun (mixed media)
Creative Artiste – Anything Mixed Media Goes
Altered Eclectics – Anything Mixed Media Goes (no cards)

Shaking Up a Floating Boat and ICAD Week 6!

Welcome to Friday friends! It’s not common that I’ve posted 3 days in a row! Wow!

Speaking of rowing, I have a fun shaker card to share with you today:

Vicki-LF-color shaker

I thought it would be fun to pull out my Lawn Fawn Float My Boat stamp set and create a “porthole” scene shaker style card. I cut circles with the LF Stitched rectangle dies and then used the LF Ocean Waves die to cut the circle in half which creates separation for the ocean scene. I took the top half of the panel to create the sky by blending in distress inks and then used other distress inks for the bottom portion. I stamped the birds from the stamp set over the sky and then I inserted the sailboat inside the wave. As you can see, the sailboat is paper pieced with the LF Beachside Paper pad. I’ve used this paper pad to also layer throughout my card design.

I found some cool looking shaker sequins with stars to put inside my shaker “porthole”. I also used the stitched circle die to cut out a piece of acetate for the window and then I used a stitched circle frame die to cut out a white frame around my acetate shaker window. I then stamped the banner from the LF Bannertastic stamp set and cut it out with the coordinating die. I then stamped the sentiment from the Float My Boat stamp set and then popped it up with foam tape over the “porthole” shaker window until it was high enough to lay over top of it.

I mounted these onto the starry navy paper from the paper pad as well as the same red that I used on the sailboat, which was then layered onto a white A2 sized top folding card base. I used heavy weight due to all of the layers and shaker details.

Wouldn’t it be nice to be sailing on the water about now? OK…sorry…went off on a short day dream there! LOL!

**********

Can you believe that I’ve went through SIX WEEKS of this ICAD so far?! I have struggled at times going in to figure out what to do for the prompt on a tiny index card, but I have to say that I have built quite a collection and in a few more weeks I will have completed the entire challenge!

And here are the results from Week 6:

Vicki-ICAD2018-Week6

This week was slightly out of my comfort zone, but I went ahead and pushed through it and I’m glad I did…learned some pretty cool things! 🙂

Thanks for dropping in! Hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Challenges I’d like to enter my sailboat shaker card for:

Lawn Fawnatics – color challenge
Crazy 4 Challenges (C4C442) – Windows
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday – Fun in the Sun
Creative Knockouts – Summer Fun

Birthday BEAR Hugs & ICAD Week 5!

Happy Friday friends! Just stopping by to share a few creations that I’ve been working on! I can’t believe how crazy busy this week has been, but I’m still pressing on and having as much fun as I can stand in my craft room! 🙂

I feel like it’s been a while since I’ve pulled out some of the huge stash of My Favorite Things stamps, so I played around with some challenges! Check it out:

Vicki-MFT-birthdaybear

How cute is that bear peeking out from the gift box?! So, keeping with the challenges, I’ve used the MFT sketch and color challenges to base this card on. I also wanted to play along with the birthday project challenge as well…so killing several ‘birds’ at once here. (See all challenge details below.)

I pulled out the MFT Ripe Raspberry card stock for the base of my card and used the MFT Beary Special Birthday stamp set with the sentiment in white ink to stamp all over the background of the base. I colored the sweet bear and cut him out with the coordinating die and popped him up with foam tape at the bottom of the card. For the top panel, I took the MFT Mini Clouds Edges stencil and created a cloudy sky on white card stock. (I didn’t have any but was trying to match up the colors with the MFT Blue Yonder for the color challenge.) I then cut this panel with the MFT Stitched Basic Edges and then cut out a MFT Blu Raspberry piece of cardstock with the MFT Stitched Scallop Basic Edges die and layered it underneath the cloudy sky background. I attached this to the Ripe Raspberry card base.

I took the bunch of balloons from the same stamp set and colored them with coordinating colors, I fussy cut just the balloons because I took the image and stamped it on the cloudy sky background so I could pop up the balloons with foam tape. I also covered the balloons with some Spectrum Noir clear sparkle glitter pen. I then took a sentiment from the same stamp set and heat embossed it in white embossing powder over some MFT Black Licorice card stock and cut the strip with fish tails and then popped it up over the balloon strings with foam tape. Lastly, I added some Pretty Pink Posh sparkling clear sequins and added some silver Nuvo glitter drops in the center of each one.

I can’t believe that I have fully completed week 5 of the ICAD challenge so far! Although things have been a bit hectic, I am determined to continue on with these index cards each day…I am surprised by how they turn out sometimes too! Here are the weird and random tiny pieces of art I’ve created each day this last week:

Vicki-ICAD2018-week5

I truly am hoping that this will help me to become a better artist. I am proud of myself for pushing on when I want to just give up sometimes, but that’s exactly why I need to challenge myself to continue when it gets hard. I’m also happy to pull out media that I’m either not familiar with or pushed to create beyond what I am comfortable with…like drawing! LOL! I can’t wait to look back at these all at one time when I’m done!

Have YOU challenged yourself lately?

Thanks for stopping by today! Hope you’ve enjoyed my creations!

Challenges I’d like to enter my ‘Happy Bear-day” card for:

MFT ‘The Birthday Project’ – Use a bear image on your birthday card
MFT Color Challenge – Blu Raspberry, Ripe Raspberry, Black Licorice & Blue Yonder
MFT Sketch (MFTWSC392) – sketch
The Paper Players – PP400 – Celebration

Scooping Up a Card or Two Plus ICAD Week 3 results

Hello friends! You ever have one of those weeks where no matter how you try to make ends meet, something always goes wrong to mess you up again and get you off track? This week was just one of those weeks! No matter how hard I tried to stay on top of things, something would go wrong and so much so that supper has been really late almost every night. So I am glad to post something here and glad it is Friday honestly! LOL!

I have a mixed bag of creations to share with you today, so I hope you enjoy this post and get some sort of inspiration with it!

Vicki-BM-SprinkledwithLove-cardkit

Let’s start with this fun birthday card I made using that piece of background paper that I made at the stamp convention! (If you don’t remember it, check out THIS POST to see it!) It seemed to be the perfect colors to use. I actually die cut the background piece using the Lawn Fawn cross-stitched rectangle dies and then heat embossed the sentiment. I took the ice cream cone image, stamped and colored it in and cut out that panel with the same die as the background. Mounted it over black along with the background piece, added some glitter touches with gel pens, Spectrum Noir glitter pen for the heart and then covered it with glossy accents. I then added a black piece of twine to the cone and then took those gorgeous colored pearls from the card kit and glued them in the upper right corner of the design. All was mounted onto an A2 sized card base.

20180622_111655

And speaking of the Stamp Convention goodies, I fell in love with the sparkly bird card that I made from one of the vendor booths and bought up a couple of packages of the kits they had! (Each kit contained enough to make 12 cards!) The sparkle against the transparency looks amazing! I embellished the corners and added the sentiment with the foil stickers from the kit. The paper and envelope are furnished in the kit…pretty much just assemble…can’t get any easier than that! Check it out from Stamp On It! (They have many of them!)

Vicki-ICAD2018-week3

So as you know from the last couple of weeks of postings that I’ve been participating in this Daisy Yellow ICAD challenge. You can find my postings about the past ones I’ve created by clicking on the “ICAD” archives link at the top left of this post.

As mentioned before, I cannot share the prompts or themes, but it is something that I work on each day…yes…no matter how hard it gets, I’m getting out my index card and playing around with something! Today’s card is not shown (it’s in next week’s grouping), but I’ve noticed that my “makings” are in conjunction with the mood I have for that day…pretty interesting I’d say! If you haven’t looked into this challenge, I encourage you to give it a try. Some days are just hard to figure out what you’re going to be doing and other days you just know. 🙂

So that’s all the shares I have for you today and hope that will be enough to tide you over until next week as I will have a bit more time for a routine after this horrible week is now over with! LOL! I thank you for your continued support by following, liking, commenting or just looking, it is always appreciated! Enjoy your weekend!

challenges I’d like to enter my ice cream cone card for:

Crafty Gals Corner – Anything Goes
Aud Sentiments – Anything Goes + sentiment.
Seize the Birthday – Anything Goes

King For a Day and ICAD 2018-week 2 results

Hello friends! The weekend is upon us and I’m told it’s going to be a hot one here, so I think I will be hosting the Father’s Day celebration inside where it’s cooler!

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Thought it would be fun to take the Lawn Fawn Wild For You stamp set and use the lion with the crown image for a Father’s Day card. I colored the image and crown and cut it out with the coordinating dies. I stenciled some clouds on the stitched circle background and stamped the sentiment from the same set by curving it to fit the circle along the edge and then die cut a couple strips of grass and cut that with the same stitched circle die. I nestled the lion in between. Layered that onto a mirrored gold circle die cut from the Lawn Fawn Zig Zag Circle dies. I’ve also used the cloud stencil to cover the background of the card along with my envelope for the card. I used the rectangle stitched dies to cut out the front panel of my card and attached a banner cut from some LF papers. The sentiment comes from the LF Happy, Happy Happy stamp set and dies.

Also, wanted to share the second week now of the ICAD 2018 Challenge that I’m doing! Yes, I even took things with me to the Stamp Convention last weekend and worked on the days that I needed to so I stayed with it. Never stamped in a motel room before, but luckily there was a nice sized desk to spread stuff out on! 🙂 – check out the details if you want to join in the fun too! Nope, it’s never too late!

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

It looks pretty random, but that’s what this challenge is for…pure randomness in creating and I think that’s what I love about it, not to mention that I don’t feel as pressured because it’s just playing on a little index card! The coffee one was made with a coffee cup I had sitting on my desk…it smells lovely! This is how my mind works…randomly in thoughts and so different from day to day. Hope you like seeing the results each week!

Thanks for stopping in as I always enjoy seeing what you have to say! Not sure if any of you are receiving my replies, but I truly appreciate each one and your support in my love of creating. If you would like for me to visit your blog, please don’t be shy…leave me a comment and let me know you are here! Have a wonderful weekend!

I would like to enter the Father’s Day “lion” card in these challenges:

Lawn Fawnatics – Cards for Guys
Cardz 4 Guyz -Father’s Day
Sweet Stampin’ – Father’s Day
Splitcoaststampers “Free For All” Challenge (F4A33) – Father’s Day

Week One – ICAD 2018

Happy Friday! Wanted to stop in with a quick post to share with you what I’ve been up to with my daily creating this past week for the start of the ICAD 2018 challenge! I go into my stamp studio/room each day to use the prompts/themes given and use this as a basis (or not) to create something on an index card every day up until we’ve done 61 days all together! You can click on the link above for information in case you’d like to join in the fun too! When I finish, I post it to the ICAD FB group and there is so much inspiration from everyone else that it just makes it a really fun experience.

I have enjoyed the process of being able to just play on a small piece of card as to not have it be so intimidating and gives you the freedom to just “play around” with your craft stash! This is how I am storing/displaying my index cards:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Since the index cards already have a hole in the corner, I am using a metal ring to keep the finished cards all together in one place. The first one is the “cover” that I’ve made for this year’s ICAD challenge.

So since the first week is finished and the second week has already started, I will share what I’ve done for the first week’s cards:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

I enjoyed playing with different media and some that I’ve already had and tried in new and fun ways! I even attempted to draw my own image which I never do! I love using both the prompts and themes for a starting point especially since I would be stuck not knowing where to start without them. And since it’s an index card….so what if I “mess up”, but I have decided that no matter what, I’m not throwing it away or starting over…it’s just how it happens to turn out on that day. I also made notes and have a date stamp for the back of the cards so that I know the prompt, theme and media used for the card on that day. I may even use notes about how I was feeling. I’m also looking forward to seeing how I progress throughout this challenge each week. Hope you are too!

I am also going to have an additional challenge since I’m headed off this weekend to a stamp convention in Collinsville, IL! I have taken some items with me so that I can continue with the daily challenges. I’m excited about going and look forward to meeting a fellow crafty friend or two while I’m there! 🙂

Wishing you a wonderful Summer weekend my friends and thanks for dropping in!

Brewed Two Ways

Wow! Thank you so VERY much for the warm welcome here! I’m blown away by your support and deeply touched! Please, please bare with me as I try to find my way back to getting “in the groove” with things, but I’m sure it won’t take too long to find it! I’m excited about creating and sharing what I love to do with you and think this is the best way to do just that! So let’s continue, shall we?

As I had mentioned in my post yesterday, I saw that the Coffee Lover’s Spring/Summer Blog Hop has begun! Yay! I can never pass up a yummy cup of Joe for sure! 🙂

Since it started yesterday, I thought that maybe I should make two cards! So of course I’m starting with something that I have “brewed up” in two different ways:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

I have used this gorgeous digital stamp kindly provided by one of the super sponsers for the blog hop. You can find this image here on the Stamplorations blog. I sized the image and then used a stitched circle die to cut it out. I’ve also printed it out a second time and cut out just the cup and popped it up over the design. I thought it would be fun to create a sepia colored design except for the cup of coffee. So I’ve used Copic sepia color tones to color in the flowers. For the background, I’ve used the STAMPlorations Blooming Buds set and stamped the images. I blended some sepia color inks along the edges to go with the theme. I took a strip of gold foil card stock to place the popped up coffee cup and I filled the coffee cup with some yummy vintage gold glitter by Ranger.

I’ve taken the same coffee digital stamp and brewed it up in another way…

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

For this one, you can see that I have really enlarged the entire image and pretty much have used it for the front of my card design. I thought the flowers in this image were so pretty and wanted to color them to take up the whole card. I’ve colored everything with my Copics and glitter gel pens. For the sentiment I pulled out the image from STAMPlorations A Full Heart and embossed it in white over a strip of black card stock. I used my scissors to cut a banner with it and stuck it right under the coffee. Lastly, I just attached some gold sequins and filled the centers with some gold stickles.

I had fun with this pretty image and I thank Shery from STAMPlorations for providing it! I hope to play some more during the Coffee Lover’s Hop, so stayed tuned in for that!

I have also been getting ready still for the up-coming ICAD challenge as well! There have been some more warm-ups assigned, so I wanted to keep up with doing that. I am really loving the creative process with this because it’s all about just “playing around” which is always fun to do with your stash! 🙂 So one of the warm-ups is to make a map of some sort. I decided to make a “mental map” to remember things that I need as I go along with this creative process. The next warm-up was to make a card with 3 colors and 3 words. I hardly use these colors, so I put them on purpose. The third challenge was to create a cover card for the front of your ICAD creations to place in front of wherever they’re being stored. Here’s a photo of the results with that:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Hope you’ve enjoyed my post today! I have been creating and having so much fun! Be sure to stay tuned into my blog each week as I report the week’s ICAD challenges that I’ve completed. Making sure I post it on my blog will help keep me accountable as well! Don’t forget to check out the badge on the sidebar of my blog if you’d like more information about it!

I would like to enter my coffee cards above into the following challenges:

Coffee Lovers Blog Hop Spring + Summer
STAMPlorations – Never Ending Challenge – must use their images
Dare 2B Artzy – Dreaming of Flowers
Pink and Main Challenge – #30 Anything Goes

Sorry Connie, I missed that challenge…I’ll get the next one!

Wishing you all a fabulous weekend and thanks again for stopping in, I truly love that you are here and found me! Lots more coming! -Don’t forget to share some smiles today! 🙂

Starting With Some “Warm-Ups”

Hello there! It’s weird starting up another new blog and especially with a format that I’m not used to! (I’m learning as I type here too! LOL!) So glad you are here with me and I’m a little anxious to get started with this too! I know it sounds weird for those of you that know I’m actually an avid crafter AND an avid blogger as well, but I “feel” new to this for some reason!

I still have quite a ways to go with posting, but I hope you will follow along as I post and get comfortable in my “new home”! Since I have tested out a new post, then I also need to test out a new photo too:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

I know this is a bit of a weird photo to start with, but it is a starting point and a good one to share of what’s to come and where I am going! I find these practices you see here actually helpful with my creative process and a place to just begin.

These are my “warm up” doodles for the up-coming ICAD soon to start!

If you are interested in what “ICAD” means, you can check out the full description in this link here: ICAD Base

Basically, the challenge is to use the prompts given for each day and use a simple index card (nothing more/nothing less) and create with it once a day until the challenge is over. It starts June1 and lasts until July 31st. I found this last year and so enjoyed playing in new and creative ways that it really jump-started my inspiration and I actually got excited to go in my craft room and create! I have decided to do it again this year and take you along with my creative process doing it. There are “warm-up” prompts on the blog here: Warm-Ups 1-3 and here: Warm-Ups 4-6 I have done all of them shown above. I really had fun getting out all of my creative “writing tools” and just doodling and adding water to them and smudging them and so on. It was just fun to doodle and play!

I may just use some of these “warm-ups” as a background or part of something during my ICAD journey, so I hope you will enjoy the experience with me here on my blog or even as a fellow “ICAD-ian” and join in the challenge! I have a badge along the side of my blog here in case you want to check out the details some other time as well.

Thanks for stopping in and checking out my new beginnings here. I hope you enjoy the journey with me!

Don’t forget to share some smiles today! 🙂