More Christmas Smells

Hello friends! Since it’s still so very warm outside, I thought it would be fun to do a bit of coloring which I haven’t really done much of lately and create another Christmas card in July! Hope you are staying cool…or warm depending on where you live! LOL

Vicki-InkNSplatterdigi-gingerbread

A cup of cocoa with marshmallows, a candy cane and a chocolate cupcake with a gingerbread friend to share it with sounds wonderful to me! You may recognize the image from Digi Doodle Studios, which is where this retired image is from called “Jacks Ginger Cocoa Mug“. It was just nice to be able to spend time coloring up a cute image and enjoy more from my long-forgotten stash! I’ve used Copics to color the image and cut it out with my square dies to layer for my card design.

I thought the brown gingham papers went well with the cardstock that I’ve used from Stampin’ Up! called Baked Brown Sugar. I wanted to also bring in some red to the design because of the candy canes/peppermints in the image. I layered a piece of lace ribbon over it and then popped up the layered colored image on top. I used a photo corner punch for redder in the right top corner of the image.

The sentiment was white heat embossed over the Baked Brown Sugar cardstock and cut out with a stitched banner die. The sentiment is also from a retired Pink & Main stamp set I had in my stash. Lastly, I added some round peppermint clay accents to finish it off.

Hope you’ve enjoyed my Christmas card today or have been inspired for Christmas..or food! Thanks for stopping by!

Challenges I’d like to enter:

Christmas Kickstart – Gingerbread Treats
Rudolph Days Challenge – Anything Goes Christmas (June)
Merry Little Christmas – Anything Goes Christmas
Crafter’s Cafe – Christmas in July
Double D – Christmas in July
Creative Knockouts – Christmas in July
Crafty Catz – Anything Goes with optional Christmas in July

Patriotic Pandemonium

Hello friends! I had a day of some crafty fun and wanted to share things I’ve made for some challenges. I absolutely love the red, white and blue colors. Most of the time it’s associated with patriotic colors and July 4th Holiday, but I’ve decided to take not just the colors, but the theme using one stamp set and a sheet of paper to create different looks with it.

First up is this really cute mouse waving his flag with a fun patriotic theme…which is what this new stamp set from Inky Stamper (called Americana) was intended for. I printed out some freebie papers and used them on all of my cards here today. I colored Ralph up with Copics and popped him up on a scallop circle silver glitter cardstock and stamped the sentiments and stars with red and blue inks. I also added some sequins from the Stars & Stripes sequins mix at Inky Stamper and added some silver Stickles in the centers of those as well as the stars. I also added one of the flags from the sequins mix next to the sentiment at the top. (I’ve used these on all of these cards too.)

I’ve made this card for SCS Teapotter Tuseday challenge as a Patriotic Congrats card for someone in the military whose been promoted to Colonel, so this worked out really well for sending this one out.

For this card, I wanted to share that a teeny tiny image from a stamp set can be fun to use in a different way as well. I took the “bomb popsicle” image that was stamped and colored and popped them up with foam tape over die cut stars from white glitter cardstock. I’ve used some more of the freebie papers and added a sentiment that was white heat embossed over red cardstock and cut out with a banner die. The tiny red stars came from that sequins mix I mentioned above.

I made this card based on a sketch for a challenge that I wanted to enter before it ended too. (Check it out in the challenges listed below.)

And lastly using this same stamp set, freebie papers, sequins mix and color theme, I made a Christmas card with it. I took the little star image from this stamp set and stamped it several times, colored it in and fussy cut several of them out. It’s not that bad when you’re cutting and watching videos while you do it!

I took a circle die and traced a circle with a pencil so that I would have a guide as to where to create my wreath. I stamped a few stars directly on the circle area and then erased the line before I colored them. the other stars that I fussy cut, I glued some on and popped some up with foam squares. I also added an extra star in the center of the silver bow on the wreath.

I added some silver sequins from the same sequins mix mentioned above and then placed some silver Stickles in the centers of them as well as in the center of the stars.

These were so much fun to make with all of the same products and color theme to challenge myself with. I hope you’ve enjoyed them too or been inspired in some way. Thanks for dropping by!

Challenges:

Try Stampin’ On Tuesday – sketch + cold treats (card 2)
Crafting Happiness – Anything Goes (card 1)
Four Seasons – Anything Goes Summer (card 2)
Crafty Animals – Anything Goes with animal (card 1)
Critter Crazy – Anything Goes featuring animal (card 1)
Pearly Sparkles – Christmas in July (card 3)
Crafty Calendar – Anything Goes (card 1)
Challenge Up Your Life – Patterned Paper (all cards use papers)
The Paper Fun Day – Anything Goes optional: red, white & blue (all cards)
Try it On Tuesday – Use 3 colours (red, white and blue)

It’s Christmas in July at Sparkles Monthly!

Hello friends! Have you’ve been enjoying the month of July so far? We finally got some rains, but now it’s humid and warmer. That’s OK because it’s always warm this time of year anyway and a great time for crafting indoors with the air conditoning!

Today starts up a new challenge for the Sparkles Forum Monthly Challenge Blog with the theme: Christmas in July! It’s a favorite for many card makers this month so that they can get an early start on those Christmas cards without having to wait last minute to get them all done. I don’t have an outrageous amount to send out, but I do like to donate and I have done 5 Christmas so far! So if you’re up for it, make a Christmas card and join the gallery at the challenge! Here’s the card that I’ve made:

There’s nothing like the smell of peppermint for Christmas (for me anyway!) I had gotten this Candy Cane Lane card kit from Taylored Expressions last year and never really used it, so I thought this would be a good time to pull it out.

In the set, there came this cover plate die and I cut it out in the following, gold mirror, white glitter and white cardstock in A2 sizes. I paper pieced each one over an A2 sized white card base front. I added some light blue ink blending around the edges and bottom of the center panel and stamped a few “snowflakes” in the same color.

I die cut the candy canes and leaves and ink blended/stenciled those stacked together. I used a white gel pen for the highlight over the canes, added a gold cord bow and some gold drip drops for the “berries”. There was a stamp set with sentiments that I stamped out in red and then went over top of it with VersaMark ink so that I could emboss some Peppermint smelling embossing powder over it…that’s where the smell of peppermint came in for me! I die cut it out with the coordinating die and glued it at the bottom of the candy canes.

Hope you can join the challenge with your Christmas cards this month! Thanks so much for dropping in today!

Challenges:

Sparkles Christmas – Include Gold
Merry Little Christmas – Anything Christmas Goes
Get Creative – Christmas in July
Craft Rocket – Christmas in July
Most Magical Time of the Year – ATG Christmas/Halloween optional: Christmas in July
Christmas Craft Creations – Christmas in July
Little Red Wagon – Christmas or New Year? (I hardly ever send out New Year cards)
Krafty Chicks – Christmas
CRAFT – Christmas

June AJ Page-Metal Train

Hello again! I hope that you are enjoying your start to Summer or at least enjoying the month of June as we come to a close with it. We are hoping to get some much-needed rain the next few days, but I see there has been some very strange weather happening everywhere lately. So whatever your area, hoping it’s good for you.

It’s time for the monthly Art Journal Page collaboration with my crafty friend, Carol (from Crafty-Stamper)! We get creative trying to use up our never-ending stash piles along with a prompt for each month. I know she will have some wonderful inspiration to share, so please check out her blog too! Here’s my AJ page with the “SMASH OUR STASH” June prompt of “METAL”:

How about you?! Do you have lots of metal things in your stash? I have several different things, but this time I wanted to concentrate on my large bag of metal gears along with some older things from my stash. With the gears in mind, I decided that a steampunk theme would be something I could do. So I pulled out my Stamperia Aviator themed papers and saw this cool steampunk train to use.

For the Background: I used my usual 6″ x 9″ 140# Canson paper with the pre-punched holes at the top and painted it with some Periwinkle and Turquoise colored paints. I splattered some dots over it with silver metallic paint and then went around the edges with some soft black sponged over it. The wording strip at the top was printed on my computer and it says: “Not all those that wonder are lost” repeated. I also printed out the “9 3/4” from my computer and cut it out with a circle die and layered some copper metallic cardstock behind it. (If I saw a train platform with 9 3/4 on it, I’m sure I would want to take it! Maybe I need a trip to Universal Studios!)

The train along with the “Vintage Travel” badge and compass were fussy cut out from the Stamperia papers. I used a metal clip from my stash to combine the badge and compass together and used foam tape to attach it to the page. I also used some foam tape to attach the cut-out train after adding a metal brad to the front wheel.

I wanted to share a closer look at the bottom of the page to explain what I did. Using some black cardstock, I used the Lisa Horton Mechanical Rivets embossing folder over it. I used some Finnibair metallic wax pastes to go over the entire panel to get this look. Before attaching it to the page, I used some large metal eyelets from my stash to attach them at each corner and then I glued some extra metal gears over top of them.

You can see how I’ve attached all of the metal gears to the train here as well. For the “steam” coming from the train, I just used a sponge and white ink.

Had some fun playing around with the metals and making faux metal as well with this one. Hope you’ve enjoyed it too! Thanks for dropping in today and see you soon!

Challenges I’d like to enter this AJ page in:

Art Journal Journey – All About Numbers
Country View – Vintage
Creative Artiste – Anything Mixed Media
Crafting From the Heart – Anything Goes (no cards)
Simon Says Stamp Monday – Pick a Number
Penny’s Paper-Crafty – Anything Goes Using Paper

Rainbow Chicken

Hello friends! Hope you’re enjoying your week so far. We’ve been having some really hot and dry days lately, so I’m trying to get some motivation going and have some play time for crafting!

I have not played along before, but I decided to grab this fun digital freebie from the Beccy’s Place Challenge and have a go at it because it really made me laugh when I saw it!

Isn’t this such a fun image?! There was an option of different pre-colored images, but I decided to print out the lined image to color in. I colored the chicken in rainbow and then added a pair of die cut glasses in silver mirror cardstock that I had on hand. (I already had the glasses cut out from another card I made that was laying out on my desk, so when coloring this image, I thought it would be fun to add!)

The layout came from a sketch challenge that she’s also sponsoring. (see challenge list below) I thought that I was going to leave it as just black and white to make the rainbow chicken stand out, but I found some fun rainbow papers and decided to add one panel to go with the chicken. I came up with and typed out the sentiment underneath the image and printed them both together.

For another part of Beccy’s challenge, there is an optional theme she included which was “doodling”. So I took a white gel pen and added some lines for highlights on the chicken. I’ve also taken a black marker pen to make some squiggle lines around the image panel too. I blended some grey ink around the edges and then used a distress tool for the distressed edges.

After adding the glasses, I covered the eyeballs with some crystal effects for shine.

And this one has been sent off to hopefully make someone smile! I hope you like it too!

Thanks so much for dropping in and I’ll see you again on Saturday for another AJ page!

Challenges:

Beccy’s Place Challenges – June Challenge using Beccy’s Place image with optional doodling
Cheerful Sketches – June sketch
The Diva’s That Cut..Paper! – Use a Critter
The Corrosive – Anything Goes
Crafter’s Cafe – Humorous
Crafty Catz – Anything Goes optional: FUN
Lil’ Patch of Crafty Friends – Anything Goes
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – Anything Goes

NO STAMPING ALLOWED at Sparkles Monthly

Hello friends! It’s been a bit since my last posting! I’m still crafting, but I’m also enjoying the outdoors lately too! I’m just not making the time I need to post on my blog here! However, being on a design team helps to keep me focused on posting and hopefully it’s something that will bring motivation because I need it! So I will try and get some more posts in!

Today starts a new challenge over at the Sparkles Monthly Challenge and the theme is “No Stamping Allowed!” This may seem a bit challenging, but I look forward to seeing what people come up with for it! Be sure to check out the blog to see what the design team has come up with for inspiration! Here’s what I’ve made for the challenge this month:

I was trying to channel something that would work and realized that I had these fun strip dies from Taylored Expressions and I wanted to play with some new colors, so I ran with that on the middle of my card front by alternating the strip colors.

I also die cut a frond three times and glued them together for thickness and sturdiness. I attached it over the colored strip panel and then added a sentiment that was already toner printed so that I could foil over it with silver Deco Foil. I also had a die that cut it out which was popped up with foam strips and added to the bottom of the die cut frond. Lastly, I’ve just added some silver glitter drops randomly over the card front.

Hope you’ve enjoyed my non-stamped card today and will think about joining in the challenge with us this month! Thanks so much for stopping in! Have a great week!

Challenges:

Craft Rocket – Use Dies
NBUS – #51 June – new colors and dies
Creative Fingers – Anything Goes
A Place to Start – Anything Goes and/or twist: flower + one other thing
Penny’s Paper-Crafty – Anything Goes using paper
The Crafty Addicts – Anything Goes
CAS on Friday – Leaves

May AJ Page-Start a New Beginning

Hello friends! I feel like the time keeps moving whether or not I do! At the last minute before getting something done, I finally started this page! Once I got going, it was fun to just play around to see what happens!

I noticed looking back on my AJ pages that I rarely use flowers on them unless it’s already apart of some papers that I’m using. So this was a good challenge for me and it was fun to pull out these Tim Holtz “Flower Garden” stamps and dies from my collection to use for this one.

For the background: I started with my 9″x6″ pre-punched holes of Canson 140# cold press watercolor and used a brick stencil and model paste. I covered the entire page with some linen and umber paints mixed together. I dabbed a bit of orange and spritzed it with water for a rust look. I then went over that with a dry brush effect with some light ivory paint to bring out the texture of the brick pattern.

The flowers and stems were stamped over a watercolor Bristol that I previously made and splattered with chocolate paint. I also covered the die cut flowers with shimmer spray. (Not sure if you can catch that in the photo.) All of the stems were glued, and the flowers were glued with some being popped with foam tape. I covered the bottom area over the stems with grit paste and then went over it with brown paint to give the appearance of dirt.

I took a Dylusions stamp and white heat embossed it over chocolate cardstock for the sentiment, hand cut it and popped up with foam tape at the top of the page. I added a butterfly from a Tim Holtz ephemera pack.

Hope you’ve enjoyed my AJ page today! Thanks for dropping in and checking it out!

Challenges:

Art Journal Journey – Flowers
Creative Artiste – Anything Goes Mixed Media
Simon Says Stamp Monday – Watercolor (I watercolored the flowers/stems)
Arty Divas – Anything Goes

Sparkles Monthly Challenge-Things with Wings

Hello friends! I hope you’ve had a lovely Mother’s Day weekend and are enjoying the month of May so far! I look forward to seeing those beautiful blooms and digging in the garden!

Today starts a brand new challenge over at the Sparkles Monthly Challenge and the theme is “Things with Wings“! This is a good one as there’s several ways to interpret it! Be sure to check out the blog to see what the design team has come up with for inspiration! Speaking of design team, Caz is looking to add to the team, so be sure to check out the details if you would be interested in joining. Here’s what I’ve made for the challenge this month:

I thought the butterfly from this Taylored Expressions stamp set called Endless Joy would be so fun to color and use for this challenge. They were stamped with Copic markers and cut out with the coordinating dies.

For the background, I’ve taken the rectangle masking stencil and blended some blue ink over the center and then I’ve added an additional stencil over top of it and blended bluer to get the pattern. I then added some raw umber paint and opaque white Copic to splatter over top of it. I cut out a stitched frame and added it over the blended area.

I added the flowers and butterfly to the card by gluing and popping out the smaller flower as well as the wings on the butterfly. The sentiment was gold foiled and cut out with a coordinating die that was glued at the top. I added some highlights on the butterfly with a white gel pen and added some Stickles glitter to the center of the flowers. The white panel was attached to a top folding A2 white card base.

I hope that you have enjoyed my card today! I hope that you will stop into the challenge and play along with us this month! Looking forward to seeing the gallery of wings!!

Have an amazing day and see you again soon!

Challenges I’d like to enter this card for:

Four Seasons – Spring Season
Triple B (Birds, Blooms &/or Butterflies) – Spring
Love to Scrap – Anything Goes
Unicorn – Flowers
Crafty Animals – Anything Goes + animal
Critter Crazy – Anything Goes + featured critter
Fab ‘n’ Funky – Things with Wings
The Crafty Addicts – Anything Goes

Creative Artiste Guest Designer with Altered Mixed Media Frame

Hello friends and welcome to May! I’m happy to see this month come with all of the beautiful Spring things that pop out like the flowers and sun with the warmer temps! I look forward to going out and working in the yard soon! Hope that you’ve had a wonderful week and look forward to a great weekend! I’m getting ready for a fun crafty retreat and I’m really looking forward to crafting with friends!

I’m super excited to be a guest for this month’s challenge over at the Creative Artiste Mixed Media Challenge! If you’ve been around, then you know how I enjoy creating a few mixed media projects once in a while besides my Art Journaling that I do each month. The theme is always “Anything Goes” with Mixed Media, so this time, I decided to make some altered art with an old frame:

I thought this would be a perfect item to alter with a Spring theme in mind. I know the frame “looks old”, but it was actually a really old wooden frame that was stained/varnished about 30 years ago! I’ve sanded, painted, added some crackling paste, and painted over it some more to give it a Vintage “falling apart” look. I like the texture and the crackling from the paste that came out in it. The total frame size is about 9″x13″ and it’s shown hanging on my wall.

The center of the frame was done using a piece of cardboard sized to fit inside the frame. (I threw out the glass front as I didn’t have a need for it.) I had some papers that I thought was so pretty along with the sentiment. The sentiment was way too large for a card and I thought it would work great for this project. Of course, the size of the paper wasn’t quite large enough, so I worked on collaging some musical papers around the edges for a border. I also went over it with a floral stencil and paste, paint splatters and waterproof ink before inserting behind the frame.

Here’s a closer look at the top of the frame where you can see that I’ve added a butterfly ephemera that was painted with some clear glitter paint and attached next to the sentiment with glue and foam dots on the wings.

I have tons of flowers in my stash, so I’ve created an arrangement along the frame with a vine and different sized flowers that I’ve added with twirled vines. I’ve used more paint and even some art stones around the flowers as well as various places over the background for texture and interest. More paints and metallic wax was used over all of these places to keep the Vintage feel to the design. I tried to keep them coordinated with the papers in the background. (It’s weird how the colors vary so much when you take a photo compared to what it looks in person. The top frame photo looks more blue, but it’s actually more this muted green color.)

And as you scroll down to the bottom of the frame, you see I have this 3D arrangement with the painted chicken wire against the back panel with the papers. (the flowers were added on top of that.) On the bottom left you see I’ve made a “nest” for my bird with Spanish moss and even added a couple of twigs from my backyard underneath it. I’ve also added a pinch of green moss in there which is also what I’ve used over top of the white picket fence section to the bottom right. It actually sticks out in front of the flowers.

You can also see where I’ve added some more art stones and paints. I’ve finished the whole design with some Finnabair white gold metallic wax. This is hard to capture unless you get really close, but it adds a wonderful detail that brings out lots of the texture in your finished piece.

I really enjoyed creating this altered frame while I was thinking about Spring coming to life outside! It was also fun to be able to find something I’ve had for so many years and give it some new life! I hope you’ve enjoyed it as well and I look forward to seeing what mixed media art you make this month for the challenge!

Thanks for dropping in today!

Challenges:

Crafting From the Heart – Anything Goes (NO CARDS) challenges are back after 4 years!
Crafting Happiness – Flowers
Pearly Sparkles – Anything BUT a card
Simon Says Stamp Monday – Paint It!
Love to Craft – Anything Goes

April AJ Page Sparkle and Shine

Hello friends! I can’t believe that it’s already at the end of the month! I feel like this month went by very quickly, but as the weather gets warmer, it seems the more I want to be out. Spring is always a great time to start seeing those pretty flowers which also means more weeds to pull too!

I am a sucker for anything that shines or sparkles! So of course I had so many things to choose from in my stash to play with! I really had loads of fun making this one and the photos do not look quite as “wow” as it does in person of course, but you can probably guess what it may seem like once you know all what I’ve done.

For the background: I used my normal pre-punched holes on a 6″x9″ watercolor paper and covered it with water spritzing and Brushos Crystal Color media in lemon, orange and brilliant red. Once dried, I went around the edges with a scrapper and white gesso. (I didn’t use a ton of it, just enough to make a scant frame. Once that was dried, I took a leafy stencil with coordinating colored Distress Oxide inks and sponged over the page randomly. I then spritzed with large water drops, once dry, I sprayed the whole page with shimmer spray.

On the dragonfly, you can see directly on the page a bit of a shinny gold shadow under the wings. I have this dragonfly stencil that I used Deco Stencil Paste over that when dry, you can foil over it. I did that directly on the page where I wanted the dragonfly and then again on a black piece of cardstock that was cut out. I added some black string (This was a stray piece of string from a project that I did not use, so I decided to re-use it for this project) around the dragonfly, glued the center down over top the one on the page and then used black foam tape over the wings to give them a bit of a lift. Before gluing down the cut out dragonfly, I used a gray Big Brush marker to create more shadows around it. I also used a white Big Brush marker to create the dash lines around the page.

The sentiment was a piece that was cut out from a magazine that I recycled to use for this page and attached it with media paste. I used the grey Big Brush marker to add some shadows around it as well.

On the left side of the page, you can see some gold sparkles which were created with another Tim Holtz Christmas stencil that I had which looked like fun sparkle images. I used some gold glitter paste to go over that and then I took some gold Stickles glue to add some details with dots in various places.

And this is just one more photo of trying to capture that shine and sparkle:

Perhaps you can see more of the shine and sparkles in there. I just had to move the page around in the light to get it in just the “right spot” to capture it better, so pardon my fingers in there.

Really hope you’ve enjoyed my AJ page today and gotten some inspiration! Thanks so much for stopping in! I’ll be seeing you again soon!

Challenges: