Lots of Inky Stamping to Catch Up On!

Hello friends! I hope that you’re enjoying your August so far! Recently, we’ve been experiencing much cooler temperatures than we normally have this time of year, so it’s been great to go out for a few walks.

I’m ALMOST caught up with things that I haven’t posted, with the exception of a few birthday cards that I’ll share later. For today, I’d like to share some projects that I’ve made at an event I attended back in April along with a class from Inky Stamper.

But first, here are a few projects I’ve made for their recent challenges:

This is a tag I’ve made for the Inky Stamper Inkspiration FB Group July challenge. The challenge was to make a tag and I thought I’d try out a fun idea of making a pocket for my tag that held another tag inside so that you could put a message and a gift card.

I’ve used some Limeade Dots/Stripe 12×12 Doodlebug paper to cut it out with and used a border die to help with the pocket decoration. I cut another tag to place inside the pocket for a special message and to include a gift card. At the top of the inside tag, I’ve made little “charms” with images from the Inky Stamper Margarita stamp set. I’ve also stamped the background of the inside tag. I don’t usually color with pencils, but this time I decided to pull them out.

To get the sentiment to fit around the pocket border, I had to curve the stamp a bit to make it work with the tag.

Here’s another project I’ve made using Inky Stamper products for both the August Inky Stamper Inkspirations FB Group as well as the Craft Roulette episode #226. (If you play along with Craft Roulette, Inky Stamper is a sponsor for this month.)

So the Inky Stamper Inkspiration FB Group challenge for August was to use a white pencil. This happens to be a favorite to use for Chelsea with her images and it does make for a nice quick highlight. So the images were just stamped on colored cardstock and I used the white pencil to highlight them with.

I decided to combine this with last week’s Craft Roulette Episode #226 with the parameters of – Project: “See-through” (I made a see-through shaker card) Colors: “Jungle” (I used greens and browns for my jungle) Element: “Teacher(s)” (The sentiment says it all!) Random: “Tangle” (There are a tangle of leaves inside shaker element.)

For all of the images, I’ve used the Inky Stamper Monkey stamp set. The inside of the shaker was stenciled with a Tropical Leaves stencil from Taylored Expressions with green inks. The circle was cut out with a retired MFT die. I found some fun monkey shaker elements to put inside.

Back in April there was an Inky Stamper Inky Escape event that I attended and here are some projects that I made from the Make-n-Takes that were provided as well as some of the projects that I was working on using the new release that came out during the event:

(If you are on my website, click each photo to enlarge it and read the captions)

The tag was made my Chelsea that was attached to my “swag bag” and the box was a make-n-take project. There was a moon pie included with project, but when I came home, I added 4 Ghirardelli chocolate squares to show how many fit inside.

There is actually another Inky Escape coming up in October that I’m attending and I’m sure it will be fun with Halloween and Christmas theme combined!

While I was there, I worked on some more of my own projects using some of the new sets:

I decided to take and use one 6×6 paper pack from my stash and it seemed to go really well with the outer space theme and I love the purple colors from this set. I’ve used the following Inky Stamper stamps sets: Astronaut, Big Words, & Alien.

Click on the photos below to see a close up look at each card:

Before the Inky Escape Event, there was also an on-line class from Inky Stamper that I took part in and that’s because I thought the projects were super cute! Here are the projects that were completed for this class:

These were both created with the Inky Stamper Hedgehog stamp set. The Journal Book , the Doodlebug DIY Snow globe and Doodlebug dimensional stickers/shaker balls were all provided with the class. I decided to add a few extra elements with mine. The tiny hedgehog on top of the snow globe was included in our box, but not apart of the projects…but I thought it would be fun to add it!

Speaking of Doodlebug, while I was at the Inky Escape Event, Chelsea had a few things on sale and I snagged a kit and special ordered the Doodlebug Frame with it. So when I got back home and the frame came in, I wanted to do my project right away:

I have this displayed in my stamp room and I love the rainbow of colors in it with the different crafty tools in smile faces! The size is 8in. x 8in. with a glass on the front. Although it’s not really that visible in the photo, it is actually quite dimensional.

I think it goes well with the black frame that matches my black frame with the crafty squares swap group I was in. (You can see that post here.)

Whew!😳 I’ve been really busy this year, but I don’t think you would’ve known this without my posting about it! I’m glad that I’ve gotten caught up with things that I’ve done and hopefully I won’t be doing posts like this in the future! It just seems like so much all at once!

Anyway, there we go and now I need to finish and send out a few birthday cards coming up, so I will catch up with that later as well! For now, thanks so much for stopping in and keeping tracks of my sporadic postings! I will be back to share a DT post for a challenge coming!

Have a happy crafty day my friends!

Aliens Made Me Do It for Craft Roulette & More Catching Up!

Hello friends! For those that celebrate the July 4th holiday, I hope you had/ having a great weekend! We usually do a cookout and later watch fireworks. It was a bit hot and humid so we didn’t stay outdoors very long and watched a movie instead.

WARNING: PHOTO HEAVY POST!!!!

0CraftRoulette

I think I may have posted about this before, but last year I was introduced to Craft Roulette (a papercraft game show on You Tube) by Chelsea from Inky Stamper when she was a guest on there last year. I quickly became addicted to it and have been playing quite regularly. In fact, this is Chelsea’s third time as a guest on there and I wanted to share what I’ve made for episode #222 that aired on You Tube Friday July 5th, 2024.

The parameters this week are…

PROJECT – Dutch Door (create a card/project with dutch door)
COLORS – Gnomes (whatever inspires those colors to you)
ELEMENT – Movie
RANDOM – Building Blocks

If you’re interested in playing along, check out the Craft Roulette website on how to enter and watch the episode! You can watch/play along on You Tube with them every Friday evening. (Check what time zone you’re in compared to the Central US time zone used for Craft Roulette live shows.) You have until Sunday evening to play. If you enter the Craft Roulette #222 episode by then, you can also enter your card over at Inky Stamper Inkspiration Group on FB for a chance to win a prize from her as well. So check it out!

I think this one turned out cool using the Inky Stamper Alien stamp set! I have my alien (which is my “movie” element parameter) colored up with pencils and cut out with the die. I stamped the molecule (which is my “building blocks” random parameter in red ink over a piece of Doodlebug graph paper. I sponged the edges of this piece with some grey ink before attaching it to the bottom portion of the card. The sentiment also came from the same stamp set that was white heat embossed over black and cut out with a banner die and popped up with foam squares.

To create the “Dutch Door” card for the project parameter, I just used a black A2 card base and cut the front in half so that only the bottom portion of the card opens up. For the torn hole behind the alien, I used the Lisa Horton Torn Aperture 3D embossing folder and die. I used some silver mirror for the outer edges and black for the back along with a piece of white for the background details. I finished it off with some Pinkfresh Studio Ice clear drops.

Here’s the inside of my Dutch door card. I took a white piece of cardstock for the inside of the card along with the white piece from behind the torn aperture on the front and ink blended a galaxy background with reds, blues, greens, yellows and black which works with the “gnomes colors” for the colors parameter. I sprayed the background with water, let it dry and then I white heat embossed the sentiment from the alien stamp set and then I used silver watercolor to splatter over top of both pieces.

I attached the insert for the aperture back in with the silver frame and attached it to the front bottom portion with half of it sticking up above it. (As you can see in the photo above.) The alien was attached over the aperture with foam squares.

Had a lot of fun making this one and playing along using the parameters!

Obviously, I don’t post the cards I make every week for Craft Roulette on my blog, but I thought I’d share all the creations that I made last year since my very first contribution that I’ve done. I thought I’d save the cards for posting at the end of each year to look back on them. I started in January of last year and only skipped a couple of them. This card today will be my 72nd contribution!

So here’s a gallery of cards that I’ve contributed since I first discovered Craft Roulette in January of 2023 up to December 2023: (I will post the cards for this year in December!)

If you’re on my website, click on the photos to see enlarged

Wow! That was ALOT of cards! I placed the episode #s on each one for reference on what the parameters would’ve been. So this is what happens when I don’t post!

I have fun trying out the parameters each week and entering. I did win a prize one week from The Paper Insider which was a box of gorgeous papers. They’re all so gorgeous that I seem to be hoarding them and not used any of it!🙄 That will be a goal for one of these weeks for sure!

Hope you’ve been inspired with my post today and maybe I’ll see you over at Craft Roulette sometime! Thanks so much for stopping in today!

Challenges: (For Alien card only!)

A Place to Start – Anything Goes
Creative Crafting Uncles – #54 embossing heat/dry (I did both!)
Crafts Galore Encore – #125 Anything Goes
Love to Craft – #81 Anything Goes
Love to Scrap – #168 Anything Goes

July AJ Page-Always Look Up!

Hello friends and happy weekend! As we finish off another really hot day…probably for most of the U.S. right now, I do hope you’re staying cool and enjoying the rest of the month of July. We’ve been in a heat advisory in our area for the last few days, but hopefully it will cool down soon. In the meantime, I will be crafting inside!

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” July prompt of “STRIPS/STRIPES”:

I don’t know why this makes me giggle, but it does! I thought the best way to create the “STRIPS/STRIPES” prompt would be to pull out some more of those never-ending stash of pattern papers! So I pulled some out for the strips at the bottom that I cut out with a hillside border die and one of the pieces happened to have stripes on it which worked out for both! I thought it would look great for the field that the cow WAS on.😆

For the background: I started with my usual piece of 6″x 9″ pre-punched at the top from Canson Watercolor paper and made a galaxy background with watercolors. I had fun making a mess with it! I let it air dry underneath some heavy books to keep it flat as it dried. Once dry, I splattered some Copic opaque white with a fan brush over it.

This is where I added the strips of cut papers at the bottom. Before I cut the green layer at the bottom, I ran it through my printer to create the quote on my computer. I sponged the edges of it with green ink. I also sponged some black ink around the edges of the galaxy background too. The striped paper was painted with a light green ink and then splattered with a darker green color as I was trying to mute it a bit. The “fence” behind it was cut out with white cardstock and placed behind the striped strip piece.

For the flying saucer and alien, I used an UFO die set from Whimsy Stamps and cut it out with several different specialty papers like holographic, silver glitter, green metallic, black glitter, vellum and acetate (for the front window of the saucer). I popped it up with foam tape over a die cut piece of vellum that I’ve colored with a yellow marker and sprayed with shimmer spray…hard to pick up in a photo, but you can barely see it. I attached it over the background by using my Xyron sticker machine, so you can still see through it.

I glued the “confused cow” from the MFT The Whole Herd stamp set within the “beam” vellum. The hillside borders that I cut the bottom strips with came from MFT as well.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my AJ page today and been inspired in some way! Thanks so much for dropping in and don’t forget to look up!!😆

Challenges: