September AJ Page-Embrace Change

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!

Challenges:

Art Journal Journey – Fur or Feathers (I went with fur, but love both!)
Country View – Season of Mists and Mellow Fruitfulness
Creative Artiste – Anything Goes Mixed Media
Ally’s Angels – Anything Goes
Love to Craft – Anything Goes
Snippets Playground – Anything Goes using snippets (Happy to use up “snippets” of my pattern papers for the paper pieced images!) YES PLEASE!

Beautiful Autumn Color Combo for {Cupcake Inspirations}

Happy Monday morning friends! Hope you all had a great weekend! The weather has actually been really beautiful this past week and it was wonderful to get outside and look at the pretty colors of the trees changing around us. I know that it won’t last long, and the temperature will begin to really drop soon…so always need to enjoy it while it’s still here!

Today begins a brand-new challenge over at {Cupcake Inspirations} and there is a beautiful color palette to inspire your creativity to play along with us! We’d love to see the colors: Red, Orange and Yellow on your creations this time and we look forward to seeing what you come up with! Here’s what I’ve come up with for this week’s inspiration:

I fell in love with these cool dies that were included in a past card kit and thought they would be perfect to use for pairing with some blended inks in a background!

I started with a watercolor panel and used Squeezed Lemonade, Mustard Seed, Carved Pumpkin, Crackling Campfire and Fired Brick Oxide Inks to blend over it. I spritzed over it with water to form the droplet watermarks and once dried, I splattered the panel with both gold and black acrylic paint using a fan brush. Once this panel was finished drying, I put each leaf die cut down to cover my panel and die cut it, but left them in place. While leaving the leaves in place, I used the MFT Wonky Stitched Rectangle Die and cut out the panel with it.

I wanted the leaves to stand out a bit more in the background, so I die cut each of the leaves about 3 times each with black cardstock and layered them together with the ink blended ones on top.

I took the sentiment from the Autumn Bundles stamp set and heat embossed it over a strip of black cardstock with some Gilded EP. Once I cut down the strip, I ran it through the die cut machine to get the Wonky Stitched Rectangle die marks along the edges. I mounted this panel over a gold mirror cardstock and then over an A2 sized top folding black card base. Lastly, I added some gold sequins that were included in the Inspiration Box and filled them with some gold Stickles in the centers.

Here’s a closer view of the leaves and you can see the pretty embossed pattern in the leaves.

Really like how this turned out and I hope you did too! Be sure to take a look over on the {Cupcake Inspirations} Challenge Blog to see the rest of the inspiration from the design team and join us for this fun color combo!

Thanks for stopping in today and I’ll see you soon!

Challenges:

Love to Scrap – LTSCB139 Anything Goes November
Dream Valley – #236 Dies and/or Punches
Arty Divas – #31 Anything Goes
Crafty Creations – #415 Anything Goes
The Paper Funday – #23 Anything Goes optional: Thankful

Pink & Main Video Hop with Hello Autumn Slimline

Hello friends! I hope you’ve had a fantastic week! It seems like this month is flying by!

I’m excited to share with you a fun video hop collaboration with Pink and Main on my You Tube Channel today! (Be sure to check it out on MY VIDEO because there is a giveaway and you’ll need to leave comments on the videos to be entered to win!) So head on over to see the wonderful inspiration with the Pink and Main products going on!

Here’s the fun Autumn themed slimline card I’ve made for the video hop today:

So Pink and Main has come out with some fabulous new products which I’ve used for my card here and I’ve added some fun techniques to use with some of those products as well!

The background was really fun to create using the Pink & Main Blending Brushes along with the new Crackling Campfire Distress Oxide Ink color that just came out! I’ve also used the wonderful Leafy Stencil from Pink & Main over the background too. The cups and leaves were also colored using the oxide inks and a waterbrush which you can see in my video as well as how I’ve inked and cut out the one image backwards so I have two cups with the handles in opposite directions on my design here.

You can check out how I’ve put this design together and the techniques I’ve used in this video below, or to leave a comment and see the link to the next person in the video hop, CLICK HERE to go to the video on You Tube.

I absolutely fell in love with that Need to Venti stamp set and coordinating dies! I loved that older Christmas Mugs stamps they had previously came out, but Autumn is awesome to add to my collection because it’s my favorite time of the year! So be sure to check out how to stretch out the use of this set in video above!

The Blessings slimline die was so fun to use on my card too and I love that the frame cuts out separately from the center and there was room to layer behind it before attaching to your slimline card base. The Brutus Monroe Copper Glitterstock was the perfect accent behind the scallop frame. That frame was cut out with several layers of cardstock and stacked together for thickness.

The same Copper Glitterstock was used to cut out the sentiment dies as well. I’ve used some vellum to layer behind the Autumn sentiment, which the backing diecut was also included in this same slimeline die set! The final measurement of my slimline card was a piece of brown cardstock measuring 8.5″ x 7″ and scored at 3.5″ in the center. The finished card will fit inside a #10 envelope when closed.

Here’s a closer view of the details with my colored cups using the distress oxide inks and waterbrush. I’ve also used the same Need to Venti stamp set and oxide ink colors to stamp the leaves and die cut them out to arrange over my scene as well.

I popped up the cups with foam squares and added some drops over the whip topping in the cups with some Nuvo Honey Gold Crystal Drops.

Hopefully you can see the pretty Autumn colors and dimension in the card. I sure had lots of fun putting all of this together!

Thanks so much for dropping in today and I’ll be seeing you soon!

Challenges:

Challenge Up Your Life – Autumn Mood
The Paper Funday – #21 Anything Goes optional: Fall/Autumn
Dream Valley – Embossing wet/dry (embossed cup images)
The Sisterhood of Crafters – Autumn Inspiration
CCEE Stampers – CCEE2037 Slimline Cards
Not Just Cards – Anything Goes
Crafting Happiness – Anything Goes
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2037 Anything Goes
Simon Says Stamp Monday – Frame It

Oak Tree Boy Hanging Onto Fall

Hello friends! I hope that you’ve enjoyed the weekend and having a great start to your week so far! Right now the weather guy is saying that we could reach freezing temps on Halloween night! About 3 weeks ago we were still in hot temps and then ran right into this cold weather! I wish I could’ve had a couple of days to open windows and it doesn’t look like I’m going to get that! I’m trying to hang onto the Fall Season for as long as I possibly can!

Speaking of Fall, I have this really sweet image from Whimsy Stamps to share with you today! He’s literally hanging on a tree limb for Fall!

Vicki-WSOakTreeBoy

This adorable image is one from Syliva Zet for Whimsy Stamps called Oak Tree Boy and I have him and his little bird friend all colored up in Autumn colors!

I knew I wanted to grab the papers from the Whimsy Stamps Rustic Wood and Brick digital paper collection, so I grabbed some more plaid papers from my stash and layered it with some gold mirror cardstock that I’ve also used for the scalloped circle layer behind the image. I attached some seam binding ribbon around these layers and added them to a 5″ square kraft card base.

I took some sparkly Prima leaves from my stash and glued them on before adding the circle image panel with some craft foam behind it. I glued on the seam binding bow and then I took the sentiment from the Whimsy Stamps Everyday Mini Sentiments and white heat embossed it over a piece of grey cardstock. I then cut it out with the Whimsy Stamps Quick Strips die set and attached it over top of the image panel.

Lastly, I added a few sequins and filled the centers with some Nuvo Glitter Drops.

Here’s a closer view of the image and how I’ve colored him in! For the “bells” on his hat and the little bird’s hat, I colored them, but then they were covered with a glue pen and some clear loose glitter. I took my Copic colors and did little “dots” (pointillism technique) around the image. I did this with a gold gel pen as well.

You can view the Copic markers that I’ve used on my creation below:

Boy’s Outfit – YG97, YG95, W5, W3, W1, E43, E40, / Shoes & buttons: E87, E84
Boy’s Hair – E47, E44, E42 / Skin: E21, E11, E02, E00, E000, R20, R00
Bird – E77, E74, E70, R20 / hat: YG97, YG95, W3, W1
Ladybugs – R29 and black pen
Bells on hats – Y28, Y26
Leaves – YR27, YR24, YR21, Y38, Y35
Acorns – E35, E33, E31
Tree Limb – E27, E25, E23
Pointillism and shading – E43, E41 and gold gel pen

Vicki-WSOakTreeBoy-flat

I hope you’ve enjoyed my my little Autumn card today and were inspired or at least brought a smile your way!

Thanks so much for dropping in today! I enjoy hearing from you, so please say hello and I’ll be seeing you again soon!

Challenges:

The House That Stamps Built – Fall Colors Inspiration Palette
Stamping Sensations – October Trees/Leaves/Autumn
{Cupcake Inspirations} – CIC481 Fall
Crafty Catz – Anything Goes #479
QKR Stampede – Anything Goes #368
Creative Fingers – Anything Goes #173
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP1942 Anything Goes

Fall is Here with Digi Doodle Studios!

Hello friends! Now that we have started October, the temperatures will start to drop and the leaves will begin to change color and drop from the trees. That’s when we know that Fall is truly here and I look forward to being out in it! 🙂

I wanted to capture that feeling on my card for you today using an image from Digi Doodle Studios:

Vicki-DDSJoieAutumn-Oct2

This cutie is called Joie Autumn and I just love her sweet little pup companion there playing around in the fall leaves with her! She looks so happy and this is probably something I would do instead of actually raking them up!! LOL!!

Have you ever “googled” a card sketch? I never really thought to do this, but I have some really cool Autumn type papers and I wanted to create some layers with them on my card, but I didn’t want it to look like a hot mess, so I picked out a card sketch and used that to create this card using some more papers from my stash! I also got to use my Autumn embossing folder for the strip in the center along with my favorite glitter ribbon across it.

I’ve layered some gold foil cardstock with a few of the layers in there and added some Prima leaves and a button over the gold ribbon bow to finish it off. I white heat embossed the sentiment from Lawn Fawn and cut it out with a My Favorite Things banner die.

Here’s this sweet image upon a closer look at the coloring I’ve done! I’ve also added a highlight with a white gel pen to her cheeks, the pup’s cheeks and the rim on her hat. I took a gold gel pen and colored the pup’s collar with it as well as using it for additional “dots” around the sunflowers in her hair.

The light blue shading around her was used with Copic markers as well as the blending of the colorful pile of leaves on the ground. I took colors from the leaves as well as other colors to blend and mute them together to make it appear like a leafy colored ground.

I cut this image out with a stitched rectangle die and layered it onto some green cardstock which is the same I’ve used for the 5.5″ square card base and the embossed strip in the middle.

Vicki-DDSJoieAuumn-Oct2-flat

I hope you’ve enjoyed my Fall creation today and you’ve been inspired in some way! I appreciate each and every one of your kind thoughts more that you’ll ever know!

Thanks for dropping by and I’ll see you soon!

Challenges I’d like to enter this card for:

As You Like It – CAS or FAF Why? – I actually like both and I think my style runs a bit into both sometimes. I feel like I have SO much crafty stash that I just want to keep adding more onto my cards…so lately it’s been this way! 🙂
Cardz 4 Galz – Pretty Bows (not really sure if it’s pretty, but it’s glittery!)
Stamps & Fun = Creativity – The Magic of Fall
Make My Monday – Autumn
Through the Craft Room Door – Anything Goes
Sheepski Designs – Autumn