Happy New Year! Mixing Up with Mixed Media!

Hello friends and welcome to 2024!🎉  I’m looking forward to a year filled with many happy memories and fun!  I’m wishing these things for you as well!  So to get the year started, I’m inviting you to a fun challenge to play along with at the Mix It Up Challenge!

The theme is always ANYTHING GOES with an optional theme of MIXED MEDIA!  With these challenges, you have plenty of time to enter as they run for 6 weeks!  I look forward to seeing what you come up with!  

I know that mixed media can seem a bit intimidating, but it’s only using more than 1 extra medium of any kind on your creation.  I usually do that anyway!  Here’s the card that I came up with for this challenge using the Mixed Media option:

I’m really loving how this turned out!  I’ve used another fun card kit from Taylored Expressions with the Snow Crystals card kit. (no longer available)

Background:  I started by white heat embossing the Swirling Snow Background Stamp over watercolor cardstock.  I used different shades of blue watercolor with a bit of turquoise in there as well.  I spritzed it with water to get the “watermark” look and let it dry.  I then used some Copic opaque white mixed with water and splattered some over top for another layer of snow.  After it was dry, I also filled in the circles with a glitter brush pen.

I die cut the snowflake die in navy and again in white cardstock 3 times.  I layered the navy at the bottom over the background.  The three snowflakes cut out with white were glued together and then I took 2 layers of sparkle silver embossing powder to heat set.  I layered the embossed snowflake slightly tilted from the navy snowflake and attached over top.  I also silver embossed the sentiment over a navy strip and added some “dash marks” with a white gel pen before attaching to the background.

Finished off the card by running the edges of the background panel with liquid glue and then attaching some chunky glitter to the edges.  I also attached a silver rhinestone in the center of the snowflake.  It’s so glittery and shiny in person!

Thanks so much for stopping in today and I hope that you will take the time to play along with us!  Be sure to check out the Mix It Up Challenge Blog for the design team inspiration!  

Challenges:

  1. Creative Fingers – Anything Goes
  2. Crafting From the Heart – Anything Goes
  3. Allsorts – Cold & Ice
  4. Crafting Happiness – Anything Goes
  5. Gem of a Craft – Anything Goes
  6. Four Seasons – Winter Season

November AJ Page-Winter Wonderland

Hello friends!  Hope everyone has had a wonderful Thanksgiving for those that celebrate.  And with that, there is also the Black Friday deals, and today is “small business Saturday”.  So have you’ve gotten some really good deals or do you shop during this time?  I don’t really shop too much during this time, but I enjoy hearing about the great deals everyone has gotten!

The last Saturday of the month also brings us to 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 always has great inspiration to share, so please check out her blog too! Here’s my AJ page with the “SMASH OUR STASH” November prompt of “STENCILS” (can also make your own):

I do love stencils, don’t you?!  I have lots of them in my stash and I don’t always use them as much as I’d like to, so how fun to pull out several of them for this month’s prompt!  All of the ones I’ve used on my page are from Tim Holtz.  The entire page is stencil expect for the deer, sentiment and bottom snow!  (I would’ve used the deer for a stencil too, but I don’t have one.)

For the background:  Started with my usual 6″x9″ 140# watercolor pre-punched holes on the side.  I took the large star looking stencil and sponged some VersaMark ink over it towards the top of the page and heat embossed it with clear EP.  (This made a “resist” for the ink I layered on top.)  I took a long strip of masking paper and ripped it to create some hills for the bottom.  I needed to mask so the colors didn’t go over it.   I took several different colors of Distress Oxide sprays along with spritzing with water to help the colors move around and made a few layers with this.  Once dry, I went over the background with the dotted stencil and sponged ink over it with a blue color.

For the tree stencil, I needed to be sure that it would cover the background I created, so I used some green paint to sponge over the stencil, but because the background is blue, it’s sort of harder to see the green.  This stencil also had a second part where you can cover each tree with another layer for either another green or snow.  So I used some Hero Arts white paste to cover it with.  I also used the same paste to add another layer of stencil to the sky for snowfall.

The silhouette deer is a stamp that I stamped with black pigment ink and then I heat embossed it with clear EP.  My final touch to the page was to take the Hero Arts white paste and cover the hills at the bottom using my spatula.  Really love the dried look of the paste as it has a wonderful shine to it which works great for snow!  It didn’t take as long as I thought it would to dry. (About 2 hours it was hardened.)

I found a couple of the Tim Holtz sticker quotes to go with my theme, added to black cardstock and went around the edges with a silver paint pen.  I cut them out with scissors and glued to the page.  I took some silver wax and went around the edge of the page with my finger and lastly added some glitter drops to a couple of the centers of the “stars” in the sky.

Hope you’ve enjoyed my art journal page today or have been inspired!  I appreciate you taking the time to stop in! 

Challenges:

  1. Art Journal Journey – Nature (I love nature in the wintertime!  So pretty covered in snow!)
  2. Try It on Tuesday – Baby, It’s Cold Outside!
  3. Crafting From the Heart – Anything Goes
  4. Creative Artiste – Anything Goes Mixed Media (stencils, pastes, paints, inks)
  5. Stencil Fun – Anything Goes using stencil(s) optional: leaves
  6. 613 Avenue Create – Anything Goes optional embossing (heat embossed)

Emboss It at Sparkles Monthly + Giveaway WINNER!

Hello friends!  I hope you’re having a great month so far and being able to enjoy the nice Spring weather!  It’s been really nice over my way, but I’m seeing we have a bit of cooler temps coming too.  Hopefully not too chilly! 

Today starts a new challenge over at the Sparkles Monthly Challenge Blog and this time we would like for you to “Emboss it”!  I hope you will hop on over to see the inspiration from the team and consider joining in the fun with us this month!

Here’s the DT creation that I’ve made:

I love to do embossing on my cards, and I know it’s a favorite for many!  I’ve decided to do a “Letterpress Embossing” technique and inked up an embossing folder to achieve the effect on my orange layer panel.  The raised areas stay white on the white cardstock.

For the two corners, I’ve taken a Simon Says Stamp Garden Greetings stamp set and gold heat embossed the floral spray image.  I’ve also used the same gold embossing for the “sending hugs” sentiment strip as well as the “Get Well Soon” sentiment over the shimmer vellum which was cut from a stitched circle die.  I added some gold sequins over it.

I wanted to keep it somewhat flat for mailing purposes, but I think some of it popped up would be pretty too. I was also very happy to pull out a past card kit and make another card with it.

I would love to see your embossed creations in the gallery this month, so I’ll hope you’ll play along!  Check out the challenge here – Sparkles Monthly


***ARE YOU A WINNER?!!***

vicki-tegiveaway

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I have taken all of the comments from my last post, added all of the names that mentioned they would be interested in the Beautiful Butterflies dies and foil package and wrote those names on pieces of scrap paper. I folded and crumpled them up and had my husband pick out a name. He threw them all into the hat he was wearing and pulled one out!

HERE IS THE NAME THAT HE PICKED OUT…………….

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Yay!  Congratulations Chrissy! 

Please contact me and send me your full name and snail mail address so that I can pop your package in the mail to you!  I hope you enjoy it!  (I haven’t even used mine yet!)  Sorry if your name didn’t get pulled as I only had one, but I know I have several “double” items that I’ve placed in a bin and will be pulling them out at some point to give away! So, stay tuned!

Thanks so much for dropping in and taking the time to say hello!  I appreciate you!


Challenges I’d like to enter my above card into:

  1. Creative Inspirations – Anything Goes
  2. Can You Handle the Pressure? – Anything Goes optional clouds
  3. Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – Anything Goes
  4. Ally’s Angels – Anything Goes
  5. Little Red Wagon – At least 2 layers 
  6. Penny’s Paper-Crafty – Anything Goes
  7. Tic Tac Toe – TTTC204 (middle down: die cut, free, embossing)tttc-challenge-board-204

New DT for Sparkles Monthly Challenge!

Hello friends!  Hope that you’ve had a wonderful Valentine’s Day and a great start to this new week in February!

designer

I’m really excited to share that I’ve just been invited as a new design team member over at the Sparkles Monthly Challenge Blog!  I really like the fact that it has fun monthly themes to get you thinking and also that I can use up my never-ending piles of my own craft stash!   This fits perfectly well with me and something I can handle!😉  So I hope you’ll stop by and follow along to play with us each month!  You can find a new one on the 15th of each month.

Today starts a new monthly challenge theme which is #161 “Men Only“…so anything masculine will do!  With having sons in my family, I’m always in need of masculine style cards for sure!  Here’s my card for this month’s challenge:

Oh yes…tools!  This always seems to be a favorite in my craft supply when creating a masculine card for sure!  I made this one for my husband who’s a very handy guy, and he likes the color blue.  I always like to add lots of textures, distressing and layers when making a masculine card.  This also helps for using more of those craft supplies!

I’ve had these stamps and dies from My Favorite Things for quite a while now and only used them a couple of times.  I die cut the background panel in the pegboard cover die and stitched rectangle dies, plus, layered with a couple of different blue panels that were stapled together.  A die cut circle in woodgrain and blue papers were attached and cut off at the edge before attaching to the top folding white A2 card base.

I’ve added the die cut tool elements over top of the circle using some silver mirror and blue colored cardstocks to cut them out.  I added some sponged ink over some places and topped it with a ripped strip of silver embossed screw heads, a strip of dark blue and the stamped sentiment stapled together and placed it over top with a piece of “messy” thread.  Lastly, I added the dark blue die cut hearts and covered them with a glitter brush pen.

I hope that you will stop by the Sparkles Monthly Challenge Blog to check out the challenge and inspiration from the creative design team!  I look forward to seeing what everyone creates!

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

Challenges:

  1. Creative Inspirations – Anything Goes
  2. Pearly Sparkles – Anything Goes
  3. The Paper Funday – Anything Goes optional: Lots of Layers 
  4. Lil’ Patch of Crafty Friends – Anything Goes
  5. Creative Fingers – Anything Goes
  6. Ally’s Angels – Anything Goes
  7. Allsorts – Anything Goes optional: hearts
  8. The Corrosive – Anything Goes

It’s Time For Tags!

Hello friends!  I thought I’d take some time for making up some tags which is something that I really enjoy doing, but don’t do it very often.  They’re so nice to have a batch made up ahead of time so that you can pull one out as you need it instead of trying to hurry through making something.  It’s always better to have fun instead of rushing! 

This trio of tags was a bit time consuming, but it was nice to finally pull out some things that I’ve been wanting to play with and use without being in a hurry.  The characters are from the Taylored Expressions Holiday Squad die set.  The tags themselves were cut from the TE Pierced Stacklets dies, the TE Tag Stacklets 2 dies and the TE Tag Reinforcements dies. The background for the tags was made with the TE Foil It-Plaid Layering Panels that I foiled in gold along with the stenciling from the TE Plaid Layering Stencil set.  The sentiments were white heat embossed from the TE Just Saying-Christmas stamps.  I’ve used various colors of Taylored Expressions papers and inks and then finished the embellishments for the “holly berries” using the red from TE Tiny Diamonds-Bold set and then I also used the TE Gold Drip Drops in the background.  The ribbon and twine from my stash at the top.

My next trio of tags here was really fun with these adorable penguins from Taylored Expressions Dancing Through the Snow stamp set and dies.  I placed them over top of the transparency that was used to create a shaker tag behind the penguins.  I used the TE Tag Stacklets 3 dies and also used some pink polka dotted papers from a free paper pad I received with an order.  The bright shinny purple paper came from my stash I’ve had for quite a while and thought it would be a fun non-traditional color to use with these.  I filled the shaker tags with the TE Bits & Pieces-Snowflakes and the TE Bits & Pieces-Sparkly Stars

And these tags were a little hard to photograph with all of that cording in the way! (Pardon my photograph skills! LOL) They’re smaller than the tags above, but they work great for different packaging sizes!  These were easy and fun as I’ve done mostly foiling with these using the Taylored Expressions Foil It-Simple Tags Holidays panels and the stencil to go with it.  I cut them all out at the same time with the coordinating dies. The tags with the black cording are the negatives from foiling the toffee-colored tags and are mostly completely foiled.  I just used different colored Stickles glitter to create the Christmas lights on those.  (Really been having fun with the foiling this year!)

And lastly, I wanted to share a set of tags that I’ve made using various Inky Stamper sets!  I decided to go through all of the different Christmas sets that I have from them and pull out the ones that I either haven’t used or barely used to play with them.  The tag at the top was made with the Inky Stamper Fox set that I really enjoyed coloring.  The presents at the bottom and the Santa hat were colored and fussy cut from the same stamp set.  I made the background of that one with the Falling Snowflake Stencil with white ink and heat embossing over it with sparkly white embossing powder. 

The tag on the bottom left is another fun shaker tag!  I pulled out the Inky Stamper Nutcracker set to color him up and cut out with the coordinating die.  He was placed over the acetate on the shaker tag.  I used a scallop circle tag die with gold foil cardstock that I cut out the center with a circle die, added some papers for the background from the Doodlebug Buffalo Check/Woodgrain paper pack.  The shaker bits inside are the Shaker Garnish which is really lightweight and still make a great shaker sound too!

The bottom right tag was cut from an Infinity Tree die set.  I sponged the edges with some white ink and punched a hole at the top to make it a tag.  That cute little truck is from the Inky Stamper Vintage Truck set that I colored and cut out with the coordinating dies.  I used a fun Lawn Fawn road die to place him over and then stamped the sentiment from the stamp set with white ink.  I also added some snowflake sequins above him with the Icicles sequins mix.  And both blue and red Doodlebug Twine was used for two of the tags.  The other ribbons/cord from my stash.

  • Thanks so much for stopping in today!  Hope you’ve been inspired and enjoying the Season!

Challenges:

  1. Country View – Christmas
  2. Ally’s Angels – Anything Goes
  3. Cupcake Inspirations – Happy Holidays
  4. Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – Anything Goes
  5. Simon Says Stamp Mon – Tag It
  6. Tag Tuesday – Winter Holidays
  7. Crafter’s Café – Anything Goes

Amazing Autumn🍂

Hello friends! Happy October! I hope that you’re having a great week so far and looking forward to doing something crafty this weekend for World Card Making Day!!🌍😀 I have decided to post something a bit early as I know there will be tons and tons of special posts planned by many, so I thought it best to post today instead!

IN THE MEANTIME, I DO HAVE A FUN GIVEWAY LOCATED ON MY POST BELOW OR CLICK HERE TO SEE IT!!  YOU HAVE UNTIL OCTOBER 10th TO ENTER…JUST LEAVE ME A COMMENT THAT YOU’RE INTERESTED!!

There are SO MANY things going on this time of the year and maybe that’s why I love Autumn so much. (WCD, Halloween, birthday, Cooler temps, warm clothes, Harvest, yummy foods, pretty colors, changing leaves, Halloween…oops already said that…but you know!)  I am thankful for all of it!  I have a couple of cards from a TE kit I recently got (yes, I know…another one to pile on!), but I fell in love with it so much & I am using it right away! 😁

There is some copper EP that comes in the kit, so I heat embossed both the sunflower and wheat images together so that I could color them both at the same time with some watercolor.  I then cut them both out with the coordinating dies and set aside to work on my background.

The background was so fun!  I’ve used a Bristol Smooth watercolor panel and pulled out some Mica Stains and other sprays from my stash with a spray bottle filled with water and just played.  Some of it I splattered to make “dots”.  I used the “Burlap” background stamp in the kit and randomly stamped the background as well as heat embossed an element and sentiment from the stamp set.  I cut this panel with a die and wrapped some twine around it before attaching to a chocolate truffle card base.  I used some foam strips to pop up the flower and added a twine bow to it.  Finished it off with some Iridescent Rhinestones.

And this is the second card I’ve made using the wheat image that I previously colored with the sunflower image above.  What’s nice about this card is that the background was done using one of the foilable panels from the kit.  I found some copper foil and ran it through my laminator.  I lined up the cut out wheat image with the background and glued it over top cutting off the bottom portion that stuck out.  I also heat embossed a sentiment from the TE clear set in my stash and then punched it out with a circle punch.  I used my blender brush to very lightly add some Sea Salt ink at the top of the foiled panel as well as around the sentiment circle.

Lastly, I attached both the image and sentiment panels onto a piece of copper foil cardstock and then mounted it onto a side folding A2 white card base.  It was simple, but I like the shine it gives.

I had been discussing with someone recently how I really need to make more sympathy cards to have on hand…so here’s a start to getting a pile going hopefully.

Speaking of needing cards, all of the birthday cards from my last post have been spoken for!  Everyone seems to really need birthday cards and like having them on hand.  I can totally relate to that!  I think I need to get some “sorry I forgot” ones thrown in there too! 😂  

I still have some projects that I’ve been working on in the background from some classes I took over the Summer but still haven’t shared yet, so I thought I’d start a little bit at a time and I think these “Autumn themed” cards work with my post today:  (If you’re seeing this post on my website, just click on the photos below in the gallery to see them up close.)

I have taken SO MANY classes, so I still have many more projects to share as I go here!  Hope that you enjoy seeing what I’ve been up to!  It’s just fun to play around and in the process…no matter how little a piece I use…I am using my stash somehow and I’m very happy about that!  At least I’m still crafting anyway! LOL

Thanks for dropping in and have a great crafty weekend!

Challenges to enter for the first two cards only:

  1. Sketch Saturday – Sketch #679 (my second card turned)
  2. Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – Anything Goes
  3. Make My Monday – Embossing (heat on both cards)
  4. Penny’s Paper Crafty – Anything Goes using Paper
  5. Simon Says Stamp Wednesday – Anything Goes
  6. Happy Little Stampers – Watercolor (used on both images)
  7. Creative Knockouts – Fall is in the Air

Classes, Donation and Challenged

Hey friends!  Hope you’ve had a wonderful weekend and will be enjoying the first ‘official’ day of Autumn tomorrow!🍂 Yay!  I know that this is my most favorite time of the year and today it seems like it has finally cooled off a bit which is very welcoming to give the air condition a break!  Decorating for Fall/Halloween is also a favorite thing I like to do along with being outside…so I’ll be doing that this week and weekend for sure!

Today I have some creations that I’ve been working on.  The first one comes from a challenge that I wanted to enter along with breaking out a new stamp set, but excited about using an older embossing folder and some paper that has been in my stash for far too long:

He even looks like a wise old owl…and I thought he would be cute with a little bow around his neck too!  This is not a ‘new’ stamp set from Inky Stamper, but it’s the first time I’ve broken out to use this Owl stamp set!  Their challenge issued this month was “embossing” and so I pulled out a VERY old embossing folder (remember the Cuttlebug days?! LOL) I think it was one of my very first ones!  Plus, I pulled out some Coordination’s textured and colored cardstock.  It is weathered looking, but when you sand over it, the color comes out underneath…really cool stuff that I haven’t used very much!  You can get the coordinating dies for this ‘Owl’ set which also cuts out the owl and the leaf in the set.  I’ve colored them up with Copic markers and used the die to cut them out with.

For the embossing folder card front, I took a piece of the Coordination’s paper, die cut it out and then ran that piece through the selected embossing folder and then sanded over it with a sanding block.  I also die cut a frame the same color as the card base and took a separate embossing folder from Stampin’ Up! to go over that with and sanded it a bit as well before popping it up on the card front.

Before placing all of the elements on the card front, I decided to add some white and black paint splatters over the background.  I also copper heat embossed the sentiment underneath the owl, die cut the strip and popped it up with one of the leaves over top. (You can also see along the edges that I’ve heat embossed too!)  I popped up the owl but left him grounded to the frame and then finished it with copper sequins filled with glitter drops.  The copper twine bow was a last element decision.  LOL🦉    

Speaking of sanding, it reminded me of this class I took with Inky Stamper making these cards. (couple weeks ago)

Anyway, the sanding reminded me of this class because at the bottom of the card, the kit included sandpaper for the beach.  Really love the look it gave to the design with the texture and tiny bit of sparkle in it!

And the same day I had the class above, I had this class from Craft Fancy during their OOAK event.  These were made from their “Alcohol Pearls Butterfly card kit” (I think they have some left in store if interested).  The kit came with one alcohol ink color in Celestial Pearls, which is beautiful, but I decided to also add some copper metallic from my stash for another bit of color.  I also went on my own a bit with the white heat embossed sentiments at the bottom.  I really had fun playing with the alcohol backgrounds and being able to cut them out in one pass for different looks.

I thought this set of four cards would be perfect to add to my donation box to The Butterfly Project in support of domestic violence.  So, I was able to send off a batch of cards for that this past week too.

Hope you’ve enjoyed my mixed collection of projects here and I’m sure I’ll have more fun things coming soon!  Thank you for stopping in!

Challenges I’d like to enter for OWL CARD only:

  1. Inky Stamper Inkspirations FB Sept Challenge – Embossing (heat or dry)
  2. Let’s Squash It! – embossing folder (Cuttlebug & SU! used on mine) with letters or #s and sand it
  3. Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – Anything Goes
  4. Lil’ Patch of Crafty Friends – Anything Goes
  5. Allsorts – ‘real’ animal/creature
  6. My Time to Craft – embossing (heat/dry)
  7. Splitcoaststampers – SC871 Wednesday Sketch

Shades of Blue at {Cupcake Inspirations}

Hello friends!  Hope that you’ve had a great first weekend of December and are ready to roll on with the spirit of the Season!  I know the world is a bit different, but it’s been great to get out the Holiday decorations and try to keep things as “normal” as we can be.  We went out and drove through our local park filled with Christmas lights while sipping some Starbuks coffee and the baking of cookies always gets me in the spirit.  What do you like to do around the Holidays?

Today, I have a new challenge to share with you over at {Cupcake Inspirations}:

The new challenge for the next two weeks is a color challenge in “Shades of Blue“!  You need to be sure to use at least three different shades of blue when making your project.  So any theme or occasion you can think of just use these colors!  We look forward to seeing what you come up with for this challenge!  Here’s my project:

I think my favorite colors to decorate with for Christmas are blue and silver!  So I knew I wanted to pull out this GORGEOUS stamp set from Whimsy Stamps called Elegant Ornaments and have a play with it!

I started with a Bristol Smooth Watercolor panel and took the Whimsy Stamps Beaded Curtain Stencil and went over the top with some Blueprint Sketch, Salty Ocean and Tumbled Glass Oxide Distress Inks.  I ended with the lightest color and faded it into the white.  I took the lightest color and also went over the top of the panel too.  I then cut the panel out with the Whimsy Stamps Zig-Zag Stitched Rectangle die.

I then took a couple of the ornaments along with the sentiment from the stamp set and heat embossed them where I wanted to place them with Ranger Liquid Platinum EP.  I took my Zig CC Real Brush Markers and colored in the heat embossed ornaments and blended them together with a watercolor brush.  I then stamped the “curved beads” images in navy colored ink and then heat embossed the strings to the ornaments so that it all looked layered.

This image panel was layered over a piece of silver mirror cardstock and then layered over an A2 sized side folding navy cardbase.  Lastly, I added some blue sequins and filled the centers with some Nuvo Dazzling Blue Glitter Drops.

Here’s a closer look at the ornaments and how that pretty embossing powder looks.  I noticed that the navy beads caught some of the EP when I heat embossed the strings to the ornaments, but I don’t mind that as I think it gives a bit of shimmer over them and gives more depth to it.  The card looks very pretty and sparkly and I’m happy with how it turned out.

I hope that you’ve enjoyed my “shades of blue” creation today and it has inspired you to pull out your blue colored goodies to play along with us!  Please be sure to check out the {Cupcake Inspirations} Challenge Blog to have a look at the wonderful inspiration from the rest of the DT to help inspire you more!

Thanks so much for joining me here today and I’ll be seeing you soon!😉

Challenges:

  1. Cute Card Thursday – Anything Goes
  2. Dream Valley – #238 Christmas
  3. Winter Wonderland – Anything Christmas Goes
  4. 52 Christmas Card Throwdown – Pick a Precious 2020 Challenge – February 52CCT6-20 3 shades of blue
  5. Through the Purple Haze Holiday – Make it Blue
  6. Crazy 4 Challenges – C4C564 Elvis “A Blue Christmas”
  7. Merry Little Christmas – MLCCB29 December Anything Goes Christmas
  8. The Paper Funday – #24 December Anything Goes optional: Christmas/Holiday
  9. Crafty Calendar – December Christmas theme

WARNING: Spooky post with Monsters/Ghouls for {Cupcake Inspirations}

Hello there friends!  Halloween is very quickly approaching us at the end of this week and it’s one of my favorite Holidays ever since I can remember and it was such a fun memory of things I passed onto my own children to have fun with as well.  We have lots of fun memories together.  I know there are some people that don’t like it…or maybe the “scary” things that come from it, but for me, the more scary, the better! (With the exception of the little ones, I don’t like to scare people that don’t like a good scare…but for me, it’s all in fun and make believe.)  This is the reason for my warning post title…just in case you happen to not like it.  It’s totally fine if you don’t!😉 – OR clowns!! LOL!

 

Today starts a fun new challenge over at the {Cupcake Inspirations} Challenge Blog with the theme of “Monsters/Ghouls“.  Looking at the photo, you can opt to make a cute little colorful monster/alien type of birthday card if you’re not into the Halloween or scary, so just another way you could interpret the challenge idea if you wanted to.

But here’s my scary “monster/ghoul” creation I made for the challenge:

He is a bit on the spooky/scary side, isn’t he?!  I have been looking for a creepy clown image like this for a couple of years and finally Whimsy Stamps came out with this “Creepy Clown Sleep Tight” rubber stamp set and I knew I had to grab it up and specifically in reference to the movie “It” by Stephen King who’s a favorite author of mine.  My younger son is really into these type of things too, so this one’s going to him!

I started out the background with a piece of watercolor cardstock that I used some Black Soot Distress ink to sponge in some clouds with using a cloud stencil from my stash.  I then took some Wilted Violet Distress Oxide Spray and water and let the color run into the background with the sprayed water.  I also watered down some more Black Soot ink and made some splatters with a brush over it.  I then black heat embossed the Whimsy Stamps Spider Web Frame over top of it, cut it out with the WS Zig Zag Stitched Rectangle die and then added some more Black Soot ink around the edges.  I layered it over an A2 sized top folding black card base.

For the creepy clown image, I black heat embossed it twice over a piece of Bristol Smooth Watercolor panel and then used my Zig Clean Color Real Brush markers and a water brush to color it with.  I fussy cut it out and then just cut out the hands only of the second image, and used some foam tape to pop the hands over the image and then the entire clown image over the frame background.  I white heat embossed the sentiment from the “Creepy Clown Sleep Tight” set over a piece of black cardstock and then die cut it out using the WS Quick Strips die set.  (Note:  I used a partial die cut method to lengthen the die so that it would fit the sentiment.)  I sponged around it with white ink and then glued in place under the clown image.

If you “dare” to take a closer look at mister creepy clown here, you see how I’ve colored him and cut him out.

I did use some brighter colors as he’s a clown and I really wanted him to pop from the design.  I used a silver metallic gel pen to color in the bells on his hat and then I’ve used some glossy accents over his yellow colored eyeballs to make them pop out a bit more as well.  The teeth were left white, but I used a white gel pen to color them in a bit for more prominent whiteness.  It is such a detailed image so it was fairly easy to color.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my good Monday morning scare for you today!😱🤡😂

Other Challenges I’d like to enter “Creepy Clown” for:

  1. Double D – October:  What does it mean to you? (spooky Fall fun Halloween!)
  2. Mod Squad – Spooky Halloween
  3. Simon Says Stamp Wednesday – Layer it Up (popped up layers over clown)
  4. Creative Moments – #201 Anything Goes
  5. Cute Card Thursday – Stamping
  6. Creative Knockouts – #373 Halloween (black, green, purple, orange)
  7. Crafty Catz – #524 Anything Goes optional: hats
  8. Daring Cardmakers – Spooktacular Makes
  9. Two Old Bats – Halloween Jump Start *NEW CHALLENGE BLOG

Slimline Waving Hello🧜‍♀️

Hello there friends!  Hope you’re having a wonderful week!  Just wanted to stop in with a Slimline style card I had made with a fun underwater scene.  (I’m thinking a magical place like this would be great to be in right now!  How about you?)

Vicki-BRM-mermaidslimline

These slimline cards are really great for creating scenes like this on and I was also having fun being able to “experiment” with my different products too!

I’ve the stamp set called Sea You Soon along with the background paper (mermaid skin) and the Lilac Shimmering Sand Paste were all items from a past card kit.

I created my underwater scene basically using the mermaid skin paper as the background.  Although it has a cool texture and smoothness to it, I was able to take the School of Fish stencil and add that Lilac sand paste over it.  Love that extra texture and purple hue it gave!  I also took the silhouette images from the stamp set and heat embossed them over this paper with black EP.

I stamped and colored the rest of the images from the stamp set with Copic markers and then fussy cut them out to arrange for my scene and popped some up with foam tape and then lastly added some clear acrylic bubbles over it.

Vicki-BRM-mermaidslimline-flat

You can see now that it’s lying flat how the color shifts and changes on the paper!

I’ve used some stitched wave border dies to help create the scene using some Kraft cardstock where I’ve also fit in to arrange the sand castle image that I colored and cut out.  I used Copic markers and gel pens to help fit the borders and image together.

I cut out the background paper with the Trinity Stamps Slimeline Stitched Card Panels and Windows die set.  I layered it over a piece of blue paper that was included with the kit and then layered that over a Slimline style card base measuring 8.5″ x 7″ folded in half from a piece of Aubergine Cardstock.  The sentiment was actually stamped from the Merfriends stamp set using black Ink.

You can see parts of the images with shimmer on them which have been colored with metallic gel pens.  I’ve also covered the mermaid tail and jelly fish with a Spectrum Noir Glitter Brush Pen.

The bubbles are looking a bit white instead of clear because my glue wasn’t quite dry enough when taking my photos, so my apology on that, but it took a couple of days to completely dry up clear for some weird reason!  Those babies aren’t going anywhere though!! LOL!

Hope you’ve enjoyed my magical underwater slimline card today!  Thanks so much for joining with me today and I’ll SEA you again soon!😁

Challenges:

  1.  Just Us Girls – #544 Trend Week:  Long & Skinny
  2. Crafting Happiness– #57 Anything Goes
  3. Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2028 Anything Goes
  4. Mod Squad – Slim Line Scene
  5. Little Red Wagon – #558 Fantasy
  6. Papercraft – Fantasy
  7. There’s a Stamp For That FB Challenge –  Summer and/or Slimline
  8. Not Just Cards – July Anything Goes