HEY! “C” is for Circles!

Hello and happy Friday my friends! After things got heated up the last couple of days, I think I’m ready for a couple of days of cooler weather! I don’t want to skip Spring by going straight into a hot Summer! Hope you have some great things planned this weekend!

Today starts a new challenge over at the Alphabet Challenge Blog! We are now onto the letter “C” and the hostess has chosen “C” is for Circles *Remember that this is a bi-weekly challenge, so you have two weeks to enter* I hope you will find some time to play along! Here’s what I’ve created:

I do love me some circles and I thought I would just use them all over the place for this challenge! I pulled out my Taylored Expressions “Talking in Circles card kit” that came out earlier in the year and no longer available. However, the panel that I’ve used to create this design are still available in the store called “Talking in Circles A2 Sugar Cube Maps“. They make it easy to follow where placements need to be and lined up.

I used the TE A2 Thin Frame Cutting Plate for the black frame around the circles. I thought I would try and use another cutting plate, but the design pretty much covered it up. I layered this whole panel over a top folding A2 white card base.

For the sentiment in the center, I used another circle die from the TE, but I don’t think it’s in the store any longer. I cut the “HEY” circle out from black cardstock and layered some vellum behind it. I white heat embossed the “You are awesome” sentiment over black and cut that out with a Simply Strip die. This was popped up with a foam strip over the design.

Thanks so much for stopping over today! I hope you’ve enjoyed my card and you will take a hop on over to the challenge blog to see what the rest of the team has come up with.

See you soon! In case you need to know…you are awesome!

Challenges:

Love to Scrap – #173 Anything Goes
Allsorts – #823 Paper Piecing or Anything Goes (Not sure if this is considered paper piecing)
Ally’s Angels – #94 Anything Goes
CRAFT – #755 Anything Goes
The Creative Crafters – #88 Anything Goes
Crafter’s Cafe – #319 Anything Goes optional: no squares

February AJ Collab-You Are Enough

Hello friends! I’m back again today to share some more inspiration with my Art Journaling!

Today starts another AJ page with my crafty friend Carol (from Crafty-Stamper) who is collaborating with me to “SMASH OUR STASH”! 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” February prompt of “MUSIC” (of course!):

Really had fun with this page as it’s got that bright and cheerful background which is a great reminder to yourself especially when the world looks black and white.

I was able to pull out several stash items like the DecoArt Fluid Acrylic Paints, the stamp sets and dies, some of which, I’ve had for a long time and some never used!

For the background: I started with a canvas cardstock 140# measuring 8.5″x5.5″ and attached a music sheet of the same size over it. (I have tons of sheet music ephemera!) I then used the DecoArt Fluid Acrylic Paints to go over it in a horizontal bright rainbow. Once dry, I splattered white paint over it. I also went around the edges with a black paint marker.

The flowers at the bottom came from the Taylored Expressions Botanical Beauty Background (retired), that I stamped in black and colored with cool grey markers. I liked that it covered the entire width of my panel. I used a coordinating die to cut it with and attached to the bottom. I layered a black strip at the very bottom…because I thought it needed it.

Moving to the top of the page, I used a Lawn Fawn Little Heart Strings border die cut out with some shimmer vellum. (I also used the same vellum for the butterfly wings.) I attached this to the top of the page with double sided adhesive strip. I glued down the tiny hearts. This is the first time I’ve used this die because I had to cut it apart! The butterfly dies came from a very old My Favorite Things die set that is no longer available…not sure of the name even. The sentiment at the top over the heart string border came from the Taylored Expressions “You Are” that was white heat embossed over black cardstock and cut out with the coordinating die. I attached it over the border.

Lastly, I used my Cricut Machine to cut out some single music notes in black glossy cardstock and I attached those to the center of the die cut butterflies. I used some black Stickles glitter and put “dots” on the heart strings border, the butterflies and the center of the flowers.

Here’s a song that inspired me for this page:

and if you need to hear this today, just know that YOU ARE ENOUGH too

Thank you so much for stopping by today and sharing your kind comments and support! I read them all and appreciate it! Hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Challenges:

Art Journal Journey – MUSIC
Moving Along with the Times – #175 – Things with Wings
A Cut Above – Anything Goes + die cuts
The Neglected Stuff – #1 challenge (I’ve used musical sheet ephemera, paints, butterfly dies)
Anything Goes in a Card Free Zone – No cards
Creative Artiste – #112 Anything Goes Mixed Media
We Love to Create – Anything Goes Mixed Media

Art Journal Journey Host for February-MUSIC

Hello friends and welcome to February! Hoping that wherever you are that this is a great month for you! This month I’m excited to be the host over at Art Journal Journey for my second year! So be on the look-out for several art journal pages from me this month!

For my prompt, I was feeling a musical theme🎵 would be a broad area to cover for art journaling. You could pull out some old sheet music, use music notes and/or instruments, song titles and/or lyrics, musical quotes, etc. I look forward to seeing all of the musical inspiration in the gallery, so I hope you can join too! Here’s my first sample page to get started:

I had made a card a few years back that I made my own piano, but in a smaller scale size and I thought it would be fun to try and incorporate that idea onto a page.

For the background: I started with my usual size 5.5″ x 8.5″ cold press 140# watercolor paper and used a ruler to line ” white keys” for the piano at the bottom with a black marker. I cut strips of black glossy cardstock for “black keys” and attached them over top. BEFORE attaching the sheet music in the center, I attached some baby wipes to a ruler with rubber bands and dropped watercolor in rainbow on it. I then dragged the ruler down several times to achieve the rainbow pattern at the top. (I made a video a few years back if you want to see how it’s done on a card HERE.)

I die cut a scallop curved border on the sheet music and added some black ink around the edges before attaching in the center of the page so that the piano keys and rainbow pattern shows. I then took some gold watercolor and splattered over the page but covering the piano keys to prevent them from getting splatter.

Once the background and piano was done, I die cut the “music” lettering from more of the glossy black cardstock and added a musical note brad next to it. I took a white gel pen and wrote the quote in the center and then lined that black strip and the keyboard area with strips of gold metallic paper.

Thanks so much for stopping by today! I hope you’ve enjoyed my art journal page today and have been inspired to play along too! I look forward to seeing your musical inspiration in the Art Journal Journey gallery soon!

Challenges:

Art Journal Journey – MUSIC (hosted by me)
We Love to Create – Anything Goes Mixed Media
Little Red Wagon – #792 “A” is for Anything Goes
Penny’s Paper-Crafty – #589 Anything Goes Using Paper
Simon Says Stamp Wed – Anything Goes

April Showers Bring May Flowers at Sparkles Monthly

Hello friends! I’m so very happy to see April come as well as the warmer weather it has brought our way! I’ve actually been taking sometime outside to see some blooms with daffodils, tulips and other buds popping out everywhere! We are expected to get some rain tomorrow, but that is exactly what April is all about…and then the May flowers to follow!

This is exactly what it’s all about for this month’s challenge over at Sparkles Monthly too! We hope you can share your “April Showers-May Flowers” projects with us this month! Here’s what I’ve chosen to make:

I always love a good Spring rain with a little bit of sunshine peeking through that causes rainbows! I never get a good photo of one, so I just enjoy it while it lasts!

I’ve used a fairly new product from Taylored Expressions with my card today called “Create-in-quads ROYGBV” which creates 4 different card panels at one layered stencil session. (I now have 3 other panels to make cards with too.) I used the “Create-in-quads ROYGBV vase die” to cut it out and then another one in black cardstock for a slightly off shadow effect behind it.

For the background card panel, I had a DCWV rain drops stencil (that I’ve had for a long time) and blended some blue ink over it. I’ve also cut a piece of blue/teal colored glitter paper for a thin border behind it to attach over an A2 white top folding card base. I then took another piece of blue cardstock strip to make a “landing/grounding” for the vase to sit on. Before popping up the ROYGBV vase, I took a marker to create a blue shadow underneath where the vase would be positioned. I was going for a “rain puddle” look. Popped it up with foam tape and added a white enamel dot in the center of one of the flowers. I also took a glitter pen to cover over the raindrops and “rain puddle” under the ROYGBV vase.

The sentiment came from the Taylored Expressions Mini Strips-Rainbow stamp that I’ve white heat embossed over black cardstock and cut it out with the Mini Strips-Asymmetrical die and chose the ones that I wanted to use for this card to attach over top of the vase. (I also have extra sentiments to use on other projects.)

Hope you’ve enjoyed my card today! I also hope that you will take some time to stop in and join in the challenge with us this month! I have several projects finished that I’d like to share, but I find it so hard to come and sit at a computer when the sunshine and happy weather is calling my name! Maybe when it rains tomorrow, I will post more things!

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

Challenges:

Just Us Girls – Word Week: RAIN
A Place to Start – One or More Flowers
Crafts Galore Encore – #122 Anything Goes
Try it On Tuesday – Rainbow Colors
Addicted to Stamps & More – #465 Die Cut and/or Stencil
Crafting Happiness – #170 Rainy Weather

Rainbow of Strength

Hello friends! Hope you had a great weekend and maybe did some crafting? Did you participate in the World Card Making Day events? There were so many things going on, so I basically opened up the You Tube video marathons and watched while I did a bit of crafting.

I was inspired by the Craft Roulette WCMD event with several crafters showcasing their version of the parameters they were to use for that event. It was several hours long!

Here’s the card that I made with the Craft Roulette World Card Making Day parameters of – PROJECT: A2 card, COLORS: rainbow, ELEMENT: nature, and RANDOM: black dots

I also combined my card using one of the sponsor’s products which I’m entering for this week’s sketch challenge from My Favorite Things.

I’ve had these stamps in my collection for quite a while and it was nice to pull them out for this card. I actually needed a card for an elderly woman who recently fell and broke her hip, so she’ll be recovering with therapy for a while.

For my card, I used the MFT Watercolor flowers and stamped them in red-, orange- and yellow-colored layers and cut them out (This was my nature element parameter). The middle was cut with the MFT Stitched Hexagon dies that I ink blended with green and blue inks (These colors make up the rainbow parameter). I splattered the shape with white and black. *Before I splattered, I stamped the sentiment from the MFT Essential Sentiments set with black pigment ink and heat embossed it with clear EP. (The sentiment was cut in portion to fit my design.)

For the A2 sized card base (makes up project parameter), I used a MFT Triangle background stamp (retired) in the same kraft color that I inked the centers of the flowers with. I also used this color to ink around the edges of the card. I than layered two more cut out shapes for the ink blended sentiment panel for dimension and attached to the stamped card base. I used foam tape to pop up the flowers and lastly added some black gemstones (for the black dots parameter).

Thanks so much for stopping by today! Hope you’ve enjoyed my inspiration! See you soon!

Challenges:

My Favorite Things Wednesday Sketch – MFTWSC666
Aud Sentiments – Ink Blending &/OR Fall Colors + sentiment
The Crafty Addicts – Anything Goes
The Flower Challenge – Anything Goes with Flowers – Happy 7 years!
Krafty Chicks – #684 Stamp Act
Alphabet – ‘N’ is for Nature

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

Feeling Sentimental for Dare To Get Dirty

Hello again friends! If you missed my previous post, be sure to check it out for details about a GIVEAWAY on my You Tube Channel! You only have ONE week to enter it!

Today is my turn over at Splitcoaststampers “Dare to Get Dirty” Event to a host a challenge, so I wanted to share the creations that I’ve made for it.

Vicki-DTGD20basementstamper-words-shaker

First up I have this shaker style card I made with some of my fave Lawn Fawn products!

I’ve colored up that sweet little mouse standing over the banner from the Wild For You stamp set and cut him out with the coordinating die. The black banner he’s sitting on was white heat embossed from the Happy, Happy Happy stamp set. I also used the tiny smile face from this set to randomly stamp the background inside my shaker frame. I then used the envelope at the bottom from the Love Letters stamp set that was colored and cut out with the coordinating die.

I’ve used some Stitched rectangle LF dies to create the shaker frame and the striped papers also come from some random LF papers in my stash. I’ve used the LF Scripty Smile die in black cardstock that I’ve attached over top of the acetate window area.

Vicki-DTGD20basementstamper-words-shaker-flat

Since the card was mainly black and white, I wanted to add a happy rainbow color which is where the shaker sequins came in. I looked through my collection and found some Tie Dye Rainbow Sequins from Brutus Monroe.

Vicki-DTGD20basementstamper-wordsHUG

I guess I had rainbow colors in mind with my next card as well! I absolutely LOVE this sentiment stamp from Trinity Stamps called Folded Hug. I started by white heat embossing it over black cardstock and then I cut it out with my MFT Wonky Stitch Rectangle die and layered it over a white scallop rectangle layer and layered that again over a black piece of cardstock. I also used the coordinating Sending Hugs die set to cut the “hug” letters out multiple times to raise them up over the image and then finished with the rainbow colors that I’ve used for the background of the card.

Upon a closer look at the image, you can see where I’ve colored in parts of the image with my Karin Brush Metallic pen set. I think it showed up so pretty over the black cardstock. I’ve also covered the rainbow letters with a glitter brush pen and then went over that with glossy accents. I love how shinny the letters are IRL!

I hope you’ve enjoyed my share of creations during the Splitcoaststampers “Dare to Get Dirty” Event and has helped inspire you in some way! I appreciate you stopping in!

Challenges:

Lawn Fawnatics – Make the Sentiment the Star
Aud Sentiments – Anything Goes + Sentiment
Inkspirational – Rain or Rainbows (second card)
The Sisterhood of Crafters – Sentiment as Focal Point

{Cupcake Inspirations} Birthday Celebration Day 2

Hello friends! The celebration continues over at {Cupcake Inspirations} with our feature of sponsors for our 500th “birthday celebration” challenge!! Woot!!

Today, we are highlighting STAMPlorations & Rachelle Anne Miller Creative Studios – check out the challenge blog for more details about these sponsors.

The DT was provided with an image from STAMPlorations to use:

Vicki-CIC500-Day2-Stamplorations

What could be more fun and happy for a celebration than rainbow colors?!

I was provided with this lovely Framed Tea Cups stamp to use for my card which I’ve colored up with Copic markers using the traditional ROYGBV rainbow colors for the cups.

I also decided to mask off the image and using the ARTplorations Weaving Stencil, I inked over with some Pumice Stone Distress Ink and then cut out the panel with the CUTplorations Crazy Double Running Stitch Rectangle die that was barely trimmed along the edges so that I could layer it over a black A2 sized top folding card base. I also took one of the images from the Scribbly Splattery Grunge stamp set and randomly stamped it a few times with black ink before attaching the panel to the card base.

Lastly, I used the CUTplorations Celebrate Word die to cut out the sentiment with silver foil cardstock and attached it to the bottom of the card and then I added some silver sequins to the design.

Thank you for stopping in today friends! See you tomorrow!

Challenges:

STAMPlorations Never-Ending Challenge – Anything Goes + STAMPlorations product
Crafty Friends – #142 Anything Goes
Creativ Fusion Arts & Crafts – #20 Anything Goes
Cute Card Thursday – Bright Colors
Seize the Birthday– Rainbow Colors or Anything Birthday

Whimsy Retreat Crafty Fun Results

Hello friends! Hope you’re having a great week! I’m so glad you’ve joined me today as I have lots of fun creations to share with you!😀

This past weekend Whimsy S tamps held a “virtual craft retreat“, so I thought I’d tag along and join in on the fun! I’m glad I did because I made several cards:

The first challenge given was a tic-tac-toe challenge. I did 3 down: birthday, heat embossing and circles for mine. Almost had 2 bingos…but didn’t quite work out! Aren’t those penguin eyeballs the best?! LOL! I needed to send out a birthday card to someone so this was great timing!

The background papers, cover die, sentiment die and the penguin stamps are all from Whimsy Stamps. I even put little ice cube confetti for my shaker card!

This card was made for the second challenge given during the event which was to use a sketch and a color palette using at least 2 of the colors given. This was my take on the sketch along with using blue, green and brown from the palette.

Most all of the items used on this design came from an older card kit from Whimsy Stamps. The stamp set is still available in the store called Enjoy the Journey. For the sentiment panel, I heat embossed a sentiment from this stamp set and then used the Slimline Postage die to cut along the edges of it.

Tihs is the card that I created for the third challenge issued which was to follow a photo prompt with words: “When it rains, look for rainbows. When it’s dark, look for stars.” The first thing that came to my mind was these cool Rainbow Papers from Whimsy Stamps and so I’ve cut a panel out with an older Whimsy Stamps die along with the image panel.

This image is called Rainy Day Smiles by Sassy Cheryl’s which is what I had actually won as a prize from the event over the weekend for one of the games..so that was cool! I wanted to be sure to use it for one of my cards! I added some raindrop crystals on a few areas of the image too.

This card was made for the fourth challenge given which was simply to create a project with one of the digital freebie images that was given during the event.

Facebook actually kicked me out of the event a few times for leaving too many comments! LOL! I was trying to participate in games and it told me that I was leaving too many comments! This was one of the cute freebie images that they gave at the event called Sloth. After all that happened…I felt that this little guy was laughing at me!🤣🤣🤣 So I wanted to laugh right along with him, and I printed him out, colored him with Copics and used the Whimsy Stamps Notched Square dies and layered him over some papers from my stash and attached to a 5″ square card base that I stenciled some clouds on along with the background of the image. I die cut some leaves from the Whimsy Stamps No-See All Seasons Tree die set to add to the top corners of the image panel.

Needless to say, I did “hang in there” right along with him!!😄

And last but not least, the fifth challenge was to make a project based on one of the video tutorials that was shown at the event. Of course, I’m always inspired by Crissy Armstrong and her coloring! This sweet little penguin called Penguin Momma was a freebie given during the event and I watched Crissy color this up and I tried my hand at her tips and tricks.

I printed out another piece of the feather background and cut it out with the Whimsy Stamps Zig Zag Stitched Rectangle dies and added my own white feather to the design. I sponged some grey ink around the edges of the printed papers and added some yellow crystals.

I had such fun creating these projects and pulling out my Whimsy Stamps stash for the challenges. And now I have a few cards for sending out to people that I already have in mind! Hope you’ve enjoyed my makes today and I’ll be seeing you again soon!! (The links in this post contain affiliate links if you want to purchase anything! Thank you!!)

Challenges:

Creatialicious – Anything Goes optional birthdays
A Bit More Time to Craft – Anything Goes
Love to Craft – Anything Goes
Crafty Creations – Anything Goes
Colour Crazy Craft – Anything Goes + colouring
Crafty Friends – Anything Goes
Creative Craft Cottage – Anything Goes
Creative Moments – Anything Goes
Lil’ Patch of Crafty Friends – Anything Goes

ATCs With Flowers, Rainbows and Stencils…Oh My!

Hey there friends! Hoping you had a wonderful weekend and ready to start a fun week ahead! Although we’ve been having some cool and rainy days this week, I know that some nice warm weather is on it’s way and I’m really looking forward to it and getting outdoors to my flowers!

For today, I have something a bit different that is not a card, but I think a really cool and fun way to experiment with different media and ideas…especially on a smaller “non-intimidatingly” way. I’m talking about those ATCs (Artist Trading Cards for the newbies)! It’s like a “fun size” candy bar in small bite form…these are like the “fun size” of the traditional A2 sized cards! LOL! They’re normally 3 1/2″ x 2 1/2″ which is similar to the size of a business card. They’ve been around for years since I started stamping and newer to me are the round coin ones. (I will attempt those at another time, I’m sure!)

I had a few challenges in mind and found some time yesterday to have a play:

Rainbows seem to be a huge deal right now and I think there is even a special day dedicated to them! I also was wanting to play with my crafty stash.

For the ATC on the left, I used the stencil and some embossing paste over a piece of watercolor paper and set aside to dry. While that was dry, I cleaned off the stencil and used it on another piece of white cardstock and used my distress inks and ink blending tool to create a rainbow background for another ATC (right). I ended up stamping the bicycle over it with black ink and then sprayed the panel with some shimmer spray.

Going back to the dry embossed paste panel, I took some Creamy Aqua Pigments and added rainbow colors at the top and then sprayed them with water and let it drip down. I let the colors run and even left some white on there as you can see above. I let it dry and then splattered some black watered down paint to splatter over it with a paint brush. I then stamped the clouds from the same stamp set, fussy cut them out and popped them over the background.

On both ATCs, I white heat embossed the sentiments over black cardstock and cut them out with my scissors to place over top. For the bicycle ATC, I added some metallic Fibers along with some flowers. Part of the sentiment was popped up on foam tape for both of them. One of the clouds was popped up with foam tape on the left one.

Super fun to play and create with!

I had made one early last month too, but never posted it, so I thought this would help fit it in for today:

Vicki-NeonshoesATC

Not really a “rainbow” theme, but this was sure fun to create and doodle around with!

For this one, I finally got a chance to play with my Neon Aqua Pigments! I used the “smoosh technique” with them for this background and let it dry. Then I used some black embossing paste over the Wallpaper stencil.

I also stamped the shoes and colored those in with the Neon AP and popped it up with foam tape over a another piece of the metallic Fibers like I used on the “bicycle ATC” above. I also took glitter pen to go over the shoes and added a yellow rhinestone to it. From the stamp stamp set, I took the sentiment and stamped it in black ink, fussy cut it out and layered it over some black CS and fussy cut it out leaving a border. Each one glued over the background. I took a black pen and doodled along the edges.

Vicki-NeonshoesATC-neonglow

And of course, when you shut the lights off and turn on your black light, you can REALLY see the fun and funky neon colors glow on it!! Even this photo doesn’t do it justice because it looks so fun in person!

For my ATCs, I’ve been attaching them to Chipboard for sturdiness. I also added the Artist Trading Card Labels for the backs of them.

Hope you’ve enjoyed my ATCs today and gave you a little inspiration to try one out for yourself! But I have to warn you….just like those “fun-sized” candy bars, you can just have one!! LOL!

Thanks for dropping in today friends!! Enjoy your week!

Challenges: (For top ATCs only)