O is for Oval with One Word

Hello friends! Happy Friday and happy Halloween too!🎃 I might be having a few treats tonight, but hopefully without any tricks involved! 😉

Today is a new challenge over at the Alphabet Challenge Blog! Our next letter is “O”, and our hostess, Helen, has chosen “Oval with One Word Sentiment” I hope you will join in the fun with us! *Please remember that this is a bi-weekly challenge, so you have two weeks to enter.* Here’s the project I’ve made for this challenge:

I usually make cards with a specific theme, but I rarely make cards with just an “any occasion” involving a simple sentiment like “hello”, so I went with this in mind for the challenge.

I started with a Taylored Expressions Foil It-Framework panel (one of the panels had a nice oval shape), and foiled it with a gold foil. While I was foiling, I also decided to foil the sentiment from the TE Foil It-Timeless Greetings and cut it out with the coordinating die.

After foiling, I pulled out the TE Masking Stencil-Framework (coordinates with the foil panel) and used it to stencil the center oval with the TE Mini Slim Stencil-Trellis in light blue ink. I then took the left over ink from the blending brush and lightly went over the entire inside oval shape. On a separate piece of white cardstock, I stenciled the TE Cottage Charm Stencil & Die Combo and attached the floral spray on each opposite ends of the foil oval. I was trying to go for Autumn style colors for the flowers, but the red tone looks a bit more pink in the photo now that I’m looking at it. I still like it though.

I attached this panel onto a light blue A2 side folding card base, popped up the gold foil sentiment in the center with foam tape and added a couple of gold gems.

I hope you like my card today and you will pop on over to the challenge blog to see the inspiration from the rest of the design team. Looking forward to seeing what everyone comes up with!

Thanks so much for dropping in and I’ll be back tomorrow with another post and challenge!

Challenges:

Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2543 Anything Goes
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge – Anything Goes
Krafty Chicks – #792 Anything Goes
Triple B – Birds, Butterflies, Blooms (must use at least 1)
The Creative Crafters – #93 Anything Goes

October AJ Page-Magical Potion

Hello friends and happy weekend! It’s the last Saturday for this month and next week will be November 1st! Can you believe it?! We’re nearing the end of the year, but I’d like to stop and enjoy the wonderful Autumn season right now while it’s here!

Last Saturday of October brings us to the monthly 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” OCTOBER prompt of “MAGICAL”:

I couldn’t let this month go by without adding in a Halloween themed AJ page! I love making them and getting out lots of dies from several different companies that made this one a fun project to pull together.

Background: I used an 8.5″ x 5.5″ piece of Mixed Media cardstock and blended the background in various colors using a light yellow for the center where the window is open and the cauldron is brewing up something magical!

I then took a cogs and wheel stencil and sponged on some gold ink in various places. I took a cool background stamp from Whimsy Stamps called Vintage Wallpaper and stamped it in random places. I also cut a strip of wood plank background paper from my stash to add at the bottom of the page. I then took my gold ink pad and swiped it around the edges of the page.

Die Cuts: The large spider web cut from holographic paper, the witch, the fire, and cats all came from Whimsy Stamps. The Cauldron and potion bottle came from Taylored Expressions, the window came from Simon Says Stamp and the wood under the cauldron came from Lawn Fawn. For some of the pieces, I ink blended or added a gold highlight to the edges. For the potion bottle, there is a tiny label on it that says “Moon Dust” with a moon on it. (It’s hard to see in the photo.) I added some glitter to the contents. After ink blending the flames, I covered it with a glitter brush pen.

I took a marker to added some shadows under the witch, cat and cauldron. I took some yellow sequins and added it under the potion bottle to make it look like she’s added it to the potion. Lastly, I took a couple of Tim Holtz sentiment clippings to add to the scene.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my art journal page today! I had fun with it! Thanks so much for dropping in and I’ll be seeing you soon!

Challenges:

Art Journal Journey – Steampunk/Halloween or both
Creative Artiste – #120 Anything Goes Mixed Media
Anything Goes in a Card Free Zone – No Cards
Penny’s – #608 Anything Goes Using Paper
Little Red Wagon – #830 Not a Card

N is for Night

Hello friends! Once again, it’s another Friday in October! Two weeks from today will be Halloween! I may have a few “goblins” showing up for some candy! 👻 This reminds me that I will be needing to make up a few treat bags!

Today is a new challenge over at the Alphabet Challenge Blog! Our next letter is “N”, and our hostess, Pamela, has chosen “N is for NIGHT” (clouds, moon, sky, sleeping image, stars, etc.) I think this will be a fun one for Halloween! *Please remember that this is a bi-weekly challenge, so you have two weeks to enter.* I hope you’ll join in the fun with us. Here’s the project I’ve made for this challenge:

Well, you know I had to do this challenge in the Halloween theme, right?! I absolutely loved making this card! I pulled out all of my Taylored Expressions Halloween items to play with!

I started with the background and created the moon with the Moonlight Layering Stencil. I made sure to center it where I wanted the moon to be in placement on my background before I ink blended everything in. I also used a very light hand when making the moon in greys and yellow tones. This stencil also comes with a mask to cover the entire moon shape, so I used some Pixie Spray to tack it down to stay in place over my card before I began ink blending the blues in the background for the sky. While leaving the moon mask in place, I also used some Copic opaque white watered down and splattered over the blue ink blended sky for “stars”.

I was then able to remove the moon mask to finish my card. I layered this panel over an A2 side folding black card base. I used the Taylored Expressions Trick or Treat Border die to cut out another black piece to fit over the moon. I left some space at the bottom of the border to white heat emboss the sentiment from the TE Spooktacular Sentiments set. I just attached this to the bottom of the moon sky panel and then I die cut some bats from the TE Little Bits-Bats die with the TE Black Glitter Cardstock and attached them to the sky.

I’m loving how the moon seems to be glowing over the trick or treaters! I hope you like it too and will join in the fun with us! Be sure to check out the challenge blog to see more inspiration!

THANKS SO MUCH FOR DROPPING IN TODAY!! HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND AHEAD!

Challenges:

Creative Inspirations – Autumn/Something Spooky
Craft Rocket – #130 Autumn/Halloween
Crafty Calendar – Halloween
Let’s Craft & Create – #224 Anything Goes with optional: Things with Wings (bats)
Crazy is our Fame-Stencils are our Game! – Stencil(s) with optional: Halloween
Two Old Bats – Anything Goes Halloween
Unicorn – #114 Autumn and/or Halloween
Crafty Gals Corner – #271 Fill in the Blank: “Spooky________” – NIGHT!

M is for Mythical

Hello and happy Friday to you friends! Welcome to the month of October! We’re still having some unseasonably warm weather right now, but next week it’s supposed to cool down a bit along with maybe some rain which we really need right now. Hope that wherever you are that things are going well for you!

Today is a new challenge over at the Alphabet Challenge Blog! Our next letter is “M”, and our hostess, Tee, has chosen “M is for MYTHICAL CREATURE(s)” (fairies, gnomes, unicorns, dragons, vampires, zombies, etc.) I think this will be a fun one for Halloween! *Please remember that this is a bi-weekly challenge, so you have two weeks to enter.* I hope you’ll join in the fun with us. Here’s the project I’ve made for this challenge:

These little grumpy guys from Taylored Expressions always make me giggle and I fell in love with this set a few years back and had to snatch it up! I pull it out sometimes to make a funny card to send someone. There are other characters from this set called “Mythical Grumplings” (looks to be a retired set) that are super cute!

Because he’s a grumpy dragon, I mainly used green colors to color him up and for the base/background design. I used a heart stencil with green ink and overlayed some translucent sparkle paste over it. I die cut a cloud for the dragon to stand on as well as die cut a heart from shimmer vellum for the dragon to stand out a bit over all of that green color. I popped both the cloud and dragon up over the vellum heart and added to the background.

I layered it over a scallop white layer and a green A2 top folding card base. I also white heat embossed the punny sentiment and die cut it out with a stitched banner die. Sponged the edges with green ink and attached to the top right of the heart panel.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my mythical creature card today and that you’ll consider hopping on over the to the challenge blog to see the inspiration from the rest of the team and join in the fun to play along too!

Thanks so much for stopping by today! Wishing you a happy weekend ahead!

Challenges:

Try it On Tuesday – Animals (real or imaginary)
The Divas That Cut…Paper! – Anything Goes
Crafts Galore Encore – #140 Anything Goes
CRAFT – #765 Grandparents/Anything Goes
As You Like It – Square card or Not & why? (I most usually make A2 sized cards because it’s what fits best with my envelopes and I can get 2 card bases from one sheet of 8.5″11″ cardstock. It makes crafting cards more simple with this size.)

August AJ Page-Good-bye Summer

Hello friends! Here we are at the end of August already! I’ve already been feeling the Autumn vibes, so I thought I’d create with Summer one more time. There is still a few more weeks left of Summer, so let’s enjoy it!

Wanted to share a photo that hubby took a really good close-up shot of a bumble bee enjoying the last bit of summer blooms on one of our flowers in the back yard the other day. He is covered in pollen! I love the bright colors in the flower.

Speaking of bright colors, today starts another monthly 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” AUGUST prompt of “BRIGHT/HAPPY COLORS”:

Bright and happy colors to me are those sunny yellows, citrus and basically a rainbow of bright colors. I tried to reflect this with my page using mainly blended ink colors, but I also used some watercolor and paint too.

FOR THE BACKGROUND: I used a 5.5″ x 8.5″ piece of Bristol Smooth Watercolor cardstock. I covered the background with a light wash of blue watercolor and let it dry. I took a stencil from My Favorite Things (closed) called “Sun Ray” and went over the background with yellow paint applying with a watered-down sponge. Once that was dry, I splattered the entire background with some metallic gold watercolor. I covered the bottom portion of the page with some wood plank background paper. (I like to make my own book to add my finished pages in.)

The “Summer” lettering was die cut with white cardstock and then ink blended with several different bright colors. I stamped out the lettering above it. Both the stamp and dies came from Lawn Fawn.

Here’s a closer view of the drink glass I created using some die sets from Taylored Expressions called Summertime Sips. There was the glass that I lightly ink blended around the edges and then for the separate die for inside the glass, I ink blended a few different colors for that tropical drink look. There are also ice cube dies that I cut from glitter cardstock to put in there. I cut another glass from vellum and then cut the stem of it so that I could attach it to the front of the glass which is where I added all of the items inside to make it look see-though.

The straw and the umbrella were cut in white and then ink blended and put together for the glass. I also took the TE Fresh Squeezed die set to cut more pieces from white cardstock and then I ink blended some green and orange colors over them to arrange around my cup. The green slice on the top of the cup was cut with scissors so that I could add it to the inside of the glass rim. I covered the inside of these citruses with a glitter brush pen.

Lastly, I took a black detail pen to make lines around the edges of the page and also the stitch marks within the lettering and around the sentiment strip at the bottom. This was printed from computer and ink blended with yellow ink.

Thanks so much for stopping in today! Hope you’ve enjoyed my page! Have a wonderful weekend!

Challenges:

Art Journal Journey – Hot Summer (Nights and Days)
Creative Artiste – #118 Anything Goes Mixed Media
Anything Goes in a Card Free Zone – August -No Cards

And speaking of bright and happy, I know a few people have mentioned my new grandson and wondering if I get to see him. My answer to that is every single chance I can get! LOL He’s growing so very fast! He came for a visit for lunch…well grandma fed him his bottle.

I will be getting to see him again VERY soon and I’m so excited! How can you resist that face!?

Thought I’d share a little update to make you smile! 😉

July AJ Page-Always Make Waves

Hello friends! I hope that you’re staying cool and having a great weekend so far! This is another pre-scheduled post from me again as I’m away for now. So glad you’re here!

Today starts another monthly 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” JULY prompt of “ACROSS THE OCEAN”:

At one point I was going through my extremely large stash of card kits and realized how crazy it was that I had SO many mermaid/under the sea type of card kits/stamps, papers, etc. So I didn’t have any problem finding something from my stash for this prompt!

For the Background: I started with my usual size of 8.5″x5.5″ with Bristol Smooth cardstock this time. I wanted to do some ink blending with a large 6″x9″ layered stencil that I got from Trinity Stamps. I’ve used several different ink colors to create the underwater scene with the stencils. I had lots of fun with it. I then used some of the masks in the set and spritzed some water over it for the bubble effects in the “water”. The “light beams” came with the stencil set and I just used white ink for that layer.

I thought since I was using water, that I would watercolor the images from an older mermaid card kit that I had from Brutus Monroe. I die cut those along with the turtle and bubbles. The sentiment came with this set too and I thought it was a wonderful saying, so I white heat embossed it on the page.

I also had an “Under the Sea” die set from My Favorite Things (store closed) that I cut a few pieces from to add to the scene at the bottom. I took a gel pen and markers to add details to some of the ocean floor botanicals/rocks and then a glitter brush pen on the mermaids and glitter glue over the bubbles above the turtle to finish it off.

Hope you’ve enjoyed my Art Journal Page today! Thanks so much for dropping by and spending some time with me! I’ll be back later next week to see what you’re all up to! See you soon!

Challenges:

Art Journal Journey – Botanicals (Hope seaweed counts!)

Mix It Up with Mixed Media

Hello friends and a happy July to you! We’re celebrating July 4th Independence Day this weekend and I know it will be hot! I think we’ll be watching fireworks from our TV inside the cool air this year! Hope that whatever you’re doing this weekend that you stay cool and safe while you’re having fun.

Today also brings us to a new challenge over at the Mix It Up Challenge Blog. The challenges always run for 6 weeks so there is plenty of time to enter. The theme given for us this time is: Mixed Media or you can always do the ‘Anything Goes” too. Here’s the card that I came up with for the challenge using the theme:

This was such a fun card to make! I normally do mixed media on my art journal pages or a larger/3D item, but this time I wanted to make a card for this theme. I pulled out some really fun AALL & Create products that I’ve been wanting to use and I thought this would be a good opportunity to try them out! (I don’t know what it is about these wonky characters, but I think the weird eyeballs are so cute!) I’ve used the “Coffee Time” stamp set with the girl, coffee cups and coffee beans at the bottom. I’ve also used a Simon Says Stamp “Sunflower Fields” in the background and the “Sending Sunshine” sentiment.

To create the background: I’ve stamped a very large sunflower image in yellow ink over a white card base. I’ve then used an AALL & Create “coffee stains” stencil with brown ink over top. I then ink blended some more brown inks over the edges of the panel and then splattered it with both brown and white paints. I took a pen and doodled around the edges and then attached it to an A2 top folding brown card base. I had a left over strip from a collection of coffee backgrounds that I’ve made in a previous post you can see HERE and attached that to the bottom where I stamped the coffee beans in brown ink over it. (I thought it would make for a good “grounding” for the coffee girl and cups to stand on.)

I’ve used another AALL & Create product called “Heart Nook” that I die cut some circles from, and I thought looked like coffee stains, in glitter cardstock. I also cut an additional strip of that to go along the bottom strip of the card. I then added the stack of coffee cups, the girl that I colored up with Copics and fussy cut out. I white heat embossed the sentiment, die cut and popped both that along with the girl using foam tape. I also separately cut out her eyeball and popped that up over her for extra dimension.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my coffee mixed media card today! I had fun coloring her up and very happy to use more things from my stash too! Please be sure to pop on over to the Mix It Up Challenge blog to have a look at what the rest of the team created and play along!

Have a wonderful July 4th weekend.

Challenges:

Just Us Girls – #781 Stencil Week (coffee stains stencil)
Crafty Catz – #697 Anything Goes
Creative Fingers – #304 Anything Goes
Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP2526 – Sunshine (hope sentiment and yellow works!)
Addicted to Stamps & More – Die Cut(s) and/or Stencil(s) – I used both!

Lots of Stamp Joy and Summer School Sessions!

Hello friends! I hope you’ve had a wonderful week and looking forward to a great weekend coming up! We are having a heat advisory for the next several days over my way, so I thought it would be a great idea to stay indoors and craft! I also thought this would be a great time to catch up with some posts sharing some things that I’ve worked on the first part of this year that I hadn’t gotten a chance to share with you.

LONG POST – pull up your chair with your favorite beverage and enjoy!

I thought I’d share the Taylored Expressions Virtual Stamp Joy that I did back in March. I actually spent the weekend attending the classes and creating as I followed along. I managed to get all of the projects done the day after the event was over, but failed to post all of what I had made due to the fact that I was busy helping two different people move…and then life just got really busy after that as well! LOL

*I also have added an additional event from Taylored Expressions this last weekend called “Summer School” which concentrated on foiling techniques. Although I’ve done foiling before, I sure enjoyed seeing new products and learning a few new techniques too! (These four cards are at the end of the gallery photos below)*

If you’re on my website, just click on the images below to enlarge the photos and view any details underneath each one. ENJOY!

Dimension Class-ink blending and splattering die cuts

I always love to learn new things with stamping/crafting along with all of the fun new products that come out too! I know I REALLY don’t need to purchase more things, but when cool stuff comes out, it’s really hard to pass it by! I think doing these classes and joining in on different challenges help me to use these fun things up!

So I hope you’ve enjoyed my post sharing all of the things that I’ve been doing! I will have another post sharing more things that I haven’t shared yet too! In the meantime, I’ve also been working on a scrapbook which has been fun and something that I haven’t done in a really long time! A baby can do that to you! LOL

Thanks so much for stopping in today my friends! I’ll be seeing you soon! Have a great weekend!😊

May Art Journal Page-BEE YOU

Hello friends! Here we are at the end of another month for the year! It seems like we’ve only just barely started the year and now it’s almost at the halfway point? Time seems to fly away! Which reminds me that today is our monthly art journal page!

Yes, it’s our monthly 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” MAY prompt of “WINGS”:

There happens to be wings on many things, but my attention has been focused on bees lately. I have been working on several projects and this was one of the things that I had used on something, so I thought I’d print me out an additional one to use on this month’s page! (This image is a digital file that I printed out and hand cut with scissors.)

For the background: I started with 8.5″x 5.5″Bristol Smooth Watercolor paper that I chomped the corners to get a rounded edge. I used a Dina Wakley Media Stencil along with yellow tones Oxide Distress inks to blend over it. While the stencil was still in place, I used a text stamp to go over it with brown ink. (water proof). Lifted off the stencil and added some more bright yellow ink in various places and then spritzed it with water to blend a bit. Since the text ink was water proof…it didn’t run. I then went around the edges with brown ink and then splattered the entire page with gold watercolor.

I die cut the hexagon and drip corner with gold mirror cardstock and attached to page. I used a black marker to make the “bee lines” and “bee antennas”. I took the fussy cut bee and popped him up with foam tape over the marker lines. I then used some glitter paint to paint over his wings. (I’m glad it shows up nicely in the photo.)

Lastly, I cut out the letters for the sentiment in “BEE”. for the “you”, I white heat embossed a sentiment that originally says “you are” and then die cut it out with a coordinating die. I cut off the “are” portion so that I could use just the “you” to place under my “BEE” lettering.

Thanks so much for checking in today! I hope you’ve enjoyed my page! I will be back next week to share some items that I’ve been working on! Have a great weekend!

Challenges:

Art Journal Journey – Must Have Wings
Simon Says Stamp Monday – Emboss It (embossed “you”)
Try it On Tuesday – Things with Wings
Anything Goes in a Card Free Zone – May Anything Goes- no cards
Creative Artiste – #115 Anything Goes Mixed Media

Weather Related at Sparkles Monthly

Hello friends! When I read about the weather from other areas, it always amazes me how different and even to extremes the weather gets especially during this time of the year! I hear everything from rain, sun, snow, tornadoes, flooding, cold, warm, hot, etc. So where do you find your own weather to be at right now? In my area, we have reached past the snow, but it’s still pretty cool at night…so I know that Spring and the rain is here for us with a bright spot of flowers/sprouts starting to come out in the Midwest U.S.

With this in mind, we have a new challenge over at Sparkles Monthly and we have a very fitting theme of “Weather Related” (rain, wind, sun, etc.) this month. Would love to see lots of different varieties of weather related projects, so I hope you’ll join us. Here’s what I came up with:

I was so happy to finally get a chance to use this adorable set by Lawn Fawn called Beary Rainy Day as I’ve had it for a while, but never used it until now.

I started with a kraft A2 sized top folding card base and stenciled some white clouds over it. I then splattered some navy watercolor paint over it.

While that was drying, I worked on my scene. For the background, I took some blue oxide inks in Blueprint Sketch and Salty Ocean and ink blended them on the stitched die cut panel. I used some water to spritz over it for a watermark look. While that was drying, I took another stitched panel and ink blended some Mowed Lawn and Rustic Wilderness Oxide inks for the grass area and die cut a hill to place at the bottom. Before I attached it, I also die cut a white picket fence to go behind it. I placed this scene onto a piece of navy cardstock and attached to the card base.

To complete the scene, I’ve stamped, colored with Copics and die cut the critters, rain puddles and clouds. I used the coordinating raindrop die with the set and just die cut a few raindrops in silver glitter paper to add to the scene. Lastly, I white heat embossed part of the sentiment on navy cardstock, cut out with a banner die and then just stamped the sentiment at the bottom in navy ink. Also hard to see in the photo, but I’ve added some shimmer to the puddles with a glitter brush pen.

That’s all from me today! Hope you’ll stop by the Sparkles Monthly blog is see what the team has come up with using this theme and join us in the challenge! Thanks so much for stopping in as I love to read your comments!

Challenges:

Craft Rocket – #124 Layer it Up
Addicted to Stamps & More – #490 Die cuts and/or stencils (clouds stenciled and variety of die cuts used)
Penny’s Paper-crafty – #594 Anything Goes Using Paper
Crafty Gals Corner – #266 Fill in the Blank: “Adorable puddle jumping!”
Time Out – #286 Pick 2 from list: I picked Stencil & Water + Spots ( I was inspired to stencil some clouds and add some spots (splatter) to go with the colors/clouds of my scene and I was inspired by the water with the rain, puddles and watermark for ink blending)