Lots of Inky Stamping to Catch Up On!

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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


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

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

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

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

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

Have a happy crafty day my friends!

Bright Birthday and More Whimsy Retreat Projects!💡

Hello friends!  Hope that you’re having a great week so far!  Hubby and I are trying to figure out how this “retirement thing” goes together! LOL!  I think we’ll be having so much fun and we’re just really excited about the future and what we’ll be doing.

Speaking of which, this past Sunday he also celebrated a birthday and of course I had to make him a card that was suited for an electrician.  I had to add a bit of humor about his age on the inside, but this is what I came up with:

I’ve had this Stampin’ Up! Sunburst die and stamp set and haven’t used it that much since I bought it. (Quite a while ago! Not quite sure how old. LOL) I thought it would make a great light beam for my VERY old Simon Says Stamp ‘Watts Up’ stamp set that was from a past card kit. (circa 2014/2015) …yep, all old!

I die cut the sunburst from some yellow and gold glitter stock that I glued together slightly off-set and then attached it over a side folding A2 sized black card base.  I stamped the sentiments over a couple of the yellow strips with black ink taking care to make room for the circle panel.

I then stamped the lightbulb over a white piece of cardstock and colored the base with Copics and used a marker draw a line above it for the string.  I took a solid heart from the stamp set and heat embossed it with some Gold Metallic Gilded EP and then sponged some yellow ink over the bulb for some glow.  I die cut it out with a circle die and then layered over another die cut circle black piece and popped it up over the sunburst layers with foam tape.

I tied a bow with some black twine and glued it to the light bulb base.  I also stamped the bulb in a lighter gray ink over the envelope and added a string to that as well with a gray marker. (The inside of the card said:  “Old is the new black.” 😆)

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And I also wanted to share that I’m still plugging away on the several kits that I received from the Whimsy Stamps Virtual Retreat last month!  These are really amazing projects and I’m having lots of fun putting them together still! (Christmas will be coming next. So, stay tuned for those!):

This is a fun interactive card with a pull tab at the top where this cut little dragon slides upwards towards the sky! This kit 9 came with an A2 sized envelope, but I had to make my own envelope slightly larger to accommodate for the pull tab sticking above the card. I’ve added doodle lines around the edges and shadow stamped a sentiment at the bottom for my own added details.
This set was from kit 14. The hexagon shaped box was super fun and even came with the candy! There was also an extra stamped and cut out bee, so I used it to make another card… shaker style! I used the left over honeycomb die cut piece as a stencil on the card as well. I used the envelope that was provided in the kit above and decorated it for this A2 sized card instead. (I know someone that loves these candies…so they might get a surprise at some point! 😉)
And lastly, this was from kit 15 and TOTALLY different than what was photographed in the booklet! First of all, I received a plant image with a die cut speech bubble sentiments and thought it might be cool for a Halloween card on another project, so I saved those to use later. I received an EXTRA stamped sunflower image from kit 22 that I had posted earlier and decided to use it for this card here. I colored it similar to that one and cut it out, but cut off a portion of it on this design. I also changed up the background ink blended colors and splattered some gold paint on this one. Love how it turned out. This will be for an Autumn anniversary card for someone coming soon.

Hope you’ve enjoyed all of my projects today!  Thanks so much for stopping by and I’ll be seeing you soon!

Challenges (For the Birthday Lightbulb card ONLY):

  1.  Retro Rubber – Anything Goes + stamps older than one year
  2. Cardz 4 Guys – Birthday for adult male
  3. Creative Moments – Anything Goes
  4. Crafty Calendar – Anything Goes
  5. Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – Anything Goes
  6. Shopping Our Stash – Tic Tac Toe (I used middle across: String/twine, 5 year old stamp, bright colors)
  7. Watercooler Wednesday – All About Occasions (birthday)

Boo!👻 It’s Halloween!!!🎃

Hello my crafty friends!!  Today is Halloween and I thought it would be a great time to share several Halloween themed creations that I had made during the Whimsy Stamps Virtual Retreat!  I’m actually STILL working on the project kits because there were SO MANY of them and I’m such a slow crafter there was no way that I could’ve done them within that weekend time frame!  It sure was so much fun and so many treats along with it!  So happy that I decided to join the virtual event!  I encourage everyone to join the next!!

So what I decided to do was to go through all of my 23 kits and pick out the Halloween themed ones to get them finished up before Halloween so that I would have them to share and give out!  Enjoy the spooky creative fun:

Kit 1 – spooky green behind the eyes! Slimline design
Kit 2 – Slimline design with a spooky graveyard! The cockroach bugs were a nice little “surprise gift” from our lovely instructor for the first two kits! LOL
Kit 5 – All Copic coloring and something brand new to me was coloring a scene freehand! So scary!! But I made it!
Kit 7 – a slimline die used two different ways…LOVED the ink blending!
Kit 10 – Cutest little treat box! Added crystal eyeballs to my skull and sparkled it up with sparkly clear EP. I’ve rubbed white ink around the black edges.
Kit 11 – The ink blending on this was awesome too! I have so many new combos now! The black sparkly die cut is my fave!
Kit 16 – Last but not least, this really adorable card made me giggle the whole time! I’ve added some glossy accents to the eyeballs.

So there are still SO many more kits left to do and I look forward to crafting them and sharing more with you as I go too!  Obviously these kits were created and put together by the talented group of people for Whimsy Stamps, so they’re the ones that get the credit for the creativity on these, and therefore, I won’t enter these into any challenges.

Hope you’ve enjoyed my share from the retreat and I’ll be sharing more soon!


I also have finished one more treat bag that I’ve made with the special Halloween Creative Kit from Brutus Monroe:

I used the stencil from the kit to ink over the stencil from the kit and then added the fun stamped and colored elements over the pattern paper from the kit.  I used the spooky graveyard stamp and heat embossed it over the pattern paper with Raven Sparkle EP including the moon image at the top left.

I even used the ribbon and sequins from the kit to decorate with and then added a tag from my stash to tie on the bow.

This is the little poem that I’ve attached to the back of the bag that was a fun little print out from Brutus Monroe as well as the colorful strips that I’ve used on the top and bottom portions of the image panel on the front of the treat bag.  I thought they were fun little elements to add and give out to my goblins this year! LOL!

Hope you’ve enjoyed my Halloween projects and thanks so much for dropping in!

**Please don’t forget to add your “Monsters/Ghouls” projects to the {Cupcake Inspirations} challenge too!

Want to wish all a very happy, spooky and SAFE Halloween!🎃💀👻

It’s Halloween On Cute Card Thursday

Hello friends!  Happy Thursday!  As this month creeps along and the weather slowly changes to cooler temps, the eerie feeling of Halloween comes to mind!  So get your “Halloween” on and come join us this week at Cute Card Thursday!

Vicki-CCT551-ADU

Here’s the project that I’ve made for the challenge using this adorable image from this week’s sponsor All Dressed Up!  The image is called “Have a Magical Evening” and I have colored the entire image panel including the background with Copic markers.  I have also used gel pens to color in gold details on the stars, her dress and shoes.  Then I took the gold and white gel pens to add dots for the background sky.  I’ve used a gold ink pad and rubbed it around the edges of the panel and then I mounted it over a gold foil cardstock base.

For this treat box, I’ve used the 2-5-7-10 box tutorial on Splitcoaststampers.com to create a similar version, but I cut off the flap part and made a handle for my version.  I covered the box with some fun “spooky” papers from my stash, added some gray with black stripes silk ribbon on the front panel along with making some bows with it for the sides of my box handle and glued them on.  The image panel was added over top of the ribbon strip and design paper.  It’s ready to add a nice treat inside for someone’s “magical evening”!

Vicki-CCT551-ADU-close

Here’s a closer look at the coloring of the image.  I have also added some shimmer to the crescent moon with a Spectrum Noir glitter brush pen which of course is hard to capture in the photo, but you can see the areas where I’ve used the gel pens.

The blue background was made using my Copic markers and I blended them out so that the lighter tones were towards the witch and the darker tones to the edges.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my treat box creation and thanks so much for stopping in today!

Challenges:

  1.  Craft Rocket – Autumn/Halloween
  2. Brown Sugar – (October) Spooky Halloween and/or Autumn
  3. Use Your Stuff – Autumn/Halloween (always great to use more paper from my stash!)
  4. Tuesday Throwdown – Anything Goes
  5. Words 2 Crafty By – “Listen!  The Wind is rising, and the air is wild with leaves.  We have had our Summer evenings, now for October’s eves.”
  6. Crafty Creations – Anything Goes
  7. Simon Says Stamp Wednesday – Anything BUT a card
  8. All Dressed Up Anything Goes + use ADU image
  9. Scor-Pal (Oct) – More than one score Fall/Harvest/Halloween (Scored at the marks, 2-5-7-10 inch marks)