Thursday, July 29, 2010

Wedded Bliss

Tonight, or this morning, whichever it may be wherever you are, I bring you a card of wedded bliss.  So remember, way back when, earlier this summer when I posted a wedding album for my friend?  Well, I finally finished the card for it.  Hah...am I slow this summer or what?  Must be the intense heat of summer.  I managed to weave back through my leftovers and found some scraps from the Cappella Album Kit.  Since I had the Loving Thoughts JustRite stamp set handy, I married the two together for quite a nice coupling, I think.


The photo on the card is a picture of their rings and I had wanted to use this in the album but ran out of pages.  Who here has ever run into that problem?  Well wouldn't you know, the lovely team over at the JustRite blog challenged everyone to make a card with a photo on it (Challenge #28).  Perfect timing, I say.




To create this shape card, you need cardstock (folded in half) and a set of the large scalloped Nestabilities.  First, place the largest nestability die over the folded cardstock, leaving the top edge off the folded seam, as seen in the photo below.  After running it through your die cut machine, you now have a folded scalloped card for your base.  Next, cut out a full scalloped circle, embellish it and then glue it down to the base. 





Paper: Patterned Paper (Capella Album Kit)
Stamp: JustRite Stamps - Loving Thoughts Set

Flowers:  Prima

Ink: Distress Inks by Ranger (Dried Marigold, Spiced Marmalade, Walnut Stain)
Dies: Spellbinder Nestabilities (Large Scallop Circle, Large Label), Quickutz Flourish




Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Facebook Candy?

 
I've heard of and participated in some wonderful blog candy before but here is some Facebook Candy for you all.  Lil' Lambs Boutique is handing out a chance to win this kit below.  If you aren't already a fan of their Facebook page, join in.  Inspirational pieces from kits in the Shoppe, are posted there, as well as annoucements of current sales and contests. 




For your chance to win this Basic Grey Olivia Deluxe Kit above, go to their Facebook Fan page and leave a comment about what CHA Summer item is exciting you the most?  What can't you wait to get your hands on?

I know for me personally, I cannot wait to get my hands on all things Tim Holtz.  His new On the Edge dies,  the new Liquid Pearl colors, the stamps...oh my.  Thankfully he's parsing out his stuff over the next few months so I don't go into full blown debt in one month.  Hah!  So get on over and leave your comment.  This is such a great kit.  Specific kit details can be found here.  Facebook fan page here.

This week's card challenge brought to you by...

Here's another 3 in 1 challenge for your viewing pleasure.








Copic Sketch Markers 
Girl skin: E000, E00, E11
Girl hair: E09, E33, YR24, white highlights
Girl dress/bow/socks/shoes: B02, BG05, BG09, G21, G40, YR04, YR12, YR18, colorless blender
Bear: E25, E29, E59, V04, C9, colorless blender, white highlights
Paper: DCWV Old World Stack, Bo Bunny Paradise, Bazill Cardstock
Dies: Spellbinders Nestabilities, Quickutz Flourish
Ranger: Inkssential's White Opaque Marker, Various Distress Inks

Digi Stamp: Sassy Cheryl's
Sentiment: Studio G Stamps 



Entered for the following challenges:
#1. Sassy Cheryl's Challenge #22: "Thinking of You"

#2. Mojo Monday #149



#3. colorQ challenge #43: Hmmm, I seemed to have gotten a touch color blind when I got to the Bermuda Bay color, but what can you do.  I was sure the colors were closer when I picked them out.




Thanks for taking a gander....

 

Monday, July 26, 2010

Monday's Treasure Find

 
Happy Monday everyone!  Today's treasure find out on the big world wide web comes from a cardmaker that started her scrapping journey in 2008.  Well, I must say her work is just beautiful.  She is Copic Certified and it clearly shows in her designs. Her blog is My Cardz...My Passion...My Therapy.   Note: All photos below belong to Mary Giemza and are her creations and designs.





If you are interested at all in delving into the world of Copics, color and shading, then this is definitely a blog to peruse.  She even does some amazing monochromatic cards, as seen below.  I'm Copic-skilled jealous!!




She intersperses her card blog, with informative tutorials and links to great challenges.  Be sure to check her out.

Friday, July 23, 2010

One Card...Three Challenges...

  

As I was perusing the blog I mentioned on Monday, it lead me to a digi stamp maker.  Don't things always lead to other things!  Sassy Cheryl's digi stamps are just plain cute.  I ended my night with 3 new digi stamps in my collection and decided to try out her Challenge for the week.  

Unfortunately, our house is still inhabited by those nasty sick germs and they finally caught me as well.  I only had the energy to do one card this week, so I chose to combine 3 challenges into one.  And I'm proud to say the whole card was made with scraps. 




Copic Sketch Markers 
Girl skin: E000, E00, E21, R20
Girl hair: E00, YR21, YR24, white highlights
Girl dress/socks/shoes: R22, R24, R27, YR00, YR04, YR12, YR21, E11, E53, colorless blender
Bear: E25, E29, E33, YR21, YR24, W7, colorless blender, white highlights
Paper: Various Scraps
Sizzix Alterations: On the Edge Die
Spellbinders Nestabilities: Various
Stickles by Ranger: Black
Digi Stamp: Sassy Cheryl's



Challenges Entered:

1. Sassy Cheryl's Challenge #21: Cut It Out.   The challenge is to use one of her digital stamps and then cut all or some portion of it out.
2. Mojo Monday #148 sketch challenge.  Here's the sketch, which I turned sideways.




3. The Color Q Challenge #42: Loved these color choices this week.  It reminds of Fall, which is my favorite season of the year. 




Weather is calling for 105 degrees tomorrow....I think everything is going to be a fall color alright.  Brown...as in withered.  Woo hee, it's hot.  But it's certainly better than 3 feet of snow that I posted about here back in February.  Happy Friday everyone!

Monday, July 19, 2010

Monday's Treasure Find

 
So I think I'll try something new.  I'll be cruising around the internet throughout the week and come each Monday I'll post a neat or interesting website I've run across.  Or in this case, cool blog candy.  If you're a stamper, you'll want to check this out.  Not to shabby of a birthday prize she's handing out.   Below is just one of the 5 different prizes be given away at the end of this month over at Inked Inspirations.


Get to hoppin' and good luck.

 

Saturday, July 17, 2010

On a Roll with the Bo Bunny's Layout Challenge Friday

 


Bo Bunny's challenge this week is to create a layout using the title of your Favorite Movie or TV Show.  Just one movie or show?  Impossible.  I've enjoyed so many shows over my life but for this layout I jumped backed to my childhood.  I mean seriously, what girl my age didn't have a crush on Chachi or the Fonz.  I definitely enjoyed my weekly fix of Happy Days although I was never a big fan of Richie's friends.  Anyone else remember the Karate Kid master as the lovable "Arnold?"


Ah, good times.  I wonder what my kids' go to favorite will be when they get older.  So here we have my husband and my oldest at 9 months old.  We flew out to San Diego for one my good friend's wedding and stayed with my Sister.  I loved her back yard.  We just don't get blue like this on the East Coast.  My daughter had a grand time playing around in the water and chewing on her ducky.  I had to reminisce about all the "Happy Days" to try and compete with all the sickness we've been dealing with this past week.  This certainly was a nice switch.  Check out more Summery Goodness from the Bo Bunny Paradise Collection.





I free handed the sun and then pieced it back together on the layout.  The edges are inked with Fired Brick Distress Ink and the top decorated with Liquid Pearls, Lemon Yellow (I think I see a need of more Liquid Pearls in my future).





To add variety to the bottom and give sort of a land/sky effect, I added the striped paper to the bottom.  To keep the flow of the scalloped die cut, I traced the edge onto transparency paper.  After cutting out the border edge, I traced it onto the striped paper, cut and adhered to the scalloped die cut.  The little seagull was from the cream paper and is colored in with Copic markers.




The title tag is created using 3 different Spellbinder Nestabilities shapes.  The middle is inked with 3 Distress Inks (Scattered Straw, Spiced Marmalade and Walnut Stain).  The edges are dotted with Liquid Pearls Baby Blue.  And check out the crab underneath the tag.  I'm proud of him.  He was cream colored when I started working with him, but all day in the sun and look how colorful he is now.




Thanks for stopping by.  And just for kicks, I'm curious what your favorite Movie or TV Show is.  Can't pick just one can you?

 

Wish I was there right now...

Rough week here at Camp Gramling.  My youngest has been sick all week with a bacterial infection and I think we're all pretty much over doctors, bad tasting medicine, blood tests, ER rooms and stomach pains.  I'm ready for a tropical getaway.  When I was able to get my youngest to sleep, I would slip into my craft room and dive into the Paradise collection from Bo Bunny.   Frankly, it was quite soothing just to sit and look at the papers untouched...but then time stops for no one.

We tend to vacation in Spring and Fall, up in the mountains typically and it's not exactly beach weather then.  So, I really don't have any tropical, beachy pictures unless I go way back to when my oldest was 9 months old...um, so be on the lookout for that in the coming week. Ha ha.  But my parents did go out to San Diego a couple summers ago to see my Sisters and that is certainly a beachy place.  Did I mention that I don't scrap chronologically?  Yeah, I do it more for the artistic pleasure of working with paper, ink and glue, then to create a history of my family's life.  But I figure someday, it'll all get done one way or another.  I'm rambling...see...tired Mommies that have worn every hat in their repetoire in the past week tend to ramble.
Let's see if I can locate a picture or two here....

There we go.  There's my cute parents.  I love this photograph of them with the ocean in the background.  You know, ocean waves are one of the most soothing sounds I've ever heard.  The shirt colors were perfectly lit up by the camera flash as the sun was setting into a darker background.  I wish I had taken this picture...but I can't take credit for it. 




On the blue circle, I attempted to capture the idea of ocean spray that leaves a leftover salty residue.  The Smooch Spritz seemed to do the trick pretty well.  I let it run down in a rivulet and then dried it quick.  The background paper I used was pretty heavily covered in pictures that if you're like me, don't like to cover up.  So here, I used my Swivel Exacto knife and cut out a portion of the palm tree so I could slide my circle in behind it.  For the part running over the edge of the circle, I used pop dots to give the illusion that the tree was far in front of my circle.  The edge of the blue circle and photo mat are ornamented with Liquid Pearls (Lemon Yellow used here).




And finally, I got a little border punch crazy at the bottom.  The top two are the Deep Edge Daisy Fan and the Doily Lace Trim punches by Martha Stewart.  The bottom two are from my handy, dandy packaging template that I traced onto the back and cut out.  I'll mention here that I grabbed my Copic markers and ran the edges of the Daisy Fan border. (C1, C3 and C5 on the inner parts of the fan and white inkssentials pen to highlight some of the edges).




Well...there is my nice, long, rambly post for today.  I'm sure I'll come back tomorrow, read it and laugh but that's the fun of this little thing we call life.


Happy Weekend everyone!

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Silly Bandz no longer on the loose...

Have the Silly Bandz craze invaded your home yet?  I tried to keep them from our home in a passive way but alas, they have creeped in.  My girls receive them from friends, from Sunday School teachers and now they have convinced me to purchase a set for them...on sale of course.  Rule #1: If I see a Silly Bandz left on the floor...it's next home is the trash can.  Rule #2: Make sure the first part of rule #1 doesn't happen. 


So I thought I'd help the girls out a bit on their quest to collect and keep their Silly Bandz.  I found these two little boxes in a clearance pile at a local craft store and decided to dress them up and offer them to the girls for their new wrist fad.  They each picked out a picture from the Die Cut Card sheet of my Delovely Deluxe kit and I colored it in and dressed up their boxes.  I'll seal them with acrylic spray to hopefully prevent some wear and tear from the use they'll get. 




Here's another top view.




And the Copic colors I used.






So, had the Silly Bandz craze hit your house yet?  What is the latest fad where you are?


Wood boxes: AC Moore
Copic Sketch Markers
Paper: Patterned Paper (Cosmo Cricket Delovely)
Flower:  Prima

Punch: Arched Lattice Martha Stewart border  punch
Ranger Ink Liquid Pearls: Lemon Yellow 
Misc: Ribbon, Pop Dots, Glossy Accents
 

The Pixie Cottage Challenge #26

Not only was there a sketch challenge at The Pixie Cottage but the twist was to create a window in the card.  I've never done one of these before...but I can say, it was successful, thanks in great part to my Spellbinder Nestabilities.  Here is the sketch below. 




I opted to pull my sketch into a rectangle shape instead of the square shape. The border punch turned out to be the biggest challenge of the whole card but I think I managed to accomplish it.  Check out that cute Tina Wenke stamp I got from The Pixie Cottage.  He made the most whimsical little addition to my birthday card.






Card: Die Cuts With a View
Paper: Patterned Paper (Cosmo Cricket Delovely)
Dies:  Large Labels, Nestabilites by Spellbinders

Copic Sketch Markers
Stamps: Mouse - Tina Wenke, Celebrate - Studio G
Border Punch: Martha Stewart
Ranger Ink Distress Ink - various colors
Pop Dots, Glossy Accents

Copic Creations Challenge #31 ~ Birds ~

Copic Creations had a great challege this week...birds.  The girls and I just installed a bird feeder on our back deck and have been having a wonderful time watching the birds this summer.  Our hummingbird feeder has attracted a few of these beautiful, tiny creations and are therefore the inspiration for this card. I made this card with Delovely Deluxe kit leftovers.






Card: Die Cuts With a View
Copic Sketch Markers
Paper: Patterned Paper (Cosmo Cricket Delovely)
Stamp: Inkadinkado

Flower:  Prima
Ranger Ink Liquid Pearls - Lemon Yellow
Pop Dots, Glossy Accents

Saturday, July 10, 2010

Blog Candy at The Pixie Cottage

3 posts in 24 hours.  Wow!  Someone must be done with her tax work.  I was running around tonight catching up on all my scrapping blogs and ran across this great blog candy at the Pixie Cottage.  In this prize pack, Michelle has included the newest Hannah stamp by Sandra Hammer.  If the prize was only that stamp it would be a great one...but wait, there's more.  Check this out...I see a Tim Holtz embossing plate too.  Color me giddy. The blog candy ends July 21st.

Friday, July 9, 2010

The Color Throwdown celebrates its 100th challenge!!

My friends, I'm not even sure I have 100 items in my gallery but I'm jumping on the bandwagon celebration.  The ladies over at The Color Throwdown are throwing a huge party this week.  There's an amazing blog hop that contains hundreds of dollars in prizes...no kidding.  Not to mention some fantastic cards.


The color scheme for this 100th Throwdown is below.  Pretty great colors huh?




I told you I had a few more projects coming from my Delovely Deluxe kit...well, here's another.  The kit is filled with the green and blues of this challenge so I only need to add my pinks and reds.  I snagged another element from the die cut card sheet to hold my sentiment and embellish with the pear.  I ran the tag through my printer to create the saying.  The edge is finished off with faux stitching.  I wish my sewing machine was working...but this will work in a pinch. 




And there's my Color Throwdown. Take a gander over at the challenge and enter yourself.


Card: Die Cuts With a View
Paper: Patterned Paper (Cosmo Cricket Delovely), Solid cardstock (AC Cardstock)
Dies:  Nestabilities by Spellbinders
Ranger Ink Distress Ink - various colors
Pop Dots, Glossy Accents, Ribbon

Summer is here and I think it's Delovely!

It's hot, hot, hot and so I'm indoors scrapping away.  The girls have been begging me to decorate a bird house for them and I've been so inspired by bird tags my friend Donna has been creating, so I paired this wooden birdhouse with the Cosmo Cricket Delovely Deluxe kit from Lil' Lambs Boutique and stayed up until 3:00am to finish it.  I know...I just couldn't stop once I had started.  The bright, vibrant, Summer colors in this kit were perfect for our Avian Abode. Thanks to my lovely daughters for the use of their "peepers" for the photo shoot.





To create the roof shingles, I punched the small floral paper with the Threading Water punch by Fiskars.  The edges are inked with Distress ink (Worn Lipstick used here).  Tip...Tip...Tip...I got this awesome tip from my Swirly Sister Jan on using border punches in a circular pattern. I can't believe I never thought of this. You can read her full tip here.  Basically, I snipped the back edge of the border punch so I could slightly fold the scallops as I adhered around the circular roof.  Thanks Jan!  I plucked the birdie from the die cut card sheet, backed him with the yellow floral paper and attached him to the roof.  Isn't he so whimsical?




The bigger scalloped roof shingles are made using template packaging of all things.  You never know what you can reuse.  I grabbed the packaging and traced the edge onto the small floral paper, cut and inked the edges.  This line has wonderful floral patterns and I used the big floral pattern to cut out flower flourishes.  They are backed with the yellow floral patterned paper and then pop dotted to the walls of the bird house.  





The tiny fence  was created using a border punch by Martha Stewart.  It made a wonderful bottom border for my faux bird bath.  The kit comes with Doodlebug Sugar Coating that I used to create my sparkly water around the bottom.





Finally, to finish off the project, I grabbed this Summery sentiment from my JustRite Seeds of Kindness stamp collection.  To create the dual tone impression, first place your sentiment on the JustRite Wood Block stamper and ink with Black Archival ink.  Next, place your border onto the Wood Block and then ink with Prussian Blue Chalk ink being careful not to touch the center.  Stamp your impression and there you have it...dual colors.  I attached a sparkly dragonfly charm and the JustRite tag to the roof with jump rings.




I'm not done with this kit yet.  I sitll have plenty left for several more projects which I hope to get put up this week.  Have a wonderful weekend!