F4A253 Challenge

So I decided to have some ME craft time. Nothing to make for anyone in particular, just wanted to get inky and craft. I've been neglecting my stamps lately, so I headed on over to Splitcoaststampers (SCS) to see what the challenge was today. Today was a Free for all, "CASE of Admiration" (CASE= Copy And Share Everything).
Since I've been stamping, my absolute favorite stamper to follow was Faith Horfrechter, you can see the card that I CASED in her SCS gallery

What a fun challenge, I loved getting inky for it :)

80's Birthday Invitations

My daughter wanted to have an 80's roller skating birthday party, so I just had to make invitations for the theme! I used my Cricut with the "Indie Art" cartridge for the cassette tape. I was lucky enough to pop into my local Michael's when they're $3.99 paper packs were buy one get one free PLUS they let me use my mobile Joanne coupon for 25% off my total purchase! SCORE!! I used several diffrent style stamps on the front, and the invite part on the back is from Stampin' Up!

'Hang Your Stockings' card

Mitten Card

SO, so, so cute! Love how this one turned out, and love the versatility! Did this one at a stamp-a-stack and it was awesome to see how the ladies colored their mittens. Since we used the markers to color the stamp different colors, they each got to do whatever they wanted. Some ladies just did shades of blue & purple, they turned out lovely! This mitten punch is just too cute! Stamp your image (see the stamp set HERE), punch it out (see the punch HERE). Someone is genius and deserves a raise!

3-D Christmas Ornament card

Almost Christmas time!!

Nothing tells me that the holidays are closer than the arrival of Egg Nog. And guess what that means? It means that I get to have my very special super duper favorite drink of all time!! Egg Nog spiced Chai Latte!! Yummy. Seriously. Best thing that has EVER been in my mouth! We used Stampin' Up!s new scented embossing powder on this card, "Sugar and Spice" (get more info on it HERE) so when the recipient opens the envelope, they smell the goodness. Pretty simple card, love those frame dies, the possibilities are endless with them! See the whole SU collection of framelits HERE

Simple watercolor card

This kind of card is a great way to showcase watercoloring using the Stampin' Up! crayons. This was the make & take for my most recent workshop. I love showing the label punch too, that's one of my favorites!

Wedding gift wall art

Made this for a friend of mine who had some young family members getting married soon. She said grey, cream, & a deep red, gave me a couple of pictures, and set me free! I chose to use some old cedar planks as the base, it has a great coloring (almost grey) to it without me having to do anything.

I think this is my favorite part of it. I found this great old handle, sanded it, and put her on there. I love wall art with 3D stuff. When they hang this in their home, the tags (made from sheet music, stamped on, spritzed with a 'starfish' glimmer mist, then hung on the handle with misc. ribbon) will freely hang/dangle. Each tag says something different so depending on the angle you look at it, you'll see something different. I stamped the swirls & birds (SU) in black and found some great old buttons for the corner. The hearts are chipboard that I covered with paper and distressed.

Dominoes and a doily... can't go wrong! Throw in another great button, some hat pins, and pearls and you've got a stylish chic corner. I stamped and heat embossed the "MR" and the "MRS" in black, and did the "&" in white.

If we weren't friends, I wouldn't admit to busting up my finger making this project. I used beer & root beer bottle caps for this. I took them outside to flatten with a hammer in the driveway. Let's just say I missed the cap once. Ouch. I did mess up on this. Twice. Let's not play "find the mistakes" though, K?! I absolutely loved how it turned out, wish they were pictures of me & hubby so I could hang it up in my home, oh well. Congrats you two!!

Crayon card

Watercolor crayon, that is! We stamped the flowers in Sahara Sand, the same color as the cardstock. We traced over it with the crayons then blended using the aqua painters.
We got the ink blotches on there using markers and the color spritzer tool. That's always a fun one for workshops!

Watercolor tag card

OMGoodness this turned out cute! This was another one that I did at a workshop, in hindsight, I wouldn't do it again for beginners. Lots of work for this one.

I just love the fact that you can stamp any image & sentiment on the tag, and viola! The card is now personalized! That part made it perfect for a workshop! We used SU watercolor paper and the inks/aqua painters for this tag.

The doily is easily my favorite part of this one. Also the most time consuming to put together, just throwing that out there. I recommend making sure you have a stylus close at hand when doing the doily, makes pushing out the pieces so much easier. I will also warn you that no matter how hard you try to keep the pieces on the table, in the garbage, or elsewhere, there WILL be pieces on the floor. Especially when you have 6 ladies punching out doilys.

See the "ribbon" across the front? That's actually a piece of cardstock that we wore down using our bone folders. When you break all the fibers in the paper, it starts to separate. We peeled the paper apart and that's actually the 'inside' of the paper. Neat, huh!?!

Glittered cake birthday card

Seriously, who doesn't like glitter &/or cake?!

This is a great card to teach people masking, or the general use of Post-it's with stamping!

Made this card at one of my last workshops. Love the fact that you can change it up, the guests can personalize it, by just changing the ink color and choosing different paper scraps to make their banner out of.

"Don't be a chicken" birthday card

Unfortunately, this is the most manly stamp I have. I know, shame on me :(

I have other "guy" stamps, like a BBQ, some ties, and... I'm sure I have something else... Nope. Nothing. I'm so disappointed in myself!

My goal for the next few months: To get a couple of manly stamps
If you have any suggestions on CHEAP stamp sets, pass them on! This girl needs some help!

See my little chicken? I fussy cut him from a magazine and plopped him into the back of the truck. LOVE him!

Scrappy Card

Just a simple card to use up some of my extras. This would be a great card to mass-produce just to use my scrap pile up! I didn't get all inky on this one, I used a sanding block instead ;)

Embossed Birdy card

This was the other make & take from my last workshop. This card was less in depth but took longer as I let all the ladies pick their own paper. We used the "Everyday Enchantment" designer series paper, which is pictured below.

We also used cardstock and patterned paper from the 2011-2013 in colors, seen below.

Dainty Vintage card

This was a make & take from my last workshop. Just love the doily die for my Big Shot!
You ever get something that just becomes a staple in your crafty life? For me it would be that great label punch! I seem to use it with just about every other card! You can see it HERE. And guess what?!? There's coordinating stamps to go with it! Yup, I know. Heaven. :)

Distress Watercolor Dry Embossing

Came across this tutorial today at SplitCoastStampers (LOVE them!!). It looked so incredible I had to clean my craft room so I could get inky.
You can see their tutorial HERE
A wonderful crafty lady (Mel) did this tutorial, you can see it on her blog HERE

I got to use my new SU embossing folder! This technique was a lot of fun, but then again, watercoloring in ANY technique has been right up there with breathing since I discovered it!

Arn't those little photo corners fun? It's actually a scrap from a punched scallop oval that I cut. Waste not, want not.

New Toys!!

I got myself some new Stampin' Up! goodies that I just can't wait to play with!

I got a new pack of designer paper: See it HERE
A pack of Very Vanilla Cardstock: See it HERE
Sanding blocks: See them HERE
A new impression folder (SO EXCITED): See it HERE
A new stamp wheel (LACE!!!): See it HERE
and the new spritzers (WAY COOL!): See it HERE

FOR SALE

I have RETIRED rubber stamp sets, scrapbook kits, cardstock packs, and rub ons from Stampin' Up! for sale. Some new, some used. Check out my facebook page to see what's available.
Click HERE

Whoooo's birthday?

I made this card for a lady in my community. I believe it's for her nieces 1st birthday :) So many layers, so much texture. i LOVE it! Some fun things I did on this card: --distressed using sandpaper and razor blades --paper pieced the owl (stamped him in pink first, cut out his eyes & belly, then glued them on top of a brown stamped image) --made a paper medalion (maybe this will be the next tutorial I do?) --threaded a (very) cool button with patterned paper instead of thread

Banner for Mom

I have seen several "banner" style cards out there and thought that they were too cute to NOT c.a.s.e. (Copy And Share Everything). All the flags and pieces are hand-cut, I'm not gonna fuss about perfection, that's just not me. Give me inky and shredded and this girls satisfied!

Gotta have texture! Used my new SU "dots" embossing folder on the background (which is just brown butcher paper that we were using as a kind-of table cloth). You can see &/or purchase it HERE