Wednesday, September 30, 2009

TJNL + SADF = ?


This card...plus a few more, that's what!

I got an email from Pat Huntoon back in July asking if I would be interested in being a guest designer for the Technique Junkies October Newsletter.  Heck yes!  It was great fun, and this is one of the cards I created using the Faux Marble tutorial to create my cave wall.

Right about the same time, Starving Artistamps released this awesome DoodleFactory set, called Prehistoric, containing all the images you see here.  Isn't Cora the Cavemom hot stuff?  I colored Cora with Copic markers, added some vintage buttons, and "drew" on the walls with Versafine black ink.  The sentiment is embossed with Zing! embossing powder.

If you're a TJ subscriber, be sure to check out my other cards on the website, as well as my Halloween ornament on the front page of the newsletter.  And if you're not a subscriber...what are you waiting for?

Saturday, September 26, 2009

A Quickie Inchie



I only have time for a very quick post this morning so it seems fitting to share a card that was very quick to make. 

I started off by stamping my image (smARTworks Inchie Blocks - Set 4) onto a black Inchie square with Cosmic Copper Brilliance Ink.  When it dried, I added a Prima crystal embellishement.  I made my background with a piece of Basic Grey paper (Scarlet's Letter 6x6) with some copper ink rubbed on the edges, stamped the sentiment (from the same smARTworks set) and put it all together with a piece of velvet ribbon.

Well, that's all I have time for right now...have a wonderful Saturday!

Sunday, September 20, 2009

What A Cheezy Grin!


This guy reminds me of one of those Orbit gum commercials. You know the ones..."Dirty mouth? Clean it up." Then, the main character smiles a perfectly white cheezy smile that's so bright it sparkles. Doog, from the Starving Artistamps DoodleFactory Prehistoric collection, has a grin that is every bit as cheesy, if you ask me.

You probably can't see it in the photo, but I added some sparkle to that cheezy grin with some Pearl White Smooch ink.  Once I did that, the googlie eyes were a no-brainer. Doog himself started off as a piece of Polished Stone that I overstamped with Stazon Black ink and then cut out.  The image is mounted on a background created by stamping the Fern Leaf Tooled Leather background (also from Starving Artistamps) onto green cardstock with green ink.  The little round ornaments I stamped in the corner are also from the Prehistoric set, and the sentiment is from the matching sentiment set.  A small scrap of ribbon, a few staples and a piece of background paper from the Basic Grey Archaic collection finished things off nicely.

Enjoy your Sunday.  It looks like it's going to be a beauty around here!

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Divine Diva Inspiration Challenge #12

I have news!!!  A couple of weeks ago, I got an email from Lori (you may know her as Chanteuse on SCS) over at The Diva Stamper asking me if I'd like to join the Divine Divas challenge team.  Now, who wouldn't want be a Diva?  And here she was offering to make me a Divine Diva!  Well, I gotta tell ya...I couldn't say yes fast enough!

So what does it mean to be a Divine Diva?  Of course, there's stamping involved.  Here's the way it works.  Lori chooses an inspiration piece, and the rest of the Diva's create a something using that piece as inspiration...it could be a card...it could be anything!  The challenges are posted on the 1st and 3rd Thursday of the month.

The inspiration for today's challenge is this cake from Let Them Eat Cake.  When I saw those white overlays, I immediately thought of my long-neglected paper crimper.  And then, I remembered an Indadinkado stamp I'd bought and never really used.  So with those two things in mind, I created my card.

I stamped the image with Fluid Chalk Ink in Chestnut Roan and cut it out with a nestie and my Cuttlebug.  Next, I created the background by crimping a piece of white cardstock, matted both panels with brown cardstock and assembled the card.  The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink and is stamped in the same chalk ink.  The embellishments I chose are Prima and Hero Arts flowers, and self-stick crystals from who-knows-where.

Everyone is invited to play along and if you do, please link your creation here. If you upload to PCP or SC, use the keyword DDIC12 so that we can find your creation and give it all the admiration it deserves.  For even more inspiration, please visit the other Divine Divas: Angela, Anne, Chris, Lori, Julie, Keri, and Kerri

Have a great day, and join us if you can!

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Dare to Dream

Over at smARTworks, we do a Design Team challenge every couple of months. Susan sends each of us the same stamp set, and without consulting with each other, our instructions are to make something. This time, the set was Piggy Dreams, which I think is way cute. I mean, how many times have you said to yourself, “Yeah, when pigs fly!” Well, you have to dare to dream! And, if you’re going to dream, dream big. Maybe you can make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. Which is kind of where I went with my card. I decided that my little piggy needed a really fancy and ornate silk purse kind of a card.

I started off by stamping the piggy on white paper (Neenah Solor White, I think) with Adirondack Pitch Black ink and coloring it with Copic markers. I cut it out leaving just a bit of a white margin to help it stand out from whatever background I would dream up. OK, next I needed to find some paper to go with my piggy. I wanted something fancy, but not shiny fancy…something more along the line of shabby chic. I poured over my paper collection and finally decided on using paper from my Basic Grey Sugared 6x6 pad. The paper is pretty, and the colors were the right shades to match the piggy I’d colored, but the colors were a bit brighter than I wanted. So, I used my Copic airbrush and an olive green pen to tone things down a bit and give everything more of a vintage, shabby look.

At this point, I liked the colors and the patterns, but it just wasn’t fancy enough. I had just picked up some ornare templates at a stamp show, so I thought I’d add piercing designs and quickly decided that a pink vellum overlay would look amazing. Truth be told, the vellum overlay didn’t look as amazing as I had hoped, but after all that piercing, it was going on the card no matter what! But, I didn’t like the way the piggy looked just sitting on the vellum, so I made the blush pink panel by embossing it in my Cuttlebug. I used an olive green chalk inkpad to highlight the embossing and darken the edges of all my panels so that nothing looked brighter and newer than anything else. I also distressed the edges on the paper panels, and dirtied up the vellum panel and pink panel a bit using my airbrush and the brush tip of my olive green marker. The brush tip makes more of a spatter pattern, while the chisel tip makes a fine mist of color.

OK…we’re getting there…I just needed a sentiment, which I decided should be stamped directly on the vellum panel. Yeah, I do that lot. After spending all that time doing the piercing, I decided to risk ruining everything by stamping something on it. Crazy, I know, and I almost did wreck it. I stamped the sentiment with olive green chalk ink, and it just blended in with the background. Now what? Well, I really had nothing to lose, so I figured I would try heat embossing to help the sentiment stand out a bit more. My ink was still wet, so I sprinkled on some clear EP and gave that a try. Grrr…it still didn’t stand out. Desperate now, I grabbed my olive green Copic marker and colored over the embossing. Phew…that did the trick! Afraid that I would ruin everything for sure if I tried to do too much more, I assembled the card, popping the pink panel and the piggy up on pop dots, and added some ribbon and a few dew drops just for good measure. There. Done. And I even liked the way it turned out. Cool!

Did I have a point in all this? Sort of. I’ve been asked a few times lately how I come up with my designs, and the making of this card is a pretty good description of how it usually goes. I can’t always work this way because it is time-consuming and the end result is pretty unpredictable, but it is my favorite way to create…just flying along by the seat of my pants.

Maybe pigs never will fly, but you can...even if it is by the seat of your pants.  And, while you're up there, fly on over to Susan's blog for a chance to win your very own Piggy Dreams stamp set.

Sunday, September 13, 2009

I Never Get Tired of Sunflowers

Especially this time of year, I just love sunflowers, and this is one of my favorite sunflower stamps.  It's from Starving Artistamps, and it's so much fun to color.  I've used everything from colored pencils, to paper piecing, to Copic markers...it comes out great no matter what!

This time I decided to try yet another way to color the flower.  I used Derwent Inktense pencils to create the base underpainting for the flower.  I started by stamping the image onto watercolor paper with Ranger Archival Ink.  Then, I very loosely colored the flower and leaves, and washed the colors with a waterbrush.  The background was created basically the same way.  I chose 3 shades of red and a gold and scribbled patches of color all over the background, then used a waterbrush to pull the color outward from the image toward the edges.  Once everything was dry, I used my colored pencils to add shading and highlights to the flower and leaves.  I also dotted on some red, black, and cinnamon colored Stickles in the flower center.  Since this is such a large image, I cut it out "outside the box" style so that I could add some borders and a few dew drops.  I have to say, this version is one of my favorites!


And, here's the latest progress pic of my dining room project.  I still need to find a replacement for the chandelier (I HATE the one that's there), and I need to finish up some of the woodwork, but the bulk of it is done...Yay!  I love the way it turned out, and now I'm itching to tackle the living room.  You know how it goes...one project begets another!

See you later.  I have some drawing homework to get after.

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Just Because

Just a quick post this morning. I have busy day planned...I need to put the final coat of paint on the dining room, hang the new curtains, pick up the mess in there, tidy up the house, run to the grocery store, and get dinner going because Rachel, Tim and the kids are coming over later. Phew! Wish me luck!

This is another card using smARTworks Inchie Blocks - Set 4 and the Square Say set. I stamped both with Vintage Distress Ink and colored the pear with colored pencils. The paper printed paper is from Basic Grey (Marrakech) and the right-hand panel is made using a Technique Junkies tutorial called Brushed Inks.

I plan to be back here tomorrow with a new card and pictures of my finished dining room.

"See" you later!

Saturday, September 5, 2009

Random Thoughts.....and a Card

We decided to extend our long weekend by a couple of days, so I've been off work since Wednesday. Extra time off...never a bad decision!

We went to see the Patriots play the NY Giants Thursday night, and yeah, I know, it's preseason and you never know who they're going to play, but seriously, couldn't Tom have played for a couple of minutes? Sigh. At least they won the game.

My dining room has been in need of some sprucing up since we bought this house. Finally, the old 1980's wallpaper is off the walls! Now we need to prep the walls and paint, and I'm hoping to actually start painting today. Problem is, I just don't have any motivation today. Ah well, maybe once I get started...whenever that is...it's already past 10 a.m. here. Procrastination. It's a terrible thing.

And a card...I do have a new card to share! This one is made with images from the smARTworks Little Bits #1 set and a sentiment from Inchie Blocks - Set 4. For my inchies, I washed the background with shimmery watercolors, stamped the flowers, and then colored them with Prismacolor pencils. I added the dotted borders with a black pigment pen. All in all, a pretty easy card!

Enjoy the weekend! We're having a run of spectacular weather here for a change...hope it's nice where you are, too!

Friday, September 4, 2009

Like These?


Yeah...me too! You can get them free if you're the lucky winner in the Starving Artistamps DoodleFactory Costume Party blog candy giveaway. You have until September 10th to enter, and all the details are posted here.

Good luck!

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

RSC September Sketch Challenge

The September Sketch Challenge over on Rubber Stamp Chat is being sponsored by Starving Artistamps. Tracey is giving away a huge selection of stamps to the lucky winner so check it out, and post a card to enter. You don't need to use Starving Artistamps on your card, but if you do use them exclusively and you're the winner, you get to pick one additional stamp set to add to your winnings. I'm not sure how anyone could pass up a chance like that!

Here's the card I did using Tracey's sketch. My images are from the Starving Artistamps DoodleFactory Into the Woods collection. I colored the images and the Prima flowers, which were originally white, with Copic markers. The frame is brown cardstock cut with Nestabilities and then glittered with copper glitter and cinnamon Stickles.

Have a great week! The weather here has turned cooler and it's definitely feeling like fall. What a relief after the heat wave we just had!