One for the Stash

Just a fun little card to add to my stash of Birthday cards. It won't stay there long, though. We have lots of birthdays coming up in our family.

The stamp is from Memory Box, as is the paper, and I colored the image with Prismacolor pencils.

In case I don't make it back here until Monday, have a great weekend!

I Finished!

I finished the drawing class I was taking, and this was my final project.  Phew!  So glad to have this one behind me!

Dan's Birthday Card (and why procrastinating is good)

I needed a birthday card for a friend last weekend, and it needed to be a quick card because, in my usual fashion, I procrastinated just a teeny bit about making the card.  So much for the "I won't procrastinate anymore" New Year's resolution, but I'm OK with that.

Anyway, I've had this Basic Grey Obscure paper for quite awhile, but never used it because it has skulls all over it.  Well, those skulls seemed perfect for this 40th birthday card!  The "You are here" and arrow are Starving Artistamps from the DoodleFactory Final Frontier collection, and I drew the "40!" myself and colored it with a Copic marker.  I added some bling and a diecut shape and finished the card in about a half hour.

Which brings me to why I'm OK with breaking my New Year's resolution:

• Procrastinating makes me more efficient--this same card would have taken me at least twice as long if I'd had the time to squander.
  
• Procrastinating makes me thrifty--if I had the time, I would have gone out and bought paper and a stamp especially for this card and who knows what else while I was there.
  
• Procrastinating sparks my creativity--since I didn't have time to buy a stamp, I had to get creative and make do with what I had and draw what I couldn't stamp.
  

So there.  Procrastination is a virtue.  Hah!

Divine Diva Inspiration Challenge #20

This pretty little tea set was our inspiration for today's Divine Diva Inspiration Challenge.  I just love china tea cups and tried to recreate the look on my card.

The vine and berry stamp I used for my main panel is an older one from Magenta, and I colored it with Copic markers.  The sentiment and little tea pot are from the Starving Artistamps DoodleFactory Classic Decor collection.  This card is actually a double challenge card because I used the layout from Sketch Challenge 264 at Splitcoast Stampers.



As always, everyone is invited to play along in the Divine Diva challenges, and if you do, please link your creation here. If you upload to PCP or SC, use the keyword DDIC20. For even more inspiration, please visit the other Divine Divas: Anne, Chris, Lori, Julie, and Kerri

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

Winter Orchid

I bought a set of Derwent Inktense pencils awhile back and I've really enjoyed playing with them.  They work like watercolor pencils, but the colors are so much more vibrant, and I find that they're perfect for coloring flowers.  Tracey Berkey (Starving Artistamps) suggested that I try them on one of her orchid images, and here is the result.  I must say that I'm pretty pleased with the painterly look of this one.

I stamped the image on watercolor paper with grey ink so that the linework wouldn't be so prominent.  I used Ancient Page ink, but any permanent, water-resistant ink would work.  And then I painted.  I don't know much about watercolor technique, but the more I play with these pencils, the more I think I want to learn how to watercolor.  This is FUN!  Tracey's got some really great floral images in her line so I'll definitely be trying this with some of the others.  I'm thinking that a grouping of these in frames would look awesome in my dining room.

This one I made into a card, though.  Starving Artistamps is the sponsor for 2 Sketches 4 You this week, so naturally I used Kazan's sketch for my layout.  The design on the pink background paper is stamped in Versamark ink using a background stamp from Starving Artistamps called Fern Leaf Tooled Leather.

Have a great day!

A Wintry Mix

We have a wintry mix of snow and rain and ice on the way later today so I guess this is a good time to share this card--a wintry mix of ice and snow. 

I made this one for the smART-Word challenge at smARTworks.  Each month, one of the design team members chooses a word and the challenge is simply to make something inspired by that word.  I chose the word this month, which is "ice".  The challenge is open to anyone and you can use any stamps you like so why not join us?  The details are all posted here.

For my card, I used the smARTworks Star Flowers set and a variation of a Technique Junkies tutorial called Oh So Fru-Fru.

Here's what I did.
My version uses Buffalo Snow flakes instead of Fru-Fru flakes.  I stamped the flower onto a piece of acetate with Brilliance sky blue ink.  Then, I applied sheet adhesive to the acetate piece and a piece of white cardstock.  I sprinkled the Buffalo Snow on the cardstock piece, shook off the excess, and put the acetate piece on top so that the snow was sandwiched between the two layers of adhesive.  I tried to cut my circle with my Cuttlebug and a Nestabilities die, but the die wouldn't cut through the acetate layer.  It did emboss it, though, giving me a guideline to cut the circle with scissors.  The touches of glitter you see are Ice Blue Stickles.

Have a great day!

The Odd Couple

Seriously, aren't all couples just a little bit odd?  For instance, my DH and I are on the one hand perfect for each other in every way, and on the other hand, we are from COMPLETELY DIFFERENT PLANETS!  Ahhh...true love!

The little odd couple on this card is from the Starving Artistamps DoodleFactory Final Frontier set and I colored them with Copic markers to match (sorta) the Basic Grey Recess paper I used.  The heart charm is from Bo Bunny and the adhesive lace is something I've had kicking around for quite awhile.  The layout I used is last week's sketch challenge at Split Coast Stampers (SC262).

Thanks for stopping by!

Divine Diva Challenge #19

Our first Divine Diva Inspiration Challenge for the new year is this box of soaps from Terrain.

As you can see, I went for a very literal interpretation with my card.  I just couldn't resist the opportunity to use at least a tiny bit of my stash of handmade papers.  My stash of ribbon scraps and odd embellishments yielded just the right decorations for my little box of chocolates, which was the orginal inspiration for the box of soaps.

The stamp I used for the sentiment came from the dollar bin at Michael's a couple of years ago, and I glittered the edge of the panel with some gold glitter.

As always, everyone is invited to play along in the Divine Diva challenges, and if you do, please link your creation here. If you upload to PCP or SC, use the keyword DDIC19. For even more inspiration, please visit the other Divine Divas: Anne, Chris, Lori, Julie, Keri, and Kerri

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

Hello!

I have a nice and easy, clean and simple card to share with you today.

The first think I did was punch the bottom edge of the top of the card.  Next, I scored two horizontal lines about an inch apart.  Then, I stamped the flowers in with Brilliance Sky blue ink and the sentiment with Versafine black.  To finish off the card, I added a couple pierced lines and highlighted the flower centers with black Stickles. 

Thanks for stopping by, and have a great day!

Happy New Year!

My DH and I have spent New Year's Day the way we always do--bumming around the house doing nothing in particular.   I did work on a few projects that I need to finish, but I also spent some time just stamping for the fun of it.  I made this card for a couple of the challenges at Split Coast Stampers:  Limited Supply Challenge LSC253 and Sketch Challenge SC261.

It's a really quick card because that was one of the requirements of the Limited Supply Challenge.  The stamp is from Memory Box and I colored it with Copic markers.  The paper is from a Cosmo Cricket Mini Deck called Early Bird.

Well, gotta go...there's still a little time left today for more goofing off!