There's a new Challenge in Town!

We have a brand new challenge starting today at smARTworks.  It's a monthly challenge, and it's oh, so easy to join in.  On the first of each month either Trish or I will post a new challenge word.  And, you?  You make a card, or whatever, inspired by that word.  Take a pic or a scan, upload it somewhere, and then post a link using Mr. Linky on our new challenge blog.  Easy, peasy.  And guess what?  There are prizes, too!  All the details, the October word, and Trish's beautiful sample card are posted on the smART-Word Challenge blog. 

Please join in...it's sure to be fun!

Divine Diva Inspiration Challenge - DDIC13

It's time for another Divine Diva Challenge, and this time Lori gave us this print as inspiration: Golden Day II Print by Jo Molton at Art.com.

When I first looked at the print, I thought it would make an awesome frame for an inchie so that's exactly where I went with this card.  All of the stamps I used are from smARTworks, the papers are Basic Grey, and the technique is just simple stamping and sponging with Fluid chalk ink.

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 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:  Anne, Chris, Lori, Julie, Keri, and Kerri

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

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?

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!

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!

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!

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.