Whirlpool of Imagination

Fairy Birthday

My daughter has been talking about her birthday party for months. Ever since I got the Tinkerbella stamp from Stamping Bella, she has said she wanted that for her birthday.

This is what I finally came up with. I thought this embossing folder from cuttlebug matched her dress nicely. I only put part of the cardstock in the folder so I had a flat part to stamp on (got this idea from Gina K). Meg colored the bella with sakura gelly roll stardust pens to give her some sparkle. For the life of me, I can't figure out what company the sentiment is from. I thought it was Cat's Pajamas but I couldn't find it there, so now I'm not so sure.

Today i took the kids to see Ratatouille (sp?). It was cute but I thought a little long. We had the whole theater to ourselves which I thought was kind of cool and it was a good day to be indoors because it was HOT. No splitcoast challenges for me today, in fact no studio time at all. Ah well, I'll have plenty of time come September!

Getting Sketchy

Yesterday I took a day off from the studio. It was a busy day but I got a lot accomplished and that always feels good. I am way behind on the Splitcoast Dirty Girl challenges but I'm okay with that. After doing the first four in the first day, I decided I didn't want to do all of them - I don't like that many constraints on what I'm creating so now I'm picking and choosing. I chose to do two more of the sketch challenges. These are sometimes a stretch for me because me designs are usually pretty simple and straight-forward and the sketches can be a bit more involved.

Of the two I have to show you, this one is not my favorite. I struggled with this sketch and am still not sure about the finished card but, here it is. The sentiment in the block is TAC while the image and the sentiment along the side are from Doodlebug. The bells are colored with prismacolor markers and the blue block has been embossed with the cuttlebug.

I definitely like this one better, from the colors to the design to the overall finished product. The stamp is from Stamping Bella and she is colored with prismacolor markers. I added some ribbon, prima and doodlebug jewel, Bo Bunny patterned paper and a bit of paper piercing and it's good to go!

This week the kids and I are together the three of us all week so my studio time may be limited. I'm hoping for a chance to try a few more challenges from this weekend so stay tuned. Night!

Fun Friday Challenge - More Than One

I took the morning off from the gym so what's a girl to do when she's awake at 6am?? Stamp, of course! I'm taking a detour from the Splitcoast Challenges to add my Fun Friday Friday. Lately, I've noticed that most of the cards I make have one image and the last 8 pages of sketch notes in my sketch notebook have one image in them. So.....today's challenge is to create with MORE THAN ONE IMAGE BLOCK (and I don't mean sentiments as an image). It can be a repeating image or different ones, that's up to you.

I decided to go with the repeating image block idea. This flower stamp is from Studio G (Michael's $1. stamps). I colored them with prismacolor markers. The pumpkin block seemed a bit plain so I stamped it with my textured harlequin background from Cornish Heritage.

Now it's your turn. Create a card (or something else) with more than one image block and link it back to this post. I'd love some new ideas - I feel like I'm stuck on the one image idea so please inspire me!

Two More Challenges Done!

Okay, I finally got the first days challenges done (a day late but that's just a small detail.....)

This challenge was 'pets'. I don't have a lot of pet type of animal stamps so my choices were limited. I have had this stamp from Stampin' Up for ages and the poor thing has never seen ink. I figured it was time. She's colored with prismacolor markers and I tried out my new teeny tiny brads from Queen & Co. They are VERY cute.

The challenge for this one was to use brads. I originally had a different image in mind for this but when I created the strips with the brads, the other image just wasn't doing it for me. I thought patriotic and this eagle seemed liked a perfect choice. For the life of me, I can't figure out where this stamp is from. I checked a bunch of sites but couldn't find it. If you know, please clue me in!

I tried the sketch challenge for today but I hate the card I created so I'm going back to the drawing board tomorrow. I'm thinking that completing ALL 36 challenges may be a stretch but I'm having fun with the ones I'm trying.

Daring to get Dirty

My blogging plans for the next few days are in disarray. I have a few things I wanted to show you but they are now officially on the back burner. Why you ask? The Splitcoast Dirty Dozen challenges have started today so that is my lead story!

If you are a member of Splitcoast Stampers, you probably know all about the Fan Club/Dirty Dozen and the anniversary celebration challenges. If not, read here. Today I was able to complete two of the four challenges. That's pretty good for me ~ I always say I'm going to do the challenges but never seem to them!

One of the challenges was a sketch challenge. A friend of mine is going back to teaching this September, so I thought I'd make a little card for her to wish her luck. You know that I rarely do layers in this fashion but in the spirit of the challenges, I gave it a go. I'm happy with the final card and think she'll like it too. Image stamp is from Stamping Bella and the sentiment and circle is from Paper Trey Ink.

Here we go with card #2. Another challenge was to create a card that had a kind of 'toile' look to it.  I immediately knew that for a background, I wanted to use one from Cornish Heritage. There are a bunch to choose from but I like this one. The image is from Stamp Francisco. I've had her for ages but don't use her nearly enough. When I think 'toile', I think Victorian so I thought she'd look nice.

My energy levels have peetered out for the night so I'll have to shelve the other two challenges for now. It seems that lately, if I don't get my stamping done during the day, I have no energy left at night. (Could getting up at 5am to go to the gym have anything to do with THAT?????) Night all!

A pink & grey combo

Today's card design came from a need for birthday cards and pink patterned paper that I wanted to use.

I've used this card design before. It works well when I want to show off some patterned paper and ribbon. I pulled out this paper and then went through my ribbon stash. Since pink and black work well together I thought of this ribbon and figured since I have a ton of SU going grey cardstock, I'd try this card with a grey base.

When I use this particular design, the paper is usually a bit busier than this one. A real busy paper holds up on its own really well. When I tried this one on top, it seemed a bit plain. Ages ago I had bought a set of ornare (piercing) templates from QVC. I've never used them which is a shame because they are ridiculously easy to use! I did a quick little butterfly piercing to add something to the paper block and in real life, it looks cute. The stamp is from Jody Poesy and its one of my favorite birthday sentiment stamps. The ribbon sealed the deal and birthday cards, all set to go!

Mo and I went out for a fantastic dinner at a local Thai restaurant so I'm straggling in here with a full belly. If you ever get to Connecticut and like Thai food, I have the place for you! I'm busy working on Meg's birthday invites - she's decided she wants a Tinkerbella card. Hopefully tomorrow I'll have it up to show you. Now I just have to figure out what to do with a Tinkerbella theme. I'm thinking the local party store hasn't got cute little bella decorated stuff!!

Melted Crayon Dress

Here's my first card with the melted crayon backgrounds.

The easiest way to use the backgrounds is to use them as backgrounds! This one was created with a combo and red and pink crayons. I layered it onto pink cardstock that was stamped with a lace background from Cornish Heritage Farms. Then I stamped the dress from Pink Cat Studio. The dress is colored with pencils and blended with baby oil and stumps. I added some detail with sakura pens for a little sparkle. I've been waiting awhile to use this ribbon but I thought it looked cute here. All in all, pretty quick to construct once the crayon backgrounds are made. I'm hoping to get a few more examples done over the week.

And if you do some, LET ME SEE!!

Finally, the card from last week!

It only took me three days to get this card posted but I sat myself down tonight before I forgot and scanned it into the computer.

Amazingly, this card doesn't have much stamping on it. I based the card around this patterned paper (which I think is Basic Grey).

I debated on the bottom panel - I thought about using a background stamp, the cuttlebug, even a scalloped oval under the sentiment oval. In the end, I decided to pierce the left side (although the scan does not pick it up well) and add my sentiment and call it a day. These flowers are from Close to My Heart and the jewel in the center is from Doodlebug - love these jewels. The package comes with self-adhesive jewels in several sizes and they offer them in a bunch of great colors.

Today was Mo's birthday so we had a nice little celebration here. It was a busy day but fun. The weather here is gorgeous this weekend. I may be hard pressed tomorrow to stay in and stamp!

Fun Friday Challenge - Come Melt with Me

Okay, I am officially a slacker this week. I left for the kiddos swim lessons and wasn't home the rest of the day. Mo and I went out to a fantastic dinner tonight while the kiddos spent some time with my mom. Now I'm checking in with my Fun Friday Challenge. Since I did not spend a lick of stamping time in my studio, I don't have card samples but I do have technique samples. I will work on the card samples this weekend. Last week the challenge had to do with word inspiration - "cold". This week I'm thinking hot, so hot you melt. In other words I challenge you to make a card with the melted crayon technique (if you don't have younger kids, Walmart has crayons for 20 cents this week - you know I'll be stocking up).

You need:

an iron and ironing board

several pieces of aluminum foil

crayons

cardstock and scrap paper

I recommend putting a couple layers of foil over the iron. With only one layer, a tear in the foil will get crayon on the iron which in turn can get crayon on the next piece of clothes you iron (ask me how I know). IF you do get crayon on the iron, move the hot iron back and forth on a brown paper bag - it gets the crayon off.

I usually have several pieces of foil ready and change for each color so I don't muddy up the colors. If you're looking for that muddied look, keep using the same one.

Once your foiled iron is hot, rub the crayon back and forth onto the foil. The crayon will melt quite quickly. (Another tip is to take the paper off the crayons ahead of time, that way you won't be wasting time pulling paper off the crayon as you go).

I fill the foil up pretty well with whatever color I happen to be using at the time.

Then take your iron and "iron" the cardstock. This is just plain matte cardstock. You can use a back and forth motion, a circular motion or you can just place the iron straight down. Each type of motion will leave a different kind of mark onto the cardstock. This is where you can have fun and experiment.

  Here are some examples of cardstock with melted crayon. You can make a sheet of all one color or combine colors. One thing I will add is that sometimes the yellow seems to burn a bit as you are ironing. This can work in your favor if you want an almost caramel type of color. Now cut the cardstock up and use on your next creation.

I will add that, if done carefully, your children can do this too. I allow them to put crayon on the iron and then help me iron the cardstock. They are obviously not allowed to touch the foil in any way and they get the whole safety lecture ahead of time. I did this with a 5 and 4 year old.

Okay, your turn!! So far my challenge participation has been low (okay nil except for me) but I persevere. If you do decide to try my challenge please link back in the comments section because I would love to see your take on this technique. Now get melting!

Just Cards - Volume 6

I just got my comp copy in the mail today and they have one of my Stamping Bella cards in there.

Look for my martini bella in the birthday section!

Today, I may have a record number of posts for you. I was too lazy to scan and post last night the card I FINALLY finished. I'm hoping to do that later. And I have my Fun Friday Challenge to put out there too. I know what the challenge will be, just need to make up a couple of cards. Think technique challenge.

The kiddos have swimming lessons - gotta go!