Whirlpool of Imagination

Bag It

Last month a friend of mine asked me to create wedding shower invites (remember the 60 [SIXTY] I worked on?). Well, the shower is approaching and she asked my to create a gift bag that would hold the cards and such and she wanted it to match the invites.

This is what I came up with. She asked that the colors be the same. Since I didn't have a rose red bag, we decided on starting with a white bag base and go from there.

First things first, stamp the flowers (Stampin Up) in rose red (SU ink). I kept the design the same in that I added the ribbon to the top of that layer. I thought the space was a bit bare, so I added a little quote (Papertrey) in palette noir ink. Just matted in the rose red, the layers seemed a bit lost so I added some constrast with a medium dark grey cardstock.

I had this big block of rose red cardstock that I wanted to put under the flowers block but it looked so plain when I first paired things up. I then decided to stamp the repeating pattern (Papertrey stamp) in rose red and this layer was also matted with the grey. That background stamping made all the difference and there you have it, the finished project.

I'm happy to say that my friend already has the bag and really liked it so I'm hoping the bride to be does too.

The last day of March went out with a gorgeous sunny afternoon. I made the kids stay outside after school until dinner time and now they're off riding their bikes. Lets hope for some tired campers who will go to sleep quickly tonight. It is an Idol night after all!

Star Congrats

Woohoo - I am on the ball for a Monday. Not only did I complete the Splitcoast CAS challenge on the actual challenge day, my card also counts for this week's Ocean's 11 challenge.

The CAS challenge was based on a sketch and the blog challenge was to make a CAS card. Isn't it great when these things all go together???

This card uses the Papertrey anniversary set that is sent for free to customers who buy at least 12 Papertrey sets during a designated 12 month period. As you can probably tell by the number of my cards that use PTI, I certainly bought enough this year to qualify! It's a neat little set that combines some cute images along with a great bunch of sentiments.

The star is stamped in hibiscus ink (PTI) which was cut out and pop dotted over papertrey polka dot paper. The sentiment is stamped with CTMH pansy ink. The finished card size on this one is 4 x 4.

I'm in between errands at the moment so I thought I'd stop in and blog. I went in to Meg's library class to help out today. The second grade students are working on research projects and the poor teacher needs all the help she can get. This is the first time these kids are having to do a paper that consists of major themes under their topic umbrella along with minor details going with those major themes. That's a lot to figure out when you're seven/eight years old! So if anyone has any good sources for Meg to write about kimono's (Siobhan????), send them our way!

Have a great day!

More Flowers

Happy Saturday!! Rain is coming but Mother Nature is being accomodating and delivering it this evening and overnight. That's lucky for us as we've got friends coming over for the afternoon and we can a) grill and b) send the kids out to play!

Have you noticed that I've been in a coloring rut? It seems like everything I stamp lately needs to be colored in. While I enjoy those images, I was getting a little burnt out with that. So yesterday I deliberately picked a silhouette stamp to play with. And me being me, it was of course a flower silhouette - I'm red faced thinking about how many CD cases of flower stamps I own!

This card started out with two main ideas. I wanted to use a silhouette and I wanted to use pumpkin pie ink. From there, this is what emerged.

All stamps from this card are from one of the new Papertrey sets. The flowers were stamped first and second generation with SU's pumpkin pie ink. I then stamped the sentiments with SU's night of navy. In keeping with my CAS style, I added only a couple of layers and some brads to finish the whole thing off.

Well, the house has been cleaned and the cookies have been made. Mo is at the moment working on the marinade and sauce for dinner so I'm off for a few minutes of blurfing before I work on the "befores". Have a great day!

Miss Flower Anya

Good morning! I took the day off from the computer yesterday (after making sure there were no dire emails to attend to) and it felt great. I really like taking the technology break on a regular basis  - makes me feel less tied to them (and I have definitely gone through stages of that too).

I am only a week late on my most recent Ocean's 11 blog challenge. We were to use any type of dry embossing we wanted to on our project. You know I used my cuttlebug ambossing folders - I can safely say that that was one tool where I certainly have gotten my money's worth!

Here is miss Anya from Greeting Farm. She is colored with a combination of copic and prismacolor markers and her hair was done with a prismacolor pencil and blended with baby oil. The sentiment is from Verve. Its a great little set with some nice sentiments and the cute curly q's around some of their letters.

From there, the card is just a matter of adding layers.

We are expecting a gorgeous spring day here today so I'm hoping to open some windows and enjoy the day. Hope your day is a sparkling one!

My CAS Bunny

I had to think about this week's CAS challenge which was to use punches. I kept leaning towards a butterfly punch but I used butterflies last week so I scrapped that idea (for a later date).

After a few fits and starts, this is what I came up with. The bunny is a TAC stamp and is colored with copic and prismacolor markers. The sentiment is from Papertrey as is the colored cardstock - this is their new hibiscus cardstock. It's a very pretty pink in person.

I used a scalloped square punch and the word window punch to fulfill the requirements for this challenge.

I've got a quiet day planned today - just me and the laundry. In fact, I'm off to get some out of the dryer now - have a great day!

The Sky Challenge

Another weekend coming to a close. I am always amazed at how quickly time flies, especially the weekends. Speaking of time flying, its been two weeks since my Ocean's 11 SKY challenge but I like to say better late than never! We were challenged to have some sort of sky in our creation.

As soon as I stamped up some of these dandelion fairies from Paper Makeup, I decided that this image would be part of the sky challenge.

The fairy is stamped with palette noir ink and colored with a variety of copic and prismacolor markers, along with a metallic gel pen for her wings and a copic spica pen for some sparkle on the dandelion. Her hair is colored with a prismacolor pencil and blended with baby oil.

For the sky I used chalk and applied in a random sort of fashion. It's hard to really see from the picture but I promise, its there.

I don't have any dew drops but I did pick up these rain drops (I think thats what they're called) from Stamping Bella and I'm assume they are the same as dew drops. I decided the corner needed a little extra something so I figured rather than just admiring all them lined up in their cute little bottles, I'd actually use some.

My brackets for the tournament are not completely a bust but I'm guessing I'm not winning any pools. Oh well, if I end up doing really bad, I can always root for Mo's brackets. Have a great day!

Turtle Sketch

When I first saw this week's sketch challenge at Splitcoast, I didn't think I would give it a try. Then, I saw all the wonderful examples everyone created and had to give it a go myself.

I decided to ink up one of the new turtles from Stamping Bella. These poor critters are too cute NOT to ink up! The image itself is colored with copic and prismacolor markers. In this picture, my coloring of the shell is not the smoothest. As I practiced, I think I've gotten a bit better with that.

I followed the sketch pretty closely and went for the semi monochromatic look. I had all the various greens in place and then went back and decided what shade to add in as a contrast. The twill is from Taylored Expressions - she's got some great little extra embellishments in her store that I like to use.

Happy Spring by the way! You wouldn't have known it here yesterday - it was freezing!! I'm a bit worried about my tulips. The stems have sprouted from the ground and now we are supposed to get several days of night temp's in the low 20's. I'm hoping they will suvive so I'll have pretty flowers in front of my house. Any flower experts - should I do anything to them?? And in the interest of full disclosure, I should say that my thumb is the exact opposite of green. If you want a plant to survive, do not give it to me! I guess I should be asking if you have any advice that I can pas on to Mo - he's the one that has the luck with the nature surrounding our house.

Have a fantastic weekend! We'll be busy checking scores and our basketball brackets. How are you doing so far?

Frolicking Leprechauns

I'm a couple of days late with this but I think its cute so we're extending St. Patrick's Day for a little while longer.

I got this cute little bucket from the Target dollar spot and just had to get one (notice I said only one - it was a frugal day for me, usually I pick up a minimum of five when I get the Target buckets).

The bucket is flled with floral foam and then covered with green "grass", otherwise known as shredded paper.

I picked up the sparkly shamrocks at Michael's. I already had the bucket at that time and figured the shamrocks would come in handy.

The little boy/leprechaun is from Storage Units Ink. They are stamped with palette noir ink and colored with copic markers. I then cut them out and glued them onto lollipop sticks.

To finish is off, I threw some foam shamrocks among the grass to make it a mini field of shamrocks.

Here is a close up of the little leprechauns. This is a super cute set and every time I ink up these stamps, I am so pleased with how they take ink. These are much better quality than some of the clear stamps out there. If you are on the fence, try one set like I did and I bet you will be pleased. I've been tempted by the Easter set but I'm trying to watch my spending so I've been holding off.

March Madness is in full swing and Uconn is off to a rollicking start. GO HUSKIES!!

Are you wearing green?

Happy St.Patrick's Day!! I think I am officially corned beef out! Today we spent the day at the Irish Club having lunch, guinness (well, not me - yuck - I did have a Bailey's though) and another nice day. The weather cooperated and it was positively spring-like here. Hope you have a good day today too.

Today I decided to go with a grungy card rather than the cute cards I've been creating lately.

This sentiment is from River City Rubber and is stamped with SU hunter ink. I then dirtied up the sentiment block and the cream layer below by dry brushing it with an Aspen Green acrylic paint. Byond that, the card just consists of a bunch of layers.

May the words of this blessing find their way to you. Have a great night!

Inspiration CAS

This week the CAS challenge from Splitcoast was to pick any product from Robeez and use it to inspire you. I picked this adorable little soft sole shoe. Boy, I wish these had been around when my kids were little - they have some cute stuff there!

Here's my card. Both the butterfly and sentiment are from Verve Visual and are both stamped with pure poppy ink from Papertrey. I added the second shade of pink by using some Swarovski crystals and then decided to leave the card as is. I'm getting fond of the white space :)

I have a bit of a nagging headache today so I'm signing off for a while, maybe get some fresh air. Hope you have a great day!