Whirlpool of Imagination

Baby Boy Dots

I'm taking a small break from autumn holiday's today. I thought I'd show off my newest baby design.

Sweet and simple CAS design. The image and sentiments are all from Papertrey Ink. The onesie is stamped with tuxedo black ink and the words are done with night of navy ink. This image is a great one for paper piecing so I thought I'd go with that technique today.

Paper piecing is such a great way to add a little interest to a stamped image without having to always color it in. This paper line from Bobunny is a fun one and I'm thinking of adding more of these to my inventory in a range of colors.

I haven't strayed too far from Halloween though - my hands are full of orange ink as we speak. Stay tuned later on this week for a few ghosts or goblins!

Turkey Time

So you were shaking my head at creating Halloween cards, weren't you? I'm going even farther out there with a Thanksgiving card today.
I have had this turkey and sentiment stamped for ages, probably since last Thanksgiving. I finally pulled it out so it would stop mocking me. I decided to pair the image with the medallion background and I have decided I really like the two together. Just about all the supplies today are from Stampin' Up. The medallion is stamped with cajun ink (SU) along with the matching cardstock. The turkey and sentiment are probably stamped with cocoa bean (Memento) if I had to hazard a guess.

Don't worry, I'm not ready to fully immerse myself in Thanksgiving yet but I am pulling out those fall colors. Can't wait to use more of the pumpkins, garden greens and browns.

Have a great night!

Spooky Mini's

School goes back in just a week so I'm think autumn. That means I'm thinking Halloween and am channeling all the spooky mojo. I haven't broken out into full size cards yet but am working the mini's.

This stamp is actually from Michael's and it looks like the company name is Craftsmart. I'm not too sure who the parent company is. The skeleton brought along his buddy, the bat, courtesy of a Martha Stewart punch. This one is more of a scrapling size than a pure mini.

The spider is also from Mike's. I decided to stamp him off the corner for a bit of swinging motion. The sentiment is frmo There She Goes. I keep looking at it thinking I didn't stamp it up right but that's the way the words were made - I guess they wanted it "spooky".

Have you seen all the new great Autumn stamps out there? I am definitely feeling the "fallish" feeling. I think I feel some pumpkin colored stamping coming on!

Flip Flops for Summer

I'm back from my little blog break. Last week my project was to get Meg's birthday invites created. And as you know, I've set the bar with my history of birthday invitations. I can't go just any old thing!

Here's the set of them.

Here's a single flip flop. I found a template online and resized it to fit the envelope I envisioned using. By drawing the template slightly off the folded piece of card stock, I was able to make this a folded shape card. The blue layer was embossed with a cuttlebug folder for some much needed texture (without it, it looked much too plain). The flower was cut frmo a Papertrey die and I needed some sparkle by way of a sparkly brad.

The invites were much appreciated. Now I'm working on party ideas........

Flower Block Notecards

I pulled out the cherry cobbler ink again for more creating. This time I decided that with school starting soon I need to shore up my notecards so I can send notes to the teacher on pretty paper.

Here's a set of ten that have now gone into inventory at the store. The flower blocks are from Papertrey and stamped with Stampin' Up's new cherry cobbler ink.

Here's the single version of the notecards.

And here's the set of 10 notecards packaged in a clear box. I changed up my presentation on this set. Usually I use a belly band with an image over the top. This time I just replicated the card image block and adhered that directly to the box - looks kind of neat in person.

Approximately three minutes of studio time was all I had today. I tell you that once the kids are back to school, I'm going to hole up in the studio for some quality creative time!

Have a great night.

Cherry Balloon

Here's a quickie today. I pulled out my cherry cobbler ink from Stampin' Up since I haven't played with it much since it was released this year. Now I'm hooked. Loving the color.

The shaped piece was first cut out using a Papertrey die. I then stamped the balloon from Verve with the cherry ink. The sentiment is from Papertrey and stamped with Memento tuxedo ink.

This color is really fun, a much deeper red than the real red and a nice addition to the color palette.

As August is past it's halfway mark, my sights are setting on Halloween. Since I need to get the store stocked soon, you may be seeing more Halloween work in the next couple of weeks. I'm already pulling out my spiders and deep oranges!

Have a great night!

Yellow Birthday Truck

I am taking a whole new direction today from card topic to color scheme so let's just dive right in, shall we?

I joined the Lizzie Anne monthly mix club so I've been using more of their fun stamps, which is what this one is. I decided to stamp it on the strong color so I could just us the line image rather than coloring in. I used Memento tuxedo ink for the image and sentiment.

Since I was going truck, I decided I wanted something a little more rugged for the background. Want to guess which company this embossing folder is from? Yep, Tim Holtz. You know I'm not a grungy sort of girt but I'm no good at saying no to embossing folders so I'm thrilled to get a chance to use some of his.

I embossed the cardstock with the folder first and then dry brushed it with black acrylic paint. I've always liked this type of background for all sorts of styles of cards. Depending on the embossed image and the colors used, it can be boyish and grungy or elegant and pretty, with everything in between.

The black stripe of cardstock is actually embossed too although that may be hard to see in the picture. I used one of Stampin' Up's folders for that.

Phew, I've have a busy week of stamping and blogging so I'm taking Sunday off. I'll be back again on Monday. Hope your weekend is a great one!

Wasabi Flower Dress

Welcome back to the final day of wedding cards. If you remember, I have been working with wasabi to match some bridal colors. I pulled out the flower dress I enjoy using for weddings and tried something a little different for this one.

This dress is from Stampin' Up and I use it often for weddings and showers. It was stamped with wasabi ink (SU) and I "dressed" it up a bit with some crystal stickles in the bodice of the dress. The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink and also stamped with wasasbi ink.

When I first layered the dress with the scallop layer, it looked lost in the design and I realized I needed more. A good way to add some interest and fill the space more is to add another layer to main image block. I didn't want to take away from the overall design so I kept it the same color and just made it a double layer of scallops. I really like how this looks. It gives it a bit of dimension and filled the space in just the way I needed it to do so.

In fact, I am so happy with this design that you just may see it in another fun color in the future. But I can tell you that I'm giving you a break from wedding cards so you'll have to wait until next week for that.

Have a great day!

Wasabi Bride

Today is day two of a trifecta of wedding cards. I recently had an order for some wedding cards using the color wasabi. Let me tell you, that was fun! The green is such a pretty color and it really broke me out of my pink and brown rut that I talked about yesterday.

Doesn't bella look so fresh and lovely with a background of wasabi? I think so.

The image is from Stamping Bella and she is stamped with Memento tuxedo ink. I used copic markers, colored and pencils and baby oil, as well as a red spica pen for the flowers.

I've always liked the swiss dots folder for this design so I went with what I liked and topped it off with a bit of satin ribbon.

Stay tuned tomorrow for another wasabi wedding card. Have a great day!

Wedding Cake in Pink

Recently my mom and I went to a wedding shower and this is the one my mom ended up giving. I didn't know the color scheme so I went with the pink and brown....my go to color when I want to make wedding stuff. I'm not sure why I always go with that but it's one of my favorite color combo's so I guessing that's why.

This is a fun stamp from Lizzie Anne Designs. It's stamped with rose red ink (Stampin' Up) and cut out with a nestie's die. The flower embossed layer really ties in nicely since the flowers are very similar looking. I'm not sure which company the folder is from. So many are coming out now that I lose track, although I can categorically say that it is not Tim Holtz.....there is no grunge factor to those flowers!

Have a good one!