Whirlpool of Imagination

Yes, another grad card!

I was stretched to the limit with male grad cards this year. I find making feminine cards so much easier so this was good for me.

The card layout comes from Splitcoast. I don't know who because I have so many notes and sketches that they all blend together. Thank you to the person who inspired me!

This card uses a hodgepodge of stamp companies. The "grad" letters are from Inkadinkado. The script background is from Hero Arts. The other background is from Stampin' Up. And the sentiment is from Spunky Stamps. Just a small testiment to the sheer number of stamp companies that I patronize!

It was hot, hot. hot here today, so unlike normal September temperatures for us. The poor kids wilt in school since there is no air conditioning. I'm off for the night - it's Curriculum Night at school - have to go see what the kids are doing this year! Have a great night.

I'm Back!

Woohooo! My computer has been devirused, updated and generally cleaned up. I missed all my online friends and inspiration. I came on to my Google reader with over 500 posts to check out! Yikes - I may have to forgo commenting until I get caught up.

Remember when I last was online, I had just made it through Meg's Hannah Montana birthday party. The last thing I needed to do to wrap up yet another kids birthday was to get thank you notes made so Meg could send out her thank you's. I was really excited to find HM stamps at AC Moore (clear stamps) - I used my coupon and felt a little bit better about purchasing these stamps solely for Meg's thank you's.

I stuck with the pink and purple palette to keep with the HM theme. I stamped Hannah with purple ink (Nick Bantok ink) and then colored her with chalks. The larger sections, I chalked right onto the picture. For the butterflies, I picked up the chalk with the blender pen. This worked great because the colors kind of diluted as I was coloring and I ended up with buterflies that had variations in colors and shades to make it a bit more realistic. The sentiment is from Spunky Stamps and was a girly as I could find for the size I wanted.

I'm excited to be back online and can't wait to see what you all have been up to!

The Walton's Truck

Does the phrase, "good night Mary Ellen, good night John Boy" bring back any memories? I used to watch the Walton's all the time when I was younger, loved that show. This truck stamp from River City Rubber Works reminds of the Walton's truck.

I was asked to make a birthday card for someone with a blue truck. I don't have any modern looking trucks so I went a bit retro. The truck is stamped with persian blue chalk ink which matches really well with the not quite navy cardstock from Stampin' Up. The sentiment stamp is from Spunky Stamps. Can you believe I actually made a card without using Papertrey or Cornish Heritage? It may be hard to believe but I actually have other stamps (a LOT of other stamps!).

The paper is from American Craft and the brad is from Pink Hedgehog. This was the first time I had ordered from them and I have to say that it was a wonderful experience. The shipping was quick and I got great customer service. This brad is called denim and matches the SU cardstock really well. I am definitely placing another order with this company.

I have to get busy making some event cards. We are swamped for events (this weekend a wedding and a christening, along with a birthday party) and I'm not ready for any of these yet. Off to stamp!

Bella gets a makeover

I was going through my stock of cards to see what's low and what I need to make more of. I needed to make some new bellas but I decided to redo the card just a bit...freshen up miss bella.

Here you've got the two cards side by side.

I used the same color scheme but instead of coloring bella with pencils, I used my prismacolor markers, although the flowers and bow are still colored with a sakura gelly roll pen. Beyond that, just a few changes in placement and some flowers to match the patterned paper and here's the new, updated version of bella.

The stamps are from Stamping Bella and Spunky Stamps.

We are getting just a taste of spring today. The kids were actually able to play in the playground after school without freezing any extremities! I love spring so I'm anxiously awaiting the change of seasons. Please send some warm sunshine my way!

Building A Pyramid

Thanks so much for the kind words on my last pyramid card. They are super easy to do so here's the quickest tutorial on the face of the earth....

Here is what a sample pyramid sheet looks like. I'm not very computer savvy so I don't know how to make these sheets yet. The fabulous people over at the Circle of Crafters Card Making message board generously offer up these sheets. I definitely would like to learn how to do these myself though - a project for a rainy day I guess. This great sheet was created by Tracy Churchill.

You print off your sheet and then cut it up. I use my paper cutter except for the really tiny one. You then build a pyramid by layering the pictures on top of each other exactly where the picture lines up. I've seen these done with mounting tape in between each one if you want a large pyramid. So far I've only printed the pictures off on my cardstock and layered them with my double sided tape.

Once you make your pyramid, use it like any image block and design your card.

And here's my finished sample. The couple had that slight blue layer on the bottom layer so I tried to match that up with my blue cardstock. I have to say, I'm really liking this one. I find these colors very soothing together. The sentiment stamp is from Spunky Stamps.

It's vacation week so that means I'll either got a lot of crafting done or none at all!

The Paint Challenge

I took another challenge over at Splitcoast. Two challenges in a month - must be a record! The Ways to Use It Challenge for today was paint. You know I love using acrylic paint on my cards, especially for backgrounds so I jumped on this challenge today.

I was in the mood to use blue so I went with it. I used blue acrylic paint for the background. Very simply, take a dry brush and swipe it in every direction all over the cardstock. I also used the brush to make the edgings on the balloon panel as well. I find it easier to use a paintbrush rather than an ink pad. I get the look I'm going for much better with the paint.

The balloon stamp is from River City Rubber and the sentiment is from Spunky Stamps.

This was it for me today. Meg stayed home sick so my studio time was limited. See you tomorrow!