Vintage Thanks

It's the last Saturday in October - and my fifth (and final) October challenge for Our Creative Corner. This time around I picked something near and dear to my heart - vintage. I love using vintage items on my cards - whether they are actually old or just vintage style. It's such a fun look with lots of possibilities!

I combined my card with the limited supply challenge - "what's the weather?" Our weather forecast didn't give me a whole lot to go on - fall-like temperatures, a little sun, some clouds, some wind, possibly some sprinkles... kind of all mixed up. So I made a fall-themed card with some windblown leaves and a couple mixed-up prints of designer paper. The LSC also came with a 2/2/2 requirement: use three sets of two of something. So on my card I have two vintage items (buttons and trim), two patterned papers, and two circles.

The leaf image from Wandering Words first popped into my head when I read the weather forecast. Since we are supposed to see the sun, I wanted to use yellow and chose the crushed curry paper from The Write Stuff specialty paper. The other print in ruby red is from the same collection, and I made soft suede my brown since that color is in those papers as well. Once I chose my papers, I inked the stamp with markers and stamped on very vanilla, then used soft suede to dirty up the edges. Behind the stamped panel I used the two Nestabilities circles cut from the DP, also sponged with soft suede. To add my crochet trim to the bottom, I adhered it to a thin strip of cardstock, then glued that right onto the card base. The finishing touch was my vintage button tied with linen thread.

I've had a great time hosting the OCC challenges this month. Please visit the OCC blog to see everyone else's creations, and come back for more fun challenges in November!

I did it!

I made a challenge card just for fun! Woohoo for me! LOL. I have been wanting to do this for days and today I just made the time. It may not happen again soon so enjoy this one! I did three challenges with this card, actually: the inspiration challenge on SCS; Beate's weekend sketch challenge; and the Color Throwdown. For the IC, which features Anthropologie this week (one of my favorite stores!), I chose this soap set.

I noticed there was a butterfly in the center of the soap set, so I looked at all my stamp sets that include a butterfly and chose For All You Do. I stamped the flower squares in taken with teal, the butterfly in purely pomegranate, and the dotted background (with the help of the Stamp-a-ma-Jig) with certainly celery. Tip of the Day: If you want to make a background with this stamp, you need to slightly offset the image each time you stamp it so that the dots look right. Just center the edge row of dots in between the dots of the previous edge and it'll come out nicely spaced.

After I cut out my squares with Nestabilities, I decided to change the center shape to an oval, leaving room to add the flowers. (I used a marker to ink the stem so i could leave off the buds, then I added an extra leaf to the stem with the Stamp-a-ma-Jig. Turning the stamp sideways allowed me to position it wherever I wanted.) I folded the butterfly wings up for dimension and glued it over the flowers before positioning my die-cut shapes. The finishing touches were pomegranate ribbon, a celery panel embossed with the Perfect Details texture plate, and a sentiment using the word window and modern label punches, another stamped flower that I cut out, and two teal leaves that I made with the Little Leaves die.

OK, that's it from me today. I'm going back to my project of the week: making Christmas cards! Thanks for visiting and have a wonderful weekend.

Black (and Red) Velvet (or Suede)

The month is just flying by - I can't believe it's time for my fourth OCC challenge. (I'm lucky enough to get five Saturdays so you aren't done with me yet!) This week we are honoring Halloween with a special challenge. I had to put a twist on it, of course - so my challenge is to make a card or project that's inspired by a scary book or movie. As you'll see from my sample, it's OK if your creation isn't Halloween related.

I had a little help from Todd on this one, seeing that Halloween is his favorite holiday and he loves all things related to Halloween and mad scientists and nineteenth-century British literature... but I digress... I am really not a fan of spooky stuff, but I still thought this would be a cool challenge. The first thing that came to my mind was the story by Edgar Allen Poe called "The Masque of the Red Death." The story progresses through a series of seven apartments, the last of which is the most important to the story, and it's described in this way:

The seventh apartment was closely shrouded in black velvet tapestries that hung all over the ceiling and down the walls, falling in heavy folds upon a carpet of the same material and hue. But in this chamber only, the color of the windows failed to correspond with the decorations. The panes here were scarlet -- a deep blood color.

That description is what inspired my card. Well, that, and a card I made in My Digital Studio while I was working on my certification this week. I actually made that card before I made this one, but I kept returning to that idea as I was thinking about this challenge and ended up with some of the same elements. I'll show that card a little later in the post. Now back to the challenge...

I started my card with the red damask print from the Christmas Cocoa specialty paper in the mini catalog. I used it as the background and also stamped the ornaments from Tree Trimmings onto the paper with black craft ink and embossed with clear EP. After I cut the ornaments out, I adhered them to whisper white cardstock with dimensionals and added the hanging strings.

Black velvet cardstock would have been really cool on this card, but since I didn't have any, I made some faux suede cardstock instead. (This was the technique challenge on SCS a couple weeks ago.) I did have some red velvet ribbon that's been in my stash for a while. The sentiment (from Christmas Punch) was also embossed and then layered on a die-cut from Lots of Tags, which I saw on this lovely card from Andrea Walford. My final touches are a wooden glittery snowflake that came in a pack I picked up on clearance last year at Cost Plus World Market. I thought they might come in handy someday! I added a Stampendous sticker to the center of the snowflake and used the Scribbles Swirl die to further embellish it.

So there you have it - my Poe-inspired Christmas card! How's that for crazy? ;) I hope you'll take on this challenge - have fun with it and just go wherever it takes you! And be sure you stop by the OCC to check out the samples from the rest of our awesome team!

Now, if you're still with me, here's the card I created in MDS. I used the same colors and the same Tree Trimmings ornaments. The sentiment is from the "stamp" set Wishes & Greetings (these are actually rub-ons in the catalog) and the rest should be pretty self-explanatory! I'm having a lot of fun learning more about this program as I go through certification. I even sent this card off to be printed, and I'll be so excited to get some copies of it to mail off this Christmas!

I think I might be hooked

I'm home from the regionals in Portland yesterday - which was so fun! - and I'm a little under the weather. Since it was a rainy day and I wasn't feeling up to doing much, I decided to crack open the My Digital Studio software that arrived last week. I'm going to get certified, and I'm sure I have a lot more to learn, but I wanted to share the very first scrapbook page I made with the program.

I started out by watching some of the training webinars SU has made for demos. Well, it wasn't very long before I had the program open and was playing around with it myself. I started out with a template page from the Happy Birthday scrappin' kit, but then I changed the background and took out a whole bunch of the elements that were there and added my own. Obviously there is lots of room to add more, but I decided not to go crazy my first time out. And I'm liking a cleaner and simpler look more and more these days anyway.

This was so fun, and really easy. I have to stress, I have never done digital scrapbooking before. Heck, I've hardly done traditional scrapbooking. But this was very simple to do, and I love the result! Stay tuned as I learn more about what this program can do. So far, I am really impressed!

Thankful Thyme

Welcome to another week of my October challenges for Our Creative Corner! This week it's a color challenge: blush blossom, soft suede, sage shadow, and handsome hunter. I came up with this combo idea a while ago and this seemed like the perfect time to use it.

My first instinct was to make another Christmas card, but I decided to go a different route this week. I wanted to use a stamp set I hadn't played with much, and my eyes landed on Herb Expressions. I think these images and sentiments are so lovely. I chose the thyme image - I guess there was a little creative license since it appears that thyme flowers are white. But I covered up the name anyway, so it'll just be our little secret, right?

I colored the image with soft suede and handsome hunter markers, stamped it on very vanilla, and colored it with blush blossom and sage shadow markers. Then I cut and layered with oval Nestabilities and sponged soft suede on the edges. I wanted to use designer paper but didn't have a lot of options - the soft suede DP from Thoroughly Modern seemed perfect for the image, and the sage striped paper from Autumn Leaves (retired) added a nice contrast.

I wanted some kind of pretty bow and I played around with several different arrangements of ribbon. In the end I first put down a strip of soft suede ribbon with the solid side up, then the strip of the peachy color, then the dark green organdy bow. I have no idea what ribbons those last two are - just stuff I found in my stash! I left room for the sentiment (also from Herb Expressions), which I framed out using Frames with a Flourish. To finish off the card I added more sponging and lots of piercing - I toyed with other ideas of things to add but in the end I kept it simpler. Sometimes that really is better! :)

Be sure you stop by the OCC and check out the lovely samples from the rest of the team. And then come and play along - I'd love to see what you do with these colors!

Divine Diva Inspiration Challenge #14

Welcome to another challenge week! For this week's inspiration I chose this cool Japanese fabric. It's by Kobayashi and it's called Chrysanthemums. Sorry that I don't have a link for it - I saw it on Etsy but it's no longer available anywhere. I fell in love with it anyway, so that's what we'll be using this week!

I kept my card pretty simple - I am the victim of not enough time once again this week. Saturday I'm headed to my first Stampin' Up! regional so I've spent a lot of time working on my swap cards. I am hoping that next week I might be able to play a challenge just for fun - can you imagine? It's been a very long time since I did that. Anyway...

On to my card. I made the background first, inspired by the patterns and colors in the fabric. I used dusty durango, crushed curry, old olive, and not quite navy, with stamps from Circle Circus, Enjoy Every Moment, and Think Happy Thoughts. My cardstock is naturals ivory, which I have recently discovered and really love. How did I live without this stuff for so long? The flower is from Petal Pizazz, and I used the oval scallop frame die to make a big statement. Then I added the sentiment from The More the Merrier, with the modern label punch and Movers & Shapers die. I didn't have a lot of room for embellishment, but I did add a Playground button tied with hemp twine.

Be sure to check out the cards made by all the Divine Divas for this challenge!

Anne

Chris

Donna

Julie

Keri

Kerri

Hope you are inspired to come and play along. Just leave a comment here with a link to your card. We can't wait to see what you create! The keyword for uploading on SCS will be DDIC14. Have fun and look for the next challenge on November 5!

Season of Christmas

I don't know about you but suddenly it's hitting me how soon it's going to be Christmas. I have hardly started making Christmas cards, so when I sat down to do my card for the OCC sketch challenge, I decided it had better be for Christmas.

First of all, you may be saying, "Lori came up with a sketch challenge?" I know - not really my specialty! But I knew that the OCC players like them and we hadn't done one in a few weeks. I came up with the sketch based on this card (for the OCC purposes it's simplified just a bit).

Looking through my Christmas stamps, I decided that Season of Joy would look good with this layout, if I made a row of trees. This stamp set is not new, but it's new to me, and I love it! I based my colors (real red, old olive, very vanilla) around this set of Christmas paper - which is from two years ago! I recently found a huge stash of SU Christmas paper that I plan to use for lots of Christmas cards this year.

I first stamped the tree twice, leaving room in between, then stamped the third tree, cut it out, and added some red Galaxy glitter. The word panel was made with the large stamp from this set, stamped multiple times with the Stamp-a-ma-Jig. I fiddled with the sketch a little because I wanted more of those fun words to show - I even slid the olive layer in between the vanilla layer and its red background, just to be different!

The sentiment comes from the same set, and I used my favorite oval punches. I covered the snowflake in "JOY" with a punched poinsettia, which I also gave the glitter treatment. The upper right corner needed something, so I stamped and cut out the poinsettia, added glitter to the berries, and placed it on top of a bow made from the olive Mistletoe ribbon that's in the mini catalog.

I hope you'll come and play along with the sketch challenge - I can't wait to see your creations!

More inspiration

Have you had enough inspiration challenges from me yet? I promise, this is the last one, LOL.

I had one card left to make for the Card Buffet and I was really struggling with what I wanted to do. I knew it was going to be a birthday card but I couldn't seem to move forward. Lucky for me, I had the SCS inspiration challenge to turn to. Steph picked - for the 200th challenge! wow! - the site Kir DeVries. What a fun site to browse! I picked this In the Ground water bottle.

I started my card with the Cheep Talk branch, stamped with close to cocoa and certainly celery markers. Then I added a ruby red bird (not quite a squirrel, but I have no squirrel stamps) and little flowers punched from blush blossom and ruby red. These are made with the trio flower punch that's one of the Deals of the Week - a great punch to have in your collection. The sentiment is from Teeny Tiny Wishes.

The background is a panel of dot paper from the current Patterns Pack (hostess level 1) embellished with celery wide grosgrain ribbon and a chipboard flower. I embossed the flower using blush blossom craft ink and clear EP, then added a Sherbet celery button threaded with a tiny strip of ruby red cardstock.

OK, I'm officially done prepping cards for tomorrow. I'll try to post some of the others as I get time. It's going to be a fun event - I can't wait!

I'm not ready for cold weather

Brr, the chilly fall temperatures have arrived in Massachusetts and I'm not enjoying it much! Maybe that's why I made such a springy card for this week's challenge at Our Creative Corner. This is going to be a fun month for me because I am the hostess for the five challenges in October. I hope you'll come and play - I think I have some good stuff in store!



The challenge this week is my favorite kind - an inspiration challenge. I know you are shocked! I chose these journals by Monique Duval because I loved the style and the words on the front.


For my card I wanted to make something pretty. I took the colors from the green journal and used old olive, pink pirouette, and chocolate chip, with naturals ivory cardstock for the base and the image. The dogwood from Soft Summer was stamped in chocolate chip and then watercolored using ink pads and an Aqua Painter. I made the background by stamping one of the Park Avenue Patterns stamps in chocolate chip, using the Stamp-a-ma-Jig for placement, and I sponged lots of chocolate chip ink on the edges. To give the dogwood image an overall smaller footprint and show more of the background, I used the out of the box technique when cutting it out.

To finish, I added a chocolate chip bow and a sentiment from Best Yet, inside the frame from Great Friend. The sentiment is a faux tag, thanks to a little hemp twine. The outer edges seemed to need something behind the olive panel, so I cut the ends of the Top Note die with chocolate chip scraps and adhered them to the sides. Then I threaded two pink buttons with more hemp twine and added them in the corner.

There you have it - I've kicked off the October challenges and we're ready to see what you come up with! Please visit the OCC blog and check out all the wonderful samples from our fabulous team, and then make your own! Thanks so much for stopping by!

Eat, Drink & Be Scary

Here's another card for my Card Buffet on Sunday. I had this idea to make a bat out of punches a while ago, and I finally got a chance to use it. It's very simple - the wings are ovals (I used the wide oval) and the head is a 1" circle. To make the wing shapes, I used the same circle punch to cut into the wings. It's very forgiving - if you don't like the shape the first time, you can usually fix it. Then I just attached the wings to the head and added eyes with white gel pen.

I stamped the background with the Baroque Motifs swirl, then put the rest of the card together with Taylor's sketch challenge for today. The paper is from the Night and Day specialty pack, and the sentiment is from Eat, Drink & Be Scary - colored with marker since I wanted a circle instead of a tag. I added white dots with the gel pen and a bit of black grosgrain ribbon.

I'm looking forward to having people over to stamp on Sunday - the cards are going to be lots of fun, so if you're local it's not too late to RSVP!

Divine Diva Inspiration Challenge #13

Wow, it's October, and we're on our 13th challenge! Today we have some artwork by Jo Moulton, which I found at art.com - I loved the rich fall colors and the distressed look of this piece.


When it came time to make my card, I kept things simple because (1) I'm pressed for time and (2) I wanted to make my first card for this weekend's Card Buffet. We will be making cards for 10 different occasions, and this is the sympathy card.

Now that I'm looking at the inspiration piece again, it looks much more green than my card. Well, I wanted to use In Colors, and in my memory the yellow color stood out more than the green. So there you go! I first cut a piece of cardboard (the backing from the designer paper packs, which is my favorite cardboard) with the scallop square die, then used it as a mask over a 5" square of whisper white. I sponged crushed curry around the edge, leaving the white scalloped square in the center. Of course you could just cut out the scallop square from white cardstock and put it over a larger curry square, but my goal here is to minimize layers and keep the cards quicker than my usual.

The image from Lovely as a Tree was colored with crushed curry, dusty durango and soft suede markers. Then I added the sentiment from Close as a Memory in durango. I wanted to bring the lovely flourish from the artwork into my card somehow, so I cut out the Tulipe die with soft suede and just used two pieces of it, held together with a 5/16" white brad and adhered with a pop-up glue dot.

Be sure to check out the cards made by all the Divine Divas for this challenge!

Anne

Chris

Donna

Julie

Keri

Kerri

Hope you are inspired to come and play along. Just leave a comment here with a link to your card. We can't wait to see what you create! The keyword for uploading on SCS will be DDIC13. Have fun and look for the next challenge on October 15!