Saturday, September 24, 2011

Birthday Princess

It's Saturday again - Our Creative Corner time! This week Sharon has a number challenge for us - use a number prominently on your project. I dithered around and finally decided to do a birthday scrapbook page with My Digital Studio.


One of my favorite features of MDS is that you can choose colors from your photo to make everything coordinate. I picked up the pink from the crown for lots of accents and the purple from Sarah's dress for the background. I also use the opacity setting a lot - I lightened the purple quite a bit, then used it again for the toile overlay stamp. The result looks like subtle patterned paper.

I hope you'll play along with our numbers challenge this week - get creative with it and share the result with us! And don't forget to visit the OCC blog to see what the rest of the team came up with!

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Together Forever

Every year my anniversary rolls around and although I never forget the day, I often realize at the last minute that I haven't made a card. Giving thoughtful cards is something that's very important to my husband and me, so I'm proud of myself for being two days early this year! My card is for four challenges: SCS sketch challenge, SUO Challenges (fall colors), Hand Stamped Sentiments (dry embossing) and Friday Mashup (autumn). It has been an awfully long time since I played any challenges and it was so much fun - I hope I can find time to do this again soon.


As the background for the three rectangles I decided to use a page of the Mocha Morning specialty paper. This design is really pretty and shimmery, but I think manly enough for my hubby. For the image I used the leaf from Autumn Days, stamped with Early Espresso on kraft - oops, sorry, Crumb Cake! I wanted the leaves to have a little shimmer of their own, so I rubbed over the images with Log Cabin Smooch Spritz and gold shimmer paint. Tip of the day: Spray the shimmer paint on a paper towel, rub onto scrap paper until most of the color rubs off, then gently rub over the images. It took several tries before I learned how to get a light enough coat of the Smooch. For the shimmer paint I dipped just a corner of my paper towel into the lid of the paint container, dabbed a couple tiny dots of paint onto the image, then spread it out over the image with a clean section of the paper towel.

Once I added the leaves to the rectangles with dimensionals, I was ready for finishing touches. Behind the image I layered Crumb Cake taffeta and Early Espresso grosgrain ribbons over an embossed houndstooth background. The sentiment is a retired single stamp, placed inside one of the images from Four Frames and punched with the decorative label. That lower left corner seemed bare so I added three gold brads and called it done!

Now that this card is finished I have a lot to get to on my to-do list - back to the real (nonstamping) world! Thanks so much for stopping by - have a great day!

Saturday, September 17, 2011

Hi! Remember me?

Hello folks - oh my goodness, the life I've had for the past few weeks. I got a horrible stomach bug that lasted more than a week... including the weekend we were visited by Hurricane Irene (which thankfully wasn't a big deal where we are). Then I had a few days of hanging out with the kids in between the end of summer activities and the start of school. THEN Ben came down with the stomach bug - he was out of it for four days and missed his first three days of second grade. Poor little guy. Finally this week I have the kids in school and I'm trying to dig myself out of the ginormous hole I've been stuck in!

Needless to say, my stamps have been very neglected and I feel like my mojo is on vacation... but I'm trying to get back in the swing of things with the latest challenge at Our Creative Corner. Our hostess this weekend is Sharon Wheet and she has a "not big on pink" challenge: make a pretty card that features blue with only a touch of pink, plus some texture and metal. I combined this with a challenge from a new blog called Freshly Made Sketches. Here's their sketch:


And here's my card:

The main image comes from a gorgeous new Valentine's set in the holiday mini called You Are Loved. I stamped the heart with Versamark on Marina Mist card stock and clear embossed it. The sentiment is from Curly Cute and it's layered on a strip punched with the lace border punch. I used a bunch more layers behind the heart, including a square of Pretty in Pink DP and Night of Navy card stock. The pink velvet ribbon is from my stash and the Pretty in Pink flower was made with the triple blossom punch. I misted six flowers with water, crumpled them up and spread them out to dry, and layered them with an antique brad in the center.

That's it for me today - it feels good to be back, even if I'm not in love with my card. ;) I hope you'll stop by the OCC blog to see what the rest of the team has created - I know it will be fabulous! Then share your own wonderful creation with us this week!