Pretty Punch Art

Hello again - well, the good news is that I'm feeling better, but the bad news is that I'm getting busier and finding it harder to get any stamping done. I'll keep trying, though! Anyway, today is Saturday so of course we have a new Our Creative Corner challenge for you. Rudlis is hosting today and asked us to use fashion/mannequins/style/stitching/etc. as our inspiration point. This was tough for me - I don't have any of those trendy dress stamps or dies, so I had to get creative!

 

I made this sweet little dress with a couple different punches and Twitterpated DP in Riding Hood Red (one of our retiring colors). The skirt is from the blossom builder punch, and the top is part of the owl punch - I cut the sweetheart neckline and the skirt's scallops myself. I added the ribbon punch for a belt with a punched flower and rhinestone trim. For the stand, I used a thin strip of Early Espresso card stock with a decorative label punch base and a mini ornament punch for the finial. The banner punch and red DP are non-SU - I embossed the DP with the dot folder. To set off the punch art I added the label with pierced edge and a strip of espresso DP. The sentiment, which I embossed in white, is from the retired set Watercolor Trio.

 

OK, you have your challenge - please join in with us this weekend! Make sure you check out what everyone else on the DT created as well. We are grateful for your participation! Have a great weekend!

Happy new year!

Oh my gosh - such a long time since I've blogged and stamped. I'm happy to say that I'm back from my break with the fabulous team at Our Creative Corner. When it came time to make my card for this week's challenge, I felt quite out of prractice. Vicki Burdick has challenged us to make a shape card, and after a little hunting online I decided to make this matryoshka (Russian doll) card. The template is printable - plus there are lots more to choose from so you can play along with us! Since this is a birthday card I'm also entering it in the Friday Mashup birthday challenge.

I decided to feature the gorgeous stamp set that's part of the Sale-a-Bration offerings called Fresh Vintage and the matching DP, Everyday Enchantment. I love these two products so, so much. The colors I used all come from the DP: Pool Party, Poppy Parade, Very Vanilla and Soft Suede. Mostly I got my shapes from the template, but I did use some Big Shot/punched circles (cupcake punch, owl punch, circles #2 die). The border at the bottom uses one of the edge dies that's available in the Occasions mini. I stamped the flower then used leaves cut from the DP and placed the whole thing onto the embossed oval frame with a sentiment from Easy Events. (The flower in her hair is also cut from the DP - this card required a lot of cutting and glueing!)

I had fun with this - it's a great challenge to try something you've never done before. I know someone with a large collection of these dolls so I should save this one for her birthday! Please join in the fun with us and try out the challenge - I don't think you'll regret it. And be sure you see the rest of the wonderful shape creations from the design team!

Punchy Flowers

Hi there! Another week has flown by - my past few days have been dominated by a visit from some family (yay!) and some unexpected car issues (boo!) but I finally got time to stamp for this week's challenge at Our Creative Corner, which I'm hosting again this week. This time it's a color challenge with a twist. These are the colors:

 

The twist is to use at least three punches, and at least one has to be a border punch. Don't be scared, it's not hard! :) I easily used four on my card and it wouldn't have been hard to use more than that. I do love my punches! My layout is from Pals Paper Arts, who have a sketch challenge this week.

Here's my card. I decided to feature the triple blossom punch; each flower has two layers plus a center that came from one of the bitty punches. I added a silver brad in the center of each flower. For the stems I used the branch from Cheep Talk (which is retiring! I'm so sad about that one!). The sentiment is from Occasional Quotes and I stamped it inside one of the Four Frames images. (Not much longer and the new catalog will be live - I can't wait! This time of year is always bittersweet, LOL!) My designer papers come from the Brights and the Evening Soiree packs, and I added some retired Regal Rose 5/8" grosgrain ribbon. The border punch is non-SU.

I hope you will come check out all the team members' work this week, and then join in the challenge! We love seeing your creations every week!

Strawberry Sunday

Here's another card we are doing at my card buffet this weekend. I saw this strawberry idea by Linda Fisher and thought it was too adorable!

The Real Red strawberry is the Heart of Hearts embosslit; the Garden Green leaves are from the five petal punch. I trimmed off part of one of my leftover green flower punches to make the stem. The white flowers are from the Boho Blossoms punch with a Daffodil Delight brad in the center, and the vines are made with the bird punch. I kept the rest of the card simple: just a white panel embossed with polka dots, a little red bow, and a sentiment from Because I Care stamped inside one of the Four Frames images.

I think this turned out really sweet - and now I can't wait for some really good fresh strawberries!

Divine Diva Inspiration Challenge #39

It's another month and time for a new inspiration challenge! This time around we're featuring this cute owl mug. I hope these fun patterns and colors inspire your creativity this week!

My card didn't end up quite like I envisioned - I was trying to be funky but it turned out a lot more elegant than I expected. I wanted to duplicate the purple and pink floral band, so I brayered Rich Razzleberry ink onto the Vintage Wallpaper embossing folder and ran it through the Big Shot with Blushing Bride card stock. The other side of the background is Marina Mist stamped with the Teahouse background.

Of course, I had to use the owl punch - the owl base is Early Espresso and then I added razzleberry wings from the bird punch. I wanted to bring in some circles so I used the stamp from the Apple Blossom hostess set on those. The branch is textured Old Olive card stock and the flowers were made with one of the Birds and Blooms Sizzlits, the bitty flower punch, and the owl punch (the tiny dots in the center). Last I added olive satin ribbon and a sentiment from Seasonal Sentiments (in the holiday mini). To layer the wide oval punch I used two of the scalloped ovals, placed on the top and bottom, and then filled in the gap with the modern label punch, cut in half and glued to each end.

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

Anne

Chris

Donna (taking this week off)

Julie

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 online forums will be DDIC39. Have fun and look for the next challenge on November 18!

Pair of clubs

Actually, a pair of club cards! These are the cards we did at my February club meeting last weekend. We had a great time!

This first card uses the faux Chinese lantern technique - plus we got a little extra technique practice with masking and watercoloring. The flower from the hostess set Asian Artistry was stamped with black Stazon, masked on the left side, and stamped again to fill out the image into two flowers. I think it made the image have a much greater presence for this technique. We used the Aqua Painter with just a tiny bit of ink to watercolor the flowers. I used the rich razzleberry and old olive markers and scribbled on the inside of the lids, then picked up the color with a barely wet brush. Using just a bit of water made it OK to use whisper white cardstock instead of watercolor paper, and the colors came out so soft and pretty. Once the image was dry we ran it through the crimper and smudged the edges with the basic black ink pad. To finish off the card, we added textured black cardstock, Cottage Wall DP, and razzleberry ribbon. The sentiment is from Vintage Labels and the frame from Great Friend.

The second card came out of my wanting to take my idea from this card in a different direction. I also highlighted the Sweet Pea DP pack by using it for all the punched pieces. As before I made the stems and leaves from the extra-large bird punch, glueing the wings onto the branches to make the arrangement of leaves. Then we added boho punched flowers with gold brads in the center. The vase is the ornament punch with the tip cut off - I know I've seen this idea elsewhere so it's not original to me, but it's wonderful. I always love when you can use a Christmas product for something else! After we glued the arrangement together with the 2-way glue pen, we mounted the whole thing with dimensionals. The sentiment from Kind & Caring Thoughts was stamped right onto that layer with taken with teal. I don't know if you can see but we scored a couple lines on two edges of the white panel behind the vase. That side of the card just needed something, and it could also have been paper piercing but I wanted to show my club members something different. A layer of chocolate chip and a white card base finished everything off.

Thanks for stopping by today - I always appreciate everyone who visits my blog. Come back tomorrow for the first DDIC of March!

Hey, it's me...

I know you are probably tired of me saying this, but it's really, really true this week... I am so busy!! I haven't had much time to stamp, apart from some cards you'll see on my blog in the next week or so. I made this card a few days ago and thought it was a good time to share it. I made one similar for my dad's birthday - his didn't have the little flowers and pearls, though!

My idea with this card was to make something different out of the new bird punch. I used the Bella Bleu DP and punched a couple of the branches, then from the same paper I punched 7 wings that became the leaves. I glued them right on top of the tiny leaves that are already on the branch. You can't tell this because I put the Boho punched flowers (with Pretties Kit pearls) on top, but it's possible to attach the "leaves" so they completely cover the original leaves. Try it and see - it's very cool!

I finished my card with a Top Note cut from basic black textured cardstock, a kraft taffeta ribbon, a sentiment from the SAB set Vintage Labels, and the frame from Great Friend. I just love the color scheme of vanilla, kraft and black - I think it's so elegant.

OK, it's back to work I go. Thanks for stopping by - I'll definitely be back on Saturday for the OCC challenge so come check that out, too!

Divine Diva Inspiration Challenge #17

Welcome to the first challenge in December! We have a couple Christmasy challenges for you this month - but don't feel you have to make a Christmas card. You can be inspired in any way you want! This week's challenge is this fun collection of mugs from Garnet Hill.

I had no idea what I was embarking on when I started this card - it started out as a possible workshop card but then it just took on a life of its own! Unfortunately I think it looks way cuter IRL, but I guess you'll have to take my word for it! ;) I knew the colors I wanted to use: bashful blue, ruby red, soft suede, and whisper white. I had the idea to stamp the sentiment from Best Wishes & More in this curvy pattern - it was really easy to do and didn't even require the Stamp-a-ma-Jig. Then I thought it would be fun to cut it out following the words. Rather than try to cut the ruby red DP (from The Write Stuff) I cut the words out along the bottom, adhered them to the DP, and cut again across the top. I trimmed it down and attached it to the bashflue blue base.

Next I thought a tree would look nice on the left side, so I stamped the tree from Season of Friendship in soft suede. I forgot to consider, however, that the raised cardstock on the text would make it not stamp evenly. I tried to think of ways to fix it and finally came up with the perfect solution: to stamp it on soft suede cardstock and cut it out. I made the snowflakes with whisper white craft ink embossed with iridescent ice. Then I added the ruby red bird with a tiny bit of a dimensional.

Here is where it started to get crazy. I hadn't had another idea of what to do with the rest of the card and it was just way too bare to leave it that way. So my idea: a punch art snowman! I did a little searching through blogs and didn't see a snowman design that was small enough for my card, so I came up with my own.

Here's a close-up of my little snow guy. The punches are: 3/4", 1", 1 1/4" circles for the body; jumbo snowflake punch for the arms (trimmed down, of course); modern label punch for the hat; small star punch for the carrot nose; and word window, small oval and large oval punches for the scarf. Some of these probably didn't need to be punched, LOL, but apart from drawing on the eyes and buttons, I can say I did the whole thing with punches! Once he was all put together, I gave him some glitter on the snow and hat, and as long as I had the glitter out anyway, I added more to the snow and the tree branches. And the final touch was a soft suede bird to fill in what still looked a little empty. Whew... after all that, I'm glad I love the card!

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

Anne

Chris

Donna

Julie

Kerri

(Keri is sitting out our December challenges.)

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 DDIC17. Have fun and look for the next challenge on December 17!