Journal page 2

With October being breast cancer awareness month and all the stamping activities that are surrounding this month, I wanted to make a page depicting feelings about this unfortunate disease.   Many of my friends have gone through many different kinds of cancer.  I wish there was less money being made off from cancer treatments and more affordable ways for people to get care. This art is being entered into Simon says Monday challenge. The finishing step was stamping on acrylic.
Here’s my page and here’s the explanation behind it.  These are all Gina K Designs images.

For Laurie's ABC (anything but a card)  challenge on StampTV  i chose to make my 2nd ever journal page. I scouted out a variety of GKD stamps from my collection and turned them into a collage of hope. Many of my friends have gone through breast cancer and its treatments. I think the first thing they understandably feel is Fear. I took the Grow Old w/me sentiments stamp to depict that. I wanted to incorporate all the seasons as usually treatment takes longer than a year. Since C is world wide I used the globe. I used the bird for hope besides the Hope in the center of the world. I used the Celebrate dress stamp b/c there is a celebration each time they go back for review and are cancer free. I used the Home because cancer affect the home life so much. The couch and On the road sentiment seem to be what i hear most often. "I can't seem to get off the couch until it's time for my next treatment" I wanted mostly monochromatic but a touch of color. I faux stitched the side to signify the unraveling that accompanies this hated disease. I stamped the Thank you friend sentiment in green as how many times a cancer patient says Thank you to her friends for keeping her going. And lastly I added the Hope ribbon in GKD pink gingham with an acrylic image of Melanie's Hand stamp with the word Prayers in the middle that i cut out from the frame. Thanks for the idea, Laurie.  I had thought of making a page about cancer but didn't know how I was going to do it in a positive way. I hope you can see all the detail. Thanks for looking and taking the time to read. hugs.

image free stamping

HYCCT challenge to use pink and purple and two of some kind of element on your card.  Using StampTV Gina K Designs Inside Out sentiments with paper from the Spring Time Silhouette kit from long ago. Yep, I still have a couple of pieces of DP and some ribbon and brads left over from that kit.  They are packed with goodies.

322 Mark’s Finest Papers

Don’t you just love covered bridges?  When we went to the Greenfield Village in Detroit this year we enjoyed walking through an old covered bridge.  They used to charge tolls to go through.  They put the covers over them to protect the base boards from rotting.  I think you got charge charged 2 cents for each sheep you were herding across.

This card goes into Simon Says Challenge to use something with transportation.

321 Mark’s Finest Papers

When I made that journal page the other day, I had a lot of excess water color laying on my craft mat.  I hate to waste COLOR so I sprayed up a couple of water color paper pieces and made back grounds and then because I was still playing with that leaf stamp I pressed it onto these soft colors and I’m in love.  

320 Prickely Pear again

 

Isn’t this a great design?  I so blatantly CASED it from a picture from a simple single kit that I got free at a SU party.  I didn’t do it EXACTLY but pretty close.  I love the simplicity of this  with it’s multi colored strops and the bonus was getting to use a bunch of scrap pieces.  That little spokie die cut was

a part of the kit and I just stamped my Prickely Pear Pumpkin in the center and colored it in with SU markers.  I will have to remember this layout. Another HYCCT card.

319-320 more Prickley Pear fun

Check it OUT!!  that skull just makes me chuckle.  and those black cat pairs, too cute. I used some Gina K Designs paper from the kit.  I have the perfect friend to send this too.  She will get a kick out of it.  Ya gotta be careful about things like this, you know?  She is six months older than me and we always send funny cards to one another.  MFT dies.  Aren’t those sequin dies fabulous?  I get a lot of use out of them.

Entering this into the MFT Sketch Challenge for this week

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317 7 318 SU

This fabulous sketch came from My Favorite things BluePrints dies.  When you buy their blueprints they give you access to a PDF file that shows several different ways to use the fun dies.  I loved this sketch and all the pieces are from BP #6.  The images are from two different Stampin Up sets.  And there you have it.  HYCCT challenge.

316 Penny Black

Who doesn’t love these sweet critters from Penny Black?  Another SCS challenge, this time the Sketch challenge.  I really do love sketches for stretching out ideas.  This also goes to HYCCT.  I know that looks like really fine stitching, but you know me, no sewing allowed!!

315 old SU image

I was so pleased how this turned out.  Another HYCCT card.  Using clear embossing paste after stamping with Versamark, I then sponged over the image with a couple of different distress inks for an emboss resist technique.  I added that funky back ground piece in which I didn’t cut all the way to the ends with the paper punch.  The red background has a faint spray of red mist over a stencil.  BARELY discernable in the photo but way 2 kewl in real life.   Thanks for looking.  Mucho appreciando or something like that.

312-313-314 Gina K Designs

I’ve been making a bunch of cards that haven’t made it to my blog this week.  I am playing catch up this Saturday evening. 

What a fun image to use the paper Tole technique with.  This is the first card for the HYCCT (Hope You Can Cling To) Challenge on SCS.  Lots of dimension going on here. Using my new Stamp TV kit called Simple Things.

Sometimes life isn’t always fun

I sent this to a cyber- friend who’s son and wife were murdered.  It gives me chills.  They have a four month old baby left behind.  What can a person say in such a situation? 

I have used this stamp before in my countdown so it doesn’t get a number.

Stamp 310-311

The Prickley Pear Stamps are so much fun.  I played a long in a color challenge on SCS for this one.  Check out the expression on that cat!! II t makes me laugh.  I cut the orange panel and stuck it under the purple  piece in which I had used a punch to cut out those leaves.  I left the ends of the raffia kind of frazzled for more of a halloween effect.  Very fun card to make.  That die is from Prickely Pear too.  --take note Princess Judy. 

FIRST JOURNAL PAGE

My first art journal page.  I’m so excited.  I got my journal while in Colorado this past summer at the bookstore Allan Zink took Nancy and me to.  I didn’t intend to purchase one but while we were looking around I saw this and it was water color safe so it had a new home from that day forward.  Summer has been so very active I didn’t have time to play in with it.  But my online stamping friend JoAnn Crayton encouraged me by posting pics of her first journal.  It looked so fun I had to get started.

My first page is going to be entered into Simon’s Monday Challenge Finishing touch.  After all my other steps, it just needed a little something in that corner and I inked up my MFP foxy autumn stamp sprayed it with a bit of water and pressed and just like that I qualify to enter this challenge.   Well the other leaves would have qualified me too but I think Mr. Fox stamp was the finishing touch.

I actually taped this leaf to the page.  It was such a gorgeous red when I found it and put it beside Gilbert’s plate that night at supper and he enjoyed it too.  It needed a permanent home. 

I marker colored distress inks on my mat and pressed the leaf into it to get the color to make the shadow leaf beside it.   Love when what’s inside of me comes out in art.

Thanks for looking and being a part of my new journey.

Stamp 308 and 309 Prickley Pear

I won the cutest set of stamps from Prickley Pear back in the spring and have been patiently waiting to use them.  Isn’t this just the cutest circle stamp ever?  It is actually two stamps.  The cat and moon are one and the circle of bats another. The little scalloped circle die is from them too.  I like how the die picks up the spider web theme of the DP.  Add a touch of orange and we have the perfect Halloween card.  I am entering this into Simons Says Anything Goes.

stamps 306,307

Had to! Just had to make a card for National Coffee Day.  I followed the MFT195 Wednesday Sketch.  I let the Designer Paper be the strips that are shown in the sketch.   I got the coffee cup stamps at GoodWill for 1.99 I stamped them on various card stock for some variety.  The sentiment and fishtail die are MFT.  Also entering into The Coffee Lovers Blog hop that I saw on Simon Says.   I will also enter this into the Wednesday Anything goes Challenge at Simon Says. and why not try a new challenge with Inkspirationals beverage challenge.  I love finding new blogs.

Simon Says Color Challenge

Alrighty then, I am having fun with all these color challenges and they used to be one of the most difficult challenges for me.  But once I figured out that what works best for me is to go through my scrap envelopes and pick out a scrap of each color then it seems easy to come up with a plan because I have all the colors right in front of me in real life and not just looking at a palette on paper.  I encourage you to try that.

Simon’s color challenge is part of their Work It Wednesday month end challenge.  I chose their beautiful Chrissie butterfly die to go along with this really cool paper from Creative Memories that looks like old post cards.  The sentiment is a Simon exclusive.

I tore the paper on the dark chocolate and layered it with the burnt orange and the CM background paper.  I used a portion of a Tim Holtz embossing folder to give some pow to the green strip that was looking a bit undone after I put the butterfly and the sentiments on there.  I started out with th embossed sentiment but it didn’t show up to well.  I touched my finger to a white Colorbox ink pad and rubbed it over the sentiment but it still lacked “oopmh”.  Once I added the sentiments in black to the top and bottom of it , I liked it much better.  I die cut the butterfly out of the green cardstock and then used spray adhesive on the die cut itself to hold most of the pieces in place.  I punched some out and then also adhered a couple of the negative parts to the paper beneath the butterfly.  I like the dimension I got from doing this.  You can find the Simon Work it Wednesday challenge HERE.

Color Galore MFT challenge 9 Stamp 305

MFT has a Color Challenge Monthly and I thought I would play along with their images Hang In There.  Isn’t this jus the sweetest?  I have used the boy before but not the dog so I get to count this for the NUBS (never used before stuff) and also will enter into MFT’s challenge.  I was using the red scrap from a cut out made long ago.  I colored my image with Staedler watercolor pencils and used a blender pen.  It’s the easiest way to color that I know of.  The piece the little guy is mounted on is a scrap from long ago also.  I fussy cut him and the poochie out.  I get a certain kind of satisfaction out of fussy cutting.    I think I picked up all the colors I do believe.  When I look at a color challenge I always think that many colors will be so busy but look how I used them and you can barely tell there are so many colors going on.  I’m glad for these challenges that help me to use up my scraps. 

What I do, is pick out all the colors from my scrap box, and then decide what I am going to do with them as I play with the different sizes of scraps.

I will also enter this into Simon Says Stamp anything goes Wednesday challenge.

GKD stamps 302-303-304

I caved!  I saw this Gina K Designs Simple Things kit for the month of September and I loved it.  I resisted most of the month to see if the feeling would leave but I kept thinking about it.  Wow, you get so much in one of her kits, it’s really worth it.  I love the quality of everything.  Inks, Papers, ribbons, clear stamps, rubber stamps, they all are the best I’ve ever worked with. This was the first thing I created with the kit.  I fussy cut the frame but the kit did have some cream colored die cuts to fit the image.  I scored the top a couple of times for some dimension.

American Craft Stencil

My daughter gave me a bunch of things she never uses and this stencil was one of those gems.  This came together very quickly.  I did run the stencil through the Big Shot and it kind of ripped the paper so I went with that and tore the other edges too.  I like the look.  I am entering this into the Simon Says Anything Goes Wednesday Challenge.

Magical Wishes

Playing in Simon Says Wednesday Challenge and combining it with the perfect sketch from MFT, I came up with this card.

I wanted to use monotones to give the illusion of sky and SSS is featuring Tim Holtz which made it easy to reach for his Distress Markers in various blues.  After spritzing the craft mat and dragging the tag through a couple of different times I then spritzed the tag and layered different shades of blue from light to dark.  Then the fairy princess from MFT stamps was stamped. (she has her head in the clouds, eh?)  I then colored her up with two different Sakura glitter pens and added a Simon Says glittered die cut heart.  I touched a bit of blue to the clouds.  The flat clouds are MFT dies and the curvy one is from Memory Box.  This was such a fun card to make and I have the perfect recipient in mind.  Isn’t that always fun. 

In real life the dark blue doesn’t look as dark as it does on here.  I tried to lighten it up to no avail. 

More old Stampin Up 298-299-300-301

Stamps 298-299-300-301 A masculine card. For a birthday or Just Getting their drivers license.

Here’s a fun one. SU stamp 297

Using an old Stampin Up image I made this fun card for a special friend.  I had fun doing it and it started out with a scrap.  That mauve mist piece had the oval cut out of it for a different project and I wanted to use the negative piece to create “something” and this is what happened.

Stamp# 296

A big ol’ sponge stamp that I picked up as part of a Good Will package.  I love this acorn and this is the first chance I have had to use it.   Perfect for this card with die cut leaves from Sweet N Sassy.

I am entering this into Simon’s Wednesday challenge to make your own background.  I used inkadinkadoo swirl stamps to make a back ground on the main layer.

Also entering into MFT Sketch Challenge 193.  The little banner piece is one of their fish tail dies and the wonky piece is from blueprints 16. 

Stamp 294 & 295 Simon Says

Wow, summer was busy and I neglected my blog.  I am up to stamp 294 & 295  now and no where near through them all.  Keep pushing, it’s still fun. 

I made this for Simon Says Stamptember Monday challenge.  It is a Kelly Purkey Simon Exclusive stamp.  I hand lettered the Are You Cured and then grabbed a sentiment stamp from MFP since I didn’t have a Simon Get Well sentiment.  I love the fun of this Sizzle On Stamp set.

Ways to use it!

Sometimes I like to find different ways to use very obvious things.  Images turned upside down, partial stamped images, stack the sentiments vertical instead of horizontal.  This time I used soccer ball dies to make ornaments and I love the effect.  The sports dies were a gift from My Favorite Things for ordering sixty dollars all at one time.  I wouldn’t have chosen them, as I have no kids in sports,  but I have found myself using the parts in different ways. This card is created for the MFT Color Challenge you can find HERE.  The colors screamed Halloween but I could not make myself come up with anything creative.  I really have no idea how this popped into my head.  Oh yes, it was because Simon Says is having an Anything Goes challenge and they are featuring Memory Box dies and I only have this one Frostyville die and some clouds by Memory Box.

I have combined the two challenges and this is what happened.  SQUEAL! I love it.  The little tag is also and MFT die from blueprints 4.

I added Wink of Stella to the centers of the ornaments to jazz them up a bit and added a sentiment from Mark’s Finest Papers.  Talk about combining companies.  Well that keeps the creative juices flowing, right?

Stamp Etching SU image #274

A very elegant way to dress up your stamps is called Stamp ETching.  You can see the tutorial on it HERE.   I have been wanting to play a bit more in the Splitcoast Stampers challenges and this one was chosen by a Team of four of us working together.  Using neutrals we chose to use this technique for a CAS (Clean and Simple) format.

I love the way it turned out but I doubt it will be a technique I would use often.  You must have an open line stamp to do this technique.

Stamp#273 My Favorite Things

For MFT Sketch Challeng #190 I had fun making this though I have never made any sort of western themed card before.  Well, maybe once.  The process was fun and I love their images.  Every thing but the plaid paper is MFT.  I love that company.
With all the fairs around in our small rural towns I thought this was the perfect card for this time of year. The little tag with the HB (happy birthday) seemed a bit like "branding" and western shirts come in plaids lots of time.  yeah, i get like that.

Stamps #271 and 272

This card was made for the SCS Technique Challenge on SCS.  Using a stencil you stamp your image over the stencil and then lightly sponge color over the stencil to leave the stencil shape in white.  It was okay.  I likely wouldn’t do it again.  I thought it was a lot of work for the result.  I like the result just wouldn’t put that much time into it again.  I made the main image a Gina K Designs image in SU Handsome Hunter.  The banner sentiment is a Simon Says Exclusive Stamp and I am entering this into their Wednesday Challenge Summer.  At this time of the year all our flowers are at their peak. I thought an bold image would be a good summer card.  I used a piece of Coredinations in a summery green to keep it more in the summer palette and not so fallish, not yet, please!   Thanks again Michelle for the die cut I used for the main panel. The buttons are MFT dies.

Stamp 270 The Cat’s Pajamas

Playing in Simon’s Wednesday challenge and also SCS CAS Monday challenge.  Simon’s challenge is Summer and SCS CAS is Stencil.  So this was a simple card to make and the perfect Washi tape on hand.  Loved that it tied all the colors together. I dotted around bun bun to make him look as if he is quilted onto the card.

Stamp # 269

Using an MFT Pure Innocence stamp and their sketch #189 and CAS challenge on SCS, I came up with this card.   The challenge was to use watermelon colors.  For the sentiment I used another PI stamp set from last fall, Chrysanthemum.  I cut the sentiment apart from the rest of it.  And used the rest of it inside the card.  It only hurts the first couple of times that you cut a sentiment a part.  I also stacked this one instead of the vertical orientation it had.   This also fits the Simon Says Monday challenge to Scratched Up.  I sanded the green Coredinations paper.  Paper piecing her dress with a scrap piece just gives this a nice little touch.  Colored with copics.  For the CAS part, it’s hard not to wrap ribbons or do ‘something” to fill up the blank spaces but all in all I like how it looks.  this was the perfect sketch for the CAS challenge.

Hey Baby! Stamp # 268

For Simon Says Wednesday challenge to Make it Sparkle I used Sparkling Stickles n the star.  It doesn’t show up well on here but it was just the added touch for this cute image.

A DTGD challenge card.

MFT Sketch Challenge and stamp #267

I wanted to get in on the Wednesday Sketch Challenge at MFT.  You can see their post HERE

I used their Hog WIld set and also their BIG backgrounds stamp.  Colored with copics and using up stuff that was left over on my desk after DTGD.  Most things are put away but I had a few scrap things that I for sure wanted to use.   This gray piece with the circle cut out was one of those scraps.

WOWSAS-DTGD Challenges

I have never played in the Dare to Get Dirty challenges on Splitcoast but I was encouraged by new friends I have made on-line and so I took the plunge.  It is a week long challenge with several challenges every day. I was vactioning for three of the seven days. I had a lot of catch up to do and some of the challenges weren’t my style but I was determined I was going to do them all.

What I learned, when the pressure is on I can still come up with some pretty unique cards.  Sketches are my friend when doing this many challenges so they don’t all end up looking alike.  I can stretch myself to do things I never thought of.  It was a great learning experience.  We are not competing with each other just stretching our own selves.  There are a lot of ways to get unique cards.

So there you have it.  51 cards in four days. I am now known as a Stamping Queen on SCS. 

I now have lots of work to do to blog and record the cards and keep track of all the stamps I used. Watch for the posts coming your way.

A borrowed stamp

THis stamp came from Edith’s collection.  He is SOOOO cute.  I have had this colored up and in a folder for about four years.  It seemed perfect for this MFT Wednesday 187 challenge and also DTGD with Splitcoast.   I am getting in just under the wire with like ten minutes to spare so no jag bagging today!!  

Stamp 266

fun to make this from a little gift card holder that was a bit of advertising from a trade show.  Stampers, we keep everything!

This should bring a smile to someone’s face, eh? The image is Stampendous, the sentiment is from Sweet N Sassy and the die cut sentiment is from Little Yellow Bicycle.