#705 Music to my ears

Music to my eyes, that’s what i think when i see a fun challenge go up.  I’m always checking Simon for the newest challenge.  It truly challenges me and if i have stamps from the company they are highlighting i do like to use them.  That’s even more of a challenge.  This week Simon’s Wednesday challenge is to use a stamp and if possible use one of their exclusive stamps.  I chose this set.   it’s called Music to my Ears from the November 2012 kit.  I also used MFT’s color challenge #53 to create this and some items from their Blue Prints # 16.  I really like this color palette.  I hope i remember to use it again.  MFT is also a company i often check into for inspiration.  They have a great design team and i always hope i absorb by osmosis.

Bee Happy #704

Simon’s Monday Challenge is to use a stamp and no digi’s allowed.  Also they are featuring their own stamps this week.  I have a couple of their exculisve sets.  I love this set that has such a cute bee in it.  Otherwise i’m not much into bees.  I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of that dotted line trail though.

Using Simon’s stamp set called Circle Friends I’ll just go ahead and enter that challenge. MFT blue prints 15 and one of the MFT sketches.  now just so you know, IRL all these colors blend nicely.  Did you ever notice how most things that are green don’t photograph well?  ah well….

MFT Contest 2

Another entry for the My Favorite Things Super Designer challenge.   Using the MFT Scattered Bars stencil I lightly sponged through the stencil with MFT Grapesickle Premium Dye Ink  and variegated pressure.  Next step i took the LJD Wildflowers stencil and used some silver embossing paste on the one flower.  I did two of the same flowers at varied heights to draw the eye into the center.  After letting that dry I masked off the flower on the left with inkadinkadoo masking paper. Using my MISTI I stamped the two darker flowers three times rearranging the flowers.  Then I stamped the lighter flower with the mask still in place.  I added a leaf to the bottom by putting a smudge of the Grapesickle ink pad onto my craft mat and picking it up with a wet paint brush.  I extended the stem and filled in the blank spots that didn’t get the pressure when i stamped because of the embossed image.  I pulled out my die from Blue Prints five with the rounded corners and cut the grapesickle card stock.  Next I put some contrast to this with a piece of grape jelly cardstock cut to 4.25 x 5.5 inches.  I rounded the corners with a scalloped scissors to match the die shape of the inner panels.  Blue Prints six was pulled out to create the tag that I stamped with a sentiment from the Wildflowers set.  I took the leaves from one of the smaller flowers and pressed it into a Versamark pad to add a little something to the sentiment tag after embossing it with the silver embossing powder.  Using some ribbon from my stash i crsiss crossed and popped the sentiment over it.  It still looked a bit bare and I pulled out some silver pearls to finish it off.  Thanks MFT for the challenging me to design my own special card. 

MFT Contest

what fun this was to create this sweet fall card.  My Favorite Things is having a designer contest.  Check it out.  There’s $250 for each of ten people to win.  That’s a lot of MFT goodness.  Let me list all the products I used on here.  I started with cutting the card base panel from blue prints five with the rounded corners out of MFT Persimmon.  Isnt’ that a gorgeous orange?  For the next layer Whipped Cream MFT cardstock was used to capture the sun.  To color the sun I pulled out MFT sun rays stencil and used distress inks to very lightly make the rays and a bit darker for the sun.  Using MFT designer paper from the Fun and Frolic pack I cut a curved edge with my MFT pierced curved die.  But oh, oops the piercing was on the wrong side of the cut i wanted to use.  No problem.  Line up the die on top of the curve and emboss it through the Big Shot.  OOO…I like that look.  Next I die cut all the little mice from MFT BB Harvest Mouse  and then stamped them to see which ones i wanted to use.  It is so fun to color these little guys.  I die cut a pierced banner from MFT Field Green card stock with  MFT pierced fish tail dies.  I decided not to use the fishtail part and hid it under the hill.  Before adhering it I wanted to give it a bit of interest and used MFT swiss dots stencil and ran the banner through the big shot for a subtle pattern.  I colored all my images with Staedler water color pencils and used a blender pen to move the color around.  I popped up the little guy in the leaf pile and used adhesive spray for the other two.  Isn’t he cute looking like he’s going up the hill hauling that pumpkin and wondering why the other guy is playing in the leaves???  I added some crystal effects to the berries and wink of stella to the pumpkin.  Lastly I performed stamp surgery and spread the sentiment from MFT BB Harvest Mouse set to line up better with the layout I chose. I used MFT Paver Red Premium Dye Inkpad.  I had so much fun creating this little scene.  Thanks MFT for a chance to win such a generous prize.

drop in dies (702-703)

-Those drop in dies make CAS cards so easy.  Check out this frame with attached greeting cut out.  How simple was this.   Minutes!!  I want to make cards to give as sets of ten to be auctioned off at our family reunion next August.  This type of card would fill that order quickly and still be WoW!

Sizzix drop in dies video click HERE

hearts and flowers Stamp 702

ooo-ooo—some new dies came in the mail.  These are called drop in dies from Sizzix.  they have all kinds of cool things you can do with them.  Like this.  Lay the die on your open card stock and it cuts all these hearts with a frame around them.  add some designer paper behind and you have a great eye catcher.  To add some wow factor i water colored this flower from SU.  I sprayed my water color paper with water and then inked up my stamp in two colors and pressed and held it onto the dampened card stock.  For interest i turned the flower over and used a stylus to create some ridges for petals.  I carefully split the sentiment to stamp onto the hearts.  The little picture is what the inside looks like.  The washi tape came about, cuz you know, sometimes you get ink where you shouldn’t.  I was glad that happened because it looked pretty plain with that big old U on all that white.

hey foxy (stamps 700 & 701)

it’s probably been two years already that i ordered the autumn kit from Gina K Designs.  I’ve barely used it but i do love it.  I’ve used mr. fox before but he’s so cute i just had to pull him out again. 

I bought these “cover ups” in a variety pack from Michaels and this was the thought i had with how i would use them.  I love how it turned out.  it is a layer but doesn’t have such stark layering look after i used distress ink on it.  It was the perfect back ground for my fox and the sweet tree.

Embossed Vellum

Another super simple creation.  Princess Judy has sent me lots of various goodies in a couple of different giftings.  I don’t always remember to use things peeps give me because, you know, if you don’t purchase it you kind of forget you have it.  But THIS, THIS beautiful embossed vellum, I kept out in the open as i knew I wanted to use it but the big question was HOW?  I picked up a piece of green cardstock that was perfect to layer behind the vellum and really let the butterfly design show.  I had tried other colors before but none of them really worked like i wanted them to.  The “green” is the same green that the sentiment is stamped on.  That piece of satin ribbon with the vellum just upped the elegance of this card.  Thanks again Princess J. for thinking of me.

Stencil fun

This was such a simple card to make.  I used a Dream Weaver metal stencil and ran it through my big shot with 110 lb. card stock.  I took spong daubers and leaving the die in place i daubed ink into the various areas.  added a bit of gray to the trees and that was it.  I used a marker to put a green border around the white to set it off against the orange.  It was the perfect sympathy card for the family of a woodsman that recently passed. 

 

 

This next one is the same technique.  I think I will get more use out of my metal dies this way.  I do want to get some embossing paste out though and play with the drawer full of metal stencils that i have.  Be on the look out for those.

 

Really??? I made a winter card?? in the early fall??  I don’t know what this tri-fold die wouldn’t get out of my mind so i went ahead and pulled it out and laid that thought to rest.  I used pre-embossed card stock and the patterened paper i used was actually flowers but cleverly cut to look like snowflake beams.  proud of myself for using three pattern papers again. 

Thanks for stopping by again and i do enjoy all your encouraging comments.  mwhuaaaa!! 

Babies Babies

thought it would be fun to make a couple of baby cards.  i posted them on FB and boom, they were snatched up before the post finished posting.   So that was fun. 

Simply Striped

simple way to use up a bit of pattern paper.  one of the tips i learned was with striped papers you can just pick the colors out of the paper stripe and it just makes matching the coloring part easy.   I think this little guy is so cute and so lucky.  I never even bought a fishing license this year and there’s not too many days left for  fishing.  The evenings are shorter way too soon.  Simon’s Anything Goes Wednesday.

what a surprise

i just started playing with stencils and new die cuts and this beautiful piece emerged.  I want to thank my friend Princess Judy for the large chameleon die.  Ha Ha, when i opened that gift of dies from her I thought, whatever am I going to do with these large lizards.  I was a bit apprehensive back then.  I love how this came together and Mr. Lizard was the prefect finishing touch.  The bricks are the negative spaces of the new Tim Holtz corner dies.  It was just so fun to put this together without having a clue what i was doing.  The sentiment was hiding in a very old Mark’s Finest Papers set.  Perfect!  Entering into Simon’s Anything Goes Wednesday.

new names

Reinventing things…yep, old techniques come back if you have been in the stamping world as long as i have.  What used to be called “Two Step Stamping” is now called color layering.  ha ha  for some reason that just tickles my funny bone.  Here’s my card with this new technique with some very old stampin up two step stamps.  bwhhhaaa.   This looks like a good card to enter into Word Art Wednesday.  I’m glad i had the inspiration for those little sentiment banners as it finishes the card off nicely don’t you think?   I did go in and add another orange flower on the left to balance off that white space.  Simon Says Wednesday is having an Anything Goes challenge this week.  I will enter this there.

Using up Pattern Papers

For this fun card I took designer paper and scored it unevenly and then used a bit of sand paper on it to get distress lines.  This was just a fun card to put together following a layout of Shari Carrols.  I really like how it turned out.  Entering into Word Art Wednesday Anything Goes and Simon Says Anything Goes.

13 days, really???

Truly, it has been thirteen days since I spent time in the stamp room?  No wonder I was feeling out of sorts.  Summer can be so much running and visiting and picnics and what not.  The weekends are so full and it flies by way to fast.  Our pretty birds all left yesterday.  It makes me sad as the long winter looms.   The best thing about winter is i get to stamp A LOT.
So here’s a card in cool wintry colors though the theme is rather fallish.  I played along with MFT’s Color Challenge #52.   Simon Says Monday challenge is all about sewing and i put faux stitching around my panel.   Word Art Wednesday is always a great place to enter the Anything Goes Challenge #246-247 

Pattern Paper fun Stamps #692 #693

Another online card class.  I learn SO much.  This was a sweet class on using pattern papers cohesively.  YES, my name is Janeen and I am addicted to purchasing pattern papers.  The thing is, i purchase them and rarely use them.  I thought a class like this might be helpful and it was.  I KNOW my hang up is I hate to cut into a full sheet to just use a bit of it.  But that is what these papers were designed for unless of course you buy the big 12x12 for scrapbooking.  Which I have plenty of also but I gave up physical scrapbooking long ago.  Some of those big large patterns i turn into enevelopes.  I’m glad to use them up.
I do have a box of pattern paper packs though that rarely get used.  It was very fun to mix and match and cut and paste.  I may even do it again.  It was a productive stamping day.  I’m entering a couple of these into Simon’s Summer Fun challenge for Monday (what’s more fun than making cards?)  The white one I am entering into Simon’s Wednesday challenge Make for the Border.

Make for the Border

Simon Says Make for the Border…I purchased a new stencil the other day from Dream Weavers.  OMW i love how this turned out.  I ran the metal stencil with 110 pound cardstock through my Big Shot for a beautiful impression.  Leaving the stencil in place I sponged Distress inks in different colors over all the flowers.  Simple, beautiful, lovely.  It made a side border card that looks so full and luscious.  I added the framed stitched border from Simon’s pierced rectangle set.  At the end I decided to add wink of stella to three of the flowers.  I want to make more of these they were so fun and simple.

Summer Fun with Simon

One of my favorite summer activities is walking and seeing all the wild flowers.  Kristina’s post on Simon the other day inspired this card.  I followed her instructions though i didn’t have all the supplies.  I used rubber cement as masking fluid for the first stencil layer.  I used copper distress paint through the stencil for the front flowers.  I love the look as it looks like the wild flowers in the field that always seem to have a soft look to them and not real definitive especially from the path or the road as we travel along.  The blue blue skies of Wisconsin become apparent in this creation as the flowers stand out against the horizon. Thanks for stopping by.  Simon Says Monday Challenge

it’s cool

We built a fire tonight and enjoyed the dry air it created.  My friend in NC asked if it was cool enough here for a fire….well, it’s rare if it’s not.  I understand her question though as it’s hard to picture a place being 75 and no sun when you are steaming at 109.  This was a perfect way to start this post as this is the CAMPFIRE bonus card from MFT this week. 

I thought i would make this for that NC friend and let her know i hope she doesn’t melt in the extreme heat they are having.  I really envy her though.  I would rather sit in the air conditioning becasue it’s too hot for a few days then to suffer through sub zero temps for three months and sit in the house by a furnace that you have to keep nudging up because the cold just seems to get into your bones.  YEAH, i’m so ready to move to warmer climate.

Here’s my one layer scene pieced together from two different MFT sets.  Who’s that girl snowman is the big image and the little snowballs are from PI set You’re the coolest.  I masked a pile of them and then stamped the big image over the masks.  Stay Cool, you hear?

Here’s all the badges i earned this week.  It’s just like real camp.  I had so much fun. 

 

Shadow Stamping MFT

this has been so much fun to try all these new techniques and pull out mostly MFT stamps.  These are the wild flowers from LJD-MFT.

I didn’t like such a plain background and i took my MFT rain drops stencil and used versa mark ink on the stencil.  Then the shadow stamping which is really a way cool effect.  Also just a note about the MFT twine.  It is by far the best twine i have used.  It ties easily and keeps its shape.  The sentiment tag is from BluePrints and I get a lot of mileage from the Essential Sentiments MFT also.

Emboss Resist is always fun

Summer camp fun with MFT.  Earning my badges.  It’s even better than going to real camp where you get bitten by mosquitoes and half drowned by everyone in the lake.  The tecnique is Emboss Resist.  I always love the magic of this technique.  I used clear embossing powder and then heat set and painted over it with pan paints.  This idea for the color came from a card that I had seen posted on FB.  Check out this beauty.  https://cards.heathertelford.com/2016/08/02/dandee-wishes/  the pan inks cannot compare in depth of color ot the Brusho she used but i loved the color idea and i’m kind of an abstract lover so i was very pleased with how this turned out.  MFT Remarkable Resist camp day.  the images are MFT wildflowers except for the little dandelion fly a ways.  something i had in my stash.

unintentional inlaid

playing along with MFT’s last week of summer camp this was supposed to be dry embossing with a die.  Well some of the stars from the BluePrints 4 and 15 embossed but most of them cut through and i ended up with inlaid.  I am going to enter it anyway as there is some embossed.  I used the MFT thin pad but guess the sandwich was still too tight.  Water colored with pan style water colors. MFT Whip Cream pigment ink and Steel Gray are the inks used.  I painted a bit of gold stickers on the stars.

Wild 2

Wild Wednesday challenge at Simon this week.  I almost went wild trying to create this simple looking card.  ARGGGGHHHHHH!!!!  I chose some wild colors from my distress inks and muted them down for a color wash.  then added some more concentrated color on top.  Here’s where it got wild.  I wanted to do a frame but i didn’t have the right design in an open frame die.  I used THIS die from Sizzix to get my frame.

The tricky part was getting the wordws out of there.  I’m not so handy with those cutting knives but that’s what i used.  I positioned the word “are” back into the frame but moved it up a quarter of an inch.  i was going to try and use the “your” and “my” from this same die but they did not cut through all the way and it was a pain to try and cut them out.  That’s when i decided to cut the whole thing apart with the craft knife. I used the u and my from two different sentiments.  okay can you see the wild coming out yet!  I decided to use the embossed polka dots on vellum after seeing a kristina werner class and i thought the dots would give this kind of a “wild” creature look.  the sunshine die is a Simon die.  thanks for stopping by.  i think i should quit for tonight but i have so little time in the craft room these days i like to take advantage of the time.

Checking into Word Art Wednesday 242-243 also.

13 year old masculine card

When you get weary your titles suck!  LOL  that’s as far as my brain can think today.  It was a rough week and i am enjoying the creative process happening here in my craft space but it’s not easy going.  Sometimes it’s like that.  For the MFT summer camp challenge to be monochromatic, i pulled out my blueprints 4 and used one of their sketches.  i just wanted a simple card for a 13 year old great nephew. Brain unengaged and create, i love it.

wild

Wild is the theme at Simon Says Wednesday challenge this week.  I went with Wild colors.  I took my old Stampin Up inkpads and wend direct to paper with them.  OK, that is INTENSE.  How do you lighten that up?  LOL.  I took another online card class for background and this technique was shown.  I laid a stencil over the darkness and lightened it with a baby wipe by pressing into the open areas of the stencil.  I had taped the stencil down and then ran it through my big shot.  I LOVE the look.  I needed a 50th anniversary card for Sunday and i cut the Tim Holtz words out of white to help brighten this up a bit.  It was the perfect solution.  A few sequins with My Favorite Things stencil die and i think I’ll call this a wrap.

My Favorite Things Summer Camp Awesome Ombre

Word Art Wednesday #242-243

bravery

as i post this i am reminded of a quote "an expert at anything started out as a beginner" Strawberries?????

gotta post the bad with the good or people will think they can never do this.  we all start at the beginning and it doesn’t mean we don’t sometimes throw things away because we just don’t like the way they turned out.  But i try to rescue everything and so that’s what i did to these strawberries.  The first photo i showed to my hubs and asked him if they looked like strawberries?  NOPE.   Then i tried to reshape them.  not so good but still someone will appreciate this, my mom, if no one else.    she just likes to get something in the mail that’s not an advertisement.

Practice Practice Practice

that ombre watercolor technique is way harder than it looks.  it took four attempts and i finally made a back ground without demarcation lines.  it looke like the sea and i went with that.

sometimes it just works #690 & 691

 

This came together as the result of another failed attempt at watercoloring an ombre background.  This time all the colors were beautiful however i had some definite demarcation lines.  I made this yesterday and thought all day of what to make with this piece.  Since it was a full 5x4.5 piece cutting it down after adding distress inks around the edges with a mask for the sun seemed the right thing to do.  It’s been a long time since i made a card similar to this and it used to be my go to sympathy design.  For this one I used a Hero Arts stamp and an old SU stamp both of which I obtained at a rummage.  So peaceful, don’t you think? Stamped with Chocolate Chip SU ink so it’s not as stark as black silhouettes.   Entering into Simon’s Wednesday Anything Goes Challenge.