the world of sharing

i love the stamping world that shares so much.  I especially appreciate those who take the time to put detailed videos up.  Vicky papaioannou is one of my favorite people to watch.  Here’s a link to the video she did using one stencil five ways.  This looked like such a fun project I grabbed my Hero Arts stencil, pastes, sponges, inks and CASED her projects.  I didn’t copy them exactly but I was glad for the ideas she gave for using these beautiful stencils.  I have lots of stencils and I forget to use them.  Watch for some cards coming up using my metal stencils.  I think I still have a light box somewhere.  I made six cards with this stencil and they all look different.  I was surprised how well the Kraft fit in with this elegant design.

With Love

A sentiment like this can be pretty generic.  It can be used for Valentines day, sent to a good friend, an anniversary card, get well….you can’t go wrong with love.

Simon’s Wednesday Challenge is to be feminine and this sweet fairy fits the bill completely. Still using the same Hero Arts stencil I used only half of it and covered it with Ranger Antique Gold embossing paste.  I had no idea what I was going to do with it but this simple card just fell together.  Love it when that happens.  When I first placed the fairy on it looked okay but a bit plain.  I masked off the gold part and used Heidi Swapp gold glimmer spray ink and some black marble spray by Ranger to add drops of contrast color to the white portion.  Just the touch it needed.  Thanks for stopping by.  I mean it.  Hero Arts sentiment and MFT sentiment banner.

Inspiration

When I’ve been away from stamping for too long Inspiration challenges are just the kick I need.  It was fun to see this Inspiration Challenge up on Simon’s Monday Challenge.

I chose the colored eggs as my inspiration.  I always enjoyed coloring eggs with my kids when they were small.  They like to draw on them with a white crayon and watch the resist technique take place when they dipped them in the colored water.

I used emboss resist and distress inks with a stencil from Hero Arts.  I used Oxide inks to color the back ground and sponge the edges.  Some water flicks, some glittery spray ink flicks and an inlaid sentiment gave me this very pretty creation.  The sentiment was just begging for some wink of stella and I said Yes, that’s just what you need.  Thanks for stopping by.

SSS with layers

Participating in challenges is a great way to get mojo flowing.  Simon Says Layer it up.  I love these new Gina K Design stamps from her kit.  I had a scrap of the music vellum left and it seemed perfect for this sympathy card.  I use Kristina Werners die sold at Simon Says.  I love her beautiful font.  The rose was so simple to color by just wetting the petals with a brush and then adding a tiny bit of Picked Raspberry distress ink from a cube smooshed onto an acrylic block. Dropped in with a small brush.  Loving my Nuvo drops.

MFT Sketch fun

It’s been challenging to stamp with limited supplies. Do you want to know what my MUST HAVE supplies were?  I looked at my dies and I have several of the blue prints dies and those along with the MFT frame dies with various stitched edges have given me lots of variety. 
This card uses MFT stitched circles and also one of the newer sentiment dies which i love.  I loved this week’s MFT Sketch Challenge

Simon Says Layer It

It's Tag Day

Playing along with Simon’s Monday Challenge and my limited supplies. I found another clothing tag to transform into a card tag.  It’s kind of fun as the tags are all different shapes and sizes.  Some, I use their designs and some I need to cover.  I just measure the tag, find a scrap to resize to the tag, adhere and voila’! I have a new tag.  I had a scrap of a previously embossed card front left and I think this just turned out ever so cute. with the little stamped flowers behind the fence. I used my MFT blueprints to cut out the patterened paper panel.  (say that 3 x real fast)  LOL 

TAG- You're It

Stamping space and time has been at a premium here in our small Texas Condo.  It has been a challenge to create with limited supplies.  I went shopping and saved the cute sized tags off the clothing i bought and repurposed them into some cards here is one for Simon’s Monday Challenge this week.

 I chose a Spellbinders embossing folder that i just purchased to mimic the design on the tag.  I simply added some pops of green to make it stand out. It truly is challenging to work with just a few supplies and Clean and Simple seems to be the easiest.

MFT blueprints came with me and the button is from there.  die cut out of some packing material for dimension and glued the green die cut on top. 

Ice, Ice, Baby

Simon’s Monday Inspiration Challenge is about ICE. These Frosty snowflakes look like they are sitting on vellum but it’s actually the back side of the die covered with pigment ink before being embossed with the Big Shot.  Jennifer McQuire did a video how to right HERE.

Penguin Present

Stamping time has been few and far between.  Good thing I had my holiday cards all made this year.  I hope to do that again for next year.  This time of year just is so busy from September on for us.  Do any of you make your cards ahead.  I had 47 cards made and that covered my entire list.  WHEW!

This one I am making for next year’s batch.  It is for the MFT Sketch Challenge.

This is the first entry in forever that I didn’t have the right stamp to use from MFT.    But i love the layout and always look for ways to use my big speak bubbles that IS an MFT die.

MFT #81 Color Challenge

This must be my all time favorite set from MFT.  I never tire of creating with these little guys.  Having the dies is a huge bonus.

It’s been a while since I played in any challenges and I thought it would be fun to take a peek at what’s going on at MFT for their 81st color challenge.

I pulled out my scraps of the required colors and this is the result of those pieces.

Challenge:  Simon Says Furry Friends

a boatload of cards

it’s not necessary to feel sorry for me that i haven’t had much stamping time.  I had a fabulous trip to Trinidad and Tobago.  A welcome retreat before our winter weather started.  It has been gloomy since I returned.  THAT is the reason I like to leave.

My responsiblites with my niece who is paralyzed as a result of a drunk driver has also stepped up again as we move forward with more therapy and other methods to help her regain momentum. 

Therefore, I squeeze in stamping time and now I will upload a boatload of cards all at the same time.  Little explanation.  Just a place for me to keep all my creations in one place.  Thanks for stopping by, if you have, and your comments are always welcome if you care to leave them.

wedding bells

I missed the cutoff time.  Ah well, there’s always another week.  I wanted to play with these Harvest Mouse images.  They are my favorite MFT stamp.  This was for Sketch Challenge 353 but i got too busy today to get this finished in time to enter it. 

I used a little heart die from Sizzix to give the little guy mouse a heart to hand to his lady in place of the apple that is in the picture.  I also paper pieced a skirt for the girl mouse, otherwise she looked like a boy mouse.   I used the MFT label sentiments to make a customized sentiment for the card.

WCMD Challenge #4

This MFT Challenge is a make and mail challenge.  Get it made and get it out to the mail box.  I will address this and mail it on Monday.  Masculine card for someone i don’t regularly send to but sometimes.

This set is called By the Numbers and I have no idea why i purchased it.  This is the first I’ve used it .  The little rectangles are only 1” x 1.5”.  I’m glad it has a couple of nice sentiments with it, maybe that’s why i purchased it.  If anyone has any good ideas on how to use this set please give me input.  Maybe it was made for ATC’s. 

Simon’s WCMD gallery 

WCMD MFT #3

Use a number as a focal point.  I love this set of MFT number dies.  It’s retired.  I’m so sad I didn’t purchase the letters that go with it.  I did find some Spellbinders letter dies marked way down at Hobby Lobby and I’m glad i picked them up.  I just love a bargain, don’t you?

I stacked the dies over yellow cardstock for a bit of interest.  The basket on the mouse’s head had to go to make room for one of the pumpkins that I turned into a jack-o-lantern.  I had the little leaves and black  cat from punches that a friend gave me about ten years ago.  I keep everything, good grief!  I was glad i had them for this project.  Just a little added interest.

MFT Challenge #3   Simon Says WCMD

No Stamps

2nd challenge at MFT for WCMD is to not use stamps on your project.  I used a pre-cut butterfly that was on my desk.  The stitched tag die was the perfect background for him.  The clouds are the reverse side of the back ground paper I used.  The sentiment die is from MFT, i cut it three times. Twice in MFT blueberry cardstock and once in a golden yellow. I offset the yellow the teeniest bit when stacking to anchor the sentiment visually.   Here’s a second picture to show the butterfly wing peeking out from the vellum wing on the top.

Simon’s gallery for WCMD uploads

WCMD

Today is World Card Making Day.  Whaaaaattt??? Who knew we had a day set aside just for our craft.  When I told Gilbert, I’m sure I detected an eye roll.  LOL

MFT is hosting several challenges today to give us a kick start on having fun this day. To kick it off MFT said use Rainbow Colors ROYGBIV …I love REAL rainbows however, i despise using rainbow colors in cardmaking all on one card. Because I won’t back down from a challenge, I threw my hat in the ring.  To make it “subtle” I chose MFT’s BIG BOLD Background stamp and colored seven dots on one row.  I covered my cardstock except for a small strip and sprayed the cardstock with a light mist, then squished the stamp down onto the wet strip.  Just what I wanted.  Soft!  I flipped my cardstock to the other corner and repeated the process.  After stamping and masking one of the flowers from Floral Frenzy diagonally across the panel I wanted to be done but it looked like it needed some fill in and i had smeared a couple of the dots and to cover them up and make them seem part of the back ground I used a light color wash onto the non-water colorer paper and decidd I rather like it.  Thanks for the extension out of my comfort zone MFT.

Simon Says is giving us a gallery to post our cards for prizes.  Thanks Simon.

Walk on the dark side 3

for this 3rd entry into Simons Monday challenge i chose the dark stormy sky and the black witches hat for my interpretation of “the dark side”

Stamps by Judith and also some Paper Pumpkin from last year SU kit.

walk on the dark side 2

Simon’s challenge has me thinking and making halloween cards for our sweet little neighbor children.  Just simple one layer cards.  Use dark Ink Simon Says in their Monday Challenge.

Black is about as dark as it gets and I used a Tim Holtz featured company stamp alao. The Tim Holtz stamp is the large spider web.  The smaller circle web is something i purchased at Goodwill and have no idea the company.

Walk on the Dark Side

Simon’s Monday Challenge prompted me to find the few Halloween stamps I own.  Here’s my creation with the Tim Holtz featured company. I stamped the goblins in black and then went over it in a dark green.  I used  oxide inks for the back ground  masking the moon and fillin in the color after spritzing the sky.  The moon looked a little bare  and i found an old Mark’s Finest Papers stamp to put the scary witch in front of the moon as if the goblins are looking at her and afraid to move.   

Yellow, Red, Blue

Primary colors and make one of those colors a pale yellow and you have the MFT color Challenge #78  I used MFT’s fancy florals and tombow markers to get my color scheme.  The colors don’t have to be exact but close enough to kind of sort of match.    I wasn’t sure I liked this but after two days of looking at i do like the uniqueness of it.  Yes, I will happily mail it to someone.

Simon’s Xmas Challenge

Such a cute little guy this mousie is.  I was practicing using my Tombow markers for shading and direct to water color paper.  It’s so fun to learn.

I used the current SCS sketch from today for a simple background that lets the image have center stage.  The image is from a company called Whiff of Joy and the sentiment is Prickely Pear.

Simon Says Wednesday Christmas Challenge

Cleaned ‘er up a bit

There is something about a clean stamp room that just helps me think.  Simon’s Challenge this week is to make a Christmas Card.  With summer just arriving here in Wisconsin for us it’s hard to think about Christmas.  But wait, it’s only 83 days away!!  Yikes.  Glad I have been making cards all year along with ABC Christmas challenge.  Their challenge last month was use a Trio and also a current sketch.  I was too late with my creations to enter their challenge but I like to play along anyway.

Here is my Trio card.  Three window openings with my MFT window dies.  The little birds are Unity and the sentiments are from Prickley Pear.

NBUS schtuffs

Darnell has her annual NBUS challenge running.  Never Before Used Stuff.  Don’t we all have some?  I found this sweet little image in a box of stamps I purchase long ago at a rummage.  It’s new to me.  Also the DP pack still had that annoying fold over piece of sticky plastic on it. Why do they do that?  Don’t  they know we want to FLIP through the pack of papers???  The little pull tag was a new die to me too.  Now since this went together so well I decided to make another similar card with the dragonfly. 

RAWHR!!

It really is turning fall on us.  It makes me sad.  However this year our leaves are not turned yet, two weeks in a row we had close to 90 degree temps here in northern Wisconsin.  Whaaaaaat???  Ah well, everywhere I look I see signs of fall and the calendar says it is. 
Simon’s Monday Challenge this week is to make a Halloween card.  I decided to pull out my cute house mousies!  I also pulled out my Copics.  I believe it’s been over a year since I used them and oh how fun to blend and blend.  But then, I pulled out twenty copics, right???  How can one image take twenty different colors.  But it did.  My MFT die cut fence is 8 layers deep.  Spray adhesive is an easy way to attach so many of them to one another.  I couldn’t be without that stuff.  One can lasts a looooonnnnngggg time.  Sometimes you have to use a solvent on the tip though to keep it spraying smoothly.
Here’s the result of all that copic coloring.  I mounted the image onto a stenciled background made with Hero Arts stencil and Broken China and Peacock Feathers oxide 
 inks sponged onto black card stock. 
This qualifys for NBUS challenge as the stencil and inks are NBUS also the sentiment die. That little arrow taggie like thing and the crooked fence too has been around a LOOOONGGG time.