All blog content, including designs, text, and photographs are COPYRIGHT © Janette Olen. Everything posted here is shared for your personal inspiration and enjoyment only and may not be used for publication or for design team submissions. Thanks so much for stopping by!

Saturday, May 31, 2008

Beate's Weekend Challenge 50

Hope you are enjoying your weekend so far. I was not feeling too well last night and even had time to stamp while my dh and dd were at a movie and I fell asleep on the couch! I could have had 2.5hrs of stamping time and I wasted by sleeping LOL. I did have a little time this morning to whip up this card though.



This is another one of my double challenge cards- oh how I love that! The 2 challenges I did are Beate's Weekend Sketch and the Inkadinkado challenge from Jacksonbelle in their forum on SCS. For this card, I used my new Inkadinkado cupcake set. I stamped the cupcake image with versamark and embossed it with pink glittery embossing powder on cocoa CS. I cut out the top of the cupcake and layered it onto another cupcake image that I stamped with cocoa ink and colored with copic markers. I double matted my cupcake image and sentiment with my nestabilities. I used my SU slit? punch to make my the scalloped strip and put a rhinestone in the middle of the scallops. I think the matted layers are pretty self explanatory so I don't want to bore you with the details but if something is unclear please don't hesitate to post a comment and ask. The upper left corner seemed too bare to me so I experimented with a bunch of things in the corner. I first tried primas and they were nice but I felt it took the attention away from the image. Then I tried a photo corner- my dd said she did not like that LOL. Thirdly, I tried my oval punch with a straight edge and that was not bad but I finally decided on 2 word window punches that I pierced and finished off with a rhinestone. Hope you like my project for today.

Supplies:
stamps- Inkadinkado cupcakes
CS/paper- SU berry bliss, Close to cocoa, pretty in pink, GP white
ink- SU close to cocoa, versamark
Accessories/tools- Pink glittery ep, pink polka dot ribbon, SU slit punch, paper piercer, pink rhinestones, word window punch, nestabilities- rectangles, copic markers- RV11 RV13 E27


**Don't forget to sign up for my blog candy. Remember you can post once a day on any of my posts till the 5th. I hope to put it together and take a picture to post but we'll see.

Thanks for reading,
a

Friday, May 30, 2008

Blog Candy!!!!

Well, much to my surprise I have hit 1000 posts already and it has only been like 2 weeks. So in celebration I have some blog candy to offer. I did not take a picture but the lucky winner will receive a goodie package including some unmounted stamps, ribbon, embellishment variety, a variety of images, a handmade card by me, and a sweet treat (might be chocolate or maybe not depending on winner's location etc. cuz we don't want it to melt LOL!) I will draw the winner out of a hat (most likely my dd) because I have no idea of how those random integer things work. The winner will be picked next Friday June 6th so you have until 11:59PM on Thursday June 5th to enter. You can enter once daily by leaving me a comment on any of my posts including today's. I would love to know what your favorite stamp company is so be sure to include that in one of your posts. Good luck to you all and thanks for supporting me in my new endeavor here.

Happy Friday

American Hanna


Chances are that this won't be the last patriotic hanna card that gets posted. I really *need* more Hanna stamps so the more chances I have to win the $25 gift cert. the better. I was so thrilled today when I saw that the weekly Hanna challenge was to use paper piecing and bling on your card. Well the reason I was so happy was that I started a card for the flag challenge last night using...paper piecing! I had no idea that was going to be the challenge posted today either so bonus for me. Anyway, I stamped my hanna on my dp and carefully cut out the dress. I stamped hanna again on white and adhered my dp dress onto the white image and voila. I also added some sparkle to the dots with my spica glitter pen (not showing up in the picture). I went into my paper collection and found the star dp and the striped dp from my prints pack and just knew they would be perfect for this card. I matted the dp sections on white and then the navy card base. I finished coloring hanna with my copics and SU markers. Today I used B00 to create the shadow around hanna, I usually use 10% grey but wanted a change. The middle strip I used half red and half navy CS matted on white and tied a taffeta ribbon around it. The sentiment was stamped then sponged around on a matted circle which I attached under the main image and the middle strip. I used a star brad in the corner of the image to bring some focus to the sentiment. The bottom corner was a bit bare so in came my bling requirement for today with the 3 rhinestones.

Supplies:
stamps- patriotic hanna, things hanna would say
ink- night of navy, real red, pallette noir
CS- red, navy, white, prints pack dp from SU, Joann's dp
accessories- white taffeta ribbon from SU, rhinestones, silver star brad, spica glitter pen

Thursday, May 29, 2008

Hanna does the Faroe Islands


Good evening. I wanted to post earlier but I just did not get a chance. Today I received my hanna stamps order which I have been just waiting so impatiently to receive. I wanted to submit some cards for the flag challenge contest that Kristi is offering in the hanna stamps forum on Splitcoast. One of the stamps in the set is a pair of blank flags that you can put in Hanna's hand. Well, this was just the perfect stamp and challenge for me because for the last 9 months my family and I have hosted an exchange student from the Faroe Islands. The WHAT islands and where are they???? For all you inquiring minds out there, the Faroe Islands are a very small set of islands that are located between Iceland and Norway. They are for the most part under Danish rule. Now that I gave you your history/geography lesson for the day...on with the project. I figured that I could make this into a graduation card for her since she will be graduating in June with her class. I started by masking off the American flag that Hanna was holding with scotch tape and stamping my image. I then took my double flag stamp and stamped that image onto her hand. I figured that I could draw in one flag for the Faroe Islands on the left and draw in the American flag on the right so this would be a good representative for her. Hanna was colored in with a combination of prismacolor pencils and gamsol (for her dress), copic markers, SU markers, and a white gel pen. I then outlined her dress with a clear Spica glitter pen. The red layer I stamped the sparkler image using my essential glue pad onto the red and sprinkling on macro pearl-ex onto it for shimmer. The photo corner I made by punching out a square cutting it diagonally and snipping out the little section. I added some tiny rhinestones that I received from my secret sis- thanks Kris! I stamped my sentiment and punched out a circle and a scalloped circle. I added dots to the scallops with the white gel pen. I am quite happy with the way it turned out. It is really shimmery in person so I thought I would add some close up view pics for you to see also.



close up of the flags


Supplies:
stamps- Patriotic Hanna, Things Hanna would say, Papertrey borders-circles
CS- ballet blue, real red, GP white
ink- pallette noir
tools- SU scallop punch, CM circle punches, CM mini square punch, pearl ex, prismacolor pencils, gamsol, SU markers, copic markers, Signo white gel pen, Spica clear glitter pen
accessories- clear rhinestones, striped red grosgrain from pink hedgehog


Many blessing,

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Papertrey May blog hop


Hi everyone. Bonus post for today. It is the blog hop over in the Papertrey forum tonight. I had the date wrong so you should see me scrambling around the house so I can get this post in time.

So, on to my project now. I started out with my summer sunrise card base. I added a lemon tart layer with a 1/8" border around it. I then took my white stampers select and cut it so that there would be a 1/8" border of lemon tart around it. I drew in guide lines for myself on the back with 1/4" inch all around it. I scored along the guide lines using my scor-pal so that I had a frame around the white. I then made the diagonal grid lines by turning my paper so that it would be diagonal and scored my lines turned the paper 90 degrees and scored the diagonal lines so that I would have diamond shapes. I stamped the littlest bee from the PT honey bees set in the middle of some of the diamonds in both lemon and sunrise. I stamped the main bee image and the sentiment onto a white square made a border around that with my scor-pal and matted that on lemon. I scored the lemon strip in the middle 3 times along the edges and in the middle and then adhered my main image onto that and attached everything to my white diamond layer. I finished off the card by adding an eyelet in each corner and giving it some sparkle with my clear spica glitter pen. Hope you enjoy and I sure hope that I made this clear as I am typing so fast right now LOL.


Recipe:
stamps- PTI honey bees
CS- lemon tart, summer sunrise, white all from PT
ink- summer sunrise, lemon tart
accessories- sunrise satin ribbon, scor-pal, eyelets


Have a wonderful evening and don't forget to join in on the fun at the papertrey forum

Sketch Challenge Wednesday


Well happy hump day AKA Wednesday! This means that it is sketch day over at SCS. Today's sketch is SC178 if you want to play along too. If you do, I would love to hear from you and see what you came up with so post a link with your creation in the comment section. This is really a cool sketch but I had a hard time figuring out what stamp I wanted to use. The image needed to be a smaller one so once I figured out what I was going to use it was smooth sailing. I really like how this card came out (is it ok to say that you like your card you made? LOL). As a matter of fact I think that I am going to do this for my final swap card with one of my monthly swap groups. Ok now for the deets. I ran my white layer through my cuttlebug using my swiss dots folder. Oh how I LOVE my cuttlebug! I received this as a gift from the ladies that I swap in my monthly group- boy I am going to miss you ladies. Anyway, I double matted that after I tied my red polka dotted organdy ribbon around it. I also added a green polka dot knot to the red ribbon. I stamped my strawberry onto white by masking off the red part of the strawberry with scotch tape and inking it up with my wasabi pad (there is no wasabi marker) then removing the tape and using my red marker to color in the rest of the strawberry. I used a white gel pen to make the seeds on the strawberry "pop". I stamped my sentiment beneath that- isn't that such a perfect saying for this stamp? I double matted the main image and attached that onto my red dp layer which was cut into a 2.5" X 2.5" square. I cut my green dp and matted that onto red, secured the striped grosgrain ribbon around and added 4 red eyelets to the corners. I adhered that to my card and finished off by attached my main image. Voila! This card just makes me smile. I need to see if I have a thank you berry much sentiment because that would work well for this too.

Recipe:
stamps- SU tart and tangy, PTI year round puns
ink- SU wild wasabi, real red marker
CS/paper- SU wasabi, real red, GP white, red and wasabi dp from the hostess prints pack
accessories- red and green polka dot organdy ribbon from pink hedgehog, red striped grosgrain from pink hedgehog, SU red eyelets, crop a dile


Thanks so much for visiting and happy creating!

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Mojo color challenge

Well today I have a masculine card for you. I almost never make them and it is definitely out of my comfort zone. Although I think this one came out well. I made it for my step-father who enjoys horses. As a matter of fact, he and my mom used to own one and they frequent a ranch of a freind of theirs during the summertime. I decided to combine 2 challenges today- the Mojo Monday sketch mojo39 and the SCS color challenge which was sage, chocolate and vanilla CC168. I received the horse image from the pif thread. The layers are pretty self explanatory- all the sage layers are paper pierced. The half scallop below the horse was done by punching out a scallop from my dp and then cutting out a partial circle of the same image and layering it over the top. The circle image was stamped though not punched from dp. I added brads in the corners of the striped dp and the top right corner from my hodgepodge kit and the embellishment in the corner of the main image from from the same pewter kit. I tied some twill tape around the card to finish it off.



I decided to take a picture of the inside of the card as well for you. I simply distressed the edges of my vanilla CS by taking my ink pad directly to the paper and lightly swiping it. I stamped the same sage image from the front of the card and matted that onto a partial sage circl to add a little something to the corner of the card. I then stamped my sentiment in the center with choc chip.

Recipe:
stamps- SU Wanted, SU All Year Cheer II
CS- SU sage, vanilla, choc chip, wanted dp
ink- sage and choc chip
accessories- twill, SU pewter hodgepodge hardware
tools- paper piercer, perfect layers, SU scallop punch, CM circle punch, SU ticket corner punch


Hope you all had a nice Memorial Day. Mine was pretty good, my dad and grandma came over for dinner and we made chicken on the grill.

Till tomorrow.

Sunday, May 25, 2008

CASEing Peanutbee


This weeks Featured Stamper on SCS is the very talented Denise AKA Peanutbee. I am glad to call Denise a friend of mine. This is a much deserved recognition for her as there are so many of us who enjoy browsing through her gallery. This is the card that I chose to CASE from Denise. As per the rules of the challenge, I changed the colors/paper, the stamp, the embellishment in the corner and I turned the sketch. I only hope I did her proud.

So to make this card I started out by stamping my image and coloring it with prismacolor pencils and gamsol. I stamped the sentiment in the lower corner and matted it on pixie pink CS. I also used a pixie pink card base and cut it to 5X5. I cut my 4 dp squares to 4.25" X 4.25" and matted them on brilliant blue with 1/16" border around them. To do this I used my perfect layers tool which I almost always grab when I am making my cards. I am quite the perfectionist and I like my matting to be equal and centered. I adhered the 4 squares onto the card base and added the spiral clip with ribbon embellishment to the corner of the image and also attached that to the card base. I finished my card by adding some stickles to the balloons and the ribbon of the present.

Supplies:
stamps- high hopes party cat, PTI garden of life (sentiment)
CS/paper- pixie pink, brilliant blue, DCWV dp
ink- pixie pink
accessories/tools- prismacolor pencils, gamsol, stumps, spiral clip from TAC, striped grosgrain from pink hedgehog, stardust stickles, perfect layers tool


I also have some other projects that I have been working on for the June Papertrey GSS contest. I have 2 finished so far and will be submitting those shortly. The yard work has definitely kept us busy this weekend and has left me with a bit of sunburn- bummer. I hope that you are all enjoying your weekend.

As always, thanks for visiting my blog.

Friday, May 23, 2008

Some more Gina K challenge cards

Happy Friday everyone! I hope that you are all having a pleasant day and are looking forward to the memorial day weekend. I don't have anything special planned but it will be nice to have my husband home for a few days. The weather report here is pretty favorable also so maybe I will actually get some nice pictures taken of cards I have made. Well, providing I am able to create some that is. For today I have 2 more cards to show you that I created for the challenges in the Gina K forum.


This first card I love the color pallette of. I took my colors from the dp I used which is from cosmo cricket purchased at All that Scraps. I matted that onto celery, pink bazzill bling and attached to a blue bayou card base. Each of those layers were highlighted by faux piercing with a white gel pen on the bayou layer and choc chip on the other 2 layers. I colored my sundae image using my prismacolor markers and outlined with stardust stickles. I then sponged around the image with celery ink and faux pierced that with choc chip. I glued the image onto a giga scalloped circle punched out of bazzill bling. I paper pierced the scallops around the circle and attached to my card. I added double stitched bayou ribbon and the your're so sweet sentiment. The sentiment was cut out using the word window punch and the technique given by gina k on her blog extending the word window. I cut out 2 ovals, matted them and adhered the sentiment on top of them and add that to the card. At this point I looked at my card and the top corner just seemed so bare and "needed something" so I decided that primas would do the trick. I went into my stash found some that coordinated nicely with the paper and used shimmer brads and glue dots to attach them. Voila...card finished. Here is the sketch that I followed for my card.

Supplies:
stamps- gina k how sweet it is
CS/paper- blue bayou and celery from SU, bazzil bling, cosmo cricket dp
tools- paper piercer, giga scallop punch, mega circle punch, SU bayou dbl stitch ribbon, SU oval punches, SU word window punch, choc chip SU marker, Signo white gel pen
prismacolor markers- cream, deco yellow, deco pink, 10% cool grey, 40% cool grey, crimson red, and E47 copic marker


This second card I am not that wild about and not fond of the sketch either but it gave me a chance to win a stamp set (which I didn't by the way LOL)so I played along. I will be redoing this card and will of course share the new updated version. Some mentioned that this sketch remined them of an elongated toilet seat and I have to say I agree. I started out by cutting a bunch of ovals with my CM cutting system. I cut 3 ovals and matted them onto one another. I cut out my stork image using my mega scalloped circle punch. I colored it using my prismamarkers and added stickles of course for some sparkle. I added 3 eyelets on the celery layer and tied celery ribbon through them according to the sketch. I added 3 pink rhinestones along the bottom again according to the sketch. I intend to use the oval images for the most part but attach them to a regular card base so when I finish that I will post it. But for now here is the card for you to see in it's "before" state. Oh and here is the sketch if you want to see.



Recipe:
stamps- gina k how sweet it is, Papertrey limitless labels sentiment
CS/paper- pixie pink, celery, and dp from heidi grace
accessories- SU pixie pink eyelets, pink rhinestones from Walmart, celery grosgrain ribbon, stardust stickles
tools- CM oval cutter, crop a dile, Marvy mega scalloped circle
prismamarkers- cool grey- 40% and 10%, process red, chartreuse, yellow orange


Blessings to you,

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Gina K Designs May challenge


I wanted to participate in the gina k designs challenge over in their forum on SCS. This sketch was posted by Joanne Basile and I just love it. I decided to make a birthday card for a friend of mine that has a birthday coming up (not sure if she reads my blog or not LOL). I started out with my base of certainly celery and cut it to make a 5 X 5 card. I have never made a square card before so this is a first for me- I like it too. Then my wonderful double sided dp that I got at my LSS and double matted it. Next I punched out 3 circles using my 1/2" circle punch, centered my shimmer heart brads on them and glued them onto my dp according to the sketch. I wanted to use the heart brads to coordinate with the hearts in the dp. I double matted my striped strip (say that 10 times fast LOL) which was the other side of my dp and adhered that to the cake slice dp layer. The stamped cake slice image was stamped on GP white and colored in using my prismacolor markers. The image was tripled matted and shimmer brads were added in each corner. I had to add some more sparkle using stickles on the cake slice because my friend is a stickle addict like me. The main image was then attached to the card base. I decided I wanted add a sentiment to the card so I stamped "make a wish" on GP white and punched it using my SU word window punch. I triple matted that by punching out 3 more word windows and staggering them one on top of the other. I never did that before but I think it looks pretty cool and I did not even CASE that idea from anyone. Not to say that noone else has come up with it but I have never seen it so to me it is original LOL. Take note too- I did not use any ribbon this card and I still like it!

Here is a close up of the cake slice with the stickles


And here you can see a close up of my sentiment


Recipe:
Stamps- Gina K Designs Make a wish and how sweet it is
CS- SU celery and pixie pink, blue- bazzill bling, dp- heidi grace
ink- pixie pink
brads- shimmer hearts by making memories, round shimmer brads by paper studio square parts
tools/accessories- SU word window punch and 1/2" circle punch,stardust and diamond stickles
prismacolor markers- cream, deco yellow, chartreuse, process red, pink, light cerulean blue, true blue, 10% cool grey, copic blender


I am hoping to do the other 2 challenges so if I get them done I will post later on or tomorrow so stayed tuned.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Sketch challenge 177


Hello. Hope your day is going well for you. Today's card uses the sketch of the week on Splitcoast- SC177. I received this image from the pif forum on SCS. I outlined the flowers with the fine tip of the blue marker to make them stand out a bit and put stickles in the middle of the flowers. I also sponged around the image with mellow moss ink. I matted that onto to bashful blue and pierced around the outside. I attached that to the bliss blue layer which used a ticket corner punch on the corners of and adhered that layer to the mellow moss layer. I used one of the prints from the hostess print pack for the 2 side sections, pierced them and matted them on moss CS and put them on another design from the prints pack layer. I tied 2 bows using white organdy ribbon on the top and the bottom of the image. I also added 3 adhesive pearls in the upper and lower corners. Finally to finish up my card I attached everything to my mellow moss card base.

Recipe:
stamps- SU garden silhouettes
ink- mellow moss
CS- bashful blue, bliss blue, mellow moss
dp- SU prints pack
tools/accessories- white organdy ribbon, adhesive pearls, paper piercer, SU ticket corner punch, SU markers


Have a lovely evening,

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Hanna stamps challenge



Lately I have been playing along with many challenges- mojo Monday, SCS sketch, color etc. For this card I went into the hanna stamps forum on SCS and this challenge was posted by the very talented Kristi Ferro who is the owner of hanna stamps. Hanna stamps are one of my favorite stamp companies right now and it is a dream of mine to design for them. Who knows right? The challenge was to use your brayer on a card. This was a tough challenge for me because I was not sure exactly what to do. It was good though because it made me go out of my comfort zone. It took me 3 times to get a background paper that was good enough to use on a card LOL. First I took a piece of glossy white paper and inked up my rubber brayer with real red ink and rolled it across my paper until the ink was even on the section I wanted. Next I rolled my brayer across my orange ink pad (after cleaning it from the red) and rolled that across the paper. I did cover up the red section with another sheet of scrap paper when I did this. After letting the paper dry I stamped peppers and carrots on it with pallette noir ink and set that aside to dry. While that was drying I stamped hanna on white with pallette ink. I colored her using my prismamarkers. To get the ground I took a fine tip black marker and drew it in. I double matted her and attached it to the bg paper that I made. I tied ribbon around the card and put on a little shovel charm that I received as a gift from my friend Nancy. I stamped my sentiment and punched it out with my word window punch. There was a bare section at the top of my image and so I added 3 layered prima flowers and attached with an orange shimmer brad. Everything was then attached onto my garden green card base to finish off my card.

Supplies:
stamps- garden hanna, things hanna would say
ink- SU! real red, only orange classic pads, pallette noir
CS- SU! garden green, only orange, summer sun, PTI white, SU glossy white
ribbon- unknown grosgrain
tools- rubber brayer, word window punch, prima flowers, paper scraps orange shimmer brad, shovel charm


Have a great day!!

Monday, May 19, 2008

Featured stamper challenge

I decided to play in the FS challenge on Splitcoast for the first time. This challenge was perfect for me because the featured stamper this week is dawnsing who has a simple yet elegant style. Well this is a very different style than I am used to doing so it made me step out of my comfort zone plus I need to complete quite a few cards for some gifts and stuff in a fairly short amount of time. If you are not familiar with the FS challenge you can read more about it here.

The first card is a card that I made for my cousin who is going to be having surgery on Friday. I thought I would get this ready for her and hope it may brighten her day just a little when she receives it. The card I chose to case from dawnsing is this one. According to the rules you need to change at least 2 things and I changed the colors, sentiment, matted the dp sections and used the flower rather than the star and a rhinestone rather than the brad. I started out with a pink card base and matted 3 sections of different patterned paper on pomegranite which I attached to the card base. I stamped the sentiment in cocoa and matted that and attaced the flower to the sentiment strip with pop dots. I then added an adhesive rhinestone to the center of the flower. I finished the card by tying some ribbon at the top of the card. I am happy with the way it turned out. Simple but pretty at the same time- a new concept for me LOL.



Recipe:
Stamp- Garden of Life sentiment from papertrey
ink- close to cocoa
CS- pretty in pink and purely pomegranite from SU!
dp- SU! berry bliss
ribbon- stitched ribbon in pomegranite from SU
flower- brides confetti from Michaels
rhinestone- from Walmart


The second card was inspired by some ribbon origianls from SU that I have had for awhile and never used. I have always wanted to use this ribbon but it always seemed too much or too big so with this very simple layout it was perfect to use as the focal point. Problem is that is was very hard to tie and now I won't be mailing it because the ribbon knot is so big LOL. I will be hand delivering it now. This type of card is great if you are including it in with a package or something and not putting such a large bow through the mail. Dawnsing's card that I chose to case for this one can be found here.

For this card I changed the color scheme, sentiment, ribbon, paper and card orientation (mine has a side fold as opposed to top fold). I started out with a celery base then added a section of dp which I used a corner rounder on, a layer of bazzill bling and finished off with the awesome ribbon which I tied in a knot. I then stamped my sentiment and paper pierced a row with the sentiment.



Recipe:
CS- certainly celery from SU and rose red color from bazzill bling
dp- SU! apricot from the hostess prints pack
sentiment- SU noteworthy set
tools/accessories- paper piercer, CM corner rounder and ribbon originals from SU!


until next time...thanks for reading.

Friday, May 16, 2008

Congrats card redone

Well for those of you who know me, you probably figured that I would indeed pull the card apart and redo it. I did and I like the new and improved version better. I figured out what was bothering me about the first try- I did not like the scalloped rectangle around the image because the sketch was just not right for it. I also did not like the plain saffron paper so I stamped the sanded bg stamp on it with saffron ink. I also double matted both the bella image and the dp section,added a pixie pink matte behind the saffron and attached it to the bashful blue card base. So here is the second version which is going to be mailed- putting it in the envelope now so I can't tear it apart again LOL.



Have a nice evening.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Awesome news

I found out yesterday that one of my friends who has been struggling with infertility is pregnant. I am so happy for her! When I found out I knew that I had to make a card for her and I thought this image from stamping bella was perfect. I used the sketch of the week on Splitcoast (SC176) for my layout and combined the challenge with my need to create a card for her. I am not sure if I am completely happy with how it came out. It is not bad but I think maybe I should have stamped a background stamp or something on the yellow layer. I don't know- maybe it is too simple. I am sure that she will love it though so that is what matters. Although, I have a feeling I am going to redo it and make some improvements. If I do I will post the newer version too.



Recipe:
stamps- expectafellabella
CS- bashful blue, so saffron, bazzill bling, GP white, dp-unknown
ink- lavender lace for sentiment, bashful blue for sponging around sentiment
tools/accessories- SU! brads, prismacolor pencils, gamsol, nestabilities, grosgrain ribbon, SU oval punch


thanks for reading and have a blessed day.

PT May Guest Star Stamper Submissions

ETA: thank you all for the wonderful comments and well wishes. Unfortunately, I was not chosen this month for the GSS. I have to admit that I am kinda bummed about it too. I certainly don't expect to be chosen every month but I thought that my cards this month were pretty good and creative using the flower as a butterfly and as a dragonfly. I was hoping that Nichole would think so too- you never know maybe I will be chosen for honorable mention which I would be thrilled about.

Well since the submission period for projects is now over I think it would be ok for me to post them here on my blog. Boy that sounds strange for me to type- my blog LOL!

When I received my garden of life set from papertrey which I was blessed to win last month for my April GSS submission I immediately saw butterflies and dragonflies. Now I realize that this may sound strange to some of you as there are only flowers in this set and no butterflies but let me explain. I took the one flower image and masked off 2 of the sides with clear tape inked my stamp then removed the tape and stamped my image/s. To make the body of the butterflies I used one of the stem images from the garden of life set and inked only part of it up. For the butterfly/dragonfly head I used the smallest circle image from the set. This is the technique that I used on 3 of the cards which I shall now post and then include some additional comments along with a recipe for each.



For this first card I followed an old mojo Monday sketch from Julee Tilman. I love her sketches. I used sweet blush and berry sorbet from Papertrey as my color pallette. The 2 smaller ovals on the main image are Marvy punches and the larger oval was made using my CM cutting system. The half ovals are using the marvy punches also. I highlighted the ovals with my paper piercing tool and the dragonflies are outlined with a clear spica glitter pen which is hard to see in the photo.

Recipe:
stamps- Garden of Life from papertrey
paper and CS- papertrey sweet blush and berry sorbet
ink- PTI blush and sorbet
ribbon- PTI sorbet satin ribbon
accessories- clear adhesive rhinestones from Walmart
tools- CM cutting system, paper piercing tool, Marvy giga scalloped oval, Marvy mega oval punch, cuttlebug swiss dots embossing folder, SU! ticket corner punch, perfect layers tool for matting.




This second card is my husband's favorite- maybe because sunflowers are his favorite flower. I did the 2-step stamping technique for the main sunflower image and paper pierced the center of the flower for added texture and interest. The butterfly image in the corner was done using the technique described above but by stamping the image twice and cutting out the one butterfly and adhering it on top of the first image and curling the wings up to give it some dimension as shown in the photo below.



Recipe:
stamps- Papertrey Garden of Life
Designer paper- Father knows best collection from Papertrey
CS- PTI white, lemon tart, summer sunrise, and SU! close to cocoa
ink- lemon tart, summer sunrise, and close to cocoa
ribbon- summer sunrise satin from PTI
tools/accessories- SU scallop punch, CM corner rounder, perfect layers tool, paper piercer, brads from JoAnns?


This 3rd card I think might be my personal favorite. I pierced the bodies of the butterflies and used rhinestones for the heads. The scalloped rectangle was cut using my nestabilities- love them! There is a lot of paper piercing on this one as you can see in the picture below.



Recipe:
stamps- PT Garden of Life
dp- Father knows best collection from PTI
CS- PTI lemon tart, summer sunrise and white
ribbon- PT satin summer sunrise
tools/accessories- paper piercer, nestabilities, adhesive rhinestones


This last card I did not use the same masking technique as used on the other 3 cards. In order to make the butterflies on this card I used the direct marker to stamp technique just omitting the parts of the flower I did not want. I created the scalloped border using my SU! slit? punch. I always mix up the slit and slot punches LOL. I pierced the top border of the middle section. The butterflies were outlined/highlighted with polka dots using my regal rose marker. I actually drew in the bodies and heads of the butterflies with the fine tip of my markers.



Recipe:
stamps- PTI Garden of Life
CS- SU! Pretty in Pink and regal rose, bazzil bling rose, PTI white
ink- SU rose red (for sentiment)
markers- SU! pretty in pink and regal rose
ribbon- SU taffeta in white
tools- paper piercer, SU scallop punch, SU slit or slot punch, half back adhesive pearls


Well, I am looking forward to seeing all the other entries today. I know I will have some stiff competition some of which I think will be from my amazingly talent friend Denise (SCS peanutbee). Good luck to everyone who entered. I will hopefully have a baby card to share tomorrow with you all. Have a wonderful rest of your day and thanks for looking.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Papertrey GSS entries

Well, I have been busy the last 2 days preparing my entries for Papertrey's May Guest Star Stamper. I am finished with them now and will post pictures and descriptions of my projects here tomorrow since the contest deadline is tonight at midnight. Hope you are all having a good day (as if there are many people reading this LOL)!



Sunday, May 11, 2008

Mojo Monday sketch #36




Here are a few cards that I made for Julee's mojo Monday sketch contest. I just love this sketch- well pretty much all of her sketches really. You can see the sketch here. Going to try and post the photos so I am crossing my fingers that this works LOL.
I made 2 baby cards- a blue one and a pink one. I am partial to the pink one but that may be because I have 3 daughters. The main image was stamped on SU whisper white then layered twice with paper piercing around the outside. I used dp to make the 4 sections behind the image, paper pierced them and then matted them on solid CS and attached to my card base which was also paper pierced. I stamped the sweet one image on white CS and cut it using my CM circle cutter and matted it on the SU scalloped circle. I highlighted the image with my spica clear glitter pen. I tied taffeta ribbon under the main image and placed a safety pin embellishment through the knot and added self adhesive pearls beneath that.

Supplies: SU brocade blue, bliss blue and bashful CS (blue card)
SU regal rose and pretty in pink CS (pink card)
SU ink in pretty in pink and bliss blue
SU berry bliss dp for pink card
SU prints pack hostess set dp for blue card
SU taffeta ribbon in pink and blue
SU scallop punch
paper piercer and SU mat
unknown for the pearls and safety pin

ETA- I did not win the mojo Monday contest but I am happy for my friend Michelle (SCS sf9erfan) who was one of the winners. Check out her gallery here for other awesome mojo cards.

confused beyond belief

Well, I have decided to try blogging since so many of my creative idols have done so. The problem is that I truly have absolutely no idea what I am doing. Bear with me and hopefully I will have some things to share soon.