Monthly Archives: September 2015
Fun…………brought to me by my friendly mailman
I love September because September means Stamptember. Stamptember is when Simon Says Stamp brings out their biggest release of stamps and dies. One of my Stamptember orders came in the mail yesterday. It must have been a substitute mailman because he failed to ring the door to let me know that there was “Happy Mail” for me. My regular mailman likes to see me do the Happy Dance when there is a parcel for me.
In the order was this Tattered Poppy die from Simon Says Stamp. I thought it was well suited for a watercolour technique.
Supplies: Simon Says Stamp Tattered Poppy Die, Tim Holtz Distress Watercolour paper, Inkadinkadoo Red embossing powder, Kuretake Gansai Tambi Watercolours, Simon Says Stamp Woodland Rectangular Frame, Bazzill card stock, Simon Says Stamp white card base, Hero Arts Special Note of Thanks stamp set, Pico Embellisher in gold and black, Zig 2 Way glue pen and Scor tape.
Reverse Confetti Sketch Challenge
Sandra has been in a card making frenzy. One of the cards she made was for the Reverse Confetti Sketch Challenge. Here is her entry:
https://reverseconfetti.com/2015/09/01/sept-sketch-for-you-to-try/
Supplies: Reverse Confetti Puppy Love stamp set, Bo Bunny patterned paper, Xpress-it and Stampin Up card stock, Memento and Stampin Up ink, Copic markers
Wednesday Simon Says Stamp Challenge
This Wednesday Simon Says Stamp is featuring WPlus 9. The theme is using die cuts. Most of the time the elements get cut out and the piece of cardstock that they get cut from goes in the trash. This time though I decided to make a card that uses the negative piece of the cardstock as well as the die cut elements. In this card the flowers are raised while the stems are recessed behind a cardstock piece with the stems diecut out of it.
I am not sure if I believe in reincarnation but one thing is certain……………I better not come back as any kind of bird! I found out that my “nest” building skills are wholly inadequate. I think I went through three quarters of a spool of thread trying to make a nice casual thread nest for my sentiment to nestle upon.
The card turned out quite nice though.
Supplies: WPlus9 Pretty Peonies stamp set and dies, WPlus9 Happy Mail stamp set, Hero Arts Tide Pool card base, Hero Arts dye inks, Studio Calico Print Shop patterned paper, Lawn Fawn Stitched labels die, Dollar Store metallic thread, recollections card stock, Scotch Foam tape, Scor tape
Simon Says Pick your Favorite Technique!
The Monday Challenge at Simon Says Stamp is to use your favourite technique. I have several techniques on my Favourites list but one of the techniques that I have been using a lot lately is to use Pico Embellisher (Shimmer) to emphasize elements of a card. On my entry for the challenge, I decided to use both the Clear and the Shimmer Embellishers to turn the childrens’ raincoats into “Rain Slickers”. The Pico Embellisher is thinner than Glossy Accents so it flows out of the precision bottle much easier.
So I have to tell you that Sandra told me that it looks like these children are being mean to their stuffed bear friend by holding him by his ears! In actual fact they are very considerate children, holding the umbrella over the little bear’s head while enduring some of the raindrops themselves. I don’t want anyone to think that these children would do anything bad, when it is purely poor placement by the card creator.
I was happy that the second picture was able to capture the “glare” of the raincoats and even the shimmer in the peach coloured one if you zoom in on the picture.
Supplies: Mama Elephant Chance of Rain stamp set, Memory Box Cross Stitched Frame Border die, Studio Calico Print Shop patterned paper, Copic markers, Memento Tuxedo Black ink, Creatology Fun Foam, Recollections card base and scor tape.
http://www.simonsaysstampblog.com/mondaychallenge/
Paper Smooches says Anything Goes
Today Sandra and I are attending a Weekend Crop at a Rehabilitation camp near Bottrel, Alberta. Good thing the camp is not for the rehabilitation of Scrapbook Addicts because it would have a hideously low success rate. There are eighteen addicts here, all having a wonderful time at this little slice of nature camp,
Sandra has been working away creating many lovely cards. One of them was made for the current Paper Smooches Anything Goes Challenge. Here is her entry:
http://www.simonsaysstampblog.com/wednesdaychallenge/
Supplies: Paper Smooches Chubby Chums, Window die Memory Box, Curtain Border Sissix, Stampin Uo brick embossing folder, Recollections and X-press it card stock, Graphic 45 patterned paper, Memento Tuxedo black ink and Copic markers.
Had to throw in a couple of pictures of our great crop, put on by the fabu Brenda Scott:
Taya is 2
My granddaughter Taya turned 2 yesterday and I made this card to celebrate the occasion. Sadly, I failed to put it in the bag with her present when I raced over to her house just before her bedtime (well my bedtime too, but I don’t like to admit that).
I think it may qualify for a few challenges too, as there is no less than four stamp companies represented in this card. Making an appearance is WPlus9, Mama Elephant, Simon Says Stamp and Taylored Expressions.
WPlus9 Sketch Challenge
WPlus9 has a new challenge on their blog and I had a stamp set from WPlus9 that was begging to be let out of the “new” drawer, so it was a match made in heaven. In fact thinking about heaven got me to thinking about “pennies from heaven” which got me to thinking about squirrels and how they would prefer “acorns from heaven” and that got me to thinking about where I might have stored that giant acorn stamp I have. Which got me to thinking that I am just like the squirrels…………..don’t know where I stored my nuts, and feel the need to tear up my entire craft room looking for them. Dragging my self away from this convoluted train of thought, I put together this card from this sketch.
Supplies: WPlus 9 Happy Mail stamp set, Posh Impressions and Simon Says Stamp Giving Thanks acorn stamps, copic markers, Copic Air Brush system, homemade cloud stencil, Wink of Stella glitter pen, Hero Arts card base, unknown wood grain card-stock, and scor tape
P.S. Even though it looks like these two squirrels will be knocked unconscious in about a nano second………………..I assure you no animals were hurt in the making of this card!
Make it Monday Challenge- Camouflaged Pocket
The challenge over at Papertrey Ink was to make a pocket with an insert and a hidden attachment. I thought I could do this, but the real challenge for me was to make the tag and background mat for the pocket itself as I did not have any appropriate mat or tag dies from Papertrey Ink. In the end I fashioned my own tag and scalloped pocket using dies from the Shaker and Sprinkles kit. I did not have any dies or stamps that were cascading for the attachment either, but was able to cobble some of the Friendly Flowers stamps together by doing some masking and fussy cutting, and Voila! a cascading arrangement of flowers appeared. I wanted to connect the cascade of flowers on the tag to something on the insert, but I was out of smaller flowers and leaves. It then occured to me to connect the insert to the mat by making the last flower on the cascade look like the centre of the flower on the mat. I made the oval tag look like a tag by adding an eyelet and some curly wire.
My Favorite Things Sketch Challenge
I always took pride in being a good reader……………I shouldn’t have. Yesterday, I started in on a complicated card for a challenge on a blog site. It was very time consuming and while pieces of it worked well, other pieces didn’t. Fast forward 24 hours and I am still working on the same card. Now it finally comes together quite nicely. I take a picture of it and proceed to link it to the challenge when I realize that the challenge requires that “feathers” be part of the card. Now normally, I could be creative and add feathers somehow, BUT…………..my card is an under water scene, so try as I might, it wasn’t going to work.
I will be keeping that card under wraps until a challenge comes up that it does fit. In the meantime, after carefully reading the instructions, I made this one for the My Favorite Things Sketchy Challenge.
Another Guest Designer
I am also delighted to have my wonderful sister in law Cindy participating on my blog and entering the Pretty Cute Stamps Anything Goes Challenge. Maybe Sandra isn’t so happy ……tee hee because we are cutting down the chances of her winning……………..but she is a much better sport than me so I don’t think so.