The Happiest Birthday Yet!!

Just a quick little card – I LOVE the sentiment .. It’s another from Big Birthday Wishes from Our Craft Lounge.  I LOVE that’s it clear and I love that the sentiment is long and can be curved like this!! I think it really makes the sentiment stamp more versatile AND makes the card a bit more fun! 

I just used some scraps from my Mabel paper, did some quick stitching and it was an easy layout!  The background paper is “stained” with a little bit of Wild Honey Stain and Vintage Photo Stain.  The bird and birdcage are from Tim’s Mini Bird and Cage Set, distressed with Walnut Stain ink and covered with Glossy Accents. 

Thanks for stopping by! I hope your DAY is the happiest yet!!

Bar’s Birthday Blog Hop!

Happy Birthday Beautiful Barbara Anders!!!  Today – we celebrate YOU!! 

Here are the Birthday Blog-Hoppers – so go check out their birthday cards for Barb!!! 

Tammy Hershberger

Broni Holcombe

Kristin Eberline

Laura Pryor

LeAnne Pugliese

Carole Burrage

Betty Wright

Jody Morrow

Makiko Jones

Cindy Haffner

Silke Ledlow

Julie Koerber

Jessie Rone

Frances Byrne

Lynda Benden

Vicki Garrett

Christina Fischer

Jodi Collins

Kim van der Sanden

Taylor Van Bruggen

Kirsty McIntyre

Iwona Palamountain

Wendy Bond

Jessica Diedrich

Lynn Put

Jackie Pedro

Joanne Basile

 

Card Info:  Paper used:  Mabel (of course).  Dies:  MFT – Die-Namics Fresh Cut Grass and   Open Scallop Border.  Stamp sets:  OCL – Out for a Spin (the little flag with the birthday sentiment) and Pretty Petals.  Ink:  Antique Linen Distress Ink and Walnut Stain Distress Ink.  Sparkle and Fluff:  OCL Sparkly Fluff - Real Juicy Orange. 

May we Challenge you?

The Inspiration Emporium has a new challenge for the month of May!! (Yes, I know I’m weeks late – but better late than never, right?)  So here it is…..  PACKAGING!! Create something with some sort of packaging – We want to see you upcycle your product packaging!  You can find all of the challenge information on the ‘packaging’ link!!

Can you find my repurposed packaging?    I used a Cherry Coke Zero Can! Can you find it?

It’s the bird!!  Cool, right?  I used Tim Holtz’ Caged Bird die cut – it cut the tin can beautifully!!  I added some rustic colors with my Copic Markers – they worked PERFECTLY on the tin too!!   Then I used the brick embossing folder from the Bricked and Woodgrain set – and it embossed beautifully as well!  In Oregon, I can get a 0.5 cent refund for this soda can, but a 0.5 cent embellishment?  NO WAY!   I used Adage Tickets AGAIN! I love those guys – especially perfect when I don’t have the perfect sentiment stamp!  I used the Sentiment Flat Die and stamp set from Lil’ Inker Designs to stamp and cut the ticket – gave it a fun new look!!  I had LOTS of fun with the Kaiser Craft Pearls – Pearl color and just created some free-flowing swirls.  The birdcage and paper behind it comes from the yummy Mabel paper pack as well.  I used a pre-cut Manila Craft Tag #8, as well as Wild Honey Stain and Vintage Photo Stain to create the background and distressed the edges  with Walnut Stain Distress Ink.

Now go to the Inspirational Journal and check out some fabulous upcycled samples and join in the challenge! 

A simple card … not so simple

Boy, do I struggle with clean cards!?!   No sponging, no grunging, minimal layers… oh it was a struggle! I can’t say I love it….But I can say I did it : )

Here’s the Color Throwdown Swatch:

Ahh! What great colors!!  Of course I had to keep it clean : )  I did get to burn something though - the flowers!!  That was fun and a little dangerous!!  (Thanks Broni).  The fabulous Birthday Sentiment is from Our Craft Lounge’s set – Big Birthday Wishes.  A perfect sentiment-building set!  The floral print paper is of course Mabel – I should probably be ordering more of that wonderfulness!! 

Thanks for stopping by!! 

Be sure to check out the other Throwdown Girls for some more fabulous color inspiration!!

Barbara Anders

Broni Holcombe

Carole Burrage

Cathy Rulli

Danielle Kennedy

Tammy Hershberger

Kristin Eberline

Laura Pryor

Jen Mitchell, May Guest Designer

Horsin’ around with color

Clever title, right?  Ha!!  Here it is Color Throwdown Color Challenge 140 and  I’ve managed to keep up for 6 weeks!!! 

Now, isn’t he genuinely cute?  ; )  I adore this guy!!  He reminds me of Mr. Ed from YEARS ago on Nick at Night!  You know… I guess HE could be a She.. but today I’m going with he!   You can find him over at Paper Pretties.  The set is called Horsin’ Around.   I love that the image is fairly large – so it works perfectly for the front of a card and it’s a great size to color too!  The set also comes with some great sentiments too! 

The paper is Mabel AGAIN!!  I just LOVE it!  I used my Vintage Photo Stain to speckle it up a bit and give it some good ole’ farm grunge!  Love that stuff!!  I stitched it up, tied a bow, hung a Muse Token on it and called  ‘er done! 

Don’t tell any one but I’m pretty sure I didn’t follow the Color Throwdown swatch 100%…. I’m really, really stretching the Blushing Bride… ok…. and the Baja Breeze just a wee bit too.  Shhh..

Be sure to check out the other Throwdown samples at the Color Throwdown – as always, they are pretty darn amazing! 

Color Throwdown Challenge 139 (with a prize!!)

My sweet friend Kristin designs for My Time Made Easy and she’s sponsoring The Throwdown today!!  You can also check out her products on her blog and at MTME!! She has a fabulous prize of her beautiful stamps and paper over at the Color Throwdown so check it out and see how you can win!!  Here’s my card using her digi papers!!  They were so easy to print out – I even printed them in a few different sizes for some size variety!

 

I used 5 of her papers from the Fresh Cut Expressions Collections 2 digi paper set, did some sponging and sewing, a bit of die-cutting and viola a card!!  The ticket flags are made from Adage Tickets, sponged, then cut with Lil’ Inker Designs Sentiment Flags die and tucked under the button.  The butterflies are cut with the Mini Butterflies Movers and Shapers die. 

 

Ok, here’s the colors.. go soar with them!!

A dirty little beach…

Tag for a Treasured Friend! When I first started working on this tag I had NO idea what direction it would take me.

I started out with a blank Manila Craft Tag #8 ( I LOVE THESE), a bit of Walnut Stain Distress Ink, and a little bit of Broken China ink.  I used my non-stick craft sheet, a bit of water and the walnut stain ink and applied it mostly around the edges.  I felt like it sort of resembled a shore-line and a little light bulb light up in my head… so I sponged a tiny bit of the broken china ink in a few places and thought that the little girls from Treasured Friend would work perfectly!! 

It’s a pretty good-sized tag and the girls are pretty small, so I decided to leave the girls as their own scene at the bottom, but add some fun messy layers above them.  My eyes can’t really decide where to look first, but naturally they start at the top, which I think is just the way it should be.  One would think that the embellishments and layers would draw your attention away from what I feel is really the main part of the tag (the girls), but my eyes don’t spend much time up there at all – they are immediately drawn to the girls – which is PERFECT!!

I love that the seam binding looks so ragged and worn, like’s it’s been hanging out at the beach all summer with the girls! The cute tiny rose-buds are made with the dyed seam binding to match! I went with the alphabet paper because it reminded me of schoolgirls – it just felt right!  I used the back side of an Adage Tickets to stamp the sentiment on and I slid a Charm Clip tided with a tiny shred of seam binding on the edge for a little hardware look.  The Tiny Attacher was perfect to attach the MFT – Open Scallop Border. 

Thanks for stopping by!!

A sweet Birthday girl, a sale and a fragment!

Jay and Joy of the Inspiration Emporium are saying Happy Birthday to their sweet little Mama, who they actually call “big mama”!  To celebrate, they are having a store sale – 15% off your entire purchase by using the code bigmama at check out! 

The Emporium is also still having their monthly challenge (where you can win Idollars to spend at the store!!)  You can read about it at the Inspirational Journal (blog). 

Here’s another little card using a tag fragment from Fragment Charms. 

The stamp set is called Sweet Thang from Our Craft Lounge.  It’s such a perfectly cute spring set!  The patterned paper is Mabel  (again, yes, I know, but I LOVE it) but this time I changed it up a little using some Ranger Stains!  The original color of this paper is the blue strip in the middle – bright and fresh!!  I used Vintage Photo Stain on the first largest piece – I just quickly applied the stain (watered down a bit)  with a paintbrush  - I love the aged-paper look it gave!  Then for the smallest strip on the right, I used Wild Honey Stain – it has a little bit of an orange tinge to it.  You can go pretty light depending on how much water you dilute the stain with – and it still works perfectly!! 

The birds are colored with Copic markers and some highlights and texture are added with a colorless blender.

 

The log was covered with Crackle Accents to give a bit of wood-grain texture.  It’s a little hard to see in the photo – but it’s there!  (it’s the shiny stuff!)

And here’s a close-up of the fragment!  It’s a little cutey!!

Have a GREAT Easter!!! 

Got some Cluckin’ good news?

How bout these cute clucks?  OH MY, how I LOVE these chicks!!  Seriously – they are so cute and fun and fabulous to color!! 

These cute chicks are from Paper Pretties – I used two stamp sets – the newly released Return of the Cluck and the older set Cluck Part II – they work PERFECTLY together!! 

I used LOTS of dyed seam binding – I sort of wanted it to resemble a nest with some eggs, so I left the ribbon big and fluffy and added the buttons!  For the background of the circle, I used the cute chicken-wire stamp that comes in Cluck Part II.  I used Vintage Photo Stain – I love this stuff!.  First, I quickly rubbed the stain all over the circle and let it dry.  Then I used my craft mat and created some puddles of stain just by dabbing the stain onto the mat, then I gently placed the circle into the puddle – to get the nice water-drop look, don’t spread it around, just lay it right into the puddle gently then pick it straight up.  You get a great “oil-stain” look or spilled coffee look.  I let that dry and then stamped the great chicken-wire image!  You want to make sure it is dry so you don’t get any bleeding of your image.  

I did the same spilled-oil look for the inside of the card… you can see it below – SIMPLE EASY-PEASY way to get that dirty grunge look we all love!! 

Hmm.. I think perhaps next week I’ll give a quick tutorial on how to make a coffee-cup stain on your cards : )  It’s quite easy!!    

Hope your day is great!! 

Pinwheel, Pinwheel spinning around…

Look at my pinwheel and see what I’ve found!!  Man.. that’s an old song – A Nickelodeon Classic –

And here’s a new spin on an old classic – a NEW die from Lil’Inker Designs – Pinwheels.  (I also used her Flags die too!!).  Lil’Inker Designs is also sponsoring The Color Throwdown this week so be sure to check that to read about a fantastic prize… and once again I got my act together (just barely on time) and participated!! 

The color challenge was DEFINITELY a challenge for me this week!  Apparently I’m not a navy-blue lover – I had NOTHING that I felt was TRUE navy blue.  I scrounged about my paper stash and found ONE piece of dark blue cardstock that I thought might work.. I think it’s more royal blue and it doesn’t even match the patterned paper (lol) but I went with it!  That’s the great thing about the Throwdown color challenges.. it’s all about your personal color interpretation!!    The REAL colors were “PICK ONE,” Navy and  White.. I barely pulled it off – and my “pick one” is more like “pick many”. 

 

The YUMMY Paper I used is My Mind’s Eye – Stella and Rose – Hattie (that’s my great-grandma’s name – Hattie Jane – so I immediately loved it!).   I kept the layout really simple because I wanted the pinwheel (which, by the way, makes a great flower) to stand out.   The stamp set that coordinates with the Pinwheel die is fabulous as well!  It comes with some really fun sentiments!!  The Pinwheel is really easy to put together.  Here’s a tutorial by the fantastic creator, Laura, on how to use it --- TUTORIAL---

I hope you have a great hump day!!