Found My Mind, Clowning Around

I dug down deep and came up with these two cards for the SU! Clowning Around set. Colors are Lovely Lilac, Tempting Turquoise, Regal Rose, and Certainly Celery -- to match the Flowers for You designer series paper which I used on the second card.



This first card seems kinda blah to me, probably because I have never used a quarter sheet of Whisper White at one time on a card; but I really wanted to put two clowns on the same front panel. I stamped the tall clown in regal rose and then paper pieced his turquoise pants. Same idea with the second clown. I added some colored brads and doodle dots, but the card still seems rather simplistic. I used the Spot On jumbo wheel on the entire card base, front and back, so the card looks more complete when you see the whole thing. Rather than waste any more time on a card that was putting me to sleep, I moved on...






I like this second card LOTS better! The clown is markered this time to make a much more colorful character than on the first card. I don't usually mess with designer paper, but I got brave today and ran the Spot On jumbo wheel over it. The Happy Hellos greeting is layered on a scalloped circle raised with Stampin' Dimensionals. The pink brads holding the clown's suspenders add a little more dimension.






Starting today, I will be moderating comments on this blog. I've been getting spam comments as well as some unkind and inappropriate words, so I think it's time for me to take a little more control. Sorry folks! Your comments about these cards and stamping in general are more than welcome (and much appreciated), but there will be a short delay before they show up publicly.

Lost My Mind

I was so excited that I was able to snag this "Clowning Around" set from someone who was cleaning out their shelves. Now that I have it in my grubby little hands, though, I've just been sitting here looking at it and waiting for inspiration. I'm not much into making kids' cards, so I'm wracking my brain for some coordinating greetings appropriate for my grown-up friends. Stay tuned for further developments...

Last of the Diecut Blooms Cards

I finished up the project I posted about on April 21st with the following eight cards. Materials are pretty much the same, with the addition of the Tres Chic background on one of the cards.

"Healed" Card

Back on April 13th I posted a set of cards I made, and whined that I had smeared the marker-doodled border on the white panel of one of the cards. Even though the smears didn't show up very well in the photos, I was crushed. I mused about how to fix the card, and even posted a question to the Yahoo groups I'm in to get feedback. Finally I just admitted to myself that I was blocked and needed hands-on outside help.



Kate and Fonda to the rescue!! I sent the card off to my friends in North Carolina and asked them to make it all better, but without using Stickles (which is our "quick fix" for almost everything). They lovingly (I assume... but then again they could have pointed and laughed, too) doctored the card back to health using, of all things, Spider Writers to cover the smears with some wonderful doodles. Holy cow! Who'da thunk? I'm so tickled pink I can hardly stand it. And now, without further ado, I present the healed card:






The bigger purple circle doodles are where the smears were, and they just took off with their creativity from there. Is this cool or what? Thank you, ladies, for you assistance. Nice job!!

Fifteen Cards with Diecut Blooms

I felt ambitious yesterday, to the tune of 15 cards! I tend to dawdle and poke, so lately it's been taking me forever to make a card. Yesterday, though, I challenged myself to focus and not spend more than 10-15 minutes on a card. It seems to have worked out!



Part of the reason the cards came together so quickly is that I had the flowers already put together, (see post from March 19th), plus I'm learning that rub-ons are fast fast fast.



Besides the Diecut Blooms, I used the following supplies: Love and Happiness Rub-ons (in Old Olive), red grosgrain ribbon, Jersey Shore and Spring Break designer series papers, SU!'s Itty Bitty Backgrounds and Bodacious Bouquet stamp sets, the Bodacious jumbo wheel, the Word by Word background stamp, Stampin' Dimensionals, Photo Corners punch, a Rumi quote stamp from Hampton Arts, and miscellaneous brads and eyelets. Colors are Real Red, Bashful Blue, Pumpkin Pie, and Old Olive.



As ever, click on a picture if you'd like to see it full-size.

Apricot Appeal Day

Would you believe I've never worked with the Stampin' Up! color Apricot Appeal? Not until today, that is. I decided to make some monochromatic cards using the Prints Pack currently being offered as a Level 1 Hostess incentive as my way of "bonding" with the new-to-me color. It's really grown on me, too.



The only SU! stamp used (on one card) is from the Trimtastic set. Other stamps include a Fancy Cat from Inkadinkadoo, Bouquet Montage by Stampendous, my "Know that you are loved and supported on this journey" stamp by PSX, and Serendipity by Uptown Design. On one of the cards I also used the punch from the Three For You punch box kit and little half pearls from the Pretties kit. Oh, and I also used my ticket punch. That's it -- that's all there is to these.

Trimtastic!

I cracked open a new SU! set tonight: Trimtastic! I see a lot of potential with this batch of stamps.



Stamps: Trimtastic, Just Like You

Colors: Tempting Turquoise, Lovely Lilac, Regal Rose

DSP: Flowers for You

Other: Buttons!

And Now For Something Completely Different...

Stamp Credit: "Cynthia Diem" dress form by Stampabilities, "Create" by Art Impressions, background created with SU!'s Spot On jumbo wheel



Technique: Colored pencils blended with Gamsol



I doodled a border on this first one with my basic black marker and then promptly smeared it -- but it seems I'm the only person on the planet who can see the schmutz, at least in the scan.






I left the border off the next two. I have some stitching rub-ons on order which should arrive this week, so I may use those to add a bit more to these.

Design Idea from a Friend

One of my computer friends saw an idea on the DIY Network and drew it out so that I could make a card out of the template. (You can find what she saw here: http://www.marthastewart.com/portal/site/mslo/menuitem.3a0656639de62ad593598e10d373a0a0/?vgnextoid=676baa0b09516110VgnVCM1000003d370a0aRCRD&xsc=diy_network)



I waaaaay simplified it and made the following two cards using the Flowers for You DSP.



The central image on this card is stamped with the Just Like You SU! set. The center seemed a bit flat compared to the window and rest of the card, so I cut out another butterfly and glued it on top of the orginal to make it three-dimensional. I added some doodles around the edge of the center, and here's how it came out:






The second card is very similar, except for the central image I used a Hero Arts stamp "Cute Cat" which I colored with markers. Once again I stamped and colored a second cat and glued it on top of the first, bending the ears and tail out a bit to add some depth.






Thank you, Nikki, for the idea!!

Hero Arts Card Exchange for April

I pulled out my white crayon again yesterday and did a One Sheet Wonder (a.k.a. Double Time) project using the crayon resist technique with some of my Hero Arts stamps. It didn't turn out as I had envisioned it, but it's not bad.



The technique involves daubbing dye ink onto glossy cardstock which has strategically placed white crayon marks drawn into the stamped images. Here's what my page looked like right after I did the coloring:






... and here's what it looked like after I took a piece of paper towel and buffed the cardstock to remove the excess ink and make the crayon "pop":






Then I chopped up my page and made it into seven cards. This first one uses the biggest chunk of the glossy, and I dressed up the centers of some of the flowers with Stickles.






My oddball card for the day -- the only one that's pink instead of green:






Cardstock colors are Green Galore, Pixie Pink, and Basic Black.






The colors I sponged onto the glossy are YoYo Yellow, Tempting Turquoise, Almost Amethyst, Pixie Pink, and Green Galore.









I ran across a new way to use the corner rounder punch as a border, and thought I'd experiment with it on this next card:






And, of course, a card with the Rumi quote on it: