Five Words for Hope

Clean and simple cards are very difficult for me.  They look clean and simple but for me there's a lot of work going on in my head, not to mention the battle of holding back.  It is extremely difficult to not pick up the patterned paper and ribbons, the bling, the brads, the charms and dies and punches.  I know you can use some embellies but I want to use them all. 
When you look at a card like this it looks like it took less than ten minutes to create.  Well, the actual putting it together only took a couple minutes but the planning and editing took hours. 

The Hope You Can Cling To challenges are up and running on Splitcoast Stampers.  Anyone can play along if they are a member.  If you not, it doesn't cost anything to be a member so sign up and play.  You can be doing something positive for Breast Cancer Awareness while you're doing your favorite thing.  AND there's hundreds of prizes you could win, lots of them are really big.

This card is for the "Five Words" challenge. 

Here's the deets:
stamp - Inkadinkado "Cats"
ink - Memento "Bamboo Leaves"
paper - My Favorite Things "Kraft"
miscellaneous - Cloud Nine Design - Rain Dots Words and Shapes "I Love My Cat"

Here's the challenges:
Splitcoast Stampers - Hope You Can Cling To "Five Words"
Sentimental Sundays #123 - Anything Goes
Just Keep On Creating #4 - Anything Goes
Fab 'n Funky #141 - No Patterned Paper
Crafts and Me #104 - My Sentiments Exactly

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you'll come back again.  It's Breast Cancer Awareness month, do something to help, you can click on the pink ribbon at the top of my sidebar.

SFTW #17 - Christmas Early

Do you need a little help getting started with your Christmas and holiday cards?   Then this week's challenge at Stampin' for the Weekend is just what you need, the theme is "Early Christmas".  Making this even more enticing the sponsor this week is Simon Says with a $25 gift certificate.  

For my card I decided to go with non-traditional colors.  The ornament was done with a glittery embossing powder.  Here's a little tip, if you're going to use embossing powder turn off your ceiling fan, don't ask me how I know.  The paper on the bottom is stamped with three snowflake stamps in silver and light blue inks.  The striped layer is covered with washi tape.  Lots of bling just because...




Here's the deets:
stamp - Ornament and sentiment Just Rite "Deck the Halls"; Snowflakes by Inkadinkado
ink - Versa Mark "Watermoark", Color Box "Silver", Versamagic "Sea Breeze" and Versafine "Toffee"
paper - Stampin' Up "So Saffron" cardstock; My Mind's Eye "Be Amazing" dp
miscellaneous - Turquoise glitter embossing powder; silver cord; Recollections bling flourish and blue bling; My Favorite Things "Solid Bracket " border die; Spellbinder's "2011 Heirloom Ornaments" die, Tim Holtz "Sympathy" Tissue Tape

Here's the challenges:
Stampin' for the Weekend #17 - Early Christmas
Terrifically Thrilling Thursday - Show Us What You Got
Simon Says - Put a Stamp On It (Happy Stampember to You!)
No Matter Which #2 - Die Cuts or Punches
Cutie Pie #26 - No Flowers
Simon Says Stamp and Show - Read All About It (background paper and tissue tape feature print)
Creative Card Crew #18 - Christmas

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you'll join us at Stampin' for the Weekend with your early Christmas card,

"P" is for...

PINK!!! as in flamingo and pretty in... 
This week the Pile It On challenge is Anything with a "P".  You can fill in that blank with anything that begins with the Letter "P".   Here's a couple ideas - paper piecing, paper piercing, punches...not to mention all the images that being with "P"...pumpkin, poodle, pizza and did I mention PINK FLAMINGO.
So dig out your pink crayons (and don't forget purple begins with P) and crank out some kind of paper project for our challenge and then combine our challenge with at least one more challenge and your Piling It On.

I have a confession to make.  I made this card awhile ago but never got around to posting it and lucky for me it fit this week's challenge cause I'm deep in the middle of getting our new house into move in condition and I'm so tired I don't think I could have picked up a stamp, truly exhausted.  I will be glad when we're in and I can just sit back and enjoy living in it.

So here's the deets:
stamp - Inkadinkado and Stampin' Up sentiment
ink - versamark
paper - white and pink card stock
miscellaneous - gold embossing powder; pearls; SU corner punch; Creative Memories cutting system; Spellbinder's tag; ribbon, SU dot plate

Here's the challenges:
Pile It On #47 - Anything with a "P"...
Card Making Mama #33 - Thanks/Be Thankful
Terrifically Thrilling Thursday - Anything Goes
Card Mad Fairy #21- Texture
Fabulous Friday - Die Cuts
Jelly Park Friends - Give Thanks
Creative Card Crew - Thankful
Crafting For All Seasons #14 - Thanksgiving or Thank You or Sketch
Crafts and Me #61 - Simples
Ruby's Rainbow #16 - Something with Wings
CCEE1146 - 2 die cut or punches
Paper Craft Star #71 - Thank You
Catch the Bug - Give Thanks/Thanksgiving

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you'll come back again.  I also hope you'll join us at Pile It On and create a paper project using the Anything with a "P" theme.

Howl About a Dance

What does a woman want? That question was posed on the Splitcoast Fan Club as a challenge. I recently saw a movie or TV show where a woman answered that we don't know what we want. She may be right. I can name a lot of things I want but overall I don't know what I want and world peace seems awfully trite.

At Splitcoast you can pay a small fee and become a Fan Club Member. On Sunday you can't upload your work unless your a Fan Club member. Sadly, the Sunday upload was the main reason I joined but lately I've been thinking I should pay more attention to the gallery because that's where you find the best of the best stampers' work. If you are a frequent visitor at Splitcoast you've probably noticed the "Dirty Dozen" or "Dirty Dozen Alumni" designation on the avie's of your favorite stampers. If you haven't noticed it at all start looking.

Do you buy stamps even if you don't have a use in mind? Or do you just buy "special" stamps and use them over and over. I buy stamps that call to me. I may not know what I'm going to do with them or when I'm going to use them but I figure if it calls to me eventually I'll use it. That's the case with this stamp. I'd seen it on many cards and I always liked it. I don't remember when I purchased the Inkadinkado "Friendship" set but I've had it a long time. I've also been a Fan Club member for awhile and haven't payed much attention to the galleries or challenges. This weekend I decided to see what was going on in the latest Fan Club gallery and was pleasantly surprised by the Floral, Feminine and Flirty theme. I decided to play along with the Central Theme Challenge - What Does a Woman Want. I know I want a pretty party dress and the good times to celebrate that go along with the dress. The color challenge that went along with this is blue and white based on a Tiffany gift box. I had that in mind but I haven't received too many Tiffany boxes so I may be off on the shade of blue but I kept picturing getting a string of pearls to go along with the dress and those pearls are in a Tiffany box.

The layout is from the Midnight Madness Sketch challenge MMSC37.
If you haven't played along with them you should. They'll make you feel right at home. I tweaked it a little but that's okay. On the top crossbar I stamped the Hero Arts "Manuscript Background" in Color Box "Silver". I wanted to emboss it but I couldn't find my Versamark stamp pad so I went with the silver ink. It doesn't show up very well in the photo, it may be easier to see if you click on the photo and enlarge it but I'm not even sure that will work cause you can barely see it on the actual card but even those subtle touches make a difference in the finished piece.

What do you think about that button? Isn't it the perfect match for this paper? You wouldn't believe some of the crafting stuff I have hanging around. That button has got to be twenty-five years old if it's a day, cause it's from when I sewed clothes and I haven't done that in well, twenty-five years. LOL at myself. I've got one more and I'm hoarding it for now. The button is holding a tag made with a Martha Stewart punch. I just wrote the sentiment on it.

This dsp is from My Mind's Eye. There are two different papers. I used the two solid sides and just one of the prints, that one's called "Fresh Beauty Summer Dress" - ain't that a funny coincidence. The dress was stamped in Memento Tuxedo Black on Georgia Pacific cs, it's colored with copics and the edges are sponged with SU Soft Sky. The pearls are Joy Crafts and the ribbon is from My Favorite Things, I think it's from the summer collection.

I think I covered all the details except to thank you for visiting. I hope to see you here again.

Oh, and here's something we all want, an end to Breast Cancer so with that in mind, go click on the pink ribbon, it isn't much but it's the ripple effect.

I {Heart} Paper -Day 5

I am so thrilled because I was asked to be a Guest Designer for the I {Heart} Paper Birthday Bash. It's been going on all week. There's a challenge a day and there will be prizes awarded for each challenge. You can still enter any and all of the challenges. Pop on over there and check them out.

My buddy Megan who is on the design team invited me to be her partner for the big event week. If you haven't visited her blog Megan Lock Designs click on her name and go see what she's been up to. She's always got something worth seeing there.

I do love paper. If you're reading my blog chances are you love paper too so you need to get over to I {Heart} Paper and check out what's happening, enter some of challenges, maybe win a prize, and do some shopping. Maybe our carts will bump. Just try to save some goodies for me

As I said before the theme for the week is Birthday Bash and everyday there's a different challenge posted, there's a point system for this and at the end of the week some lucky person with the most points will win the grand prize and get to be the Guest Designer for the month of November. There will be prizes for the daily challenges too. On October 26 the winners will be announced. So get hopping you still have a chance to win.

The theme for Day 5 is Food, every party needs food. Well what's a party without cupcakes? I love them but I've noticed that many of my friends pass up cake. Wouldn't it be nice to have a cupcake for your friends who don't eat cake. How about a paper and ribbon cupcake and a special box to put it in. There's no calories, the icing won't get messed up, it'll never get stale, and it'll look pretty wherever it's placed. I know your friends will love it because I showed it to my buddies and they ooohed and aaahed all over it.

To make the cupcake I put a piece of Styrofoam into a regular cupcake paper and pinned it together. Then I took a roll of pink ribbon to make the "Icing". Simply loop it and pin it, this way the recipient will be able to use the ribbon. I started the first ribbon loop in the middle and just kept making loops and pinning it till I had the top covered.

This cupcake is for a birthday so I don't want to give it away in the Halloween paper so I decided to make a pretty holder for it using the adorable cupcake paper I got from I {Heart} Paper. To do this I cut apart one of the paper holders and removed the center to use as my template. I plopped it down on the cupcake paper, found a circle template about the same size (use your plates and glasses, sooner or later one of them is going to be about the same size) and traced around it on the pretty paper. I cut that out and taped it together. Isn't it cute? All you have to do is plop the cupcake inside it and Voila! you've got a masterpiece. The cupcake looks so much prettier in the "slipcover". And if you've got a friend who eats cake you can always put a real cupcake in the slipcover too. These are very easy to make and you can change the paper and ribbon colors for any holiday or theme.

Now that I've got this adorable paper cupcake to give away I need to have a pretty box to put it in. I found a box template on Splitcoast Stampers called a "Peek-A-Boo" box and adapted it to hold a cupcake. I made it a little larger and left the lid standing up. I stamped it with the Inkadinkado cupcake stamps and colored them in. I decorated the lid of the box with cupcakes that were made with Spellbinders Shapeabilities. I cut out three of them and colored in the stencil areas with copics and added stickles to the icing area. Lastly, I tied two ribbons around the box bottom section. It is the cutest thing. Why don't you give it a try, all the supplies you'll need to make one are available at I {Heart} Paper so get over there and do some shopping. AND shipping's always free if your order is over $40, so spoil yourself, you deserve it.

Thanks for visiting my blog, I hope you had a good time and will come back again.

I {Heart} Paper - Day 4

I've been playing along with the I {Heart} Paper Birthday Bash Challenges all week. Today is day 4, so when I got home from my day job I was glad that today's challenge was an easy and quick one for me. Day 4's challenge is to use designer papers and ribbons to create a card, box or bag for a birthday celebration. I don't want to miss any of the challenges because there are prizes that are going to be awarded for each challenge and the grand prize winner will be the Guest Designer for November. So if this sounds like something you would want to do, you should click here to learn all the details.
So for today;'s challenge I made a box. This one is pretty easy because I have a Big Shot and the die to cut out the box. I stamped the cute little Inkadinkado Birthday Cupcakes on it and colored them in with copics. Then I lined the box with some adorable strawberry paper to go along with the strawberry favor I made yesterday. Then I tied the sweet ribbon around the box and hung a little tag I punched with a Martha Stewart punch. You can make this in about 5 minutes and you can get most of the supplies from I {Heart} Papers. So what are you waiting for, you should get over there and have some fun. But before you go, I have two requests, one, leave a comment, two, click on the pink ribbon.
Thanks for visiting, your visits make my day. Your comments put a smile on my face.
Oh, and by the way, come back tomorrow, that's my day to be a Guest Designer for I {Heart} Paper and I'm really excited about that.

I {Heart} Paper Day 2

It's day two of the I {Heart} Paper Birthday Bash and that means it's the second challenge. Are you playing along? You have till the 25th to do any or all of the challenges and get them posted, that's plenty of time so get hopping.

Today's challenge is to make a card or project using a non-traditional fold to invite your guests to the party. I like this challenge because it forced me to go outside my comfort zone. So I did a little search on the Splitcoast Stampers resource page to find something. This invitation is made with the flip flop fold. The directions were very easy to follow and it didn't take long to make. To make it I used the Inkadinkado Birthday Cupcake set. It's stamped in Stampin' Up Basic Gray on white card stock that was sponged around the edge with Ranger Tattered Rose. The cupcake was colored with SU markers, and SU Bright Beads were used for the sprinkles. This was mounted on SU Certainly Celery card stock. The card base is SU Bashful Blue card stock , it's stamped with the SU Birthday background stamp in SU Bordering Blue.
When you open the invitation you see the reverse side of the center. I invited you to the Birthday Bash, I hope you stop by I {Heart} Stamps and join in the challenges.

Thanks for stopping by to see my invitation. I'd love it if you left a comment before you leave.

I {Heart} Paper - Day 1

I do love paper. I really, really do. I never tire of looking at paper. The only thing that stops me from buying every piece of paper that crosses my path is the fact that I have to save some money to pay my bills. The utilities are funny like that.

Well Kate loves paper too and her love for paper grew into an Internet store called I {Heart} Paper. This week marks its first birthday and that means time to party. All week long they'll be challenges. There are points for entering the challenges and doing simple things like signing up to receive e-mails. At the end of the week prizes will be awarded for the various challenges and whoever earned the most points for the week will be the guest designer for November. AND the most exciting thing about that is I was asked to be a guest designer for one of the days. I hope you check my posts everyday but if you stop by whenever the mood hits you then mark your calendar for Friday, October 23 cause that's my day.
This is my entry for today's challenge to make a birthday card using the store's colors - certainly celery, bashful blue, regal rose and black. The stamp, Birthday Cupcake, is from Inkadinkado (lordy, how I love that name) It's stamped with Memento Tuxedo Black and colored with copics and then I used Stickles for the sprinkles and toppings and brushed the edges of the card stock with Ranger Shabby Shutters. I cut it out with an oval nestibilitie and mounted it on black card stock that was cut out with the scalloped oval nestibilitie. The slots were punched with a SU punch. The designer paper is from the Basic Grey "Porcelain" collection which is also available from I {Heart} Paper. The border punch is Martha Stewart's Embossed Zig Zag. The card stock is Certainly Celery from Stampin' Up. added dots on the scallops with a white gel pen and faux stitching with a SU regal rose marker.
I gotta run cause I want to rack up some more points. To do that I just have to post this card of Splitcoast Stampers and/or Paper Planet. Who knows maybe I'll rack up enough points to be the nest month's Guest Designer.
Thanks for visiting, I hope you'll come back again. Please click the pink ribbon before you go.

Howl Pretty are Butterflies?

On a one to ten I'd say these butterflies are a solid ten. The designers at Inkadinkado have made a gorgeous stamp set called "Patterned Bugs". I just love the name of this company, every time I see it I grin. They make some great stamps too.

This week the howling crew at Midnight Madness came up with a wicked challenge. I think they get harder and harder every week. I'm not sure if that's a good thing but it does make me think. I've been told I'm dangerous when I think, hmmm.

So the Midnight Madness sketch had a long thin top panel. I suppose I could have stamped an image a couple times in a column but I have a couple stamps sets from Inkadinkado that have long stamps and some of them haven't seen the dark of ink yet. This is one of them. I got this set of stamps specifically to go with this paper collection, Chocolat, from S.E.I. which is one of my favorite papers of all time. It's pink and brown and has sparkles on it.

Ink - Versamark Pink Petunia (with clear embossing powder)

Punch - Martha Stewart Arch Lattice border punch

I hope you enjoyed your visit and will come back again soon.

Woof, Woof, Woof

Woof, woof, woof is dog talk for "trick or treat". This stamp reminds me of my last dog, Dexter. We adopted him when his previous owner was going to put him down because of his impending divorce. My brother and his wife had a dog grooming business. Dexter had been going there for years and one day his owner told my brother that he would have to put Dexter down because he had no place to keep the dog and his soon to be ex hated the dog. Dexter loved my brother and my brother liked him enough to ask me if I knew anyone who could take the dog. At that time I knew my daughter wanted a dog and even though we had several cats we took him. Dexter turned out to be a strange dog and a hard to love dog. We learned why the ex didn't want him. Even though he was a tough dog to own we kept him till he was old, blind and had trouble walking. Not too many people missed him, he really was a tough dog to like.

Anyway, this dog is from the Inkadinkado "Ghouls and Goblins" stamp set. He's stamped in Memento Tuxedo black on white card stock and colored with copics. His eyes are orange Taylor's Tiny Twinkles.

For the layout I used the S2G Challenge #25 sketch. That's Shirley's Two Girls. It's a fun website, if you haven't been there you should go. This week the twist on the challenge is to use any Halloween embellishment so I used the witch pin from K & Co.

The dp is from the Basic Gray Eerie collection and the card stock is from Wausau Paper Classic brights.

Thanks for visiting, if you have a minute leave a comment, they're so much fun to read.

You didn't think I'd let you go before asking you to click on the pink ribbon before you leave, did ya?

Pet Cemetery

The Haunted Design House Challenge #5 is to chose a horror movie for inspiration. My idea of a horror movie is "Titanic" while it had beautiful costumes the story made me ill. I'm not much for syrupy love stories. I don't mind a love story, it's just when they get ooey gooey I have to part company with them. I don't think that's what the challenge had in mind so I scratched my head for a couple days thinking this one out. I have this cutesy little lamb stamp and I thought I could stamp several of them and then put little black masks across the mouths for "Silence of the Lambs" but I put that idea on the back burner hoping for something better to come along. I pulled out my Inkadinkado stamps and saw the little doggie in the Frankenstein bag mask and decided to make something with it. I usually give my co-workers a little something for Halloween so I was thinking of making something to put a little candy in. I have the Sizzex Box 2 die and haven't used it yet so I thought this would be the perfect time. I used K & Co Tim Coffey's Halloween Specialty pad for the papers. It's kind of funny that I have some individual pieces of paper from last year with no markings on them that I've used for other Halloween cards and such and didn't know who to create for them and now I have the pad with those papers and a few other designs. I really like these pages they're fun spooky and are great for scrap booking and other paper projects. I made a belly band for the box and attached the image to that. I colored the doggie in with copics and punched it out with the Stampin' Up scalloped circle punch. I have to make at least six of them and don't want this to take over my life. The box went together very easily so the part that will take the longest is the coloring of the image. I think I can handle that. Now I just have to find some yummy candy to put in them, I suspect that will be the easiest part of all.

As much as I liked the box I felt like it wasn't quite hitting the mark for the challenge but I was ready to move on to another challenge. I wanted to do the Simon Says Challenge which is a recipe: 3 embellishments, 2 papers and 1 image The challenge #5 from LaLaLand is to use at least different three embellishments so I can fit that in with Simon's challenge. I love it when the challenges mesh. No all I needed was an idea. SO... I started looking for a stamp and I found one I hadn't used yet. It's the Impression Obsession "Graveyard Cat" and that's when I had the AHA! moment that this is the perfect stamp to use for the Haunted Design House Challenge. One of my favorite authors is Stephen King and I enjoyed the book "Pet Cemetery" which was the inspiration for my card for the first HDH challenge. That book was made into a movie which is now my inspiration for the challenge. So I stamped the image in Versa Mark on white card stock and embossed it with black powder, then colored it with copics. I sponged the card stock with Ranger Tea Dye and Peeled Paint and Memento Dandelion. Then I distressed the edges and matted it with a piece of lavender card stock that was also distressed. For the Simon Challenge I choose two pieces of designer paper from the K & Co pad, bones and a purple starry sky. I separated them with a piece of black card stock that I punched with Martha Stewart's Graveyard border punch. For the embellishments I tied a piece of (1) ribbon from the My Favorite Things Halloween collection around it, and hung an (2) ant charm with a Close To My Heart (3) pin from the ribbon. The stamp is fairly large so I made the card 5" x &7" and even with the card being the stamp still takes over most of the surface so it wasn't easy to get the three embellishments for Simon Says.

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you had a fine visit and as usual I have to ask you to click the pink ribbon before you leave.

Twist and Shout

Did you do the twist with Chubby Checker when he was on American Bandstand? It was all the rage, that wild dance craze of the 1960's that drove the adults to wonder what would ever become of the youth of America. The country was bound to go to hell in a hand basket if this behavior was allowed to continue. Well, now that I have a teen-age daughter I have to remind myself that every generation thinks the younger generation is doing it all wrong. It's all gonna work out in the end and if I'm lucky I'll be around to see her children drive her nuts. In the end the twist was great exercise and we turned out okay, didn't we?

Over on S2G Challenges they do it with a twist. That is they post a challenge with a twist. This week the twist is to use orange and purple with the sketch challenge S2GSC24. I like that site, it's wild to look at, it grabs your attention and gets right in your face with color. They're having fun, you know it the minute you look at it and they want you to join them.

The OCC challenge this week is to make a Fall card. You can use fall colors or incorporate Fall images like pumpkins. I love the fall colors. Crimson, gold and orange are rich and luxorious colors. I also like the textures of corduroy and wool. Visually a drive through the country in the fall is as fun as fireworks on the fourth of July.

The Stamp Simply Challenge #104 is to make a Halloween project. So that's three challenges that all work together and will all be fun for me. I hope for you too.

I live in New Jersey we're a four season state and when you live in an area where winter comes Fall is your last chance to enjoy everything that isn't winter. I hate winter, I hate snow. I hate the cold. So I am happy to celebrate our last days of warm weather and Halloween comes in the fall and I love Halloween decorations so I'll be enjoying the challenges that call for Autumn colors and themes.

So here's the deets. The paper is K & Co, Tim Coffey Halloween Specialty Pad. The sentiment is stamped in Versamark and embossed in black. The kitty is stamped in Memento Black on white card stock. I cut it out with a nestibilities and did the same for the ovals in back of it. I love to dirty up and distress cards so it was serendipitous for me to find the LaLaLand challenge #4 to distress AND Halloween cards just beg you to mess with them so I got out my Ranger Vintage Photo ink pad and a sponge and went to town and then I scraped up the edges and poked and pulled at them, fingernails work great for this, I got a sander and rubbed away at a few spots till I thought it was adequately destroyed. Then to pretty it up I added two amber Taylor's Tiny Twinkles for the cats eyes and three black hot fix crystals for gp's.

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you enjoyed your visit and remember before you leave you should go click on the pink ribbon. It's a good thing.

Happy Birdie

I once got a birthday card that had drawings of cutsie little animals on it. There were a couple frogs, a bird and two lambies with musical notes drawn on it. On the inside the sentiment was Hoppy Birdie Two Ewes. I've never been able to get that little sing song out of my head. Perhaps I have just gifted you with that little song, my apologies.
This week the Pile It On Challenge #14 is Birthday, and the little birdie song was going through my head when I thought about what image I was going to use for the card. The Pile It On gimmick is that you have to combine their challenge with at least one other challenge so I found a couple others to use for my card.
This little birdie is from the Inkadinkado (my favorite company name ever) "Birds Galore" set. I stamped it in Stampin' Up Ballet Blue onto white card stock which I promptly dirtied up by sponging Ranger tea dye and SU Basic Gray ink all over. I matted it with a piece of DCWV card stock that is as close to Soft Suede as I could find. I chose these colors for the SP Color Combo Cahllenge #14 to use Ballet Blue, Basic Gray and Soft Suede. The layout for this card is from the MOJO Monday 103 Contest. I used SU DSP Bella Bleu papers which were also sponged with the tea dye and basic gray. They were matted with grey card stock which was also used for the card base. The sentiment is from the MFT "You Take the Cake" set and is stamped in basic gray on brown card stock. A tiny strip of the brown is used in lieu of a ribbon and the bottom edge of the printed paper was punched with an EK Success Dotted Wave punch.
Thanks for stopping by today and don't forget to click the pink ribbon before you go.

Meow

This card is for the Delicious Diva Sketch challenge #2 and the Basic Grey Week 2 Color Combo Challenge to use brown, yellow and pink. I wanted to use it for the Stamp Something Challenge, Animal Challenges but I missed the deadline. Sometimes it just works out that way.

This image and sentiment is from Inkadinkado "Cats" set, stamped with Stampin' Up Pretty in Pink on white card stock. There are several cute cat images in the set. I chose these two stamps because when I do a sketch challenge I usually stay close to the design that's given; I needed an oval shape for this design and by combining the image and the sentiment I got the right shape. I used Creative Memories cutting system to make the ovals. The edges of the white card stock were sponged with Ranger "Tea Dye". The edges of the designer papers were also sponged with the tea dye ink. I used the EK success Morocco Lace border punch on yellow card stock and used it to separate two Basic Grey papers, Lilykate Twigs and Porcelain, Rosenthal. There are pink dew drops and MFT pink ribbon.

Speaking of pink ribbon, don't forget to click on the pink ribbon, it'll help someone who can't afford it to get a mammogram.

A Wildy Wicked Wingy Thingie

How's that for a name for a challenge. If you're a card maker looking for challenges there's a list of some of my favorites on the sidebar. A couple weeks ago the Haunted Design House Blog started a challenge called "Macabre Monday". That's right up my alley, it's become a regular place for me to play. If you're a fan of Halloween go check it out. I think this flying skull is the perfect choice for "A Wildy Wicked Wingy Thingie". Another favorite challenge is from Mojo Monday Sketch Blog. The layout for this card is from the MOJO Challenge #102.

I used black card stock for the base., I distressed a piece of SEI double sided paper - Eerie Alley, Nightmare Square by scrapping it with a razor and then sponging it with Memento Bamboo Leaves. The stamped images are from Inkadinkado's "Rock Star" set, the sentiment is from MFT's "Monster Squad" set. They're stamped in Memento Tuxedo Black on white card stock. The edges are sponged with Ranger Tea Dye and Memento Bamboo Leaves. The large circle and scalloped circle were made with nestibilities. I'm so glad I finally can use my Big Shot again. Being able to emboss my paper and cut shapes out is great. The side sliders were punched with Cuttlebug "Sliders" punch. I slide them onto ribbon from MFT's Halloween collection. The right top corner was punched with bats from EK Success. There are three MFT black hot fix crystals next to the left of the oval slider, they're hard to see, if you click to enlarge the picture you'll get a better look at the crystals, in real life they are easier to see and appreciate. The skull image on that slider is mounted on dimensionals.

Thanks for looking.

Howl They Gonna Take This in Poughkepskie?

I don't know howl I got the nerve to post this card, but here it is in all its glory. Yikes! My followers know that I love Halloween and by now you've probably gathered I'm a few bricks shy of a load so this card shouldn't come as that much of a surprise. When I found the Midnight Madness Challenge I was instantly hooked. Every week they post a sketch challenge and I try to participate. I've had a lot of fun making cards with their sketches and they faithfully give me positive feedback (this week I may have gone too far). There's a blog candy give away going on over there. If you look in my sidebar and click on the picture that has "stamps" written all over it you'll find yourself right at the spot to enter for a chance to win lots of cool stuff. Should I tell you not to bother because I'm going to win it all? Nah, go ahead and give it a try, you gotta be in it to win it. As I was saying, they're a great bunch over there and I think they will forgive me for this card. They might even like it. If you've been reading all my posts you know I'm on vacation with a limited amount of supplies, lots of this and that, but for me it's limited. Also since yesterday we have company so I'm just plain rude and I'm off making cards. So I have to limit my time too. There's a new challenge just starting up at the Haunted Design House blog called Macabre Monday. Since I love Halloween I'd like to do a card for that challenge too, so my dear fiends, I mean friends at Midnight Madness, you've been combined with the HDH002 challenge to make a Creepy Christmas card. I actually went to Michael's Arts and Crafts today so that I could pick up a set of Christmas stamps and a set of Halloween stamps. I can always use them both but I had neither here. I did have some snowflake bling and a bat punch - go figure...

So I used the charlie brown tree from the Recollections "Winter Wonderland" stamp set and I did exactly as the challenge said "creep out those Christmas trees". I took the bat portion of one of the stamps in the Inkadinkado (lordy, lordy, that's the best name for a company evah!) "Creepy Crawly" set and used that for a tree topper. I then colored in the balls that were hanging from the tree and gave them legs. That's creepy enough for me. In the upper corner of the image portion I stamped part of the spider web and some spiders are hanging off of it dangling on threads made of stickles, I covered a lot of the web with stickles, sort of a wintry look and put three crystal snowflakes (Memory Box Jewel Stickers) in the corner. I used the EK Success bat punch for the little bats on the cross piece. The patterned paper is from Me and My Big Ideas Color Basics Red. The card stock is DCWV neutrals. And the paper edges got sponged with Memento dandelion, Close to My Heart desert sand and some orange ink. The images were stamped with Memento black.

If the truth must be told, and it must, I kind of like making twisted Christmas stuff. Back in the early 1980's I made some bizarre Christmas ornaments. I butchered up a Barbie doll and glued the limbs to some styrofoam balls and put some red nail polish on for the finishing touch. I also put googly eyes on some of the balls. And yes I did hang them on my tree. Not too many people liked them but I thought they were a hoot and I bet if I were friends with Tim Burton he would have loved them. I bet they're still in my attic somewhere but you gotta be strong to go hunting up there.

Well I hope I haven't scared you off and that you'll come back again to see what I've created. I think it'll be a little more conventional next time, but I never know until I sit down what's going to happen.

There's a Bathroom on the Right

I am going to date myself here. Back when I was young there was a popular Creedence Clearwater song that a friend of mine thought part of the lyrics was "there's a bathroom on the right" which was pretty stupid since the name of the song was "Bad Moon Rising". That is still a great song and the wrong lyric kept running through my head as I made this card. If you're not familiar with the song you can probably get it on lyrics.com or the iTunes store. You might enjoy listening to it while you're here visiting this card.

I found a new challenge, it's a on Haunted House Design called Macabre Monday and this is the first one. I wish I knew how I find these things cause I have no idea, and almost couldn't find the site again to post this card until I remembered that I "followed' aka "stalked" it. Thankfully computers have built in ways to remember things as I lose more and more brain cells. I do love Halloween so I'm happy to have another place to play. The first challenge is "Wicked Thicket". So for this I picked out a couple of Stampin' Up stamp sets that had trees in them, "Season of Friendship" and "Home is Where the Haunt Is". I also wanted to use these jail birds from the Inkadinkdo (I love that name) stamp set "Ghouls and Goblins". I figured they'd be okay in the thicket, I actually think they improve the card. The rest of the card fell in place as I went through some of the other challenges I like to participate in. CCEE Stampers Challenge is "the moon up above" to use the moon in your card, well that fit my idea perfectly, I think a Halloween card is better suited to night time and one of the stamp sets has a moon in it. The last challenge I found is the S2G Challenges, they do it with a twist. I love their blog design. The colors scream off the page. This week is a sketch challenge and the twist is to use four brads, so I used four purple rhinestone brads in the corners. The bling is a nice finishing touch.

To make this card I stamped the trees in Close to My Heart Olive and Memento Rich Cocoa on gray card stock. The moon is stamped in SU Pumpkin Pie. Then I sponged all over the edges with those colors plus SU Basic Gray, and in the center with SU Perfect Plum. The birds were stamped on white card stock and were sponged all over with gray and browns. The eyes are pumpkin pie. I cut them out and adhered them to the trees, I also cut out some of the small trees and adhered them to the image. Then I went to town distressing all the edges of all the papers. It was lots of fun making this card.

The papers are S.E.I "Eerie Alley" and Stampin' Up "Ghostly Greetings" on a purple card stock base.

Thanks for taking a look, if you have time leave a comment, and before you leave would you take a minute to click the pink ribbon. It's free, it only takes a couple seconds and you'll be doing a good deed.

Howl You Gonna Act?

Yippee, it's Tuesday, I can howl with the Midnight Madness crew. The full moon will be here tomorrow so I can howl again tomorrow. That leaves about twenty-five other days this month that there's no accounting for my bad behavior. Oh well...
So for sketch challenge MMSC13 I used the Inkadinkado (I wish I had come up with that name, it is my absolute favorite brand name ever, stick around this blog long enough you'll expect to read something like that every time I use this brand) Rock Star stamp set. I stamped the image in Versamark on beige card stock and embossed it with black powder. I ripped the paper, made a black mat and ripped that one up too, then made a gray mat that I ripped up. I used some note shaped eyelets for embellishments. Little side story on the bellies. Last year for my b-day, buddy Eileen (aka Hazel) gave me a bag of eyelets. There were probably over a thousand eyelets in a bag, all mixed up. I spent hours separating them, way too many hours, I was like a lunatic, I stayed up till 4 in the morning separating them. I've had them for a year and I'm finally using some of them. Woohoo, I knew I'd get to them sooner or later, now I've only got about 993 to go, but I digress.
The background paper is from creative imaginations. If I had it to do over again, and actually I do, I would rip the square too but I punched them out with Stampin' Up punches. I wasn't too sure I'd have enough control of the rips to get the skull portions for the squares and that I'd get them sized to fit on the card.
This is a fun stamp set to make a card for a teenager, I'm gonna try it out on mine.

It's an Other Winged Something

This week's Stamp Something challenge is to create a project featuring bugs, butterflies or other winged somethings. Well If I were back in the garden state I might have chosen a butterfly or a dragonfly but here in the sunshine state my stamps are limited. The choices are birds or a skull with wings. I'm not feeling too rock star today so I went with the mellower choice of a bird. I will rock on another occasion. I combined this challenge with the Sketch Saturday challenge.
Since I knew the stamp set I was going to use my next step was to find the paper. The Basic Gray Granola pad seemed a nice match for the bird. So I started off by stamping this bird from the Inkadinkado (I love that name, I cannot say it too many times, be prepared to read it any time I use one of their stamps) Birds Galore set. It's stamped in Stampin' Up Bordering Blue on white card stock, the edges of the paper have been brushed with Close to My Heart Desert Sand. I drew around the flowers on the bird with a Gelly Roll Stardust clear pen. This hasn't been showing well in my photos. It adds a very subtle sparkle to the image. The image is double matted on solid papers from the Granola pad and is mounted on dimensionals.
When I cut the first piece of background paper I noticed the edges were a little rough, but I liked it on this paper and decided to rough up all the edges. Some days the distress look works for me, other days I gotta have clean crisp edges. The lined paper side bar is distressed and matted with a tan solid and has a piece of Close to My Heart ribbon down the center. The solid papers in the Granola pad have a spray of black on them so they I didn't edge them with ink.
The oval was made with a Stampin' Up punch. I wrote the sentiment with a gray marker, edged the oval with the bordering blue ink and then popped it up on dimensionals.
The last element in the sketch is flowers down the sidebar. Now I actually have flowers that would work with this paper, I sprinkled some of them around the card in the picture but I just didn't like the way they looked when I put them on the card. I kept looking at the paper pack, there is a page with flowers on them and I thought about cutting them out and using them but they were too big. I don't know how I got the idea to use the mosaic squares instead of flowers but I did, and I'm glad of it. I think they work really well on this card. Again I distressed the edges, I cut in the sides for a petal effect, popped Close to My Heart brads ( not really brads but I'm not sure what to call them, they have 5 prongs on the back, if you know what they are called leave me a comment with the name) in the center, smooshed (extremely technical procedure) them around a little more and then popped them up on dimensionals too. I thought I'd get this card whipped out in no time but it took a few hours, there were some interruptions along the way, but I spent most of my day working on it, thanks goodness I'm easily amused.

Puppy Love

The Pink Elephant Challenge #24 is to use animals as your theme. I love house pets. I grew up in a house full of dogs and as an adult I came seriously close to being the crazy cat lady who lives up the block when I had 7 cats and a dog. Poor Dougie, that dog was always getting wapped by a cat, they'd jump over him and tease him. Dougie was adopted and didn't last too long at our house. He didn't like the cats, the cats didn't like him, most importantly hubbie didn't like him. Hubbie found a home for him with someone who had a dog that looked like his twin and as far as we know they lived happily ever after.

Over the years the kitties have passed on and now we have 2 kitties. Memphis who is at least 18 years old and Shamus who is 3.

My darling daughter would love to have every animal that made it off the ark. One time she came home from a carnival with a beta fish. It was very pretty but when you have several cats and back then we must have had 4 cats, you usually don't keep fish. So we found a secluded spot for him. Guess who feed him and cleaned his tank. hmmmm.... still thinking..... well being his keeper over the years I actually grew fond of him. He shocked me by living three and a half years. When Liddy asked if that was a long time I told her that in my experince with fishies anything over a month was gravy. Last week she came home with a hermit crab. (shiver, yuk) I've got to keep her away from carnivals.

Back to the card. I found a cute set of clear stamps from Inkadinkado (I just love that name) called "Dogs" on sale at the local Michael's. All I needed was an excuse to ink them up, they are just adorable. One of them has an argyle pattern on his body, another polka dots. One of these has squares and the other swirls. I stamped them in Memento rich cocoa on white card stock then brushed Stampin' Up bordering blue around the edges. I used a Stardust clear gelly roll pen over the squares and swirls on the dogs. It's basically writing with clear glitter and it looks great in real life but doesn't show up very well in the picture. If you click on the picture to enlarge it you can see the glitter a little better. I chose a background paper by 3 Bugs in a Rug called Jovial Cheery-O. I didn't have any matching paper so I made my own by stamping the bone stamp in the set with the Memento rich cocoa ink onto beige card stock. I cut my background pieces, tied a blue ribbon around the bone paper and hung a little tag on it. I wrote "puppy love" on it with a brown marker and then drew a heart on it with a pink Souffle marker. I hung the tag off the bow with Stampin' Up Twine. I mounted the dogs on dimensionals and then finished off the card by doing the inside, that's the challenge over at MFT this week so I'm carrying it on with this card too. I used the beige cardstock and stamped the bones on the bottom edge with the rich cocoa.