Just Us Girls #697 - Mood Board or Photo Week

 Hello all!  This week's Just Us Girls challenge is our Photo or Mood Board challenge.  Carol M. has chosen this fabulous fall mood board.  I love fall!

I loved that leaf in one of the pictures and tried to recreate it.  I sprayed a piece of card stock with three different colors of mica stains:  yellow, red and brown.  I think I have all of them but this is the first time using them.  They are so shimmery!  Once dry, I die cut the leaf from it and die cut it two more times and stacked them for dimension.  For the background, I used a leaf stencil and distress inks to get fall colors.  I wanted something on top of the leaf and chose this cute mouse in a bed of leaves from MFT.  I added the sentiment and pearls.

You can see more from the JUGs design team and our October guest on the JUGs blog.

Thanks for stopping by!

Recipe

Stamps:  Harvest Mouse and Piles of Fun (MFT)

Paper:  White

Ink:  Memento tuxedo black, Versafine onyx black, copics, marigold, clementine, candy apple, doe; Mica Stains: harvest moon, tart cranberry, fallen acorn

Accessories:  Thanksful Leaves die (C&9th), floating leaves stencil (SSS), stitched rectangle die (MFT), pearls

Just Us Girls #696 - Word Week

 Hello!  Bobby has chosen a great word for the Just Us Girls Word Week challenge this week.

MOON

What a great word, considering we just had that beautiful moon in our skies last week!

I really wanted to use my Tim Holtz moon stencil, but in my mess of a craft room I couldn't find it.  Organizing that room is on my to do list!  So while searching, I found this slimline tree stencil from ARTplorations and pulled that along with my newest purchase of this cat.  I'm not a cat person, but when I saw this cat I couldn't resist!  So it took me a minute to figure out how to get the moon in there (this is my second try!).  I first stenciled the trees using a blue ink for the background.  I didn't want to make it too dark because of the black cat, but in hindsight I think it could have been darker.  Then I die cut a circle from a piece of masking paper and, while the stencil was still in place, laid it over the stencil.  I then used yellow and orange inks to get the moon shape.  The cat was die cut and assembled and adhered to the card.  I chose this cute sentiment and embossed it with white embossing powder.  The band on the hat was sparkled up with some star dust stickles and I added some black crystals.

You can see more from the JUGs design team and our September guest on the JUGs blog.

Thanks for stopping by!

Recipe

Stamps:  Sentiment Strips: Halloween (Pretty Pink Posh)

Paper:  White, black, orange

Ink:  Versamark, marigold, clementine, slumber

Accessories:  Beyond the Trees stencil (ARTplorations), Spooky Cat die (SSS), circle die (Spellbinders), stitched rectangles (MFT), white embossing powder, star dust stickles, crystals

Just Us Girls #695 - Color Week

Hi friends!  The new Just Us Girls challenge is up and this week it's our Color Week challenge.  Lisa E. is our hostess and she has chosen AQUA and APRICOT.  I love these colors!

 

I had so many ideas running in my head, mostly pumpkins, but I instead went with a floral design.  I chose this stencil set from Pink Fresh.  I used only aqua and apricot inks.  I used a lighter hand for the lighter color then a stronger hand to get the darker colors.  I spotted another stencil on my desk, this time a script one.  I decided to stencil over the floral design with a very light gray ink for a different look.  I have to say I love it.  So for the sentiment, I used a sympathy die with a shadow companion die and used a light gray for the shadow.  I added a secondary sentiment with another gray ink.  Crystals were added for sparkle.

You can see more from the JUGs design team and our new September (how is it September already?) guest, Stephanie Lanzalotto, on the JUGs blog. 

Welcome Stephanie!  So happy to have you joining us this month!

Thanks for stopping by!

Recipe

Stamps:  Moments of Grace (SSS)

Ink:  Versafine onyx black, apricot, ocean breeze, misty coast, rocky slope

Paper:  White, apricot, gray

Accessories:  Seamless Floral Panel stencils (PF), Script stencil (Hero Arts), With Sympathy die (SSS), stitched rectangle die (MFT), sentence strips die (Gina K), crystals

Just Us Girls #694 - CAS Week

Hello friends!  The CAS Challenge over at Just Us Girls is brought to us by Sue this week.  She has chosen a BABY theme to go along with it.

I pulled out an oldie but a goody stamp set from Papertrey Ink for this challenge.  I started by masking off a section of the main panel and inked it with Kitsch Flamingo ink.  I used another oldie but goody embossing folder.  I haven't used this Swiss Dots folder in a long time.  Then I matched some pattern paper to it and stamped the elephant on it and fussy cut it (no dies with the older sets...ugh).  I also die cut the word die from the same pattern paper.  The secondary sentiment was stamped and die cut on white card stock and all three were adhered to the inked panel.  I matted the main panel on another piece of pattern paper and added crystals and shimmer spritz for that bit of sparkle.

You can see more from the JUGs design team and our August guest, Greta, on the JUGs blog.  This is Greta's last week with us and I'd like to thank her for joining us this month with her beautiful cards.

Thanks for stopping by!

Recipe

Stamps:  Bitty Baby Blessings (PTI)

Paper:  White, Plaid Patterns (MFT)

Ink:  Memento tuxedo black, Versafine onyx black, kitsch flamingo

Accessories:  Wonder Words: Baby die (PTI), Swiss Dots embossing folder, stitched rectangle die (MFT), crystals, shimmer spritz

Just Us Girls #693 - Photo or Mood Board Challenge

 Hello friends!  Bobby is the hostess over at Just Us Girls for this week's Photo or Mood Board Challenge.  I love the summery feel of this photo she chose.

I loved the starfish and the stripes in the photo, so I was contemplating a card with those aspects.  I didn't think I had a starfish, but I actually found one in my Crop & Create Cardmaking event box from this past March.  I haven't had a chance to make everything from that event yet but I've been going in there from time to time to make some of the cards.  There is so much in there!  Anyway, I found a set from Concord & 9th in the box and there was a starfish die in it!  The card made with this set also had blue stripes.  So I decided to make the card and enter it here.  Cathy Zielske was the teacher for this class and this card is her design. I did change out the sentiment.

I started by using a stencil with this Concord & 9th set to ink the stripes on two squares.  Then I used a square stencil to ink the sky backgrounds. I die cut them with a postage stamp die, also from the set.  Then I die cut the starfish, sailboat, life saver, and bridge from various card stocks and added them to the die cut postage stamps.  I used the stamps from the set to stamp them to look like actual postage stamps.  I die cut the wheat card stock with the large postage stamp die and added the smaller postage stamps and sentiment.  (I used the word "stamp" a lot here, huh?)

You can see more from the JUGs design team and our August guest on the JUGs blog.

Thanks for stopping by!

Recipe

Stamps:  Seaside Post (C&9th), Brushstroke Expressions (MFT)

Paper:  White, blueberry, rust, wheat, buttercup

Ink:  Versafine onyx black, buttercup, harbor, nectar, spiced cider, blueberry

Accessories:  Seaside Post dies and stencil set (C&9th), sequins

Just Us Girls #692 - Word Week

Hello friends!  I'm the hostess over at Just Us Girls this week and I've chosen the word

BEE.

I'm seeing bees a lot in decor and thought it would be a good word for card making.

 

So you may remember the background of flowers on my card from last week.  When I made last week's card, I made four of these floral backgrounds.  I was going to use a honeycomb stencil when I saw the remaining three backgrounds on my desk and thought it would look great with a bee on it.  So I started by stamping the bee and coloring it with copic markers.  I die cut it two more times and layered it for dimension. I die cut the word bee three times as well from black paper and stacked them. Then I went on a hunt to find a secondary word that would work and settled on awesome.  To add some interest and fun, I put the bee on a wobbler.  I love how she moves!  I added star dust stickles to her wings, flower and drink and some black clay hearts to finish off the card.  Now I'll have to see how I use the remaining two backgrounds in other cards.  Who knows?  Maybe you'll see one next week!

You can see more from the JUGs design team and our August guest on the JUGs blog.

Thanks for buzzing by!

Recipe

Stamps:  Beekini Season (Honey Bee), Monster Love (MFT)

Paper:  White, black

Ink:  Memento tuxedo black, Versafine onyx black, copic markers, sunshine, marigold, summer shower, grassy knoll, warm buff

Accessories:  Spectacular Sunflower stencils (Gina K), Bee Cool die (Honey Bee), stitched rectangle (MFT), clay hearts, star dust stickles, wobbler

Just Us Girls #691 - Color Week

 Hi friends!  Vicki has chosen a pretty color combo for this week's Just Us Girls Color Week challenge.

I recently watched a Jennifer McGuire video where she used this stencil from Gina K Designs to create this design.  I loved it so much (and of course the stencil) I had to get it but it was out of stock.  I put myself on a wait list and when it came back in stock I snatched it up!  The technique was very cool.  I started by cutting a full piece of card stock into four equal pieces and taped them back together on the back.  I put the stencil in the center of the piece and stenciled it in the challenge colors.  When I took it apart, a quarter of the design was on one corner of each panel.  I kept arranging the panels so that the center was blank and stenciled again.  I did have to mask a few petals on the final time I stenciled.  I used the mask to stencil in the leaves too.  The sentiment was die cut three times and stacked for dimension.  I added crystals for shimmer.  The main panel was popped up with craft foam and adhered on a yellow card base.

You can see more from the JUGs design team and our new guest for August, Greta Hess, on the JUGs blog.  Welcome Greta!

Thanks for stopping by!

Recipe

Paper:  White, yellow, black

Ink: Sunshine, marigold, summer shower, grassy knoll, warm buff (Pink Fresh)

Accessories:  Spectacular Sunflower stencils (Gina K), happy birthday die (Creek Bank Creations), stitched rectangle (MFT), crystals, craft foam