After another super busy week, I'm back again for my Saturday Our Creative Corner post.  Lori Rider is our hostess again this week and this week she has a color challenge for us - but it's a color challenge with a twist - you have to use three punches and one of them has to be a border punch!

I kind of panicked when I saw the colors, but then I realized I had the Springtime Vintage paper pack from SU with those colors in it - whew!  I really love Soft Suede so I featured it quite prominently.  The doily lace is the white border lace doily that I sell in my Etsy shop.  I sprayed it with the homemade glimmer mist I use a lot (vintage photo reinker, water and Heirloom Gold Perfect Pearls).  I really love the way it looks with its new vintage paper look!  I did sponge the edges a bit with Vintage Photo ink too.

The three punches I used are all SU punches - two for the soft suede panel - the border punch and the corner punch.  The third punch is a large 5-petel flower that I punched newsprint with and placed it underneath my crinoline flower.  The rich razzleberry can be found in the two outer rosebuds and the regal rose is in the paper and the middle rosebud.  I colored white rosebuds with the reinkers, mixed with a few drops of water to mute the intensity.  That fabulous sentiment came from my favorite sentiment maker, Anne Vento.  Anne hosts the Sentimental Sundays Challenge Blog and you can pick up free digital sentiments every Sunday.  I sprayed the sentiment panel with a bit of my glimmer mist too.

You can find these items in my Etsy shop:
Venise lace rosebud appliques
White Paper Lace Doily
Shabby Crinoline Flowers
Crinoline to make your own shabby flowers - tutorial here

I hope you will stop by the Our Creative Corner challenge blog and see the beautiful creations by the other designers, and maybe play along with us this week too!

Thanks so much for stopping by - hope you have a great weekend@!

From the Heart

I was browsing challenges this morning and was really struck by the colors of the CR84FN challenge - red, turquoise and white.  That color palette is totally out of my comfort zone but I was attracted to it for some reason and wanted to give it a go.  So I searched for a sketch to get me started.  I was going to try the Mojo Monday sketch but couldn't get it laid out with these elements in a pleasing way so I looked again and came up with the Waltzing Mouse sketch.  I love their work over there, but never seem to be able to fit their challenge in.  So I was really delighted to be able to combine both challenges.

For some reason when I use a lot of white, I can't bring myself to stitch on it or distress it.  So here you have a card that is about as CAS as I can manage!  I like the clean lines here, but really had to sit on my hands to keep from adding things...a little more lace here, more embellies there, you know how it goes.  But I restrained myself but still have doubts - it feels a little unfinished.

Not too many details to share today.  The white card stock is from Flourishes and the red is Real Red from SU.  I used the Cuttlebug Floral Fantasy embossing folder and the DP is from Raspberry Road.  The lace is from my new Etsy shop and I dyed it with the SU Tempting Turquoise reinker watered down considerably.  Also I made a Tim Holtz style rosette out of the paper lace from my Etsy shop.  Unfortunately I don't own the rosette die so I had to score and fold it by hand.  I really like the way it looks with the doily.  I used two Spellbinders dies to cut the hearts and the sweet red rosebuds are also from my Etsy shop.  The pretty sentiment is from Verve.

And just a note about my Etsy shop.  When I ordered my first supply of the Venise lace appliques, I only ordered small quantities because I wasn't sure how the quality would be.  I'm happy to say that I was totally thrilled with everything and a lot of the appliques are sold out already.  I have reordered and am expecting my new stock in about a week.  But I still have a number of pretties in the shop.

Thanks so much for stopping by today.



Challenges Entered:
CR84FN Color Challenge:  Red, White, Aqua
Waltzing Mouse Sketch Challenge - Sketch
Crafty Cardmakers - A Royal Wedding (use the colors red, white and blue or something inspired by the royal wedding
Crafty Creations - White Space

An Easel Card Challenge

Welcome back to my weekly Saturday morning post for Our Creative Corner.  This week our hostess, Vicki Burdick, is challenging us to make easel cards.  I know for the past year everyone has been wild for easel cards, but for some reason, they are not a favorite of mine.  I think it has to do with the fact that I can NEVER get a decent picture of one.  To get the entire card in the photo, you have to move back a bit farther than normal and with my little point and shoot camera, I seem to lose details.  But ever a challenge trooper, I plunged in and here is the result.  I actually like the card, but dislike the photos.  I'll give you a few close ups to help you see the details.

Where to start...that was the problem, I didn't have a clue as to what I could make when I sat down to get started.  Usually I have some nugget of an idea when the time comes to start, but not this time - no idea of colors, images, stamps, themes - nothin'...well, maybe not quite nothin' - I did have that bit of lace running across the bottom.  So with my lace in hand, I started scrolling through my vintage image digital files and came up with this sweet image of two little girls whom I envision are sisters sharing secrets.  I drew my colors from the image - a sweet blush pink and aqua/teal highlights with a bit of vintage brown tones thrown in.  That revved up my mojo and I was off and running.

The CS colors are kraft and Blush Blossom and the DP is from the same SU pack I used yesterday - retired and don't know the name.  I threw in a couple of strips of my vintage songbook, some SU glass glitter on the Spellbinders frame and then I hand dyed the applique posies and fan.  Hand dyed also are a small scrap of shabby seam binding and a crinoline/tulle flower.

What do you think?  Too much teal or a nice accent? I'm on the fence.  I like the teal, but am thinking maybe I have bit too much of that color - it really does jazz it up though, don't you think?  Whatever, I did have a sweet time dying all those fibers.  If you are looking for any of these dy-able products, hop over to my Etsy shop and...shop.

I hope you will make an easel card and join in the fun with us this week at Our Creative Corner. Be sure to stop by the blog and see the easel cards created by the rest of the design team.

Thanks so much for stopping by today and for any comment you care to leave.  

Post Update:  A reader kindly critiqued my card and suggested that I replace the deal seam binding on the tag with a neutral.  I thought it was a great suggestion so here is the modified card.  Now what do you think?  Thanks Sue, I appreciate your input!

Tutorials
Hand Dying Shabby Seam Binding
More Crinoline Flowers
Easy Apple Blossoms

Challenges Entered:
Gingersnap Creations: GC99 Random Redhead Challenge - Fans

Love at First Sight

Yes, it was love at first sight when I was blog surfing a few weeks ago and saw these sweet Venise lace appliques.  I knew then that I had to have some for myself and tracked down a wholesaler to buy from.  Now I'm in lace heaven!  I'm surrounded by beautiful Venise lace - both sweet little appliques and lace trim.  And I've opened an Etsy shop to sell my Funkie Findings - things that I love and want to make available to my blog friends so they can use them in their crafting too.

There are still a number of Easter challenges running this week and I couldn't resist one more vintage piece for Easter.  This image is from a LunaGirl vintage holiday set CD and I matched it up with some Raspberry Road digital DP plus some ancient Creative Memories gingham paper.  The Hello and My Friend stamps are from the Sweet Kids set from Crafty Secrets.  I took a white lace heart and tea stained it.  When dry, using an empty aqua painter and a bit of Lavender Lace reinker mixed with a drop or two of water, I hand painted the lace heart and the tiny tri-bud appliques (the buds were white to start with).  I then added a bit more water and reinker to the puddle on my craft sheet and dyed the seam binding to match.  You know I'm hooked on custom dying everything to match, right?  

Here you have it - easy peasy!  And if you don't have reinkers, just pick a stamp pad, tip it over and mash it down on your craft sheet.  Mist or otherwise add water and mix up a dye puddle to use to dye your embellishments.  Let me know if you have any questions.  

Thanks so much for stopping by today and for whatever comments you care to leave.  I love knowing who is visiting me!

Challenges Entered:
Paper Sundaes - Texture
Sentimental Sundays - Easter/Spring
The Shabby Tea Room - Egg-cellent
Creative Beli - Eggs/Bunnies & Old and Forgotten (Creative Memories paper)
Pixie Cottage - Sketch and/or Happy Birthday
Truly Scrumptious - Vintage
C.R.A.F.T. Challenge - Easter
Stampin' for the Weekend- Easter
Craft Your Days Away - Easter
Secret Crafter - Stitching

A Vintage Easter Project

Welcome back to my post for Our Creative Corner.  We're kicking the weekend off with an Easter project.  I've been looking forward to this challenge.  I knew I wanted to do something vintage and thought it would be an opportunity for one last springtime blast of crinoline flowers.  Then this week I received some Melissa Frances vintage crepe paper and thought it would be so perfect to work into an Easter project.  I decided to make a tussie mussie, using some of the vintage songbook paper I picked up recently.  I have to tell you, this was a blast to make.  It was a little tricky and I had to improvise as I went along.  I knew what outcome I as looking for so I just kept at it changing this and that and the final result was pretty much as I pictured it. 

I started by rolling a page of the songbook and spritzed it with my homemade glimmer mist (Heirloom Gold Perfect Pearls, a couple of drops of Vintage Photo Reinker and water in a mini mister).  I printed a few vintage Easter images in a fairly small size, cut them out, ink distressed them and glued them down.  About a 1 inch strip of the crepe paper was cut and sewed with a basting stitch down the middle and then gathered.  Then I folded the crepe paper strip in half along the line of basting and affixed it to top inside rim.  You can't see it too well, but I love the double ruffle it made.  The vintage crepe paper is very stiff and nice to work it.  It has almost a crisp feel to it.  

Next I created 12 crinoline flowers, 3 of each type/color.  (If you are new to my blog, I have two tutorials on making flowers from crinoline - here and here.)  Most of them have a brad for the center so I took a wire and wrapped it around the base of the brad on the underside of the flower.  I wrapped the other end of the wire around a toothpick to create a floral pick effect.  Once all 12 flowers were finished I arranged them together in bunch and then wired all the stems together for stability.  The inside of the cone is filled with shredded paper so I pushed the pick ends of the flowers down into it and arranged it to  sit up the way I wanted it.  

The handle is a 1/4 inch satin ribbon.  I repeated the same steps with the crepe paper again and glued the ribbon to the underside along the basting line.  I cut a few strips of pastel card stock and ran them through my crimper, then wound them into a spirals so they would curl nicely.  I added a little Venise lace and some darling Venise lace tri-florals.  Watch for these and more yummy Venise lace for sale on my Funkie's Junk blog.  I just received a shipment and will be getting pictures and prices uploaded over the weekend.  

I think that's all the details but if you have any questions, leave them in the comments or email me privately.  Thanks for stopping by today and for your lovely comments.  Be sure to stop by Our Creative Corner to see the Easter projects that the rest of the team have made.  

Challenges Entered:

Die Cut Dreams - It's Eastertime
Oh La La - Happy Easter
The Pink Elephant - Easter
Flourishes - Show Us Your Best Floral Creations
Papertake Weekly - Truly Dimensional
Little Red Wagon - Easter
Truly Scrumptious - Vintage
Creative Inspirations - Easter
C.R.A.F.T. Challenge - Easter
Pals Paper Arts - Flowers
Stampin' for the Weekend - Flowers
Crazy4Challenges - Make an Easter Gift
Craft Your Days Away - Easter