I have a confession...

If you were to make a list of Anna's Top Ten Rules to Live By, number one on that list would be "Christmas music may only be listened to from December 1st until December 25th." Well, yesterday I sat down to work on some more Christmas cards, and I just couldn't resist the urge to break my own Number One Rule :) So, for two evenings now, I've been crafting along to some of my favorite Christmas tunes on my ipod! And I'm having a blast... I just hope now I can stop and wait until December! :-D

Most of the projects I've made are things I'm not quite ready to share, but I do have some Basic Grey Jovial collection and Lawn Fawn Bows and Holly for you today.

 One of my favorite things about the Jovial collection is the really unique color combination. I used Broken China Distress Ink to stamp the label on this card... Now, I mean, how often do you see turquoise for Christmas? :) I muted it a little with some Antique Linen, because the turquoise in the paper is a little bit greener and somewhat distressed.

I apologize for the supreme crumminess of this photo... I'll try to take a new one tomorrow! 

This card was totally inspired by Brit Swiderski. She had the amazing idea to use the Distress Ink Bleeding technique that I used on my fall placecards with this adorable wreath stamp from Lawn Fawn's Bows and Holly. Genius. I love how it turned out... even though when I re-stamped over the image with bleeding I kind of, well, missed :) So there's the bleeding and also a little bit of a shadow effect. I used a Sakura Stardust pen on the ribbon that's wrapped around the wreath. The bow was painted with Fired Brick Distress Ink mixed with water and gold Perfect Pearls. (This is Technique 3 from Week 1 of the Holiday Thinking Inking series.) I also added a little Glossy Accents (I *finally* bought some!) to the berries.

Here's a closeup of the wreath so you can see all the special treatments.

Wish me luck in turning off the Christmas music! :) Thanks for stopping by!

StampTV Thursday Sketch 10/14

This was another tough one for me... so different from what I usually do! I really wanted to change it up somehow, but I challenged myself to stick to the sketch! Except I flipped it. Oh, and forgot it was supposed to be square. Oops! :)

This was also my first time using the new Gina K. Designs set Buds and Vases, illustrated by Melanie Muenchinger. I've never Copic colored glass before, and I wasn't exactly sure what I was doing!

Here's the sketch...

And here's my card...

Hope your week's gotten off to a great start!

Holiday Thinking Inking - Ink Bleeding Technique

Like pretty much everybody else in the online crafting community, I am so excited about the return of the fabulous Jennifer McGuire's fabulous Thinking Inking class over at Two Peas in a Bucket. It's back and better than ever - this time with a holiday theme! :)

I finally got around to making my first project playing along with the techniques Jennifer's sharing with us. This is the second technique from her Week Two video - she calls it Ink Bleeding. I used her card project as inspiration and decided to make place cards.
     

(A little back story here... My family has used the exact same place cards at every gathering for years. Decades. Seriously. They're made from folded index cards that either my brother or I colored pictures or patterns on. And my mother is in love with them. So I have no doubt she won't be at all interested in actually using these new ones I made, but I had fun with them nonetheless!)

And here are some close-ups... I used water mixed with a little bit of gold Perfect Pearls when I spritzed the stamped images. It's more prominent on some of the leaves, but they all have a subtle, pretty sheen to them.

Supplies for this project: Distress Inks - Walnut Stain, Spiced Marmalade, Fired Brick, Peeled Paint, Scattered Straw; Stamp - Autumn Splendor by Gina K. Designs; Cardstock - Pure Luxury by Gina K. Designs (Sweet Corn, Pumpkin Spice), Stampin' Up (Crumb Cake); Patterned Paper - Flannel Sheets (Lily Bee Designs' Catching Fall collection); Misc. - Memento Marker (Rich Cocoa), foam ink blending tool, Perfect Pearls, Ranger Mini Mister

Thanks for stopping by! Now go check out Jennifer's video and play along too! :)

Echo Park Christmas Collections

Yesterday was a kind of tough day at work. So what better way to brighten a day than with some awesome mail! Sitting waiting for me when I got home: new *Lawn Fawn* stamps, and both of the *Echo Park Paper* Christmas collections! :) You're going to be seeing a lot of the stamps coming up very soon, but for today's post I decided to focus on the Echo Park collections.

No. 1: Merry Christmas

My card:

Supplies: Stamps - Gina K. Designs (Lovely Labels 2), Lawn Fawn (Bows and Holly) a muse art stamps (very merry christmas); Inks - Distress Ink (Peeled Paint, Fired Brick), Colorbox Chalk (Chestnut Roan); Cardstock - Pure Luxury by Gina K. Designs, watercolor paper

My favorite things about this collection:
- metallic silver accents!
- music and text prints
- mix of red and burgundy
- awesome everyday-appropriate prints... houndstooth! argyle! polka dots! distressed solids (à la Basic Grey)! Oh yeah, and the music prints don't have words on them so they're year-round ready too!

No. 2: Everybody Loves Christmas

My card:

Supplies: Stamps - Gina K. Designs (Teatime), Lawn Fawn (Cozy Christmas); Ink - Memento (Tuxedo Black); Cardstock - Neenah; Misc. - Hero Arts Blush Mixed Accents, Copics, Nesties 

(A note about this card... I colored the teacups thinking I'd use the image with Dear Lizzy Christmas items - like this and this and this! - but I just couldn't wait for StopAndScrap.com to ship my order. But the combo of pink/red and chartreuse/pine is perfect with this collection too. A super chic take on Christmas!)

My favorite things about this collection:
- non-traditional color palette - I love pink for Christmas!
- penguins!!! :)
- adorable and oh-so-versatile stickers
- more everyday patterns including polka dots, stripes, swirls, and things that could be snowflakes or could just be a cool medallion-type pattern

The bottom line:
Go out and get these collections. You will be having fun with them all year! :)

Thanks for stopping by!

StampTV Center Stage Blog Hop

Over at StampTV, the Center Stage Spotlight designer alumni have coordinated a blog hop using a sketch. I decided to play along.

Here's the sketch:

And here's my card:

Supplies: Cardstock - Neenah; Patterned Paper - My Mind's Eye (Alphabet Soup collection); Stamps - Gina K. Designs (Teatime); Misc. - Sakura Stardust pen (for the "gold leaf" on the teacups), Copic markers, buttons (pink - Papertrey Ink, blue - Basic Grey, yellow - Cosmo Cricket), American Crafts patterned masking tape

OK, OK, so I modified the sketch a little. But it's still inspired by the sketch and all the awesome CSS Alumni creations! I meant to put the teacups closer to the top and the horizontal strips closer to the bottom. So sue me. :)

StampTV Color Challenge - October 4th

(or 7th, as the case may be)

This is my first time participating in one of StampTV's weekly color challenges. This one really struck me because of it's lushness and elegance. The challenge hostess gave us a really beautiful inspiration photo.

Don't you just love the softness and the rich colors? The card challenge is to use at least three of the colors in the photo - brown, navy blue, orange, ivory, and gray. I was imagining something really lovely and elegant with rich, deep, saturated colors. I was picturing it in my head all day, but the only thing missing in my imagination was the stamp. I just couldn't figure out what to use as a focal image. And when I came home, my card took a whole different turn! :)

Today was the day my Studio Calico kit was delivered. Check out that patterned paper panel. That's actually the back of a coupon that came with my Studio Calico kit! Can you believe it?! They seriously amaze me with the care and thought they put into everything that has their name on it. So this absolutely perfect pattern landed in my lap and I decided to brighten up the color combo a little bit.

Supplies: Cardstock - Bazzill (orange, gray), Paper Source (navy), Neenah (ivory); Ribbon - My Favorite Things (Baby Bump ribbon assortment); Stamp - Gina K. Designs (Autumn Splendor); Ink - Memento (Desert Sand)

Hope you had a great week! Happy Friday tomorrow! :)

It should really be renamed World Cardmaking WEEKEND!

All of a sudden, after literally a lifetime of never winning anything, I've been on a winning streak lately! :)  Gina K. Designs just released their October stamp sets, and I was lucky enough to win a set of Lovely Labels 2, illustrated by Nina Brackett. These stamps are gorgeous! And they're designed to coordinate with the new Spellbinders Nestabilities Labels 14, 15, and 16! However, if you're like me and can't afford three sets of Nesties, the labels are very easy to cut out freehand, which is what I did on my card.

When I first saw the projects that the GKD Design Team made with these stamps, I immediately thought of letterpress. I stamped the label with Distress Ink on watercolor paper to achieve a similar look. It's a pretty cool effect in real life.

Hope you had a happy Monday!

StampTV Thursday 9/23 Sketch Challenge

So I don't know what it is about the StampTV sketch challenges. I follow several sketch blogs, and so very rarely do anything with the sketches. But this is the third consecutive Thursday I've participated in the StampTV sketch challenge. I think I like that they never have any fussy aspects that I don't know how to execute. And this week's challenge? Oh my goodness! Vicki read my mind! Totally my go-to card layout. I mean, probably 90% of the cards already in my StampTV gallery could apply to this challenge. On the one hand, I was psyched that I could use a card that's been in my head for a few days without any real changes. On the other hand... well... I'm feeling pretty lame for making the same card over and over again! :)

Anyway, here are the sketches... there's one CAS/Beginner and one Layered/Experienced. My card is somewhere between the two.

And here's my card...

Supplies: Cardstock - Stampin' Up (kraft), Pure Luxury by Gina K. Designs (Rocket Red); Patterned Paper - Kaisercraft Be Merry collection; Stamps - Gina K. Designs (Vintage Borders by Nina Brackett, Blessed is the Season); Inks - Vivid Brick Red, Versamark; Misc. - Stampin' Up embossing powder, cheapo rhinestones from AC Moore

this technique is brilliant!

When I saw the card sample for the latest StampTV episode, I literally could not imagine how on earth the background paper had been made. Turns out it's super easy! I was so psyched to try it. Check out my card...

I only have a handful of distress inks, so I couldn't necessarily do exactly what I wanted. I chose Dried Marigold and Peeled Paint because I thought they would give a similar contrast to the combination in the video, as well as blend into a nice dried leaves orange-brown color.

And here's the video, so you can try it too! :)


Distressed Stripes from StampTV on Vimeo.


A couple tips I picked up while doing this technique for the first time:
- Do use heavy-weight cardstock like Gina says in the video. If you use a light weight cardstock, it will get soggy from all the ink. I used 80 lb. Pure Luxury cardstock, and it worked just fine, but I had to be really careful when I was scoring because the cardstock was pretty saturated.
- It's really easy for your stripes to get lost in too many layers of ink. Try to only go over the last stripe or two each time, and start really slow. I pounced off a lot of the ink onto scratch paper before I inked my cardstock. You can always add more! :)
- I only have one Ranger ink blending tool and two foam pads, and they both have other colors on them. So I used some large sponge daubers. They worked well, but you really have to be sure to start off the paper or you'll get round splotches of darker color.

Oh, and did I mention how much I love that new StampTV episodes are posted on Wednesdays? Now I have something awesome to look forward to that can tide me over between Kristina's Make a Card Monday and Finally Friday videos! :)

StampTV Thursday Sketch 9/16

Here's the sketch for this week

And here's my card using my new Hero Arts goodies that I picked up yesterday from my LSS! :)

And... Here's another variation that I made for the Hero Arts September Challenge Contest. This is more like what I wanted to do with the square card, but I couldn't figure out where I could make room for the sentiment.

Isn't that patterned paper great! It's by Moxxie. The other side is a really pretty yellow and orange with branches and falling leaves. It will definitely make an appearance soon! :)

Oh, and in other news, while DH and I were in the "city," we bought a futon! It's a really high-quality, pocketed coil innerspring mattress - not like the junky ones you find in dorm rooms :-P We're not going to use a frame - just sleep on the floor à la Japanese. We'll probably be picking it up this weekend or early next week! :) Not sure what we're gonna do with the bed we currently have... The box spring and bedframe are perfectly fine, I'm sure, though the mattress should probably just be chucked. Technically, though, it all belongs to my parents, so it's up to them what we do with it!

Have a good weekend!

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(I'm sorry, I just can't think of a good title for this post!)

I've got two cards to share today that I made with the new StampTV kit, Autumn Splendor. I'm really loving it ... been sitting in my living room watching TV (I'm obsessed with Ghost Whisperer... just started the *last* season) and working on Copic coloring a bunch of images to have on hand. These cards are roughly based on Laura's Sketch 60 from 2 Sketches 4 You.

(The sentiment says Happy Harvest. It's easier to see in person.)

Tomorrow's Friday! Yay! Have fun! :)

StampTV Thursday Sketch Challenge

I was checking my email and facebook while I was tying my shoes to get ready for work this morning, and I saw today's Thursday Sketch Challenge at StampTV. And get this - It was pretty much the card I was planning to make this afternoon anyway! Last night I sat around watching Ghost Whisperer and I colored the flowers from the Autumn Splendor stamp set. And this afternoon I came home from work and made a card based on the sketch... I just had to slightly tweak what I was planning to begin with :)

So there are things I like about this card, and things I don't like. I totally meant to emboss the larger yellow layer with the Swiss Dots Cuttlebug folder - but I forgot! :( I really think it would have made the card more complete/polished, but I'm over it. (Not really, actually.) I'm not thrilled with my ink sponging - I mean, look around the stems of the flowers! Eugh. I think it's gonna take some practice at the finesse of sponging, and maybe sponging off a little more of the ink on the scratch paper first.
 But, I've got to toot my own horn for a minute here... I am so proud of the coloring on this project (which kinda makes me a little bit more upset about the crappy sponging). But seriously, I'm pretty sure this is the best Copic coloring I've managed to date! :)

So there you have it. Ooh, wouldn't it be fun if I won? :)

Thanks for stopping by!

Autumn Splendor

This afternoon I broke out the newest Gina K. Designs/StampTV kit, Autumn Splendor. It's super fun: a stamp set that's twice the size of what usually retails for around $25, tons of colors of coordinating cardstocks in different weights and a couple textures, a few feet of each of a bunch of ribbons that coordinate with everything, and a whole mess of brads and eyelets! I don't really know what to do with eyelets, but the colors on these puppies are so awesome, so I've gotta figure something out. My only warning: total enabler alert with this kit! There are only 2 sheets of most of the cardstock colors - so if you're doing stamping/layering cards a la Gina K. or Stampin' Up, you pretty much get 2 cards out of 2 sheets - And I already want more, More, MORE!! :)

OK, so I've been dying to do this embossed "painting with bleach" technique ever since I watched the video. But the waterbrush that I bought on ebay 2 weeks ago still hasn't come. So I decided to use the "bleach as a stamp pad" technique.

This technique is soooooo addictive! It's so much fun to not really know what color the cardstock is going to bleach to, and then to watch it slowly lighten and change after you've stamped.

This card is pretty much CASEd from Gina K.'s bleached leaves card (linked above) - measurements and all! :) Except I chose another sentiment and only used 2 colors of cardstock. Oh, and I actually looked up the author of the quote this time! ;) Wilbur D. Nesbit was an American journalist and poet. He was also a Mason and seems to have been pretty into that, judging from this poem.

Here's another piece of background paper I made with the brown cardstock.

This card was done using emboss resist with clear embossing powder on yellow cardstock. I love the sentiment and the fonts!

a little Papertrey love

Dawn McVey recently featured a card she made using Falling Leaves from the latest Papertrey Ink release. I was so inspired I literally immediately bought the set! And just for fun, some red and green buttons and ribbons to get me through the upcoming holidays :)

Here are my Dawn-inspired cards:

This stamp set is A-Maze-Ing!

OK, I know I missed the boat a little with this one, but I got the Everyday Button Bits stamp set a couple months ago, and I just opened it up a few days ago!

I didn't really think too much about this card before I made it... or really even while I was making it! :) You can kinda tell that it's a little crooked and off-center, but I still like how it turned out.

Thanks for stopping by!