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!

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 Thursday Sketch Challenge 10/07

This sketch is very different from my usual style. But that's the point of a challenge, right? :)

The hostess of the weekly sketch challenge is taking inspiration from her favorite cards in the StampTV gallery. So this week we just have one sketch, rather than the CAS/Beginner and the Layered/Intermediate sketches we've had for the past several weeks.

And here's my card:

Supplies: Cardstock - Pure Luxury by Gina K. Designs (Rocket Red, White), X-Press It Blending Card; Patterned Paper - Cosmo Cricket (Mitten Weather); Stamps - Penny Black (Jolly Friends), Lawn Fawn (Cozy Christmas); Ink - Vivid (Brick), Memento (Tuxedo Black, London Fog, Desert Sand); Misc. - Nestabilities Standard Circles Small and Large, Tsukineko Jumbo Sponge Daubers, Frosted Lace Stickles, Copics

This one was hard. I was thinking about it for a couple days before I attacked it. I kept thinking to myself, over and over, "I don't have a big enough stamp!" Then I remembered this adorable Penny Black mouse I'd recently colored and decided to channel my inner Tim Gunn and "make it work" no matter what... still thinking it'd be too small. Boy was I wrong! It's totally too big! :) But I still used the same layout, and I have to say the more I look at it, the more it's growing on me.

I'm considering giving this sketch another go. Maybe flipping it and making it a portrait card. We'll see. When all I have to work with are 6x6 paper pads, that's a lot of patterned paper to use up. But then again, in this sketch, more of the patterned paper is showing than if I used the same size piece as a mat to create a 1/8" border... Hmm... I guess I better put my thinking cap on again! :)

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! :)

StampTV Thursday 9/30 Sketch Challenge

Again, out of all the challenges people post and sketch blogs I read, the StampTV Thursday Sketch is the only thing that actually gets me off the couch. :-D

This week we were, again, given a CAS/Beginner sketch and a Layered/Intermediate sketch.

This week, again, my card is somewhere in between. :)

This card has been in the works for a while... I've been wanting to try a ton of the techniques from Jennifer McGuire's Thinking Inking class since I first saw the videos. (P.S. Have you seen this news??) But I just didn't have enough of the appropriate supplies and couldn't justify buying them, not knowing how often I'd end up using them. Well, obviously, as soon as I tried Distress Inks, I knew I'd use them constantly and so my collection has been slowly growing. :) And I recently found a pot of Perfect Pearls for sale individually (didn't want to commit to the set) at my LSS. And then I got this awesome Hero Arts silhouette stamp that I thought would be perfect for mixing Distress Inks on, and voila! This card was born!

BTW: To make the focal image, I inked up my stamp with Distress Ink in Scattered Straw, Spiced Marmalade, and Fired Brick. Then I spritzed the entire stamp with some water mixed with Perfect Pearls and stamped it onto plain cardstock. It took a couple tries to get it right. :) Check out the videos on Perfect Pearls (episodes one, two, and three!) for this technique and a bunch of other cool ideas.

Have a good weekend!

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! :)