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!

Penny Black + Get Sketchy + a review

Today I want to share with you my thoughts about a new product that may interest any Copic colorers out there: X-Press It Blending Card. But I wanted to share my cards first in case you don't feel like reading today. :)

I've already shared one card I made with my very first Penny Black stamp set, Jolly Friends. I fell in love with their precious hedgehogs... but I have no idea how to color them! So I started with the mice and the snowman. Here are the other 2 cards I made with this adorable set.

(You can't really see in this photo, but I created an embossed frame by scoring at 1/4" all around the perimeter of the white mat.)

The next card is one I made for the Get Sketchy Challenge #59.

Now, Nichol Magouirk recently mentioned on her blog that she'd found a cardstock specifically designed for Copic coloring, called X-Press It Blending Card. I've been having a lot of issues with my coloring on Neenah Solar White cardstock, so I really wanted to try this new product out. I'd previously used Gina K. Designs Pure Luxury Heavy Baseweight cardstock and really liked how the Copics behaved with it; however, if you colored too many layers it would sort of bead up and not blend properly. I found a 10-pack of the Blending Card on ebay for a good price, and decided to give it a go. My first 3 cards using Penny Black stamps were all colored on it. Let me tell you, if you do any Copic coloring, you must try this product! It is so smooth and just really enjoyable to color on. Nothing bled or smudged or "overflowed the dam" as my Copic guru Jenn said. Nothing, no matter how many layers of shading and blending I added. Not even the dark red. That's a big deal. I did a lot of coloring with my Colorless Blender to get a subtle gradient of color on the mice and to shade the snowman. Eventually, the paper where I was coloring the brown mouse's face did start to tear and pill just a little bit, but I'd already said to myself probably five times that he was done and I should just have left well enough alone. :) So that's just something to be aware of. Another thing I found is that this cardstock smudges and shows little bits of dirt and schmutz really easily. So just make sure your desk and your fingers are clean and be careful if you're doing any ink sponging.

If you're lucky enough to have had a three-day weekend for Columbus Day, I hope you had lots of fun! 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 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! :)

Paper-Piecing-Palooza

(LOL I know, I know, that's a wicked lame title.)

In honor of the previews beginning for Lawn Fawn's October release (it looks amazing - check it out!), I finally busted out the second stamp set I bought from their September release, Cozy Christmas. Also, after everybody else is totally over it, I finally *finally* received the Cosmo Cricket Mitten Weather items that I ordered a billion years ago! So I decided to combine them. Word to the wise: Don't try to paper piece the stockings in this stamp set. They're teeny-tiny! There's a third stocking that I didn't end up using - an adorable striped on that I got halfway through before I gave up because I was going crazy and blind! :)

This is an über-simple card I made using Hero Art's So Thankful set and Lily Bee Designs' new Catching Fall collection. I got all three of the new paper collections - plus they have cardstock stickers, chipboard buttons, and a 12x12 sheet of rub-ons. (I was actually somewhat disappointed that the rub-ons are so big, because many of my fave sentiments are too big to use on a card). The designs of the papers are so beautiful and the details are really nice. My favorite are the two (count 'em, two!) text print snowflakes in the Christmas Town collection.

Here's a close-up of the turkey. I ended up embossing the outline using a Ranger Embossing Pen and black embossing powder, because it was hard to see the black ink on the dark brown cardstock.

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!

Caring Hearts Card Drive

I recently came across another card drive for a very worthy cause. It is called the Caring Hearts Card Drive, and this time, cards are being sent to elderly people in nursing homes and care facilities who may not have their loved ones close by this holiday season. The drive is being organized by Vera Yates of Ling's Design Studio. I hope you will consider making a Thanksgiving or Christmas card to send. You have until early November, since the cards don't have to be received Vera until November 15th.

I have a Thanksgiving card and a Christmas card to share for this card drive.

I know I shared a very similar card recently. I am in love with this stamp and this design, and so I made a bunch of these cards at once. This one in particular was stamped and glued by me, and then very thoughtfully decorated by my awesome husband. He didn't have anyone he wanted to send it to, and I didn't want to sell it, so I suggested sending it to the card drive. He may even be writing the note that goes inside it! He's so sweet to be interested in the things that mean a lot to me.

And here's my card for the drive. I've been wanting to try a "faux window" card for a while now, and I love this stamp for the technique. You can't really tell but I put sparkles on the trees with a Sakura Stardust pen, and the white layer is embossed with a snowflake Cuttlebug folder. We're having a lot of rain here lately, and they don't anticipate it going away for a few days, so I hope you'll pardon the lousy pictures. :)

So again, please consider making a card or two (or more!) and sending it to this worthy cause. You can find all the details in Vera's blog, or by clicking the Caring Hearts badge at the top right of my blog.

Oh yeah, and not that you need the external motivation, but there are some pretty awesome prizes too! :)

Happy World Cardmaking Day!

Hope everyone's been having a great World Cardmaking Day today! Have you been productive? I tried, but there are just too many other things to do on days off! :) I had probably 5 or 6 different card ideas swimming around in my head and I so wanted to get them all done. But hey, I got two made! :)

Sorry the photo is so grainy - It was getting dark! :)

Supplies: Cardstock - Stampin' Up (Crumb Cake); Patterned Paper - Crate Paper (Snow Day); Stamps - My Favorite Things (à la modes Miss You a Latte); Dies - My Favorite Things Die-Namics (Jumbo Scallop), Spellbinders (Classic Ovals, Classic Scalloped Ovals, Ribbon Tags Trio); Ribbon - My Favorite Things (Baby Bump Ribbons assortment); Misc - Vivid Taupe dye ink, Copics

Supplies: Stamp - Whiff of Joy (Willow with Christmas Candle); Patterned Paper - Basic Grey (Jovial collection); Ribbon - Pure Luxury by Gina K. Designs; Inks - Distress Ink (Antique Linen), Memento (Tuxedo Black and Cottage Ivy); Letter stickers - Basic Grey (Jovial collection); Misc - We R Memory Keepers Corner Chomper, Copic markers

P.S. God Jul means Merry Christmas in Swedish. I love this stamp from Whiff of Joy because my family always celebrates - at least sort of - a holiday called St. Lucia Day, which is sort of the start of the Christmas season in Sweden. Traditionally, the oldest daughter in the family dresses in a white gown and a wreath with candles on her head and delivers breakfast to her family. (We don't do that part.) Remember the American Girl doll Kirsten? She was a Swedish immigrant. Her Christmas outfit is for St. Lucia Day. So anyway, I thought the Swedish sentiment would be perfect for this card. Best I can tell, if you say "Good Yule" the way you think the Swedish Chef would say it, you'll be approximating the pronunciation pretty well. :)

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

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!