A Floral Birthday

My mom and I got together to play in my craft room last night. It was the third Tuesday of the month, and for the last 14 years or so we have been getting together with a few other women to make cards on the third Tuesday. This month it was just the two of us. I had some new things to play with and my mom needed a birthday card to send to her mother. This was what I came up with:

 The roses and leaves are from the Papertrey Ink set The Sweet Life. They are stamped in Stampin Up! inks. The pinks are all retired colors (Pretty in Pink, Rose Romance, and Pink Passion) but the greens are still current colors (Old Olive and Garden Green). The greeting is from another PTI set, Graceful Greetings, and stamped in Versa Fine Onyx Black ink.

It is a bit hard to see in the pictures, but after the front panel was stamped, cut out a square frame from it using the largest die in the Stitched Square Frames die set from My Favorite Things. I then cut four more frames from plain white card stock and layered them all together with the stamped frame on top. Everything was pieced back together on the 5"x5" card base. Finally, although it doesn't really show in the pictures, I carefully went over the lettering with a bit of clear Wink of Stella. 

I feel like it still needs something, but I can't put my finger on what it is. I tried a few sequins, but I don't think that's it. Maybe some Wink of Stella on the flowers? I don't know. Oh, well! This one doesn't have an intended recipient right now anyway (my mom made her own version to mail to her mom).

Hope you liked the card and thanks for checking it out!

Water-based Inks- Part 2

The Current Challenge over at Art Impressions is to use water-based inks to make a card. This challenge celebrates the release of 3 new watercolor sets andI couldn't let a watercolor celebration pass without making a watercolor card. SO... I pulled out my newest watercolor set, Blooming Birdhouse, and made this cute little piece.

It just makes me happy to sit down with all of my watercolor stamps and a big bunch of markers to play. This card was made with all Marvy colors (I think!).

The watercolor paper and mat were both cut with circle dies and then layered on a pretty teal 4.25" square card. I happened to have a scrap of purple ribbon in the perfect shade, so that was tied around for a fun accent. I really love the way the colors pop on this one!

Thanks for checking out my card!

Water-based Inks

 The Current Challenge over at Art Impressions is to use water-based inks to make a card. This challenge celebrates the release of 3 new watercolor sets!!! Can't wait to get my hands on those!


Even though the challenge is in celebration of the new watercolor sets, I decided to try something different and do some water coloring to fill in an image. I have watched Bonnie Krebs (Art Impressions owner and designer) watercolor one of the "girlfriends"  images several times at stamp conventions and she makes it look so easy that I decided to try it myself.

I used stamps from the Shop Set, along with some distress inks (Stormy Sky and Victorian Velvet) and a few Spectrum Aqua markers (don't remember the color names- but they provided all of the brown tones in the card) smooshed or scribbled onto my palette.  It was fun, but certainly not a quick as Bonnie can do it!

After it dried I die cut it with one of my new stitched rectangle dies from Gina Marie and layered it with some solid colored card stock and a strip of patterned paper. The card is finished off with a die cut tag embossed with one of the sentiments from the stamp set.


After I was done with that card, I just couldn't leave it at that. I HAD to make a watercolor card too! Click here to see the second card I made.

Thanks for checking out my card!

Halloween!

It was a busy October around here, with all kinds of stuff getting made- cookies, Halloween costumes, and jack-o-lanterns in particular. Here are a few pictures of what I made this month:

Carmel Apple Pie Cookies- Yum!

First up, at the beginning of the month my youngest and I made a batch of Carmel Apple Pie Cookies. They were very tasty and I ended up making a second batch later in the month for our neighborhood Halloween Party.

Of course there were costumes to be made this month. I brought up the question of costumes while we were in Disney World in August, which lead to my kids choosing this:

Sorcerer Mickey and his enchanted broom- ready to Trick-or-Treat.

Sorcerer Mickey and his enchanted broom! My oldest bought the hat and hands at WDW, so I just had to make him a red robe. I waited for patterns to go on sale and picked up a robe pattern for $1 at Joann's. For my youngest, I used a PJ pattern and cut the pants EXTRA wide. I ended up deciding I needed some more length for extra volume at the waist so I altered it a bit there. I also put in elastic casings (using bias tape) at the ankles and cut the cuffs into zig-zag fringe, rather than hemming. The water buckets were two plastic pails that I lined with sequin dot fabric and covered on the outside with fun foam strips. I left the lining fabric extra long, so it pooled on the inside of the bucket and could be "poured" out.

 After the broom costume got worn twice (we do our neighborhood trick or treat early, and then there was trunk-or-treat at school) we decided that perhaps it wouldn't be the best choice for the school costume parade and class party,  so we ran out to Salvation Army and picked up a white dress shirt to turn into a lab coat. The cuff that were cut off of the sleeves turned into pockets. He made a great scientist!

A lab coat fit for a second grader.

Finally, on Halloween afternoon, we carved our pumpkins before heading over to my in-laws for more trick-or-treating.

 That's Benny (from The Lego Movie), a vampire minion, and Snoopy in the top row (carved by my oldest, youngest, and husband, respectively) and Statler and Waldorf (from the Muppets, and carved by me) below. I found the patterns online, but sadly can't remember where!

I also made a birthday card this month, but forgot to take a picture of it! Oh well! Can't wait to see what November brings.

Total Lunar Eclipse

Okay, so I didn't make it, per se, but here are a couple of pictures I took of Sunday's total lunar eclipse using my iPhone 6 and a telescope. I didn't do anything fancy... just held the camera lens up to the eye piece of the telescope. It took a little bit of fussing to get the image on screen, but I think they turned out pretty good!

A Seasonal Set

 The current challenge over at Art Impressions is called "Create a Card Set". The idea is to make a set of at least three cards that go together in some way. I decided to use the watercolor tree and branch stamps to make a set of seasonal trees for my cards.

Honestly, I first saw the tree used this way on product packaging at the Art Impressions booth at the Adventures in Stamping Rubber Stamp Show in Akron, OH in 2014. It was the first time I saw these stamps, and I must have spent at least two hours that weekend watching Bonnie create little watercolor masterpieces! I have spent time watching her work her magic twice more since then (in Akron again this year, and just this past weekend in Novi) and I still love every second of it.

Okay, so on to the cards. There is one for each season. The winter card gave me a chance to try using masking fluid to make the "snow". It was amazing to rub it off at the end and see the result.

Each of the cards was made using just the tree and branch stamps and a collection of water based inks (a few Marvy Markers, some Stampin Up! markers, and some distress inks). The trees were stamped on watercolor paper and mounted on patterned paper I printed from my computer to match each tree. I left the insides blank for the recipient of the bundle to write their own greeting.

To finish off the set, I stamped and die cut a nice seasonal sentiment. I cut two slits on either end of the die cut to run some seam binding through and tied all four card together into a bundle with a bow.

Here are pictures of each of the individual cards and the set with the greeting (click on them to enlarge!).

Lloyd the Leopard

Meet Lloyd the Leopard. My oldest and I made him the other day using the free pattern available from Sew Mama Sew, and (designed by LiEr from www.ikatbag.com). The pattern is intended to make a racoon, but we just left off the eye patches, claws, and tail stripes. He is made from some crazy printed fleece he found at Joann Fabrics and just had to make a "cuddle friend" with, along with some scraps of black fleece from home, a pair of safety eyes, and a bit of embroidery floss for the mouth.

The oldest got his own sewing machine for Christmas, and he sewed the arms, legs, tail, and inside pellet pouch, as well as the stuffing and some of the hand sewing of the hole in the back through which Lloyd was stuffed. I did the ears and the rest of the overall construction, since I didn't think his machine would handle the layers of fleece very well. He did a great job!

I think we will need to head back to Joann's to pick out some fleece for the youngest to make a new friend out of as well!

Another Sympathy Card

This card is a sympathy card made using more Art Impressions Watercolor stamps. This was my first attempt at using the pathway, and I think it turned out pretty good.

Celebrate Freedom!

 This card was made for the Art Impressions Red White and Blue Challenge. I wanted to try using my newest watercolor set to create a 4th of July card and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

The main image is done using the AI Chest of Flowers set, along with a few other watercolor stamps from other sets. I hand drew/water colored the flag. I used a collection of various brands of water based markers on watercolor paper. The "Celebrate" was created with a die from Papertrey Ink, and the "freedom" was an unmounted stamp in my collection from an indeterminate source.

Teacher Gifts with Flowers

Here is the tote from the last post with the side pockets all filled up with treats and supplies and the center holding a vase of roses. We included things like post-its, glue sticks, pens, pencils, York Peppermint Patties, hand sanitizer, and tissues. The boys wanted to include a box of band-aids, but the boxes were too big for the pockets.

 

This one is made from the same pattern. It was for the other kid's teacher (she loves the Detroit Tigers!). Each of the boys picked out the flowers themselves. There was no question that this tote needed orange and blue flowers.

Finally, here are the cards that went with the totes. The "I" and "MY" are die cut from the white panel using a Papertrey Ink die set, allowing the black background to show through. The white panel is popped up with foam squares for extra dimension. The apple is a stamp, also from Papertrey Ink, that has been stamped and then covered in Glossy Accents. The "teacher" is die cut from Tim Holtz glimmer paper, using a another Papertrey Ink die.

Teacher Gift

I made this cute multi-pocket drawstring bag for my youngest to give his teacher at the end of the school year. I have to make one more for the oldest. We plan to fill the small pockets with school stuff (pencils, binder clips, etc.) and a few treats, and the big center space with a vase of flowers. Hopefully the teachers like them. I used a Simplicity pattern (1556) and home dec fabric from Joanns.

Mother's Day Card

This is the Mother's Day Card I made for my mom. The tulip stamps was colored with watercolor markers and stamped on watercolor paper. Then I used a wet brush to pull the color and fill in the image. I also used the brush to pull color directly from the marker to add some darker shading to some areas.

The "happy" is from a Papertrey Ink die set. The background stamp is from Impression Obsession. The tulips and the Mother's Day words are of undermined origin.

Watercolor Sympathy Card

This card is made using watercolor stamps from Art Impressions and various water-based markers on watercolor paper. The sentiment is from an old Stampin' Up! set.