More Love

This week at Simon Says Stamp and Show, we want you to Show Some Love.  So are you tired of my vintage Valentine's Day makes yet?  I hope not, because I am loving making them.  I was going to say three and out, but I think you just might see a few more vintage Valentines from me before the big day. 

So how about showing us some LOVE this week over at Simon Says Stamp and Show?  That shouldn't be too hard, right?   Everybody is doing Valentines this week so get with the program and get your LOVE project entered.  Our fabulous sponsor, Simon Says Stamp, is giving away a $50 gift certificate to some lucky random winner, and I do mean lucky!  I wish I could throw my name into the drawing because I would LOVE to have a $50 shopping spree at Simon Says Stamp.  Have you seen all the amazing new Tim Holtz products that are being introduced at CHA?  Simon Says will have them real soon.  

Okay, enough already and on to the dets.  My images are from a Luna Girl CD that I have had forever.  I fiddled around with PhotoShop Elements and managed to erase their backgrounds and then layered them over a vintage post card.  After liberally smearing them with Vintage Photo Distress Ink, I also stamped a few image stamps around the edges for good measure, most of which were from the Tim Holtz Urban Grunge and Odds and Ends sets.   I dyed some white lace with Broken China Distress Ink, which I also used to make the handmade flower, to sponge over the grunge heart and to stamp the LOVE stamp.  The heart and wings are cut from Grungeboard and I added a little element made from a felt flower, a silk, flower, a ribbon flower and some cheese cloth.

I also had to add a multi-layered paper flower cut with the Tim Holtz Tattered Florals die (gee, I hope that die never wears out.  Maybe I should purchase a back up - LOL!).  I really liked the fact that this vintage Valentine wasn't in the traditional red or pink colors. 

Now go get busy and show us some LOVE over at Simon Says Stamp and Show.  You just might win a $50 shopping spree at Simon Says Stamp!

I want to give a warm welcome to all my new followers and a heartfelt thanks to those who come here day after day.  I can't tell you how much your support means to me and how encouraging all your lovely comments are.  I LOVE you all!

A 3-D Valentine Project

Hello!  Today is a very special day at Our Creative Corner.  We are excited to welcome five talented new designers to our team and today is their very first challenge.  Our wonderful host, Wendy Jensen, has challenged us to make a 3-D Valentine project.  Oh my, what to make?  I'm really fresh out of project ideas.  And for Valentine's Day, I wanted to do something vintage.  Finally I decided on a very Victorian style Valentine's greeting with this cone shaped "envelope" and a tag type greeting tucked inside.  I have to say that this design is not my original idea.  I saw these at Christmas on Anne's Paper Fun and thought the cone-shaped "envelope" would work great for a Valentine.  

To make this, I started with an 8" heart shaped doily, traced it on to a sheet of K&Co. designer paper and cut it out, giving me two hearts of the same size.  I made a tri-fold out of them and then took a 6" heart shaped doily and stamped the Classified Ads background stamp from Whimsey Stamps on it.  Then it was misted with my homemade Vintage Photo glimmer mist and when dry, it was wrapped around the two larger folded hearts.  I threaded a piece of shabby seam binding through the holes around the top of the smaller heart and added a toile piece stamped from Gentler Times (SU retired) colored with Copics.  A sweet vintage cupid was added to the front as well as a handmade flower made with the Tim Holtz Tattered Florals die and a vintage style SU brad.  

A little pull-out tag type greeting was made for the inside featuring another vintage Valentine image, cut with a Spellbinders heart and adorned with several pieces of ribbon and lace.  The sentiment is from SU's Holiday Best set.

Thanks for stopping by for a visit today.  I hope you will stop by the blogs of all our new designers and wish them well.  We have a lot of cute Valentine's projects to share with you so be sure to stop by the OCC blog too.  

Challenges Entered:
Sugar Creek Hollow - Sweet Vintage Valentine
Tag Tuesday Challenge - Valentines
Creative Cottage Challenge - Shaped Cards
Charisma Cardz - Valentines/Love
C.R.A.F.T. Challenge - Trifold Card with a Tag Insert
Meljen's - Put Your Heart on It
If the Shoe Fits - Anything Goes - Except a Card
Crazy4Challenges - Vintage or Shabby
J.U.G.S. - Handmade Flowers
Speedy the Cat's Friends Challenge - A Valentine Card
Soartful Challenges - Victorian Romance

Punch it Up at Fairy Fun Friday

Hello friends, thank you so much for stopping by today to check out my sample for Fairy Fun Friday. This week, we want you to show us how you can embellish your work using punches. There are so many wonderful punches to choose from these days and we're excited to see all the variety that will be entered into this challenge. For my card, I used a Marth Stewart punch, nothing to jazzy this week. I had planned on doing something a little more special, but honestly when I finished coloring this image, I really wanted to let it take the center stage. Isn't it gorgeous? It's brand new digital image from The Prairie Fairy. I don't think it is even in her store yet, but it will be very soon. I was a bit nervous to color it because I usually don't have good luck coloring watering cans. But this colored up beautifully and I was very pleased with the result. I love the overall color palette, especially the designer paper. I think it looks very Old World, maybe with a slight French flavor to it.

Products Used:
Stamps: Digital image from The Prarie Fairy, sentiment stamp from Tim Holtz, Stampers Annoymous, SU Floral background stamp
Paper: DP from Raspberry Road, SU CS in River Rock and Chocolate Chip, Flourishes White CS for the image
Ink: Copics, Old Paper, Creamy Caramel, Vintage Photo
Accessories: Spellbinders dies for the die cuts and the handmade flowers, large brad from Michael's, bead cap from eBay, Versamark, clear EP, spiral clip from SU HodgePodge Hardware, Tim Holtz Antique Linen Distress Stickles

I hope you will stop by Prairie Fun Friday to see what the other designers have created this week. And maybe you could stop by their blogs to see more of their wonderful work.

♥Margreet - Margreet's Scrapcards ♥Suzi - Sugar n Spice♥Viv - Crafting Haven♥ Hege-Annie - Hege-Annie's Paper {He}Art++ ♥Ann - Raindrop Echo Designs ♥Carla - Carla's Corner ♥Corry - Fancy Free 4Ever ♥Lori - Just Ducky ♥Kelly - Kelly's Kreative Korner♥Trisha - T-Bear's Touch ♥Sue - Arty's♥

Thanks so much for stopping by today! I sincerely appreciate your comments. Have a wonderful weekend!

Blessings & hugs,

Challenges Entered:

Polycraft Monday Challenge - In Stitches

The Pink Elephant - Ribbons & Sparkles

Paper Romance Challenge - Metal Heads

Res-Q-Challenge - Time for Some Therapy (mine is vintage!)

Stamp Something - August Digi Day

A Very Vintage Valentine, OCC DT Challenge Card

It's Saturday and that means another challenge at Our Creative Corner. This week, Jocelyn Turner, our January host has come up with a sweet sketch for us to follow. I saw her pretty sketch with the sentiment image as a heart and it started me off in the direction of a Valentine's Day card. I seem to be favoring pink and chocolate brown lately so when I picked the pink DP, I automatically gravitated towards brown. I browsed through my computer files of vintage images I had saved and came up with this pretty little Victorian miss surrounded by pink roses. It was a freebie from Heidi's wonderful blog Sabby Chic Papirskatter.



The pink DP is from last year's SU Bella Birds, the solid pink is Pink Pirouette. I stamped the edge in Close to Cocoa with a pretty flourish stamp from Waltzing Mouse Stamps, then roughed up the edges with my scissors and sponged them pretty good with Close to Cocoa. A row of straight stitching finished it off.



I used a couple of Spellbinder dies plus a Fiskar's edge punch on the inside. The inside sentiment is computer generated.



I used another handmade paper flower with a pretty Memory Makers brad on the inside (it's going to be a lumpy sort of card). The leaves are a Sizzlets die I got from SU.

Please hop over to Our Creative Corner and see what the rest of the design team came up with for Jocelyn's sketch. And if you get time, drop by their blogs and see what else they've been up to lately. It's sure to inspire you!

Also, this card is having a blast playing in the following challenges:

Allsorts Challenge - Hearts & Flowers

Crazy for Challenges - Pretty in Pink

Stamp Simply #123 - Very Vintage

Creative Belli Challenge - Hearts

Papertake Weekly Challenge - Pretty Pink Papertake

Crafty Creations - Valentine's or Love
Nutty Nutshells Challenge #7 - Pink and Brown

Update: This card was featured on Card of the Week.

Pile it On - Welcome 2010

From pile it on

This week I had the great good fortune to be asked to join the Pile It On Challenge Blog design team and I'm excited to pariticipate in my first challenge with the team. It's a weekly challenge, but the DT is split into two teams and each team does a challenge every other Sunday. I'm starting this week and the challenge is Welcome 2010. That didn't really excite me at first. I'm so over New Year's and thought most of the New Year's challenges have run their course and thus wouldn't find many challenges to join. And I've never been into sending New Year's cards so I just wasn't red hot about the theme. But I decided to make the best of it and dove in wholeheartedly. And I'm glad I did because I am really thrilled with the way this card came out. An you know what? Now I'm sold on New Year's cards - LOL. It was fun!

I think it's the color combo that really makes the card. Charisma Cardz has a color challenge - pink, brown, cream and toffee that I thought matched up great with the vintage image I selected. I started with the image and this beautiful DP Bella Birds from SU. I thought it looked great with silver accents and found a challenge calling for metal. There were several other challenges calling for bling or glitter - hey, that's not a hardship, right? I didn't have any flowers the right color so I made my own out of the same sheet of DP so they all match. So what do you think of this one?

I hope you will stop by Pile It On this week to see what they rest of the DT girls have going on. And while you are at it, grab some other challenges and Pile It On!!

Card Receipe

Stamps/Images: Clock from SU's It's About Time, calendar from Designer Digitals, vintage image from Shabby Chic Papirskatter

Paper: SU Bella Birds, Close to Cocoa, Creamy Caramel

Ink: Versamark, Close to Cocoa, some images printed on printer

Accessories: Spellbinder Fancy Tags and Circles dies, Martha Stewart border bunch, Creative Memories heart maker to make flowers, Silver EP, chunky glitter from Jo-An's, silver bead caps, clear rhinestones, silver cord, pinking shears, sewing machine, Cuttlebug

Challenges Piled On

• Incy Wincy - Bling it Up
• Kitchen Sink - A Stitch in Time
• Papertake Weekly - New Beginnings
• TCP Tuesday - Glitter
• ABC Challenge - L is for Layering
• Belli Challenge #82 - Glitter or rhinestones
• Your Next Stamp #7 - Embossing
• Charisma Cardz Challenge #1 - Color combo - pink, brown, cream, toffee
• Cute Card Thursday - New Beginnings
• PaperPlay Challenges Week #1 - Precious Metals
• Crafty Ann's Challenge Blog #5 - New Beginnings, New Inspirations
• If The Shoe Fits #17 - Chipboard
• Flutter By Wednesdays - New with butterflies, fairies or angels
• Stampin' for the Weekend - New Beginnings
• Corrosive - Distressing
• Just Us Girls - Add stitching to your project
• Fussy and Fancy - New

Blue Lace

After making a card on Sunday that I was lukewarm about, today I made a card that I am in love with. The colors and textures are so appealing to my eye. It was a joy to make and I will love looking at it in my studio for the next few days.

I am entering it into Week 10 at the Creative Inspirations Challenge blog. The challenge this week is to make a blue and brown card. I love that color combo and as soon as I read it, I knew I had to make a card using this new blue lace I just purchased last week. To go with the beautiful lace, I had to create a card that was suitably Victorian. Mummmm yummy, that's only my absolute favorite type of card to make. I was in heaven creating and playing around with all the decorative elements for this card.

The top two panels on the front were cut with Oval and Mega Rectangle Nestabilities and embossed on the edges with Cuttlebug Fancy Corners embossing folders. Then I sponged the edges liberally with my favorite Creamy Caramel. The next layer down is split. Half was stamped with the SU Script background stamp in Creamy Caramel and clear embossed. The other half is Cosmo Cricket Gretel DSP which I ripped diagonally. Both are distressed along the edge. The top corner elements were cut with the CB Vintage die and embossed with Tim Holtz Distress Vintage Photo embossing power.

The inside top panel features two Inkadinkado stamps, plus the SU Script BG stamp. The Ecclesiastes verse is from SU. The bottom panel again features the Mega Rectangle Nestie with the CB embossed corners. The back is also prettied up with more of the same stamps, colors and textures.

Card Recipe:
Stamps: SU Words of Wisdom, Garden Collage and Script, Inkadinkado flourishes
Paper: Very Vanilla, Creamy Caramel, Whisper White, Cosmo Cricket Gretel, vellum
Ink: Versamark, Close to Cocoa, Chocolate Chip, Creamy Caramel, Copic markers to color image on front
Accessories: Nestabilities - Mega Rectangles, Rectangles, Ovals, Cuttlebug and Fancy Corners embossing folder, Vintage dies, KaiserKraft chocolate pearls, SU Pretties Kit, button from Jo-Ann's, Prima paper roses, lace from Lace Heaven, Tim Holtz Vintage Photo Distress Embossing Power

Don't forget, with Blogger, if you want to see the detail close up, just double click on the photo and it will open up a full screen image.