The DT Piece That Wasn't

Good Saturday morning to you!  Thanks so much for stopping in to see what I made this week for the challenge at Our Creative Corner.  Unfortunately, you won't see this card on the challenge blog today because I messed up and didn't follow the challenge requirements.  Our lovely hostess, Vicki Burdick has given us a paper piecing challenge, which I did but the twist is no ribbon and only one (yes, that's right, only one embellishment).  Oops, I guess this card doesn't fit the challenge requirements.  I was so fixated on the paper piecing part that it totally slipped my mind about the other requirements so I went my merry way throwing embellishments on by the handful.  I had it all finished, photographed and loaded onto the team blog yesterday before I realized my mistake.  Oh well, maybe I can find other challenges to play in this week.

Here's the deets and I've linked up the products  below, many of which are from my Etsy boutique because I sell what I enjoy using for my crafting.

The paper is old, old Stampin' Up DP which I love and use very sparingly.  My paper piecing is on the Wendy Vecchi stamped heart from the Love to Make Art set, paper pieced using papers from the same DP set and trimmed out.  I die cut white corrugated cardboard with two Sizzix dies -  Hearts, Primitive #3 and Tags, Scalloped Combo #2 and edged them with Metallic Gold Acrylic Paint Dabber.  Then I added a little red tri-bud applique.  I cut another smaller tag and overlaid it, stamping it with a sentiment from the Tim Holtz Stuff to Say set.  The flower was cut with the Sizzix Flowers & Vines #2 die and the pleated ribbon by May Arts and sold in my Etsy shop.  The metal filigree, also from my shop, was coated with white embossing powder and heat embossed for a worn enamel look.  Oh, and the sweet red burlap thread is also from the Etsy shop.

I hope you will stop by Our Creative Corner.  The designers there are awesome and always have something wonderful to share to get your mojo revved up!

Thanks so much for stopping by today and for any comments you leave.









Challenges Entered:
The Stamp Man - Use Red
Stampin' for the Weekend - Out with the Old (old, old, old Stampin' Up DSP)

Sizzix Flower and Vine #3	Filigree Metal	Burlap String 10 Colors	Alterations Tattered Florals Die	Acrylic Paint Dabber
Venise Tribud Appliques	Ranger Jet Black Archival Ink	Ivory Pleated Ribbon	White Corrugated Cardboard	Wendy Vecchi Love to Make Art

InLinkz.com

Exciting News!

Just a very quick post this morning to share some exciting news.  I was chosen to be a guest designer for Artistic Outpost from February through April.   I am super excited about this opportunity!  I love their vintage/artistic style of stamps and am really looking forward to the new releases to see what I can do with them.  Can't wait to get that rubber inky!

If you are not familiar with their stamps, check them out here and and on their blog.  And be sure to stop back by in February to see my take on their new releases.

Hope you are having a great week!

A Victorian Valentine Paper Crafting Kit

As promised, my Victorian Valentine paper crafting kit is now available.  They are being sold through my blog on a first-come, first-served basis.  I have made 19 kits.  I may make more, but will make that call after the first batch is shipped out as they are very labor intensive for me to make.

If you love vintage and love handmade embellishments, then you will love this kit.  I am all about handmade - I much prefer the look of handmade chipboard and flowers to the store bought kind.  So I have created a collection chocked full of vintage yumminess with mostly handmade elements.  Everything that was hand dyed was dyed with the same dye colors so it all color coordinates perfectly.  And if you don't do a lot of paper crafting for Valentine's Day, there are still so many sweet vintage elements here that you can use on many other projects.

Here is what you will receive:

• A set of 3 die cut chipboard hearts (cut with Spellbinders dies).  The hearts are covered with designer paper and then stamped with two stamps (music notes and tole flowers).  The edges were sponged with gold acrylic paint and they are embellished with sweet little filigree metal pieces that I altered from bright brass to more of a bronze tone.  
• Three micro (1") clothes pins, dyed red
• Three pieces of filigree metal - one in bronze tone and two that were white embossed
• A 3" stick pin and a sweet crystal and glass pearl double dangle (both hand assembled by me)
• A small chipboard heart that I covered with gold vintage style glass glitter
• A resin cameo and a resin heart

Plus you will receive 3 vintage style post cards and 2 decorative elements with vintage style images.  The three post cards have been hand distressed.  All five of these were digitally reworked by me.  

And there's more.  You will receive:

• Two yards each of hand dyed crinkled seam binding in Victorian red/burgundy and pink, each wound on a sweet vintage style card
• Three handmade felt flowers
• A 4" gold foil heart doily

And last but not least, you will also receive:

• Three hand dyed ivory Venice lace hearts, the two smaller ones have also been hand painted in variegated rose pink and ivory, plus 3 hand dyed Venise applique tri-buds
• 18" of hand dyed ivory Venise lace, 1.375" wide

Your yummy embellishments will come packed in this sweet 6x6 card box.  It will work for storage or for presenting a 5.5x5.5 card (these are the boxes I use for mailing my multi layered, heavily embellished cards).

The cost of the kit is $30 USD plus $3 shipping.  I will ship internationally and will give you a shipping cost based on the country shipped to.  To purchase a kit, please email me at thefunkiejunkie@gmail.com.  If you are outside the USA, please also ask for a shipping price.  I will send you a Paypal invoice for payment.  The first 10 kits will ship on on Tuesday of this week and the remaining 9 by the end of the week.  

Thanks so much for looking.  I hope you like all these vintage inspired lovelies!  There's lots more pretty stuff in my Etsy Boutique.

Simon Says It's a Red Letter Day

 

It's time again for another Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge.  This week we are talkin' Red Letter Day.  We, at the design team, have been buzzing all week about how to interpret that theme.  My team mate Tracy Evans did some research and will be sharing on her blog the original meaning of a red letter day.  The team came up with some fun interpretations so be sure to check them out.   Being in a Valentine's Day frame of mind, when I thought of red letter, I thought of Valentine's Day and I literally made a red letter - LOL.  

For my Valentine's Day wall hanging, I first created my red letter using Crafty Secret's Rosy Wishes embossed with Ranger Superfine Gold Embossing Powder.   I read in a craft magazine awhile back about glassine and gesso so I took a glassine bag, crumpled it up and smoothed it back out.  Using a wash of 50% water and 50% gesso, I painted the front and let it dry.  When dry, I stippled it with full strength gesso.  I digitally removed the background with my PhotoShop Elements from this pretty Valentine's girl and printed her on tissue paper, fussy cut her and then glued her to the glassine bag using Claudine Hellmuth's Multi Medium Matte.  Then I gold embossed the flourish from Tim Holtz's Urban Grunge set. 

I cut chipboard with the Elegant Flourishes die and painted them with Gold Metallic acrylic paint and then gave them two coats of UTEE. I used the Gold Metallic paint dabber around the edges of the white corrugated cardboard. The handmade flowers were cut with the Tattered Florals die and the Sizzix Flowers and Vines #3 die, wet, crumpled, dried and spritzed with Biscotti Perfect Pearls mist. 

My bronze filigree corner was heat embossed with white embossing powder and then sanded to give it a worn look. I also rubbed some of the gold acrylic paint over it and then rubbed it off again for a little more aged look.

And finally, I had a little fun with some of my jewelry making supplies and some gold glass glitter.  And that about wraps it up for another Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge.  I hope you will play along.  Our ever generous sponsor, Simon Says Stamp and Show has a $50 shopping voucher for the lucky random winner of this week's challenge.  So be sure to stop by Simon Says Stamp and Show and maybe even play along!

Thanks so much for stopping by today and for any comment you care to leave!  Hope you have a great week.

An Itty Bitty Sneaky Peeky

Hello and welcome to my weekly Our Creative Corner post.  This week, Vicki Burdick is our hostess and she has challenged us to make a shape card - anything but a square or a rectangle.  Well, I guess I didn't read the challenge guidelines very well because mine is basically a rectangle.  I cut it with the SU Top Note die so it is a little shapely, but not very creative.  It's a very small card for me as I am used to working with 5.5x5.5" cards.  The base is SU's Confetti Cream and I stamped it with the gingham stamp from the Wendy Vecchi Nature's Art set in Aged Mahogany ink.  The second layer was stamped with SU's Elements of Style stamp and then the script stamp from Wendy Vecchni's A Form of Art set, both with Aged Mahogany ink.  The chipboard heart was stamped in the same ink with the Elements of Style set and the Tim Holtz music stamp with Vintage Photo.  

Now here's the sneaky peeky stuff - many of these sweet vintage elements will be in the Vintage Valentine's Day kit I am creating, including:  a gold doily, a set of 3 of the embellished chipboard hearts - this one and two smaller ones, a hand-dyed tri-bud applique, hand dyed seam binding and a handmade felt rose.  And those are just a few of the items that will be in the kit.  This one is totally loaded with vintage yumminess!!  I will have it up for sale on this blog by the end of the weekend.  I am initially making 20 kits and they will be sold first-come, first-served.  You can email me at thefunkiejunkie@gmail.com if you are interested.  I don't have the final price yet, but it will be between $30 and $35 USD.  Even if you are not a big fan of Valentine's Day cards, you will find so many wonderful vintage-style elements that can be used throughout the year.  

I have to tell you, my teamies on the design team for Our Creative Corner really ROCKED the shape challenge.  Be sure to stop by and see the very cool shapely cards they have to share.   Thanks so much for stopping by today and for your lovely comments.  Have a great weekend!

Something Old, Something New

Happy New Year everyone!  Thanks so much for stopping by today to see what I have made for our latest Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge.  This week we want you to show us something old and something new on your artwork. 

I created a little art piece that can be stood, hung or have magnetic strips placed on the back to stick to a refrigerator (jumbo refrigerator magnet - LOL).  I have used lots of favorite oldies (Fabulous Flourishs stamp, Elegant Flourishs die, Tag and Bookplates die, LOVE stamp from Stuff to Say, Picket Fence distress crackle paint) on this project, but my"old" highlights are the four wonderful vintage buttons sent to me recently by my friend Marcy Kaminski from the En Papillote Arts blog.  She sent me such a beautiful RAK - a huge amount of vintage buttons and lots of yummy lace and crocheted work.  The buttons I used here are from that stash.  

My "new" is the tattered rose created with her newly acquired Tattered Pinecone die and the seam binding dyed just for this project with a blend of Aged Mahogony and Tattered Rose distress inks. I used the tattered pinecone die to cut out a book page which I then painted with white gesso and then dry brushed some Aged Mahogany distress ink on it.  Then later I also dry brushed some gold acrylic paint dabber on the edges of the flower.  I wrapped the flower around a toothpick very much like Tim Holtz does in his tutorial for the tattered pinecone, but left it a little looser and also kept squishing it upward so it is flat on the bottom not elongated like the pine cone is.  

The flourish and bookplate were cut from chipboard and painted with Picket Fence Crackle Paint.  When dry I dry brushed the with Aged Mahogany and again with gold acrylic paint dabber.  The background paper is plain old copy paper that I aged by pouring a little coffee into a baking sheet (with sides so it doesn't run off) and coating the paper.  Leave a few puddles of coffee on the sheet of paper and put into a 250 degree oven for 15-20 minutes (check often).  It comes out looking so cool.  I stamped it with the Tim Holtz music stamp and Sepia archival ink before I poured coffee on it.  After it came out of the oven I stamped the flourish stamp with Versamark and gold embossed it.  I adhered it while it was still a tad damp with Claudine Hellmuth Multi Medium Matte.  The seam binding dyed just for this project with a blend of Aged Mahogony and Tattered Rose distress inks.

The image is another of my digital layering experiments.  The cherub is from Luna Girl and I erased the surrounding background and layered it over the post card - love the way it came out!

Now it's time to check out what the other designers have made over at Simon Says Stamp and Show.  And our ever generous sponsor is giving awaya  $50 shopping voucher.  You can't win if you don't play so get going on your something old, something new project right away!!

Thanks so much for stopping by and for all the lovely comments!  Wishing you and yours a blessing filled New Year!

A Bright & Happy New Year

  

Good morning, blogging friends.  I hope you have all had a good week and are ready to ring in the new year.  At Our Creative Corner, to kick off the new year, we have a bright and happy challenge for you.  Ann Marie Hile is our hostess again this week and she has this gorgeous color challenge for us.

She also wants us to make it a card for a celebration.  I created mine for a birthday celebration but it could be used for a New Year's card also.  It's a pretty simple card this time, but it still took me 4 hours, mostly because I was tired and my mojo was flat.  I couldn't figure out what to do with these colors - I was really stumped.  But once I started looking at vintage images, I began to be inspired.  I added the yellow background to my vintage card and there it was - all the colors I needed for the challenge, a bit muted but I think I can skate by with them.  

Here is the result.  Like I said, not very elaborate this week, just a pretty blend of colors and textures.  The vintage image is from The Graphics Fairy, the ribbon is brand new in my Etsy shop, but I haven't had time to list it yet - look for it later this weekend.  My precious handmade flower for was made with the Tim Holtz Tattered Florals die.  The stamp is from Crafty Secrets.  

That's it - it's late and I need sleep.  Letme know if you have any questions.  Thanks for stopping by and HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

A Winter Thank You Project

Hi there,  So glad to have you stop by for a visit today!  I hope you are enjoying the holidays.  I thought this would be a great time for a fun thank you card challenge.  We all need thank you cards at this time of the year and frankly, I got a late start on making Christmas art and wanted to keep it going a bit longer.  So I created a winter-themed set of thank you library pocket cards.  You might remember that I made a set of library pocket Christmas cards at the beginning of the holiday season.  I thought they were so cute and that the format would work great for my Christmas thank yous.  

Plus I wanted to try my hand at a few very cool techniques I have seen lately.  Did you see Tammy Tutterow's frosty debossed snowflakes?  Very cool!  This is my first attempt and I think I might have scraped off too much crackle paint because the debossed areas aren't very crackly.  And of course, you can see the crackles better IRL.  The silver snowflake is one of the bronze ones I sell in my Etsy boutique.  I altered it by dripping Ranger Silver Alcohol ink mixative on it.  

Then Shelly Hickox took the crackle deboss to the next level by applying it to die cut foil tape.  Check out her gorgeous tag here.  What a seriously cool technique that is!  Mine is a little shaky.  I made it exactly the way Shelly described and I think I used the exact same materials, but I had a bit of a problem getting the Rock Candy distress paint to stick to the foil tape.  It dried and cracked beautifully, but when I handled it, the crackle paint came off in chunks.  I added more two more times, but each time it came off.  You can see a couple of places where it is missing on the front snowflake.  I finally gave up and figured only a card maker would notice it was missing anyway so I can probably use it as is.  

Inspired by another amazing technique and tutorial on Shelly Hickcox's blog, I tried her Faux Mercury Glass technique.  I was having problems with my heat gun so I only applied one coat of UTEE to this guy.  It really needs a second coat to get the glassy depth to it.  But it was a lot of fun to do and something I will definitely try again ( I have a new heat gun coming from Stampin' Up so will give it another try next week).  

I mixed a bit of the silver alcohol ink mixative with some Stickles for a silvery bling on the corrugated cardboard holly leaves.  It really doesn't look great in the photo, but it looks quite pleasing IRL. 

I used some lovely winter bird vintage images from LunaGirl.  With my Photoshop Elements, I erased the 'Merry Christmas' from each image and added 'Thank You' to each card.  They were printed on my home printer and distressed with Vintage Photo distress ink.  

I used a library card stamp from PaperTrey Ink to stamp the back of the tag.  My thank you message will be written on that side.  

This was such a fun little project.  You can make these very easily.  I used a free template from Mirkwood Designs to trace and cut the pocket and you can download a sheet of library cards from Pine is Here.  There's some scissor work involved, but I think in the end you will find it very enjoyable to make.  These sweet little cards will fit perfectly into an A2 size envelope.  

How about giving one a try?  You certainly do not have to make a set of 4.  If you make one and want to share, please leave a link in the comments section here so we can all see and be inspired by your work!

Thanks again for stopping by and for your lovely comments!

Products Used:

Alterations Vintage Lace Die	Sizzix Flower and Vine #3	Burlap String 10 Colors	Claudine Hellmuth Gesso	Tim Holtz Mini Holidays 3 Stamp Set
Kraft Corrugated Cardboard	Tim Holtz Snow Flurries Texture Fade	Wendy Vecchi Seriously Art	Bronze Filigree Snowflakes	Biscotti Perfect Pearls Mist
Vintage Photo Distress Ink	Foil Tape Sheets

InLinkz.com

Wishing You a Merry Christmas

Good morning and Merry Christmas!  Just a moment for a quick post before I run to my kitchen to start making pies and other Christmas fare.  Here is my very late submission for Our Creative Corner.  Sharon is our hostess this week and she wants us to be inspired by a holiday decoration in our home.  My tag is in spired by a pair of lovely vintage style reindeer that sits on my hearth at Christmastime.  

Sorry, no time right now for the deets.  Will try to get that part of the post up later today.  Have a wonderful Christmas Eve!