Saturday, January 30, 2010

Exciting News and a Card to Share



I am so excited to be able to share this news with you today! Earlier this week I received an invitation to be a guest designer for the grand opening of a brand new digital stamp company Sugar Creek Hollow which will be specializing in vintage and primitive images. Humm...does that sound like a fit for my style? I think so and apparently so did the folks at Sugar Creek Hollow!!

Today I am sharing the first card I have made with one of their digis. The Sugar Creek Hollow Design Team has been working hard behind the scene creating cards to share with you for the Grand Opening. We couldn't resist holding back!! We want to share with you just a preview of what is to come.

Isn't this the most beautiful vintage floral image you have ever seen? I fell in love with it immediately and I'm sure it will become a favorite go to image for many occasions. I paired it up with SU's (retired) Afternoon Tea designer paper Wild Wasabi CS and picked up the colors from there. Gingham ribbon just seemed like a must for this card and I was lucky to find some in my stash that matched. Buttons and brads along with some linen thread added the finishing touch. I plan on finishing off the inside and including a sentiment there, but wanted to get this posted along with all this exciting information.

Want to earn this digi for FREE? Become a Sugar Creek Hollow Follower. Be the 150th or 200th follower and you will receive a FREE digi of your choice!!! Deadline is February 7th at 10pm eastern time. The winner will be announced on February 8th Preview Week!

Please visit the rest of our lovely team by clicking on their links listed here:

Design Team Coordinator: Joseline
Kristina
Cheri
Cassandra
Cassie
Joan
Stephanie
Marsha
Dani
Suzi
Loretta
Donna
Sarah
Tracy

Guest Designers
Kelly
and me Linda, the funkie junkie!

Hope you will visit all these wonderful designers to see what they have created and be sure to stop by Sugar Creek Hallow to check out the images that have been early released.

I am also entering this card into the following challenges:
Stamp, Scrap & Doodle - Open challenge - enter any gorgeous creation
Cute Card Thursday - Bloomin' Gorgeous (flowers)
Artful Inkables: Think Ink Challenge #12 - Think Spring


Update: I had a question from a reader about the paper piercing tool used here. It is a Spellbinders Boarderabilities die called Ric Rac Scalloped. This die is a cutting, stenciling and piercing tool.



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

A Song in My Heart


I can't believe it's rolled around to Saturday again. The time just seems to fly by. I was down with a cold all last weekend and still feeling poorly the begining of the week. Fortunately, I'm pretty much over it now. It seems that I haven't accomplished much around the house this week, but I did manage to get a couple of cards made. Here is the one for this week's Our Creative Corner challenge. This is the last of Jocelyn Turner's challenges. It's been a fun month with great challenges by Jocelyn. This week, her challenge is to use music to inspire our creations. It can be a song, music, an instrument, singer - anything music related.

For my card, I used a Crafty Secrets Clear Art Stamps set that I won last year and have never used. The music is an old Stamp Oasis stamp that I've had forever. I stamped the birds and then masked them and overstamped the music with Frayed Burlap distress ink. Everything else was stamped with Memento Tuxedo Black. Coloring is done with Copics and I used several Spellbinders dies for cutting.

Don't you love the pretty blue gingham lace? I think it is from a batch I bought from Lace Heaven online last year. The coolest part is that I wanted to use it, but I wanted to match up the blues. I went through my stash of designer papers twice, but nothing was clicking. So I went to my digital paper files and found a couple of patterns that I liked. I put the lace on the bed of my scanner, scanned it to PSE7 and picked up the blue color. Then I opened my digital papers and changed the colors to match the lace. I think that is just the coolest proces and it thrills me to no end to be able to do that!!

The flowers are all by Prima and the pretty dotted organza ribbon is from Flourishes. I won the Timeless Tuesday challenge a couple weeks ago and the prize was $10 to shop at Flourishes. Of course, by the time I finished shopping my bill was $60, but it was still wonderful to get $10 off!

Thanks so much for stopping by. Hope you will jump over to Our Creative Corner to see how the other girls are making music this week.

Wishing you a happy, healthy weekend with many blessings.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Paris in the Springtime


Here is my final guest design team member card for Creative Inspirations Challenge Blog. This week our challenge is to make a feminine card. What fun - a license to go for it - as frilly and girly as you want! The design team was given a choice of three digital images by Lauretta's Digital Stamps. You may remember that I tipped my hand last week by using one of the images a week early. So last week's Flapper Girl was one of Lauretta's images and now this week my Paris lady is also one of her images. I was a little hesitant about digis, but they printed up very easily and colored very nicely with my Copics. When brainstorming about how to use this image, I kept thinking of vintage Paris. I had fun visiting some of my favorite vintage sites to find just the right feminine, flowery vintage images to use. And I found a post card of the Eiffel Tower too. I had intended to include some lace, but in the end did not want to cover up the vintage images or any more of the pretty K&Co. DP (which you can hardly see because I did cover up most of it). That's the problem with designer paper. I see it, I lust after it, I hunt it down, I buy it, I hoard it, then I use it. And when I use it, I cover it all up - aarrgghh!!! Can you identify???

I felt the card needed a touch of gold so I stamped a pretty vintage toile and a flourish around the edges and gold embossed them. After I finished assemblng the card, I decided it needed some sort of finishing touch. I was tempted to add more flowers, but finally decided on the Prima black rhinestone flourish which I layered right over the vintage images. I stood back, examined my creation and decided I liked it. It wasn't as frilly and lacy as I had hoped, but somehow satisfying nonetheless!

I've also found some challenges to play in with this card:

Flourishes Timeless Tuesday #51 - Make a card inspired by something starting with the letter P - I think Paris and Pink qualify
Color Chef Challenge #36 - Light pink & dark pink
Update: This card was featured on Card of the Week

Vintage or Shabby Flower Tutorial

I don't normally do tutorials because 1) I don't think I do anything that most others don't already know how to do and 2) because they take a lot of time, which (selfishly) takes away from my crafting time. But I had to make another of the shabby flowers such as I used on the Vintage Valentine and because someone had inquired about a tutorial, I decided to photograph the steps I took to make the flower.
Supplies Needed
Heart punch or dies - you need two graduated sizes of hearts
A pretty brad or button and glue
1/16" circle punch or a paper piercing tool
Designer paper
Distressing ink/sponge

I generally use either my two smallest Nestabiliteis scalloped hearts or my Creative Memories heart maker. I like the Nesties because the scallops give a ragged/shabby edge.
I generally use two different patterns of DP or one plain and one patterened paper. Cut 2 large hearts and 2 small hearts out of each paper. I keep my Nesties in place when cutting by using low tack painter's tape.

I sponge distress the edges of both the front and the back side of the hearts. To me, if the edge isn't distressed, it looks raw and unfinished.

If you will be using a brad for the center of the flower, using a pencil, mark your punch spot low in the V of the heart and punch all 8 hearts using a 1/16" circle punch or a paper piercing tool. You want a hole just large enough to fit your brad pegs through.

Once inked and punched, crumple up into small balls (think spit-balls back in elementary school - LOL!)

Now flatten out the crumpled up hearts. BE CAREFUL -gently uncrumple them. If you try to do it too fast they will rip.
Now start assembling your flower. Because I am using a button as my center, I have to glue the hearts together. My favorite card-making glue is Beacon Fabri-Tac. It drys fast enough, but not too fast. It leaves a little wiggle room for readjusting when necessary.

Start by laying two large hearts next to each other so the V's overlap. Put a dot of glue between the V's.

Continue gluing at the V until all 4 large hearts are together forming a circle.

Now start layering and gluing the small hearts.

Once all four small hearts are glued, you can add the button.


I had a little glue ooze out from the button holes which I rubbed off with my finger. Fabri-Tac resembles rubber cement in that while it is wet, you can usually rub it off.

Variation: Using a brad for the center. Start with the smallest hearts and thread the brad pegs through the hole you punched. Arrange in a circle and then add the four larger hearts in the same manner. It's quicker and easier to use a brad as a fastener, but sometimes you just need a button.
Let me know if you have any questions. I am always happy to share any tips or techniues I use.

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

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Sending Warm Wishes from Sunny Florida



Here's my Design Team card for this week's Pile it On Challenge. The theme this week is Warm Wishes, which you can interpret any way you please. A couple of weeks ago when I first found out what this week's challenge was I was thinking hot chocolate! It had been in the mid-30's here in Miami. One morning I had to scrape ICE off my windshield before I could drive my SUV. As an aside, I found out that credit cards make great ice scrapers in a pinch - LOL!! But now it's warmed up to normal seasonal temperatures - high 70's to low 80's during the day. So I discarded my idea of doing something with hot chocolate for this challenge and decided to send ya'all some of our warm beachy weather.

The stamp sets used are from Flourishes - Beach Life and Seaside Life - both timeless sets that I get a lot of use out of. The designer paper is from the K&Co. Sea Glass collection with Baja Breeze card stock from SU. Coloring is with Copics, jumbo eyelets and twine from SU.

Here are the challenges I have Piled On for this card:
Be sure to hop on over to Pile it On and get yourself warm with our warmest wishes for a wonderful Sunday! And while you are there, check out the blogs of our talented design team. Some of us are new to the design team so this is a great time to get to know us!


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

Saturday, January 23, 2010

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
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.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Portrait of a Flapper




Confusion Reigns!!!
Here's my story - I am currently on three design teams and guest designer on a fourth. My email box is overflowing with messages flying back and forth and I am running short on time due to working so much overtime at work. So when I got the sketch for this week's Creative Inspiration challenge and a digi for next week's challenge within a couple of days of each other, I somehow lumped the two together in my mind and they became one challenge. So, silly me, here is the card I submitted for the Creative Inspirations challenge using this week's sketch and next week's digi. I gave the challenge leader a heads up on what I had done and she decided we should go ahead and publish it this week and I will make another one for next week.

When I first saw this image I was a little concerned because I'm not all that experienced at using digital images and this image is not the style I usually work with. But I must say, I really enjoyed working with this image and brainstorming what a flapper would look like and how to make a card with a feeling of that era. I probably could have done an internet search and found out more about these girls, but I just dove in and went from memory of what I have read in the past.

The card stock is SU's Garden Green and Riding Hood Red. The green DP is from SU and the top layer DP is Graphic 45. The image was colored with Copics and I used red Stickles to color her necklace. The red eyelash yarn was supposed to be reminiscent of the fringe that flappers frequently had on the hemline of their skirts. I probably should have gone to Jo-Ann's to look for real fringe, but I had to work overtime yesterday, got out late and was in a crunch for time to get the card finished and submitted by the deadline.

So the image that I was scared to work with really grew on me and I ended up liking it and the card. Let me know what you think about it! I hope you will stop by Creative Inspirations to see what the other designers created for this week's sketch challenge. And BTW, the image is by Lauretta's Digital Stamps and I'd like to congratulate her on this beautiful sketch and thank her for allowing me to use it on my card!

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Punchy Tilda



Here's this week's DT card for the Creative Card Crew. The challenge is to use punches on your project. I used a Fiskars border punch on both borders of the pink strip. I punched the contrasting Baja Breeze paper also and used the punched waste hearts to fill in the spaces in the pink. I liked the way it tied the two colors together. Both the Regal Rose and Baja Breeze cardstock matched up great with the Basic Grey Urban Prairie DP. (Unfortunately you can't see too much of the DP here). The pink gingham was digitally matched to the Urban Prairie DP and printed out on my printer (I am so excited to be able to do that!!). The "Sweet" sentiment seal from Designer Digitals was also digitally matched to the DP. Tilda was stamped with Momento Tuxedo Black ink, colored with Copics and sponged with Tim Holtz Scattered Straw distress ink.

Our sponsor this week at Creative Card Crew is Sunshine Stamps with three digis of the winner's choice. Hope you will stop by and check out the rest of the DT's creations and play along with us this week!

I know this is a short post for me but I think everything else is self evident. If you have questions, leave it in the comments section and I will be happy to share supply or technique info.

Challenges this card is playing along with:
Quixotic Challenge #9 - Judy's Sketch
A Spoonful of Sugar - Lots of Layering
Raise the Bar - Debut Day (use something new)

Saturday, January 16, 2010

Blue & Green Webb Knitter - OCC DT Card

From The Funkie Junkie

This week Jocelyn Turner, our hostess at Our Creative Corner, has given us a color challenge - make a card/project with blues and greens - your choice of shades of these colors. It was a challenge I was happy to embrace since that is also one of my favorite color combos. I had a little trouble deciding on an image to use. I scoured my collection of rubba, but nothing appealed and I couldn't seem to get my mojo started. I was tired of winter themes but didn't feel ready to move into spring, even though the colors would have worked great for a spring themed card. So I went shopping and while I have been dragging my heels getting into digis, I did find a couple of new Sugar Nellie digis that I loved. This is one of them.

From The Funkie Junkie

I thought the image went great with this Rubbernecker sentiment. I bought it a couple of years ago and have never used it. I think card could be appropriate for a number of occasions - encouragement, birthday, get well or even a cute Valentine to give to a daughter, sister or BFF.


From The Funkie Junkie



From The Funkie Junkie

Card Recipe:

Stamps: Sugar Nellie Webb Knitter digital, Rubbernecker, Layers of Color for the glittered floruishes

Paper: SU's Wild Wasabi and Blue Bayou, MME BellaBella French Flea Market

Ink: Copics, Versamark, Tim Holtz Frayed Burlap for sponging edges, Blue Bayou for sponging on inside panel.

Accessories: Cuttlebug and Spellbinders dies, buttons, linen thread, lace, sewing machine, Prima flowers, Holigram Highlights EP

I hope you will stop by Our Creative Corner and see what the rest of the talented ladies on the design team have come up with for their blue and green project. This week the sponsor is Totally Stampalicious and they will be giving a $25 gift certificate to the winner of this week's challenge. Check them out - they just released two adorable sets and are having a 15% off sale through January 17th.

Challenges entered with this card:

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Elegant Toile



Another great DT opportunity came to me this week. I was chosen to be guest designer for the Creative Inspirations Challenge blog for the month of January. Wow - two DT invitations in one week, both based on the submission of this card. The Creative Inspirations challenge this week is New Year, NewProducts! My new product for this card is the beautiful Cosmo Cricket Everafter paper. I've been wanting it since it came out and used some of my Christmas money to buy it on an after-Christmas sale. I've matched it up here with an Inkadinkado floral flourish stamp that looks almost the same as the flowers in the DP. I used the stamp to clear emboss on a piece of Dusty Durango card stock, the edges of which were sponged with Faded Burlap distress ink. I dug out my old Tender Toile set and stamped the toile image in Memento Tuxedo Black, sponged it with Old Paper distress in, embossed it three times with Glassy Glaze, froze it and cracked it. I thought it just cried out for the cracked glass technique.

I know this card isn't a style that is popular right now as the trend seems to be more contemporary, but I love the vintage look of it and think this style of card still has a place in today's stamping galleries. What do you think?

Thanks for stopping by - I love it when you leave a comment!

I have entered this card into the following challenges:

Kitchen Sink - A Stitch in Time (I LOVE stitching on my cards!!)

Sunday, January 10, 2010

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

Saturday, January 9, 2010

OCC 3-D Challenge

From The Funkie Junkie

Well, I knew it had to happen sometime - the dreaded 3-D project! This week, Jocelyn Turner, our host over at Our Creative Corner has challenged us to make a 3-D project. Really, truly, I have been putting off doing anything like this. I've seen many 3-D creations that I have admired, even thought I'd like to do one some day, but was terrified to take a stab at one. I especially loved the box that Kirsten created and generously shared a tutorial. But was still afraid to try it.



Then my friend Dianne took the plunge and made one of Kirsten's boxes, but she took it a step further and topped it off with an easel card. I fell in love with Dianne's beautiful creation and decided that I would go for it on this challenge. My 20 year old daughter was home from college during Christmas break and was lamenting that she didn't have one of my cards to show off to her college friends so I decided to make the box/easel card for her. She helped me select the papers and image. She had to leave to go back to school before I finished this so she didn't get to see it. I'll be shipping it to her next week. I hope she will like the way it turned out. I was pleased with the project.


It was actually much easier to make than I feared. The box went together very quickly and easily. And so did the easel card. I had the most trouble with photographing and editing the photos to post on my blog. Would you believe I took over 50 shots with all different lighting and settings, but just could not get these photos to do the piece justice.

Here's the recipe:
Paper: DP is Crazy Beautiful by Designer Digitals, SU's Certainly Celery, Neenah Solar White for coloring with Copics
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Versamark, Copics
Stamps: Whiff of Joy, Verve Celebration of Thanks & Thankful Hearts
Accessories: Cuttlebug, Spellbinders Labels 4, Ceramic "Love" is by Meadow Grove, Prima flowers, Making Memories brad, silver heart by Jewelry Essentials Findings, Stickles, Cuttlebug Hearts & Stamps die, Tim Holtz Antique Linen crackle paint, 3/8" wooden button plug for drawer pulls which I painted with the distress crackle paint.

I hope you will take the time to pop over to the Our Creative Corner blog and see the gorgeous 3-D creations the rest of the design team has come up with. What a fun challenge this has been!

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Willow's Thanks

From The Funkie Junkie

This fortnight's challenge over at Creative Card Crew is to make a distressed card. Oh well, not really a challenge for me - LOL! It's actually my very favorite style of card crafting and later this week, I hope to put together a little tutorial on how I do my distressing.

I really enjoyed putting this card together. I chose the Willow Kneeling image from Whiff of Joy and decided to make another thank you card that would be suitable for a Christmas thank you. The floral and dotted DP is from MME Wild Asparagus collection and the gingham is a digital paper I printed. I am so proud of myself! I didn't have any gingham paper that was a match for the burgundy color so I put the MME paper on my scanner, scanned it and opened it in my PSE7. Then I opened a digital gingham paper and changed its color to match the scanned MME paper. You can't believe how thrilled I was when this experiement actually WORKED - LOL!! It has opened a whole new world of digital papers for me.


The card is built on a 5.5" square of Whisper White. But I thought it was too white so I stamped it with an SU Garden Silhouettes stamp inked with Bordering Blue and Bravo Burgundy which matched the MME paper almost perfectly. I also sponged the edges with Bordering Blue. Next up was a layer of Bordering Blue. The edges are scissor distressed and sponged with Close to Cocoa ink. The Thank You sentiment is from SU's All Holidays set.

Inside, the focal element is two stamps from the new Verve set Thankful Accents, which my sweet daughter (with a whispered suggestion from me) bought me for Christmas - stamped in Bravo Burgundy.


The open panel in the lower inside was stamped with the Garden Silhouettes stamp, again inked in Bordering Blue and Bravo Burgundy. Flowers by Prima, branches from an MS punch and buttons from Foof-a-la. Several Spellbinders dies were also used.


Also entered into:


Quixotic Challenges - Lace
Stamp Something - use a new craft goodie, either brand new or something you have had but never used
Creative Inspirations - Thank You
Bizzy Becs - Creatalicious - Something old (almost everything), something new (Verve stamps inside), something torn (distressed edges), something blue (Bordering Blue CS)
Roses on Paper - Color with your favorite medium - hands down Copics are my fav!
Pile it On - Anything digital - my digital gingham paper that I changed the color on
Crazy4Challenges - Polka dot fun - one of the designer papers I used has polka dots - you can see it better on the bottom interior panel
ABC Challenge - Layering
Corrosive - Use 2 of your favorite things - okay, I used many fav things - distressing, layers, Copics, lace, etc.!
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I changed my font at thecutestblogontheblock.com