Baroque Beauty

I've had a super busy week since my last post and have only managed to get one card done this week. I had agreed to teach a class for our diocese on Catholic Social Teaching so I spent most of the week preparing for it. The class was Thursday night so Friday night I was able to get back to stamping.

I made this card for a challenge with a card artists blog I belong to. The challenge was to go to SplitcoastStampers and select a technique that we had never done before and make a card using it. The theme of the card was to be "Thinking of You". We could enter up to three cards using a different technique each time. So I have entered three cards. This is the first of three and it uses a technique called Color Wash Faux Bleach. The center two square panels are done using this technique, as is the top inside panel. The bottom layer is SU's Old Olive cardstock. I stamped it in Always Artichoke using a Jen Wilson Laundry Line stamp and then overstamped it with in Old Olive and Versamark using a SU Garden Silhouettes stamp and then embossed with clear EP. The next panel up was made using Sherry Cheever's Ink Watercolored Paper technique. The colors I used were SU's Tempting Turquoise and Old Olive. They actually matched perfectly with the Ranger Butterscotch and Steam alcohol inks that I used for the faux bleach technique.

I made the flower by spraying Whisper White paper with the alcohol inks thinned with the blending solution and then punched them out with my old Creative Memories heart maker. I punched four hearts of each size, crumpled them up, punched a hole in the tip end of each and fastened them together with a bead cap and SU brad.

The fragment charm was also made using one of Sherry Cheever's techniques. I think trying to replicate her charm is what got me going on this whole alcohol ink tangent. Luckly Jo-Ann's had all of these products on sale at 50% off last week - what an enabler that was - LOL!!!

Card Recipe:
Stamps: Garden Silhouettes, Laundry Line, Inkadinkado. Wishes Awash
Ink: Adirondak Alcohol Ink Butterscotch and Stream, SU Always Artichoke and Tempting Turquoise, Superior India Ink
Cardstock: Whisper White, Old Olive, SU Glossy White
Accessories: Fiskars Corner Punch, Creative Memories Heart Maker, Tim Holtz Fragment charm, Bead end cap, SU brad, clear embossing powder, white rick rack, silver heart charm, sewing machine

Which Way to the Beach?

Watch out! Molly Moose is on the loose. Isn't she adorable? She's all ready for a beach day with her inner tube, sunglasses, beach blanket and "umbrella" drink. I made this card for SC225 at SplitcoastStampers and it's perfect for the OCC color challenge this week too. For OCC we are to make a card in our favorite color combination. I paired up the great beachy colors of SU's Pretty in Pink, Tempting Turquoise and Certainly Celery with Basic Grey's Euphoria DSP. This is also my first ever image colored with Copic markers. I finally broke down and bought a set on sale a few weeks ago and have been practicing with them.

I stamped the cute flip flops on the Basic Grey paper and then double stamped the flowers on vellum, colored the back side with SU markers to coordinate with the paper, trimmed them out and then brushed them with a mixture of a few drops of LuminArt's Simple Solutions (acrylic medium) and a sprinkle of LuminArte's Metallic Mica Luster Pearl. It makes a shinny mixture that you can paint on to give a bit of shimmer. I used it on both the flowers on the flip flops and the hibiscus.

For the inside panel, I stamped the flip flops on the Euphoria paper and trimmed them out, again making the flowers out of vellum as I did for the front. I think this is such a cute stamp from Obsession Impressions.

Because I sell my cards, I have to put the copyright information on the back as required by the companies' angel policies. So I have been prettying up this requirement on my cards. I did this one by making a die cut with the Mega Rectangle Nestabilities and overstamping it with the hibiscus stamp in Tempting Turquoise. I thought it added nicely to the beachy feel of the piece.

Card Recipe:

Stamps: Moose stamp - The Peddler's Pack, Hibiscus - Stampendous!, Flip Flops - Impression Obsession, Stampin' p! Priceless

Cardstock/Paper: Vellum, Tempting Turquoise, Pretty in Pink, Certainly Celery, Neenah Solar White, Basic Grey Euphoria DSP

Ink: Stewart Superior India Ink, Copic markers, Tempting Turquoise and Pink Passion SU markers for coloring the vellum

Accessories: Cuttlebug, Tiny Bubbles embossing folder, Spellbinder Curved Rectangle Mega Nestabilities, Stickles, LuminArt's Simple Solutions (acrylic medium), LuminArte's Metallic Mica Luster Pearl, Starfish charm - K&Co. Seaglass Collection

Have a beachy week!

Woohoo, I've been published...well, sort of...

I sent photos of my Country Roads and Summer Days (see Art or Trash from March) collages to the stamp maker Artistic Outpost and they published my work on their blog!!! Check it out and maybe leave a comment about my work on their blog.

Country Roads

I'm taking a chance here, going in a bit of a new direction. This is not a card and not a scrapbook page. I guess it could be a combination of some of the elements of both. It's done on a 12x12" cardstock paper so in that respect, it is similar to a scrapbook page, but it is not set up to add photos to or to journal on. My thought was that it could be used as wall art, either put in a 12x12 shadowbox frame or otherwise framed/hung. A paper artists' group I am part of had a challenge this week. We were to make something "green" in celebration of Earth Day. It could literally be green or could be a green theme or could just use recycled, repurposed materials. Well, I had this Lucky Brand tag that I thought was cool (I snagged it off a pair of jeans my daughter bought while she was home from college over the Christmas break). Plus I had a pair of jean shorts that don't fit that I have been cutting bits and pieces off for various projects. So the jeans theme popped into my head. Plus I had this awesome stamp set from Artistic Outpost called Home that hadn't seen ink yet. So I was off and running. But I had so many ideas of what I wanted to include that I just couldn't fit everything on a 5.5x5.5" card. I simply needed a bigger "canvas". So I went to the 12x12 scrapbook size paper and it was the perfect size.

What else is recycled? I cut up a blue and white bandana left over from Caitlin's girl scout camping days and found some country look fabric in a box at the back of the closet - must be 30 years old if it is a day! I cut them into small squares and quilted them together with my machine to create the strip running up through the center. I also ripped off strips to hold two little silver charms that say "follow your heart" and "laugh often". There is a button and a silver washer I dug out of a drawer, a piece of denim I cut with the Sizzex Top Note die. Oh, and the natural crochet thread is from my Grandmother's sewing basket that I inherited when she passed away 15 years ago. I have no idea how old it actually is.

So, while this piece is not a card, there is plenty of stamping and other cardmaking techniques used here...and it's certainly funky!!

What do you think? Leave me a comment on what you think I could do with this piece of "art".

Happy Earth Day!

A Confirmation Keepsake

A friend from my church asked me to make a special keepsake card for her daughter's confirmation. This is what I came up with. I don't have a special stamp set for confirmations and didn't seem to have just the right cross set either, so I made a cross out of this Spellbinder Frameability by cutting one of the frames in half and adding extension pieces. The break is covered by the prayer. The only die that seemed to fit right over the break left too much white space at the top and bottom so I added the piercing swirls which I thought went well with the theme. If you remember, on Pentacost, when the diciples were in the Upper Room, there came a strong wind that was the Holy Spirit. I also used red and a dove, two other symbols of the Holy Spirit. Since it is for a young girl, I wanted to keep it fairly simple so I used the CB Swiss Dots embossing folder. I made up the prayer and printed it on my computer. On the back, I will also put the daughter's name and confirmation date so it will be personalized. I'm not sure if you can see it, but the lower inside panel, white on white, is dry embossed with a CB folder. At the top it says "with love" and at the bottom is a row of daisys. My friend LOVED the card.

Card Recipe:
Stamps: SU Peace Be Unto You, Elegant Inspirations
Paper: Whisper White, Real Red
Ink: Creamy Carmel, Stewart Superior India Ink
Accessories: Spellbinders Framabilities and Pirecabilities, Fiskars corner punch, sewing machine

Key to My Heart

This sweet little girl and doggie is my first Sarah Kay image. I loved watercoloring it with my SU reinkers and making it in the Shabby Chic style. The paper is a pretty design from the K&Co. Classics box. (Such a deal at Michael's last week - a 150 sheet box for $14.99 and the prints are beautiful!!). I decided to make the theme 'key to my heart' by adding a couple of chipboard hearts that I painted with Tim Holtz distress crackle paint. The paint color is actually Picket Fence (white) but I scooped a little out onto a pallet and added a tiny drop of SU Rose Romance reinker plus a dash of Creamy Caramel to bring it down a tone. It came out a pretty good match for the rose color in the paper. The 'Love' and 'Trust' tickets are by Tim Holtz also. I happened to have a tiny silver key in my stash that is so pretty and has a tiny clear rhinestone at the end. The edges of all the papers were sponged with Creamy Caramel and distressed with scissors. The wide lace on top is from Jo-Ann's and the burlap lace is from Stamper's Dream. The raspberry polka dotted button is from Stampin' Up which I colored with a Copic marker and added the black polka dots. It actually matches the dots in her dress and cap almost perfectly. This card was a joy to make. I just loved working with the colors and textures of the design elements. I even decorated the back panel.

Don't forget, to see the details close up, just click on the picture and it will open in your full screen.

Card Recipe:
Stamps: Sarah Kay by Stampavie, SU Seaside Sketches (for the sentiment)
Paper: K&Co., SU: Very Vanilla, Close to Cocoa
Ink: SU

Reinkers: Rose Romance, Chocolate Chip, Close to Cocoa, Creamy Caramel, More M

ustard, Soft Sky, Basic Black. Stewart Superior India Ink and a little Encore silver metallic for the key
Accessories: Brads and lace - JoAnn's, Prima flowers, Cuttlebug Hearts & Stamps die for the chipboard hearts, Tim Holtz distress crackle paint, Nestabilities Curved Rectangles, Martha Stewart

leaf punch, SU button and Copic marker, Tim Holtz tickets, key - who knows - some kind of jewelry finding, burlap lace - May Arts.

Blog Candy Winner

The winner of the blog candy for the 6x6 photo tagging is Wendy AKA Louby Loo http://creationsbyloubyloo.blogspot.com!! Thanks Wendy for entering. I'll get your prize right out to you!!

Tagged and Happy Easter Blog Candy!

I'm feeling a little down today so I decided to join in a fun tag game. Susana at Card of the Week tagged her subscribers to post the 6th picture in the 6th photo file on their hard drive. So here is mine.

Well, it was the luck of the draw, but it sort of shows me as one-sided. While others have pix of family, pets or friends, I opened my photo file and it was picutres of CARDS! And recent cards at that. I did something weird to my hard drive a few months ago and it opened up a new administrator's file. So my photo file only has pictures of the past several months. But it is fun to see others' random photos and I'll be tagging others to play along.

If I have tagged you or if you want to play along, post your link under the comments so we can all see your 6th file/6th picture. I'm offering a mini-blog candy prize. Please number your post and I'll use a random number generator to award this pretty stamp set from K&Co. on Easter Day.

A Mother's Love

As Mother's Day approaches, I plan on doing several Mother's Day cards. This is one I made for a challenge contest for a cardseller's group I am part of. The level of work in this comptition is very high so I was trying to come up with something really special. After a couple of false starts, this is what developed. I was happy with the result. The idea that popped into my head when I first read the contest guidelines is not what you see here. I had something extremely simple in mind, but my love of embellishments wouldn't let me leave it quite that simple. I wanted a lot of white with a pretty contrast. As I leafed through my paper stash, I found one sheet of this Basic Grey paper which matched very nicely to last year's SU In Color Purely Pomegranate. It made a nice contrast with the crisp white paper I used. The frame is cut with a new Nesties set Labels 4. I double layered it for strength. The second layer is very thin white cardboard (came in an SU paper pack). The saying is stamped on acetate, mounted on the back of the frame which is popped up on craft foam. Then I struggled over whether to add the flowers. The contest guidelines said no bling, keep it simple. In the end, I gave in and added the flowers. I think they were the finishing touch - we'll see what the judge thinks!

The heart on the inside was cut with my Creative Memories cutting system. The frame inside was made the same as the outer one. I like the popped up window-type look, but the card does not close flat, which might bother some of you. I'm not crazy about cards that don't fold flat, but went with it for this time.

Card Recipe:

Stamps: Morning Soft

Paper: Whisper White, Purely Pomegranate, Basic Grey DSP

Ink: Stewart Superior India Ink

Accessories: Cuttlebug and Swiss Dots embossing folder, Nestabilities Labels 4, Creative Memories cutting system, Martha Stewart border punch, SU Pretties Kit (large half pearls), Michael's generic small half pearls, silk flowers from Jo-Ann's, sewing machine.

Strawberry Sweetness

Mummm, yumm...think strawberries and chocolate. An amazing confection, candy for the pallet. And this sweet little card I whipped up is definitely a feast for the eyes - eye candy! The beautiful color combination of pinks, coral, celery green and deep chocolate brown are rich fare, drawing the eye back to feast again and again. As happens with many of the cards I photograph, I don't think the camera does it justice. I wanted to make something light and sweet with this week's Splitcoast Stampers' Wednesday Sketch sC222. I recently won a pack of DCWV Nana's Nursery Baby Girl paper in a blog candy give-away on Becca Feeken's wonderful blog Amazing Paper Grace. So I broke it out and decided the strawberry design was perfect for this retired SU set Fairies. SU's Cameo Coral and Certainly Celery were a prefect match as was the silk ribbon and silk flowers I've had hanging around in my stash for some time. A perfect opportunity to get them out and use them. I just love this color combination.

Here's the card recipe:
Stamps: Stampin' Up Fairies
Paper: DCWV Nana's Nursery, SU's Cameo Coral, Certainly Celery, Chocolate Chip, Very Vanilla
Ink: Used for watercoloring: Cameo Coral, Certainly Celery, Barely Banana, Soft Sky, Pale Plum, Encore Ultimate Metallic Silver (on wings), Versamark. For background sponging: Creamy Caramel, Chocolate Chip
Accessories: Cuttlebug, Circle Nestabilities, Labels Four Nestabilities, CB embossing folder D'vine Swirls, Martha Stewart edge punch, Crystal Effects, SU brads, Jewelry Essentials bead caps, sewing machine, silk flowers, stickles, ribbon saved from a Brighton purchase - LOL!

Art or Trash?

We all know that one man's trash is another man's treasure. So what is grunge collage art? Is it art or is it trash? Let me know your thoughts on this kind of 'art'.

I really love making this type of art card with lots of distressing. I enjoy making a piece of ephemra from scratch, taking something new and making it look old. Here is a card that I worked on over the weekend. All images on the front panel are from Artistic Outpost. I stamped the image of the woman on Very Vanilla, cut it with my Nestabilities Tag Shape 3 die, sponged it with Creamy Carmel and Tim Holtz Vintage Photo distressing ink and it was instantly aged! The 'photo' was stamped on Very Vanilla, the edges cut with deckle scissors and sponged with Creamy Carmel and Vintage Photo. I made a crease in it and sponged the crease to simulate an old photo.

Check out the butterfly and the flower embellishment. Both were coated with Versamark and Tim Holtz Vintage Photo Distress Embossing Powder was applied, heated and again, instant aging. They look like old, rusted metal. The new Tim Holtz Distress Embossing Powder is amazing and so much fun to use!

Here's the inside. Don't forget, you can click on the photo and it will open as a large photo display. That will allow you to really see the details.

Leave me a comment and let me you if you like this type of art or not.

Card Recipe:

Stamps: Keeper by Artistic Outpost, Natural Beauty by SU, Laundry Line
Paper: Stampin' Up! Afternoon Tea DSP, Very Vanilla
Ink: Stewart Superior India Ink, Creamy Carmel (SU), Tim Holtz Vintage Photo Distress Ink, Versamark, Blue Bayou,

Accessories: Cuttlebug, Nestabilities Labels 2 and Tag Shape 3 dies, Martha Stewart tripple scallop punch, SU circle punch, SU natural hemp, natural crochet thread, white embossing powder, Tim Holtz Vintage Photo Distressing Embossing Powder, metal butterfly from Making Memories, two flowers from Lost & Found jewelry findings, sewing machine, Prima flower, random silk flower

Take & Eat

I purchased the First Holy Communion set last year from Our Daily Bread Designs and used it to make several cards. It's a really beautiful set and one that I am sure to use over and over again. Since it's the time of year when many children are making their first communion, I wanted to do something really special. Here is the outcome of my efforts. The color purple doesn't seem to really be true with either my camera or my photo editing software because the real color is a little

more on the purple side than the photo depicts.

The image is stamped on Whisper White with Stewart Superior India Ink and watercolored with a combination of watercolor pencils and watercolor crayons. I was actally just messing around with this edition of the image, sort of doing a draft. I liked the way it came out so well that I decided to go ahead and use it for my card. The purple cardstock is Creative Memories that I ran through the Script embossing folder with my Cuttlebug and then brayered gold ink lightly over it. The cross in the background is the center die cut from the Spellbinders Frameabilities die. I had to lengthen the vertical piece by cutting it, which is covered up by the main image. I thought it needed a little something more so I cut the corner pieces from the same die set and then added the gold pearls for a final effect.

I thought the inside panels came out really beautiful. The sentiment, beautiful in itself, was heat embossed with Gold Detail EP and framed with the outer portion of the Spellbinders Frameabilities die. It was too tall so I cut it and collapsed it. Then of course, I had to patch the cuts so they wouldn't show. I used the same corner pieces that I used for the front, this time in purple and stenciled them with gold ink. The corners of the right-hand panel are punched with a Fiskars corner punch and the panel is edged in gold.

Now that I have it finished, I think it is probably to adult-looking for a child's First Communion. But adults who have gone through the process to join the Catholic Church also have a first communion so I think it would work great for an adult. Or since I didn't put the matching stamp on it that says "God Bless You on your First Holy Communion", it could be used for any Christian celebration. As a happy conincidence, the card layout matches the March 21st sketch for Our Creative Corner so I am going to link it there.

Card Recipe:

Stamps: First Holy Communion by Our Daily Bread Designs

Card Stock: Purple from Creative Memories, Whisper White, Really Rust and Gold from Stampin' Up!,

Ink: Versamark, Encore Ultimate Metallic Gold, Really Rust from SU, Watercolor Pencils and Watercolor Crayons

Accessories: Cuttlebug Script Embossing Folder, Spellbinders Frameabilities die, Spellbinders Rectangle Nestabilities, gold pearls from Michael's, gold embossing powder, sewing machine, Fiskars corner punch

Wishing you a wonderful weekend,

Easter Wishes

I made this card for Splitcoast Stampers Wednesday sketch challenge SC220. It's the sum and total of my stamping efforts for the entire weekend. As soon as I saw the sketch, I knew I wanted to participate this week. I wanted to use this Rubbernecker stamp before Easter so there was no problem deciding which stamp to use. Ditto for paper. I purchased this Crate Paper pack called Baby Bee a few weeks ago and love the soft spring colors. So that part was easy. The challenge for me came because I wanted to do something different and eye catching. Something that would make the viewer say 'Wow!" when they saw it. So I lingered over the design and deliberated and pondered, sigh. And unfortuntely, not much came from it. But I do love this lacy trim from the Chatterox artsy.licious line and the colors matched up perfectly. And Pumpkin Pie ink from SU also matched well as did the sentiments from the SU All Holidays set. Overall, I am happy with the way the card turned out, but it just doesn't have the zip and zing that I had hoped for. I'd give it a 7 on a 1 to 10 scale.

Card Recipe:

Stamps: Rubbernecker, Stampin' Up All Holidays

Paper: Whisper White, Certainly Celery, Soft Sky, Crate Paper Baby Bee, Watercolor paper for main image

Ink: Stamped - Pumpkin Pie, for watercoloring: So Saffron, Pumpkin Pie, Pretty in Pink, More Mustard, Lavender Lace, Lovely Lilac,

Accessories: Image stamped with Versamark and Stewart Superior India Ink, clear EP, Cuttlebug, Bloom Dots embossing folder, Long Rectangles Nestabilities, Martha Stewart border punch, Chatterbox artsy.licious ribbon/trim, Crystal Effects, bead caps, art pearls.

Wishing you many blessings on your week,

Liberty for All

This card was a mid-week card, which is quite an accomplishment for me lately. I am participating in a challenge on a private blog to do a thank you to the troops card. Actually, Iam trying to get two done by Friday, March 20th. I don't have many patriotic stamps so I went to a Victorian clip art CD that I have and found this lovely photo of a colonial painting and framed it using Spellbinders Mega Curved Rectangles. I cut three layers of thin cardboard, glued them together and painted them with Tim Holtz Pickett Fence Distress Crackle Paint. When it had dried, I took some Adirondack Acrylic Paint in Snow Cap, mixed it on a palet with SU Night of Navy dye reinker and stamped the stars on the frame. The bue stared paper is old, old scrapbooking paper from Creative Memories that I took a sanding block to, removing the top layer of shine to come up with a faded, aged look. The Thank You label was also cut with the Curved Rectangle Nestabilities from thin cardboard to which I applied Versamark and silver embossing powder. I heat set two layers of EP and then, after inking my stamp with Versamark, stamped the Thank You into the hot EP which gives it the look of stamped metal. The Red stars were run through the CB with the Distressed Stripes embossing folder and then lightlysponged with Chocolate Chip ink for a slightly distresssed look and sewn down using a machine blanket stitch.

The top inside panel features a quote by John Adams dated July 3, 1776. I cut the panel to somewhat resemble a scroll. The bttom matching panel thanks our troops for helping to uphold the promise of freedom for America. All the print on the inside two panels was done on my printer. Using a minimum of stamping, I was very happy with the way this card turned out.

This is a very different type card than my norm. I'd be interested in hearing your opinion of it.

Have a blessed day,

Shabby Envelope

I didn't have time to make a card this week so I am sharing one I made last September. This was my second ever attempt at a collage card and I was thrilled with the way it turned out! It is so soft and romantic. It was a real project from going through my stamps to find just the right vintage images to hunting down paper and ribbon. There there was making/stamping every little detail.

I first made the base of the card by layering Close to Cocoa and Creamy Caramel together. The edges of both layers were distressed using a pair of scissors and sponging with Creamy Caramel. When I am going for a real vintage look, I like to use scissors to distress the edges rather than a distressing tool. It rips the edges up a bit more and makes some actual tears in the paper. You can't really see it, but the Creamy Caramel layer was clear heat embossed with the Baroque Motiffs stamp from SU. I created the corners by cutting thin cardboard with the Cuttlebug Vintage Corners die, which I then embossed with gold EP. The "envelope" was made from some old Creative Memories paper by folding it into the shape of an envelope. I distressed the flap edges with a tool and by tearing them, then sponged all the edges with Creamy Caramel. After that, I used the Gentler Times stamp to gold emboss a filagree pattern along the flap edge. The sentiment is from the Verve Visual Asian Flair set. The llittle daisy flower was made with an old Creative Memories flower punch. The young girl's picture was stamped in Creamy Caramel from the Days Gone By set, as was the Honey Almond Cream "label". The inside of the card was also finished off with distressed layers and gold embossing from the Gentler Times set. I love both of these vintage Stampin' Up! sets.

Here's the recipe:

Stamps: Days Gone By, Gentler Times, Asian Times from Verve Visual
Paper: Creamy Caramel, Close to Cocoa and Chocolate Chip for the base, envelope is constructed from Creative Memories paper
Ink: Creamy Caramel, Versamark for embossing
Accessories: Gold EP, SU ribbon, a piece of gold net ribbon from my stash, SU button, the small flowers were embossed with a Cuttlebug folder and punched out with a Creative Memories punch and the brads are SU, Cuttlebug and Vintage die, machine stitching, random silk

Have a great weekend. Hope to see you back next week for a new card that I hope to get done during the week next week. Leave me a comment and let me know what you think of my vintage Shabby Envelope!

Pretty in Pink

Another Rubbernecker image. This was made for SplitcoastStampers sketch challenge SC218. Isn't this sweet little bunny the cutest? I was in a spring mood and pink just seemed to be the right color for her dress and I branched out from there. The paper is from SU's Bella Rose designer paper pack. The bunny's shoes and eggs have been glazed with Crystal Effects and Stickles was applied to the ribbon on her hat. I gave a light coat of a shimmery mixture of LuminArte Simple Solutions 2 and LuminArte Metallic Mica Luster Pearl. It's hard to see the sparkle of the Stickles or the shimmer of the LuminArte in the photo but it really livens up the image.

The hardware is from Elite Better Beads (I believe they are called bead caps). I took an SU brad, snipped off the prongs and glued it to the bead cap. I think it makes a nice, interesting embellishment.

Both the upper and lower inside panels have been finished off. In keeping with the monochromatic color scheme I had going, I used the Pink Pirouette ink to stamp the Easter Blessings stamp which was also clear embossed. It was stamped on vellum and overlaid on a circle of Whisper White that had been run through the Swiss Dots CB folder. The bottom white panel was punched with a Martha Stewart Ribbon Threader punch and matching pink ribbon from Jo-Ann's ws treaded through and single knotted on each end.

Here's the recipe:
Stamps: Rubbernecker Bunny and Sentiment
Ink: To watercolor bunny: Pink Pirouette, Riding Hood Red, Creamy Caramel, Certainly Celery, Blue Bayou and Lavendar Lace, Versamark and Pink Pirouette for the sentiment
Paper: Bella Rosa Designer Series Paper from Stampin' Up!, Pink Pirouette. Whisper White, vellum
Accessories: Cuttlebug and Swiss Dots embossing folder, Circle and Long Rectangle Nestabilities, Martha Stewart edge punch and ribbon threader punch, Elite Better Beads (from Michael's) and SU pink brads.

Easter Bonnet

Oh my goodness, I am so happy to finally get a new card posted on my blog. I have been so busy this past week with work, then Ash Wednesday was super busy for me since I work at a Catholic church. Then my husband had surgery on Friday and I had an all-day retreat I facilitated on Saturday. So today, Sunday, I took some me-time and finished this card that I started earlier this week. Isn't this sweet little chick from Rubbernecker just the cutest in her fashionable Easter bonnet? I stamped her on 140# watercolor paper with Versamark and Superior Black India ink and then clear embossed her. She was watercolored with my SU ink pads. I found a pack of spring like paper with colors that matched up well with SU's Blue Bayou, Groovy Guava and Certainly Celery. It's Chloe's Closet from Making Memories. I used Stickles on the flowers to give them some extra bling.

I took some of the double stitched grossgrain ribbon form SU, gathered it and glued it to the back of the circle I cut with my Nesties and then mounted that piece on a larger scalloped circle aslo cut with Nesties. The eggs too were stamped on the watercolor paper, watercolored and then glazed.

This card is a little departure from my vintage, retro, distressed norm but it was fun to work on.

Here's the recipe:

Stamps: Chick and Easter Blessings are from Rubbernecker and the Easter eggs are from Studio G Clear stamps (the $1 stamps from Jo-Ann's).

Paper: SU's Groovy Guava, Blue Bayou and Whisper White, Making Memories Chloe's Closet DSP.

Ink: Versamark, Stewart Superior Black India Ink, Blue Bayou, Certainly Celery, Almost Artichoke and Groovy Guava

Other: Cuttlebug and Circle/Scalloped Nestabilities, the flourish is a QuicKutz die, Martha Stewart double scallop punch, Blue Bayou double stitched grossgrain ribbon, stickpin from Chole's Closet line by Making Memories, Crystal Effects, pearls and some crystals from the SU Pretties Kit, small crystals are Sworski and the tiny green butterfly charm is from Jewelry Findings, sewing machine.