Witchy Woman

 

A warm welcome to my bloggy friends, new followers and those of you who are just passing through.  I'm back this rainy Miami Monday to share my Simon Says Stamp and Show project with you. But first let me also share with you that we had another weekend of hard rains and praise God, my roof did not leak.  The roofers were back out this past week, pinpointed the leak and apparently have been successful at fixing it this time.  Yay!!!!

This week Simon Says Stamp and Show wants you to show us your Stripes - easy peasy, right? I have been wanting to make something for Halloween but just hadn't had the time.  I decided that a nice crisp black and white strip would make a great background for a Halloween card.  To start with, I used a plain black and white strip digital paper from Pink Petticoat.  I overlaid a black filigree brush from Designer Digitals in a repetitive pattern to give it more of a gothic look.  And, as always, I covered almost all of it up, but trust me, it looked very cool.  I downloaded the Witch Hazel label from the Cocoa and Bella blog.  Check it out - there are a number of free cool Halloween type vintage labels.  The witchy woman vintage image is from a Luna Girl CD I own.  I kept the design pretty simple with just three layers and then ran a strip of orange across the bottom that had been dry embossed with the Cuttlebug Textiles EF.  I inked up a brayer and ran black ink across the high points for definition.  Then I took a die cut made with the Spellbinders Fleur De Lis Borderabilities die and coated it with fine black glitter and affixed it to the orange strip.  I made an itty bitty black crinoline flower with the Tim Holtz Tattered Florals die, backed it with back tulle and put a sparkly orange crystal in it for the center.  To hold the ticket from the Tim Holtz Odds and Ends set, I took one of Tim's Hinge Clips and coated it with Pitch Black Alcohol Ink and more fine black glitter.  The alcohol ink is sticky and I just poured the glitter over it while it was wet and it stuck on just fine :)  I didn't think it was quite finished so I took a tiny scrap of seam binding and dyed it with Peeled Paint DI, threaded it through an orange button and affixed it to the top.  Not a scary Halloween card - just cute vintage style.  Hope you like it.

Hey, how about visiting the Simon Says Stamp and Show blog?  You'll find some great inspiration from our amazing team and we'd love to have you play along this week.  Our ever-generous sponsor, Simon Says Stamp, will be awarding a $50 shopping spree in their well-stocked store to a lucky random player this week.

Favorite Fall Flowers - a Handmade Papercrafting Kit

UPDATE:  THE KITS ARE NOW SOLD OUT.  I MAY DO ANOTHER PRODUCTION RUN NEXT WEEKEND.  EMAIL ME AT thefunkiejunkie@gmail.com IF YOU WANT TO BE ON THE WAITING LIST.  WATCH FOR A TUTORIAL LATER THIS WEEK.

If you are a regular reader of my blog, you have probably noticed a few new crinoline flowers I have designed to celebrate the autumn harvest season.  These include a sunflower, a marigold and a chrysanthemum.  I'm in the process of putting together a fall paper crafting kit containing these flowers.  I'll be working over the weekend to complete 10 kits which I expect will ship no later than Wednesday, October 19th.  The kits will be $20 (plus shipping) and will include the following items (you can double click the photo to see the items close up).  If you think the price is a bit high, just remember that almost everything here is hand-done and that is labor intensive.  You will probably be able to make 4-5 cards with all of these items.

• 3 large crinoline flowers (your choice of mix of sunflower, marigold and chrysanthemum)
• 10 fall oak leaves such as you have seen on recent cards - 4 with script stamp, 4 with gingham stamp and 2 cut from acetate and colored with alcohol inks
• 2 - 2 yard lots of crinkled seam binding, one in rust and one in a gold/brown tone wound on vintage style hand distressed ephemera cards
• Venice lace butterfly and 1 yard of Venice lace both dyed brown (lace wound on one of my hand distressed clothes pins)
• 3 vintage style tags, hand distressed
• 4 metal filigree flowers (1 large and 3 small)
• 1 yard of rust colored burlap thread
• 1 beaded safety pin
• 2 pieces of hand distressed fall ephemera

Your kit will arrive packed in an beautifully embellished 6x6 card box.  The box can later be used to mail/present a 5.5x5.5" card.

If you would like just the flowers, they will be 3 for $4.50 plus shipping and will also arrive safely in a lovely embellished 6x6 card box.

I am taking reservations for these kits.  If you would like to reserve a Favorite Fall Flowers kit, please email me at thefunkiejunkie@gmail.com.  If there are any left after the reservations come in, they will be on sale in my Etsy boutique.  Don't forget, if you want to make your own, I have crinoline for sale on Etsy too.  I will also try to get a tutorial done sometime this week, in between making flowers for the kits.

Crinoline Chrysanthemums

Happy Saturday friends!  Welcome to the weekend and to the weekly Our Creative Corner challenge.  I'm so glad you decided to visit me today.  I'm excited to share this fun card with you.  Marjie Kemper is the hostess this week at Our Creative Corner and she has a supply challenge for us.  Marjie says she likes supply challenges because it encourages her to use new and different supplies and I definitely agree!  Her supply challenge is transparencies.  What fun - I used transparencies (I usually call it acetate) and alcohol inks - a match made in heaven.  Just dot a bit of alcohol ink on a felt applicator and apply to the acetate.  It makes a really cool design.  I'm still in my fall kick and had to use the acetate to make some leaves (mine's from an upcycled package-I never throw that stuff out any more).  And then I decided to design one more fall crinoline flower so I chose a chrysanthemum in a wonderful rusty shade.

Here is the photo I used to design mine.

I was so happy with the way my crinoline one came out!  I'm also entering this card into two other challenges.  I used the sketch from Mojo Monday and the photo inspiration challenge from The Shabby Tea Room.

Just a few deets:  I heat embossed a flourish leaf pattern on the bottom panel on Really Rust CS and then sponged with Close to Cocoa ink.  The green dotted DP is digital from Raspberry Road, printed on my home printer and embossed with the Cuttlebug Morroccan Screen EF.  The sentiment is from Stampin' Up!  The rust colored burlap thread is from my Etsy shop and the stick pin is something I made, similar ones can be found in my Etsy shop.  If you just have to have that one, let me know - it can be arranged :)  The scallop die used for the top panel is from PaperTrey Ink.  If I missed anything and you have a question, just leave it in the comments or email me privately.

Thanks so much for stopping by.  Your comments are so encouraging and I truly appreciate them!  I hope you will stop by Our Creative Corner to see what the rest of the team is up to.  Please go by their blogs and leave them some love too!  Have a wonderful weekend.

P. S.  I'm working on a papercrafting kit featuring my fall crinoline flowers - sunflower, marigold and chrysanthemum.  Check back here later today if you would like the details and to reserve one.  They should be ready to mail out mid week next week.

Other Challenges:
Charisma Cardz - In Stitches
Gingersnaps Spicy Supply Challenge - Alcohol Inks
PaperPals - Thanksgiving, Autumn, Halloween or Harvest theme
Stampin' for the Weekend - The Colors of Autumn

Challenge: 12 Tags of Christmas - Funkie Junkie Style - Week #6

It's time for this week's challenge for my 12 Tags of Christmas - Funkie Junkie Style.  We're now half way through the challenge and I want to thank everyone who has played along to date.  And I also want to remind you that if you want to join in, there is still plenty of time.  You can complete the 12 tags in any order at any time.  You just have to have all 12 entered by December 15th if you want to be in the random prize drawing at the end.  And what's the prize?  Your choice of a $25 shop at my Etsy Boutique or one of my pieces of artwork - maybe even one of my Christmas tag triptychs.

Here is my tag #6 which I hope will inspire you.  I struggled with inspiration for this one.  I had a very busy day and every time I thought I would get a chance to sit down and start my tag, I got derailed.  I didn't even start it until about 9:00 p.m. and then oh, the pressure.  I had no idea of what to do.  So I went to Tim Holtz's blog - after all, his work is my inspiration for these tags and challenge.  I decided to use his background technique from last year's tag 9.  For my BG stamp, I used his Fabulous Flourishes stamp with Ranger Archival Jet Black Ink.  I love the way it came out but it's tough to see the pretty gold swirls in the photo.

For this week's '25' I cut a heart with a Spellbinders die and triple gold embossed it.  The 3rd time, while it was still hot, I stamped the 25 into it.  The stamp was inked up with Versamark first so it wouldn't stick to the embossing.  When it was cool,  I took a Copic and colored in the indented 25.  I embellished it further with a tiny piece of hardware from my Etsy shop, also colored with the Copic.

The angel was stamped on a piece of acetate from a package, again with Ranger Archival Jet Black Ink. I think Stazon would have been better, but my black pad has dried out.  But the archival ink worked okay.  The angel stamp is one I bought off eBay a couple of years ago and there is no manufacturer's mark on it.  I fussy cut her and painted the reverse side with acrylic paint.  The doily was spritzed with my mixture of Vintage Photo DI, water and Heirloom Perfect Pearls and adhered with Claudine Hellmuth's Multi Medium Matte.

I really love the way this one came out.  I think it's my favorite so far.  If you want to see the details up close and personal, just click two times on the photo.  I am entering this tag into the Fashionable Stamping Challenge Anything But a Card challenge.

I hope I was able to inspire you to join in my fun little challenge.  Thanks again to those who have become regulars - I'm having a ball visiting you and being inspired by you too!

Calendars for Judy

One of my visitors asked about some calendar images that I occasionally use on my cards.  I tired to respond to the email but kept getting a "message failed" response.  So, for Judy and everyone else who loves vintage images, here is a link to the Clearly Vintage blog from where I downloaded the vintage calendar images.

Lovely Wings

Good Monday morning to you, bloggy friends.  I hope you had a wonderful weekend.  It rained torrents here in Miami and my brand new roof leaked - eeek!  Raining in my hall bathroom again - what a disaster and not what you expect when you paid for an entire new roof!  The roofers are getting an earful from the DH in the morning.

But let's get back on track here.  I'm sure you came to see my weekly mixed media piece for Simon Says Stamp and Show, not to hear my woes.  Our challenge for you this week is to show us something with wings.  I had an absolute blast with this challenge.  My teammate Sarah is encouraging us to try using book covers in her My Mojo Monthly series so I took a leaf out of her book and put the technique into action.  Actually, I have to confess that Sarah inspired me to start using book covers about 6 months ago and they are sensational for building a mixed media piece on.  So  I picked up a used hard cover book at Goodwill for $1.50 and using a sharp craft knife, I sliced off the front cover and ink distressed the edges with Vintage Photo DI.  

I have some vintage doilies crocheted by my grandmother, but couldn't bring myself to cut into them.  So I hit our local antique/junk shop and was able to score some beautiful doilies which I used for this project.  I smeared the entire cover with Claudine Helmuth's Multi Medium Matte and pressed the largest doily into it.  I tore and distressed a page from a vintage songbook and adhered that next, then topped that with a vintage style tag that I had digitally altered.  The dress form is from Wendy Vecchi's A Form of Art set.  For the wings, I stamped the wings from the Tim Holtz Regal Flourishes set with Vintage Photo DI on a piece of acetate,  sprinkled Vintage Photo Distress Embossing Powder onto it and then embossed with my heat gun.  I didn't overdo the heat because I didn't want to totally melt the acetate.  It just acquired a nice curve from the heat.  I then fussy cut the wings and dabbed the back side with Gold Arcylic Paint Dabber.  I love the way the wings look - nice and textured on the front with a beautiful golden shine on the back (don't forget, you can click the photo once or twice to open it up large so you can really see the details).  

I die cut two small tags and stamped them with WISH and LOVE from the Tim Holtz Stuff to Say stamp set, plus stamped a small floral flourish in Tattered Rose then ink distressed the edges with VPDI.   I used these to make a skirt, tying them on with a bit of seam binding dyed with Vintage Photo DI.  

Once all that was done, I added some pieces of doilies and anything else girlie from my stash I could lay my hands on.  This one was a total joy to work on and I savored every girlie piece I added.   Hope you enjoyed looking at it too.

Now it's time once again to leave my blog and scoot over to the Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge blog to see what the rest of the amazingly talented design team have to share with you.  Always terrific mojo starters over there!  I hope you will create your own piece with wings and share it with us this week.  Don't forget, our sensational sponsor, Simon Says Stamp, always so generous, is giving a $50 shopping spree to the lucky random winner.  It could be YOU, but not if you don't play along.

Have a great week, my friends. 

Challenges Entered:
Fashionable Stamping Challenge - Anything But a Card

A Harvest of Gratitude

Good morning and happy weekend.  It's hard to believe that it is Saturday again.  Where did the week go?  And it's time once again for Saturday's Our Creative Corner challenge.  This week Lori Rider is our hostess again and she has a fall color challenge for us.

These are Stampin' Up! colors and if you don't have them, just get as close as you can to the color requirements.  I don't have Pool Party so I used the old Soft Sky and the only place I could work it in was for the stamping in the circle.  I also used this week's Mojo Monday sketch.

These are great fall colors and I felt like making a fall card, but when I sat down to get started, I found that what I really wanted to do was to make a Halloween card with orange and black.  Every idea I came up with required orange and black, nothing was coming to mind for these colors - no stamps, no vintage images, no embellishment ideas, nothing - yuck, my mojo was stuck.  It took me a lot longer than it should have to come up with this and I'm not thrilled with it. (Update:  After sitting here looking at it on my desk all day, I've decided that I do like it - it grew on me and I'm glad I plowed on through to the end.)  It's better than the first "draft" version which was without the buttons and the leaves.  The leaves helped pep it up a bit, but the down side was that they covered up that wonderful piece of burlap.

I used my Wendy Vecchi gingham stamp from Nature's Art (great set, it also has that wonderful Wendy butterfly) a lot on this card - obviously for the Really Rust gingham.  I also stamped the leaves with Old Olive and the gingham stamp plus the tiny leaf that I covered with Crystal Effects was also stamped with the W.V. gingham stamp.  Inks used are Chocolate Chip, Really Rust, Old Olive and Soft Sky.  The papers are all SU, the stamps are a mix of SU, Inkadinkado and Pink Paislee.  The crocheted lace, the burlap thread and the wide burlap are all from my Etsy shop.

That's pretty much it.  For a card that took 4 hours, I don't have a lot to say about it.  If you have any questions, please let me know.  And thanks so much for stopping by and for any comment you care to leave.  I hope you are planning to scurry on over to Our Creative Corner to enter your fall card with these colors on it.  There's lots of mojo floating around over there that you can grab too!


Other Challenges Entered:
The Stamp Man - Circle It
Sweet Stampin Challenge - In Stitches

Challenge: 12 Tags of Christmas - Funkie Junkie Style - Week #5

Good morning friends, followers, visitors - welcome!  Thanks for stopping by.  I have this week's tag for my 12 Tags of Christmas challenge to share with you today, but first I want to thank everyone who has been playing along.  I'm so excited to see people actually joining in and what wonderful art you are sharing!  If you are new to the challenge, no problem.  You have until December 15th at midnight Eastern time to complete all 12 of the challenges.  You can do them in any order and at any time, but for the prize drawing at the end of the challenge, you must have entered all 12 challenges.  You can read the complete requirements on the Week #1 post here.

For my Tag #5, I took inspiration from Tim Holtz's tag from Day#7 2010 with the canvas poinsettia.  For the tag base, I used Tim's Perfect Distress technique (page 38 in Compendium of Curiosities) and the wings from his Regal Flourish set.  It's the first time I have tried this technique and it worked great.  I used Heirloom Gold Perfect Pearls and you can see from the side shot above how the Perfect Pearls adhered to the stamping ink - very cool.  I sponged the Very Vanilla tag with Frayed Burlap distress ink first.

I was also inspired by Lisa's fabulous milk carton entry and the way she used NOEL.

The JOY stamp is a very old set from Stampin'Up! stamped in Versamark and embossed with Detail Gold embossing powder.  For this '25' I used Tim Holtz's BINGO texture fade and cut the 25 out of the embossed BINGO card.  I used a Versamark marker to go over the embossed parts and then more detail gold EP.  The other thing I did was to take the tiny bright brass flowers and color them with a black Copic.  Before the ink was dry, I rubbed it off with my finger, leaving the black in the recessed parts which tones it down and makes it look antiqued.  You can find the hardware I used in my Etsy boutique.  

That's it for tag #5.  Let me know if you have any questions.  Thanks again for stopping by and I hope you will decide to play along.  

It's WENDY Week!

Good morning and happy Monday to you!  Thanks so much for stopping by today to see what I have to share for the weekly Simon Says Stamp and Show project.  It's Wendy Vecchi week and we want you to show us your very best WENDY.  Now that I have finally acquired some Wendy stamps, that doesn't scare me as much as it used to - LOL - but I will admit that I spent an awful lot of time on this project. 

After reviewing my small supply of Wendy Vecchi stamps, I decided I could use a few of them to support a central theme of "be true to yourself".   Chipboard coasters were used to create a three-piece wall hanging with each coaster having its own sentiment that supports my central theme.  The three stamp sets I used are Live and Make Art, Love to Make Art, A Form of Art and Nature's Art.   

I used GrungePaper for the flowers and everything else is plain white card stock with the exception of the dress form which was stamped on kraft.  I used Frayed Burlap, Dried Marigold and Stormy Sky distress inks liberally for sponging and stamping.  The seam binding was dyed with Stormy Sky and Frayed Burlap plus I threw in some metals, rhinestones, lace and tiny floral appliques from my stash (had to put my own stamp on this somehow).

It's taken me a long time to warm up to Wendy Vecchi's style and stamps, but now that I own a few of her sets, I find that I really love them.  The background stamps are awesome - I think this gingham one is going to be a constant go-to for me.  And I think a lot of her stamps will work well with my style plus I always love to use sentiment stamps and she has a wonderful assortment so you will probably see me using them a lot in the future.  I already have two more of her sets in my cart at Simon Says, just waiting for the next time I get a little spending money - LOL!

Now it's time to hop on over to the Simon Says Stamp and Show blog.  You know there will be plenty of eye candy to get your mojo started over there. Hope you will leave the other designers some love too!  And if you play, you just might win a $50 shopping spree that is given to a random player each week by our generous sponsor, Simon Says Stamp and Show.

Thanks again for stopping by.  Hope you have a wonderful week!

Autumn Marigold

Happy Saturday ya'll.  I'm back this morning with a little make for Our Creative Corner.  I want to pull back a bit from my Christmas tags and focus on autumn today.  Today is officially World Card Making Day and our hostess, Lori Rider, has challenged us to make something that takes inspiration from a country other than our own.  I don't own many international stamps and although I could have gone in search of a vintage image for this project, I decided I wanted to stamp.  I did have a couple of French stamps, at least I think the script stamp is French.  And I did find a wonderful vintage French ledger page on the Graphics Fairy site.  I'm really in the autumn mood and wanted to do something with traditional fall colors so I used the ledger paper and went from there using the colors for this week's CR84FN challenge of yellow, orange and brown.

The marigold was made from crinoline cut with the Tim Holtz Tattered Florals die and three colors of distress ink:  Wild Honey, Dried Marigold and Rusty Hinge.  I dyed and layered the flower together and secured it with a pretty head pin and glass pearl.  The leaves are the Tattered Leaves die with a script stamp and a few colors of distress inks sponged on with a few flicks of water droplets for interest.  The butterflies were cut with an SU die and sponged with distres inks.  The green and craft  paper twist is from my Etsy shop - love that stuff.  Oh, and I did stamp a leafy flourish with an Inkadinkado stamp in Frayed Burlap with a bit of water misted on it.  The sentiment is from Verve.

That's it - short and sweet for this week.  Hope you like it and that it inspires you to join in our challenge this week at Our Creative Corner.  Stop by and see what the other designers have to inspire you too.










Other Challenges Entered:
Fashionable Stamping Challenge - Vintage
Artistic Stamper Creative Challenge - Autumn Colors
The Stamp Man - A Perfect Pear (mine's a perfect pair)

It's a Keeper

Good Monday morning to you bloggy friends!  The great thing about Monday mornings is that its time for another Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge.  This week we want you to show us something For Men Only.  Oooohh, tough challenge for a lot of us, right?  I actually like to do a guy card/project periodically, but I will admit that I have to be pushed into it.  This week I made a card for my project.  I used an old favorite stamp set called Keeper from Artistic Outpost and combined it with a newer Tim Holt set Curiosities.   I made a little sign with the Photographs stamp, covering it with Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel.  I like the irregular coverage you get with it when you only do one coat.  I created my own designer paper by stamping randomly on kraft CS with Ranger Jet Black Archival Ink and the stamps from the Tim Holtz Ultimate Grunge set. I finally broke down and bought that set and I love it.  Its fabulous for grungy background stamping!  That layer was scissor distressed on the edges and sponged with Vintage Photo DI.

The shell of the card is black CS and then next layer up is plain white CS that I embossed with the Checkerboard Texture Fade and sponged with Scattered Straw DI.  The fish were stamped onto kraft CS with Ranger Jet Black Archival Ink and then I went over them with an olive green Copic to make them look more realistic.  Then I coated them with a layer of  Glossy Accents.

That's about it.  Let me know if you have any questions.  Hope to see you over at the Simon Says Stamp and Show blog.  You know there will be plenty of eye candy to get your mojo started over there. Hope you will leave the other designers some love too!  And if you play, you just might win a $50 shopping spree that is given to a random player each week by our generous sponsor, Simon Says Stamp and Show.

Challenge: 12 Tags of Christmas - Funkie Junkie Style - Week #4

Greetings bloggy friends and happy weekend to you!  I'm combining my Week #4 inspiration tag along with the Our Creative Corner challenge this week which is Numbers. That makes me a few days early with the #4 tag challenge since I have been posting that challenge on Wednesdays.  No worries, you still have until December 15th to play in this challenge.

 Sharon is our hostess again this week and she wants us to use some sort of number on our submission this week.  If you've been reading my blog, you have probably noticed my 12 Tags of Christmas - Funkie Junkie style.  My theme for my tag series is December 25th.  Since I am very pressed for time over the next few weeks I thought I could combine the two challenges.  

You can check out the sidebar links to get an idea of how the challenge works.  You can make any kind or any style of card, scrapbook layout, tag, wall hanging, home decor project - anything, you name it. Read all the rules here and then get going so you can play along!  A $25 shop in my Etsy Boutique is up for random grabs if you have completed all the tags by December 15th.  

Tag #4 is pretty simple.  I first stamped the snowflakes with Ranger Archival Jet Black ink and then covered the entire tag with Clear Rock Candy Crackle Paint and let it dry.  Once dry I went over it with Vintage Photo Distress Stain and wiped off the excess.  It gave it such a nice vintagy tone.  The cheese cloth was sprayed liberally with the mixture of Vintage Photo Distress Ink, water and Heirloom Gold Perfect Pearls that I use so frequently.  The snowflakes were cut with Spellbinders dies and painted with Gold Acrylic Paint Dabber.  The reindeer was cut with the Reindeer Flight die and sponged with Vintage Photo.  She has a cute little rusty bell on her burlap twine collar.  The numbers 25 were cut with the Tim Holtz Vintage Market letter die and coated with Crystal Effects.  The icicles were made with Star Dust Stickles.

That's it for this week's Tag and OCC challenge. I hope you will stop by Our Creative Corner and see the wonderful work by our designers.   And I warmly invite you to join in the fun with my 12 Tags of Christmas - Funkie Junkie Style by linking your winter holiday craft item.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Challenge: 12 Tags of Christmas - Funkie Junkie Style - Week #3

Here's my inspiration photo for Week #3 of the 12 Tags of Christmas challenge that I have running through December 15.  

For those of you who read this post earlier about my broken camera and lousy phone photo, I was able to borrow my daughter's point and shoot and have updated the photo so it actually looks decent!

Here are the deets on this week's tag.  It was sponged with Frayed Burlap distress ink and then I stamped BELIEVE from the Tim Holtz Mini Holidays set with Frayed Burlap to create a background.  The flourish was cut with the Elegant Flourishes die from Grungeboard and sponged first with Pitch Black and then Gold Acrylic Paint Dabbers.  The little flower was cut with the Tattered Florals die from Very Vanilla CS, then it was spritzed with Heirloom Gold and Vintage Photo spray, crumpled up, dried and then dabbed with the Gold paint dabber.  The center is a crystal from my beading supplies.  The "sheet music" is a stamp from the new Tim Holtz set Mini Holidays 3, stamped onto vellum.  

Continuing my tag theme of December 25th, for the 25, I punched the numbers from a stamp from the Ultimate Grunge stamp sets, edged them with Vintage Photo DI and mounted them on the Type Charms.  The Believe tag was copper so I dabbed it with gold ink and then clear embossed over it.  I used a piece of Tim Holtz Lavish Trimmings across the bottom.  I went over it with the Gold paint dabber before gluing it down. The stars are from a Sizzix die and were embossed with Judi-Kins Egyptian Gold EP.  The metal corner is from my Etsy boutique.  

I hope you will want to play along with me as I do my 12 tags project.  You can find all the challenge "rules" here.  And just a reminder, you can complete the challenges in any order you please.  The only deadline is the final one December 15th.  If you have linked a project to each of the 12 tag posts by December 15th, your name will go in a drawing.  There will be one random winner and the prize is your choice of a piece of my artwork or a $25 shopping spree in my Etsy boutique.  

POST UPDATE:  A reader asked about the sheet music.  It's a stamp from the new Tim Holtz Mini Holidays 3 set.  

Short and Sweet

Hi gang, hope you had a wonderful weekend.  I'm back with you this Monday morning to share my Simon Says Stamp and Show project.  This week are are challenging you to show us your ATC.  Wow, what a small palette to work on, huh? ATCs are not something I do very often - usually limited when I am challenged - LOL!   This time I decided to use my brand new Wendy Vecchi stamps to make a fall feeling ATC.

I started with a piece of corrugated cardboard as the base and spritzed it with my new bottle of Denim Color Wash, then sponged the edges with Vintage Photo Distress Ink plus swiped a bit of gesso across it.  Using the Elegant Flourishes die, I cut a piece of chipboard, then sponged it with Faded Jeans distress ink and stamped it with the gingham stamp from the Wendy Vecchi Nature's Art set.  It's kind of funny, but all the blues in this piece are Faded Jeans, but depending on what I stamped on, the shade changed.

The paper flower was cut with the Tattered Florals die and then I painted a Foliage piece with a bit of Snow Cap Acrylic Paint Dabber, let it dry and then brushed a bit of Faded Jeans distress ink on it.  The butterfly from the Wendy set was stamped with Faded Jeans DI and also Brushed Cordury.  I coated it with Crackle Accents and because I used water based distress inks, the ink ran and bled.  I was ready to toss it out, but decided I liked the distressed look and decided to stay with it.  The leaf from the Wendy set was stamped in Rusty Hinge and then coated with Antique Linen Distress Stickles.  A stamped sentiment, a scrap of burlap from my craft table and a button from my stash and this ATC was finished off and ready to post.

I hope you will stop over to Simon Says Stamp and Show to see the wonderful ATCs that the rest of the design team have for your inspiration.  And don't forget about the $50 random drawing to shop with our generous sponsor Simon Says Stamp.  Hope to see your ATC entered in our challenge this week.

Thanks so much for stopping by today.  Have a great week!

A Delightful Dash of Pink

Good morning, you all.  So glad to see you back here again!  Hope your weekend is off to a great start.  The DH and I are in Gainesville, FL this weekend to attend our Florida Gators football game against Tennessee.  I had a busy week trying to come back from a nasty bout of flu and turn out 12 of my sunflower kits from last week.  Then a scramble to make this card and my Simon Says make before we left on Friday.  And I got it all done!  Didn't sleep much, but made all my deadlines.

Enough about me, I'm sure you came here to see something pretty.  How about this pretty pink?  Our hostess over at Our Creative Corner this week is Sharon Wheet and she is severely limiting our indulgence in pink - LOL.  She's stacked up quite a challenge for us this week - here are the requirements:

• Your card has to be blue with just a touch of pink (no more than 1/5 pink)
• You must incorporate some texture (fabric, ribbon, floss, etc.) and you must include some sort of metal (brad, push pin, charm, etc.)
• Make something pretty without going over the top with pink

Here you have what I came up with for the challenge.  When I first read the challenge requirements and started thinking about pink and blue together, I thought yuck!  But now that it's done, I really like the color combo.  I think this is the first time I have used one of the triangle filigrees from my Etsy boutique for a corner embellishment and I really like it - nice and big and bold - pretty flashy and I think it looks great with the pink resin flower sitting on it.  I had the flower sitting on my work table and it matched the pink seam binding so I thought, why not.  The wider burlap is new and going into my shop over the weekend, I hope.

I think everything here is self-explanatory, but if you have any questions, just leave them in the comments and I'll get back to you.  Briefly - the hydranga stamp is SU, the lace directions is newly acquired Wendy Vecchi Believe in Art set, the tag sentiment is from PTI.

Now hop on over to Our Creative Corner to see what the rest of the team has to get your mojo revving this weekend.

Challenge: 12 Tags of Christmas - Funkie Junkie Style - Week #2

Welcome back to Week #2 of my 12 Tags of Christmas challenge.  Here is my Week #2 inspiration sample.  I hope you will play along by creating some sort of holiday craft project - a tag, card, scrapbook layout, home decor piece - it's wide open.  It just needs to be hand made with a winter holiday theme and it must be inspired by something on my piece.  Don't forget, you have to tell us what inspired you in your post and link back to this post so others can find the challenge and play along too.  You will have until midnight on December 15th to complete all 12 challenges to be eligible for the random prize drawing at the end of the challenge.  The complete rules are in this post.  To learn all the details about this tag, see the original post here.

Last week, we had one brave crafter who submitted a lovely piece.  Thanks to Sue from Scrumplescrunch for being the first to play along with this beauty:

Thanks so much for dropping by today. I sure do hope you will decide to play along!