Ingenious Inkling

Little Black Dress Free Spirit

The color story at the Play Date Cafe this week is Black & White with a splash of ... my favorite color ... orange.

I just got a new Basic Grey / Hero Arts Little Black Dress Cling Stamp from Ellen Hutson (seriously, some of the best selection & customer service out there), so I decided to ink it up.

I stamped the image twice, so I could spotlight a section with an orange frame.  The layout is this week's Card Sketch #2 from Let's Capture These Sketches.  The butterflies are a combination of Martha Stewart Punches & a Memory Box Butterfly Delights Die Cut.

I finished with a *Free Spirit* sticker from EAD Designs Random Words.

I also made a card using last week's Let's Capture these Sketches for this week's Jingle Belles Sticker Challenge, but missed the cut-off for uploading.  

 

It features Saint Nick Papers from Fancy Pants Designs together with Christmas Stamps & Deck the Halls Stickerz from EAD Designs.

Enjoy your Friday!

Tigger-Inspired Halloween

Well, my Cardinals let me down ... but I did get another World Card Making Day card completed.

At Flourishes, they had a challenge to create a card inspired by the colors of your favorite cartoon character.  I've been missing my step-mom a lot this week as it would have been her birthday ... and one of her favorite characters was Tigger ... so I used his colors to inspire my card.

I stopped by MIchael's this morning and picked-up some fun little Halloween owls that coordinate perfectly with my Authentique Glowing papers.

Not quite like Tigger's friend owl ... but close.

Layout is the Sketchbook Saturday Challenge.

You Deserve The Best

I loved the color combination at {Embellish Magazine} this month.  The theme is Mists or Paint, and since it's been a while since I got my fingers inky, I thought it was time to play.  

I started with a flourish mask lightly adhered to a piece of ivory cardstock.  I spritzed repeatedly with Dragonfly Glimmer Mist.  It achieve the same stamped color for my bouquet of blooms from Rogue Redhead Designs' Floriculture plate, I inked with Aquamarine Chalk ink and then with Ocean.  You can see the combination of the colors in the center of the largest bloom.

I finished with an EAD sentiment rub-on and a tiny punched butterfly in grey with ivory pearls.

The sketch is this week's Card Patterns.

 

EAD Designs ~ Random Sayings rub-ons	Rogue Redhead ~ Floriculture	Glimmer Mist ~ Dragonfly	ColorBox Chalk Ink ~ Misty Meadow
Kaiser Champagne Pearls

InLinkz.com

 

Once Upon a Springtime Fairies

Saturday, I ventured to Iowa City for my first Farmers' Market of the season ... I love wandering through the booths and exploring.  I came home with all sorts of goodies including fresh guacamole, dill cheese curds, bacon wrapped dates, tomatoes, and a beautiful potted begonia.  

I also stopped at Memories on Fifth for a little shopping and found a 12" sheet of framed fairies that was perfect for using up the rest of the papers from my Graphic45 Once Upon a Springtime Collection ... it's also perfect for the Stamp Something Challenge to use Pretty Papers.  

I punched out the fairy from her frame and attached her with foam tape for dimension.  The sentiment is from CatsLife Press.

The next one has another Catslife Press sentiment that I thought was perfect.  I added a bit of sponging to bring out the layers.

The final one uses the Sunshine & Joy sentiment from Impression Obsession & some wired peach ribbon, which works for the Ribbons & Bows Challenge at the Corrosive Challenge Blog.

I just love the color combinations in this collection.  And here's a little bit of spring from my garden ... my hydrangeas are just beginning to bloom.

Happy Monday.

Jubilee Butterfly Hello

On my trip, I picked-up all sorts of new creative goodies.  Some of my favorites are a Mat Pack and Dimensional Butterfly Stickers from K&Company's Jubilee collection.  When I saw this week's Ribbon Girl Challenge Color Palette, I knew they would be perfect.

Two pieces of designer paper & a bracket border punch to created my background using this week's Sketchbook Saturday Sketch.  I used the taller height of the mat stack papers to make a 7"x4" card.

I added two butterfly stickers, adhesive purple pearls, and a wrap of Martha Stewart Cloud Seam Binding.  The Savvy Sentiment was also picked-up on my travels.

Songbirds in Purple

When I saw the theme for the current Embellish Color Trends Challenge was Music, I knew I wanted to ink-up my Artistic Outpost Songbirds for a birthday card.  

I wasn't quite sure how the colors would work for my image, but I ended-up loving the combination.

I used this week's Sketch for You To Try (flipped on its side) for my layout.  The pink and purple strips of paper were embossed with the Al.egro music note embossing folder.

The birds with instruments and sentiment were stamped in Creamy Brown ColorBox Chalk ink on ivory cardstock and colored with Prismacolor pencils.

I finished with a wrap of pink ribbon tied in a bow and three tiny pink adhesive pearls.

I love those purple songbirds.

Best Wishes

I saw that the wonderfully talented Chupa has started posting a Saturday Sketch, so I decided to use it for a birthday card I needed ot make.  

I also incorporated the wonderful colors and design from this week's Off The Wall Craftiness Challenge.

The flowers are from a set of Fancy Pants Designer Trading Cards by Michelle Coleman.  The sentiment is a new Hero Arts set called Friends And Treasures.  I love my new Impress inks ... this one is called Strawberry.

Did you see Hero Arts is also having a 50 Grand Celebration, where one random winner will get some Hero Arts goodies?  All you need to do is upload a card featuring Hero Arts stamps to their Flickr gallery using tag 50grand.

Let's Pretend

Another quick and easy card featuring Graphic 45's Once Upon a Springtime Collection ... their papers are so gorgeous, the cards almost make themselves.

This one uses Lucy's New Year's Sketch #4 and an SRM Sticker sentiment from Everyday Girl ... perfect for one of my nieces who loves to play pretend.

This is also for the My Time To Craft challenge to make a card featuring something Up in the Air ... you know that's where sweet little fairies live.

PS ... you have until 5pm EST tomorrow (Wednesday the 5th) to link-up your first Jingle Belle creation ... I hope you'll join us.

Flashback Friday 6.0

Amy's Flashback Friday 6.0 Challenge is to post the first card you blogged about that was made with an unusual find in your home.

As I searched back through the archives, the first one I found was from September 2007, using pop-tabs to frame my rivet sentiment.  This card was for the Featured Stamper Challenge at SCS, so I borrowed the pop-tab idea from this card made by Michelle Zindorf.  

I can honestly say I like the effect enough that I would use it again today ... I haven't been able to say that about all of my Flashback Friday cards :^).  

Thanks again to Amy & Yvonne for another fun Flashback Friday challenge.

My 10 Favorites of 2010

Each year I have a fun time walking through my creations for the year and picking my 10 favorites (here are the round-ups for 2008 & 2009).

1 ~ I had fun taking a stab at Art Jounaling this year.  I loved the freedom of creativity and the larger palette.  This one was done for Gina's Heart the Art Prompt #6 ~ Invisible.

2 ~ I loved watching the Winter Olympics in 2010, and this snow-themed card commemorated that experience.  Masculine cards are always a bit more of a challenge, but this one for Get Sketchy's Sketch #26 turned out just as I envisioned ... bold, graphic, and fun ... perfect for the recipient.  I loved how I was able to use the snowflake pattern on the paper with the snowboarder.

3 ~ I had a fabulous time Guest Designing for multiple Artistic Outpost releases in 2010.  I love how the Steampunk stamps enhanced this vintage electrical circuit diagram ... so perfect for my brother.

4 ~ I also loved my opportunity to design for Jacksonbelle Embellishments in 2010 and was very sad to see that on-line store close.  One of the things that experience pushed me to do is create more "cute" designs ... this What's Crackin'? set by My Favorite Things was so perfect for paper-piecing ... and I had a lot of fund designing with the Flutter line of papers from Making Memories..

5 ~ Guest Designing for Gingersnap Creations was also a blast in 2010 ... and turned into a full-time gig that I am thoroughly enjoying.  

This card I made for the Transparency Spicy Supply Challenge was a favorite for several reasons.  It was my first time designing with Digital Stamps (Hero Arts Flutterbies), and I tried a technique (spraying glimmer mists directly onto the transparency design) that turned out even cooler than I had envisioned ... and for a final little thrill, it won the Digital Design Challenge at Hero Arts for June.

6 ~ I used Cosmo Cricket's Delovely line quite a bit this year, and this card ~ featuring a CPS sketch & a Moxie Fab Tuesday Trigger ~designed  using square punched elements from the larger 12" paper designs was a favorite for sure.

7 ~ I had a lot of fun creating with my own version of Gesso Resist ... any time I can incorporating texty book pages into my design, it makes me happy.  I also got my first every Tweet from Hero Arts for these designs, which made me smile.

 8 ~ This inspired Halloween card won at The Shabby Tea Room, which earned me a chance to guest design with that great group.  I loved the hand-cut transparency frame and an opportunity to a vintage button & lace.

9 ~ Another fun thing I learned to do this year was digitally paper-piece digital images, particularly through working with lots of great digi-stamp companies at the Etsy Inspired Challenge.  I had so much fun designing with that group of ladies.

This card uses Mr. T Diddle from the Digi Doodle Shop together with a scanned dictionary page and digital papers ... so fun.

10 ~ This card for the Play Date Cafe Dublin-Style Challenge was one of my favorite holiday card designs.  I loved the wonderful combination of snowflakes in unexpected holiday hues (and another fussy cut transparency frame from Hambo).

I hope you've enjoyed this 2010 round-up.  It's always fun for me to go back and revisit my designs for the year.  

Thanks for sharing the year with me.  Here's to more great creations in 2011.

PS ~ I linked up to a Top 10 Blog Hop ... post yours & join the fun.