Ingenious Inkling

Rudolph Came to Town

My second card for the Jingle Belles Happy Hybrid Holidays prompt uses the fun Rudolph Came to Town from Robyn's Fetish Digital Stamps & More.  

For me, digital paper piecing is very relaxing ... and I love how when I'm finished, I can print out multiple copies & change-up the card by using different sentiments (this one is an EAD Designs Rub-on).  I also love that I get visual interest in a flat mailable card.

I used a variety of digital papers from my collection including the Aged Perfection Collection & Snow Melt Papers.

Remember, you can e-mail Susan P. for the lovely "Jingle Belle" image... or pull something out of your own digi-stash and get creative! You've got until 6pm (EST) on Wednesday April 4th to link up for a shot at winning five free digital images from Robyn's Fetish Digital Stamps & More. 

Final Gingersnap Creations Challenge

I was so sad when I realized this will be the final Gingersnap Creations Challenge.  Getting to be a part of this amazing Design Team has blessed me beyond measure.  I have been challenged to create some of my best projects ... and for that ... and the friendships I have developed ... I am forever grateful.

I hope you'll continue to follow the oh-so-talented Ali (Vintage Page Designs) & Shar (Unruly PaperArts) on their new endeavors.

And rightfully so ... our final challenge is the same as the very first ... a Color Challenge Celebrating Copper, Rust & Ginger.  

My card features a map from Retro Art Cafe's Salvaged Maps Collage Sheet.  Even though these images are sized on the page to be an ATC, the quality is so superior that I easily enlarged it to standard greeting card size with no loss of clarity (love that) ... and yes Lauren, the New Jersey is for you.  

The fabulous bird is from the Microslides Collage Sheet by Debrina Pratt ... I love how it fit perfectly over the compass arrow in the map.

I added sentiments from Artistic Outpost's Songbirds, a punched heart, and lots of Distress Ink sponging.

Happy Hybrid Holidays - 2012

We're thrilled that Robyn's Fetish Digital Stamps & More is once again sponsoring us at Jingle Belles in 2012 ... and to celebrate we're making cards that incorporate a digital element.

Don't worry ... if you don't have anything digital, all you have to do is e-mail to receive this wonderful Bell 4 Christmas (or as we prefer to call it a jingle belle).  Just e-mail their lovely design team coordinator Susan Paulson at susan_paulson@verizon.net and request your free Jingle Belles Digital Image.

We were also thrilled to receive Robyn's Fetish Digital images to use in our designs.  This card features Prissy Poinsettia, which I digitally paper pieced using Grange Source Papers from Designer Digital.  I printed out a sheet of the darker red Grunge Paper for my backgroudnd.

A wrap of gold ribbon & an EAD Designs rub-on sentiment, and my holiday card was complete.  Can't wait to see what you create.

Lily of the Valley

This afternoon, I decided I wanted to play along with this month's color challenge at the Hero Arts Blog.

I also decided I wanted to create something digital using their flower-theme for the month.  I settled on this Lily of the Valley Flower of the Month digital stamp that I bought because one of my dear friends has a birthday in May and loves Lily of the Valley.

I pulled the image into PhotoShop Elements and edited some of the colors (by selecting portions of the stamp and creating layers) to morph it into the colors I needed.  Next, I lightened the yellow of one of the digital papers that were included with the stamp, and printed it out for my card.  I added a bit of colored pencil highlight to the centers of the flowers to bring in the slightly darker stone wash hue.

The image wasn't perfectly straight on the sides, so I used scissors to cut it out, and then lined the edges lightly with a black sharpie marker to cover any white slivers left behind.  I added adhesive butter bar pearls to accent the image.

The layout is this week's Sweet Sunday Sketch.

And while I'm dreaming of spring ... here's a photo of my first blooms of the season ... tiny crocus pushing through the barren soil.

Vintage Hybrid Collage

Something I want to spend more time exploring in 2012 are my digital design skills.  I have some new books and want to work thorugh them to become more fluent manipulating and creating in PhotoShop.  

Today I played around with Overlays using the January Collage Elements from Green Paper.

I started with that wistful little girl, and then converted the other two elements into overlayers to provide subtle imagery and text.  This is what I looked like when I was done.

Next I printed out my collage and added lots of Distress inking and a bit of stamping including some more text and a sentiment ... I love the end result.

New York Memories

This week's SCS Inspiration Challenge comes from the wonderful artisan's gallery found at Handscapes Gallery.   Gail MacFadden recommended the site because her sister & brother-in-law enjoy finding art at this wonderful store in Beuford, North Carolina.

I chose the beautiful LIthic Tiles of Anna Quinn to inspire my cards.

I picked out several photos from my NYC trip that I thought captured a similar feel of the tile designs.  I converted them to Black & White (or sepia) and printed out the images.  The first one is a sepia rendering of my view of the Empire State Building from the sidewalk below.

I stamped a Penny Black sentiment in light brown & framed with coordinating cardstock to complete.

The second one is a black & white night-time shot as we were walking back to our hotel after supper.  I Loved all of the different sources of light & the general busyness of it all.

The sentiment from Unity Stamp's Authentic Man was stamped in India INk and clear embossed to help it stand out a bit against the sidewalk background.

I love having a set of cards that reminds me of my awesome trip.

Ride 'em Cowboy

I needed a group card to include with a donation to a Western-themed cancer benefit for a man.  I wanted to stay with the Western-theme for my card.

I used a digital vintage Rodeo image from Graphics Fairy and changed the color to dark brown in Photoshop Elements.  I used a Western Font to generate my sentiment.

Papers are Cosmo Cricket.  I added Hero Arts Designer Woodgrain to the angled pieces.  The sketch is the Tuesday Sketch from Skipping Stones Designs.

Happy Hybrid Holidays

This week we're excited to have our first Digital / Hybrid prompt at Jingle Belles sponsored by Robyn's Fetish Digital Stamps and More.  She provided Lauren & I with some great stamps to use on our cards ... and she's also providing a free digital stamp (their wonderful Christmas Bell) for all Jingle Belles participants this week, so you have no excuse not to give it a try.  

All you have to do is e-mail susan_paulson@verizon.net and request your free Jingle Belles Digital Image. We're thrilled they're offering this opportunity for everyone to try a digital stamp.

And ... it gets even better ... Robyn's Fetish Digital Stamps and More will award one randomly selected Jingle Belles cardmaker a choice of either 5 digital stamps or 4 digital stamps & 1 paper pack.

 

I decided to go with digital paper piecing on my fun images ... Corner Holly & Home for the Holidays. (here's a link to my prior tutorial, which also links to Kristina's video tutorial ... and here's a link to another tutorial from Allison).

I used a variety of papers (most from Vera Lim) and a sentiment sticker from EAD Designs.  To get the slightly white color for my snowman, I found a piece of paper with texture I liked and then removed the color from it in PhotoShop.  I repeated various papers to help tie it all together (the green in the scarf, birdhouse, and holly leaves ... the organge in the carrot nose, shoulder bag, and birdhouse).

When I was finished, I positioned my images in Word to printout my card design and added an EAD Designs Stickerz Sentiment.  The great thing about digital paper piecing is that once I'm finished, I can easily print out lots of these for mass production if needed.

Baby Wipe Baby Stroller

This month's theme at Gingersnap Creations is the Joy of Childhood ... and today's Spicy Supply Challenge is Baby Wipes.  This month's challenges are sponsored by The Stamping Boutique, and I was given the Little Girl with a Stroller digital Image to use in my design.

This image reminded me of my Holly Hobby bedroom I had when I was young, so I decided to use the same soft color palette for my design.

I layered two baby wipes and then added drops of Spun Sugar, Tumbled Glass and Milled Lavender Distress Re-inkers.  Next, I printed out my image on white card stock and then pressed it into the baby wipe repeatedly until I had good coverage over the entire design ... I love the ehtereal effect.

I finished with an SRM sticker sentiment and several cardstock mats.

Here are some tutorials to spark your baby wipe creativity:

• Beate's Baby Wipe Technique
• Gina's Baby Wipe Background (video)
• Laura's Baby Wipe Technique
• Lisa's Baby Wipe Technique (video)

Jingle Belles, Batman Smells

At Jingle Belles, we were thrilled when we found out our prompt fell on April Fool's Day this week ... a perfect opportunity for a Jingle Belles, Batman Smells Prompt ... yes, we're that silly ... sometimes we just sit and giggle at our own silliness ... trust me, it keeps you from taking life too seriously.

So this week' we're asking you to make a humorous holiday card ... it can be snarky, silly, or just plain laugh-out-loud funny.

I started with the fabulous Stella from Bugaboo Stamps because she always makes me giggle.

My card is completely colored using digital paper-piecing with digital papers.  You can watch Kristina's Video here ... or Allison's great tutorials here & here.  I love playing around with the colors and pattern-sizes in my papers (these were large polka-dot papers that I sized way down to work with the size of my image ... finished card is 5 1/2" square).

I finished by adding some stickles to the snowflakes and some colored pencil highlights to the design.

We hope you have fun this week ... use keyword JB14 for uploads to SCS or our Flickr Gallery ... click on over to Jingle Belles to check out Lauren's hilarious take on the LOLCats Christmas.