Ingenious Inkling

More Silhouette Blooms and Leaves

Yesterday's Purple Onion Designs leaves and blooms were stamped in Charcoal on DP.  Today's examples are those same stamps in different color palettes, which produces a completely different effect.

For the first card I stamped all of the images from the Blooms and Leaf sets and the sentiment from the Script Hello set in Dark Brown Chalk ink on K&Company Que Sera Sera DP.  Then I used my 1" square punch upside down to position the images inside the square window.

 

I finished by mounting the squares on brown paper from the same Que Sera Sera collection and mounting it on two more layers of the same DP.  Completely flat for mailing, yet lots of visual interest.

The next card uses the same Blossom stamps with a variety of Chalk inks on another piece of designer paper.

 

I finished with the bloom sentiment from POD and a little bow for my wildflower bouquet.

Remember, 25% off your order at POD by using the code Caardvarks at check-out.

Silhouette Blossoms

I love the versatile Blossom Set and Drooping Flowers from Purple Onion Designs.  I combined it with some Designer Paper (Memory Box I think) for several card designs.  All of the Blossoms and Script Hello sentimentswere stamped in ColorBox Charcoal ink.

This little scrapling was my favorite.  I loved the contrast of the images with the circles in the designer paper.

 

This card combines all of the images into one blocked design.  I added some fuzzy eyelash fibers to complete the card.

 

And since there was one little piece of paper left, I made another tiny card using three of the Blooms.

 

Remember, there's an entire gallery of cards and projects from the 'Varks Crew featuring POD stamps (you can't miss Mel's adorable Popsicle Party) & you can use the code Caardvarks at check out to get 25% off your entire order.

More Noteblock Fun

I really love the Noteblock stamps from Purple Onion Designs.  There are so many possibilities with one stamp.

For this first card, I stamped the Thank You Noteblock in Blue Iris chalk ink on designer paper from Making Memories Travel collection and clear embossed. 

  

To finish, I painted the open letter front words with December Sky Shimmerz glitter paint and added a couple of adhesive gem stars that fit perfectly over the stars in the stamp.

The next card is a card using the Happy Holidays Noteblock in non-traditional holiday colors.  I used threedifferent colors of purple chalk inks on white cardstock and clear embossed.  Next I sprayed the cardstock with Hydrangea Glimmer Mist (a wonderful purple with gold shimmer).

 

The image is mounted on K&Company Que Sera Sera DP and accented with Tiara Glitz Stickles on the snowflakes, punched gold snowflakes, and knotted gold metallic ribbon.

But you don't have to use the entire stamp.  For this card I trimmed a portion of the Thank You Noteblocktogether with SEI Dill Blossom papers.

 

I finished with some ribbon, fiber and the Purple Onion Designs Leaf Set stamped in Charcoal chalk ink several times in the corner.

Make sure you check out the entire gallery of Purple Onion Designs projects by the Caardvarks Crew for more ideas on how to use these great Noteblock stamps (and get 25% off at Purple Onion using the code Caardvarks at check-out).

Life is Better with a little Wine

I had some stamped transparencies left over from my Window Gift Bag projects , so I used one of the Happy Holidays Noteblocks from Purple Onion Designs to make this cool Wine Bottle Gift Tag.

 

I cut a panel from a 12" piece of cardstock and scored it so it would hang down and cover the entire front of my wine bottle.  I put a second square of cardstock on the top to make it a double thickness (probably not necessary, but I didn't want it to tear from the weight of the tag).  For the opening, I used a 1 3/4" punch and the framed the opening with a larger scallop circle and circle punch. 

I used a scalloped card base that I had purchased & trimmed into four pieces and overlapped to make the size of mat that I needed.  I cut each piece at the valley of the scallop to make for easy overlapping re-assembly.

I adhered the trimmed transparency to the Basic Grey DP by using mini glue dots under the snowflakes on the stamped image, so they are not visible.  And how cool is it that I already have a holiday gift done in June.

Make sure you check out the entire Caardvark Crew Gallery using products from Purple Onion Designs (and don't forget the Code Caardvarks at check-out for 25% off your order).

Purple Onion Party

There's a big Purple Onion Designs party going on at Caardvarks.  They are sponsoring the June 20th Challenge, which is to make a *new* Window Card.  I was excited to have the opportunity to create projects for the 'Cards & More' feature of Caardvarks together with Jenn (you gotta check out her amazing Window of Love Creation ... the girl actually stamped on a Window).

The prize is huge ... a $50 shopping spree at Purple Onion Designs ... and they generously provided a shopping code for 25% of your entire order during the challenge (simply enter the code Caardvarks at check out).  All you have to do is link up your *new* window card creation by midnight on July 3rd.

Some of my favorite stamps from Purple Onion are the amazing Noteblocks ... so many possibilities.  For my projects, I created "windows" by stamping the Noteblocks onto the rough side of an ink jet transparency.

 

I used a 6" square acrylic block and black India Ink and applied solid pressure over all of the stamp.  Then I tipped the block from the side to remove the stamp which gave a crisp, no-smear image (please ignore my very well loved 12" tonic paper cutter).

 

After the ink dried, I used my paper cutter and cut about 1/2 wider than the stamped image.  I purchased the gift bags in a 10-pack from Michael's and found that the bright colors seemed to look better with this project.

I used one smeared image for my template.  I cut around it right on the edges of the image and then attached it to the front of my bag with removable adhesive.  I cut a piece of adhesive backed craft foam to fit inside the bag for cutting.  I found that cutting into the adhesive covered side gave me the straightest cut with my kraft knife.

 

Here's what it looked like after the window had been cut.

 

I used a strong adhesive tape around the edges of my stamped image and slid it inside the bag to attach it on all four sides.  All that was left after that was to decorate the bags.

For the masculine designed Birthday Noteblock bag, I used punched stars as my embellishment.  The red and blue stars were punched from the cut-out pieces of the bags with a little silver star in the middle.

 

For the Happy Holidays Noteblock gift bag, I decided to attach a handle.  I used some wired snowman ribbon and attached it to the front and back of the bag with decorative brads.  I finished with a few punched holly leaves and adhesive gem berries.

 

I can't wait to see your fun window card creations (remember ... $50 will buy a lotta rubber)!  I'll be back all week with more Purple Onion Designs fun, including the cool Wine Bottle tag. 

Make sure you check out an entire gallery of Purple Onion Projects by the Caardvarks Design Team.

Masculine Teen Birthday Wishes

On my list of things to do is to make birthday cards for my niece and nephew who turn 17 this week.  I think making a card for a 17 year-old boy is one of the greater challenges of card making.  I decided to go with the Sketch from Stamp Something (with some fun stamps from Dog Gone Stamps up for grabs) and stick with bright primary colors from Basic Grey's Cupcake collection.

 

I replaced the ribbon in the sketch with a wavy punched border.  The sentiment is part of the Birthday Noteblock (I love how I can trim it down to fit different sketches and layouts) from Purple Onion Designs.  I finished with a Martha Stewart punched party hat (backed with a scrap of yellow paper).

I also used this card for Lisa's Scribble This! Week 2 Challenge to learn more about using Levels in Photoshop Elements to get rid of the gray blah's.  I am loving that she is teaching us to use tools we already have more effectively.

To give you an idea ... here is the before picture of the same card.

 

Blah indeed.  I loved learning what that little eye-dropper was for (I also used it on this card, but forgot to save my before shot).

Raspberry Aloha Mojo

Tonight I played around with some challenges while we watched Cardinals baseball.  I loved the colors for Dawn's Raspberry Suite Color Challenge ... and Julee has a great Mojo Monday Sketch (and the chance to win some of her awesome stamps).

The stamps are the Circle Scallop Label and a portion of the Hello Noteblock from Purple Onion Designs. 

When I work on a color challenge, I pull out a piece of paper in each color and move them around next to each other to decide on the balance of colors I want in my design.  Next, I take the papers to my designer paper stash and see if I have any papers that only incorporate the colors from the challenge.  Tonight I found a fun designer paper in a pad of recycled DP by Carolyn Gavin for K&Company.

I finished with a scalloped scallop border from EKSuccess and a 3-D chipboard dragonfly from Wild Child Layered 3-D Chipboard from Colorbok.