Ingenious Inkling

Saffron Butterfly Mojo

I had so much fun with my K&Company Wild Saffron papers on Monday, I decided to use them again tonight for Julee's Mojo Monday sketch.

(Truth be told, the scraps were still on my work table ... and since my scrap bin is overflowing, it made more sense to just go ahead and use them).

I also decided to go with another bow, rather than tie my ribbon in my usual knot.

I saw Julee's sketch and wanted to use my new Outlines Sofia Jewel stamp for the circle piece.  I stamped in brown and clear embossed it three times on DP and cut out each of the layers.  I attached them to a scalloped circle with foam for some dimension and put an adhesive jewel in the center.

I finished with my threading water punch, Stampin' Up rub-on, chocolate ribbon and a few more gems.

Thanks to Julee for another great sketch to keep the Mojo flowin'.

Wild Saffron Love

Laura has a new sketch up at 2 Sketches 4 You.  They also have a rockin' new design team, and I can't wait to see what they create.

Don't forget you have until August 3rd to upload your cards for the Caardvarks exclusive sketches from Laura & Kazan.  The winner will get the chance to be a Guest Designer for the August 20th Caardvarks challenge.

I love sketches where I can combine different designer papers.  This one features paper from K&Company's Wild Saffron collection. 

I added some of my favorite ribbon, a Stampin' Up rub-on and three tiny adhesive pearls to finish the design.  I even attempted to tie a bow, which is something I seldom do (it just doesn't seem like it will go through the mail very well). 

I love all of the cards with big bows and tons of embellishments, but I mail out almost all of my cards, so I try to make sure they will fit in an envelope & arrive in relatively good shape for the recipient.  I did attach each layer with thin foam tape for a bit of dimension.

Thanks ladies for another great sketch.

Pink & Black & Stitched All Over

I wanted to play along with a few more of the Dirty Girl challenges before my weekend card making comes to an end.  Amy challenged us to make a card in her favorite size: 3 1/4" x 6 1/2".  Lindsey wanted a Pink & Black card with faux stitching.

I found this Heidi Swapp paper I've had in my stash for several years.  I layered the reverse side of some printed ribbon on top of a wide black stitched ribbon.  I did some faux stitching with a black gel pen down the center.  The sentiment is a recent one from the Michael's $1 bin & the heart is a rub-on.

Thanks again ladies for the inspiration.

Y.ou K.now Y.ou R.ock

I just discovered a great knew challenge blog started by two of my favorite creative souls Deb Neerman and Julie Koerber called Y.ou K.now Y.ou R.ock (YKYR), so I had to give it a try.  They are going to be posting rockin' challenges on the 15th of every month. 

The first challenge is to make a card inspired by the art on the cover of the CD that you are currently listening to.  Since all my music is on my iPod, I looked at my most recent played list and it showed one of my favorites ... Dressy Bessy (great CD).

I decided to go with the facial image and the fun colors for my inspiration.  I also used a 4 1/4" square design. 

I love the name of this group because I remember the Dressy Bessy doll when I was young.  I love that they still make her along with Dapper Dan.

This fabulous smiling woman image is called Laugh from Paper Bag Studios.  I stamped her in black and peach cardstock and clear embossed.  The Rhonna Farrer Flourishes 3 were stamped in red, orange nd pink and turquoise cardstock and accented with tiny bits of A Muse bling. 

To add a bit more texture, the red card base has Cornish Heritage Farms Lace Backgrounder stamped in red and clear embossed.  The laughing face matted with a tiny bit of black and attached on dimensional tape.

I think I captured the fun whimsy of the album cover and their music in my design.  Hop on over the YKYR and play along.

Create with Julia

Today's SCS Featured Stampers is one of my favorites ... Julia (artystamper) of Create with Me.  I could spend all day finding inspiration in her creations.

I started with this clean and classic concept inspired by her I Believe card.  I used three shades of purple and changed the circle to an oval.

I punched an oval mask and sponged it with Wisteria chalk ink on light purple cardstock.  I stamped the sentiment with Warm Violet Chalk ink.

The stamp is from River City Rubber Works.  This would be a great design to mass produce.

This card was inspired by her beautiful Asian Delft Tile design.  I used two stamps from Cornish Heritage Farms - the Victorian Sunflowers Backgrounder for the tiles and Mallow Oval for the focal image.

I stamped the images in Dark Brown ColorBox Chalk ink on yellow cardstock.  After the ink dried, I covered the image with Versamark and clear embossed to produce a tile-like effect.  I used a 3/4" square punch for the border.

Thanks Julia for your constant inspiration ... enjoy your day!

Blog Birthday Candy Winner

The Blog Birthday Candy random number is 15 ... Yea Hilma!

Happy blog Birthday!!!
I too love paint chips!

Posted by:Hilma | July 24, 2008 at 11:47 AM

Send me your mailing address & I'll get the goodies sent your way.

Thanks to everyone for playing along.  I loved all of the fabulous non-traditional creative material ideas.  Make sure you check them out.

Simply Stamped Christmas

Sharon's Stamp Simply challenge this week was to do Christmas in July.  I'm always looking for an opportunity to get one more holiday card done for my stash, so this was perfect for me.

I've been wanting to try this cool idea I saw on Marie's blog (that she modified from an idea she saw on Laura's blog).

I punched circles in shimmery silver paper using various sizes of circle punches (for the lowest ornament, I punched from the bottom ... I punched the two smaller circles in from the sides).

Rather than stamping behind my punched circles, I embossed vellum with my snowflakes cuttlebug embossing folder and layered that piece over a light blue layer.  It's hard to see in the picture, but I rubbed some shimmer chalk over the vellum for a bit more holiday sparkle.  I hand drew the ornament strings and stamped my Stampendous Sentiment in black and clear embossed.

This card also works for Laurie's Got Vellum? challenge & Julia's Negative Space Challenge.

Thanks ladies for the inspiration & nudge to get another holiday card completed.

Dare to Get Dirty

I love being a fan club member at SplitCoastStampers ... the inspiration each month from the twelve talented 'Dirty Girls' is worth every penny ... and on top of that you get the fun Dirty Girl week of challenges.  I finally had some time to play along & it felt so good to ink up some stamps after a week away.

Since the challenges end tomorrow, I decided to combine several of them into one card.

I picked up these stamps from Viva Las Vegas & Savvy Stamps on my Chicago Road trip to make cards for my dad.  They worked perfectly for Julie's Clean White Card challenge.  I also incorporated Sharon's Stamp Simply challenge and Michelle's Masculine Card challenge. 

My husband suggested the Hero Arts tiny heart on the side of the truck.  I also colored the wheels with black glaze pen & used a gray and light blue marker to ground the truck on the card.  I used Stamper's Select White cardstock from PaperTreyInk, which has a great weight and wonderful smooth texture for cards that really feature the white.

My next card was inspired by my beautiful nieces ... Princess Mimi and the lovely Lydia.  I had so much fun with my favorite girly girls on my trip.

I started with Jody's Ribbon challenge to choose your ribbon first and build your card around it.

Next I added Joan's Silhouette challenge with this fun image and sentiment from Stampendous.  I finished with Lauren's Monochromatic Magic challenge because a girl can never have enough pink.

I added a few tiny A Muse sparkles to finish the design.

Also, make sure you check out the Not a Raffle to benefit flood relief.  Having been personally affected by the damage, I am very appreciative of this generosity.

Website Design Inspired

This week's SCS Inspiration Challenge is a little different --- I challenge you to be inspired by the design of a website ... not the projects or posts on the website or blog ... but the actual design of the website itself (header, colors, layout).

I found my inspiration in this wonderful website by Radiant Plumbing.  I loved the fun mosaic grass and flowers.  I had so much fun making this card.

I used a variation of the grid technique  with lime pastel chalk ink to create my grass, leaves and flower stems.  I scored every 1/4" inch both vertically and horizontally for the base.  Then I scored a second piece horizontally only and cut out my grass freehand, leaving it attached along the bottom.  The sky is a piece of DP from Basic Grey.

The leaves and green flower centers were punched from scraps of the same scored paper.

I cut out the stems freehand and scored them before inking with two shades of brown ink.  The pink blooms were too tiny to score, so I used a white opaque pen instead to create the same effect.  I finished with lots of bling, a butterfly from Fancy Pants From the Garden and a sentiment from Green Grass Stamps.

Wordle

I had fun playing around at Wordle ... you can change the maximum number of words, colors, shape and font.  This is the grid it created using words from my blog.