« May 2009 | Main | July 2009 »
I love this fun Geek is Chic set from Artistic Outpost. I combined the Einstein image, small compass (in the top left corner) and the I ♥ Nerds stamp from the set with a Stampers Anonymous ruler for Laura's Sketch #29 at 2 Sketches 4 You.
The papers are Basic Grey Periphery & the wavy border stamp is from EK Success (I didn't put any adhesive along the punched border, so I could bend it out a bit for a little dimension on this otherwise flat mailable design).
The SCS website got over its hiccups, so I had to go back and make another card inspired by Dawn. I chose her IC134 Blessing Quilt Card as my inspiration.
I used the Green Stack scraps that were still on my studio table and punched out nine 1 1/4" squares from the tree paper. The sentiment is from the Unity Bevy of Butterflies that was free with my June kit. ... so perfect for the oval punch design.
I finished with a Martha Stewart butterfly punched from the background paper and decorated with two Hero Arts light green pearls.
My sympathy card stash is completely depleted, so I decided to make a few this morning with some of my favorite sympathy card sentiments from River City Rubber Works and DCWV Green Stack designer papers. I usually try to use a celestial theme for these sentiments, but I think the tree design works as well.
Dawn Lusk is the featured stamper at SCS and my first card is inspired by her. However, after I finished I realized it was a sketch card (which is a no-no for the challenge), and when I went back to do a second card, the SCS website was down. Dawn did, however, inspire me to pop-up the tree in the top right corner and add the ribbon below my sentiment.
The second card uses this week's sketch from Card Patterns with another great River City Rubber sentiment.
Don't forget you have until July 3rd to upload a new window card design at Caardvarks for a chance to win a $50 shopping spree from Purple Onion Designs.
This week's SCS Inspiration Challenge is to be inspired by the fantastic designs of Sarah Collier aka the charm school dropout.
I love her amazing combination of vintage, text, and digital to produce a fabulous collage effect. My card was inspired by this wonderful block print titled Away She Flew. I love how the text shows through the translucent layers, so that is what I tried to capture in my design.
Laugh from PaperBag Studios and the Stampendous Ruffled Bloom were stamped in ColorBox Chalk Blackbird on a vintage book page. The bloom was painted with Evergreen, Royal Red, & Pink Poinsettia Shimmerz Glitter Paint.
The Laugh image was stamped once more on the same Que Sera Sera DP used for the card base with a portion of the sentiment cut out and attached with foam tape. This card has made me smile all week. I hope you find inspiration.
The Hero Arts Blog is celebrating Complementary Colors this week. I chose orange and blue for my card together with Kazan's Sketch 29 from the 2 Sketches 4 You Blog. The papers are all from Making Memories Chloe's Closet collection.
The owl with hat is from Savvy Stamps and the Sentiment is Hero Arts A Little Note. I paper pieced the owl's face, wings and hat and finished with a flower pom pom with a tiny orange brad.
I combined Dawn's Raspberry Suite Color Challenge with the cool sketch from CPS.
Some new stamps arrived in the mail today, so I had to ink one up. I love this Eat Cake Stamp from American Crafts. It is stamped in dark brown and painted with Melon ink. I slid the ends of the paper into a heart stamp to get the curved shape on the ends.
The background is stamped with ILove Cake backgrounder from Odd Bird Planet. Though it's a bit hard to see in the picture, the dark brown strip is embossed with the Paisley Cuttlebug embossing folder. The punched Berry circle is stamped with the Hero Arts Four Leaf Grid DesignBlock. It seemed a bit plain, so I stamped the Hero Arts Bold Flourish DesignBlock in Dark Brown on Melon cardstock and cut it out for a final embellishment.
It will make a great birthday card ... but honestly I think any day is a perfect day for some cake.
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.
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.
I am really enjoying Lisa's Challenges on how to improve my PhotoShop skills. I've picked up a few tips on how to use it along the way, but I know that I haven't even scratched the surface of what it can do.
This week's Look Sharp! tutorial was on using the sharpening tool. Since my cards are primarily mailable without tons of bumpy dimension, I've had a difficult time noticing a lot of difference.
Today's card (inspired by the fabulous Featured Stamper Christy S's card Crushed Curry Swap ... I love her tilted layers) has a wavy tag, so I thought I would give it a try.
Here's the before picture right out of the camera:
Here's how it looks after applying her levels technique:
And here's the effect after sharpening the image:
Not a lot of difference, but I notice it mostly around the dimensional tag.
The stamps are from Unity's June Kit of the Month & Bevy Of Butterflies. The background is stamped with CHF Fine Finials (retired) & paper is Basic Gray Ambrosia.
I colored the blooms with an aqua painter and chalk inks (I just dab the ink onto an acrylic block and pick it up with the painter). I used a heart punch to shape the end of my tag and attached it with glue dots for dimension.
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).
