Ingenious Inkling

Unity Giveaway Winner

The winner of the Unity August Kit of the Month is:

3.  Love your card. Great take on Allison's sketch. Thanks for joining us.

Posted by: SueB| February 16, 2010 at 03:38 AM

Sue, send me your address & I'll get your stamps in the mail.

Seed Catalogs

One of my favorite memories of my Grandma was when the bulb and seed catalogs started arriving in the mail about this time of year.  She and I would sit side-by-side on her couch and think about what we wanted to plant in our gardens in the Spring.  We would debate the merits of tulips vs daffodils and talk about color combinations and blooming times.  I will always remember her spending Spring & Summer out in her flower beds sharing starts of her plants with strangers who stopped when driving by to admire the wonderful variety of colors.

When I saw these Creative Scrap Garden images from Crafty Secrets they brought back those memories.  I combined them with this week's Sketch for You to Try and a sentiment (I think it might be Starving Artistamps, but it's unmounted with no label, so I'm not sure).

 
The crackled paper is also from Crafty Secrets Radiant Paper Pad combined with a strip of paper from DCWV and Eggplant cardstock.

Bring on the Spring (she says as we're forecasted for 4 inches of snow overnight on top of the piles already on the ground).

Daisy Cottage Bathroom Inspired

This week's Moxie Fab Blog Tuesday Trigger is a wonderful photo from a hallway bathroom on The Daisy Cottage Blog. 

I looked at this picture & all of the pictures of the bathroom (love how she used three different fabrics for the shower curtain panels) as I thought about my inspired card.  I decided I wanted to incorporate fabric (or the feel of fabric), as well as red, yellow & lots of white space.

To incorporate the fabric design element, I used Hero Arts Circle Doily cling stamp in red & clear embossed on yellow designer paper from K&Company's Citronella papers.  I added a white rub-on flower to a big red brad and layered on more flowers.  I finished with adhesive pearls around the doily and in the center of the tiny bloom.  The sentiment is from Hero Arts Essential Messages. 

Hope

It's been a rather unproductive day for me.  I spent 2+ hours on the phone with Dell tech support trying to get my desktop to boot up again (thankfully it was successful, although they ultimately blamed everything on static and Google Tool Bar).  

Of course, they had to delete every cookie and password in the process, so I then spent a while hunting down passwords & logging into all of my different programs.  Whatever they did stopped my photo card from automatically uploading into PhotoShop, so I still have to resolve that problem. Such fun.

So tonight, I wanted to at least spend a little time making cards.  I chose the Everything But the Kitchen Sink Sketch and combined it with the colors from the Play Date Cafe.

 

The flowers in my DP were a bit whiter than my linen cardstock, so I sponged on some Alabaster Chalk ink.  I added some warm red ink to my Inkadinkado Birds Galore image (but sort of wished I hadn't afterward).

My prize package from Love My Tapes arrived today ... and I can say, I love the double-sided adhesive tape roller ... very nice permanent adhesive.

Invisible

The Week 6 Art Journal Prompt from Heart the Art was Invisible.  She was inspired by Kal & Elise's Go/Venture.  As I was thinking about possibilities for my page, I came across this great quote from the book The LIttle Prince.  Then the very next day, that is the same book that Sue used for her 52-Card Pick-up Challenge.  So needless to say, the concept has been on my mind for a while, and it felt good to finally get it down on paper.

 
I started with K & Company Que Sera Sera DP as my base.  The sentiment was printed in You Are Loved Fonton white cardstock and cut into strips.  The strips were sprayed with several colors of Glimmer Mist and blended with some red ink.  I finished with some of my favorite "invisible essential words" stamped on the background & a few sticker quotes.  The heart was cut from DP, inked & sprayed, and then stamped with CHF Open Circles Backgrounder (click through for an up-close look).

Thanks to everyone for the inspiration.

Anytime

   
This week's SCS Inspiration Challenge comes from the wonderful Australian store & website ~ Lark.  I fell in love with this wonderful Felt Cuckoo Clock.  I had these new Hero Arts Cuckoo stamps that were just begging for some ink.  I loved incorporating the colors and decorating my clock with fun floral elements.

I thought Basic Grey's Nook & Pantry papers captured the color palette of the design.  The cuckoo clock was stamped on DP with Dark Brown Ink & clear embossed.  Next I used glitter pens and glaze pens to add color to the tiny design elements.

 
I finished with a punched flower and brad to decorate the top of the clock.  The Sketch is from the Sketch-A-Thon at My Sketch World.  This card also works for the Hero Arts Blog challenge to create a card with flowers. 

Double Pocket Birthday Wishes

The challenge at the Jacksonbelle Embellishments Blog today is to create a card with a unique fold.  I decided to give Judy's Double Pocket card a try.  It turned out so cool with the awesome double-sided DP from My Mind's Eye.  Use keyword JBE093 if you upload to a gallery or just add your link to the challenge post, so we can check it out.

 
I used one of the flower accents included in the Bloom & Grow papers at the top of my first tuck-in tag and a tag from the same accents to tuck into the second pocket.  I stamped birthday sentiments on the hidden tags.  I added accent pearls and a great new sentiment from Hero Arts Essential Messages to complete the design (and for the Hero Arts February Challenge to incorporate flowers into your design).  This card also works for Lucy's Polka Dot Challenge.

Stop by the Jacksonbelle Store to check out all of the new goodies from CHA including Cosmo Cricket 6" Paper Pads & My Favorite Things Pure Innocence stamps.

Make sure you pop over to see what all the Jacksonbelle Rockstars created:

Dawn Lusk

Julie Lacey

Heather Pulvirenti

Windy Robinson

Amy Tsuruta

Pam Varnell

Lynda Benden

Tobi Crawford

Jill Dunn

Heather Lee-Reppen

Shemaine Smith

Lindsey Botkin

Happy Day

Alison's Everything Old is New Again Challenge (EONAC5) this week is a sketch using Orange as the predominant color. 

I used the same Basic Grey Lime Rickey paper that Allison used in her card & combined it with stamps from Unity's August Kit of the Month Following My Heart that had never seen ink.  I subscribed to the Kit of the Month Club for quite a while, but have seldom used the stamps.  I love what I see others make, but I seem to struggle to produce cards with them that I love.

 
I paper pieced the bird image and added colored pencils and gem flowers.

This card also works for the Our Creative Corner Challenge to pull out something that we purchased eons ago but never got around to using.

If you're interested in receiving this Unity Kit from me, leave a message on this post, and I'll choose a random commenter on Sunday night & send these stamps your way.  Hopefully the recipient will do a better job of inking them up than I have.

Life is the Art

I didn't get any studio time last week, which really throws things off for me.  I've been keeping up with Design Team work, but I'm behind on both my 52 Card Pick-up and Heart the Art.  However, I am getting some creative time today, which is a blessing.

I skipped ahead to this week's 52-Card Pick-up theme which is the song World by Five for Fighting.  I've heard the song lots of times, but this was the first time I really focused on the lyrics ... what great words.

What kind of world do you want?
Think Anything
Let's start at the start
Build a masterpiece
Be careful what you wish for
History starts now...
 
When I thought about the lyrics, it brought to mind an image of a blank canvas and painting my own world ... where everything is fair, just, and beautiful and all basic needs are met.  I thought this Tim Holtz sentiment summed it up well.

I stuck with the grungy Cosmo Cricket Get Happy papers and combined them with this weeks CPS Sketch and the Crazy for Challenges challenge to make a card with Red as the predominant color.

The image was stamped in Warm Red and clear embossed.  The clear buttons were backed with circles of paper from the Cosmo Cricket collection, and then I used those same colors to highlight the stamped image.

Wish ... Dream ... Get Happy

This card is for my teenage niece's upcoming birthday.  She enjoys music and playing her guitar, so I thought this fun grungy paper from Cosmo Cricket's Get Happy collection was perfect for her.

 
I used this week's Sketch for You to Try as well as the very versatile Time to Stamp background cling from Hero Arts and some vintage metal word art from Basic Grey.