Ingenious Inkling

Sakura Heart

This week's SplitCoast Stampers Inspiration Challenge comes from a German store Tadenberg.  Bea & Carsten make it their business to embellish the ordinary in an extraordinary matter.  They combine beauty with practicality ... it doesn't get much better than that. 

My card is inspired by this fabulous Sakura Gardens iPhone Sleeve.  I loved the fun combination of color and patterns together with the look of hand quilting, so that is what I tried to capture in my design.

I started by going through my designer paper scrap bin and pulling out every piece of pink paper I could find.  Next I cut them into 3/4" strips.  I cut a scrap piece of paper slightly larger than my card front & started paper quilting.

Since several of the papers were from valentine's collections, I decided to go with a heart-themed sentiment from Crescendoh's Ordinary Sparkling Sentiments by Christine Mason Miller.

I finished the design with some hearts punched from scraps of the background papers and a few crystal hearts.

Winter Wonderland

I love the gorgeous pine tree image in the new Sleigh Ride set from Artistic Outpost.  For this card, I stamped it two times overlapping slightly in the center.  Next I distressed the heck out of the edges of the ivory panel.  I squirted Stickles Glitter Glue on my finger and dabbed it all over the trees for a shimmery winter sparkle.

I finished by stamping the Merry Christmas sentiment on the same ivory paper and distressing and inking the edges before attaching with foam tape.  

I attached the entire image to a handmade embossed paper base using adhesive about 1/2" from the edges, so I could curl and fold the panel for a bit more dimension.

This card is for the Gingersnap Designs challenge of Neutrals Plus One Color ... I love the peaceful serene feeling the single color gives to this winter scene.  It's also for the Moxie Fab World Jolly Holiday Greetings Challenge ... remember, it's never too soon to start making those holiday cards ... just one a week gets you that much closer to done.

Happy Friday!

Thursday Link Love

Another week of tripping through the blogosphere:

• Another great source of fun free clip art ... and there's even a Flickr gallery featuring projects using it.
• Love this fun idea for enlarging every day objects.
• These gorgeous tags are amazing ... Sue shows you a fun way to combine colors of Glimmer Mist.
• I never get enough of free fonts ... and how about some free clip art paper tapes.
• I love how the Spellbinders Fleur de Lis makes a fabulous snowflake ornament.
• Patchwork cap ... how fun is that.
• I adore this idea of mailing a calendar one month at a time ... together with a note of your favorite memories from that month ... and the downloadable calendars will raise money in memory of a special little girl.
• And here's a free Color-Block Calendar download from Paper Crafts Magazine ... and another free 2011 calendar download that is business card size.
• A fun tutorial for making a Halloween Wreath from black crepe paper ... this would be fun in other color combinations for different occasions.
• A free poster download ... I need to frame this for my cubicle at the office.
• Love note pillows ... how sweet are those.
• I've always had a fear of making anything that requires yeast ... but these Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls sure sound double yummy.
• I have no curtains in my kitchen ... but these look easy enough I think even I might be able to do it ... such a happy color.
• I had no idea what a Charm Pack was until I saw this ... now I want to go find more and add them to my collection.

Witchy Pumpkin Pile

When I saw the new Paper Crafts Go To Sketch #7, I knew I wanted to use my Martha Stewart Witch Hat punch in my design, and this is where that thought led me.  I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to do with this extra-large Halloween card (it's 8 1/2 inches tall).  

Looking at those goofy smiling pumpkins makes me smile, so maybe I'll just put it on my desk at work.  How could I have a bad day with these goofy guys smiling at me??

Die cuts & papers are from K&Company's Spook-tacular line.  I cut the sentiment from one of the papers.

Sleigh Ride

Artistic Outpost is releasing a new winter plate today.  Sleigh Ride features nostalgic images of children in their coats and finery, perfect for your winter or holiday projects. It also features a versatile background stamp of glistening pine trees and holiday sentiments and collage elements.

These stamps are available both as an unmounted sheet of red rubber measuring 8.5" x 5.5" or mounted on EZMount clingfoam, pre-trimmed, and stored on a printed cling card.

My first project is a tag featuring an emboss resist technique.  The images were stamped in Versamark and clear embossed.  Next, I inked the tag using a combination of blue and purple Distress Inks to get the deep night sky hue that I wanted.  

After the ink dried, I placed the tag between newsprint and ironed off the embossing powder to get a cool batik effect.  The final step was putting Stickles Crystal Glitter Glue on my finger and patting it all over the trees until they were covered with a glittery night snow sparkle.  I used jewelry cord at the top of my tag and unwound and unraveled it a bit to give it a frayed effect.

My second card paired handmade papers with the cute little sleigh ride image.  I stamped in India ink and then used Egyptian Gold Twinkling H2O's to add gold glimmery accents to coordinate with the gold flecks in the handmade paper.  I tore the edges and put my adhesive about 3/4" from the edges, so I could curl the edges after attaching.

I added some hand-dyed seam binding ribbon from Outpost Attic Findings and a tiny snowflake from the set (also accented with gold) as an accent.

Make sure you check out the other design team blogs for more fabulous projects featuring these great images.

Lisa Somerville 

Gerrie Johnnic 

Lynn Stevens 

Judy Hayes 

Barbara Washington 

Connie Paxman 

Suzzane Czosek

 

Wish Big

Tonight I needed a plain & simple masculine birthday card, so I went back to my scrap bin to see what I could pull together.  I started with a scrap of PaperTrey Ink's Terracotta Tile cardstock and this week's Sketch For You to Try and went from there.

I found a scrap of two-sided Birthday Boy payer from My Mind's Eye that had a Terracotta accent, so I used that for my stripes & used the brown reverse side for my mats.  I used a scrap of bronze paper, embossed with the Tim Holtz Bricked embossing folder, as my card base.  

Sentiments are from Penny Black & Paper Inspirations.  I finished with a Martha Stewart punched party hat and a bit of orange glitter pen accents.

 

 

Cardinal Holiday

My designer paper scrap box is overflowing & seriously in need of a purge, so I've decided to see how many cards I can make this week only using my scraps.  The first one is for the Play Date Cafe Challenge using this week's CPS Sketch.

My process was to go through my scraps and pull out any paper that was primarily one of the three colors of the challenge.  Then I put them together in various combinations until I got a color & pattern balance I liked (some repeating circles help tie the seemingly unrelated designs together).

After piecing my strips together on my card base, I went looking for an image that worked for the sketch.  Even though these aren't necessarily traditional holiday colors, I think they work well with this Inkadinkado Holiday Cardinal, which also has the repeating circle theme.  To help tie the colors together a bit more, I used a leaf green glitter pen in the center of the circles and a scrap of the leaf green designer paper to frame the image.

Best Day Ever

I'm sneaking in my card for this weeks Compendium of Curiousities Challenge just under the wire.  This week's technique is Basic Masking.  I used the Mini Flower Frenzy Mask from Crafter's Workshop and various shades of yellow, orange & bronze Memories Mists & Glimmer Mists to create my background.

I used a full sheet of cardstock when I sprayed my mask, so I could use the over-sprayed edges of the cardstock for my sentiment and vertical accent for this week's Get Sketchy Sketch.  I used bronze metallic cardstock for my flourish & mats, which really brings out the metallic accents in the Glimmer Mist (click through to see a close-up of the sparkle).

The sentiment is a favorite from CatsLife Press, accented with a tiny star shaped piece of bling.

Enjoy the White Space of Life

The theme for this week's 52-Card Pick-up Challenge is White Space.  An article from Zen Habits talks about translating the concepts of white space in design (legibility, luxury, balance, and more emphasis) into our lives by focusing on clarity, peace, balance, and emphasis on the important ... a good reminder for us all.

I knew I wanted to make a card that incorporated the white space design concepts, as well as choosing a theme that focused on the white space life concepts.  I think I achieved both with my card.

The sketch is from Everything But the Kitchen Sink (inspired by a Playstation).  It's perfect for using those strips of designer paper (in this case Basic Grey) left over when I cover a standard card front with a 6" piece of designer paper.  I punched the edge with the EK Success Bracket Punch.  

The Memory Box Damask Butterfly was stamped in the center of the remaining white space and accented with a butterfly-themed inchie from Inkadinkado Special thoughts, which is perfect for the Gingersnap Creations Inchie challenge.

I hope you find some much needed white space in your life this week.

It's One for the Money ... Two for the Show ...

This week's Res-Q Challenge is to listen to one of two songs and make a card inspired by the music.  I chose Elvis singing Blue Suede Shoes to inspired my design.  The idea worked perfectly with this week's Unscripted Sketch challenge, which included a piggy-back challenge to make a card with a monochromatic design, which also works for this week's Lots to Do Monochromatic Challenge.

Since the song starts with some numbers, I though the numbers embossing folder would make the perfect background for an Elvis-themed birthday card design.  Elvis is from Cornish Heritage Designs and the sentiment is from PaperTrey Ink's Mixed Messages.  I finished with a little touch of blue bling.