Ingenious Inkling

Thursday Link Love

Another week of wonderful blogland finds (if you're stopping by for the Gingersnapper Spirit Blog Hop, click here):

• A fabulous Texture Gallery (via All About Orange)
• A sweet little tutorial for making your own pom pom chicks
• Free printable gift tags from The Twinery 
• Nicole's MDF "canvases" are absolutely amazing ... makes me want to head to Home Depot and try it myself.
• Love this fun tutorial for a Newsprint Manicure.
• Very cool one-of-a-kind pants with a bleach pen design.
• I know I've directed you to her before ... but Godelieve's Sunday Scraps creation this week just blows me away.
• Love Mel's fabulous texty flower tutorial (photo shown).
• Carrie's unique ribbon treatment really takes this card to the next level.
• A great video from Becca on how to think-outside-the-box when thinking about "ribbon" ... makes me want to head to the quilting store with "new eyes" ... I also want to try out her "peg-method" of tying bows.
• This Cinnamon Leaves Bread looks good enough to almost make me brave enough to bake with yeast.
• I've also been craving a favorite comfort food ... Shrimp & Cheese Grits.  I always eat it when we travel in the south (I've been known to eat it three meals in a row), but have never tried making it myself ... this Bobby Flay recipe sounds pretty easy.
• And on a healthier note, can't wait to try this Sushi Salad.

Have a terrific Thursday.

Gingersnapper Spirit

In honor of the 3rd Annual Copper, Ginger or Rust Challenge at Gingersnap Creations, the Gingersnap Creations Yahoo Group ... aka the Gingersnappers ... celebrating with a Gingersnappers' Spirit Blog Hop ... head over to the blog to follow the complete list.

To join the fun I created a gingery, rusty, coppery metallic card showcasing a fabulous Copper bloom from Prima.  I used this week's Sweet Sunday Sketch for my layout.

I actually used the reverse side of my copper ribbon because it had more metallic sparklce.  The sentiment is a brown sticker from SRM Stickers (love that they're starting to carry colors other than black).

So hop on over to the Gingersnap Creations Blog and check out all of the fabulous Gingery Creations.

 

Its Own Quiet Place

This card is for the Cityscape Challenge at the Moxie Fab World Blog.  

I love this wonderful cityscape in this Relocate paper from the Basic Grey Wander collection ... the fantastic colors ... the texty, grungy background.  I cut an 8"x4"piece of the paper and sponged the edges with Black Soot Distress ink to help frame the cityscape and bring in the feeling of the dark, night sky.

This sentiment from Stampotique captured what I wanted to say ... that dispite the noisy, crazy, chaos of the city ... everyone needs to find their own quiet space.  

I stamped my sentiment on a scrap of grungy white DP, cut it in the shape of a skyscraper ... and then added a bit more black soot ink for shading.  I finished with a pearly flourish to represent the peace that comes from the quiet space within.

Wishing you a peaceful Tuesday.

Easter Eggs & Tiny Chicks

Often sketches intended for layouts have too many elements to shrink into a card-sized palette, but I when I looked at the current Pencil Lines Sketch, I decided to try and make it work.  My finished card is 5 1/2" square and will be included in a box of Easter goodies for the nieces and nephews, so I didn't have to worry about bulkiness for mailing.

I used my felt Easter egg sticker as my color palette, and went hunting through my scrapbox for pieces of paper that would coordinate.  I used two different yellow DPs and some Cosmo Cricket Matilda for the background (why is it Halloween is the only holiday that has embraced purple?).  

I finished with a felt chick sticker, some tiny gem flourishes from the $1 bin at Michael's, a tiny metal charm, and SRM Sticker sentiments.  A bit busy, but considering my audience is the five-and-under crowd, I think it is just perfect.

Bloom Where You're Planted

It's been a while since I've played along with my friends at Etsy Inspired, so I thought I would check it out this week ... lots of fun purses, wallets and bags from Doll Birdies.

This fun little Pacifier Pyramid inspired by design. The fabric reminded me of the new Bo Bunny Ad Lib Collection.

I also used this week's Limelight Paper Sketch, which requires you to incorporate some green.

The floral design in the fabric patterns inspired me to use my Bloom & Grow stamps from Artistic Outpost.  I stamped the image on green DP and then again on yellow DP to paper piece my marigolds.  I also stamped a tiny worker bee and sentiment from the set.

I finished with a few wraps of chocolate twine tied in a bow and some Memory Box Daffodil Pearls.

Birthday Cheer

Today I realized my stash of cards for my nieces and nephews was completely depleted, so I pulled together a couple of quick and easy birthday cards for the boys.

The first one uses this week's Get Sketchy layout with fun adhesive borders from K&Company's Actopus to Zelephant line.

The sentiment is an SRM Sticker and I added three coordinating brads to finish the design.

The next one Shazaam Collection papers I got in a Rusty Pickle grab bag.  These are papers I probably never would have picked out on my own, but I love the fun cartoon-like effect.

Couldn't we all use a little more Shazaam! in our lives?

Casablanca Thank You

This week's SCS Inspiration Challenge was suggested by Laura aka lovesrubberstamps.  

I remember shopping at Kirkland's years ago at our local mall, but we don't have any where I live now ... however, they have an awesome online store to inspire us all.

I chose this fantastic Casablanca Plaque crafted of textured metal to inspire my card design.  I loved the color combination, layout, texture and dimension, so I tried to incorporate all of those into my creation.

I started by picking out scraps from my stash to match the colors and then embossed with five different embossing folders that were as close as I could find to the texture in the plaque.

Next I punched out 1 3/8" squares from the paper scraps and distressed them first with coordinating ink colors to bring out the texture, and then with distress ink on the edges.

I attached the squares to a subtle texty background from Prima's Botanical Collection using foam tape under some of them for dimension.  I finished with a cool piece of American Crafts flair I got from my sister, and an SRM Sticker sentiment.

JB12 ~ Another Sketchy Holiday

This week we are thrilled to have the fabulous Allison Fillo as our guest star designer at the Jingle Belles Blog.  Alison created a one-of-a-kind sketch for us to design with.

I love sketches that combine circles and straight lines.  For me this was a perfect design to combine all sorts of different vertical elements.

I started with another image from the same Crafty Secrets collection as last week.  I loved how the circular design worked with the sketch. I found a rather solid background with some holiday words to ground my design.

For my vertical elements, I threw in some Tim Holtz tissue tape, a scrap of Webster's Pages paper, and a sticker that's been in my stash so long it had almost lost its stickiness (yes, I know ... sad).  

To cap off my vintage holiday design, I included an entire Zva Creative flourish in my favorite champagne hue ... seriously, I think I may have to join a Zva support group if you know where there is one ... love their flourishes.

So break out your scraps ... or your brand new goodies that have yet to be used ... and show us how you're going to get Sketchy for the holiday.

And to mix-it-up a bit, we're throwing in a little holiday goodie stash for one lucky card-making paricipant ... and yes, if you link up multiple sketch cards, you'll have extra chances to win ... go forth & create (and use JB12 if you upload to our Flickr Group, SCS, or other gallery).

*** Yes those are my favorite glittery snowglobe tags, some holiday sentiment stamps from Scrappy Cat, and some Making Memories Charmed tree plaques.

Thursday Link Love

Another week of fun Ineternet finds:

• I love this idea of a skewer/paper bouquet for a work desktop ... you could do bunnies or easter eggs ... hearts ... all sorts of fun little images.
• A sweet little vintage mending kit (beware, there is music on the blog) ... what a great little gift these would make for bridesmaids or other girlfriends.
• Love this tutorial for making your own balance board ... a great way to work on strenghthening your core to keep us steady as we (cough, cough).
• A tutorial for some lovely crepe paper flowers (shown).
• I adore this photo-covered dresser ... what a fantastic way to capture memories.
• This recipe for Caramel Apple Cobbler using pie filling & a cake mix looks scrumptious ... hope I can find that pie filling locally.
• These Peanut Butter S'Mores Turnovers made me drool a little on my keyboard ... a combination of all of my favorite things.
• Free Rainbow Printables ... I think a rainbow would cheer people up any day of the week.
• A fun & free City Scape Font ... I love how Jo used it to create this fabulous card. 
• A fun geography lesson / map tutorial.
• I've had a request for quite a few graduation cards this year ... any good graduation stamp sets you would recommend?
• I am adding this cookbook stand to my wish list.
• This adorable card sums up how I feel this week.

Happy St. Patty's Day ... enjoy!

Type Me a Letter

In keeping with the Work theme this month at Gingersnap Creations, this week's Random Redhead Challenge is typewriters.

I remember when my Mom made me take a typing class my sophomore year of high school.  I told her I had no intention of having a job where I typed all day, so I didn't see the point.  She reminded me that I would have lots of term papers to type once I got to college, so I better master the skill.  I remember I was one of the fastest in the class at 64 words a minute ... later during one job interview I tested at over 100 wpm.   Turns out Mom did know best ... with the computer age, almost every job I've ever had has required lots of typing all day long, and having speedy fingers gets the work done quickly.  

For my typewriter card design, I started with this week's Get Sketchy layout.

The background is from Pink Paislee's 365 Degrees Collection stamped with Hero Arts Envelope Pattern. The blue polka dot paper is from Jenni Bowlin's Trendy Mini Papers.  I finished with some Jenni Bowlin embossed Core'dinations cardstock that reminded me of typed text after I sanded it.

The typewriter is Hero Arts Vintage Typewriter.  I stamped the paper using Hero Arts Typewriter Letters & added a tiny punched heart (from the Stampin' Up Owl Punch).

I finished with some Tim Holtz Tissue tape, and three Brenda Walton metal art elements attached with 3-D glue dots (they were originally attached to paper clips, but I snipped the clips off, so they'd look more like typewriter keys).