Ingenious Inkling

Thursday Link Love

More fun finds with the land of blogs:

• 15 Take-Out Recipes you can make at home
• I have a *thing* for colorful front doors (shown)
• I wanted to try some Butternut Squash *Noodles*
• Tutorial for a pretty Thankful Tree
• Love how the rug in this tiny cabin looks like grass ... and these Wooden Rugs are amazing
• Free Halloween Printables
• Tutorial for pretty leaf bowls made from clay
• A wonderful collection of Small Space Designs
• Paper Cut Collages ... suspended in glass
• these Monster Thank You Cards are so stinkin' cute
• tutorial for amazing Fall Leaf Animals

Have a terrific Thursday.

Enthralled with Fall

I love autumn leaves ... and maple leaves are my favorites.  I grew-up with a large maple tree in my back yard in a town that celebrates an annual Maple Leaf Festival.  My current house has two maple trees, and a love watching the leaves turn beautiful shades of yellow, orange and red.  

So needless to say, I had to join in this week's Enthralled with Fall Moxie Fab World Tuesday Trigger.

I began with a white woodgrain palette (inspired by the wooden table in the photo).  Next I layered on some glittery fall leaves & an SRM Sticker Sentiment.

I'm also joining the Friday Mash-Up where they're celebrating Orange & Leaves.

Happy Fall!

Stamped Winter Wood Décor

I was so excited when I saw these some fabric covered wooden words in the $1 Bin at Michaels (I think I may have actually squeeled outloud ... I'm easily excited by artsy possibility).  I immediately thought how fun it would be to personalize them with some stamping.

I have a friend who loves patriotic décor, so I decided to start with a snowflake from Ornate Snowflakes stamped in Paris Dusk Memento Ink.

I used my smallest Rock-A-Block which was perfectly sized to get a great image each time.

I spaced them across the word, making sure to stamp off the edges several times.  Next I used Rhubarb Stalk Ink with another snowflakes from Ornate Snowflakes.

There were still some spaces that needed a little fill, so I used the neutral tone of Rich Cocoa Memento Ink together with one of the tiny snowflakes from Ahhh ... Christmas!

I thought about adding punched snowflakes, but in the end decided just to add some tiny champagne pearls to the centers of the snowflakes, so this holiday art will be mailable.

Here's the finished project ... I love that this is something she will be able to display all winter.

Remember, keep your eyes open when you're shopping ... you never know when your next artsy project will reveal itself.

Elvis Thank You

When I saw Lori Craig's card for today's Hope You Can Cling To Challenge at SCS, I knew I had to join the fun.  The theme is the King of Rock 'n' Roll, which was the perfect opportunity to break out my vintage Elvis stamps from Cornish Heritage Farm (they are retired & no longer available).

I paired it with papers from Basic Grey's Perismmon collection because they sort of reminded me of patterns that were popular during the Jumpsuit Elvis period.  The layout is this week's Sweet Sunday Sketch.

Thank you ... thank you very much.

Just Say Boo!

I wanted to get a few more Halloween cards in the mail, so I made one inspired by this week's {Cupcake Inspirations}.

and I used this week's Dahlhouse Designs Wanna Sketch?

I used some Halloween papers from my stash & SRM Stickers.  The speech bubble is from The Alley Way Talk to Me.

Bebunni Birthday

There's another new release in the works at Crafter's Companion ... the adorable Bebunni line will be available in the US on October 25th.

My card was actually made using an image from the 2-CD-ROM set.  The set includes images that are specially made to be *printed* on top of cakes ... but I thought the image was so cute, I printed it on paper instead.

I stamped the sentiment from Camden Town Male 1 (love those block letters) in the bottom right corner and added a wrap of ombre pink ribbon to finish the design.

Watch the Facebook Page and the Blog for more sneak peeks this week.

Fusion Fox

I decided to make a Fusion card for this week's Fusion Card Challenge ... I love the clean lines and colors in the photo ... and round sketch design.

I wanted a real pop of orange with accents of blue and green, so I started with this fun felt fox I picked-up on my recent shopping travels, and built the design around him.

I finished with a sentiment from Studio Calico stamped in Warm Green to coordinate with the border and the leaves in the photo.

New York City Adventure

I had a fantastic trip with Lauren to New York City.  We did lots of walking and saw lots of things ... oh yeah, and ate lots of awesome food too (here's Lauren's take on our adventures).

We took the train in from Newark after my flight landed in the afternoon and then enjoyed wandering about the City.  One of the best things about traveling with Lauren is that we both make random stops to capture pictures of architecture, grafitti and even cool textures.  There's a lot of looking-up in NYC.

I got to see the amazing Fishs Eddy store in person (it was one of my favorite Inspiration Challenges)

The next morning we ventured to the High Line ... I was amazed how much it had changed since my last visit.  There was lots of construction going on for the next phase, so there will be even more to see the next time I return.

We had a celebrity sighting (Joe Zee filming for the Sundance Channel) and lots of kiddos on field trips.  I never tire of public art.

And there is such great art to see along The High Line.

Another amazing piece we saw on our walk to our next stop, The Museum of Chinese in America.

The Museum was smaller, but filled with lots of fascinating history and stories.  My favorite part was the exhibit called Front Row: Chinese American Designers.

The details in these Anna Sui ensambles were amazing.

Next stop was The New Museum, which was featuring the art of Chris Burden.  He even erected two artistic pieces on the exterior of the museum ... the Twin Towers on top and the Ghost Ship hanging from the side of the building, 30 feet above the street.

We also arrived just in time to see his Big Wheel Exhibit be fired up (a girl riding a small motorcycle powers a huge iron wheel).

Next stop was Top Hat where we picked-up an assortment of unique MT Washi Tape ... and I resisted buying one of these fun clarinets.

There was lots of walking and lots of subway time ... so grateful for public transportation when I travel.

The next morning we headed to the Museum of Arts & Designs.  Bad news was that they were in between Exhibits ... good news was that they only charged us $5 to see the two open exhibits ... and they were magnificent.

The first was a huge collection of costume jewelry ... so many card ideas bloomed in our heads.

I really loved this color combination of greys and corals.

The ceramic exhibit was amazing too ... although some were a bit creepy (in a good way).

We walked a bit through Central Park and enjoyed the amazing architecture.  It was overcast for most of the trip, but thankfully the rain held off until we were hailing a cab to head out of the city.  I really loved this building called Alwyn Court.  The entire exterior is covered with gorgeous terra cotta detail.

We finished our adventures at The Art of the Brick ... we expected to enjoy it, but we were both truly amazed at how fabulous it was.  If it ever comes near you ... go see it ... you won't be disappointed.   The first room was filled with recreations of famous art pieces.  The quote above The Kiss summed it up.

We were there with multiple field trips of children, and it was so fun to see them discovering art.  The second room was filled with famous sculptures.

Then the exhibit moved on to original works.

We took lots and lots of pictures ... and had so much fun.

Thanks for re-living our adventures with me.

Owl I Want for Christmas

My second card for the Jingle Belles Pink for a Cure Challenge uses some new papers from The Paper Studio called Santa & Friends that has all sorts of pink designer papers.  A little known fact ... one of Santa's besties is this Winter Owl.

I paper pieced Lawn Fawn's Winter Owl using two shades of brown & the great pink snowflake paper for the scarf ... I dabbed a bit of orange glitter pen on his beak.  A couple of strips of washi tape were added to finish the design.

My fun little holiday owl is also joining the whimsical challenge at Festive Fridays.  I'm also joining the Happy Holidays Challenge at Simon Says Stamp.  Christmas is also Coming at Polkadoodles.

Remember, you have until 6pm EST on October 23rd to link-up your pink Christmas designs.

Joyful Moments

Today Crafter's Companion released four new sets of stamps from the Stamp-It Australia line called Twinkle.  I'm excited to see one of my sample cards at the top of the page ... and there's a great deal if you want all four sets.

Here's another card I made with these new stamps.

All I did was add a little colored pencil to this beautiful image from the Falling Snowflake set.

I'm joining the Christmas Birds Challenge at Crimbo Crackers and the Christmas Challenge at Simon Says Stamp.