Ingenious Inkling

Sassy Spring Floral Birthday

When I saw the newest Sketch Challenge at AAA Cards, I knew I wanted to use some of my gorgeous 49th and Market Fabric Tape.

 

 

Only one problem, the gorgeous 49th and Market Alena floral tape I wanted to use was too wide to work with the sketch.  I attached a strip of the paper to thin cardstock, so I could cut the tape into two pieces.

 

 

I overlaid smaller pieces of the texty tape for a bit more visual interest, making sure the butterflies were still visible.

 

 

I added a fun little sentiment from Rabbit Hole Designs Sassy Birthday 2.

 

 

I'm also joining the Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers Snarky Challenge.

 

 

And Seize the Birthday is featuring Spring Florals.

 

Striped Thank You

When I saw the Striped Challenge at the Time Out Challenge, it was just the push I need to use the Waffle Flower Skinny Stripes dies that had been sitting on my studio table for some time.

 

 

I grabbed four scraps of paper also on my studio table (yes, I need to clean-up, but then how would the serendipitous crafting happen) and cut two sets of strips.  I used a sheet of adhesive to attach them to a piece of white cardstock.  After attaching all of the stripes, I ran it back through my die cut machine to make sure everything was strongly adhered to the paper.

 

 

I thought the repeating Thank Yous from Waffle Flower Coffee Cup Sentiments worked well with the repeating stripes, particularly ombre inked with the two shades of turquoise from the panel colors.

I'm also joining the Anything Goes Challenge at Simon Says.

One more card (masculine and larger so there are room for multiple signatures) to re-stock my work Thank You card stash.

Cookie Inspired Christmas

The newest prompt at Jingle Belles is to make a card inspired by these amazing Christmas Cookies by @Kristens.Cookies.

 

 

My eyes were instantly drawn to the Merry Tree cookie in the middle bottom.  I felt like I had a similar word in my stash, so I went on a treasure hunt and found what I was thinking about - Unity Stamp Company Say It Big Holiday Die Cuts.

I die cut the Merry from one of my green Gelliarts prints.  I ended up die cutting it three times and stacking them inspired by the dimension in the cookie.  I initially cut the matt that went with the die cut, but then changed to the rectangle cut of the cookie using Hero Arts Rounded Corner Rectangle Die cut from PaperTrey Ink Vintage Cream Cardstock (it was a wonderful subtle pattern that you often only see in kraft cardstock).

 

 

I used the same Hero Arts rounded corner die cut on another green gelliarts print that has some metallic gold for a bit of holiday shimmer.  I punched a larger star rom the same gelliprint as the text and stacked on a smaller star punched from the background paper before attaching it all to a Vintage Cream Cardstock base (that I used a corner rounder on to coordinate with the die cut panels).

I can't wait to see which of the cookies inspires your holiday card design (make sure you tell us in your post).

Woodblock Baby

It's time for another Woodblock Wednesday with Amy T.

 

I pulled out a Memory Box #woodblockstamp and paired it with dies from My Favorite Things - It's a Baby and Octagon STAX Die-namics.

 

 

I was asked for a Copper, Sage & Ivory color palette.  What do you do to have just the right colors ... use my gelliarts press to make my own metallic copper and sage papers.

 

 

Thursday Link Love

Another week of blogland finds:

• ideas for Small Bathrooms
• sometimes you just want two huge Chocolate Chip Cookies
• Do you know what these songs are about?
• Thai Crunch Chicken Salad
• Lemon Tiramisu (shown)
• what is Egyptian Cotton?
• I love Baked Apples
• how lovely is this basket of paper flowers
• 7 Layer Bar Rice Krispie Treats
• are you looking for a good CC Cream?
• Corn Soufflé Casserole
• Eric Wert's vivid paintings
• Sheet Pan Cheesecake
• Italian Pot Roast looks so good over mashed potatotes

Have a tremendous Thursday!

Floral Thank You

My thank you card stash is completely depleted, so I'm working to restock.

I started with inspiration from The Color Hue Challenge - Cream & Blue.

 

 

I chose a Penny Black Sticker from Romance of Flowers.  I paired it with a Sketch from Global Design Project.

 

 

My clean & simple design also works for the Addicted to CAS Bloom Challenge.

 

Peter Cottontail

The newest challenge at Shopping Our Stash is to create an Easter or Spring card.

I broke out the Tim Holtz Bunny Stitch Die Cuts and paired them with several of my gelliarts prints.

 

 

I used three more gelliarts prints for the panels and card base and finished with a sticker sentiment.

 

And my bunny is welcoming Spring with the Paper Craft Crew.  It's also Easter/Spring at Simon Says Stamp Challenge.

March Gelliprinting Continues

I'm still making my way through the Gelliarts #marchprintingchallenge on Instagram (you can follow me at @SmilynStef).

 

 

Day 17 was Shamrock.  I used these paper shamrock masks printing several layers while moving them around the plate.

 

 

Day 18 is black & white (I need a more opaque black paint) using Julie Balzer's Rows of Lines Stencil from The Crafter's Workshop.

 

 

For Day 19 - Recycle - I recycled a paper overlay from a Hallmark greeting card and used it as a mask.  

 

 

For day 20 Geometry, I used the Large Betsy's Block stencil by Dylusions with Platinum and Red paints.  

 

 

Day 21 is curves.  I cut a large circle from a piece of typing paper and used it as a mask for applying PanPastel with a sponge.  I used three new colors I added to my stash (which in hindsight were the colors of our Junior High team, the Hornets).

 

 

Day 22 was Contrast.  I had intended to use black to pull these vibrant hues, but didn't get the results I was hoping for, so instead I just embraced the contrast between the neon yellow and vibrant pink.  The one on the left is on printer paper and on the right I used deli paper.

 

 

Day 23 was Alcohol Ink.  I had intended for the second print to be shades of blues, but because I didn't clean my stencil and the new ink activated the dried ink on the stencil, I ended-up with the cool happy accident mixing of colors.

 

 

Day 24 was monochromatic.  I fell in love with all of the shades of blue.

 

 

I hope you're enjoying my gelliprinting experiments as much as I am.

Traveler Thank You Cards

Since I had the Mintay Traveler papers out, and I needed to restock my thank you cards, I went ahead and used a few sketch challenges to create a few more.

The first one uses the Sketch from The Paper Players.

 

 

The Thank You sentiment is an unidentified wood mount stamps in my stash.

 

 

For the second one, I used the layout from CAS Colours & Sketches.

 

 

This Thank You is another unidentified sentiment (I keep all of my thank you stamps from the many years of stamping).

 

 

I love how gorgeous papers make pulling together multiple cards so easy.

Travel Thank You

I always appreciate those who take care of things for us while we travel, so I wanted to make a special Thank You card.

I used lovely new Traveler Papers from Mintay paired with this week's Tuesday Morning Sketch.

 

 

I dug out an old school Tim Holtz Alterations Sizzix BigZ Elegant Flourishes Die Cut.  I die cut it several times from a scrap of aged grey designer paper that I thought worked with the trunk and camera in my focal image.

 

 

I finished with some Taylored Expressions Gold Matte Enamel Dots that looked like the dots on the trunk.  I finished with a Wood Mounted Thank You sentiment from A Muse Artistamps.