Dear Self - A little inspiration

I wanted to join in with a splitcoast challenge since it has been quite a while since the last time I did, so I went to my favourite challenge (inspiration challenge) and saw Tim Holtz Mania (IC551) and chose this pin from the inspiration board.

I have several 'Dear Self' sentiments from Create with TLC, and today I have a card using another of these fabulous digi stamps. I cut and embossed the sentiment using large petite ovals, sadly a discontinued die cut set. I used a silver paint pen to edge the sentiment and several other layers and accents.

We all need a reminder occasionally to be brave, to move forward, and that today we will win! I know I do. I really love the secret I'm showing in this photo - the underside of the pattern paper is ORANGE! The sage, grey and ivory print is one of my absolute favourite papers of all time, and I have rarely featured the orange print. Today, the flowers show the bright and happy flip side. While I could make all sorts of ethereal connections from this print to the sentiment,  I won't. I'll leave that for you to do, if you choose.

The little orange glow is highly appealing, I think. I couldn't find any pink anything I was willing to use like my inspiration piece for this card since I wanted to keep the focus on the sentiment.

I used Cinch and Go dies to create these flowers (since I couldn't find my tattered blossoms dies - it took me an hour of looking before I finally gave up and turned to this die set instead!!), and they are super simple to assemble. I used an awl to make the hole in the center larger so I could fit in this many pearl stamens, and I really love the effect.

stamp; dear self (create with tlc)
paper; everafter (cosmo cricket - discontinued); horizon, lily white, front porch (bazzill)
accessories; yellow pearl stamens (darice); stack and fan flowers, cinch and go flowers, make a wish, i'll never leaf you, labels 41, labels 41 decorative accents, lg petite ovals (spellbinders); silver paint pen (uchida)

IHP Just so Lovely

And then there are these days when I need a quick card because this, that or the other comes up and I don't have the right card!

This is a really quick card. I cheated and used one of my digital images from the stockpile I have hanging around. I didn't have the right colour pearls, so I took my Basic White Pearls from Kaiser and coloured a few with my V99 copic marker and VOILA! Perfectly colour coordinated embellishments. I really love this Black & White Timeless paper, also from Kaiser.

I seem to really be in a groove of piling stuff on my bows lately. I love the look and I'm not tired of it yet. This black flower on the black ribbon layered on the black crochet trim is so very elegant irl! This card makes me think turn of the century ballroom and ballgowns!

stamps; word art (tlc creations)
paper; black & white timeless (kaiser from ihp), raven, canvas white, coconut swirl (bazzill), mauve card stock (coredinations)
accessories; black flower embellishment (petaloo from ihp), basics white pearls (kaiser from ihp), V99 copic marker (copic from ihp), black crochet trim (may arts from ihp), sm & lg classic squares nestabilities (spellbinders from ihp), black satin ribbon (offray)

Hooked on Digis

I admit it. I adore the immediacy of the internet. I sign in at my public library (6th busiest in North America) and I can download audio books directly onto my ipod or EPUB books into my Adobe Digital Reader and eventually onto an e-reader (don't pop my dream bubble - I would love to have one!).

There are several reasons I love digital images; They come without postage and are relatively inexpensive. I love the immediate gratification of placing my order with any number of digital image companies and my images are in my inbox within the hour and occasionally within 24hours. They don't take up room on my overflowing stamp shelves. A key factor is that it feeds the anal control freak in me that doesn't get to surface very often - I can re-size the images to fit my creative vision. I adore that!

The down side is that I only know how to print in black or tones of black. There's no pink, red, blue or green. I only print on white card stock because my printer sucks and doesn't print in colour anymore, even with brand new cyan, cadmium, and magenta cartridges.

I don't use digital paper designs because I haven't advanced technologically beyond black and white. I don't digi scrapbook either because it's really too technical for me. I find a place of great calm and peace as I copy and paste digi images from my computer files into a word document and then fiddle with the size until it is so perfect, I can hardly stand it!

This darling image is A Special Flower from A Day For Daisies. My colours are all from an older Basic Grey paper, Sultry. I do love that pink and green combination!

This card is very thick and I doubt it would make it safely through the mail. There is something that appeals to me in making a card that is so decadently thick that it has to be delivered by hand with some for real face to face time!

I used my Spiral Blossom 1 die from Spellbinders to create the pink part of this flower. This die cuts a flower so much bigger than I had imagined it would be! My fault, not the die's fault. I cut it, rolled it, became alarmed with it's size, squished it, then cut off the smallest third of the length from the center. Then, I grabbed a mulberry floral embellishment and re-curled the spiral blossom around my pre-made flower. I worked the pink petals a bit to create some additional texture, and let a little sigh of happiness escape from my happy place. I ran a narrow bead of glue around the petal edges and dipped it in glitter. While the final product is bigger than the original die cut flower, it isn't as thick - it's a much flatter flower which works better with my card.

I love this little sentiment. It's from tlc Creations in their word art section. I have several pages of their sentiments printed and ready to go should the urge jump up and grab me. And I can re-size it to fit whatever die I want to use to cut it out! *DIVINE*

As with the flower, I ran a bead of glue around the pink Labels 16 layer and dipped it in my glitter. I coloured my image with copic markers and added a little magic to her background using stardust stickles.

copics used today; E000/01/11/74/77/79, B0000/00/01/02, YG01/05/07/09, RV11/13/17, YR 01/02/04, colorless blender, 100 special black

stamps; a special flower (adfd), sentiment (tlc creations)
paper; sultry (basic grey), slipper dotted swiss, green tea, maltball, white canvas (bazzill), x-press it blending card stock (copic)
accessories; lg classic square nestabilities, label tag trio, spiral blossom 1, eyelet squares, labels 16 (spellbinders), sultry button (basic grey), crystal ultrafine glitter (art institute), mulberry floral embellishments (recollections), old olive striped and pink pirouette taffeta ribbons (SU!), stardust stickles (ranger)

colour create - pink and green
paper crafting journey - floral
my mum's craft shop - flowers
my time to craft - favourite embellishment (ribbon)
cardmadfairy's - ribbon and bows
papertake weekly - happy highlights
stamping with the dragon - anything goes
sew many challenges - circles
whoopsie daisy challenge - let's bling it
AUD sentiments - inspiration challenge (love)
crazy4 challenges - lots of layers (c4c121)

You Never Go Out of Style!

Today, I've used Poppy the Circus Girl, one of my Saturated Canary digi images. I simply adore Krista's art and I darn near swoon every time she adds images to her store!

When I saw today's Inspiration Challenge, I trolled through the Blue Carrot site and found inspiration in some Vintage Ephemera. The image on the hair net package is lovely, and inspired my card. My sentiment is from the WordArt of Create with tlc.

Isn't she simply divine?!!! I used the colours from the shirt and the lightest green of the skirt to polka dot 'sparkle' her skirt tulle.

Now, one of my latest favourite things to do is paint with glimmer mist. The sparkle is so fine that it is super hard to photograph, but the effect is spectacular!!! I used the following Fireworks Mists; Dandelion on her hair, New Sprout on her skirt, Cantaloupe on the balloon, tulle and ribbon.

I used the following copics; Y000/00/11/21/23/32, YG0000/91/93/97, B93/95, W00/0/1/2, E0000/000/00/02/07/09/11/31/71/95/97/99

Have a happy weekend, all!

stamps; poppy the circus girl (saturated canary), wordArt (create with tlc)
paper; butterfly garden (pink paislee from IHP), saguaro, coconut swirl, brown (bazzill), x-press it (copic from ihp)
accessories; sm classic rectangle nestabilities (spellbinders from ihp), joy ride button collection (cosmo cricket from ihp), sugar picks (jillibean soup from ihp), fireworks (tsukineko from ihp), brown ribbon (unknown), olive ribbon (su!)


IC308 - blue carrot shop

Relax!

 Today I used a sentiment from Create with tlc and made a MAN CARD! I cut this sentiment using a Reverse Wonky Rectangle die - a simple but effective shape that looks like a fat bow tie silhouette.

I think I'm getting more comfy with the man card, so I've started making more of them. I think I've learned that simpler is better for a masculine card and so using a fabulous pattern paper for the card base tends to be the direction I lean towards. This paper is from Timeless Vintage, a Kaiser Craft paper pad I got from Kate at ihp.

Have a terrific day!


stamps; sentiment (create with tlc)
paper; timeless vintage (kaiser craft from ihp), cashmere, raven, coconut swirl (bazzill)
ink; pumice stone, frayed burlap, black soot distress ink (ranger)
accessories; reverse wonky rectangle nestabilities (spellbinders), black brads (bazzill), black grosgrain ribbon (su!)

lexi's creations - just a sentiment
scrapbook sisters - anything goes
aud sentiments - make us laugh
eat, sleep, stamp - sketch (I turned it sideways)
SCS CAS challenge - inspiration challenge (I used the colours)

Birthday Party for Susanna!!!

On October 22nd, we are celebrating Susanna's Boyd's birthday with a week-long challenge event that every member on the Planet can participate in!  

The Super Novas got together and each made a special birthday gift for Susanna's birthday.  In honor of this momentous occasion, we invite everyone to post a birthday project or card for a chance to win some fabulous prizes! Yes, there are several chances to win some awesome paper crafting goodies just by posting a birthday themed project!

Further details can be found by clicking on The Planet Blog.  Check out where the party is and join us for a week of celebrations!

My card for Susanna is cheeky, eh?!!! I love it and I bet she does too, if a little ruefully.

I didn't have to colour a thing! I pulled out my Steampunk Debutante paper from Graphic 45 and used one of their elegant images for the ever elegant Susanna! Easy peasy gorgeousness!

I combined 3 ribbons to create my d'vine bow and then I glued a brad from the Gabrielle collection by Bo Bunny on the top with some super strong fabric adhesive. I used wide brown satin from Offray for my large bow and the other ribbon and crochet trim are from the Sienne Collection by Making Memories.

This is another word art digi sentiment from Create with tlc. I think this quote is originally attributed to Bette Davis, but I could easily be wrong! I love it!

HB, SB!!! You keep getting better every year! Now go to the Paper Craft Planet blog and try to win one of the MANY prizes up for grabs!!!

A Wee *giggle* for a Fall Sunday

My husband has a habit of dramatically whipping of his glasses when he need to see something up close. I admit it drives me crazy! Just go get your eyes checked for crying out loud!!! He insists it will have to be a special day with a daytime appointment, blah blah blah. I see right through him and know it's one more discouraging sign for him that he's getting older and he's procrastinating since the optometrists hours are very generous including evening appointment times. He's going to need bifocals and we both know it.

I found this sentiment from Create with TLC and expressed my delight with one very unflattering, loud honking laugh. It was a must have from Paulette's Word Art category! My design was inspired from this week's Teapot Tuesday challenge on SCS. I opted for a man card (required) with black vertical stripes. I don't have any fishing anything that was another part of the challenge which I hope wasn't required.

Have a super day!!!

stamps; word art (create with TLC)
paper; black tie (basic grey), raven, white canvas (bazzill)
accessories; labels 18, reverse wonky rectangles, symbology (spellbinders), ribbon, buttons (basic grey)

Butterfly Mojo

When I can, I like to play along with the Mojo Monday sketch challenge. Today is my lucky day using mojo monday sketch 208!!

I love the pairing of this sentiment from 'Soar' by tlc Creations with the many layers of butterflies. I have such a wonderful weakness for butterflies and I love it - don't even think about rescuing me!

This is a wonderful sentiment and on the tlc Creations website, there are many gorgeous text as graphic sentiments that Paulette aptly calls 'Word Art'. They are definitely words and most definitely works of art. You'll see me using a lot of her sentiments from now on and I'm so happy I found her digital images!!!

The largest and mid-sized butterfly layers were cut using Spellbinders Dies from the Fanciful Flight Set. The smaller butterflies were all made using the Butterfly Trio punch by Martha Stewart. I stamped the butterfly base using Dream Text by Stampendous since the collage look of this stamp mirrors the sketch layout.

Well, the weekend is fast approaching and I trust you have wonderful plans that will be restorative for you!

stamps; soar (tlc creations), dream text (stampendous)
paper; gabrielle (bo bunny), lagoon, java, coconut swirl, white canvas (bazzill)
ink; antique linen, tea dye, vintage photo, walnut stain
accessories; waterfall dew drops (the robin's nest), fanciful flight shapeabilities, large long classic rectangles nestabilities (spellbinders), butterfly trio punch (martha stewart), blue rhinestones (mambi), satin ribbon (su!)