Snow Day

Here's the view out my front door today. Yuck! The snow is VERY wet and heavy. We lost power for about 3 1/2 hours during the night, and it went off and on several times this morning. It has really lightened up now. I'm not sure if we are due for another hit or not as 2 of the 3 local stations are off the air right now.
But my office is closed, so I'm planning to do some stamping this afternoon! Whoohoo! Come back tomorrow for the next Saturday Challenge!

What happened to spring???

My area is under a blizzard watch for Thursday night through Friday night. We are supposed to get at least 6-10 inches of snow with 30-40 MPH winds, gusting even higher. Isn't it April??? Good grief!
Well, onto something more spring-like. Here is VSN card # 3. This challenge was to make a tie-dye card using baby wipes. The photo below shows my "ink pad". I wanted to use ribbon, so that helped me choose my colors. Once again the color coach came to my aid, and I chose Bashful Blue, Pixie Pink and Gable Green. I randomly dropped the ink onto the baby wipe and then went back in and filled in all of the gaps with extra ink. I don't do random very well. My former upline gave me the tip to kind of form triangles with the "random" images or, in this case colors. I started with the pink then filled in with the blue and green.
I chose Baroque Motifs for this just because I thought it was so different for this type of project. I'm very pleased with how this turned out! The card base is 8" X 5 1/4" folded in half and mounted onto 4 1/4" X 5 1/2" Pixie Pink. Both the flower brad and the ribbon slide are from the new Hodgepodge Hardware in the Occasions Mini.
Supplies (all SU): Stamps: Baroque Motifs; Paper: Whisper White, Gable Green, Pixie Pink
Ink: Bashful Blue, Gable Green, Pixie Pink; Accessories: Bashful Blue narrow grosgrain ribbon, Styled Silver Hodgepodge Hardware, scallop circle punch, corner rounder punch
Happy stamping!

VSN Challenge Card # 2

I had so much fun with VSN (Virtual Stamp Night) this weekend! You saw the first challenge card for my Saturday challenge. Here's the second one. (Two more to follow!) This challenge was titled Favorite Blue Jeans. The challenge was to make a monochromatic blue card with a bonus if you add texture to your card.
I pulled out all of my blues and chose Blue Bayou, Not Quite Navy and Soft Sky for my faded blue jean color combo. For texture, I stamped the Canvas background twice onto my Soft Sky card base, once in Blue Bayou and once in Not Quite Navy. I also used the Faux Linen technique on my focal image. You can see a full tutorial on it here. Basically, you start with glossy cardstock and sand it horizontally and vertically to mimic linen texture. Then you sponge color over it. I sponged with Blue Bayou and then sanded some of the color off. Then I stamped the block stamp in Blue Bayou and overstamped all of the line images in Not Quite Navy. I also used Soft Sky Prints paper. I chose the one with paisley on it because it reminded me of a bandana. The ribbon and buckle are like a belt.
I recommend the Faux Linen technique. It's pretty and can add an aged look to any image.
Supplies (all SU): Stamps: Sweet Shapes, It's Your Birthday, Canvas; Paper: Glossy White, Blue Bayou, Not Quite Navy, Soft Sky, Soft Sky Prints; Ink: Blue Bayou, Not Quite Navy, Soft Sky; Accessories: sanding block, sponge, Soft Sky ds grosgrain ribbon, Aged Copper hodgepodge hardware

Saturday Challenge # 10

This week's challenge is to color! It can be watercolor, markers, ink or chalk with a blender pen. Just color somewhere on your card. I made this card last night for VSN (Virtual Stamp Night) on SCS. When VSN is going on, challenges are posted every hour, and you have 45 minutes to complete any that you do. There were 6 challenges last night, and it starts again today at noon EDT. The theme is Fashion, and this challenge was called Sketch Designer. The challenge was to use sketch-style stamps. Well, Doodle This jumped right into my head. I love this set, but it's been in the "I've moved on to newer stuff" pile.
I decided that I wanted to use a rhinestone brad for the center, so of course I chose the lavender one! Then I thought that Eggplant would go perfectly with it. I grabbed the Color Coach and chose Old Olive and Pretty in Pink for my other colors.
I cut a 3" square of Confetti White and stamped the big flower in Elegant Eggplant. I used my aquapainter to pull the ink from the stamped outline into the petal. The aqua painter was a little wet, and it kinda melted the center dots. So I went over those with ink and a blender pen. I filled in the dots between the petals with Pretty in Pink and a blender pen. I distressed the edges with the cutter kit and inked them with pink. I mounted that on a 3 1/4" square of Old Olive. I added the rhinestone brad and mounted it with Stampin' Dimensionals. I punched photo corners out of Elegant Eggplant and added paper piercing before attaching them to the main image.
For the card base, I used Pretty in Pink, a rare occurence for me. I stamped a swirl in Old Olive all over the card. I debated about what to add to the bottom and finally settled on Old Olive polytwill ribbon. I used the horizontal slot punch to make a little notch in the folded edge of the card for the ribbon to go through. Then I added "celebrate" from the SAB rub-ons.
Supplies (all SU): Stamps: Doodle This; Paper: Confetti White, Elegant Eggplant, Old Olive, Pretty in Pink; Ink: Elegant Eggplant, Old Olive, Pretty in Pink: Accessories: Ice Circles rhinestone brad, photo corner punch, crafters tool kit, cutter kit, Old Olive polytwill ribbon, Love & Happiness rub-ons, horizontal slot punch, aquapainter, blender pen
If you play along, please post a link to your card here. If you post it in your SCS gallery, use keyword ISC10.
Happy stamping!

Saturday Challenge # 9 winner!

va.sunshine on SCS played last week's challenge and made 2 cards. I chose this one to show because I love the celery and black together; just gorgeous! You can see the other very different card that she made here.

Teresa, if you e-mail me your address, I'll send you a card. Thanks for playing!

Wanna See the New In Colors?

If you want to see what the new In Colors will be in the new catty (debuting 8/11/08), click here to see what someone posted on their blog. The lucky, hard-working bigwigs of the SU demo world are on the annual SU trip. This year is a cruise to Bermuda. I can't guarantee the color accuracy of this because another blog posted a picture that looked different. I'm hoping that Baja Breeze will be like Cool Caribbean and Soft Sky!

Sweet and Simple

I made this card for one of the demo challenges on SCS. On Mondays, the challenge is a demonstratable card. This week it was a Simple as 1-2-3 card. That is a card that uses 1 stamp set, 1 embellishment, 2 colors of cardstock (plus a neutral), 3 inks and 3 layers for the main image. ONE EMBELLISHMENT????? That was the hard part. How do you choose just one? Ribbon, brad, ticket corner punch? And what about a background stamp? I figured that designer paper would be an embellishment, so that was out.
I decided on Soft Sky and Basic Gray for my 2 main colors. Then I thought that if I used Heartfelt Thanks, I could throw in Wild Wasabi for ink. I decided to use a green rhinestone brad for my flower center to make the most of my ONE embellishment. I used the circle that would normally be the flower center to make a dotted background in Soft Sky and Wild Wasabi. I am totally anal about spacing; I was going to measure for my dots, but it was too hard so I pretty much eyeballed it. That is a big accomplishment for me!
My card base is 5 1/4" X 8" scored at 4" then mounted onto a 4 1/4" X 5 1/2" piece of Basic Gray. This is a great way to use a white card base but add some firmness to the base as well as a band of color around the outside.
For the main image, I measured the wood block. It is 2" X 3". I kept the cardstock a little longer so I could tear the bottom edge. I decided to mount the white piece onto 2 1/4" Basic Gray to make it pop, then 2 1/2" Soft Sky for the 3rd layer. I tore the edge of the white before adhering it to the Gray and then tore the edge of the Gray before adhering it to Soft Sky. I added the brad and then used Stampin' Dimensionals to give it some, well, you know, dimension!
Supplies (all SU): Stamps: Heartfelt Thanks; Paper: Whisper White, Basic Gray, Soft Sky; Ink: Basic Gray, Soft Sky, Wild Wasabi; Accessories: Ice Circle rhinestone brads, Stampin' Dimensionals
Happy stamping!