A Purple Dream

This little card has elements from two blog challenges. The sketch is from Midnight Madness Sketch Challenge #55 and the color palate is from The Play Date Cafe Challenge 31. MMSC's May sponsor is Penny Black stamps and we were encouraged to use them in our creations. I didn't realize that this stamp was PB until I started digging through my stamps.
The papers are from K & Co.'s Floral Dreams, Bazzill, and Anna Griffin. The image is colored with watercolor pencils and the sentiment is stamped in Stazon Timber Brown ink. The double scalloped border and the flower leaves were made with Martha Stewart punches. I handmade the little ribbon flowers and made some irridescent white puff paint centers to glue on them. Some more of the ribbon is laced through the eyelets at the top left and three pearls decorate the upper right corner. This is a pretty simple card that came together relatively easy. I was really not sure about the color combo but once I thought of that K & Co. paper pad I knew I had it made.
A special thanks to those of you who have become followers and subscribers to my blog. I really appreciate your support and I hope that I am posting things that are of interest to you.
Have a great holiday weekend!

A Spot of Tea

I'd better mark this one down because I doubt I'll be able to ever do it again. LOL I made a card that I can enter into not 1, not 2, not 3, but 4 challenges at the same time! WOOHOO! Two of the challenges are new to me. I've been checking them out (especially their stores--hope I get some money for my birthday!) and since the card worked out for them too I'm going to give it a shot.

Here are the four challenges I'm entering this card in.

City Crafter Challenge Blog Week #6 Recipe Card--1 ribbon, 2 papers, 3 flowers
The Shabby Tea Room Week #11 Polka Dot Tea Party
Flourishes Timeless Tuesday Challenge 68--make your own flowers
Simon Says Stamp! Challenge Blog--pink (or blue) with green and brown

All my flowers are made from hand cut petals that I shaped and stacked or squashed in the case of the buds.
Here in the south we drink more iced tea that hot tea, but I have always been drawn to tea pots (at least the minature kind). I'm crazy about little glass miniatures! My grandmother had a collection of the little critters that used to come as premiums in flour bags. Squirrels, rabbits, birds, dogs, cats--all kinds of little bitty glass creations. I have those plus several that I have collected over the years. They're not easy to come by. I did find a few in Nogales, Mexico many years ago but you don't just walk into a store and find them. Anyway, along with these I have collected several mini tea sets and I inherited some from my mother-in-law who also collected them. My collection is put to shame by a friend at church though. She has a shadow box type shelf unit in one of her bedrooms that is almost the entire size of one wall and it is filled with miniature tea sets! That's a lot of tea!

Materials Used
Paper: Bazzill--Dark Chocolate, Vintage Pink; Amanda Blu Summer Solstice paper pad; Rusty Pickle Chocolate Kisses
Inks+: Frayed Burlap and Walnut Stain Distress Ink, Stazon Timber Brown;Rub-n-Buff: Burnt Umber acrylic paint; Olive Vine Glimmer Mist
Stamps: Orchid Greetings by Stampendous
Punch: Martha Stewart leaf
Tea Pot: Michael's chipboard mini album page
Miscellaneous: Pop Dots; packing paper; Bubblegum Vintage Shabby Seam Binding; pearl beads; Recollections bling flourish

Hope you liked my little tea pot.

Thanks for stopping by.

Back to my scrappin' roots

I've been so busy lately making cards that my first love of mini scrapbooking went by the wayside. I've been trying to work on this at the same time as some other projects, but it's not easy for me to multitask projects. It doesn't help that I'm slow as Christmas because I'm so particular.
This little five page album was created using the American Crafts Dear Lizzy Spring paper collection. I was drawn to it by the soft pastel colors. It wasn't an easy project for me. I LOVE my vintage shabby chic, but I think it came out cute. If you'd like to see the rest of the album you can check out my YouTube video for it.
Have a great day!

Watercolor Lillies

This week's challenge at The Play Date Cafe was to use the following color scheme.

This was not a card that came together easy for me. I must have changed the design a dozen times. I guess my creativity developed a hiccup this week. :) Anyway, this is the final product.

The card base is from My Mind's Eye Laundry Line with a little stitching added. The image is a brand new stamp I just bought made by Stampendous. These Star Gazer Lillies are my daughter's favorite flowers. The image was stamped in Stazon black ink and then painted with watercolor pencils. I doubled matted it with the pink and green Bazzill paper and lifted it with pop dots. The border on the right is also from the same My Mind's Eye collection. I used a Martha Stewart scalloped lace punch and then used some Fabri-Tac to add some pretty yellow lace to the back edge. The bow is some more of the beautiful dyed seam binding. I added a small piece of the green for leaves and topped it with a little lace rosette flower I made from some more of the little yellow lace. Some bling, a pearl, and a sentiment stamped in Memento Bamboo Leaves ink complete the card.
Hope you like it. Have a wonderful blessed week!

Remembering Our Fallen Heroes

The Shabby Tea Room Week #10 challenge was to use red, white and blue on a card. Memorial Day is coming up at the end of this month so a little Patriotism is called for. This holiday is supposed to be a day of remembrance for the men and women of our military who have given their lives in service to our country. This is a very simple and humble gesture so I made a pretty simple and humble card.

The base is plain white cardstock. The designer paper is from the All American Collection by Adornit Carolee's Creations. I used Frayed Burlap Distress Ink to give everything an aged look. The stars are chipboard that I painted with Picket Fence Distress Crackle paint and then inked. A little hemp twine, some buttons, a baby Prima rose, and some yummy shabby seam binding from Debbie's etsy store finish it off.

Thanks for stopping by!

Design Team Call for the new Papercraft Star Challenge Blog

My friend Kristina and her buddy Beth have decided to start a new challenge blog and they are looking for members for their Design Team. Check out all the details on the new Papercraft Star challenge blog.

Double Up

A double post today and my first double challenge card. This card will be submitted for City Crafter Challenge Blog and The Shabby Tea Room. CCCB's challenge #4 was a color challenge using soft pink and TSTR's challenge #9 was to use chipboard on your card.

The base of the card is a pale pink sheet of Bazzill cardstock. The first mat is white cardstock edged in Tattered Rose Distress Ink and cut with some deco edged scissors. The top mat is from DCWV's Luxury Stack. I LOVE LOVE these papers! The heart die cut is my chipboard piece. It's painted in Picket Fence Distress Crackle Paint.

The flowers were an experiment. I think Parchment Craft card work is absolutely gorgeous. If you've never seen this, you can find some incredible examples of it here. I don't have any of the tools needed to do this type of card making, so I had to make do with a regular sewing needle. I traced out each of the flower petal layers onto pale pink vellum and then went around the outline poking through the vellum with the needle. They would have punched out better with the correct tools, but it all worked out. I layered them and added some pearls for their centers. A few leaves punched from some Bazzill paper with my favorite Martha Stewart leaf punch, a little ribbon, lots more pearls, and a sentiment from Cloud 9 Design finish it off.
Hope you all have a blessed Sunday!

A Blooming Heart

This month's ATC swap at The {Scrap} Beach had a theme of "A Mother's Love". I knew from the beginning that I wanted to use this vintage rose image I found online. I just LOVE the colors in it. The idea for the card came together very slowly, piece by piece but here it is.

The card backing is Bristol board. I picked up a pack of these precut at Michael's. The background is inked with Tattered Rose and Tea Dye Distress inks and edged with Tea Dye and Vintage Photo. I also sprayed it with Irridescent Gold Glimmer Mist. The heart is chipboard cut on my Cricut, painted with white acrylic paint and edged with Tea Dye and Vintage Photo. I printed the rose image twice and layered it with pop dots. It's also coated with Rock Candy Crackle Paint. A little Making Memories Vintage Findings designer paper, ribbon, pearls, and a vellum sentiment finish it up.
I should have some more cards coming up. I think I'm going to try my hand at combining more than one challenge into my card this week.
On a personal note, I'd appreciate it if you all would pray for my friend. She was in a head on collision Tuesday and her back was broken. Her spinal cord was not supposed to be involved and she was still able to move her legs. However, she went through a six hour surgery yesterday in which they found that one of her vertebra had shattered and the pieces had gotten into her spinal column. The surgery went well, but we'll have to see today if the removal of those pieces and the surgery itself have any effect on her ability to walk. Please keep her and her family in your thoughts and prayers.

Thanks for popping in!

Play Date Cafe Challenge #28

This weeks challenge at The Play Date Cafe was to use the following color pallette.

I love this color combo and I was really surprised at how fast I put this card together. Normally I have to think it to death before I settle on a concept, but this one was just there. Lots of beautiful Bazzill cardstock, a embossed damask image, a Prima flower, some pearls, and a special feather from my friend Rina. She found me a bag of pastel feathers and they just came in the mail. The pink matched perfectly with this card.

Thanks to everyone who's stopped by and a special thanks to those who have left comments on my creations this week. I appreciate all of them. They encourage me so much.

Have a blessed day!

City Crafter Challenge #3

Those of you who are familiar with my art, especially on YouTube, are probably thinking "AHA! This is what we're used to from her!" My venture into card making lately feels like a total different realm of art for me. I'm used to the kind of crafting that goes with mini albums and altered art. This tag is actually for a card crafting blog called City Crafter Challenge Blog. From the entries I've seen so far, mine is going to really be an oddball, but I'm going to enter it anyway.

The challenge was to make a tag. This is how I make tags. LOL I love vintage grunge and that's definitely what this tag is. Here's how I made it.

The base is manilla file folder backed with chipboard. I used Versamark to stamp the music score and then used Distress Embossing Powder in Vintage Photo. I removed some of the powder before heat setting it. I then inked the entire tag with Tea Dye Distress Ink. I distressed the edges and inked them with Tea Dye and Black Soot. At the more deeply distress areas I used some more Versamark and the Distress Embossing Powder.

I found the 3D butterfly image online. You can see the layering better in the picture above. I covered each layer with Ranger Matte Accents and separated the layers with pop dots. I made my flowers from French Vanilla Bazzill cardstock. I ran the edges of the petals over my Walnut Stain Distress Ink pad and then sprayed them with water. The centers are Walnut Stain Distress Stickles. The leaves were punched with a Martha Stewart punch and their edges were inked with Walnut Stain. Finishing touches are some scrunched ribbon and some brown fibers.

I know this is probably not what they're looking for, but I had fun creating it in my "old" style.

Have a great day!

MMSC #52 Card Challenge

I found another card challenge blog that I like. It's called the Midnight Madness Sketch Challenge and it is hosted on the priscillastyles blog. We were given a choice of two similar sketchs, one fancy and one simple.

I have fallen in love with watercolor pencils and my aqua brush! The image is Stampabilities Happy Hoppers "An Apple a Day". I just love these little guys! I used a little yellow chalk around the image too.

The base card is Kraft colored card stock. The red accent stripes were originally white card stock. I used Fired Brick Distress ink to color them. The flowers are Prima. I used some Pitch Black alcohol ink to color some glass microbeads for the flower center. The leaves were punched with a Martha Sewart punch. A few red acrylic blings and a couple of black brads were added for accent.

My tag was also white cardstock colored with Fired Brick. The sentiment is a Cosmo Cricket rub on. I masked it and then used Black Soot Distress Ink on a background stamp for the pattern and to ink the edges. The little apple was cut on my Cricut using the Home Accents cartridge. I tried to mimic the coloring of the other apples. Some black ribbon fiber through an eyelet finishes it off.

This card is very simple in style but I had so much fun making it.

Thanks for stopping by,

Shabby Tea Room Week #8 "Get Your Bling On"

This weeks challenge at The Shabby Tea Room was to use lots and lots of glitter.

The base of my card is Bazzill Basics Sugar Daddy and the mat is Bazzill Basics French Vanilla. I created the background by using a piece of white cardstock which I inked with Frayed Burlap Distress Ink. I used Versamark, clear embossing powder, and a background stamp by Stampabilities for the pattern, and then sprayed the whole piece with Tattered Leather Glimmer Mist. The base for the flowers is a Nestabilities Labels Two die cut which I ran through a Cuttlebug Swiss Dots embossing folder and then colored with Inkadinkadoo chalk. The flowers, leaves and scallopped border were all punched out of Avery Diskette labels. Once you peel off the backing all you have to do is rub your glitter into the adhesive. Voila! Glitter flowers. I used some puff paint and stickles for the flower centers. The tag was cut on my Cricut. Finishing touches are some yellow bling, orange and brown ribbon fibers, and a pretty yellow bow I made with my Bow Easy.

Glitter, glitter everywhere . . .literally! ha ha

Thanks for stopping by,

PDCC27 Card Challenge

I found a card challenge blog that looked interesting to me this past week, so I'm going to give it a shot. The Play Date Cafe offered up the following color challenge for this week.




Here's my card.

My card base is Bazzill and the designer paper is from the Basic Grey Periphery Collection. I stamped the heart and sentiment with Memento London Fog Ink and embossed the heart with clear embossing powder. I used some distress inks, ribbons, buttons, and Kaiser pearls.

Thanks for stopping by.