Bra hat

I haven't made a lot of cards lately, but I did make this hat:

It's a terrible photo of me - I suppose I could have put on a bit of lipstick or something.  The hat is made from a brassiere.  I need it for an event I am attending this weekend - everyone will be wearing bra hats for Sunday brunch.  These are the sort of ladies I am hanging with these days.

Tim Tag March 2014

I haven't been doing the Tim Holtz monthly tags, but the one this month has an interesting technique called "smudge stamping", in which you deliberately smudge a detailed stamp.  I thought I would give it a try.

The bird he uses on his tag reminded me to the birds in the all for love stamp set from AMuse Studio, so I gave them a try.  I didn't like it at first, but the more I look at it, the more it is growing on me.

Layered Goosebumps ATC

I was excited to see the Technique Junkies ATC swap brought back to life by Shelly Schmidt, one of the most talented stampers I've had the pleasure to swap with.  I struggled to pick a technique to start with, until I noticed the Layered Goosebumps technique in the listings.  I had purchased a bottle of Goosebumps spray a while back, but had not had the opportunity to use it.

The mica powder in the goosebumps spray is scanning as grey splotches, but in real life, these are very textured and shimmery.  The apha punches are another thing I don't use as often as I should, but I have to admit that it is often difficult to glue them and place them in a straight line.  I also have to admit that in my basement, that backing cardstock that I also used for the letters looked black.  Sometimes things don't come out the way you plan...

The rose stamps is from a springtime day set from AMuse Studio.  It's one of the few flowers I have that isn't a solid stamp but looks fine just stamped in black.  Sometimes that is all you want.

Challenges:

• Fantasy Stampers - Rose Garden
• Creative Corner - texture
• Stempelsonne - Spring

Bouquet in a Box

I wanted to make something really special for my sister's birthday, so when I saw the directions for this card on Extreme Cards and Papercrafts, I knew I had to give it a try:

I used all kinds of flower and leaf punches and dies, and the sentiment is from amuse studio.  The card folds flat and fits in a 6x6 envelope.

Challenges:

• SweetStamps blog - spring flowers
• Quirky Crafts - secret garden
• Sunflowerfield - birthdays/flowers
• Challenges and Candies - flowers
• Inky Impressions - 3-d

Letter writing 4x4

This is a 4x4 that I made for my altereddesigns yahoogroup.  the theme is letter writing as a background, and it should be no surprise to you that the vast majority of the ladies playing are using fancy script with images of Victorian ladies or the Tim Holtz pen nibs.  I hate making what everyone else is making, so I went a completely different direction:

 The school photos and the math worksheet are printed off the internet.  The notebook paper is actually a cardsock pattern from AMuse Studio.  You may wonder why I would buy cardstock that looks like notebook paper when I have tons of the real thing, but now that I've used some of it, I have to say, it is much easier to work with (real notebook paper is translucent and fragile), it isn't white but a cream color, perfect for a vintage look like this, and it takes media much better than real notebook paper, which was only designed for pen and pencil.the stark white of the math worksheet was too extreme for the rest of the piece, so I used some milled lavender distress ink to tone it down, and I threw in a few hearts (from AMuse Studio all for love stamp set) because, well, it is a love story.

Challenges:

• Crafty Calendar  - Love is all around
• Speedy Fox and Friends - anything but a card
• Alphabet Challenge - always and forever
• The House that Stamps built - Heart
• Little Red Wagon - paper project, not a card

Crystal heart

This evening I made a little crystal heart necklace from a  pattern I found online:

It came to together fairly easily.  I was feeling too lazy to try to thread two beading needles, so I used tiger tail.  it wasn't bad doing right angle weave with tiger tail, and the ends came out at the perfect spot that I could thread on the lighter pink beads to make it into a necklace.  There was only one problem - running the tiger tail through the beads caused it to curl much like curling ribbon does, and it won't hang straight as a pendant.  I tried running it though straightening pliers, and hanging a weight on it to stretch it (I don't have enough time between now and valentine's day for that to work, even if it would work eventually).  I hate the idea of unstringing all those seed beads to thread it some other way - any suggestions?

Double kissed ATC

DISCLAIMER - my shift key is busted.  If it isn't on the first row or accessible with my capslock, I can't type it.

Kissing techniques - the first one I was forced into.  Too much colorwash spray on one piece of watercolor paper inspired me to 'kiss' it to another piece to spread the ink around a bit.  Once I had kissing on the brain, I had to try kissing my stamps, too.  The solid bird is from nordic noel by AMuse Studio, and the leafy branch which I used both for the kissing and for stamping around the edges is bird on a flowering branch by SweetStamps.

I used a waterbrush to drag the ink on the leaves around, and a tiny bead of embossing frames the image.

Challenges -

• SweetStamps - kissing
• Emerald Fairies - wings
• Stemplesonne - animal
• Craft Room Challenge - water tech - waterbrush 

Ugh - I need a new keyboard...

Stitched snowflake ATC

The altereddesigns group challenge this week was to make an ATC with sewing on it. I have a punch that punches holes so that you can easily embroider flowers onto paper.  It occurred to me that it could be used to stitch snowflakes just as easily.

I used the punch for the big ones, and did the smaller ones freehand.  I had a hard time figuring out what I could do to make the the snowflake panel into a complete ATC other than framing it with layers, but then I looked out the window, and saw the trees with their bare branches.  I used the seasonal branch stamp set from AMuse Studio and the depth of field technique to stamp the branches, and then I used the faux embossed metal technique to create a tiny embellishment to tie the two parts together.

Challenges:

• Sweetstamps - winter blues
• Cuttin and Stampin - winter
• Simon Says Stamp - embossing
• The Paper Shelter - winter blues
• Mod Squad - snow

Zentangled flower

This was inspired by a card on Pintrest that a friend forwarded to me.  I don't do Pintrest, but I did like the card, and it inspired me to make this one.

The stamps are all from AMuse Studio, and instead of coloring, I zentangled inside each petal.  If it looks like I cut the flower out and layered it on, that's due to the faux shadow I created with a bit of pencil.  It's a single layer card, no embellishments, no coloring, and still, I am very proud of it.

Challenges:

• Delicious Doodles - flower
• Fussy and Fancy - monochromatic
• Keep It Simple - text
• Dream It Up - CAS
• Sassy Studio Designs - creative technique

Calendar ATC

I'm still here - I just didn't want my Christmas cards to be seen by the people who were going to get them before I mailed them!

My altereddesigns group had a challenge to make an ATC for New Year's, and I really don't have any of the celebratory feelings about the new year that most people do - it's really just the end of the holiday break ,and time to hang a new calendar.  I decided that is what I would do with my ATC:

It is super easy to make a little calendar; I have been using this free program for years.  for the backing, I just used some paper tape in layers, then diecut the numbers from a Tim Holtz alpha die, and the swallow die is from AMuse Studio.  The Tiny Attacher has the perfect size staples for this calendar.  I hope it doesn't get stuffed in an ATC folder - it is too useful for that!