Rabbits and rinchies

I know a lady who wanted 60 cards, 60 ATCs, and 60 inchies, all with rabbits on them, for her April birthday.  She got the large cards, not problem, and most of the ATCs, but hardly anyone she knows does inchies, so I decided to whip some up for her today.  While I was at it, I made some rinchies (round inchies) too.

The round inchies are for the April lottery at inchies_onexone.  Inchies are so small, it is hard to compose something that is even smaller.  The ATC has an Easter image on it, I know, but I just liked it.  It had a nice stained glass look that appealed to me.  Some of these are pretty simple, but the iridescent paper from Papertemptress really elevates them.

So, to the challenges:
Card Creations and more - not a card or layout
Stamping Vacation - April
Wags and Whiskers - use a punch (every circle and square is punched)
Art Impressions - use an animal
Amber's Crafts and Stuff - use a digi (all the rabbits are digis)
Tip Top Tuesday - Squares


Thanks for looking!

inchies for Mom

The one of the themes this month at Inchies_onexone is Mother. I had to choose between normal and realistic, or at least between what I think is expected for this swap and what is really representative of my mother.

This is what I think people would like to receive:

The paper is Poison Ivory Iridescent from PaperTemptress, lightly burnished with distress inks.  I no longer remember where I downloaded the images.  Of course, bling is essential on a one layer inchie.

I assure you, my mother would hate these.  She might even stick her finger down her throat.

As it happens, today I got an amazing treat in the mail.  Becky Partan of My Paper Moon gifted me a bunch of small stamps - ATC and inchie size - and as I spread them over my table to admire and sort this bounty of over 70 (!!!!) stamps, I noticed that there were stamps for the four card suits.  If you know my mother, you know she loves to play cards, so I immediately went down and made these inchies.

The backgrounds are made by by laying 1/8 inch strips of red and black cardstock on sticky paper and pouring white embossing powder in the spaces between, like grout.  You can see that I got a few stray flecks of EP.  The images stamped very crisply, but blurred a little when I poured UTEE (why UTEE?  I just like the texture) over them (you can emboss over distress ink).  These inchies are made entirely from scraps, which my mother would admire greatly.

So now I have two different sets of Mom inchies - which do you think I should swap?

Oh, can't forget the challenges!
Clear It Out - quilt your scraps
Creative Craft Challenges - embossing
Going Grey with Scrap-Creations - digital
Simon Says Stamp - embossing
Truly Scrumptious - vintage
Lexi's Creations - anything but a card
Our Daily Bread - no coloring

Easter Card on Passover?

Happy Passover!  This is not my Seder night, as my husband is out of town until tomorrow, and that is when my son and daughter will come for dinner too, so I quietly blessed and ate my matzah and went on with my evening.  I knew I needed a card for my mother in law, and I was absolutely in love with this image (cutest bunny ever!), so...

 
The image is from Sliekje, of course, printed on poison ivory iridescent paper from the PaperTemptress. The patterned papers are from an old CTMH set, Victorian Elegance, and so is the copper cardstock and copper brads.  The sentiment is from TAC, so you can see I don't really have any brand loyalty to anyone.  I just buy what I like.

Challenges:
Creative Belli - bunnies
For Fun - colors
Lil Red Wagon - Easter
The Paper Variety - Flowers

Fun with Shapes and More - animals
Crafty Catz - Furry Friends
Nettie G - color a favorite digi

black and white inchies

When I saw this EK Success Alpine punch, I didn't know when I would ever use it, but it is perfectly sized for inchies.  I used scraps of Cryogen White iridescent from the Paper Temptress, and layered it on black cardstock.  The stars are done white a white Milky Gel pen, and a Stardust gel pen.  It's just a little bit of sparkle.

Challenges:
Connie and Mary - Let it snow
Meljens - cold and snowy
Stampinsanity -Sparkle

Self-challenged

Last week I went to a Christmas card workshop.  I liked the stamp set we were provided, and the paper set is one of my favorites, too, but the cards just did not move me.  I think it is because I like a lot of shimmer and shine on my Christmas cards, or at least bright colors, and these cards weren't really either of those things.  My challenge to myself today was to take the stamp set and the leftovers and make a card closer to my tastes.

There is shimmer all over this card, from the Laser Lustre paper and pearlescent embossing powder to the pink organdy ribbon and the mother of pearl button.  There would have been even more if I had Versamark Dazzle, but I just used regular Versamark for the swirls and corners on the background paper. The little tag is from the paper pack (Reese) which, like the stamps, are sold by The Angel Company.

In addition to my own personal challenge, this card fits a few others:
GingerSnap Creations - Versamark
Crafty Cardmakers - Stitching
Crazy Challenge - Pearls and swirls
Critter - Christmas
Little Paper Shop - Buttons and bows
Stamp with fun - Things that fly

Balancing Act

I like this image from Designed2Delight, and I had some fun ideas about what I wanted to do with it, but certain other people beat me to it, and you know how I hate being like other people, so I had to think of something different for mine. I looked through the TJ library of techniques and came across one I hadn't done before - Van Gogh. This image has great bold lines, so it reduces to ATC size, no problem.



I wasn't really liking it, so I added a little stickles, which didn't really improve it, it just made it sparkly. I think I will try this in some other colors, and see if it comes out any better.

IOU

I am way behind on my projects. First of all, I won several blog giveaways, and I feel that when you win a crafting supply from a crafting blog and you have a blog where you post the crafts that you make, there is an obligation there to make something with what you won.

So, keep me honest - I'm going to tell you what I need to do, and then, with the implied pressure of your expectations, I will get on those cards.

First off, I won a terrific stamp set from Sherrod Studio. Rock and Roll is my favorite one that they sell - if I hadn't won it, I do think I would have bought it. It's on sale right now!

Second, I won a book from Craftside, 1,000 Handmade Greetings: Creative Cards and Clever Correspondence There are 1000 photos of some of the most artsy cards I've ever seen, way different from your normal blog hop card. I find it very inspiring, and at some point I will be able to put it down long enough to make a card like the ones that are in it.

Third, I owe the PaperTempress bigtime. First of all, I won a big packet of Valentines paper in a challenge last month over at Gingersnap Creations blog. Second, PaperTemptress is offering a Silver Lustre Package for every donation of $10 or more that is donated to any charity for Haiti by anyone for the next two weeks (see the site for details). If you know me, you know that the Vintage Silver Lustre is my favorite paper for coloring in the world. This package has ALL the textures that she sells, and you know you are supporting the relief anyway, so why not take advantage? Two packages of luxury paper, I ought to be able to make some amazing cards out of that!

Finally, and this isn't a blog candy, it's just a really nice gesture on Jackie's part, but Jackie Kalchert posted this card online, and I really liked it. In fact, I told her that I wanted to CASE (Copy and Steal Everything) it. She was so sweet, she mailed it to me! So, I really need to CASE this card already, and now I have no excuse, because I just got a bunch more paper from PaperTemptress!

Those are all the projects I NEED to do, so I went down to my crafting desk to stamp something, and this is what I made.


I didn't really need to make another long card, but the paper was sitting out, and so was the owl, already colored and waiting to be used. The card doesn't have anything to do with anything, it's just something that seemed to want to be made.

I will get to that other stuff, eventually.

12 tags of Christmas - day 11

To be honest, I didn't particularly like the three flowers that Tim used on his tag today, even though they comprised both of the new techniques he was trying to demonstrate. Santa's face just does not need to be in the center of a flower. I decided to make more roses similar to the metallic ones I did on the Day 2 tag, and I thought that a dove might be more likely to fly than a reindeer, and somewhat more necessary, considering the state of the world.



I stamped and embossed the dove on Vintage Silver Lustre cardstock from PaperTemptress, and the dove and word stamp are from a retired SU set. I don't like Su much, but this is the best dove I've seen on a stamp - not to big or small, not too realistic or cartoony, just clean and simple and elegant, and as much as I like stamping this dove on white, I think it pooks even better on the silver lustre.

You can see the star brads i'm using to hold the roses together on one of my roses. The directions for these roses are best described by Valita.

Vintage Lustre inchies

Did you think I was done making inchies?



These inchies feature the holiday freebies from Ten Two Studios. These are very low res freebies, which doesn't make them good for big projects, but for inchies, they are perfect, and the are great advertising for the higher res collection of images that she is selling, for well worth the price if you like even a few of the pages.

Anyway, the thing that makes these inchies cool is that they are printed on the Vintage Silver Lustre paper from PaperTemptress. The images gleam in the light, and the texture of the paper makes it look like a very expensive print.

12 tags of Christmas - day 7

I got tired of working on Manila tags with Tim Holtz' 12 Days of Christmas, and I got tired of doing Christmas tags when I'm Jewish, and I finally got tired of the manliness of his stamping style - he never colors, he only stamps and burnishes, and he puts hardware on EVERYTHING!



I decided that I could achieve the same result he achieved with masking simply by Coloring Outside the Lines. I love coloring on Silver Lustre paper from the Paper Temptress more than anything, so I popped a sheet of some Vintage Silver Lustre into my printer and printed out this digital stamp of a menorah, cut out a tag, whipped out my LaPlume markers, and went to town! I didn't have a Hanukkah sentiment stamp, so I just wrote the words with a Zig 2-way glue pen and did the Faux Leafing technique. The flames have stickles on them. As a final declaration of my femininity, I used buttons and a bow to finish off my tag! No metal at all! I love the hot pink and teal with a hint of purple - definitely my favorite Hannukah color combo.

Whew! I'm glad I got that out of my system!

Motorcycle madness

It is so hard to photograph shiny flat things, like cards made with PaperTemptress papers. I really wanted to capture the shiny copper embossing and the copper glimmer paper, and the texture of the green ruche paper and the black leather cardstock, and the swirls of the Vintage silver lustre paper(distressed here to a blue green color and stamped with black, among other things), but frankly, I couldn't do it all in one photo.

You'll just have to take my word for it - the colors are rich, and so is the shine.

Silver lustre dove

I found a little scrap of Silver Lustre paper on my desk, and I couldn't bring myself to toss it. I had this little TAC dove stamp, so I stamped it.



This is colored with LaPlume markers, no blender pen, no aquabrush. the paper dries slowly, so that the the ink doesn't set right away, and you can push it around a little. There are three shades of blue in this background. I started with the medium blue, then went to a dark one to outline the dove, then dragged out the ink with a very light blue marker. The mosaic paper was digitally made by me from my martian landscape image I used a couple days ago, and little bits of silver tie it all together. The silver lustre paper isn't all that silver, it's more of a soft, shiny white. The dove is uncolored, you can see how it is. I love this silver lustre paper, it makes everything look better.

Where to put yellow roses

I printed a bunch of digital images to color yesterday, and this bunch of roses was one of them. I decided to see how well I could blend from one color to another (not well at all), without thinking about the consequences - how was I going to put yellow roses on pink glimmer cardstock onto a card?

I did find some yellow cardstock for the base, and some dotted paper with pink and yellow and green in it, but after I cut it and all the layers to go with, I decided it was not the right style for the roses. I finally gave up on the yellow, and picked up on the red and pink instead.



This follows the Card Patterns sketch for this week. The Glimmer paper really makes it pop.

However, after I cut all that dotted paper and cardstock, I couldn't just toss it, so I made another card out of it. It's a strange card, but it is usable.



I love that diecut felt ribbon.

Glimmer paper and alcohol markers

A lot of you are playing with alcohol markers (copics) now, and needing to buy expensive white paper to print your images, like Neenah and GP coverstock. Anything less tears up or soaks through (or so I've heard - I've only used Silver Lustre for my coloring up until now).

I figured that since I already had nice Glimmer Paper (PaperTemptress), I would try that with my ghetto copics (Bic Mark-its). Although I had white, I wanted to use a colored paper to see how the color would show through the mark-its.



This is so shimmery - really a lot like stained glass. The ink puddled a little on the glimmer paper, almost like a watercolor, but dried fairly quickly. I bet it would be a dream to blend on a larger image - this one is less than two inches across, no room for blending colors.

The layout is from Get Sketchy, downsized and rotated a little. I wanted to make an ATC using the digital background I created yesterday, from a photo of a martian landscape that I found online. I used a blend mode with a gradient to colorize the image, then an enamel filter to increase the depth. Unfortunately, you hardly notice it for all the bling and ribbon and glimmer - it almost seems a waste of a trip to Mars. It's a good thing those good folks at NASA had other things than my artistic needs in mind.

Riding a motorcycle out of my comfort zone

When I step out of my comfort zone, I go fast and far. To start with, this is a large card, 8.5 by 5.5. I almost never make a card this big, but it seemed the right size for this image, which I downloaded from Digital Two for Tuesday. It had a lot of detail, so I didn't want to make it too small. It didn't need coloring, really, so I used the Burnished Background technique on it from the latest TJ newsletter.


I thought Black leather would be perfect for a motorcycle card, and I had some black leather paper, so I grabbed it - perfect! Then, all I had to do is figure out how to put it all together, so I went to the first challenge that popped up on my to-do list, Cook up a Card. The recipe this month is to use three flowers, 2 gems, and a butterfly.

???????

Not exactly what I had in mind for my manly motorcycle card, eh?

The three flowers - I don't have a large star punch, but I do have a large flower punch. The stars were cut from the flowers, by trimming the sides of the petals flat. I stitched them in place with my sewing machine, another thing I don't do often.

Two gems - Diamonds are gems, right? The two diamond-shaped brads should qualify.

One Butterfly - You would be a heck of a Scouter if you caught this without my pointing it out, but that knot in the upper left corner happens to be a butterfly knot. Hee hee!

Okay, so here are the things on this card that are out of my comfort zone:
-really large card
-solid black background
-machine stitching
-fancy knots
-motorcycles

This will be a good card for my son - he rides a Harley. He doesn't like to ride all this way from Cherry Point (5 hours) when it is cold and I'm afraid I won't see him again until spring.

Drunk frog on the cheap

It is amazing how cheap I can be. First of all, this image is is royalty free clip art, no cost to download or use, and it is not colored with copics, I used the Bic Mark-its. The ribbon is the cheap stuff at Michaels, and the felt flower is from the One Spot at Target, and the paper was a gift from Chris, who didn't spend all that much for it, as it was from a stack of My Mind's Eye that she bought at Costco. Even the glue dots I'm using to hold everything together are homemade. I know what you are thinking - Vintage Silver Lustre paper - that has to be expensive, right? Nope, The text weight (best for running through printers for digistamps like this one) is very economical, only pennies to print an image like this one, and it really elevates a card to have such luscious paper on it.

The card is inspired by the Card Patterns sketch this week.

In the inside it says, "I wish all the single guys out there were not like this one!" It's for my sister...

IldiCo bear

I knew vintage images would look good on Vintage Silver Lustre, but how about contemporary ones? This cute bear is from Ildi Co. I used the Van Gogh technique to perk up the leaves, and some faux stitching.The layout sketch is from Truly Scrumptious.



I really like coloring on the Silver Lustre. This paper might make a digistamp fan out of me. Note that I used regular markers and a blending pen - remember those? People were blending their colors before there were copics.

I photographed this so you could see the shine of the sequins and the metallic ribbon, as well as the grain of the Vintage Silver Lustre Paper. The background is DCWV, and the little sentiment was a freebie stamp from TAC.

Laser Lustre

You might think that I'm talking about PaperTemptress' Laser Lustre Cardstock that I used in the last card that I did, but really, this is a personal thing - could I run my Vintage Silver Lustre paper through my laser printer? I had no doubt that it would work fine with an inkjet printer, because it takes ink so well, but toner is another matter.



You can see that this digital stamp (from Digital Two for Tuesday - free, of course)printed perfectly, and I colored it with no problems. I sometimes have a problem with coloring digital images because the toner will lift off the paper when it gets wet (because I'm using water-based markers, not copics), but the Lustre paper is much nicer for coloring than GP110. The paper is from My Mind's Eye, and all the ribbon is from Michael's.

This card is for the current Cardvaark's challenge to make a tall card. I do love a challenge.

Queen's Progress

The big problem I had been having with the queen image is that I couldn't get the gold Celtic frame gold enough. The only real metallic colorants I have are opaque, and obscure the stamping. It them occurred to me that I should stamp the frame separately, and paper piece it onto the portrait of the queen. Fortunately, I happened to have a piece of Gold Laser Lustre:


You can see the improvement in the color in this scan, but not the reflective nature of the Gold Lustre. Here is a photo.



Here you can see the grain and shimmer of the Gold Lustre. The Laser style has this vertical texturing that gives the paper a very formal feel. It stamps and paper pieces very well. The portrait was done on the free pink parchment that the PaperTemptress uses for her invoices. The layout is from Aly's Sunday Challenge, proof positive that a ten year old can design a better card than I can.

The card looks a little bluer in the photo - I think the scan translates colors better. Which do you think I should use more often - photos or scans?

I'm about done playing with the queen. There is a king and a knight in that stamp set...

Sepia on Velvet

When I read the Sepia Technique tutorial, I knew wanted to use it with this stamp. Then I got some Velvet Touch cardstock from the PaperTemptress, and I really wanted to use it with this technique.



As an ATC, it's pretty simple in design. There is just enough layering, variety of materials, and embellishment to keep it from being boring. however, the real "Oh!" moment comes when you touch it - it is soooooo soft!

I'm making as many of these as I can get out of a single sheet of cardstock, and I would like for as many people to be able to touch it as possible. If you are in the Technique Junkies swap, some of these will be set aside just for that swap. Otherwise, please let me know if you are willing to swap for one - you can click my name below and it will go to my email.