Bee's Knees

Going back to my roots with this card:

Nested rectangles with a touch of ribbon - that's how I used to make all my cards, until it got boring.  I like mixing it up a little, but sometimes all you need is a clean, basic card.  It's funny but the stamps set that has the sentiment (a springtime day) doesn't have a single bee in it, but snail&co does.  Both stamp sets are from a•muse studio.  It's a good Mother's Day sentiment - appreciative without being too mushy.

Challenges:

• Kenny K's - flowers
• No Matter Which - things with wings
• Corrosive Challenges - Mother's Day
• Sweet Stampin' - create a scene
• Alota Rubber stamps - bugs

Silly Bird

the altereddesigns yahoogroup has a monthly lottery, theme selected by the previous winner.  For April, we were to make a work featuring a silly bird, whatever that is.  I originally planned to go zetti, but I couldn't find my black or my white pens.

Except for the background, which is a scrap of Watered Crayon technique paper, everything else was cut from two pages of the JCrew catalog.  I then doodled away with my glitter gel pens.  Is it art?  I don't know, but it is a silly ATC.

Challenges:

• Crazy Amigo - crown
• Make My Monday - anything but a card
• Anything but a card - ATC
• Dream Valley - things with wings
• Pink Gem - going "green" (catalog pages)

I woof you

Can you guess what this card is for?

It's a Mother's Day card from a furbaby.

 Dog stamp is by Michael strong, and I used the Banner Card and Watered Crayons techniques from the TJ newsletter. The sentiment is from my computer; I love the handwriting fonts at Fonts for Peas, especially the ones I can color!

Challenges:

• ABC Challenges - Mother's Day
• Craftin Desert Divas - pun
• Craft your passion - text as focal point
• Paper Playtime - embossing
• The Squirrel and the Fox - furry friends

Rabbit with umbrella

When I bought the umbrella stamp set (all for love from a•muse studio), I knew I wanted to combine it with the the rabbit from a springtime day.  There is something about the rabbit's paws that makes me want to have him hold stuff.

I started with a bit of painted paper - I thought the brush strokes looked like rain.  The size is 3x5, which apparently is a normal swapping size.  It was a little large for my rabbit and umbrella, so I used so slivers of white to frame it in a bit.  Finally, my rabbit looked like he was floating in space, so I used  my copics to color a background and shadow for him.  Normal markers won't work on an acrylic painted surface, but alcohol markers will.

Challenges:

• Crafty Calendar - sunshine/showers
• My Creative Moments - weather 
• Brown Sugar - bunnies
• Just Add Ink - fun background
• Cute Card Thursday - rain

Watered Crayons

It's a new technique at Technique Junkies - Watered Crayons.  I thought I would try it with shades of green.  The problem with making my own backgrounds is that I don't like covering them up with   layers of images and matting; I want them to show.  I decided I would try stamping directly on the background, but since it was such a rich deep color, I went ahead and embossed like crazy.

The grass is stamped with Tim Holtz distress ink and embossed with clear embossing powder; everything else is embossed with white.

TIP:  when you have a lot of heat embossing, especially around a border, do one piece or side at a time to reduce the risk of smudging your embossing media.  Work from the inside to the edges, and let cool between applications.

 All the stamps are from the snail&co set by a•muse studio.

Challenges:

• 2 Sisters - blue/green
• Addicted to CAS - flower
• My time to Craft - stitching
• Totally Gorjuss - embossing
• Top Tip Tuesday - tip

Bee Cup

The theme for the ATC mingle is "Eek, there's a bug in my house!"  which really stumped me - I don't want to think about bugs in my house.  However, I did remember that I had this old TAC stamp:

Not exactly an "eek" moment, but I like it.  The "wallpaper" is some old Provocraft, the woodgrain paper is from a Tim Holtz stack, and the letters are diecut from Sizzix's Wingo Zingo alpha - possibly the best alpha die ever made. I used the Technique Junkies Layer Up and Penciled Markers techniques - it's not as simple as it looks.  Is that a good thing?

Challenges:

• Art Impressions Stamps - layer up
• Dutch Dare - anything but a card
• Fab n Funky - 1 image, 2 patterned papers, 3 diecut letters
• Inky Impressions - punches/diecuts
• Celebrate the Occasion - Teacup

USA Banner

I know it's a little early for the patriotic stuff, but I am preparing to teach a workshop next month, and I hope to do some sort of patriotic banner.  I thought I would do a brief test run on some of the elements, to get an idea of the time and skill involved and to test how annoying it would be to cut out letters by hand.

 It turns out, that cutting out big letters is not that big a deal, even though I had to cut 2 for each pennant.  The rosettes were easy - I found red and white striped paper at Michaels.  I can get 3 repetitions of USA and 4 rosette pennants out of 5 sheets of cardstock, for a length of about 55 inches in under 2 hours. How cute would this be at a Memorial Day or Fourth of July barbecue?

Of course, this is the super simple version.  With the right stamps and embellishments, this could be very artsy.  I almost never use primary red and blue; who knows how long I've had this paper in my stash?

Challenges:

• Die Cutting Divas - star (a•muse studio has an awesome set of stars)
• Creative Craft Challenges - red, white, and blue
• Use It Tuesday - Sticky (lots of glue in a rosette!)
• Unstampabelles - anything but a card