A labor of love

So, I don't know about you, but there are times that my mojo just goes on vacation without telling me first. This is one of those times! Urgh!
Anyway, thankfully I have several different cards ready to post. This card was made using instructions from the Technique Junkies newsletter. It was actually a very involved process, perhaps what you'd call a labor of love? :)
Using metal tape from the hardware store (which was not part of the TJ instructions, but it *was* what I had on hand). If you look very closely you can see the ends of the tape butted together - it just doesn't come in a large enough size - so I had to lay three pieces on a piece of cardstock to give it some stability. I ran that piece through the 'Bug with one embossing folder, sanded the embossed design then flattened it. Finally I ran it through with a second embossing folder. The background was colored with alcohol inks and the leaves and branches were colored with copics.
While it doesn't sound like a lot of work when I write it down, trust me when I say that this was not a quick project! Because the metal is so eye-catching I decided to keep it as uncluttered as possible - even refusing to add a sentiment! :)
Thanks for dropping by... oh, and if you see my mojo will you tell it to call home? Thanks! :D

More Hero Arts flowers

Hi there!
I haven't had much time to post lately, spring has finally arrived here in Colorado! We did get our traditional snow storm after the lilacs bloomed, but this year it didn't kill all the flowers. With all the lilacs around the house we have the most delicious scent in the breeze - love it! Most days we're getting upper 60s to mid 70s temperatures which is perfect for yard work. Even if we're getting rain storms in the afternoon. :)
I haven't had much time to blog with all the yard work, so I'm planning to put at least a couple of cards in each post for a while. Starting... now!
Today I'll show you two different takes on the same stamp. This is a Hero Arts stamp that just screamed *poppies* to me as soon as I saw it. For the last year or so I've been kicking myself for not getting some of my grandmother's poppy seeds while she was alive (so yes, I planted some this spring). She had a little section of poppies that had these flaming orange/red flowers that were amazing. Since it's doubtful that my poppies will be awesome this year, I made some with paper! The image was embossed with black ep on white paper and then colored with a variety of Distress Inks (Barn Door, Spiced Marmalade, Scattered Straw, Peeled Paint & possibly one or two others) and a water brush. The next panel was colored using the blending tool and Distress Inks also. Once the panels were attached to the black base card I added some faux stitching with a black spica pen. I also put just a touch of black stickles in the centers of the two open flowers. I believe the sentiment was from Serendipity Stamps - once it was dry I went over that with the spica pen also. Simple, yet bold!
I'm afraid that I just couldn't get a really good picture of this second one. Something about the light and the colors just wouldn't show up well for the camera. You can see that I used the blending tool with more Distress Inks on white cardstock. This time I used Spun Sugar, Scattered Straw & Dried Marigold. Basically I just added color to paper in well blended 'blobs' until it looked good. I allowed it to dry (although you could use a heat tool) then stamped the same Hero Arts image with embossing ink & dusted it with bronze Perfect Pearls. You can see the shimmer in the picture - but you can't see the bronze color! *sigh* I used a circle cutter to trim it out and edged it with Brushed Corduroy. That piece was matted with a piece of mulberry paper that is almost the exact same color as the Dried Marigold DI. I matted those on a piece of brown cardstock that I rubbed with Brushed Corduroy (the brown was just a shade too light) then popped up on the background piece. The background was a piece of scrapbook paper that I also blended some Distress Inks on - just so it would match! :) I'm not entirely certain if it's actually done, but nothing I've tried to add has looked very good so far. Guess it's done unless I have a Eureka! moment.
Thanks for stopping by!

Something you'd expect, and something you wouldn't!

Hello!
I hope you all had a fabulous Mother's Day! I had a lovely weekend in honor of the day. First DH & my son took me to the stamp show that was about an hour from here. It was much smaller than it had been back in the day, but I still managed to get some great goodies. After the show (the boys went to the Lego store while I was occupied) we all went to dinner at my favorite mexican restaurant. Yum! Saturday was a not so great day for child behavior, but we did try out a new recipe - Pad Thai from the Six O'clock Scramble. I've been wondering if their service would be worth it, and I can say that the Pad Thai recipe was delish. On Mother's Day DH & I went to have brunch at the cheese shop then took some time in the afternoon to go to the park. Oh, it was a fun (and food!) filled weekend! :)
Now on to the stamping!
This first card doesn't have much stamping. Yup, this would be the thing you weren't expecting. I just fell in love with the springy colors of Basic Grey's Kioshi line and bought a few pieces. I loved that little bird on the sticker sheet and felt like he needed to be front and center. :)
I used two different patterns from the line and some of the card stock stickers. The branch was supposed to be a flower stem but I liked it better as a branch. You can't tell at all from the picture (the light isn't very good today) but there are lots of glittery accents over the whole thing. All of the flowers (even *in* the bird), the branch, the leaves and even the dragonfly are glimmery. Most of the glimmer was added with Spica pen except the dragonfly which was attacked with Mica Magic reinker. Can you tell that the top piece of card stock was popped up to frame the circle window? No? Told you the light was iffy today!
This second card is more my usual style. The stamp is a digital stamp from The Stamping Boutique. Don't you just *love* it? I printed the image on regular white card stock and colored it with colored pencils. The edges were distressed with Distress Inks in Weathered Wood and Stormy Sky, then the edges were painted with some Shimmer mist (yes, with a teeny tiny paint brush!) Again, since the light is so iffy, you can't tell that I used a glitter pen over all of the little stars. You'll just have to trust me! I really wanted the background flowers to flow up and over the edges of the main image, but couldn't figure out a good way to do it without making the inside look like it was gone over with a cheese grater. You might be able to tell if you look very closely that the metal tags say 'Believe' and 'Magic'. I'm pretty sure that these tags came in a bunch of Christmas themed tags about a million years ago. They seemed to fit this theme equally well!
Thanks for dropping by!

Since I can't get anything else done...

I swear this has been the year of sickness! If you're keeping track at home - headaches over Christmas and into the new year, a really nasty cold, double ear infection, my neck got thrown out of whack (by sneezing! of all things) and now DH has shared his horrible cold with me! Usually he doesn't get sick, but he had to stop taking his daily medication (reacting badly with his liver) and he caught this cold like a day later... coincidence? Yeah, I didn't think so either. THEN we got home from visiting family last night and the boy was ill. Poor little mite, he *so* hates throwing up! Lemme tell ya, this is not the house you want to visit! :P
Ok, rant over (for now....)!
I've had a few things waiting to be posted, mostly they're more along the lines of CAS than my usual style. It is interesting to see your own style morph and change according to what you've been looking at. I have no doubt that I'll be back to wild inky fun soon - but in the meantime:
How's this for mostly CAS? :) The sentiment is from Unity (new at Archivers!) and the flourish is from Hero Arts. Both were stamped with white ink on kraft paper. The ribbon was actually white - but I fixed that with the blending tool and some Tumbled Glass distress ink. If you click the picture to make it larger you'll be able to see that the crystals are a light pink and there are diamond stickles over parts of the flourish. Oh, the special thing about those crystals? They're from a nail art set - they were the only ones I had that were small enough to use on these flowers without overpowering them.
There. See? CAS is callin' my name!
How 'bout another? This card was inspired by something I saw over at Dina's blog - not the actual card, but the layout. For some reason I really loved the way it looked at set out to create one of my own!
The sentiment is another from Unity (they came in the same package, I think there are 3 or 4 more). Besides the kraft colored base, the rest of the paper is from the Linen Closet stack from DCWV. A little bit of cuttlebug embossing on the darker blue piece, some colored pencil and a touch of crystal bling were all that I added. I'm lovin' those sentiments from Unity! :)
Thanks for dropping by! :)