Holy buckets, it's CRAZY over here!

It's finally starting to wind down though! :)
This month has been a whirlwind of activity. There have been three different family visits (a niece, SIL/BIL/nieces AND aunt/uncle/cousin) all within a couple of weeks. Not to mention the shopping trips (well, aren't family visits the best reason to shop? I blame it on those crazy SIL's of mine!) and the get-togethers. Then we had a family reunion of sorts - people I haven't seen in at least a decade! Not to mention my birthday, my best friend's birthday (we've known each other 20 years!), two upcoming baby showers AND my little man started swimming classes.
Whew!
No wonder I haven't touched ink to paper in almost two weeks!
I thought I'd drop by for a minute and post the card & gift I made for my friend's birthday. The card was actually a sketch from SCS, but I can't remember which one! Maybe when I get some extra time (ha-ha!) I'll head over there and try to figure it out.
I think the biggest inspiration was the lotus stamp. I found it at Michael's a while ago - it's a Studio G stamp (from the Soloz line) so I think it was only a $1. I really love the size & the lines. For this one I stamped the flower several times on watercolor paper & colored it with a water brush and Distress Ink. Once they were all dry I cut out the petals & popped them up on a base image. The center was actually a piece of sticky back canvas that I also colored with a water brush & DI. In order to give it dimension in the center I stuffed two 'heads' of q-tip cotton under the canvas before I glued all the petals down. I *love* how it came out! Obviously, you can't see the glimmer, but I wouldn't be me if I hadn't added some Spica pen to the petals and outline. ;)
Here's a nice close look at the flower - I just love how the color came out. Mostly I used Chipped Sapphire - but there's also a touch of Dusty Concord. The center is mostly Scattered Straw with some shading of Tattered Rose. Oh, the sentiment is also from Tim. :D
This next thing was totally CASE'd from the cover of (Stamp & Scrap???) a magazine earlier this year. Honestly, I can't remember which one right now. Assuming that I ever get some down time (riiiiight, I'll do this right after I figure out which sketch challenge I used!) I'll have to find the original magazine & update this post. I remember being stunned by how beautiful it was - must be why it stuck in my head! :)
To start I stamped & clear embossed a lot of black paper. I used a 1 inch punch to cut out the pieces for the background, then dipped the edges into more clear ep (using my melting pot). The background is actually the velvet backboard for a shadow box that I picked up at Mike's with a coupon. After spacing the squares out & gluing them down, I ignored this project for way too long! (which ended up in a total panic when I realized just how close her birthday was!)
To do the butterflies I colored both sides of a white paper with distress inks & stamped a little bit with water/glimmer mist. After it dried I used a couple of Martha Stewart punches to get the 3 different sizes of butterfly. I glued them down with glossy accents after deciding on an arrangement (which was harder than I thought it would be).
Once more my love of bling surfaced & I added Rock Candy stickles to all the butterflies. Since that didn't seem quite enough, I added Diamond stickles to some of them too! :) I totally bums me out that you can't see any sparkle in the picture - you'll just have to believe me!
You'll also have to take my word for it that it looked about twice as cool *inside* the shadow box. I'm not certain why - but it bumped up to another level when it was all put together. Enough so that DH was feeling a bit covetous! :D
Thanks for dropping by! :)

Christmas cards, pt. 1

Well, honestly, if I didn't know that I haven't experienced any unexplained fevers or desperate desires to howl at the moon I would be very worried! Why? My Christmas mojo has exploded! :) I don't think I've *ever* had this kind of mojo for one theme! And for me to be so early with my Christmas cards?! Unheard of!
Since I have too many to put into one post I thought I should break it up. Hopefully it won't take too long for the next installation, especially since I've already edited the photos. That is what really takes me so long between posts - the editing. Between my lack of skill and the fact that I don't do it everyday (so of course I forget what I've learned between sessions) I take way too long to edit each photo. It can take me upwards of an hour to edit one photo - how sad is that?
I digress.

Let's start with this one! Fairly simple, the Inkadinkado tree was stamped with Pine Ancient Page ink on white cardstock. Using Vintage Photo and Walnut Stain distress inks I colored the edges. You can just barely see some light flourishes (Katzelkraft) in the background - those were stamped with water (yes, water!) over the distress inks for a very subtle background. The white card base was also colored with distress inks, as were the edges of the green paper (Deja Views). Can you see the silvery looking dots on that green paper? That was just a glitter pen dotted over the background for interest. Some rounded corners, a little ribbon - et voila!

Up next we have this fun (and glittery!) card. I've been watching the Christmas card videos over on Kristina Werner's blog (awesome cards, btw) and was inspired by her clean graphic style to do this. First I adhered a piece of designer paper (MME Organic) to the base. The trees (Recollections) were stamped with Peeled Paint on a large piece of white paper. I sized the paper (after much trial and error) to cover the edge of the striped paper, be punched and still have the trees attached. Once I did all of those things I used a glue pen and covered all the white area with some Martha Stewart glitter. Then, just for grins, I added some to the sides of the trees! :) Ran the whole thing through the xyron and stuck it down. Finally I added the sentiment (also Recollections) in Frost White ink.

Now for something entirely different! This was CASEd from Mel's absolutely stunning creation. Really, you have no idea how much I love it. All I can say is that it's lucky that she lives so far away, otherwise I'd probably be caught digging through her goodies looking for it! (plus it could take me a while, cause that Mel? she's got goodies!) Anyway! I really tried to keep as true to the original as I could, given that I don't have the exact same supplies (or really cool mojo). My sky is a blue textured paper, but even though I love them I just couldn't convince myself to add all those knots. I'm all about instant gratification! Once again, the quickie glue pen and Martha glitter to the rescue! The hills, trees and ribbon tag were all from one sheet of 8x8 scrapbook paper. Torn (and cut) creatively it was just enough paper for this project (the card is a larger 5x7 size). Just like Mel I painted gesso on the trees. Unlike Mel I couldn't imagine beading the hills - so (yup, you guessed it) I ran my glue pen along the edges and glittered them up! Some on the sides of the trees too. The tag was cut and embossed with my nesties (but the paper was too thin to get a good impression) then painted with gesso too. A little ribbon, a sentiment and a star completed the CASE. Thank you Mel for inspiring me with your gorgeous original!

That's it for tonight. I promise there are more coming - including my very favorite on of the season (so far)! Thanks for visiting!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving! To me, finally, we're allowed to look forward to Christmas. Yes, I'm one of those people that get irritated when Christmas music starts playing two months early... mostly because those songs get stuck in my head! :)

Now I can feel good about posting Christmas cards, which is my intention today. I have to say that I didn't come up with this idea myself, I CASEd it from Beate (here). This is actually pretty unusual for me, I don't generally *like* to CASE, but this time I just fell in LOVE with the look she achieved. I made two versions, but I think I like them both the same amount - very unusual!

For this first one I used a tree from a set that I bought from Stamp Oasis (part of Rubbernecker now). I've always loved the SU! set Lovely As A Tree but I just can't justify buying it. I think this tree does a great job instead. And yes, those trees in the background also came in the same set from SO. I think the Peace and Joy sentiment also came from Stamp Oasis, but that would have been waaaay back in the day - long before Rubbernecker bought them.

There was a certain amount of 'technique' (if you want to call it that! ROFL) to getting this glitter on. First I squeezed glue (MS glitter glue) along the tops of the branches, thoroughly glittered, then smushed and dragged it downward so it would look more like snow on branches. Instead of piles of glitter! :)

For the second one I used a branch from Third Coast. Again, I think this does an excellent job of taking over for the SU! set. Both cards have Martha Stewart glitter in Carrara Marble on the branches but it's a lot thicker on this one. I wanted to add the piercing that Beate did on this one, I think it adds to the overall feeling. I forgot that I wanted to add background trees to this one too, hence the background snowflakes. They're very light IRL, I think they look just as nice as the trees in the first one.

Here's a closer look at the snowflake and glitter. You can really see all the dimension that the glitter has. I had to use the Martha Stewart glitter glue; it just seemed to hold the glitter better than the others that I tried. I used my Cuttlebug to cut out the snowflake from plastic packaging (one of the embossing folder covers) then coated it with Stickles. The stickles had a pinkish cast (?!?) so I dumped a bunch of the Carrara glitter on the wet stickles and 'smushed' it. That's right, I *smushed* this too! lol

As always, I appreciate your visit!

Recipe for 1st card: natural and bronze c/s, Distress ink Vintage Photo, Chalk ink Warm Green, London Fog Memento, Adirondack Snow Cap, VersaColor Sky Gray, white Gelly Roll pen, MS glitter and glue, Stamp Oasis trees and sentiment

Recipe for 2nd card: natural and evergreen c/s, Ancient Page Pine, Adirondack Snow Cap, Versa Color Sky Gray, white Gelly Roll pen, MS glitter and glue, Cuttlebug & snowflake die, Stickles, Glossy Accents, piercing template & paper piercing tool, branch from Third Coast, 'Silent Night' is a partial imprint from a Hero Arts stamp that says Silent Night, Holy Night