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! :)

It's probably the hardest thing I've ever done...

Seriously.
My darling friend Lauren sent me some ultra fun papers to use for stamping stuff. Mostly old book pages, but a few other interesting things (like comics in spanish!). Now, I don't know about anyone else, but I have *never* torn book pages before. I'm a bibliophile - can't help it. Books are to be loved and respected. I thought I might have a heart attack when I heard the first quiet rrrriiiipppp! (and it doesn't help that dh was making fun of me at the time, asking if I needed help with my book burning!)
Then I got into a whole 'nother realm of difficult. After tearing, gluing and gessoing I had a piece of neat looking paper - but no idea of what to do with it! Finally I settled on this:
which is not at all like something I would usually make! It's a bit wonky (on purpose, I swear!) and kinda busy for me - but I like it.
The Hero Arts grass stamp was inked with Ranger's archival brown color and stamped on a piece of my collage paper. I used several colors of Distress Inks to add color to the piece - but then cut most of them off when I decided to cut it into a circle. More of my collage paper was covered with an orangey-brown color of mulberry paper, then glued down with mod podge and a touch of reinker. The background card was rubbed with a gold mica magic reinker, which I also used to edge the strips. Although you can't tell from the picture, there is a lot of glimmer and shine going on!
As the final touch I added one of Tim Holtz's epoxy stickers (also glued down to collage paper) as a dangling charm from the embroidery floss.
All I can say is - this *really* stretched my comfort zone! And Lauren, you better be proud of me! :D
Thanks for dropping by!

A little somethin' that was up on Flickr

And I've finally gotten around to putting it up here! :)
This Hero Arts image was stamped on watercolor paper with permanent ink and colored with Distress Inks. Mostly I used a water brush to add color, but here and there I added color with the blending tool.
The butterfly was colored the same way, but on a second piece of watercolor paper & cut out. Since I wanted the wings to be popped up (but not with the pop dots that I have, they're too thick) I came up with another solution. I used Glossy Accents on the back of the wings - built up until it was a thick as I liked - and let it dry. The best part of doing it this way is that I was able to add more dimension at the edges AND I was able to take it out to the very edge of the wings. That's awesome because they can't be crushed in the mail! :D
Although you can't see it in the picture, there are little bits of sparkle here and there (spica pen, mostly) for interest. Oh, and the lozenges were also cut from a second piece of watercolor paper - these were coated with GA for shine then glued in place. After all, practically *every* card needs a little shimmer and shine, don'tcha think? ;)
Thanks for dropping by!

Whew!

It's been a wild few days! I finally felt well enough to return to Zumba class last week. Man, you can really tell when you've been out for a while. Thought I might keel over for a little while... but there was no time because....
There was all the prep (and house cleaning!) for a certain little boy's 4th birthday. Whereupon I think I lost my mind - there was enough food for an army, and trust me, there was no army here! :) Since I've been so sick, and DH has been having trouble with his health, we only invited adults - all of Z's favorite people. Talk about an embarrassment of riches - that kid made out like a bandit!
Sunday I finally broke down and got a haircut - six inches! Yup, still feeling that weirdness in the shower. You know, when you've still got plenty of conditioner but you've run out of hair? ;)
So I thought tonight would be perfect for a short post. You may have noticed that I added a link to my (new) Flickr account over on the right. There are some things that I post over there before I get to them here, this happens to be one of them. I *love* this card. Simply adore the way it came out!
As you can see, that big flower from Hero Arts is still calling to me (and I'm not done with it yet!). This time I stamped it with white ink on vellum two times & cut it out. Using scissors, I curled the petals up on one flower & down on the other before gluing them together. The center is filled with Glossy Accents.
The panel was a piece of white c/s brayered with Waterfall and stamped with white ink. Not even a hint of shimmery stuff (I know! Shocking, right?) The paper ribbon is from K & Co, but I did color it with some distress ink - I *think* it was Scattered Straw. There are a couple of pearls on the paper ribbon, but they are hard to see in this shot. Once it was all glued down I added some piercing (this particular piercing is a TJ technique, but you could do it freehand) and faux stitching to finish it off.

Here you can see the pearls better and get an idea of just how full the flower looks. I just love it! :D Not practical at all for mailing, which is kind of a bummer, but great for hand delivery.

Thanks for dropping by!

Dropping in real quick...

Ugh. I'm *still* sick. Two weeks of ear infection, two different antibiotics, two visits to the doctor... yuck! Sorry this is going to be such a short post, but I'm off to bed as soon as I've finished here.
Haven't been making too much the last few days, but I do have something interesting. :) Remember the wood flower from my last post? This time I used the wood as a background - you can see it much more clearly this way.
Looks like wood burning, doesn't it? A long time ago my Grandpa V. used to do wood burning. He could make the most intricate (and beautiful) patterns and pictures. There are other fond (and funny!) memories associated with his wood burning hobby, and this card brings them all to the front of my mind!
Once again I used the birch wood panel. I stamped the flourishes (Inkadinkado) with Brilliance Coffee Bean ink, let dry and went over parts of it with a Uniball Signo pen (yes, technically this is the bandanna technique too!). The bird was from an entirely different experiment - it was stamped with Coffee Bean on kraft paper, colored with pencils and coated with Distress Crackle paint. The sentiment came from the Love Hurts plate at Non Sequitur.
Thanks for dropping by!

A card... from someone else?

Why, yes! I *do* have a card from someone else! Lookee:
Isn't it fabulous?! :) My lovely friend Lauren and I have been having lots of interesting chats. She's getting more interested in 'technique-y' stuff and asked for some suggestions. Since there are *many* amazing artists out there, I was thrilled to send on some links! This is her first try at the Bandanna technique (you can see her post about it here) - and I think it's awesome! Not only is it awesome, but she sent it to *me* - am I a lucky girl or what? As if that weren't enough, she used her latest digi collage as the address label on the envelope! (now the postman loves her too!) If you get the chance you should absolutely go visit her blog. We must have diametrically opposed (yet strangely complimentary) skills. Well, she has SKILLZ! :) Some of the things that she does with text just blow me away.
Thank you *ever* so much Lauren! This will look absolutely amazing on my 'card wall'.


Ok, ok. Enough about my very fun mail day.... How 'bout something from me? :) If you've been following along for a while you know that I stumbled across a new (to me) blog called Simplicity. I'm not all that good at the CAS style, but she has inspired me to try again.
Once again I've used the big flower from Hero Arts, this time I cut it into pieces. What you may not be able to tell is that I stamped it on wood. Yes, wood! Last time I went to Archivers I found these sheets of wood - paper thin. This particular one was Birch. I used several colors of Distress Inks to stamp/color the flower. I used Diamond stickles for the center of the flower to add some sparkle (CAS does NOT mean bland!). The base and layer the sentiment is on were both stamped on sparkly white paper. The sentiment was cut and embossed with a long rectangle nestie before I popped it up. Truly, it looks better in person.

Thanks for dropping by!