Friday, June 29, 2012

Flowers in a Vase

I made this art journal page based on a video I watched by Christy Tomlinson. Here is the link to her blog post. She made a canvas with her monthly mixed media kit - I didn't buy it because I already had about half the things in it, but it's a great kit. I used Dyan Reaveley's Dylusions ink sprays and stencils, a very cool Unity background stamp called Worn Stars, and craft ink to make the background. I actually finger painted a lot of it - just like in first grade! So much fun.

I loved how she cut the vase freehand from a 6x6 piece of striped paper. I used a piece of paper from Hero Arts Life of the Party 6x6 paper pad. I also used Sharpie poster pens, craft paint, a Pearl Pen and a black pen to doodle all over the vase. It's kind of hard to see all the details in the picture. I was excited that when I cut the vase it almost looked like one - maybe a little too wide, but this is for fun!! I spray painted some Stampin' Up Flowers and added some cool Girls Paperie brads to the centers. I thought the background was a little too bright so I watered down some white Gesso and painted over it to tone it down. I really like how this turned out. I think it might be my favorite page ever.

On another note, if you watched Craft Wars (there are video clips of the show at that link) on TLC this week, Christy Tomlinson was on it. She's the one who made the school bus play house. I'm excited to see more episodes of the new "crafty" show. She did a great job and it was fun to watch her in action. I love her She Art stamps and the video she made for this project blew me away. Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!!

Thursday, June 28, 2012

The Play Date Cafe #138


It's time for another color story from The Play Date Cafe. This week the colors are Cotton Candy, Ruby, Citrus and Dusk. I used a stamp set called Vintage Notes that was designed by Tami Mayberry for Gina K. Designs. I love that this set has a Spellbinders set to go with it called Office Supplies - it makes life so much easier.


Be sure to join us this week. One lucky winner will get a prize from The Play Date Cafe prize vault - and it has some awesome goodies in it. 


Materials
1. Card stock - Basic Grey, Pink Pirouette (Stampin' Up)
2. Stamps - Vintage Notes (Gina K. Designs)
3. Ink - London Fog (Memento)
4. Decorative Paper - Luxury Paper Collection (Raspberry Road Designs)
5. Brads - Pretty Party (Crate Paper)
6. Trim - Peppermint (Crate Paper)
7. Clips - Red, Yellow (SMASH)
8. Die - Office Supplies (Spellbinders Shapeabilities)

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

PTI MIM - Relax

I made this card for the Papertrey Ink Make It Monday Challenge - to make your own embellishments. Unfortunately, I don't have any of those super cute flower dies that Dawn McVey used to make hers in the video they have on the site. So, I just used the dies from the Flipping Out set to make my own border. I hope that counts as an embellishment!! The papers are from Basic Grey and MME. Thanks for stopping by!

Monday, June 25, 2012

Cupcake Craft #198 - Birds of a Feather

Click HERE for the EAD Designs Blog Hop.

I made this card for the current Cupcake Craft Challenge - Birds of a Feather. I made a polymer clay bird, branch and leaves over the weekend and I thought they would be perfect for the challenge. I got the papers in a free pack in my Cardmaking and Papercraft Magazine this month. Thanks for taking a look!

EAD Design Team Blog Hop


It's Monday again so that means it's time for another EAD Designs Monday Blog Hop. I've had such a fun time creating cards with their stickers this month. I'm a little sad this will be my last post with EAD Designs. They have such a friendly and talented design team. I will miss working with them. But, I will definitely be creating with with EAD designs stickers. It's so fun and easy to create great projects with their stickers!! Be sure to leave a comment and check out the other designers blogs - prizes will be given!!


For this card I used a fun and retro Stickerz set called Groovy. This set has also has more groovy and cute stickers - you can see them below. I thought the colors of the polka dot paper matched the stickers perfectly. I used the larger smiley face chic and the smaller hearts on the top of the card. I think this card would be perfect for a tween or teenage girl. 




If you came here from Shellye's blog then you should move on to Amy's blog. But, if you just stopped by to see me and weren't originally on the hop click here to go to the EAD Designs Blog to see all the details of the hop and start from the beginning - you don't want to miss anybody. Be sure to leave comments along the way because one lucky person will win some free EAD Stickers!!

Sunday, June 24, 2012

Beautiful Rose

I made this card for the current CAS-ual Fridays challenge - to make a CAS card using pink. I made the rose and leaves from Martha Stewart polymer clay. The sentiment is from Technique Tuesday. Thanks for taking a look!

Here's my card.


Materials
1. Card stock - Whsiper White, Melon Mambo (Stampin' Up)
2. Polymer Clay (Martha Stewart)
3. Stamp - Amazing (Technique Tuesday)
4. Ink - Tuxedo Black (Memento)

Friday, June 22, 2012

Stained Glass Lighthouse

I made this card for the current Impression Obsession Challenge - to use the colors Red, White and Blue. This was the only I/O stamp I had that I felt I could make that color challenge work with. It's called Stained Glass Lighthouse. A couple of weeks ago I bought a set of Nestabilities thinking they were Hexagons and then when I looked closer I realized they were Octagons!! So, I used my new Octagon dies for this card and I'm pretty sure I'm going to start the next great thing - forget Hexagons - Octagons are the new Hexagons!! I colored the image with Copics. The paper is from We-R-Memory Keepers and I added some Pebbles red candy dots. Thanks for taking a look!

Thursday, June 21, 2012

The Play Date Cafe Challenge #137


It's Thursday and time for another fun color story at The Play Date Cafe. This week it's everybody's favorite - a color splash - and this week it's a splash of Cobalt. I took inspiration from the flower and created my card using one of my favorite flower stamps from a Wendy Vecchi Studio 490 set called Sketch Art. Since the colors are black and white with a splash of blue, I decide I would do something a little different and make my own accents. I drew the border and doodled (scroll down for more on my doodling) in the flower and leaves freehand with a black Sharpie fine point pen. The sentiment is from a Dyan Reaveley Dylusions stamps set called Quintessential Quotes. The blue circle was made from Stampin' Up Pacific Point card stock and the blue bling is from this week's sponsor Want-2-Scrap.


Hopefully, you're inspired to get to work on a creation for this weeks color splash challenge. The Cobalt Blue is a really fun color to work with and I hope you will join us. One lucky winner will get some awesome bling from this week's sponsor Want-2-Scrap.


Don't forget - The Play Date Cafe is holding it's first Open Design Team Call in over a year! It's such a great place work and the design team is filled with some of the nicest people in blogland. Check out The Play Date Cafe Blog for all the details.



I'm not saying I did Zentangle with this card, because I'm not really sure what it is yet - I'm just calling it doodling. It's an art form I practiced extensively and perfected while I was in college sitting through lectures. I could doodle and take notes. After I graduated, I refused to throw out my notebooks because they contained my lovely doodle artwork! A few years ago I cut out my doodle masterpieces from the edges of my notebook papers and created this wall art so I could put them on display and enjoy them. Below is a picture of my doodle art wall hanging. I just dug it out of the garage (that's where it ended up when I moved 7 years ago)- it's seen better days.


Here are a couple of close ups. 


Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Tickled Pink

I made this card for a Bright Pink challenge over at StampTV. I used a really fun stamp set by Gina K. Designs called Gnome One Like You. I used the brightest pink marker I could find to color the flamingo and used some pink rhinestones from Doodlebug Designs to add a little more pink. Thanks for taking a look!

Materials
1. Card stock - Whisper White, Pretty in Pink (Stampin' Up)
2. Stamps - Gnome one Like You (Gina K. Designs)
3. Ink - Tuxedo Black (Memento)
4. Die - Scalloped Circle (Nestabilities)
5. Rhinestones - Pink (Doodlebug Designs)
6. Markers - Copic

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

PTI Monochromatic Cow Birthday Card

I'm going to add this to the Moxie Fab Gingham Challenge since it's still open. Click here to join in all the fun!

Recently, I ordered a few Papertrey Ink stamp sets and dies. I really love their stamps and I just couldn't resist this new set called On the Farm. My grandparents had a farm with cows and pigs and this set reminds me of the family farm in Clover, SC. I'm entering this card into the PTI Make It Monday Challenge. It's my first time participating in this challenge. The challenge this week is to include a bordered, masked sentiment. I watched the video they have on the site by Betsy Veldman that shows how to do this technique.

If you follow my blog you know I'm not much of a "masker" so this was a challenge for me. I die cut the PTI banner die on some mask paper that I have and have never used. I put the banner on the card and stamped over it. It wasn't too hard and I was happy to finally use my mask paper. I had the idea to stamp some brown cows in rows and the stamps made excellent images - I'm very happy with  their quality. Thanks for stopping by!!

Materials
1. Card stock - Whisper White, Chocolate Chip (Stampin' Up)
2. Gingham Paper (A Muse Studio)
3. Stamps - On the Farm (PTI)
4. Die - banner (PTI)
5. Ink - Rich Cocoa (Memento)
6. Marker - Chocolate Chip (Stampin' Up)
7. Mask Paper (Inkadinkado)

Summer Fun in Memphis

Last week I decided to take a last minute trip to Memphis, Tennessee to visit my best friend from high school, Cheryl. She lives there with her husband and their two little girls. The plane prices were outrageous since I was within a week of the trip and I decided to use Priceline Negotiator. I was lucky and got my plane ticket half off!! The only drawback is you can't pick the times so I had to leave at 6am on Sunday but, you know early mornings don't phase me so it all worked out.

Thursday afternoon when I got there we drank wine in their pool, ate pizza for dinner and I made homemade chocolate chip cookies. Friday I walked on her awesome treadmill for an hour (after the night before I definitely needed to) and then went to Archivers to take the Doodlebug mini album class. I love Archivers so much and the closest one to me is 300 miles away. It was my lucky day because they had all paper and embellishments 50% off!! The class was fun and the shopping was amazing. Here's a pic of the mini album we made. It had tons of details and took a LONG time to complete (there are 14 pages full of details).


After the class, we went to Graceland. I've always wanted to go there. I'm not a huge Elvis fan, but I knew the decor would be worth the price of admission and it did not disappoint! Elvis loved shag carpet on the floor and ceilings, crazy colors, mirrors, stained glass peacocks and wild furniture. You can't use flashes in Graceland, so instead of taking pictures inside I bought a book - so I can't share any of the crazy decor with you. We also saw exhibits of his cars, clothing, awards and airplanes. He did many things and had many things to have died at 42. Here are some pictures from Graceland including one where he serenaded us :)



Apparently Elvis loved horses.

We were lucky to get a serenade.
After Graceland, we headed downtown and stopped by The Lorraine Hotel where Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. The wreath marks the spot where it happened. I'm quite taken with the sign for this hotel and I plan to make a card based on this picture soon. I really like the colors and the "retroness" of the sign.




Finally, we went to eat at the most famous street in Memphis, Beale Street. We ate at the famous Bar-B-Que place called Rendevous. It's frequently featured on The Food Network. We also stopped in the Hard Rock, saw the Gibson Guitar Museum, and sat on some big balls outside the Fed Ex Forum. I'm not much of a scrapper, but I'm considering scrapping this trip since I actually took a few photos this time. We'll see. Thanks for stopping by!





Monday, June 18, 2012

EAD Monday Design Team Blog Hop


It's Monday again so that means it's time for another EAD Designs Monday Blog Hop. I'm the Guest Designer at EAD this month and I'm having such a fun time creating cards with their stickers. One of my favorite things about using stickers to make cards is how quick and east it is to can make multiples. And, if you don't get the sticker in the right place the first time, you can carefully lift it up and move until you get it right! 


For this card I used a cute and fun Stickerz set called Play on Words. This set has also has 8 more fun and cute stickers - you can see them below. I decided to make a set of mini cards with these funny stickers. I dressed them up with some Crate Paper patterned paper from the Toy box Collection (Sports) and Nestabilities dies. These would make an excellent gift.





If you came here from Shellye's blog then you should move on to Amy's blog. But, if you just stopped by to see me and weren't originally on the hop click here to go to the EAD Designs Blog to see all the details of the hop and start from the beginning - you don't want to miss anybody. Be sure to leave comments along the way because one lucky person will win some free EAD Stickers!!

Sunday, June 17, 2012

EAD Designs Color Challenge

I'm a guest designer this month EAD Designs. Each month they have a color challenge. This month the colors are Red, White and Blue. Click here to read all about the challenge on their blog. Everyone who plays in this challenge is a winner. Just for playing you'll get a 25% off coupon for the EAD Designs Store. And, one lucky winner will get a $20 gift certificate to the EAD Store and the opportunity to be the guest designer for July!



I made a simple, graphic, patriotic card using the Stickerz set called Patriotic Party. The sentiment is from the Paper Smooches stamp set called Circle of Honor and I added a few Queen & Co. rhinestones and Nestabilities dies. I also used my Corner Chomper to round the edges. Thanks for taking a look!!




Thursday, June 14, 2012

Play Date Cafe Challenge #136 & DT CALL!!


It's Thursday so that means it's time for a new color challenge at The Play Date Cafe! This week the colors are Azure, Raspberry and Blackberry. To make my card I used a fun stamp set called Girl Talk. The papers I used are all from Stampin' Up - Rich Razzleberry, Elegant Eggplant and Island Indigo. The ribbon is also Stampin' Up in Elegant Eggplant. (Be sure to read until the very end - this post is filled with TONS of fun information!!)


This week one lucky winner will receive a gift certificate from Simon Says Stamp. I hope you play along with us this week. I can't wait to see what amazing creation you make!


Simon Says Stamp

Now for some EXCITING NEWS!! The Play Date Cafe is holding it's first Open Design Team Call in over a year! It's such a great place work and the design team is filled with some of the nicest people in blogland. Check out The Play Date Cafe Blog for all the details.


Finally, our very own Julie Ranae Murray is celebrating 3 years of blogging over at her blog from Thursday, June 14 - Sunday, June 17. She has lots of prizes to giveaway so why don't you click here and go check out all the fun!



Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Koala Hugs

I made this card for the Touch Twin Marker Challenger. The Challenge is to color an image with hair like a person or an animal. Since I haven't ever used this stamp I thought it would be perfect since it has hair and an animal. I think this is a really cute Tilda stamp. I really like to practice my coloring skills using these stamps. This is a new stamp called Koala Hug Tilda by Magnolia. I colored her using various Copics and the ink is Tuxedo Black by Memento. Thanks for taking a look!



Monday, June 11, 2012

EAD Designs Monday Blog Hop!!

It's Monday again so that means it's time for another EAD Designs Monday Blog Hop. I'm the Guest Designer at EAD this month and I'm having such a fun time creating cards with their stickers. One of my favorite things about them is they are completely removable/repositionable! So, if you don't get it in the right place the first time, you can lift it up carefully and try again. I love that quality because believe it or not I'm not always perfect the first time.


For this card a used a fun and funky Stickerz set called Groovy. The Beetle and the Groovy both come from the set. I decide to make a very CAS design to really showcase the fun graphic design of these stickers. I added a couple of pink rhinestones to the tires just for some color and fun.


Groovy Stickerz
If you came here from Shellye's blog then you should move on to Amy's blog. But, if you just stopped by to see me and weren't originally on the hop click here to go to the EAD Designs Blog to see all the details of the hop and start from the beginning - you don't want to miss anybody. Be sure to leave comments along the way because one lucky person will win some free EAD Stickers!!

Sunday, June 10, 2012

Dreaming is Free

As some of you may know, I go to the gym a lot. I don't really lose weight (I wish), but I do try to work out enough to at least break even. I normally go from 5am-6am when I have to work, but now that school is out I try to stay for 2 hours starting as close to 5am as I can get there. This means I'm spraying my art journal pages around 4:30am - I know - there is something wrong with me.

Anyway, the other day I was finishing up my hour on the elliptical and one of my favorite songs came on my iPod Shuffle and helped me finish strong. It was "Dreaming is Free" by Blondie. I just love Debbie Harry. It's an oldie, but a goodie. I really wanted to sing it out loud, but since I was in public, I didn't. I've been thinking about making a journal based on that great line since I heard it and I finally did today. 

As usual, the background was made from Dylusions Spray Inks (probably Blue, Orange and Brown) and was one of the ones I had on standby in my art journal. Then I stamped the border with a stamp from the Dylusions set called Further Around the Edge. I colored in the border and letters with pastels and doodled with my new Sharpie Poster Pens. I finally found them at Michaels and they work great. So much better than my regular paint pens. Thanks for stopping by!!