Retiring to a Rose Garden

Hello, fellow crafty folks! =)

I have been a busy stamper the past two weeks and have officially made more cards in the last two weeks than in the 6 months before that. Which feels good, but whew!

Here's the first... which is also the one with the most time invested. Our department VP retired after 40 years and is an avid gardener. She's been talking about looking forward to building a rose garden now that she'll have the time, so a group of us gathered together and got a rather hefty gift card for a local garden shop. My task was to create a card with enough space for 30 or so people to write messages and to 'package' the gift card. As soon as they said "roses", I knew this one had to be a Magnolia stamp. This little Tilda is one of the first stamps I bought when I officially discovered cardmaking online two years ago, and my coloring has most definitely improved since the last time I used her...

Isn't she sweet?

The rose paper from which I took my color inspiration is from a rather inexpensive Colorbok packet I was given as a gift last Christmas. I loved the deep burgundy and dusty pink together with the slightly shabby distressed look.  I cut them with stitched panel dies from My Favorite Things. Love the effect of that little bit of stitch detail! I used a bit of Walnut Distress Ink to age the edges of all my papers and the Spellbinders diecut I used for my image.   I colored Tilda, the Magnolia leaves die cuts, the largest rose, and the four little rosebuds with Copics so that they all matched.  On the image I used a bit of Liquid Pearl around her and some Lemon Ice Stickles on the rose centers.
 On the Wild Orchid Crafts flowers, just  a touch of Wink of Stella on the large rose and Stardust Stickles on some of the smaller pink roses gave them a bit of sparkle. A bit of creamy lace, a few pearls, and a little Magnolia dragonfly die finished off the front panel.



Now, for the really fun part...  again, there were about 30 people to sign the card, so I had to find a way to make the card a lot bigger... so I went for an accordion fold that goes on and on for about 7 more panels!

I had to glue together a number of burgundy card bases. I colored six sets of these Magnolia rose stamps, then fussy cut them before shimmering them up with some clear Wink of Stella.

Each panel is a triple layer of the Colorbok rose paper, a piece of white cardstock colored with the same YG95 that I used on the rose stamps, and another piece from the same Colorbok paper pad. All the edges are inked with either Walnut or Peeled Paint Distress Ink.

(The pages look slightly different colors here because there was daylight on the right panel but not the left when I photographed the panels. Oops!)

For the final page, I searched the internet for quotes about gardens. I loved this one:

"I sit in my garden, gazing upon a beauty that cannot gaze upon itself. 

And I find sufficient purpose for my day. - Robert Brault"

...so I typed it up on the computer, added my own note below it and printed directly onto the Colorbok paper. This panel was also going to hold the gift card, so I cut a notch out of it using the bottom bit of a Magnolia tag. I used the same tag to cut a tag from white cardstock, colored it with YG95 and coated it with clear Wink of Stella.
When everyone had signed, the tag was attached to a little envelope that held the gift card. Another little dragon fly perches on the the bottom of this panel as well.

To finish off the project, I created a 1" thick box out of gold metallic paper and created a little label for the front.  The box was done envelope style, with a little velcro closure on the back.

Everyone loved it... it even made her cry - in a good way, of course! =)  I won't be doing something so elaborate again for a while... it took at least 2 hours just to color and cut out all those roses for the panels. But it was well worth it in the end. A special card for a special event!

I'll be popping over to a few challenges to link my little Tilda creation...
Tilda's Town Challenges - Challenge #129 Anything Goes
Lovely hAnglar or Sweet Magnolia Challenge - Challenge #106 Sparkle
Midweek Magnolias Challenge - Challenge #101 Glitter, Lace and Pearls
Crafting When We Can Challenge - Challenge #82 Use Your Markers

My next two posts will be all about birthdays! Woohoo! Til then, happy crafting!
Christy

PCJ DT Card: Vintage - A (Shabby Chic) Tasty Read

Good morning!

Another (even more) super-quick DT post for me... I have been so distracted by everything going on the last week or so I even spelled "busy" wrong in my last post. (My mother noticed. LOL) I think I meant to type "crazy busy" and just made it one word. LOL  Anyway, it's time again for a new challenge at Paper-Crafting Journey.

The DT had a choice of two great Elizabeth Bell images... I picked A Tasty Read. And then our fearless leader Lisa S. chose VINTAGE as the theme for this challenge. If you remember my very first PCJ DT card, you might also remember that vintage is not really my cup of tea... so I rolled my eyes once (ok, maybe twice) to get it out of my system and got to crafting. My finished card is more in the realm of shabby chic I think...

Again, my original plan got lost in the moment, but the soft green and pink are pretty IRL. And I love that lace ribbon, not to mention a chance to get back to using flowers on my card. =)

Be sure to check out all the challenge details and my teamies' fabulous Vintage/Shabby Chic creations at Paper-Crafting Journey and I will be back soon! And be prepared... after all these short posts, I have lots of chatter all bottled up! LOL

Happy Crafting!
Christy

SAS4K Challenge DT Card: Things with Wings - Dragon Tales & Tropical Ostrich

For my PCJ DT card, click here
For my Flutterby Wednesday Guest DT cards, click here

Time again for another Send A Smile 4 Kids challenge... and this fortnight it's Things with Wings! Birds, bees, butterflies, fairies, angels, flying insects... or dragons! If it has wings, we want to see it on a card made for a kid!

This week we are especially pleased to be linking up with Flutterby Wednesday to do a card drive. Fellow SAS4K teamie Hilde and I are both guest designers on this week's Inspiration post - check out the challenge details here, and guidelines for donating cards here!

Our prize sponsors for this challenge are the lovely Stamping Dragon Designs and Karen's Doodles - both are offering up a few of their digis as prizes. Check out the details on the SAS4K challenge post!

Our sponsors also offered the DT some images to play with... my first pick was SDD's Jiggy's Book. I know the world of reading is going electronic, and although I am a fan of all the conveniences of modern life, one thing I will never be able to give up is my love for "dead tree" books. There is something about the tactile experience of holding a book, turning the pages, flipping back to reread, carrying it around with your finger between the pages to mark your spot while you visit the fridge for a drink... the smell of books in a library... the feeling of knowing you've only got a fraction of an inch's pages to read til you get to the end and slowing down to savor every last page. None of that do I get from swiping my finger across a screen or tapping a button. And the smell of electronics is not very interesting. LOL Anyway, I decided to make a removable bookmark with my little dragon image to encourage the dead-tree book habit in a younger generation.

After I submitted my DT photo for the SAS4K page, I decided that my card and bookmark needed a little glitter. I was worried about ruining it, so I held off for as long as I could, but you know me and those bottles of Stickles just can't be kept apart for long. LOL

Here is the before...

And here's the after...  what do you think?

I love these papers... they are from the DCWV pack Once Upon A Time. Lovely ethereal castles in the fog... prints and colors that make me think of my favorite tales of medieval-based fantasy worlds where swordfighting and magic and dragons are part and parcel of everyday life. So Jiggy reading his book on Dragon Tales might find himself at one of those castles. I used a lot of Tea Dye and Walnut Distress Inks on the papers, inking the edges and sponging over my papers.  

The set comes with both black and white and a colored image. I chose to use the colored image as it was exactly the colors I wanted, if a little bright. I used Word to tone down the brightness and used the mosaic bubbles effect to give a little aging. I also lightly sponged a bit of Antique Linen and Walnut Distress Inks over the printed image.

My Once Upon a Time sentiment stamp is from Magnolia. I also used an Italian font stamp from Hero Arts and both stamps were printed using DI.

The stamps that I used at the bottom and top of the bookmark are Flourishes by Crafty Secrets I used Walnut DI and then stamped again randomly using Versamark and embossing with clear UTEE for some gloss and shine. I tied on a bit of chocolate brown ribbon around the top.

I used Versamark and platinum gold Perfect Pearls burnished in with my fingertip on the border around the center piece and stamped over it with a celtic knot in gold. I cut two of the emblem circles (and in the end glittered the top one) which form a little pocket together with the sentiment flag to hold my bookmark.

Here they are separated.

 And a few more gratuitous shots in case you haven't already overdosed on photos...  LOL

My second card, which ended up being quite challenging for some reason, was Ollie Ostrich from Karen's Doodles...

I had fun coloring up Ollie, and I used white Liquid Applique on his feathery ruff to give it some dimension. I was planning to use the image as a rectangular white piece and highlighted him in a light blue, but then decided he needed to be trimmed out. I used an embossing stylus to round him out a bit and popped him up off the black cardstock with foam dots, which is why he doesn't look like he fits the black trim around him, unless you look at him straight on. I was fighting like mad with my paper cutter to cut straight so my cuts are all a bit wonky and driving me crazy. I've since sussed out the problem, so I'll probably take this apart and recut the black pieces before sending him off. Drunk crafter was not the look I was going for. LOL  The flowers are WOC and the pink ribbon is Offray-Berwick. Not too many embellies as I wanted simple and colorful. =)

So... hope you are inspired. There are lots of fantastic creations over on the Send A Smile 4 Kids challenge blog from my teamies, so head on over there and do consider joining the card drive challenge at Flutterby Wednesday as well as the SAS4K challenge! Happy Crafting!

Christy

PCJ DT Card: Floral Challenge - An Experiment in Vintage

Greetings! My very first DT post for Paper-Crafting Journey Challenge Blog!  (Squee!)

Our first challenge for 2012 is a Floral Challenge – flowers, floral papers or floral embellies. Let’s see your flower power! =)  Up for grabs are a $15 (USD) gift certificate from Nicecrane Designs and 4 stamp sheets from the Sketching Stamper. Check out all the challenge details over at the Paper-Crafting Journey Challenge Blog!

For my card this week I used a sponsor image: one of the vintage Flower Children digital stamps available at Nicecrane Designs. Vintage is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay outside my comfort zone. These thank you cards last Christmas and this collage birthday card from September are my limited attempts at anything even remotely shabby chic, so I was facing a challenge of my own for this week’s DT card!  I finally came up with this experiment in blue:

It took me quite a while to get this card done. When Lisa sent me the sponsor images, I had NO idea what I was going to do. Actually, I freaked just the tiniest bit… my first card and I was going to fail! Yep, weak moment. LOL So I printed them out and avoided them while I worked on my cow Valentine card. Somehow some seed germinated in my brain and grew while I wasn’t looking. (Sometimes procrastination pays off. LOL) I spent a lot of time playing with techniques and colors and papers, testing and retesting until I came up with something that looked enough like the picture in my head and that I wouldn’t be embarrassed to post. ;)

I started with my background first, using papers from K&Company’s Julianne 12”x12”DP pack. I painted over it with a really thin coat of Distress crackle paint in clear rock candy. Once it dried into some really fine cracks, I rubbed picket fence Distress Stain over it and lightly toweled it off. I sponged the edges of both papers and the cream DCWV cardstock with antique linen and walnut Distress Inks.

Next I printed my digi image onto 24-lb printer paper and colored it with Copics. I used Distress Stain in old paper over the entire image with a little antique linen Stain lightly fingerpainted around the edges. I made my own postcard in Word (sadly I ended up covering that beautiful swirl), printing it on to plain white cardstock and giving it the same Stain treatment along with a sponging of antique linen and walnut DI on the edges.  Postal stamps/sentiment are part of a clear stamp set available at Lili of the Valley.

Flowers are from Wild Orchid Crafts and I took two of their gold metal corners, coated them in picket fence Distress crackle paint and then rubbed over them with the walnut and antique linen Distress Stains.  Lastly, I added three blue pearls that I colored over lightly with a T3 gray Copic marker.

So there you have it – now it’s your turn!  Join us over at Paper-Crafting Journey and check out the rest of the Design Team’s beautiful floral creations! Can’t wait to see what you come up with!

See you soon and happy crafting!
Christy

Embossing, embossing, embossing...

Greetings! Here's a card I've been working on the last couple nights... mostly waiting. Waiting for glue to dry. Waiting for ink to dry. Waiting for Stickles to dry. Next time, I'm pulling out the heat gun. LOL

The main inspiration for this wintry holiday card was all the gorgeous embossing I've seen this season on the blogs and challenges I've been following combined with a glue-embossing Fiskars project I'd seen last Spring.

To start, I sprinkled a lot of Glamour Dust in Crystal over a Sizzix embossing Texture plate and brushed most of it into the snowflakes.Then I poured a liberal amount of Elmer's basic white School Glue over the lot and set it aside to dry. It took two days for it to dry completely so I could peel it off the embossing plate. Then I cut it down to a square and adhered it to a really pretty royal blue cardstock. My lousy winter nighttime photos are not doing it justice. Sigh.

Anyway, I embossed a square of white plain white cardstock and some plain cardstock cut with a Labels 18 Nestie, running a silver metallic gel pen over the edges of the Label diecut. You can see those details best in some of the angle photos. (Warning, this post will be photo-full as I kept trying to capture the really pretty in-real-life sparkle of the embossed glue panel!)  I lightly sponged some Chipped Sapphire Distress Ink over several Martha Stewart snowflakes cut from textured white cardstock, added Stickles to the largest and one smaller flake I left white.

I added some bling, popped up both the middle snowflake and the Label diecut with foam dots, and put it all together over a square of pearlescent silver paper. It's pretty simple, but there's lots of texture and sparkle, so hopefully it's not too boring. LOL

Here are some more angle photos...

 

A close up of the lovely sparkles =)





These two I tried to play with the lighting, so the color's awfully yellow, but I think you can see the Glamour Dust better...

Or not... lol =)

Challenges for this project...

1 Simply Create Too - #2 Embossing

2 Christmas All Year Round - Card #4 for December

3 ABC Challenge - F is for Frosty

4 Papertake Weekly - Last Christmas Card of the Year

5 Creative Inspirations - #143 Anything Goes

6 Colour Create - #86 Blue, Silver & White

7 Paper Play Challenge - #50 Christmas

8 Glitter Geeks - #28 Anything Goes

9 Hiding In My Craft Room - #25 Embossing

10 One Stop Crafting - #162 Christmas Sparkle

So, that's it for tonight... have a few more works of art underway, but I probably won't post them until tomorrow or perhaps Saturday... crazy busy with only a couple more sleeps left! =)

Happy Crafting!

Christy

DI-mania and a little shabby vintage chic

Hi! I have been busy practicing this week! Yay! I signed up for Jennifer McGuire's Inspiration Showcase class online and have been playing at least a little bit in the craftroom every day.  I have several birthdays in my circle of friends and family this month, too, so it's definitely time to get cranking out the projects. =)

I must say that I am not a huge fan of vintage style. With no offense meant to Tim Holtz, all that antique advertising and aged, distressed, grunged-out artwork... well, I don't find some of it appealing (bingo cards, tickets, dress forms?) Sometimes I find myself ooohing and ahhhing, sometimes I just don't get it.  That said, I do like a certain amount of distressing and sort of shabbiness when they give character or make something really pop. Distress inks on edges and some of the slightly grunged but still pretty papers do appeal to me, so as I find my way into my own style, I decided to play a little on a card meant for a coworker's birthday this month.

The papers were really my inspiration for the rest of the card. The pink and brown butterfly printed paper in particular was the jumping off point for everything else. A little shabby and worn, but still pretty. =)

My base is textured cardstock liberally sprayed with Smooch Spritzes. The blue was clogged, which I didn't discover until I had started spraying, but once one edge got all spotted/drippy-looking, I just finished it off that way. Not what I really wanted, but it turned out ok, I think.

I embossed and cut a tag out of a bit of Nestabilities packaging and layered it over a tag of cream mulberry paper and affixed it on popdots. In person you can just barely see the hint of the pink butterfly on the paper through the tag, which is nice. I distress-inked the edges. It worked really well on the plastic; will have to remember that again. I DI'ed a Martha Stewart butterfly nearly to death with both inks and stains and added Distress Stickles for the body. I used distress inks on all of the flowers, too, and used the white Picket Fence Distress Stain to tone down the too-bright blue of a couple of roses.

I added a lot of pearls - large ones in the corners in pink and light blue, itty bitty champagne ones on the tag and the Nesties label for the greeting. They all looked too clean and new though, so I ran the tip of a Copics E35 over them and swiped it off before it dried completely. Definitely another trick to remember.

The inside I finished off pretty simply. I used a sheet of light turquoise vellum layered over a peachy-pink cardstock that matched the papers inside for the tag where I'll write my message. A few more play-time MS butterflies on the opposite side and voila!  My first non-cute, shabby sort of vintage collage-y card.  When I was building my card, I thought perhaps I needed some laces or ribbon bits along the same vintage feel... and I thought perhaps a few aged metallic charms might not have been a bad idea either. (Why is it that no matter how many crafty supplies you have, there's always something else that you need/want/are dying to have? haha)  Would it win any awards? Probably not. But as it always is with a handmade card, if the recipient likes it, then it's a success. =)  And I do love that the crafting universe is big enough for everyone to find something that appeals to their artistic senses and to take bits and pieces from other styles and bring it together into a creation of love.

Meanwhile, I am thinking that fans of Tim Holtz may want to start a trend in nail polish that looks like distress-ink splotches so that our inky fingers are always in style. ;)

 Happy crafting - see you soon! =)