Party Time with Mo Manning

Hey! Back with my first Copics card in ages. Like, seriously, ages... 16 months, maybe?

When one of my coworkers saw the Doctors Day cards and especially the PowerPoint I had projecting on the wall (see my last post), she asked if I could make her daughter a birthday card using the same colors. Her daughter's on the school band and plays the saxophone, so she wanted anything with music. I had the perfect image in mind...

The image is So Jazzed by Mo Manning. I still had bits of cardstock and the watercolored paper I'd made for the Doctors Day cards, so I pulled this together. She only gave me a night's notice, and I ran out of time, so I had to assemble everything quickly at home and finish coloring the image at work during my lunch. I have never glued together a card before finishing the image, and I think I held my breath the larger part of lunch. I still went a bit out of the lines, but I was rather pleased by the end. Especially since it's been so long since I colored. I did well capturing the red shade of her daughter's hair too!  The photo is, unfortunately, another on the fly by cellphone; the richness of the colors in the real-life card is really pretty. I added some Stardust Stickles to the heart on her coat and swirls on her skirt and a teeny dot on the heart attached to the dog's collar. Some Golden Rod Stickles made the sax super sparkly.

As the image is the focus and I didn't want to detract from the watercolored background, I stayed really CAS with this one. I didn't have a piece of the purple cardstock big enough to back my image, so I used two pieces that didn't quite come together so I hid the seams with the little gem up top and a purple heart coated in glossy accents on the bottom. The sentiment is a Paper Smooches sentiment from the Birthday Sampler embossed in white and I used a Happy Birthday from the same set inside along with a strip of the watercolor (no pic, sorry).

I'm entering this sweet girly in a couple of challenges:

Crafting When We Can - #66 for a Child
Charisma Cardz Challenge - #7 Clean & Simple
Pixie's Snippets Playground - Week #118
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So that's it for now... hope to see you all again soon! Until then, best wishes and happy crafting!
Christy

Getting Inky for Doctors Day

So.... getting back into crafting has taken me a bit longer than expected... timing's been a bit off and I caught a respiratory virus that kicked my butt (or should I say lungs?) for the better part of 4 weeks. Exhaustion and creativity don't share the same space very well. LOL  And to be honest, I was having a hard time getting started. So many stamps, so many supplies, so many ideas... so much blog surfing... where to start? I admit I was overwhelmed with choice! I began just playing around with watercolor paper and Distress Stains, so when my first must-make card opportunity came along, I was ready.

We had our Doctors Day brunch a little earlier than the official Day this year and I was tasked with creating cards for my department's doctoral staff. I wanted something clean and simple, but interesting. I tried out some of the (oh so many) papers in my stash, but I wasn't feeling it... so I decided to make my own. I wanted a color mix that was pretty gender neutral. I used a mix of Tumbled Glass, Shaded Lilac, Dusty Concord and Peacock Feathers with a little Black Soot and Brushed Pewter for accent. I had this deep purple Wausau cardstock that went with it beautifully. (Please forgive the awful photos... I forgot to take photos at home so I had to use my cellphone at work. Appalling lighting, although the microscope made for an interesting card backdrop LOL)

I played with lots of different shape options for the sentiment before deciding on basic circles. I know it looks white in the photo, but the card base is a light cream. I added some interest with my Judikins Galaxy Spiral stamp, using Distress Stain in Tumbled Glass to keep it light and watercolor-y rather than going straight from the ink pad. I rounded the top corner and added a single gem on the bottom and called it done. Then I repeated the process 36 more times!

All the work was worth it though - my coworkers were pleased and the docs loved them. I even took a photo of the last whole sheet of watercolored paper with one of the circle sentiments and created a PowerPoint slide that was displayed on our conference room wall during the brunch using the overhead projector. It's a cheap way of getting a really big decoration as a focal point. =)

Even better, I got a few card requests out of the deal AND my mojo has started flowing again. Feels good to be getting inky!  A big thanks to those of you who've sent me messages or left encouraging comments. The best thing about the crafty community is that sense of community. Kinda feels like coming home after a very long trip. =)

I do have one more card to blog, so hopefully I'll see you shortly!  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

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

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! =)