Inspired by {Signals}

This week for the Inspiration Challenge at SplitcoastStampers, Anne has sent us to the Signals site where I seen some coffee cups that made me laugh and This pink paisley tote bag that I thought was really pretty.

 So I picked up this Simon Says Stamp emma background and heat embossed it on some My Favorite Things insulation pink ( which barley has a pink tint to it) and then layered it to some textured brownish bazzill and the base is some PTI sweet blush. this one was finished out at 5 1/2" square. the craft button is from SU. the string is Karen Foster scrappers floss and that sentiment is also from SSS the You got this set. that was cut with one of the dies in the A2 spellbinders mat sets.

A closer look at the tote it can be seen in their site here.

VSN {how does your garden grow?}

There is a Virtual Stamp Night happening at Splitcoaststampers this weekend.

I am not sure how many challenges there are all together but, I started on Saturday and did the first 6 cards you see here and then picked it up again Sunday afternoon with the next 3 and then the last card in this post was done as a Featured Stamper CASE. The one thing they all have is an 1 hour time limit to put the elements together. ( you can think as long as you want) and there is a week to get them all done and loaded.

 

Judy has a challenge to use a bee and a kindness sentiment. the bee is from Peddlers Pack and the sentiment and nurse hat are from Taylored Expressions. 

 Misti has a challenge to use something wild that grows in your garden and I remembered I had these Hero Arts you're a fungi set and decided to give them those fun colors ( that are not what grows in my yard haha)

Sharon has a challenge to use the watercolor on Yupo tutorial and ( this actually has better colors and more shimmer in real life) that sentiment is from Verses's I stamped it with some Pallet Noir on the watercolored background with no fixative. 

 Jeanne has a challenge to add a bird to it... and so, these ducks are from Avery Elle's story book set and the sentiments are from the MFT anything but basic birthday sentiments.

 Ky has a challenge to add an critter (large furry) that you would like to peek at in your garden. and I had this Whippersnapper curious bunny previously colored and added the Altenew sentiment to it.

 A closer look at the pencils ( mostly polychromos with some prisma ones)

 Dana has a challenge to have a sunshine yellow or a hibiscus on it and I almost out smarted my self as I stamped this with some barley beige ink from SSS and then I could not see the lines of where to color. there is absolutely no blending on this. I was squinting the whole time with it under a couple of ott lights and then my eyes cried uncle and I packed it in for the evening.

 Kat has a challenge to have at least 6 colors on your project. so, I decided this Penny Black egg cart had enough room for a rainbow and went that away.

 Lydia has a challenge to have a flower or plant that is black and white line art where the color is out of the box. so I counter sunk this Indigo blu color me daisy behind a piece of ranger yupo I had colored with alcohol inks and added the Avery Elle ( so happy ) sentiment.

 Lisa has a challenge to make it POP up. I was going to color the tulips a second time and put pop dots under some of the petals but, I ran out of time and popped up the outside framing of the printed paper instead. ( tulips are from Darkroom door and the sentiment is from the Clearly Besotted message me set)

 Today is also the day they unveil the newest featured stamper so, knowing I had some previously colored flowers on the table ( because of the VSN garden theme) I decided to look at her floral cards mostly and chose this one. it just POPS for me. I don't normally do so many layers so, that was interesting. I did line the inside to counter balance some of the weight on the front of the card.
Changes to her card were to use the angled border die instead of rectangles for the horizon line and to change the colors and stamps.

A closer look at the petals, this was heat embossed with some SU pewter powder and colored with Polychromos pencils. And its reached that twilight time of day when I cannot see colors anymore so, that's about it for me this weekend. I have not made this many things back to back in a long time so, it was a good little bump to the stash.

Inspired By {Rossenberry Rooms}

This week the Inspiration Challenge heads to Rossenberry Rooms as a place with tons of things to poke around in and view. I did find a giraffe print ( surprise surprise) that would be so perfect for a Memory box die I had ordered around the time this site was unveiled to the team and ( its coming in the mail maybe today maybe on Monday) So... at the last minute after putting off waiting for the die to get off back order I found this license plate (seen below) as a back up..

 And came up with this. Which made me smile. My husband is always the guy who buys dinner regardless of who did the invite. ( which used to irritate my gma to no end) So, the idea that he would let someone else buy makes me smile. He just might for our son, someday. The Congratulations and Amazing are both from Club Scraps Creative License line ( art nouveau & greetings sets) the U R are Tim Holtz Alphanumeric dies cut from a scrap of the night of navy cardstock used on the base. the bottom sentiment is from the Simon Says Stamp inside and out sayings set. All the stamped parts were heat embossed with some Uptown cobalt blue powder on the diecuts with a view shimmery ( orange-ish yellow ) That bottom sentiment was die cut from a scrap with a Lawn Fawn banner die and the pearls are from Kaiser craft.

What older Oregon plates look like ( actually they are more orange than this in real life) but, I was trying on my card to get closer to the artistic plate. to see this in the site it hides here.
This is about it for me, Thanks for stopping by.

Himalayan Poppies

The way's to use it challenge was all about Water yesterday, and from the line up of technique choices to try I decided to do the Vintage Watercolor and I picked a blue and green pencils to go with that. I decided to go with this Himalayan Poppies image as the ones I seen of those on pinterest a long time ago were a really pretty shade of blue.

 These Poppies are from C.C. Designs and the Sentiment is from the Simon Says Stamp Cathy Z line (simple sentiments) the flowers were stamped with some Distress Vintage photo on cream watercolor paper and the "black/blue" spots were done with a Elegant writer pen. It is a really neat thing to watch the colors flow when the water hit them. and it really does not take a ton of water to get the reaction so, that is nice too. the sentiment was cut with a Lawn Fawn banner die and the wonky stitches rectangle is a SSS die.

A closer look at how the colors did flow, I did take the water brush to the stamped lines first and then added the writer pen, bled that out, added the pencil again a little more water. I didn't really dry this between stages there was not that much water on it. I don't know what kind of wc paper this was it was in one of those card kits I have those pieces tucked into that wooden tray on the table so, its just something I grabbed. Every time I try something like this it makes me wonder why I do not do it more often as it is fast and fun and I like the results.

A seashell thanks

Just another Thank You card. This one came about when all the other stamps in that set were heat embossed I colored one of everything. This one was colored with water based markers and has some pencil shading over the top of that. I did use up some of the scraps laying on the table from the other cards and ended up adding that vintage button at the last minute because, the top word ( what ever was up there did not heat emboss all the way. my finger rubbed it off when I was gluing the card together. The sentiment is from papertrey ink. The corrugate is from DCWV and the text print is from SU. this one is 6" square in real life.

WOYWW # 459 {nearly tidy}

Happy Desk Peeking day, if you'd like to play along and or see more spaces

 the link up starts here at our hostess Miss Julia's Blog.

I did spend some time cleaning on Sunday and did a featured stamper card and picked up the bulk of the mess that had been piled up these last few weeks. I haven't made anything since. our dog Grace had a golf ball sized lump under her eye and I took her into the vets monday for antibiotic's thinking sinus infection and the Vet was pretty sure it was an abscessed tooth root and so tuesday she had Xrays and two teeth pulled. ( she is pretty perky this morning) so, hopefully things will start to slide back into what is our regular new normal. that empty nest thing. I have not really played with any of the new stuff I flashed at you a while back and am hoping to start doing that soon.

While our son was home he picked up a new (used) truck here and its sitting by the barn waiting on the auto transport company to be making the trip across the country with it. ( this saved thousands of dollars over buying the same truck near where he is stationed) and that is about it for me. Thanks for stopping by. :)

Vitamin Sea Dreams

This weeks featured stamper is Carlene and I found this card that I just love in her gallery and so, my first thought was to start with a die that would do the honeycombs or something and I found this Tim Holtz Mixed media set and thought oh that is cool, you could do a garden theme around that, and then once it was cut I seen that purple sand dollar just sitting there daring me to use it so, in the beginning this card had the sand dollar closer to the bottom and the round shape mimicked the but, knowing I had this sentiment and forgetting how large it is, I had to wiggle things around which is OK I like how this turned out. I did not paper piece inside the holes of the diecut and just doodled some color into them. there is some wink of stella on the sand dollars body and I switched out the pearls for goosebumps, moved the band of texture down towards the bottom. The sand dollar Tim Holtz blueprint is heat embossed with white and so was that Club Scrap Lagoon Greetings sentiment.  This one is 5" square in real life.
and finds me wishing I was on vacation :) thanks for stopping by.

Inspired by {the Aquarium of the Pacific}

This week I have chosen the Aquarium of the Pacific for your Inspiration destination.

I had spent a bunch of time just oogling the photographs and was really taken with the purple (live) sand dollars. Which I did color one of those that way and it really looks like an artistic license thing to me. so that made me think you may as well just color what you want and some of the sea dragons (sea horses) are so fantastic looking also. I ended up choosing this image because, 

it is the biggest sea horse stamp I own. which means there was room to color it. :)

 

 It was heat embossed on some tan confetti very old cs. ( it was the last sheet of this) with some ranger Verdigris powder and then I added some watered down markers to that.
The panel was die cut with a Simon Says Stamp wonky stitched rectangle die.

 The darker green piece was a scrap that I had wiped a brush off on a while back , and I liked the color contrast so, I kept it. the sentiment ( Stampabilities) was die cut with a Mama Elephant slim tags trio die and is tied onto the tulle with some burlap string.

The shot that inspired this one, I think the thing I love about seeing these critters is watching them just hang onto the kelps and seaweeds. so, I tried to give this card some layers of textures and such.
If you'd like to play along the challenge can be found here. thanks for stopping by.

WOYWW #458 {a small mess}

Happy Desk Peeking day, if you'd like to see more spaces or 

play along this hop starts here at our hostess Miss Julia's blog.

 

Last Wednesday was our son's 22nd birthday and by the time I remembered it was Wednesday it was already Thursday and there was nothing to share. 

 So, last Sunday our son ( who is home on leave) went to his oldest friends house to spend the night and I snuck upstairs and made 3 simple cards the first was the first one in the post before this with the dear spring sentiment. behind that I did a couple of quick coffee winter/Christmas/friendship type cards from some Unity to-go coffee cups done in red ( the upright mug shot is below) The markers and stamps all on the table went into doing the spring card. ( and it still looks like this)

 A closer look at the center that thing in the middle I ordered on Valentines day from that Antique farmhouse site. it arrived on tuesday here. It is metal and fairly heavy for its size ( 14" tall) the spring is tight and I just might paint it. maybe adding some greens over the fake industrial grey/ grunge thing. I intend to use this to maybe hold up tags during shoots and or at the booth next November.

The unity stamps set these came from is called comfort to go. I did stamp the cover with Versafine satin red. I had picked up a tulip red (new versafine I forgot its other name coffee is still loading here) and it is nearly the same color of red ( the satin red and tulip red look the same to me anyways)
So, that's about it for me, we still have just a few days left of having him home and tomorrow I will be driving all day for work, so I am going to try to get a lot of stops in today. ( I hope) Thanks for stopping by! :) 

Hurry up Spring

 So, this weeks featured stamper is Denise and I came across this card of hers and it made me smile so changes to mine were less layers and no printed papers.
The sentiment on this is from an older Club Scrap set called Shades of Winter. (it's supposed to mostly rain and possibly snow for the rest of the week here) and this is the kind of weather my husband is totally ready for tee shirts, shorts and heat.

 I had a pile of images that were copic colored with a base layer that I added some pencil over the tops of them in January to give them some texture during the last 30 day marker challenge and never really made them into anything and one day (its been a while I did make some simple cards and just let the photos sit in the to be shared folder for a while and I thought since I am stealing the time to make this post I may as well give you a bigger bang for your buck for stopping by haha)
(no, really I tend to organize everything... even that folder so, when there are too many photos in it, I get twitchy)

 

This is from an older SU set mind just went blank as to what it's name is. the background under it is also an older su one that was heat embossed and colored as a resist. 

 This silly dog is from Penny Black called Bee Have and the sentiment is from the Club Scrap set called Adirondack Greetings from May of 2017.

 The embossed waves are a SU folder.

 Another Penny Black image. ( I have to hunt for its name I forget those things) and the sentiment is from the Simon Says Stamp / CZ simple sentiments set.  I would have linked you to that but, this computer is not allowing me to copy a url inside sss anymore? ( that is strange) the whole site is "secure" even if you are not "signed in"

 There is a little bit of white gel pen besides the pencils on this one.

The cake is from SU and the sentiment is from Simon Says Stamp called  best ever and this one is A2 in real life.

Inspired by { Global Handmade}

This week Angie has sent us shopping for inspiration inside the Global Handmade Hope site and 

There is a ton to be inspired by inside of there.  I finally had to stop mentally shopping and I ended up flipping through a pile of images I had previously colored and set aside to narrow down the decision. and I came up with this Easter card from the cheerful felt flowers seen below.

 The main image is an older one from Outlines called Bunny Tail. The sentiment is from Hampton arts ( it was as Micheal's dollar bin sentiment a while back) They were both stamped with Versafine onyx black. the Colorful strip is a drop piece from a previous no fail watercolor background that I tried last year during the spring VSN. and I tend to save the drops if they are big enough to use later. The sentiment was also stamped on a scrap. the purple texture came in a grab bag, the aqua shimmer (this is a fairly flat textured paper) was found at Micheal's and the base is Bazzill.

 A closer look at the coloring the base is Copic Markers with a little bit of pencil and a white gel pen over the top.

Felt flowers from Global Handmade  
These are actually hair barrettes.

Some random tags

 The butterflies on this are stickers that were stuck to some of my birthday gifts from June last fall. I did make some of these to give to her and the photos have just been sitting in the folder waiting for me to get around to it. The tag base is a Papertrey Ink one called tag sale quilted die. I probably cut the book page printed paper with a MFT stitched square die.

 This (huge) ornament die is from Concord & 9th.

 Some of these ornaments went to June, a couple went on the tree I did for James.

 mostly I stuck to glimmer and glitter papers when playing with this for the first time.

 You can see the stitching detail on this one pretty well.

 This particular glitter paper is thicker than glimmer paper so some of the stitching detail is really lost but, you still get the sweater vibe from the way the holes cut.

 This snowman is a Sizzix die ( the tag and snowman are from the same set with some stamps also) I did paper piece the scarf, hat and arms onto this snowman. its not a one shot flat die. there are assorted pieces. that gave it some depth. Its name is Sizzix framelits snoman with stamps.

 This stocking shaped folding card is really about A2 in real life or would fit that envelope thinking about doing these as gift card holders.  The stocking is from Sizzix.

 These are all 3" square in real life the stamp set is from lil' inker designs clean lines for the guys set I used the red heart fuel gauge for hubs valentine this year.

 These were done messing around with alphabet dies trying for lined up embedded names. which is easier with Tim than with James because of all the inside pieces. plus I tend to have one letter wiggle somewhere in the process even if I tape the dies down to cut them so, for Tim it is embedded and for James it is not.

 Some sweet n' sassy background Poppies that were paper pieced years ago from some old Basic grey printed papers and have some marker scribbled over them for shading,

The sentiment on this one is from the Power Poppy botanical tree set, it was heat embossed with some SU pool party powder.
My son is home on leave right now so, I totally spaced it was wednesday on Wednesday ( it was his birthday) but, my desk really has not changed since last weekend. Thanks for stopping by.