Inspired by { Serengeti }

This week Anne has sent us to the Serengeti site online and I happened across these fun sheep socks.
(nope, I probably would not wear them but, I liked the colors and I knew I had this cute sheep die waiting to be played with so...)

 This is a fairly large sheep (YAY) but, some of the piece that are part of the paper piecing die, they are slivers that wanted to hide under my finger nails so, I had fun trying to line them up. I also left the inside blank as, I do not know how I want to use this as of yet. there are things for say apologies, or belated birthdays and other things that will coordinate with the outside sentiment in the sets.

 I had taken a brown tombo marker to the tan cardstock I used for the legs, face and tops of the ears because, the leg die cuts did not line up for me since I started with the wool. and it was a guess as far as where it should go. the face was easy because there is a donut hole cut out in the wool body to park the face in later to embed the die cuts into. This was cut entirely with scraps so, no mfg on the papers.

 I was hoping a flat view would show you that the flecks in the wool really are shiny gold specks. it is a little visible in the top right back area.

There is a closer look at these socks here in the store. Thanks for stopping by, you can find the challenge here to play along with us.

WOYWW #473 {paperpiecing & loot}

Happy desk peeking day, if you'd like to see more spaces or play along 

the link up for this blog hop starts here at our hostess

Miss Julia's Blog.

 So, I found something in an upcoming site for the IC that uses sheep... and I knew I had this set of dies from Honeybee stamps from Mothers day (see photo below, evidently I never got around to posting it when it came and its just been sitting in the to be uploaded file since then) Anyways, past this photo ( there is a clear stamp block holding some of the wet teeny tiny piece onto that sheep body) I did continue adding more pieces into it like a pink nose and then used a marker to colors those tan pieces you see there. this is not as easy to line up as you would expect it to be the thing I struggled with the most was because, I had placed the wool down first the legs do not line up for me with the wool so, I did color the legs later and that space between the legs and the wool to "fool the eye"

 

 Off to the left is a second fish card under construction. I had everything still on the table when

 I got home Monday from work. ( I had taken Sunday's card to work to show June 

and she wanted to buy it, so she did)and this was as far as I got with that

 when the heat kicked in. My new thing I have been doing this week is,

 getting a little over 5K steps in before I leave for work at 9am because, 

walking in the heat in the afternoons is not fun for me. 

(and that is also the time I used to come upstairs and play but, 

even with fans and an window AC the temp. is not friendly upstairs here now.

This was a shot of things I had ordered from one of the Mothers day sales that happened back in May.
so, the sheep is really two sets of dies, with a second set of words that have some dies. So this is the first time any of this has been played with the rest is in that basket still. and that is mostly working when what I need is a sentiment. but, a lot of what I make in the summer is just the bare minium samples for challenges so, it will probably be closer to fall before some of those things get touched. the good news is I did unsubscribe to at least half of the junk mail emails of buy me buy me I get and that has cut down a lot of sit here time. ha ha. one more piece of good news the honeysuckle bush is almost done blooming. Acchooo.
Thats about it for me, thanks for stopping by.

Inspired by {hayneedle}

This week Brenda has directed us to the Hayneedle store and I have not seen this site before and I happened across this Turtle pillow and just loved the colors. 

 I seen so many things I wanted and kept going back to the pillow because, A I have never thought to color one blue before and B my aunt's birthday is next week and she loves turtles. ( she has land dessert ones though) so, I have always colored turtles in shades of browns or greens)

 

 This one the sea turtles and the seaweed below them that is straight lines is a single stamp from Great Impressions done in Versafine Olympia green on some Neenah solar white, this was faux watercolored with markers and a clear wink of stella pen. the tall skinny seaweed on the sides and the leafy looking one in the foreground are both from All Night Media. The sentiment is from the Clearly Besotted Message me set (because, it's still on the table and the scale worked) 

The frame is a piece of handmade paper that I had run through a gelli press a couple of times with different Tim Holtz embossing folders and acrylic paint. one of the paint colors was iridescent so, this piece shimmers. I did use a Spellbinders 6" mat die to cut the window hole to countersink the stamped panel and the base is some coastal cabana cardstock. This one finished out at 5 1/2" square. 

And I am hoping she will like it, it's not as fancy as some of the cards I have made for her in the past but, I have been trying to make flatter cards this year so that I can just mail them from home instead of standing in line at the post office with lumpy ones haha.

 another cellphone shot (mine washes out the colors a little) but, this angle may have caught some of the shimmers from the Golden Open acrylic paints.  The patterns were done with a  couple of older Tim Holtz sizzix folders that I have not put into evernote yet and I do not see their mugshots on the first pass of google images. ( so, guessing they are retired) 

A cellphone shot of the drop piece from the mat that caught some of the shimmers. the blank spot in

the middle came from there was either a leaf or a petal (handmade paper) there and it must have fallen off in the big shot.

A closer look at the pillow which can be seen in the store here. thanks for stopping by.

WOYWW # 472 {colored images}

Happy desk peeking day, if you'd like to see more spaces or play along 

the link up for this blog hop starts here at our hostess

Miss Julia's Blog.

 Not too much to see, I did come upstairs after dinner last night and spread out some things I had colored at work on tuesday trying to see if stacking two sets of those stamped book images will work, I think if it goes just so and the top book is mostly covered I can do it. might try for three images. And was thinking about making a card or two, ended up gluing two of them to 3X3 cards that had already been scored and folded from scraps and my eyes started slamming shut and that was the end of that. (We have a honeysuckle bush blooming on the patio right now and its pollen is 10X's worse to me than all the lilac bushes combined) so, my sinuses are still a mess. 

more than likely I will go pick up these things after I am done typing this because, I really need to get some samples done and tomorrow I will be driving all day for work. Thanks for stopping by.

Monday's Challenge cards

 on Monday it was Kia's birthday and the challenge she hosted for the clean and simple one was to do a Celebrate card, and being totally blank when I read that I opened evernote and found this Mint Owl sentiment pop up and then I started looking at small stamps thinking the scale would be easier to do CAS with and then I found this Margarita from A Muse (when they sold them as single wood mounted stamps) and since neither of these had been inked before I decided that was just like finding an "easy" button... this is A2 in real life, the stem was colored with clear wink of stella and I did dab some white gel pen along the rim of the glass trying to break up the ink stamped line and make it look like it had rock salt on it.

 for the try a new technique Lyn had a challenge to cover a piece of paper with washi tape and then run it through an embossing folder. so, I do have some tape because, for me when I stick it to something I want it to stay stuck to it un peels.. and I just starting layering the different tapes across a 4" piece of some dcwv paper and then ran that through a sizzix folder called stitched plaid. the printed paper below that is from MME.

After I had the stitched tape piece made I started looking at an envelope of flowers I had colored recently and thought these colors on this watering can (Karen Lockhart stamp) were "close enough" and added in the sentiment ( clearly besotted message me) to one of those previously die cut scrap tags out of the measuring cup , so all in all this was a very fast card for me. but, the margarita one was really truly a ten minute card. ( and all those years I looked at those "take ten" and my eyebrows would hit my hair line because, no matter how hard I tried I could not make cards in ten minutes, 20-30-45 yes... 10 no.
so, it was just one of those funny things that made me smile. thanks for stopping by.

Fathers Day

 This one is for my Husband this year, the idea came about because, I had seen that Anna had a "fish" theme for the Mixed Media challenge this week  and I knew I had some of these water wave backgrounds I did a long time ago and I had pulled one out of the file cabinet thinking it would work maybe with that Hero Arts kit that was coming in the mail and when it arrived the scale was wrong so, this was just sitting on the table. then I came across this fun card in this weeks featured stampers gallery and it all just kind of fell together pretty easily from there.
The changes from Jeri's card is that I did create that background with reinkers and shaving cream and a waves stencil (you can find a tutorial for this here) so, that is the mixed media part ( ink and shaving cream) and I made the fish and sentiment one panel and added in the flashy trim. because, what I can tell you is although you don't see my husband wearing bling, I think as a lure collector he is a little attracted to some flash haha.
so that flashy trim is vintage, the silver parts are elastic of some kind.

A closer look at the trout. this is a vintage PSX stamp that was done with versafine olympia green on Neenah solar white, I colored it with some zig clean brush markers, there is some white gel pen on the eye, a little bit of polychromos pencils and clear wink of stella, so it is also layers of coloring mediums. The sentiment is from the clearly besotted message me set and the finished size of this card is 4 1/2" x 6" in real life. I did give the fish panel a color wash of some tumbled glass distress ink and then rubbed on some broken china oxide on the edges of both the die cut panels. ( there were white spots) Hope you are all having a good weekend too, thanks for stopping by.

Beach Wave

The June My Monthly Hero Kit hit my desk on Thursday and I had no time to play but, when I came home on Friday I seen that Shirley had a vacation theme for the free for all challenge and thought OK :)

and I did this card below.

 

 I wanted it to look like a panorama so after I had die cut the sentiment panel I did a second panel with the waves over lapping in the center knowing I was going to cover them up. the sailboat and clouds were stamped on white cardstock and paper pieced into the design. this finished out at A2 in real life.

 and then Saturday when I went upstairs this is the aftermath of that very simple card lol...
and since I had a disaster already going on I decided to try another one, which morphed into 3...

 The brown cardstock is "speckletone Sand 80# coversheet" which I will need to find more of, as I now have one sheet left. the ship, chair, ball, & dolphin were paper pieced into these cards. the dolphin is my favorite and it has the water was the first scrap piece ( see table above) I cut it out and layered it into that scene. and that gave it a little more depth in the waterline/sand layer.
the sane embossing powder in this kit is very real looking and very fine grain so that is fun.

 I did warp the coversheet doing a wash for the sky on these and need to get them under a book. the white is from a white gel pen.

 This one the chair is heat embossed with white powder on pale green cardstock and the ball was stamped with that new red claire versafine and then that was covered with some diamond glaze.
The clouds were also heat embossed with white, and the powder stuck to every part of the clouds because the hero arts ink I used for the first layer was pretty juicy I guess.

This one I had that sentiment heat embossed with the sand powder but, it was very hard to read. ( its a little on the skinny side that font, so I ended up stamping it again on a scrap with some Avery Elle kraft pigment ink, which was nearly the same color but, made it easier to read I think. This one I heat embossed the white parts of the clouds first, then did the color solids over the top and just wiped the ink off the white after.
Now I am totally ready to go to the ocean again,
Thanks for stopping by.

Inspired by {Vera Bradley}

This weeks Inspiration Challenge heads to the Vera Bradley online Store.

I had fully expected to be drawn into what ever is the newest paisley prints 

and was surprised to see all the different things they have now.

 

 This umbrella is a retired one from Two Paper Diva's set that was called rain or shine.  (the owners of that store retired a while back and it is no longer available) I had heat embossed this with white powder on some basic grey printed paper and then used grey markers to add some shading to the frame of it. The piece was diecut with a Hero Arts rounded rectangles die. The sentiment is from the Simon Says Stamp CZ love you mama set. and was cut with a Lawn Fawn banner die. The mat print is from My Minds Eye and the base is Grout Gray cardstock. This I used a corner rounder on the corners. This one finished out at 4 1/2" x 6" in real life.

 I had seen this bubble umbrella (below) that reminded me of the one I had as a kid in the 70's and I thought, I do not have any flower stamps with a scale that small enough to fit into one of my large umbrella stamps. So, I grabbed some pitt pens and just made tiny dots in clusters for the flowers and leaves.

A couple more Dad cards

 I have what amounts to be nearly a metric ton of printed papers and both of these cards were done fairly quickly from scraps in the blue hanging folder... the one above the sentiment is from a Unity Stamps set called Forest guy (because I got the set out thinking to color him for some cards but, the no face thing bugged me into only stamping him so far) That yellow trim came from some Basic grey Baby kit a long time ago.

And this one the sentiment is from the hero arts set called Happy Dad's Day. the plaid paper was unmarked and the blue denim said it was from Paper Pizzaz and it was way thin. so, it was a fun thing to use up these scraps. even thought it did not really make a dent in the stash.

WOYWW #471 {mostly guy cards}

Happy desk peeking day, if you'd like to see more spaces or play along 

the link up for this blog hop starts here at our hostess

Miss Julia's Blog.

 

This is the aftermath of 2 more car birthday cards (nearly the same as the one below but, in shades of blues) 6 assorted Fathers day cards and one Featured Stamper card over the weekend, and evidently I have not processed the photos for all the dad cards yet. but, they did go out in the mail haha. & 1 CAS thank-you card monday ( seen below) so, I have not cleaned or had time to do anything else since then.
We had a hard freeze also over the weekend so there was a lot of stop and haul pots and baskets inside and cover gardens time, uncover them and do it all again the next day.
So tuesday after work found me finally planting the last of the flowers I had hauled home last week.

 This car (& sentiment) are from the Unity Stamps all cylinders set.

 And I am not real sure if that tiny lower left part of the car is colored or is chrome so, I went with colored ( and around the wheel well too) so, life goes on. It did not want to photograph but, all the chrome, window, lights and hubcaps have clear wink of stella on them.

 The printed paper is from Magenta and both of these are 5" x 7" in real life, and this one is the one I am going to actually send to my gpa not the red car I did for the challenge on Saturday.

 The lure is from Judikins, This sentiment is from SU in the going global set. I did a search inside evernote to see what I had "fathers" themed and came up with some things that had not seen ink.
(so, the other thing I noticed is the last few years nearly all my fathers day cards are brown or green) and so, I tried to do some in more cheerful colors too. 

 This sentiment is from Taylored Expressions ( what is on the inside)

 This was done messing around with that going global set, the globe was stamped with Stayzon on to a piece of alcohol ink covered Yupo background and cut with a circle die, that texture is from a Paris Map? cuttlebug folder. this one is A2 (USA) size.

 so, the hard part was finding a circle that was not a huge halo after the image and I nearly always get circles crooked. and I decided to use it anyways.

 This one the top sentiment on the yellow is from that same Taylored Expressions set and the fathers day is from Hero Arts. the tiny truck is a brad.

 The sneakers on this are from SU. the sentiment is from Hero Arts.

 The glasses were diecut twice, once in white and once on the blue scrap and I glued and taped it all together on the back side and then covered the whole thing with diamond glaze.
This is the one hubs picked for his dad.

 This week's featured stamper is  Cindy, and I loved this CAS card she did here so, to make changes I used a embossed heat resist background in similar colors, and then my white thank-you die cut got lost in the background so, I cut a couple more, stacked that 3 times and then added in a banner of cherry to pop it a little. I also switched out the gems for the heart brad.

This week the CAS challenge is to add a banner to it... so, the whole card is Neenah earthstone cs, the birch texture piece is a Tim Holtz sizzix folder and I added some old paper and pumice stone to give it some shadows, my banner was cut with a MFT pierced fish tail die and it was a little long to do this on an (US) A2 cardfront so, I cut it a second time with the same SSS stitched rect. die at the top to shorten it a little. the house is from an really old SU set called Garden Pleasures. it was colored with some polychromos pencils.
so, Today I really should come home, clean this up and get some samples going for my Inspiration challenge coming up this next weekend and possibly even some VSN and DTGD samples. ( I have to make a list) I have not hosted a VSN for a long time so, the fact that this one comes around a couple of weeks ahead of DTGD will be tight and I may as well start making samples sooner rather than later is the thought of the day. :) Thanks for stopping by.

Inspired by {Lang}

This week's Inspiration can be found inside the Lang by Calendars site chosen by Angie. 

 And my Gpa has a birthday in a few weeks and the humor of this sentiment tickled me so, I used the color choice of this calendar (seen below) to color this vintage convertible from Unity Stamps called All Cylinders, with some prisma pencils, clear wink of stella & stardust gellyroll pen. This is actually one of the larger car stamps I have come across over the years, this card finished out at 5" X 7" in real life, the printed paper is from MME and the base is SU real red.

You can see this calendar on the site here.
I am really liking how easy it was to do this as a clean quick card so, I may color a few more in assorted colors and use them for Fathers day cards. ( not sure yet) Thanks for stopping by.

WOYWW #470 {Christmas baubles}

Happy desk peeking day, if you'd like to see more spaces or play along 

the link up for this blog hop starts here at our hostess

Miss Julia's Blog.

 

 

 So last Sunday I made the card off to the left for a Featured Stamper challenge and I really liked how it turned out so, monday after work I had all the stuff still out and thought do another one... and I did with some changes and one thing that happened was I did not ink the deer die cut enough in the center of the deer and on the first mug shot of the card I seen the white spot, so I tried to smoosh some more vintage photo ink and managed to get it all over the green bulb, so, out came an eraser, a brown marker and a white gel pen. I had thought about adding some snow text to it too but, have not gotten that far. I am not real sure I like the second one as well as the first I think the plaid paper is too busy for me.

This version is also not on pop dots like the first but, the darker green bauble is colored cork paper.

It's still sitting on the table waiting for a decision about the snow texture. I may just wrap this up after work and move on. (toss it in the school sale suitcase)

I did see a work around the no comments from Blogger thing ( they are working on it and supposedly will be done with it someday) but, the work around is to leave a comment on your own blog posts and then there should be a box that says choose and identity and then it should say send follow up comments to your email address and then you should get emails. ( I have not tried this) because, in my mind everyone would have to "reply" to your comment not the blog post it self right?
( has anyone tried it?)
Thanks for stopping by.

Cork Ornament

This weeks featured stamper is Janja and she has a beautiful gallery. I ended up stopping everything I was doing browsing in her gallery when I came across these Cork Ornaments. I think this is just awesome. and before I found that I had seen this deer scene card and I loved the texture/white to the deer. so. this kind of morphed from both of those. there is also a list of "themes" for the Christmas card challenge this year and the March one was to do an Ornament with Animals on it.. so, this becomes #3 for June for me.

 The darker green ornament under the PTI scrap ornament the deer are on directly is cork paper that came that color in a pad from Die Cuts With a View. I used a lawn fawn stitched ornaments die for the ornaments and bulb topper piece.
from this angle you can see the panel of ornaments is up on some 1/16th foam pop dots over the MME print. the sentiment is actually on some 1/8" foam dots and just a smidge higher than the ornaments panel. I did cut both one small from the Mini and one from the regular sized Holiday greens sets and tucked the smaller one over the top of the large. The brown branch is a Memory Box one called woodland branch.

The deer are a Memory Box die called deer family circle, I did cut this to just use the deer and some ground. and inked over it a little with some oxide vintage photo ink. the white spots are from a gel pen. the Merry Christmas is from the Tim Holtz set called the great outdoors and ( I forgot what die that tag is off hand) the string is some hemp string. and this one finished out at 5" X 7" in real life. thanks for stopping by.

Inspired by {Caron's Beach house}

This week Julie has directed us to the Caron's Beach House store

 where I found this rug

 and thought, ooh you can use a Penguin ... 

finally... lol 

 I am sure I am probably the only person who looked at this rug and had that thought but, part of what I see when I look at any piece of inspiration is a second and third thought of new-ish stamps I have (that I have not used) or things I want to color in the back of my mind and I go into the site looking for things that will work for those stamps I have. Oh, and I bought this sentiment set to get that exact stamp. (yes, this is a totally Me thing) my metabolism died sometime after 41 ish...) and I do eat healthy (mostly) and I do (minimal exercise) (not like I used to) and so, the whole not a pound has moved in years and years makes me grumpy. lol

This rug can be seen here in the store. thanks for stopping by.