A Woodsy Birthday

This week's featured stamper is Jenny and she has this gorgeous card and I decided that I could use that as a jump start for a Christmas card and then I came across these bitty (tall) pines tree dies from Penny Black in the drawer before I got to the Christmas tree dies and thought this will work too. The greenery on the tops of them was one of the first Oxide backgrounds I ever tried doing when the first batch of colors came out. (so, I am guessing it's citron and spruce) the plywood looking grainy print is from SU (and has a shinny sleek feel to the print) and the Happy Birthday is from the Hero Arts Many everyday messages set and the banners were cut with Lawn Fawn dies. so, the other change was to switch out the tag & string for the stacked banners. That's about it from me, I am mostly working on some Dirty samples and hanging in there with fan's going full bore up here. Thanks for stopping by.

Inspired by {Plow & Hearth}

This week Brenda has sent us looking for inspiration inside the Plow & Hearth store 

Where you will not have to look for very long to find something to thrill you.

I happened across these burlap wrapped pots of Lavender (and I had these fairly new to me dies) which I knew so,  I cut one of both the Memory Box Lavender Bunch & Long Stemmed Lavender. 

 I did cut the whole lavender in shades of pale green and then just the blooms in a couple shades of scraps of pale purples and then added some ink to the blooms for shading. The sentiment was stamped on a spellbinders justrite tag die from the Stampin' Up set called Itty Bitty greetings. The chevron paper and speckled cream mats under that were cut with a Spellbinders hemstitched rect. die. The base on this card is some shimmery opal stardream. and this one is A7 in real life.

 I used the smallest pot in the Spellbinders nested pots set, I did cut this twice, the bottom layer is whole and I glued the stems to it and then I cut the top layer in half, and inked some brown ink along the bottom edges of the rim of the pot and popped that part up on a foam pop dot. ( which I should probably not have done it while it was still damp because, the touching it let the foam dot really show as the paper settled around it haha.) (this has since been fixed with more dots on the outer edges.)
Instead of wrapping the whole pots in burlap, I found some really wide ( its over an inch I think without measuring) twill and wrapped that around the base of the pot.

There is a direct link to these flower pots in the store here and you can find this challenge here at SCS to play along with us. Thanks for stopping by.

Last Weekends Cards

 So last weekend was the last minute to add more to the VSN gallery and I had gotten that rubbernecker order in at the end of the week and I knew I had this gal from Stamping Bella already colored with some pencils & copic markers (skin) so...
in case it's hard to read that sentiment says

"perkatory" (pur-kah-tawr e) A. The anguished, prolonged period spent waiting for a fresh pot of coffee to be ready.

which totally made me smile and so, the dies used on this are from the My Favorite things stitched mod squares set.
(the largest die was used to cut a window hole into the card front and the gal was mounted from the back side. So, I did line both sides of the inside of this card.)

Now these were done after I found this pretty card in Jill's gallery as she was chosen to be this weeks featured stamper. and since you need changes my first one was changing the theme/ printed papers so that made it easy to ad lib from, instead of having snow in two corners I piled everything into one corner on these. they are 5 1/2" square in real life. and I am really enjoying that MFT die haha. The snowflake charms on these came from Stampin' Up. and all the snowflake die cuts are various Sizzix dies.
everything else I have under construction is waiting for August so.. hopefully a few more things will get done this weekend. Thanks for stopping by.

WOYWW #477 {a time lapse}

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.

There is also a new Instagram hastag of #WOYWW 

 

this is going to be long. (and chatty) 

 well, its a good thing I do not play in those stamp to spend challenges eh? because, I totally would be in the hole all the time lol the tool box set is a Amazon prime day thing, the ferns and pinata and mermaid washi tape were recent Micheal's finds and the inks and powders and new Mermaid came from Ellen Hutson and I had a Rubbernecker order all arrive on last friday. ( I drove all day for work on last thursday and went into the bigger M's store in Medford for that pile)

 and then Monday after work came along and I thought well this is more like it, I tend to have a pretty cleaned off table by Wednesday so, I shot this thinking I would not be upstairs again much ( its miserable hot) even though I have a window AC up here its really more like attic space in the garage rather than a real room with an attic above it so, that huge asphalt roof is baking this room and the AC can get it down to the lower 90's upper 80's IF it is on all day and since I try turning it on in the afternoon early evening during the heat when I get home it hardly makes a dent in it.

 But monday came around and so did that new glass mat. I bought this because, I have been stamping on this "temporary" plastic folding table since we moved in here ( almost 14 years ago now) the stair case is U shaped so, this table was able to make it around the corners and when I find table spaces I like or kitchen island things I like ( you know with drawers lol) they will not make it up the stairs... so, the center of this table has a slight hump in the middle of it, its not perfectly flat and the centers long wise are a little saggy so, its a challenge to stamp on it. yes, I have Misti's and that helps but, if you do not have them just so they rock so my thought was the glass mat would span the hump and make a larger fairly flat surface. ( it does rock on the left side but, since Monday I have attempted to make a couple more backgrounds and stamped a few things ( dead center) and its better :) I was worried that it would annoy me and it would turn out to be a waste of money but, so far so good.

So Sunday what started those backgrounds to the left was I had cut this printed paper ( Memory Box) on those seafoam card bases and thought you know I wonder if you could make more of that. and in the first few pieces I got it pretty close and then that don't know when to stop kicked in and I added a little more and a little more until it changed the whole thing. I like what i made and I will used them but, they no longer have the white space the printed papers have and then I decided I better just figure out something to do with the printed paper and card bases since I had chopped them up and cut some postage edge card to do a focal point on them. Ooh yeah, and the best part about this mat is the being able to have that white space to pat the ink pads on. ( brilliant) however wiping it with a baby wipe to remove ink leaves the glass streaky. ( that cdo think kicks in)(its like ocd but, the letters are in order ;) )  so, I probably will be cleaning this mat for real more than the self healing one under it, that one I was good to go with wiping it with the baby wipes because of the mat finish to it lol. and I think I can for see a lot of glare from the desk shots with the cell phone over this mat so, I guess I will just have to stay busy and have lots of stuff out when I shoot haha. thanks for stopping by.

A sketch card

 Sometime last week, I had some happy mail from Hero Arts and so this is the July Kit and this extra floral/sentiment set that hopped in the cart and a pack of the woodgrain cardstock. ( I guess I should read sizes on cardstock packs now because, I was a little surprised by this size of these) it's not bad, it was just a surprise.

Last week the sketch challenge at SCS looked like this ( see below) and I tried I really did, I had this offset to the left and I cut a hole into the #2 layer and put the #3 behind that, so, once it was all together it actually ended up looking more centered but, there is a smidge more on the right where the lace is tied around the frame for this to kinda sorta be like the sketch, lol. the frame die was cut with a spellbinders hemstitch die and the sentiment and blooms were from that set above called You're Beautiful. The tiny trio of butterflies is a wood mounted stamp from Denami Designs. ( it's really old there is not an image/stamp name on the block) This was done with waterbased markers on Neenah solar white.The sentiment was cut with a My Favorite Things angled sentiment strip die.

Inspired by {US Mint Sheets}

This week I have chosen the US Mint Sheets site where you can purchase vintage postage stamps.

Plus see lots of fabulous (teeny tiny works of art) 

somewhere in the "tween" years my dad's mom gifted me with a US Mint collectors book ( with a few plate blocks in it) and some loose postage and a guide (wishbook) for stamps. it was the first thing I ever collected that was a true "collectible" and even to this day I still purchase extra sheets of stamps that interest me for special envelopes. 

 When I was poking around in this site I came across this Military Uniforms postage and I just loved this, the colors the mix of prints, and from that I came up with this. The printed postage sheet is from the Bo Bunny Anthem Collection pad. the Patriotic mailbox image is from Impression Obsession and the sentiment is from Our Daily Bread Designs Home of the Free set. That crinkled seam binding is from SU and it's a little wider than the ones I have from Hug Snug so, that was a fun thing for me. The image was die cut with an Avery Elle postage stamp die, and it cuts the center out for you so, I ended up taping this back together on the back side after.

 The image was colored with a combination of Polychromos and Prisma pencils on some Neenah 110# solar white. The sentiment was stamped on some classic cream with satin red and cut out with scissors.

A closer look at these stamps can be found here in their store. Thanks for stopping by.

WOYWW # 476 {shopping}

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.

There is also a new Instagram hastag of #WOYWW 

 

 So, a couple of thursdays ago when I had to go to the "big city" for work, I did make a pit stop in a craft store there and raided their sale bin... I have the crazy dogs but, I did not have the dies or the cats so, this was a fun find. the Tim holtz sitched dies I had picked up on Amazon and they arrived in the mail that same day.

 and maybe a day after that or the week after that ( I keep forgetting its wednesday until after the fact) a SU order arrived. and funny true story the seafoam color is nearly a perfect match for Johnson's Brothers Greendawn china. lol
I did pick up this sentiment set too, and its about the same size scale wise as teeny tiny wishes. ( the one I tried so far fits on my tiny tag dies anyways)

and then when I was making samples for VSN I found I was down to my last few sheets of Neenah ( which is crazy I use it nearly every time I play) so, I had placed an order and it used to be samples were free and you could pay the freight if you were ordering other things, and now their site looks a lot different and I could not find these papers in regular cut and wrapped packages so, I ended up with "samples" and (they are pretty big) and the corner is bent on every sheet so, I started out by cutting up one sheet from each bundle into 6X12, 7X10, 5X10 and there are other skinny drop pieces for die cutting smaller. I am probably going to put the other sheets back in the box and into the closet for in case I want to do some portrait style 5X7 card some time. ( not sure yet) each bundle has 5 of these sheets in them for 1.44 but, the freight is spendy.  

so, in between the su paper and the neenah paper I have actually gotten one sample done for dtgd. and now the plan is to pick all this up and start really working on that now that VSN is done. 

I am hoping to tweak some of mine into more Christmas, Winter & Birthday cards because, those are what I need the most. Thanks for stopping by.

VSN Last card

 

The very last card I needed on Sunday to say I had done all of the VSN challenges this go around was to use this tutorial for Nicole's slider card challenge. And since it was Sunday, I had seen this card in Selma's gallery that I loved so, I combined the two. changes to Selma's card was the embossing folder and stamp, ( colors and its a fancy fold) I did look at my bird dies and stamps and finally decided to just emboss this bird call piece a second time with a scrap of soft sky ( inked over that with some broken china oxide ink) and cut it out with scissors and paper pieced it back into the design. 

 What it looks like open, the embossed panel I did use some old paper marker in the place where I thought their should be shadows, that printed paper is some old Basic Grey print, the sentiment is from the Unity Stamps abundant blessings set. ( I did follow the directions and I found that having the sentiment at the bottom of the top pull out did not work for me, so I kept pulling it off and sliding it farther and farther up. ) it keeps wanting to catch on the plastic baggie on the inside.
I think if I ever do this fold again I will try a piece of flat ribbon for the sliding loop on the inside instead of a plastic bag.

and when that card was done this is what my table looked like after playing all day Saturday and the last card on Sunday Afternoon. thanks for stopping by. If you'd like to check out all the VSN challenges there are here at Splitcoaststampers and the eligibility for a chance to win a gift starts with doing one challenge before the deadline of 10PM EST Sunday July 22nd.

VSN Staycation {night 2}

 This kids challenge this time is being hosted by Kim and she has a link in the challenge thread to a quick 3 minute video of blowing soap bubbles with paint to make these backgrounds. ( totally cool) I did make a few and was able to have them dry completely between layers of paint bubbles rotating between the three sheets. I used some Strathmore Mixed Media #140 weight paper and it had minimal warping after. the Poinsettia on this ( Penny Black ) was heat embossed with SU pewter and colored with pencils at work last February during one of those 30 day coloring challenges I think. the sentiment ( I am looking for this, it has this "clearly besotted" feel to me but, I am not seeing it in evernote and it has a hard time searching through script sentiments so..)

 a closer look at the bloom.

 a look at the backgrounds I had done, I did mix these paint colors and I did use green dawn dish soap but, I do not think the soap left much pigment into the mix.

 Lisa has a challenge seen here  to do a holiday themed card, so this PSX bear was stamped with versafine and colored with pencils and has a little bit of glitter gel pen on the wings and halo a while back and the sentiment is from Tim Holtz great outdoors set. this one is A7 in real life .

 and this printed paper is from the MME sugarplum pad, the centers of all those flowers are a little bling-y. I don't know if you can see the glitter on the image this way or not. ( my eyes are tired as I type this)

 So, being a person with piles on your stamp table tends to be a help when there is something like VSN going on as there are things that had been worked on and set aside in those piles, such as this gold fish jar. I made one of these one day for a featured stamper card, and took the card to work monday AM to show June and she bought it, so that monday night I had the stuff still sitting out and made another one.. for Jean's challenge is a scavengery hunt and the three things that make mine work for this is, there is something Orange, the printed paper to me looked like the tile you would see as the trim in a Hotel Pool and the sentiment is one you would see on a Postcard...
Okay its a stretch

 Misti has a second challenge to do a Pool Party theme and I knew I had this gal, but I was thinking I had just a bikini stamp and I never did come across it so, I found this printed paper ( kaiserkraft) and thought that looks like pool colors and then found this gal ( Art Impressions Blanche) and thought ok if you do just the paper and the gal you have time to color her. Polly has a Mixed Media challenge this week to layer your coloring mediums also and I had seen that yesterday and I do that pretty much on everything but, I wanted to do this as something I did now. which kind of was a good thing and a stressful thing because, for me coloring is a relaxing thing not a hurry you only have an hour thing and I have not touched my copic markers in a long time but, I knew I could get a base layer down quick with them. ( and I jerked my  hand out of the lines over and over haha) that is what I get for hurrying. This sentiment is from the lil inker designs keep it sassy set. and  the ric rac is vintage.

 Tracie has a challenge to show us your bike. and so, these are from two new to me Hero Arts sets from the basket of happy mail ( un-inked etc) basket and so, I started with the bike stamped with some versafine red and then masked around that for the rest of the scene. 

 Chris has a coffee themed challenge. and I had colored this Impression Obsession latte last fall sometime in anticipation of using it during last winters coffee blog hop... and never did it. the sentiment is from Lil Inker designs.

 This is a flat cell phone shot hoping to catch some of the sparkle on the steam and such.

 Angie has a challenge to make a Lemony Yellow card. I thought those Tim Holtz stitched square dies ( that came out of the happy mail basket on the floor) looked a little bit quilted with the double stitches along the edges so, I roughed them up and pulled them up with my fingernail. the Sentiment is from PTI. and this one is 6" square in real life.

 Sonja has a challenge to do this "passport" fancy fold that gives you a pocket on the inside (seen below) to hold a gift card and still having a spot for a note. and I ( yes, I know you are smirking) I only took this apart twice building it. the pieces I ran through the cuttlebug for the binding and seam binding cover they split when I folded them, so I guess the cardstock was dry (and old). *shrugs*
I actually like how this turned out and I will probably do it again. the dinosaur is from My Favorite things and I have been searching for this sentiment since I made this. ( the sentiment was in a file of pre stamped and die cut sentiments) and I want to say its rubbernecker but, I don't see it in their site, I am not sure its Riley and Co. either so another possibility is River City Rubber Works. ( so, I am still looking)

 This sentiment is from either hero arts or mft ( I have to look)

 These sentiments are from Hero Arts.

 Sharon has a challenge to visit the zoo and tell her a story about that. So, this tiger is from Kidstamps ( its really old) and this scrap plaid print was laying on the table since last weeks Sketch challenge and I thought the colors mimiced how I colored the grass close enough and then added the unity stamps sentiment real quick.

 Kim had a challenge yesterday to do a masculine card with score lines and a BBQ theme. and I over thought about  this for the whole time. I knew I had this bbq but I did not want to use any of the sentiments that came with it, and then today people have been you know chatting about the weather and how hot it is... and I remembered I have this river city rubber works sentiment so, this actually came together really quick. there are score lines across the lower right side of this card.

And then there was me, I have a challenge to do a "tank of gas" get away, to show some place you can visit from your home on a single tank of gas, and the whole time before I made this sample I had intended to do a woodsy forest scene card... and then I seen Michelle's challenge and decided it was too close to the same thing. and I had the compass on the table and thought well, I had also seen this double triangle fold come out for the tutorial of the week a few weeks ago and thought, ha that looks do able ( it is, the hardest part is not wiggling it when you cut the diagonal)

The sentiment is from the lil inker designs clean lines for the guys set and the cuttlebug inked piece has some antique linen on it. There is also a green brad in the center of the compass. The blue mat was cut with a Reverse Confetti stitched square die.

which leaves me with one last challenge to complete. ( maybe tomorrow) its another fancy fold :) thanks for stopping by.

VSN Staycation {night 1}

 

 Brenda's Challenge (seen here) is for those people who end up with a forced to stay home staycation due to recovery time needed. so, the challenge is to do an get well card. 

The duck image was colored with markers, water and distress inks. I did use a Hero Arts rounded rectangle die on it and then trimmed the right side skinnier to the cattails so that I had more room to add the sentiment tag (taylored expressions listen to your heart) 

 This was done for Melody's challenge seen here ( to use book page or book images ) for a travel from your armchair theme. The books are from the Unity set called Love is in the pages, those of you that peek at my desk on Wednesdays seen me pushing the books around a while back trying to make sure it would work, to stamp,color and cut with scissors this image twice and not have it look totally fake so.  That sentiment is from the Altenew beautiful quotes set. this one is A2 in real life, and I did score the lines across the cardfront for a second subtle stacked book look.

 

 Misti's first challenge has an inspiration photo ( seen here) that the tiny bowl in the bottom left is just raspberries. ( and I knew I had these berries previously colored with pencils and a white gel pen) but, at the time I colored it, I had stamped it too close to the edge and then when I die cut it I ended up with a flat tire look across the bottom curve of that label and so, I set it aside and had never done anything with it. the larger sentiment is from the Stampin' Up! set called berry best and I did color the inside of the letters with a red tri liner pen. This one is A2 in real life.

This was done for Michelle's woods and nature challenge seen here. the Treeline was stamped with some Versafine vintage sepia and the deer were done with Oxide distress vintage photo. there is some subtle pencil coloring on the ground and sky and this one is A6 in real life. I am not so sure what I am going to do with this one yet, so there is no sentiment. the image is from the Indigo Blu set called Deer woods.

This was done for Dawn's challenge seen here to do a "crafty sentiment" on your card because, we all wish we could stay home and craft for real right? :) this image was gifted to me via wishrak a very long time ago from Debi (bottomphish) and I colored it with some polychromos and prisma pencils. the knitting needles were done with a gelly roll stardust pen. That sentiment is up on foam pop dots and is from the Altenew crafty friends set.

I am missing the very first challenge of the night which was Kim's bbg guy score card and so, it will have to wait until tomorrow because, so far all the ideas I have my mind rejects them immediately after I start thinking maybe you could do this... or that.. :) Thanks for stopping by. 

Inspired by {Zazzles}

Angie has chosen the souvenirs section of the Zazzles site for this weeks inspiration

 and I happened across the post card below and laughed and laughed (because, I knew I had this studio calico set that I had never played with, one of the other sentiments in the set says Love you to Oregon and back, and I keep thinking that probably works if the person you want to send it to is in Oregon and you are not... so, I never played with the stamps... these were stamped with some Versafine Onyx Black and Die cut with a taylored expressions postage stacklet die and layered to a textured Bazzill base. this one finished out at A2 and was about all the creativity I had left in this heat. the one window AC is struggling to make it breath-able up here so, I think at some point I may have to cave and buy a second window box for the west end of the room that gets the heat of the day through it. ( which is where I have all my tools and table) :)
here is a closer look at the post card.

and where you can find it in their store. hope its a little cooler where you are and thanks for stopping by.

A catch up Post

 This week's featured stamper is Mary and I chose this fun card of her's flipped it to landscape and then cut a hole into the embossed panel instead of inking the sky, I also stacked the banners. This one is A7 in real life. The snowman is from Stamping Bella called Frostier and the sentiment is from the Tim Holtz great outdoors set.

 Last week? our featured stamper was Shannon and she has this fish card she made the fish from leaves and I love that. So changes were I stamped a fish ( PSX) and made the tall panel a Jar, this was cut and embossed with a Sizzix Mason jar and the embossed parts have some clear wink of stella on the Jar.

 What I ended up doing for my Cousins baby shower. ( her shower was held in MN and she lives in DC so, I mailed this to the hostess of the Showers address but, I have never heard if she received it or not. (which is a little sad because, there was a gift card in it)

 Last week the Sketch challenge looked like this, and I think I got mine a little chubby but, I like how this turned out the cat is from Katzlekraft and the sentiment is from the Hero Arts to seize or not to seize set.

 A really long time ago now when I first got this giraffe trio die ( Memory Box) I cut up a bunch of scraps and had these pieces laying together on the table in the ( stack of handmade backgrounds) one day I actually glued it all together haha.

 Sometimes I just glue things together for the booth, these are for that. the die was cut with shimmery die cuts with a view papers and the mats under them also shimmer so, they look better in real life.

 A while back the clean and simple challenge had a do water theme. and I was going with just a watercolored water and then it was too plain so I added in a strip of blue vellum and decided it was too busy for "clean and simple" at that point and just set it aside.

 when I was cutting a stack of banners a while back I ended up gluing some of the layers together for this card for the booth the top sentiment is from Impression Obsession and the bottom one I think is from Mama Elephant.

 This was done just as a simple booth filler card. the stamp is from Gourmet Rubber stamps.
colored with polychromos pencils.

This one the chick was RAK'd to me from Janice and I had colored it with pencils a while back and put this together real quick when those Reverse Confetti dies came. the Sentiment is from Dylusions. and this one is A2 in real life.

 These stamps are from Unity Stamps

 This one is an XL Dahlia from Power Poppy Stamps colored with pencils.

 the stamp I used on the inside.

 The Chrysanthemum is from PSX It was watercolored a long time ago and then has a little bit of pencil over the top.
Sentiment is from Clearly Besotted.

A closer look at the blooms. This had been heat embossed with white powder first.