Inspired by {Carlyle Avenue}

 This week Julie has sent us looking at the Caryle Avenue store for inspiration where I found these golden bottle brush trees that I just smiled over. ( I hauled home a few from After Christmas sales this January to use as props when shooting Christmas cards)
So, thinking to make it gold I grabbed a toffee colored Versamark pad that shot really yellow looking after processing the photo shot under lights ( its rainy, dark and gloomy here) all of these stamps are from the Papertrey ink joyful Christmas set and the trees ( this is the largest one in the set) are smaller than the old set I have from two paper diva's.

 This was the first one that truck brad is something I found recently at Impress. I thought it made it look like Santa had come to park the truck there like a toy.

 The gold texture paper is one I found at Micheals recently and thought it was really cool ( its not a bright gold more like old gold) and the pink text print came from a pad that was given to me as a gift for Easter that says it is from a co. called craft smith. both of these cards are 5 1/2" square in real life.

a closer look at the tree's which can be found here at the store. I think I may just try a few more of these without the pastels in the morning and maybe gold embossing powder. Thanks for stopping by

WOYWW #461 {giraffe's}

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 sometime back in Feb I placed this order with Impress because, I wanted this Giraffe die and I still had money on the Christmas gift card. ( the big one still has like 12.00 left on it so, I will probably spend the rest at the grocery store)  anyways one of the Inspiration challenges went to a site ( my mind is blank this morning that had some art work with bright colored giraffe faces and I thought that is so fun) but, the giraffe die was on backorder and it took a while to arrive. 

 The dog stamp is an Amazon thing that came recently, it reads Blessed is the person who earns the love of an old dog.

 So, on Easter Sunday afternoon I did go open this package and start cutting some skinny smaller print scraps into giraffe heads, used one trio of them on a featured stamper card and had intended to do a Mixed challenge card because, that ones theme this week is using up scraps from the recent VSN and that bright ( the phone washed these colors out) pink/orange scrap is a piece of Yupo that was cut from one of those cards. the dot print is also a scrap from one of those cards. I am mostly pushing this around trying to decide what the words should be so I finally just walked away from it.

so, here is a closer look (the colors are better in real life) and its still just sitting just like this since Sunday. none of that is glued down its just thinking still. I need to do a pet sympathy card  for a friend and I am just in stall mode over that so. you know soon. there won't be much of a choice it will be clear the decks and get it done.
That's about it for me, thanks for stopping by.

Giraffe trio Congratulations

This week's featured stamper is Miss Jayne from down under in Oz... and the piece I chose to case was this formal dance shot of her son and his friend, I loved the colors and layers of textures and patterns. and every time I looked at it I thought that must have taken forever to create. So changes were to pull the color into the center and keep it you know mostly flat haha. It really does not look much like Jayne's layout at all. but, I had fun doing this. The giraffe die is from Memory Box and the sentiment is from the Clearly besotted message me set. this one is A2 in real life.

A couple more VSN projects

The theme for this VSN is gardens and I think there were something like 20 projects all together and I think I did at least half of them.

This one below was done for Dawn's challenge which was based on a quote she has in the thread. 

 So, I knew I wanted to use this particular sentiment which has not seen ink in a good long while from me ( Penny Black ) and started flipping through some previously colored flowers and found this one ( SU) and I had die cut it's edges with a frilly scalloped die and every time I picked it up I set it aside. ( it was done on watercolor paper) so, finally I got the idea to cut it out and toss the rest of the wc sheet and I popped it up on foam dots.

Now this one is another one that made me stop and think for a long time. Jan has a challenge to include a garden statue. and The only concrete statue in our garden is actually on the patio. We used to pick it up and put it away every winter and this spring things have been being put out onto the patio again already even though its been way too cold to sit out there in the wind. and after I remembered about that I found this Inkadinkado fine line classic and stamped it in some smokey grey and added some grey pencils to the white spaces. then I happened across this sentiment ( Dylusions) and thought oh, that is funny. Its probably headed to the booth next Nov. as the city mascot here is a Pelican. So for two cards that took 3 times as long to think about ahead of time they are both pretty CAS in the end. Hope you all had a great Easter weekend too, thanks for stopping by.

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.