Some more from Dare to Get Dirty.

 There were 49 challenges in total this year for Dare to get Dirty week at SplitcoastStampers. I have not done them all as of yet, the good news is the inspiration stays up on the site for future use. So, here are the rest of the ones I have done so far. I cannot tell you what the challenge is but, I can say what I did or used. This will be a really photoheavy post so, grab your cup and enjoy.

This was done for Lydia's first challenge, this girl Unity Stamps Just Sorry was stamped with versafine on Neenah and watercolored with some Karin Markers ( skin & hair) and Daniel Smith Watercolors on the rest of the image. The sentiment here is also from Unity Stamps the Crappy Day set. ( its up on foam pop dots)

The front panel here I have cut a hole into the top end of it to tuck the girl from behind and used the same acrylic paint on the edges of her panel as the front to make it a little more seamless. I did run that textured panel through the big shot a few times to flatten it a little more. ( its Masking tape with covered with gesso and paint) I thought it looked like a messy bed. And this one finished out at A7 in real life. 

For Dina's first challenge I used this So Many Hearts girl from the precious moments line at Stampendous ( this is a really old one) colored with pencils and copic markers (skin) and the sentiment here is from Hero Arts Many everyday messages set. the door is an Alexandra Renke called wing door. This one is A2 in real life. 

So a week ago the inspiration went to a home design magazine site and I being an alumni dirty girl also had access to the master list of challenge knew what Lori C's first challenge would be so, I combined these two. The home design photo that jump started mine can be seen here. What an awesome back yard hmm? So, I picked up the My Favorite Things perfect pool stencil when it first came out and this is the first time it has been removed from the packaging. so I decided to tape it down to a piece of cheaper canson watercolor paper and "paint" through the exposed holes. It did bleed a little bit, and I did go over the top of some of the bleeds with white Gouache after the stencil was lifted and the Duck was stamped with some Cheerful (yellow) Versafine Claire and watercolored with Daniel Smith paints, I cut a slit into the water panel to tuck his tummy into and taped over this on the back side to help keep him flat. The sentiment here is from The My Favorite Things you float my boat set, and it finished out at A7 in real life.

This was done for Gem's challenge and I used a Spellbinders hemstitched rect. die on the cover of the cardbase and Their shapabilities Joy set for the center. The letters are up on foam pop dots and the pearls are from Kaiserkraft, ( they are a blush color but on the barn red texture they may show up as cream on your monitor) the inside was lined with some Neenah because, I always put white cardstock on the insides of my colored bases to write on. This one is A6 in real life, and the first Christmas card I have done in months and months. which poked my brain into looking at more of the challenges thinking and over thinking to see if they could be modified to become Holiday cards too. 

Which lead me to Lee's challenge, the base stamp here is a background from Simon Says Stamp that was heat embossed with white SU powder on some pink shimmer DCWV. the Vellum layer is an older holly berry house that was also heat embossed on the top side and then I used water base markers in spots of the back and I really thought that gave it a kaleidoscope look. So, I added some dots of glittered stickles glue in a few spots too. this one is 5 1/2" square in real life. 

I found this image Our Daily Bread Designs the mighty sea already colored with some pencils in the envelope on the table and so, I used some previously made watercolor background for the framing and then while I was looking at this, I have had my Daniel Smith watercolors on the table for a few weeks now, I decided to add some paint here and there over the pencils. The sentiments on this are from the Altenew camp life set. and this one finished out at A7 in real life. 

So Kia has a challenge that I decided I would watercolor for it, and this is the center piece of a frame diecut and so the bloom is from the eclectica3 kay carley 47 the pretty flowers were a feast for the eyes set and heat embossed with white powder over the paint. I did go over the center with white Gouache and some stickles glitter glue. That sentiment, I spent hours over several days trying to figure out which set it came out of. I cannot find it in evernote so, I will probably end up poking around in the stamps them selves here and there and edit later. I found it in the file cabinet in one of those pockets of previously stamped and diecut sentiments. the center panel is up on foam tape and this one is 4" x 9" in real life. 

So this is the actual entry into her challenge and its also a slimline card. the homes and sentiment are from the Concord & 9th city stacks set. 

a closer look at the painting from the card below. The road runner is "on the run" the Wil E Coyote is called "Yipes!" the center has some shimmering from Stampscapes ( but, it is a small stamp, so I deliberately used the paints in lines to add more streaks around them.)

The silhouette in the back is from the sweet n sassy landscape silhouettes set and the sentiment is from Impression Obsession pandemic humor. 

The painted panel is on foam tape above the base and this one finished out at 4" x 9" in real life, the edges were cut with deco scissors. 

You might remember this panel, it happened to fit Pat's challenge so, I did some layers of speckled Neenah cardstock to frame it trying to detract from the fact that I had taped the tape across the top crooked when I painted it a while back and that was one of those hunh moments when it was revealed. 

I probably could just mix up some more blue ish paint and touch up the top left corner but, so far I have resisted the urge to do so. This one finished out at A7 in real life. 

 Done for Liz's challenge, the Victoria's Secret is from the Emerson line at American Art Stamps, the bra-less is from Art Impressions. She was colored with Karin markers and Daniel Smith watercolors with some stardust gelly roll pen on the glasses. 

Some where around Wednesday the watercolor prompt came out and it was to do some free hand blooms and I had a mess of yellows on the palette at that point and I knew what the DTGD line up looked like so this ended up being made for 4 different challenges, the Wednesday watercolor, Jen, Holly & Ann's DTGD challenges. the Sentiment here is from the Penny Black A little bird set. 

You may have remembered seeing this dog face ( Impression Obsession) being painted when he arrived in the mail, the sentiment came out around the same time too, so this was done for Bev's challenge. 

This was done for Shelly's challenge. the birdhouse is from the old SU set called scene in a garden. The sentiment here is a reverse printed one from Simon Says Stamp ( some spring set) That red panel is vellum with alcohol inks on it and to allow the light to flow through like a window, the front panel of the card also has a window cut into it from the inside of the base. This one is A2 in real life. 

This was done for Mary's Challenge. The sentiment is from Riley & Co. the Oscar reading the paper is from Art Impressions ( this was stamped twice as the top colored layer is paper pieced into the scene.) the rest of the room are from two different My Favorite Things sets, Cozy Companions and Our Story. the main layer here was all colored with Daniel Smith paints. 

 Now this I did not make, this one came to me the other day in the mail from Shelly with a sample of some gold leafing flakes to play with and the sticky note that said do not open with the fans running. This is one of her samples she made for DTGD and it sparkles so beautifully in real life. Thanks Shelly!

 Which lead me to playing with them for a little something for Judy's challenge. the cat is from Art Impressions, the sentiment is from the Shut up and Color set from Dylusions. this one is A2 in real life. that pale aqua color is an shimmer cardstock from Micheal's recollections line. 

This week the Inspiration destination is looking at Nordic Wall where I found this piece of art 

and my first thought was you could paint that. ( not a normal thought for me) and my second thought was, you could have a two-fer card and use it as a sample for Tracie's challenge. So, I did this is Daniel smith watercolors with a bit of White Gouache. the sentiment here is from the My Favorite Things anything but basic birthday wishes. It's 4" X 9" in real life. 

 Which leaves me with something I had done for Jayne's challenge. the teabag here was paper pieced back into the design using a used dried coffee filter. the other color around it and on the tag are DS watercolors. the sentiments here are from the Verve Stamps one cup set. the embossing folder is one I had borrowed a while back from my MIL and I have forgotten its name, but there is a heart underneath the image panel in my card on it. the lace here is vintage from the notions dept. and this one is A6 in real life. I do have something drying / de-fume - ing for Jayne's second challenge and hopefully sometime soon I will get it done. I hope you enjoyed this, thanks for stopping by.

Decided to just edit this post with the last card, this was done for Jayne's first challenge. the butterfly was painted last April some time, the cardboard was painted along time ago too. the background panel was run through the big shot inside a Cuttlebug goochie script folder and it has some Antique linen and Salvaged Patina DOX over the top of the leaf pattern. and I realized the reason I never used this butterfly is. I did not leave space to give it a body. ha ha. ( did you notice that before I wrote it?) ( I didn't) 

I did actually get a group mug shot of them all before I started mailing some out.

Inspired by {Zabana Jewellers}

 
This week Julie has shared with us the Zabana Jeweller's pinterest boards and I came across this color combo here that I thought was pure gorgeous. So, I set out to recreated it with Alcohol inks on some Yupo paper and at the time when I did this the weather was very overcast and shooting the card washed out some of the color in processing... ( well, and its not as dark as the IC either)

I recently received this Tim Holtz Sizzix Perspective butterfly die in the mail this was cut from a 5 1/2 inch piece of 80# cardstock if that gives you an idea of how big it really is. ( with wax paper, metal shims, embossing shims and many many passed through the big shot to get one that "almost" cut out completely.) The part of the butterfly that is cut off the edge had a spot in the center that just did not cut for me on this version and I had quite a bit of time into this so, I decided to off set it since the one in the Inspiration shot is landed and not flying anyways. I added some clear wink of stella over this diecut for some shimmer.

The Yupo paper AI background is layered with some Fancy Pants black corrugate cardstock and I loved the little sliver of black peeking out as framing so, I started looking through my word die cuts I have in an envelope and I came across this one that says its from Paper Smooches. and the thing is, I cannot find this die. So, I am fairly certain it was something that was RAK'd to me years ago from Janice but, I have not received confirmation from her that that is actually correct. There is also some clear wink of stella on the sentiment die cut. I will have to see if I can get a better shot of this card maybe this weekend as the colors are truly gorgeous in real life. You can find this challenge here at SCS to play along with us, Thanks for stopping by.

A Catch-Up Post

 A few weeks ago Karen was the featured stamper and she has this pair of guy cards I loved with the light house scene's and I used them like a sketch for doing my little note for the young man mail carrier who delivers at work. and he has to go into all the businesses that are open in the industrial district as no one has mail boxes outside of their buildings in that part of town.

 a few weeks before that Sharon was featured stamper and I just fell deeply in love with this tag here and I started poking about in my dies knowing I had some bitty clothes ones and came across this Sizzix graduation gown and thought close enough. the sentiment here is from My Favorite Things.

 The ways to use it last week was to not have any stamping... and I had this little pile of alcohol ink backgrounds and thought to my self three dies walk into a bar.. ( the tree die here is a folk art Christmas one from Penny Black) I really love the quirky-ness it has.

This week's featured stamper is Karen, and she has this Pizza gift tag boxed set that totally stopped me in my tracks so I did change all the dies and stamps here but, kept the colors similar, black white silver and lime green because, this is a color combo I never would have put together in a million years and I just love the contrast it has. And that cleans out my to be uploaded file. I hope you are doing well, & thanks for stopping by.

WOYWW #567 {AI play}

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 hashtag of #WOYWW

So, I have not had time to make the rounds from last week yet, since there are so many people home the list of stops to visit has gone up yes? ( its not just in my mind) we are still working and we are working more than before. but, last night I was in bed by 9 and I really got the best sleep I have gotten in months. so, to keep this short I had seen this ranger tool come out the day before the stores closed here and I intended to go back the next week or so and get me one... and then all the stores came to a grinding halt, so I looked on Amazon and the price was higher and I tossed it on a wish list and walked away a few days later I went back and looked at it and the price had jumped 5 more dollars and I rolled my eyes and walked away. then I got an email from a nationwide chain that happens to be in my town that had it on sale. you could have curb side pick ups ( there were not any in the store) so, I did the online order added some things to the cart and paid the freight. the next day there was an email from them. ( they canceled the order) ok, so I went back to Amazon, the do not even show it for sale anymore... fast forward another few days. I decide to go look at Ranger online, not only do they have them in stock they have a small crew working and shipping orders. so, I place a small one not expecting to receive this for a long time as they tell you there will be delays. ( this arrived in the mail yesterday) so, the delay was not even all that long for me. along with the tool I picked up two of the new alloys and 3 colors. ( I want more colors) ( I almost have two of the storage tins full of these so, I don't NEED more colors but, they are on the mental greed list now)

so anyways, now I think I need an eye dropper type tool to add regular rubbing alcohol to the yupo sheets before the color to have a little more play time blowing it around before it dries.

Okay so, I had read ( after I ordered it successfully) that it was not going to be a good tool for people with arthritis. evidently mine is not that bad yet, I can squeeze it and the rubber is soft and light weight ( to me ) but, I am also using an ATG gun for double sided tape type glue so my game plan was to play with it asap in case I needed to re gift the tool you know? so, maybe depending on how bad your hands are its a possibility to play with someone else's later when we can play in person together again.

and that's about it from my corner of the internet. will try to do better with commenting this week. Thanks for stopping by.

A catch up post

 So, the Fallidays challenges have started at Splitcoaststampers and one from yesterday from Lori is to create a set of 6 holiday tags. These were done using theSizzix BigZ L Die Card, Tag by Stephanie Ackerman which cuts a folding in the top tag that is large enough to hold a gift card.
(It's probably the most used tag die in my room) I did run the top flap of the tag through a cuttlebug folder called wicker weave and then added on the Taylored Expressions P.S. You're Welcome sentiments to that.

 The first fallidays tutorial is a twin pocket purse, and the pockets are big enough for a note ( tucked into the front pocket here) a tea bag, a gift card little flat things. It is supposed to close with a velcro dot and I ordered some that will be here in a day or two. I decided to outsmart my self to see how hard it was to do this fold ( I usually kill lots of paper doing things like this the first time) and so, for this I dug all these papers out of a scrap bin ( after dark) hoping it didn't look too off in the light of day and this is actually a first attempt for me. So, I will be making more of these with a better eye towards the color and paper weights. (the printed paper the pockets are here was some really heavy weight almost cardstock weight paper so, the pockets are pretty stiff in this one.)

 This was done jump started by the October prompt for the Split coast dirty dozen Christmas cards.
The gnome is from Stamping Bella and the sentiment is from Avery Elle's naughty or nice set. the background is a Altenew plaid A cover die over the top of some printed check paper.

Now this was done inspired by this pretty card in Claudette's gallery when she was featured stamper.
The main image is from Paper Inspirations (dance of the butterflies) heat embossed on the alcohol inked background and the sentiment is from the Mama Elephants birthday messages set.
The piece the stamped panel is matted to is an old acrylic paint brayer sheet. what I clean my brayer off on piece that I had chopped up for some other challenge a while back so, the colors looked good to me when I was putting this together and it was one of those almost everything but the kitchen sink cards when I listed all the things for the gallery write up haha.

I am going to be working on and off on the falliday's challenges as they happen making things for the booth mainly I think. It's a handy little jump start for me when I feel frazzled for someone to say here try this. and you just do it without over thinking it too much. That's about it from me, thanks for stopping by.

A few other Challenge Cards

 This week's featured Stamper is Rebecca who has this awesome card she made with Wall paper and a sticker that I just loved. So, setting out to recreate that texture I started with a piece of Neenah that I cut with the Altenew plaid die ( B) and then pressed a sheet of the same cardstock with a Darice plaid embossing folder and glued them flat together. The Unity Stamps (feel the joy) blooms had that Queens Ann Lace shape to me so, I heat embossed them a background done with Ranger Alcohol inks on Yupo paper. ( that wanted to twist and warp) so, I backed it with another piece of Neenah . Other changes were I off set this panel to the right and tied on a sentiment. This one finished out at A2 in real life.

 I have been into the Hobby lobby store a grand total of two times since they opened in Medford and the second time was around the end of July this year. ( I went in there thinking to see if they had anything I wanted to play with during DTGD) and this eucalyptus printed paper followed me home. I just thought the colors were gorgeous and it reminded me of a Debby Hughes painted card. ( ok, the fan girl thing is showing again) So, I wanted the card to mostly be this paper and I added a skinny diecut My Favorite Things sentiment to it just messing around.

And then on Monday night after work I seen that the color combo challenge was live and it happened to be, SU Peacock, Old olive and pool party. So, I went to the file cabinet and found the peacock and olive and a piece of PTI aqua ( close enough) and seen those scraps of the leaf paper and just laughed. ( so these are all 3" X 3" and headed to the booth in November) the simple gift is from Impression Obsession, the happy birthday is Altenew and the little something is from A Muse. I still have another piece of this paper and I am so tempted to go back to that store and buy more of it someday but, you know I really need more printed papers like I need an extra hole in my head so, I have managed to resist that urge for a few weeks now. Thanks for stopping by.

Olivia's birthday {Inspired by Great big Canvas}

 This is my second card also inspired by a Degas print inside the big canvas site this week's Inspiration side and I did deliberately pick this one to do a pink version for Oliva's birthday working on a custom card order for her gpa. I had June call him when I first started doing this to find out what color her hair is and the answer was plain old brown. ( all the grand kids) so, I did give her a more brown hair with her pink gown. the background was done with some alcohol inks and I did squeak in some green but, its pretty subtle and still mostly mauve's and pinks so, I think (cross your fingers here) that Earl will be OK with that. He's pretty firm in the belief that ballerina's wear Pink. The top sentiment is from the Altenew birthday greetings set heat embossed on white with SU powder on a black scrap cut with a Waffle flower A7 rectangle die and the bottom letters were stamped with Versafine on Neenah and cut with scissors.

 Her skin was done with some copic markers that have since been refilled and has a little pencil over that, the skirt is polychromos and prisma pencils. done on some neenah solar white with versafine ink. and as it was blending it did streak a little but, I think that it just gives it a little more depth.

I totally grinned over the pose of this canvas, I stand like this all the time. You can find that here in their store and you can find this challenge here to play along. Thanks for stopping by.

Inspired by {QiQi Gallery}

This week the Inspiration hunting has commenced here inside the QiQi gallery at Etsy. 

You can find this challenge here to play along.

So, I found this piece ( seen below) and loved every single detail, the colors the textures. and I set out to try this with alcohol inks and embossing powders. the old copper I have is some really old large granular stuff from Stampa Rosa that is similar to Ultra thick embossing enamel. 

( it did not go well with Yupo paper) 

So, starting over I came up with a piece of blues and greens I loved and cut two squares small enough to get two cards from the sheet.

 This is the first one and I used a piece of Shimmery stardream Copper for a raised frame on some pale aqua shimmer base and this one is 6" square. and then it sat like this for a while because, I just love the background and did not want to take away from that.

 So, I picked up the scraps and did this 5 1/2" square version with the other piece. the base on this one is shimmery stardream copper. the blue frame on this one is DCWV and the sentiment panel is from Stampa Rosa and is up on foam dots.

 And then when I went to put them away I happened to see this previously stamped Hero Arts (you're beautiful set) sentiment on the SU sea foam banner and thought those colors work and wiggled it in and called it done.
So, the happy part is the background is still mostly visible.

The beautiful artwork that inspired these cards can be seen here in the QiQi gallery. If I could find a blank space for this it would totally be on its way to me already. :) Thanks for stopping by!

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.