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Saturday, October 17, 2009

easy, breezy butterflies @ PPA

It's a great day when I have time to play at the PPA! Here's my entry for the PPA12 sketch challenge. It's a great sketch by the talented Margaret Moody. I love her clean and COLORFUL designs. With the SU exclusive Beautiful Butterflies die (#114507) and this great sketch my card came together easy-peasy. There's an A2 card base in soft suede with two panels from the Thoroughly Modern dsp spaced evenly in the middle. It looks like I cut out the middle with a circle punch but it's actually a 3" circle cut with my Nestabilities and placed in the center--much easier! The big beautiful butterfly comes from more coordinating Thoroughly Modern dsp and she is held firmly in place on the circle with two mini glue dots. The rhinestones, from my stash, are a perfect match for the bermuda bay color, don'tcha think? The sentiment, Garden Greetings (retired), is inked in coordinating soft suede on whisper white cardstock and popped out with the Large Oval (#107305) punch. The bottom strip where the sentiment lands is actually two bermuda bay labels punched with the Modern Label (#116630) punch attached together with some SNAIL. The oval lays on top and the whole thing is popped up on dimensionals. Easy, breezy, beautiful butterflies!





Supplies:
stamps: garden greetings (retired)
ink: soft suede
paper: whisper white, soft suede, bermuda bay CS; thoroughly modern DSP
extras: beautiful butterflies bigz die; large oval punch; modern label punch, circle nestabilities, mini glue dots, stampin dimensionals, rhinestones (personal stash)

Monday, October 12, 2009

PPA11

I couldn't resist making another version of my curried moon card to answer the challenge posed by the design team at PPA. This week it's a color challenge: old olive, pumpkin pie and perfect plum. Great fall or halloween colors and I thought these colors worked pretty well with my card from yesterday's post. (Please take a look for directions on how I made this card.) The challenge did allow us to add neutral colors so I also have basic black, basic grey and just a tad of whisper white. It was a challenge to fit the perfect plum in there but I relied on the Cast-a-Spell designer paper to pull all the challenge colors together for me! Since I used just a bit of it on the actual card, I carried more designer paper into the lining of the envelope. Cute!

I also can't resist showing you my new personalized stamp! Another thing I've held off purchasing... don't know why... I'm glad I did because I love it! What a great way to advertise our craft and the best part is, the butterfly stamp meets SU!'s Angel Policy which allows individuals to sell any cards you make as long as they bear this stamp--done! This is actually the Hand Stamped by stamp (#115602) AND a one-line Text-Only Stamp (#115576). They are ordered separately but the wood block was big enough for both so I mounted them together--otherwise, I would never get the blog address lined up exactly where I wanted it, LOL!

Supplies:
stamps: woodgrain, season of friendship, forest friends, all holidays
ink: basic black, stazon jet black, perfect plum
paper: basic black, basic grey, pumpkin pie, whisper white cardstock, cast-a-spell DSP
extras: 1 3/4" circle punch, SAMJ, modern label punch, word window punch, crop-o-dile, 1/4" old olive grosgrain ribbon, whisper white medium envelope

Sunday, October 11, 2009

curried moon

I just got the Woodgrain (#117100) background stamp and I love it! It's been on my wish list for awhile but I hadn't gotten around to buying it until now. As always with SU! stamps, the quality and definition of the woodgrain lines is perfect--not too fat, not too thin and very well defined. I think it will be very versatile. So, this one is pretty simple and, once I figured out how to translate what I saw in my mind to paper, it went together quickly. Here's what I did:
  1. started with an A2 base in basic black cardstock
  2. cut a 3 3/4 x 5 piece of basic grey cardstock and stamped it with the Woodgrain background stamp in basic black.
  3. using my StazOn jet black pad (for an even black finish) I stamped the tree from Season of Friendship (#111776) horizontally about a third of the way down.
  4. my 1 3/4" circle punch made a nice portal for my crushed curry mat which doubles as the full moon.
  5. to line up the owl from Forest Friends (#113748) just right, I stamped him first onto my stamp-a-ma-jig. Using dotto adhesive to secure the crushed curry mat to my work surface, I lined up the basic grey panel where I wanted it and then laid the plastic piece of the stamp-a-ma-jig where I wanted my owl to be. Leave the SAMJ in place, remove the grey panel, ink the owl in basic black and stamp him in place!
  6. The sentiment from All Holidays (#114916) was inked with versamark on basic black cardstock, sprinkled with silver stampin' emboss and heated until fluid and shiny--don't you love watching that happen?!
  7. The Modern Label punch (#116630) popped the sentiment out perfectly and balanced out the lower right corner.
  8. 1/4" Old Olive grosgrain ribbon was tied around the basic grey panel using Michelle Single's excellent technique for a stay-put bow. Check it out and you'll say, "of course--how easy!"
  9. The basic grey panel is matted on crushed curry with stampin dimensionals to give extra emphasis to the yellow moon.
Supplies: stamps: woodgrain, all holidays, forest friends, season of friendship
ink: basic black, versamark, stazon jet black
paper: basic grey, basic black, crushed curry cardstock
extras: old olive 1/4" grosgrain ribbon; 1 3/4" circle punch; modern label punch; stampin' emboss power (silver); stamp-a-ma-jig; crop-o-dile

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

my first mojo! (mojo107)

I've been so hesitant to post an entry to the Mojo Monday challenges--somehow it seems like the "big leagues"! I guess because so many stampin' bloggers I admire post there, I wasn't sure I had it in me! This week I decided to give it a try--who could resist the great prizes--because I really liked the sketch and immediately thought of all the great leaf wreaths I have seen around stampin' land such as this one, that one and one more! Genius, ladies!

This is a sympathy card for a friend and co-worker. She's part of my stampin' circle and this is one of her favorite stamp sets and colors. I knew she would appreciate all the hand-cut leaves as well. I used the layout for Mojo107 with a Chocolate Chip card base and papers from the Autumn Meadows designer series paper (#116769). The large oak leaf is stamped in VersaMark onto Very Vanilla cardstock and embossed with copper embossing powder from Ranger. The smaller leaves are stamped directly onto more designer paper in Taken with Teal and More Mustard and hand-cut as well. I cut a 3" circle of designer paper with my circle nestabilities and, using my stamp-a-ma-jig, stamped the sentiment from Sincere Saluations (#115068) in the center with chocolate chip ink. The leaves were arranged around the circle to form the wreath and do you think I could do that haphazardly? Oh no, it took me forever to get it even close to how it looked in my mind's eye! A few copper brads from my stash added the finishing touch to my mojo leaves. So, what do you think...did I bring it this week?! I'd love to hear from you!

Supplies:
stamps: autumn splendor, sincere salutations
ink: versamark, taken with teal, more mustard, chocolate chip
paper: very vanilla, chocolate chip cardstock, autumn meadows designer series paper
extras: stamp-a-ma-jig, circle nestabilities, copper embossing powder, stampin dimensionals, copper brads