Lovely Reflection

Hey, I know it's been a while. I've been a little - okay, a lot - swamped. I didn't even have time to post my club projects from last time, and it's almost time for our final session before the new catalog! Maybe I'll have better luck this time around.

Well, at our last meeting we tried a technique that's been around a while but I had never done it: reflection stamping. I think my take on it has a bit of an impressionistic feel, which I love. With the tree and embossed background, this is a perfect card for the Friday Mashup challenge. And over at The Pink Elephant they're doing "anything goes" - so I guess that fits!

Lovely as a Tree is a great stamp set for this technique. I used the small single tree on watercolor paper. To get the reflected image you stamp on plastic - window sheet, those clear bags you can put cards in - whatever you have. First stamp the main image, then stamp again on the plastic, turn it upside down, and rub the stamped image from the plastic onto the paper. Since I planned to watercolor, I stamped the tree with black Stazon ink on watercolor paper. With the texture of the paper I got a more subtle reflected image, and I kind of like it this way. For the watercoloring I used Wild Wasabi, Pool Party, Early Espresso, and (for the grass) the new In Color called Mossy Meadow, and I cut it out with one of the oval Framelits. The sentiment comes from A Dozen Thoughts and the idea for the punch treatment using the mosaic punch came from LeeAnn Greff. I thought the woodgrain embossing folder would be the perfect background, along with a strip of wasabi DSP. Candy dots and scalloped trim from the ribbon border punch served as the finishing touches.

My club members were excited to see a more masculine card - I do tend to be a bit girly. You could leave the scallops off if you think those are too feminine and it would still look great. We had fun with this project, and in case you are wondering, Lovely as a Tree is sticking around for at least another year! I think that has to be a record or something. Anyway, I hope everyone has a great week!

Watercolor Polaroid

I promised to show you one of my club cards for this weekend. The inspiration for this card came from the fabulous Julie Ebersole - you will see a strong resemblance between her card and the focal point of mine. I added a couple elements with the dry embossed background and additional color for the card base. I'm entering in two challenges today: Friday Mashup (embossing) and CAS-ual Fridays (from their tic-tac-toe challenge I used kraft + bling + embossing).

 

This card started out by the faux Polaroid I found on Pinterest. However, the person who made that used Nestabilities and SU doesn't have anything that would work (yet.... hint, hint). So I went searching online for a tutorial and came across Julie's card. I fell in love with it right away - but for her faux Polaroid she used a punch, and ours isn't nearly big enough. What's a demo to do? Figure out how to make it myself! And now I get to share it with you. Here's how to do it:

 

1. Cut Whisper White card stock into a piece 3” x 3 3/8”.

2. Position card stock on paper trimmer with the short side at the top and the right edge aligned with the 1/4” mark to the right of the cutting area.

3. Using the arrow on the cutting blade, position the blade 1/4” from the top of the paper and cut until you reach 2 5/8”.

4. Turn the paper to continue cutting out the center, leaving 1/4” on each side.

The watercoloring on the punched heart follows Julie's technique. I mixed Pink Pirouette, Primrose Petals and Raspberry Ripple ink (about 3 drops from the reinkers) with about 5-6 drops of water in an artist's palette. I started with the lightest color at the top and worked my way down. Once the heart was dry I used the two-way glue pen and Dazzling Diamonds to add some sparkle. I got mini clothespins at the craft store (ahem) and clipped my heart to some twine, then attached it to my frame with 1/8" brads. The Crumb Cake background is simply embossed with the hexagon folder and adhered to a primrose card base; I put the paper into the embossing folder sideways to leave the bottom plain for the sentiment, which comes from Lovely Thoughts.

 

Ready to try it yourself? I know there are endless possibilities for using the Polaroid in cards and projects. If you make something I hope you'll share it with me!

A new year, a new start....

Hello, friends! I know it's been a long time. Unfortunately the situation with Todd's case hasn't really gone very far, but we remain hopeful. While we're waiting for everything to sort itself out, I decided that what would really be helpful to me is doing the things I love - and that means I'm trying to get back to stamping and playing challenges. It's been an awfully long time and I feel very rusty, but I'm diving in by rejoining the team at Our Creative Corner. (I've missed those awesome ladies and I'm so grateful to them for letting me take time off as I needed it!)

Anyway, the challenge that kicks off the new year is a lovely one from Sharon Wheet: aqua and pink plus a flower of any kind. Here in Massachusetts we have snow on the ground, so it kind of cheered me up looking at those springy colors. I decided to open up some new stuff from the spring catalog that just went live yesterday. Here's what I came up with, and I combined with a couple other challenges: Freshly Made Sketches and CAS-ual Fridays (make a thank you card).

I know you can spot the new stamps: it's a gorgeous set called Secret Garden and it comes with matching dies. LOVE! I wanted to try my hand at some watercoloring with a blender pen. The largest flower was colored with Pretty in Pink and Melon Mambo; the small pink flower with Pink Pirouette and Pretty in Pink (with Melon Mambo in the center); and the aqua is Pool Party (with Baja Breeze in the center). I used black Stazon for stamping and you'll definitely want to use watercolor paper with this technique. The framelits cut it out beautifully. The background is Pool Party, with the top embossed using the Elegant Lines folder. The sentiment comes from Perfectly Penned, and the middle strip is crochet trim adhered to Pink Pirouette textured card stock with a piece of retired melon ribbon. The bottom corner seemed to need a little something, so I added some pearls to finish it off. I think pretty and elegant can still be CAS - what do you think?

It feels great to be back and I hope to be seeing you more often. I'm not going to go crazy and post every day or anything. ;) But I'm aiming for more often than just the OCC challenges on Saturday. It might be tough to get back into the stamping groove so wish me luck! And be sure you check out the beautiful samples from the rest of the OCC team - they are gorgeous as always! We hope you'll play along with us too. Happy new year - thanks for visiting and see you again soon!

Cherries for Friendship

It's been a while since I had time - or made the time - to create something just for fun. I sent a finished freelance project off yesterday, so I felt like I could take a little break from my crazy life and do a couple challenges. This card is for the colourQ challenge (Cherry Cobbler, Crumb Cake, Early Espresso, Soft Suede, Very Vanilla), the Viva la Verve sketch challenge, and the Pals Paper Arts challenge, which is called What's Your Signature Style? I tend toward clean(er) and simpl(er), sometimes vintage, sometimes cute and sweet... I was tickled that my fellow OCC DT member Wendy Janson commented on my recent baby card being a "Lori card." I guess I do have a typical style and I hope today's card shows it!

This card features a sneak peek stamp set from the new catalog - Cherish Friendship. The images are really sweet and great for coloring - I chose to do some watercoloring for this card. It's always a treat for me to sit down and color - in fact I'm spending all day tomorrow coloring at the Copic certification class in Boston! But I digress... I did my watercoloring with reinkers and a tiny paintbrush. The sentiment is from the same stamp set. At the bottom of the center panel I added two strips of cherry seam binding with crochet trim on top. The eyelet border punch gave me the right look for the bottom trim, and as long as we're doing signature style, I had to put a couple buttons on there. The background DP is retired Soft Suede, and I sponged all the edges with espresso ink to up the vintage factor.

This was fun - I hope it's not several weeks until I get to craft something for fun again! Thanks for visiting and I'll be back tomorrow for the weekly OCC challenge!

Vintage Christmas oops!

I was working on a challenge card tonight and I had the challenge completely wrong in my head... I guess I will be making one extra card this week! But I do like how my oops card came out so I'm going to go ahead and post it. And coincidentally, it also works for the color challenge from the Paper Players - lucky for me I messed up, LOL!

I hadn't played yet with the new stamp set called Greeting Card Kids. They are such adorable images and great for watercoloring, which I hadn't done in a while. I've been seeing that other stampers do their watercoloring with markers and I had never tried it that way, so I played around with it on this card. I think I'll be trying it more because it was really fun! I used Cherry Cobbler, Old Olive, Early Espresso, and Crumb Cake markers with my Aqua Painter. The pink trim on her hat and coat was also an oops - I didn't mean for the red to bleed into it, but once that happened I went with it and I actually think it looks sweet.

To finish the rest of my card, I added a panel of dot paper from the Jolly Holiday pack, a sentiment from the Bells & Boughs set that appears in the holiday mini, some crochet trim, and a bow. I made the bow from the same crochet trim and the Cherry Cobbler seam binding available in the upcoming mini, then added one of the gorgeous antique brads in the center. The punch I used for the label behind the sentiment is also new in the holiday mini. It's called the decorative label punch and it's fabulous. I wanted to make the shape a little bigger so I punched an extra label, trimmed off the short ends, and added them to the top and bottom of the sentiment shape. For more vintage goodness I also sponged all the edges with Early Espresso ink.

That's it from me... I spent most of the evening working on this card, so I guess I won't be getting to the correct challenge tonight! Tomorrow is another day, right?

A Window for Mom

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there! I've had this card made for a while - we did it at my last club - but I didn't want to show it until now because I wanted it to be a surprise for a special mother out there. I love you, Mom!

I had seen this adorable window card and decided to take the concept and adapt it for my card. I used the stamp set Bouquet Bunch, which is available in the new summer mini, and watercolored it with really rust, old olive, and creamy caramel watercolor crayons. The awning was embossed with the Solid Stripes a la carte stamp (which was in the Occasions mini) and I used the scallop edge punch for the edges of the awning and window sill.

Here's a close-up of the window. I rolled the awning gently around a large marker. The embossing did crack a teeny bit, but that just gives it an aged look, right? ;) After the watercoloring was finished I decided that dusty durango would look good with these colors, which gave me ribbon and designer paper to dress up the card. I added a sentiment from Teeny Tiny Wishes on a background panel of naturals white cardstock and that was it - sweet and not too complicated!