All Dressed Up...

I mentioned the other day how I have discovered my new favorite thing to make - paper flowers! I made a girly-girl layout with some of my favorite papers, and when I saw the Mojo Sketch 111, I knew I had to make a card with these papers and my favorite little floral pretties! I swear, if I had a little girl, her entire scrapbook would be in pinks, greens, and black and white...

I had a comment asking if I would do a tutorial for these flowers, and I will work on it this coming week while the munchkins are at school.

I also have some big plans for some blog candy (I have over 100 lovely followers, over 100 sales at Etsy, and almost 1300 hits on my blog!) to give away, so stay tuned :)

For this card, I did the fancy little flowers, and I also pieced the skirt together a bit. I stamped it first on white cardstock, then three times on patterned paper. I then "built up" the skirt in sections, layering parts of the skirt to give it a bit of dimension. I didn't pop dot it or anything, because I wanted it to be subtle...



I made the inside cute too - nothing fancy, just coordinating papers and brads :)

Ingredients
Image: Inkadinkado
Papers: Prima (patterned) and Bazzill (pink cardstock)
Embellishments: brads in centers of flowers
Ranger Distress Ink

First ever Pixie Cottage Challenge!

I am super excited and I'll tell you why - Because it is "Once Upon a Wednesday..."

I recently became the lead designer for the Pixie Cottage Design Team, and we are hosting our first ever Pixie Challenge! Every other Wednesday we will host a challenge, and we want you to play. Prizes and fun and inspiration abound, and because you have a week and a half to get your entry in, there is plenty of time to find your creative magic...

Head over to the Pixie Cottage blog to find out the rest of the details. There are some super cute stamps you could win, as well as a chance to become a guest DT :)

I created the sketch for this challenge, and would love to see what you come up with:

Here is my take on this sketch. I used this little cutie designed by Tricia Moore. Head over to Pixie Cottage to see the rest of the Design Team's work - you won't be disappointed :)

Ingredients
Papers: DCwV
Image: Little Witchy from Pixie Cottage
Embellishments: little bat brads
Colored pencils, copic marker, Zig marker

Lovely Autumn...

Yay! I have pretty much returned to the land of the living! And just in time, too, because I wanted to get my card in for the challenge at Simon Says Stamp. Using the sketch from Creative Inspirations, I made this autumnal card, complete with machine stitching for Simon's Challenge.

I ended up cutting the image out after I stamped and colored it because I wanted a more weathered background... those curls are no easy task to cutterbee around! But I like how she turned out :)

Ingredients
Papers: BasicGrey, Fancy Pants, BoBunny
Image: Whiff of Joy
Elements: buttons, thread, and crocheted lace
Colored pencils and distress ink

Boo!

Well, it is Sunday night, and it is time to start thinking about Monday. Lunches to pack, socks to find.... I have the hardest time finding matching socks for the boys. And thinking about Monday, I almost forgot to post my card for the Monday Mojo Challenge! I used one of my new digistamps I purchased from Mo Manning at her online store. Her artwork is absolutely amazing! I almost hate to color the images, they are so perfect as it :) This card uses Monday Mojo sketch 103. I really loved this sketch! I like groups of threes, and this sketch has such nice balance...

Ok, well off to make sure backpacks are where they ought to be, find those pesky socks, and pray I have two juice boxes...

Ingredients
Papers: MyMindsEye, Making Memories, Cosmo Cricket, Bazzill
Image:"Boo" from Mo Manning at Soft Pencil Too
Embellishments:
Colorbox ink and colored pencils

Meant to be...Midnight madness at its most sincere

Midnight Madness... This is my first MMSC and I think it pretty appropriate that I am posting it at, if not midnight, the middle of the night... I am having one of those I-can't-sleep-but-can't-decide-of-I-should-go-back-to-bed-and-try-to-sleep moments. These usually turn into me deciding to get on the computer "just for a minute" and then see that two hours have gone by, it is almost morning, and by the time I fall asleep, the kids are up. Oh well. I'll just drink an extra pot of coffee.

This card originally had a digistamp on it, then I did the unthinkable - I tore it off, because I had used a funky red and it threw the whole thing off! I usually am not a teal and pink kind of gal, but I had this roll of fabulous lace edged fabric trim ribbon and have been dying to use it... and that determined my colorscheme... So then I sat here, card without an image, done in teals and pinks. I dug through my stash of vintage pics, and there she was...

(cue the swelling orchestra!)

the exact size, already printed for crying out loud, and she was wearing a soft bluish teal dress and holding a bouquet of pink flowers. Seriously? It was meant to be.

When working on a project, I usually "print to order." That is, I print out a pic for a specific project. However, I have this well-meaning, if not productive, intention of being frugal and trying to be productive notion that if I print on photopaper/fabric/whatever, I may as well fill up the sheet as to not waste time/material. What usually happens is that I cut out the image I wanted, set aside the sheet, and either forget about it, spill my coffee on it, or accidentally roll my chair over it three months later when it falls off the pile of other preprinted sheets that met the same fate.

But this little vintage gal somehow survived and is now looking beautifully melancholy on my teal and pink card. Three cheers for not getting rolled over!

See what happens when I wake up at 2am and can't sleep?

Ingredients

Papers: Basic Grey

Image: rescued vintage image (Luna Girl)

Embellishments: buttons (of course), thread, vintage lace trim

Inks: Ranger distress ink

Thank you... and could I LOVE buttons any more than this?

I mentioned in my previous post my love for Mary. I did some digging, and I have quite a decent stash of ME stamps! Wooo Hooo! I made this little cutie card in response to the Friday Sketchers challenge (I sure love their sketches!) and it was fun to use bold, bright colors...

...and buttons! I think I have layered buttons on the last 4ish cards I have made. I even put a button on the inside. I hope I am not overdoing the button thing. They make me ever-so-happy...

Ingredients

Papers:MyMindsEye, BoBunny, Graphic45

Image: Mary Engelbreit

Embellishments: ribbon, BUTTONS :)

Ranger distress ink and colored pencils

Hey baby... loving Mary Engelbreit

I am a huge fan of Mary Engelbreit. Huge. My little workspace is plastered with prints from her calendars and posterbooks (I was looking through my stash of old calendars, and I have been saving them sine, oh, 199osomething), and I just love her sense of whimsy, her great use of color... When I started stamping years ago, some of my very first stamps I bought were ME stamps. Cute Card Thursday had a challenge of "new beginning", and the first image that came to my mind was one of my most favorite ME stamps. A prefect baby stamp, it works for Stampin' for the weekend's Baby challenge too! Using a fabulous sketch from EverybodyART, I created this card. I loved this sketch, and know I will be using it again :)


I really enjoyed building this card up. Lots of texture with buttons, quilted fabric, layers of paper and chipboard, paint, a little safety pin...


I really feel like my obsession with cardmaking is coming along quite nicely.

Speaking of Mary, did anyone read her article in the magazine "Where Women Create"? It is new on the shelves, and I sooo want to live in Mary's world...


Ingredients
Papers: MyMindsEye (I so love their papers...)
Stamp: Mary Engelbreit and GStudios (sentiment)
Embellishments: Fabric (moda), silver safety pin, buttons, thread, chipboard
Ink, paint, colored pencils

Double Dutch Friendship card...

It's no secret I love vintage! When I found this set of K&Co. vintage embellies on sale at Michaels this summer, I knew it would be just a matter of time until I found just the right project :) The challenge at Double Dutch challenge was "Back in Time" where you could pick a previous challgenge, and I chose the sketch from DDC#06. It was the perfect layout for the card I had in mind: lots of layers. I love to layer papers, and this card uses six different companies' papers. It is a kind of a funky retro look, and I love pink and green together.

Ingredients

Papers: Crate Paper, Creative Imaginations, Jenni Bowlin, MyMindsEye, Basic Grey, and Prima

Embellishments: button, K&Co friendship card, stitching, trim

Ink: Ranger distress ink

Hey Cupcake...

The doorbell rang yesterday, and my two cutie little neighbor girls were at the door. They wanted to see if they could borrow some vanilla extract. They were making cookies with their cousin, and you could tell they were sooo excited to be baking from scratch (plus they like to ring my doorbell). I supplied the extract (I use it sometimes when I teastain fabric) and felt compelled to bake with my kids.

I used a mix, however. We made brownies, and the boys enjoyed the bowl-licking the best. After filling the baking pan, I let them have at the bowl with various spoons, mixing cups, and measuring utensils. I have never seen so much teamwork. These two were on a mission, and they were very dedicated to their mission:

Get as much chocolate on their faces as possible.

Of course my full attention was on my children, but I was also dreaming of the next card I could create. I wanted to combine some of the challenges... I am loving the challenges! So while I stirred and tried to keep the boys from putting their complete faces into the mixing bowl, I decided to do a cupcake card.

In my quest to see how many challenges I could do with one card, I was pleased to be able to use the sketch from Friday Sketchers, use circles as challenged by ABC, stitch around my papers for Creative Inspirations, and make this a little birthday card for Stamp Something .

Ingredients

Paper: MyMindsEye, Bazzill

Embellishments: handpieced cupcake by me, fabric, button, stitching

Hey Diddle Diddle... Mojo Monday (day3)

It's mad times, I tell you, mad! Ok, so I am channeling Professor Slughorn from the Harry Potter books, but there is madness - MojoMadness! It is day 3, and I have made it my goal to do a card for each challenge this week. So far, so good :) AND this card actually has a stamped image. I have been using my vintage pics, but then I dug through my very small collection of stamps, and forgot I had this one! I love vintage children's books, and this cute stamp was perfect!

This is my first stamped card for a challenge, and therefore my first coloring... What do you think? I used colored pencils, and hope to get my hands on some Copic Markers one day :) They seem to be all the rage, and have fantastic results.

Ingredients

Paper: MyMindsEye, Cosmo Cricket, Paper Loft, K &Co

Image: "Hey Diddle Diddle" by Stampabilities

Distressing ink (Ranger) and colored pencils

Sketch: MojoTeresa
This card measures just under 6x6