Belle Papier {pretty paper}

I love sketch challenges! They always make me think a little outside the box and that is a good thing. I love today’s SCS Sketch challenge. You can find it at SC if you want to play along.

This card features two things I wanted to tell you about. Flourishes has paired up with Gina K on the Make a Wish Stamps for a Cause set to help promote this fabulous cause. Flourishes does not profit in any way from this venture, except by helping out a wonderful charity. I know you’ve seen samples of this great set before here. I was on the original special design team for this project and I’m excited to help promote it again. I love this very flexible set and I love the fact that $7 from each set goes to the Children’s Make a Wish Foundation.

The other thing I wanted to tell you about is the gorgeous Webster’s papers. I LOVE them! These papers are fairly new on the market…I had never heard of them before until Jacksonbelle came back from CHA. Honestly…you really can’t get a great feel for them by looking at them on-line but I took Lindsey’s word for it and I love them! ABsolutely stunning in person.

Spring Wish

For this design I used the sketch as my jumping off point and pulled out my stamp set and my new papers. After looking through them, I thought this gorgeous print would work great with my image and I pulled my color combo direct from the paper….bashful blue and mellow moss. I tell you, it has been ages since I last used Mellow Moss but it looks so subtle and beautiful…I must rethink that color!

I actually tweeked the sketch just a tad and used a square card layout instead…you know how much I like the added design space! The main image was inked up with my SU markers and then stamped twice onto a scrap of very vanilla cardstock. After sponging all my layers, I adhered them down and started my embellishing. I also adhered a beautiful gold/green May Arts satin ribbon over the seam on the right hand side.

The image needed a little definition at the top left and I was itching to use my new Making Memories textured tape that I picked up at Michael’s yesterday. I cut off a small scrap, folded it over to create a tab and then stitched on top of the image. The Prima flower worked as the lower element to the sketch and I added a large copper eyelet with my Crop-a-dile as the flower center. To finish it off and to add another copper element, I added a row of eyelets under the center panel to add to the design.

Wishing you a fabulous day!

Halloween is not something we celebrate in a big way at our house. I guess I love the fun of the dressing up and the goodies but am just not too into the more ghoulish side of it. LOL So any Halloween card you are likely to see here is not going to be very scary. I’m leaning more towards cute and simple.

Pumpkin Card

This design is super quick and simple. I love the bold look of the Making Memories patterned paper and adhered it to my cardfront in panels. The pumpkin is super simple too. I used a Stampin Up large oval punch to punch out three ovals from Pumpkin Pie Cardstock. A little Close to Cocoa ink  sponged lightly around the edges gives it a little shape and then the ovals are layered over each other.

Quick Tip: don’t have an oval punch? How about a circle punch? Creating a pumpkin with a circle punch in the same manner looks super-cute as well…instead of tall and thin, you have a nice round squat pumpkin.

To finish off my pumpkin, I free-hand cut a little stem from Always Artichoke cardstock and then trimmed some tiny strips of cardstock. To curl them I wrapped them around the needle of my paper piercer. Be careful! It is sharp! I always love adding a little scrap of ribbon to a design and I love this black gingham for Halloween. I punched a circle from black cardstock and wrapped it around the side of my design. After setting an eyelet with my Crop-a-dile, I tied the ribbon through. Super quick card!

Today’s Color Challenge…Purely Pomegranate, Old Olive, Pretty Pink! Wohoo I managed two challenges in a row! This design uses the brand-new It’s Shower Time stamp set from My Favorite Things. I just love this set, so sweet and is designed to be used for Bridal or Baby Shower cards or invitations. It’s Shower Time will be released September 1st…just a few more days!

Floral Bridal Shower

For this design, I started off with my stamp set and the color combo. A perfect combo. Can’t get much more girlie than a Bridal Shower. On my desk, this leftover scrap of Daisy D’s paper was sitting there, leftover from a design I created for a call yesterday. It worked perfectly so I just had to use it up. The Purely Pomegranate card base is layered with whisper white, old olive and this Daisy D’s floral.

I then went to work on the image, pulling out some watercolor paper, I stamped the design with my favorite Black Palette Noir Hybrid ink from Stewart Superior. I just love how this ink resists bleeding making it perfect for watercoloring. After watercoloring my image with my aquapainter, I distressed the edges. The Old Olive layer was overlapped with a strip of the Pomegranate that I zig zag stitched at each end. I rarely adhere things on an angle but this image seemed to work well that way. Before adhering it I added two little heart brads at the top to signify the love of the bride and groom to be.

I then tucked the sentiment down at the bottom by stamping directly onto the patterned paper. This Daisy D’s paper works well for that but try it on a scrap before you stamp. Some patterned papers resist the ink and don’t leave you with a good impression.

Quick Tip: If your patterned paper resists classic ink, use a craft or Versamark ink and then emboss the sentiment to make it more legible.

To finish it off, I just had to add a little white Prima flower. I think this batch is fast becoming my favorite. I love white flowers and I’ve been waiting for Prima to come out with a great white flower. This package of white hydrangeas comes in a beautiful tin. The button is from an awesome Autumn Leaves button package and is tied with some more of my new May Arts ribbon.

Well, I said I’d be back with a card design and I am! It is a LOT later in the day than I expected but I came through! LOL I was so mixed up what day today was. We were actually supposed to come home tomorrow and I think that is what was mixing me up! LOL You’ll have to excuse my photo..I’ll replace it with a better one tomorrow!

It has been quite a while since I’ve had time to try out a technique challenge and this is one I’ve done before…long ago! It is a double resist technique combining Clear Emboss Resist with Versamark Resist. I love the extra depth it gives. I needed a birthday card for my sweet little nephew and I decided to go with a Western theme for my design. Hope he likes it!

Western Birthday

For the technique and main image panel, you first must stamp the images you want to be most prominent with Versamark onto glossy paper and then emboss them with clear embossing powder. After, you can fill in the background images by stamping with Versamark again. This time … Do NOT emboss. Simply brayer or sponge color over the top and your images will appear. Lightly wipe excess ink from surface with a tissue and your panel is ready to use. To get a distressed look to my panel, I used my Heidi Swapp edge distresser to fray the edge.

Quick Tip: distressing the edges of glossy cardstock is a little more difficult because of the extra thickness and the slick surface. I used my Basic Grey Precision file to sand the edges first ( you can also use sandpaper) before distressing to make it easier

For the main card base of my design, I used Creamy Caramel and stamped it with Linen and the Wanted Paisleys and then sponged the edges. The darling bandanna print is by Flair Designs. I stitched it to the card and then distressed the edges.

The main image panel was then matted with black cardstsock and then tied with some of my new May Arts ribbon. A tab at the top is a piece of Flair paper from the same line, punched, sponged and stapled to the top of the panel. I love my Crop-a-dile and I couldn’t resist adding a line of black Making Memories eyelets with it and then stamping the sentiment in front. The Happy Birthday is from the Lizzie Anne Designs Simply Sentiments set.

I had a comment the other day about how to get inspired to get back into scrapbooking. Now its been a long time since I had been scrapbooking… a few years to be precise. I must say, I’m only dabbling in it a little again. What actually started me back at it was a few articles I needed to write for Craft Critique. The companies that I was reveiwing, both were mainly scrapbooking companies and so, to be fair … I needed to try out a few layouts. I had a fabulous time with it again but I must say, my designing is going to remain predominantly card design and altered items. If this is what you are coming to see, don’t worry!

The biggest drawback I have with scrapbooking is time. Layouts DO take more time that cards. That’s a fact. The other thing is the thought that each page has to be perfect. It doesn’t. Just like life is a journey so is scrapbooking and designing…it all changes so don’t get caught up in that frame of mind. So…what inspires me to get started again…here is a short list…

• take photos or get out some great older ones
• go with a smaller format if 12×12 intimidates you - just bought some adorable Cosmo Cricket 8×8 that is absolutely darling and my fingers are itching to get to it, 6×6 is another great size…pages go together quickly and you can use one photo on a layout
• buy a scrapbooking kit … there are so many cool ones out there - they make it sooo easy to coordinate and take some of the stress off of you finding things to match
• buy or borrow a scrapbooking magazine…they are FULL of cool ideas
• take a scrapbooking challenge - they are always a great place to jump off from and there are lots of them on-line (I don’t have any links off-hand. Sorry! I do know that Splitcoaststampers has a scrapbook forum with challenges as well as Two Peas in a Bucket If you know of other linkes to challenges…be sure to share them in the comments and I’ll edit them in to this post.)
• buy plastic layout keepers - put paper, embellishments and photos together for a layout and then create it when you have the time
• journaling can be intimidating - hide it if you like behind an element or just keep it short and simple…whatever works best for you
• just get started - procrastination isn’t helping! Once you get at it, you’ll keep going
• just have some fun - every layout is NOT going to be perfect so just enjoy the process

I hope this helps! A lot of these tips work well for card designing and other papercraft projects also. I’m just home from the cottage last night so I’m anxious to get organized and get back to designing. Check back in later…I’ll be sure to have something to share with you.