You Rock

This week Stacy is our hostess for the Inspiration Challenge at Splistcoaststampers and she has chosen US Mint Sheets.com to inspire us.  I selected several stamp sheets as inspiration but then on a whim, I typed in Jimi and to my surprise, the very Jimi stamp sheet that I purchased earlier in the year popped up!  I bought the sheet for our son who is a Jimi fan and an excellent guitar player.

To create the yellow layer, I swished a piece of cardstock through Fossilized Amber Distress Oxide spritzed with water. The guitar die cut is from Anita (aka snietje) a sweet friend at SCS!  The sentiment is from the Katie Girl stamp kit by Unity Stamp Co.  Since this will go to our son I masked off the "my world" part of the sentiment.  I figure it probably isn't cool for mom to say that!  

Even the back of the stamp sheet is fabulous!

I think it's so cool how the front of the stamp sheet is made to look like a
 record album with a hint of the record showing!

Ever since I moved my photography set up to the back room our Little Bit (named for how tiny she was when she picked out her forever family) sticks to me like glue when I turn on the studio lights.  She rubs against the stand (which is a ladder, hehe) where I place my camera so that it rocks the ladder and blurs the photos.  She loves to climb up and sit next to the card knocking over whatever I might have set out for staging.  Today I gave in and took advantage of the photo op!

Thanks so much for stopping by today!!!

Have a fabulous weekend!

Sleep, Rest, Recover

In the fast-paced world we find ourselves in sometimes we need to be reminded to take care of the basics!  I love this sentiment as it gives the recipient permission to get some extra sleep, rest and recover!  This sentiment is part of the Many More stamp set by The Project Bin.  

I googled the ginkgo leaf and found gorgeous greens and yellows but I also found a photo of one that was watercolored in the reds and browns of fall which inspired my coloring.  

Thanks for looking and I hope you find time for a little extra rest this week!

Many More

A Day for Challenges

I am having a lovely day filled with stamp challenges!  The good kind!  I am hosting the IC challenge at Splitcoaststampers today and a Virtual Stamp Night Challenge!  VSN is a fun weekend with stamping challenges occurring every hour on Saturday from noon until10pm ET and there is even a prize!

My challenge is titled Lemony Yellow.  You can find all the information HERE, I would love to see you there!!!

For my card, I am featuring Hey Friend a new stamp set by Graciellie Designs at Unity Stamp Co. I just love the hanging flowers, leaves, and feathers in this kit!

For my IC658 challenge, I am sending us to a site with souvenirs to inspire us since July is the most common month for vacations in the US.     I chose THIS photo as my inspiration.  Can you guess why?  I created a gift set with  My Panda Balloon from Unity Stamp Co.  I stamped the cute panda on the envies and tied it all up with a sheer ribbon.  

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Thank You

Today I have the fun of featuring a brand new stamp set from The Project Bin.  The Many More stamp set is so versatile with five themes:  Baby, Birthday, Wedding, Thank You, Get Well.  

This set also includes sentiments that coordinate and look beautiful on the inside!

Thanks so much for stopping by!  I hope you will hop on over to The Project Bin blog to see more projects.

New to the site is the Product Catalog where you can find samples of all your favorite Project Bin stamp sets to inspire creativity!

Many More

Pink Fairy Dreams

Julie is our hostess for the IC657 challenge this week and she chose a sweet site run by two sisters. I found THIS adorable page and was inspired to take out my Playfully Pixie kit from Unity Stamp Co.  The fourth photo on the page totally captured my attention.  The little girl is simply darling and that magenta dress, oh my!   For my sentiment, I chose one from the Reach for the Stars kit.

I totally let my love for pink run wild on this!   I masked the moon then sponged Distress Inks in Picked Raspberry and Seedless Preserves.  I stamped the image then the sentiment and decided a shadow would be a good way to finish off the card.  Reflection shadows are super fun to create!

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you will join us over at Splitcoaststampers for daily challenges!

Day 4 and 5 Summer School is in Session

Day 4 - MFT Summer School - Complimentary Colors

I tried out several of the complementary color combos but in the end, I was drawn to the dark eggplant shade of cardstock to use with the Stitched Blooms Die-Namics.  Stephanie shared several great tips in her video and one of them was using her phone to take quick pictures of stamp placement.  I used my phone numerous times to snap pics of my flower arrangement.  It's easier to see if the overall effect looks good when the pic is at eye level vs looking down at a work surface.  I was unhappy with all of my arrangements until I decided to create a single flower from several of the flower pieces.  For the base, I added coordinating layers with the

  Stitched Scallop Basic Edges Die-namics. For a finishing touch, I added Wink of Stell to the flower and the Scallop Edges.  IRL the card sparkles!

I finished this card today since yesterday we enjoyed a fun family 4th of July and I wasn't able to fit in a completed card yesterday.

Day 5 - MFT Summer School - Symmetry

Today Barbara taught us the principle of symmetry.  She has a fabulous video sharing how she created Symmetry with borders and trees.  I created symmetry with a square card and added two Single Stitch Line Square Frames.  I featured three flowers all in a row from the Sending a Smile stamp set and centered the sentiment from Springtime Blooms for symmetry.

With this card, I am excited to say that I managed to finish MFT's Summer School Session 1!  I have had a blast pulling out my stamps and Die-namics from MFT.  MFT products are such a pleasure to work with!

Thanks for stopping by and checking out my homework assignments this week!

With my square card, I am also going to play along with Cute Card Thursday Challenge - Anything Goes

                                    

Day 3 A Whole Lot of Lovely repetition

Who put a quarter in me and made me crafty this week?  LOL  So here is my 3rd post of the day! 

To view my Project Bin Patriotic card click HERE or scroll down.  :)

This is Day 3 of MFT's Summer School with the theme of Repetition. Karolyn is our teacher today and she is sharing some great tips for aligning repeating elements with ease! 

One of the points in today's lesson is to change the color in one of the repeating elements to add interest so I left all my images uncolored except for the middle flower.  I actually colored and die cut a blue butterfly but pretty as it was it competed with my flower for attention.  Since this challenge is about adding interest to the repeating element I decided to go with an uncolored butterfly.  The flowers, butterfly and sentiment are from the cute Sending a Smile stamp set.  I love using the dies in this set because MFT allows enough of an edge around the images that it's easy to line them up without cutting off a part of the design.

For the grass, I used Lydia's Masked Pastels Technique.  Scroll down her blog post for the video link.  It's a cool technique!  I didn't want a full-blown sunshine so I used my MFT Stencil Sun Ray and lightly rubbed oil pastel through the stencil rays. 

That's it for me today!  I promise, no more posts for July 3rd!  

I hope to see you at Summer School!!  

This Land

With the 4th of July just a day away I simply had to pull out Red White and Boom by The Project Bin.  I just love this stamp set!  I love the fireworks image and the sentiments are lovely.  

I created a step card using a die and then I stamped the fireworks on the left portion of the card.  I adhered the stars on the right and still had a few remaining stars so I decided instead of using gems in the center of the fireworks I would add the stars.  Funny story.  It was then I realized that one of the stars would cover up the water spot that I dabbed away and in the process rubbed a bit of the paper off.  No one will ever know!  Every time I look at this sentiment I hear the song in my head!  It's a beautiful sentiment!

For those that celebrate I hope you have a wonderful 4th!  All of us are home for the day this year so that will be special!  

Red White and Boom

Summer School Day 2 - Primary Colors

MFT's Summer School Day 2 is to use primary colors.  Stephanie shared a video of her super cute card.  

The layout of today's card is similar to yesterday's since I actually created the background for Day One's CAS card using the Stencil Mini Cloud Edges  but once I saw the vines with the clouds I started over and set the cloud base aside.   Tonight as I was looking at the Sending a Smile Stamp and die set that was still on my desk from the day before I remembered my cloud background and thought it might be fun to add the Wire BG to the clouds and use birds instead of the flowers.  That's how this came to be!

Summer School Day 1

So I made it halfway through the month doing the 30 Day Coloring Challenge but my schedule got the best of me and I couldn't keep it up!  Next, I am going to try and attend MFT's Summer School.  

Our first challenge is white space.  Lately, I have been enjoying CAS cards so this was a fun one for me! Laurie is teaching day one and shared the magic of thirds.  I chose the center of my card as my focal point.

I dabbed just a bit of watery Broken China Distress Oxide ink on the base then created a scene within the Stitched Rectangle Frame.  I colored and die cut the vines from the Doodle Blossoms set and adhered the vines to the back of the frame.  The bird and cute ladybug are from the Sending a Smile stamp and die sets.  The sentiment is from the Springtime Blooms set.  I have a little trick to cutting the perfect little sentiment strips. I used to make myself crazy trying to get sentiment strips even until I purchased the Bold Stripe Cover-up!  I love the cover up to use as a background but it has an added bonus of creating perfect cardstock strips.  I run the Cover-up and cardstock through my die machine and then I leave the strips in the frame.  I place the entire Cover-up in my MISTI and align a sentiment easily on one of the strips!  Easy Peasy and straight every time!

Thanks for stopping by and I hope to see you at school, MFT's summer school that is!

Fan Club Christmas - Meowy

Every Wednesday a new tutorial is posted at SCS.  This week's tutorial caught my eye because of a kitty!  Dina created a sample and used one of her own stamp sets, it's darling!  Last night I took a look at the video Dawn created for a Double Triangle Fold.  Dawn's step by step is so detailed that I picked up extra tips like how to deal with the magnetic plate on a die cutting machine when the die wants to hop around and move!  

I thought it would be fun to use this new to me fold for my Fan Club Christmas Challenge this month.  I chose Unity Stamp Co's darling Meowy for my focal image and die cut it with my cross stitch circle die sent to me by my friend Janeen. Funny thing about the coloring, this paper actually has some violet snowflakes in it but on this lower half of the sheet, there is only a teeny tiny violet snowflake at the bottom.  There are a couple more on the inside!  I am celebrating this week's Featured Stamper Cheiron.  She has a stunning gallery.  With THIS card, we featured winter, snow and the same colors. 

The top triangle part of the card opens up and the lower triangle opens out. I added a half cross stitched circle on the back to neaten up the focal image and cover up the ink bleed which as an added bonus adds strength to the circle.  

Thanks so much for looking!  Stop by at Splitcoaststampers and visit me, I am ohmypaper! over there!