Guest Star Stamper for CTD #316 -- Leaves Galore

Most of the yards around here have leaves galore right now, especially after the windy Saturday we had.  Luckily the few leaves we did have in our yard were blown away.  

I was lucky enough to have my card chosen as the random winner of CTD challenge #314.  So I am the Guest Star Stamper for CTD challenge #316.  I am so excited and honored to have my card featured along side the design team's cards.  I just love the inspiration picture for this week's challenge.  

I decided to pull out a few old fall stamp sets that I haven't used for awhile.  I used a couple of stamps from 3 different sets.  I used one stamp from Inkadinkado's Leaves Galore stamp set and another stamp from Inkadinkado's Fall Season stamp set and the sentiment "A Thanksgiving Wish" came from a new set from Penny Black, called Fall Flutters.  I also used a dots stamp from Tapestry.

I used the baby wipe technique to ink the leaves up.  I used Stampin' Up's re-inkers in Daffodil Delight, Bliss Blue and Pumpkin Pie on Gina K's Pure Luxury Cream card stock.  I stamped the sentiment in Tuxedo Black ink.

I used SU's Daffodil Delight, Marina Mist and Black card stock on this card as well. I finished off the card with a few sequins from Simon Says Fall Harvest sequins.

Thank you for stopping by and you, too, can participate in the Color Throwdown Challenge #316.  You have until 6pm on Monday to link up your card.  Who knows, maybe your card will be randomly chosen as the next Guest Star Stamper!

PS...Gloria asked for me to explain the baby wipe technique.  What I do is use about 3 or 4 baby wipes and lay them flat and then use 3 re-inkers and drop droplets of ink on the baby wipe...about 8 of the yellow and orange in a circle and filled in with about 4 drops of blue.  The colors will meld on the baby wipe because of the alcohol in the baby wipe.  The baby wipe becomes your ink pad for your stamps.  The more solid your stamp, the better the technique works.  I made a bunch of these for a swap and got about 5 cards done before I had to use more baby wipes and add more ink.  Here's a video link from PaperTrey Ink's Capture the Moment (Make It Monday) by Ashley Cannon Newell showing this technique (she only used one baby wipe).

Pumpkin Harvest

Second post for today...is for Color Throwdown Challenge #315.  Our colors were pale yellow, mossy green, orange and cream.

I found this stamp at the Novi Stamp Convention back in August and didn't realize it didn't have a manufacturer's name on the stamp, but thought it would make a great fall card.

I stamped it in Momento's London Fog on Gina K's Pure Luxury Cream card stock and colored it with my Copics numbers YG63, YG95, Y11, Y13, Y17, YR16, W2 and COO.  I made my own background card stock by sponging together Stampin' Up's Barely Banana, Tangerine Tango and Pear Pizzazz inks on another piece of cream card stock.  I took a scrap piece of SU's Mossy Meadow and ran it through a Sizzix Embossing Folder. that I don't remember the name of, sorry.  I finished the card off by attaching the pumpkins and the embossed Mossy Meadow to the colored cream card stock and wrapped twine around where the two pieces meet.

Thank you so much for stopping by and don't forget to check out the amazing cards over at CTD #315. 

Pink Christmas?

Hi everyone, what a busy week it has been and it looks as though the next two weeks are going to be just as busy.  The holiday madness has started!

Since I am short on time, this is going to be short and sweet.  The Merry Monday Christmas Challenge blog asked us to use unusual colors for Christmas.  I instantly thought of "Charlie Brown's Christmas" special with the modern pink Christmas trees.  

I used Ranger's water color paper and Tim Holtz's Distress inks in Broken China, Tumbled Glass, Picked Raspberry and Dusty Concord.  I masked out the moon and water colored with these 4 ink colors to make my background.  I did remove the mask and add some color to the moon.  After it dried, I stamped the fir tree from Stampin' Up's Lovely as a Tree set in Picked Raspberry and then added the "lights" with Liquid Pearls in Baby Blue.  I die cut out Penny Black's Merry Christmas from Joyous Wishes from white card stock and colored it with the Liquid Pearls in Baby Blue.  After it dried, I put the card together.  I used bright pink card stock as my base, a pink snowflake dp that was in my scrap drawer and pink bakers twine to finish off the card.  

Thanks for stopping by and don't forget to check out the other unusual colors of beautiful Christmas cards  over at Merry Monday's Christmas Challenge #131.

A Pair of Apples

It's Color Throwdown Challenge for me today.  This week's colors are to use pale yellow, pale pink and red.  These colors threw me and I really had to play with them to figure out the color scheme. I was pretty happy with my final outcome

So I decided to use a new stamp set for me from PaperTrey Ink called Apple Prints.  I love this set and can't believe I didn't order before.  I ordered the coordinating die set, too.

I started out with my card stock base of SU's Poppy Parade and used the Courtyard EF from Tim Holtz.  I used a piece of water color paper and wet it lightly with water, inked up an acrylic block with SU's Pretty in Pink and Distress Ink in Squeezed Lemonade and spritzed it with water, too, and stamped the color on the water color paper.  The picture makes the yellow and pink look very bright.  I used the die cut to out the apples and stamped them with SU's Poppy Parade and Pretty in Pink inks and also with Squeezed Lemonade Distress ink.  The stems were stamped with Tuxedo Black.  I used some yellow twine to finish off the card.

Thank you, Lori, for this great challenge.  Thank you so much for stopping by and check out the beautiful cards at CTD Challlenge #314.

Silent Night

LeAnne brings us this week's Merry Monday Christmas Challenge.  Her favorite Christmas carol is Silent Night and she would like us to make a card that invokes the calm peaceful feeling of a "Silent Night" before Christmas.  I have so many stamps that qualify for this challenge that I had a hard time picking out which stamp to use.  After making about 4 different cards, I was happiest with my last one. 

I used Gina K's Pure White Luxury card stock and SU's Night of Navy card stock and ink for this card.  I used Hero Arts Starry Night.  I trimmed around the image and attached it to white card stock to make it look like an instant photo.  I added PTI's sentiment from Think Big Favorites #21.  I took a little bit of Perfect Pearls and added a little water.  I used a small paintbrush and flicked the Perfect Pearls over the Night of Navy Card stock and also added some dots of Perfect Pearls to the stamped image, too.

Thank you for stopping by and don't forget to check out the other "silent night" themed Christmas cards over at Merry Monday Christmas Challenge 130.

An Autumn Dance

Autumn is my favorite time of year!  I love when the leaves change color, but not so much when they fall off the tree or what season comes next.  But, I truly love the colors of fall and being able to pull out my sweaters.  My favorite thing to do in the fall is take drives and enjoy all the color that surrounds us.  M-22 in northern Michigan is my favorite scenic drive.  I hope we can get up there before the end of the month and enjoy it, even if it's after peak time.

I fell in love with this stamp as soon as I saw it on Penny Black's website.  And the colors for this week's Color Throwdown #313 were perfect for this stamp.  The PB stamp is called Autumn Dance and I used a piece of Ranger's Water Color paper and inked the stamp up with Tuxedo Black ink and heat embossed it with clear embossing powder.   I used Stampin' Up's Eggplant Evny and water colored the background with a water color pen.  I also water colored the leaves in SU's Wild Wasabi, Crushed Curry and Pumpkin Pie and let it dry.  I attached the panel on a piece of Green textured card stock I picked up at a local scrapbook store.  I stamped the sentiment from Inky Antics (G2-9902-F) in Tuxedo Black and heat embossed it in clear embossing powder and water colored it with SU's Eggplant Envy.  Cut it out with a Spellbinder die cut, cut it smaller by hand and mounted it on a die cut piece of black card stock, added some ribbon & baker's twine and pop dotted it to the card to finish it off.  

Thank you for stopping by and don't forget to check out the amazing cards using this week's Color Throwdown colors. 

Peace

Hi everyone.  I wasn't so sure I was going to enter the Merry Monday challenge this week, as we are to use neon colors on your card.  I didn't think any of the ink pads I own really qualify for neon colors, but after looking at the design team cards, I thought I could make a few Distress inks work.  I'm a HUGE fan of Jennifer McGuire.  My card is inspired by one of her videos from back in April that used a watercolor background and ironing off embossing.  I love this technique and use it from time to time.  Click here to watch her video.  I used this technique, except I didn't iron off the embossing this time.  To be honest, I just didn't feel like pulling the iron out...too lazy...LOL! 

I used a piece of Tim Holtz's watercolor paper (my favorite, by far...mostly because I love the smooth side) and inked up Stampin' Up's Holiday Print with Versamark and then used white embossing powder (Jennifer uses clear embossing powder and I usually do, too) and heat set it.  I used Tim Holtz's circle blending tool and applied TH's Distress Inks in Peacock Feathers, Picked Raspberry and Mowed Lawn.  I then spritzed on pearl ex (color of pearl) mixed with water to blend the 3 colors and mounted the card to a piece of SU's green galore card stock.  I finished the card off with a piece of green baker's twine and a snowflake. 

I really liked the way these colors blended together.  It  kind of reminds me of the northern lights.  

This card, also, qualifies for Simon Wednesday

Challenge.  As we are to use watercolors.

Thank you for stopping by and don't forget to check out the other amazing neon colored cards at Merry Monday Christmas Challenge and the water colored cards at Simon Wednesday Challenge, too.

Happy Day for CTD #312

This week's Color Throwdown was not an easy challenge for me.  I really struggled with these four colors.  I finally came up with a card I'm happy with.  I was hoping the ideas floating around in my head over the past week would have worked, but as we all know, what we think of in our mind, 

doesn't always translate well on paper.

I started out with Stampin Up's Black card stock as my base and cut out Memory Box's Arbascello Tree from another piece of black card stock.  I then used a piece of SU's Smoky Slate and cut the Arbascello Tree out from that and inlaid the black tree into the Smoky Slate card stock.  I then cut the tree out of both SU's Crumb Cake and Pumpkin Pie card stock and started cutting the leaves and gluing them onto the tree.  That took some time!

I finished the card off by die cutting Happy Day from PaperTrey Ink's Wet Paint Cuts and Wet Paint Cuts II die cuts and tied some orange bakers twine and hemp together.  Oh, I should tell you the word Day came from the die cut "today".  I trimmed off the "to".

Thank you for stopping by and don't forget to check out all the beautiful cards over at Color Throwdown #312.  

Merry Christmas

It's Merry Monday time again.  This week's Christmas challenge is to use stripes or polka dots or both.  I used both!

I started out with a navy blue speckled card stock that I get from my local stamp store, as my base and added the stripped dp from Keepin' Cozy by Echo Park. and then added another speckled card stock and dry embossed it with Stampin' Up's Decorative Dots embossing folder.  I took a piece of lighter blue card stock from my stash and heat embossed Deep Red's Grungy Christmas Wishes in white embossing powder and mounted it on a piece of white card stock.  I finished off the card by attaching it with a piece of blue bakers twine and popped it up with pop dots and added a few snow flakes in the corner with Martha Stewart's alpine and artic punches.  Oh, I also added some Wink of Stella to give the snowflakes and the words a bit of sparkle.

Thanks for stopping by and don't forget to check out the other beautiful cards over at Merry Monday's Christmas Challenge.