Running With Scissors...

Gone to the Dogs

 

After my play fest with the dress forms I had to get down to the business of making my son’s birthday card.  I entered a card in a Squigglefly challenge… gosh… around Christmastime (has it really been that long ago?), and I won a free image.  This one was on my wish list because, well, you know how I feel about dogs, and I thought it would be great for guy birthday cards.  So I saved it for my son, and here it is, Another Birthday.

 

 

I appreciate how well illustrated this digi stamp is.  Whether an image is intricate and elegant, or simple and whimsical, if it’s got beauty and/or character I’ll probably like it.  Which is why, I suppose, I can’t stick to any one style.  I guess Life really is like a box of chocolates.

 

I printed on Flourishes Classic White cardstock and colored with Copic markers.  The candles are glittered with Stickles and the circle frame is popped up on foam mounting tape.  The layout is pretty straightforward and the only embellishment the three brads attaching the sentiment flag.  It almost seems rather under-embellished after last week’s cards, but, you know, it’s a guy card.    Colorful, though.

 

I’m so happy you could drop by today and I hope to see you again later this week.  Take care!

 

Stamps:  Squigglefly Another Birthday digital stamp, Flourishes Medallion Motif sentiment  Paper:  Red, Kiwi, Classic White, My Mind’s Eye Out of the Blue designer paper  Ink:  Printer, Memento Tuxedo Black, Copic markers for coloring  Accessories:  Brads, Stickles Stardust glitter glue, Spellbinders Standard Circles Small, Scotch brand foam mounting tape

Feminine Charm

 

By now you’ve figured out I went on a mini-binge with my dress form stamps.   A girl has to have a little fun, right?  This is one of the more elegant dress forms I have.  The stamps are from Flourishes’ Feminine Charm set.  I used soft toned vintage sewing themed papers with lots of stitching and sewing-related tidbits, including a few eyelets from a drawer full of eyelets which I seldom use these days (but am determined to use up in my lifetime).

 

 

 

The dress form is watercolored with Stampin’ Up! inks on 90 lb hot press watercolor paper.  I guess you’d have to look pretty closely to see the pattern markings on the paper.

 

 

 

I do have a couple more dress form cards, as well, but I figured this was enough for one week.  Focusing on the dress forms was more or less a self-challenge to get me using some stamps and supplies I haven’t touched in a while.  I hope you had fun looking!  See you again soon!

 

Stamps:  Feminine Charm (Flourishes)  Paper:  Caramel textured, blush, 90 lb hot press watercolor, KaiserCraft Vintage Timeless designer paper  Ink:  Palette Noir, blush, various SU! inks for watercoloring  Accessories:  Silk ribbon, lace, pearls, eyelets, lace flower, scissors charm, circle tag

Window Dressing

 

Any shop with a polka dot awning and all those flowers in front would draw me in like a magnet.  Welcome to another dress form day on the blog!  Do any of you remember this old Stampin’ Up! set, I Like Your Style?  Well, I like its style. 

 

 

Today’s card is colored with Copic markers on Flourishes’ Classic White cardstock.  I used a Sizzix brick wall embossing folder, popped up a planter box, and made a window pane with Clear Cover Cardstock.  The flowers are something old from Hero Arts.  They’re actually flower clusters, with most of the flowers attached, so the cutting is not as crazily detailed and time consuming as it may look.  I colored and cut out three clusters and added foliage with a Martha Stewart branch punch.  Glitter, too!

 

 

The three dress forms are stamped on the inside of the card.  You can see it partially open here.

 

 

A summary of details is in the recipe, below.  Happy stamping! 

 

Stamps:  I Like Your Style (Stampin’ Up!), Hero Arts flowers  Paper:  Real Red textured and plain, Daffodil Delight textured, Flourishes Classic White cardstock, Clear Cover Cardstock, Stampin’ Up! Polka Dot Parade designer paper  Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Copic Markers for coloring  Accessories:  Sizzix brick wall embossing folder, Spellbinders Large and Small Classic Squares, Stampin’ Up! scallop edge punch, Martha Stewart branch punch, Stickles Black Diamond and Stardust glitter glue, Scotch Brand foam mounting tape

Dressform

 

Hello, and happy Monday!  I'm dropping in today with a card which I made for a friend’s birthday.  She sews and uses an antique dress form, so I thought now would be a good time to ink up my Loralie Dress Form stamp.  I matched it up with a sentiment from a retired Stampin' Up! dress form set which I'm now glad I saved.

 

This card is a little bigger than A2 at 4 1/2” x 6”.  It’s time I used up some of the envelopes I have to fit that size, and it did give me more room to play.

 

 

This was certainly a fun card to make.  The cute image presented a wealth of opportunity for the details.  I started by choosing the paper and colors, and then commenced watercoloring the dress form with Stampin’ Up! inks – Crumb Cake for the dress form, and Melon Mambo, Pumpkin Pie, and Old Olive for the flowers.

 

The dress form stamp, itself, comes adorned only with the flowers.  I added the lace, fishnet, and polka dot details with a Prismacolor Premier very fine tipped marker, following an example on the stamp packaging.  I really love how the lacy button coordinates. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I made the Crumb Cake seam binding bow all messy and scrunchy by wetting the seam binding, then wadding it up and drying it with my heat gun.  It took only a minute or two.  The seam binding dries very quickly.  After making a few loops around my fingers I tied it off in the center with another length of ribbon which made a rather lumpy knot in the back of the bow.  Since I was popping up the frame panel I could eliminate that extra lump by punching a 1/4” hole in the panel and tucking the knot into it with a little tacky glue around the edge of the hole.  There it is, tucked neatly in place.

 

 

 

 

And here’s a partial view of the inside with another of those SU! sentiments

 

 

The sentiment has special significance because she customized her dress form by having her hubby wrap duct tape around her body to create a mold which she then used to adjust her dress form (something she learned on Pinterest).  She will now have a customized card to go with her customized dress form.  I think she’ll get a kick out of it.

 

 

I hope you enjoyed it, too!  Have a great day!

 

 

Stamps:  Dressform (Loralie), I Like Your Style (Stampin’ Up!)  Paper:  Kraft, Apricot, 90 lb hot press watercolor, Webster’s Pages Ladies & Gents and Trendsetter double pack designer paper  Ink:  Palette Noir, Crumb Cake, Pumpkin Pie, Melon Mambo, Old Olive, gray, black, Prismacolor Premier .01 tip marker  Accessories:  Crumb Cake seam binding, buttons, linen thread, tag punch, Spellbinders Floral Flourishes, Grand Ovals, and Labels Twenty, Scotch brand foam mounting tape

Vintage Kids at Play

 

Hello!  Today I’m focusing on an image I colored weeks ago and just now got around to giving it a home on a card.  It’s another wonderful free vintage digital image from Digital Two for Tuesday, and you can find this particular image right here.  Just click on the image and then right click and save to your computer.

 

 

I printed this on 90 lb hot press watercolor paper at a time when I thought I might try water coloring, but regardless of the heat setting after printing I found my ink jet ink would still smear.  However, Copic markers work very nicely on watercolor paper, so I fell back on those once again.  I matched up the designer papers with the colors and the era of the image as best I could.  I even used vintage buttons from my Mom’s button collection.  Hoping to keep it gender neutral I didn’t get too frilly with the design.  The image is circa 1900, so it’s a little before the time of my circle of friends, but if I like it I hope someone else will like it, too.

 

There are more details in the recipe, below.  Thank you for visiting and for your comments which I always enjoy so much.  Happy day!

 

Stamps:  Free Digital Kids at Play  Sentiment from Flourishes Kid’s Play Two   Paper:  Crumbcake, Kraft, Webster’s Pages designer paper, 90 lb hot press watercolor  Ink:  Printer, Chocolate for sentiment  Accessories:  Ribbon, buttons, linen thread, Herringbone embossing folder (for the two Kraft horizontal strips

Inspired by Nancy

 

This almost doesn’t look like a card I’d make, but to tell you the truth, I really like it.  I made it for the Featured Stamper Challenge on Splitcoaststampers which honored my friend, Nancy, the week of March 17th.  I’m a little late to the party, but Nancy understands.  I was inspired by her card here.

 

 

The challenge rules state you’re supposed to change two or more details, and since I had none of the same stamps or die cuts Nancy used on her card, those changes were taken care of right away.  I loved her fresh, fruity colors and the cute sketch, so I stayed as close to those as possible.  Where Nancy used a diagonal stripe designer paper I used a solid Tangerine Tango square scored on the diagonal with the score lines colored over with a Tangerine marker.  I was trying to stay SU! only in recognition of her style, so I had to improvise with punches for the sentiment focus.

 

Nancy and I began our stamping journey at the same time and with much enthusiasm and excitement.  It’s nice to know some things stay constant.  Thanks for the inspiration, Nancy, but more importantly for your friendship!  And thank you all for joining me today.  Happy stamping!

 

Stamps:  Circle of Friendship, Polka Dot background  Paper:  Whisper White, Tangerine Tango, Kiwi Kiss  Ink:  Kiwi Kiss, Palette Noir, Tangerine Tango marker  Accessories:  White taffeta ribbon, silver mini brads, flower brad, Vine St. embossing folder, SU! circle punches -- 1 3/8", 1 1/4", 1", 1/2" (for Tangerine under the center floral brad), SU! corner notch punch, Scallop circle punch

The Merry Month of March

 

 

Merry Monday!  I’m back after a week’s absence and it felt like a very long week, indeed.  The stress level at work took a big jump due to staff cut backs in other departments, which means some of that work has been redistributed and the lab took on a big hunk of it.  I’m keyed up all the time, and nothing is more exhausting than stress.  However, just in the nick of time I happen to have a vacation week scheduled, and, gee, it’s the 25th of the month – time for another Christmas card.  I can’t fall down on that job, can I?

 

Something bright and fun is in order, I think.  This was supposed to be a quick and easy card because I used a long ago Card Maps sketch as a guide.  Of course, I managed to spend most of the morning making decisions about colors, papers, stamps, shapes, trim…  The only thing I was certain about at the outset was the red polka dot paper.  I love polka dots, and I recently purchased a whole 12 x 12 collection of polka dot paper from Stampin’ Up!, which should be enough polka dots to sustain me for a while and I can quit hoarding them.

 

I pulled out the retired Stampin’ Up! set, Merry, for this card.  The mittens and snowflakes were stamped in Palette ink since it’s waterproof and won’t bleed when the glitter glue is applied.  In order to avoid the “merry!” hovering too far above the scalloped border I cut a slit around the tail of the “y” with a craft knife and slipped that part over the scallops.  A tiny blue snowflake punched out in a 1/4” circle forms the dot for the exclamation point.  The folded card measures 6 3/4” tall x 3 3/4” wide.

 

 

I’m looking forward to a week of doing anything but being at work.  I hope you enjoy your week, as well.  Merry, merry!

 

Stamps:  Merry! (retired Stampin’ Up!)  Paper:  Whisper White, Polka Dot Parade (red), other retired SU! designer paper (green)  Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Palette Reflection Blue  Accessories:  Baker’s Twine, Stickles Stardust glitter glue, Martha Stewart scallop edge punch, Spellbinders Labels Eighteen (for sentiment) and Standard Circles dies

Baby’s First Easter

 

I’ve been feeling the urge to make some baby cards lately, but I’ve needed first one card and then another, and no time for baby.  So when my friend asked me to make her grandson’s first Easter card, I thought this was as close as I was going to get to a baby card for a while.  In fact, I used baby papers and I almost set it aside because I thought it looked a little too much like baby and not enough like Easter.  Sweet, though.  It will have to do, I guess.  I’ve had my hands pretty full stamping-wise this month.

 

 

This is Crunchin’ Carrot Bunny from Peachy Keen stamps.  He’s colored with Copic markers on Flourishes Classic White cardstock and popped up on foam mounting tape.  I’ve listed all the ingredients in the recipe, below,  so I won’t keep you longer.  Thanks much for stopping by.  Wishing you a sweet and special day!

 

Stamps:  Crunchin’ Carrot Bunny (Peachy Keen), Somebunny Special sentiment (Stampendous)  Paper:  Bazzill shimmery blue textured, Classic White, DCWV Nana’s Nursery Baby Boy designer paper  Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Copic markers for coloring  Accessories:  Polka dot brad, Spellbinders circle die, Scotch brand foam mounting tape

Clean and Simple to the Rescue

 

Happy Monday!  I hope you all had a good weekend.  It was beautiful here on the southern Oregon Coast, and after working around the house and garden all day Saturday I realized I still needed to squeeze in a birthday card before dinner.  Honestly, after the evening meal is finished and the kitchen cleaned up, not much else gets done.  So, in my brief allotted time I had to manage something quick, but pretty, and that’s exactly the purpose for which I bought this Stampin’ Up! Stippled Blossoms set.

 

 

The red flower and the sentiment (JustRite) were already stamped, cut out, and sitting in my card parts basket, so it was a simple matter of stamping and cutting the two blue flowers and the leaves.  Much quicker than coloring.  Two step stamping is a most excellent way of creating an image with a lot of depth, but very little bother.  The first step is the colored image, solid but with blank spaces for highlights.  The second step adds the shading and details.  In this case I used the high contrast of black for the second step.  My Stamp-a-Ma-Jig stamp positioner (from Stampin’ Up!) assured exact placement of the second image.  That thing is one of the most important tools in my stamp room.

 

The embossed center panel was a freebie I earned after submitting a (gulp) $50 order during SU!’s Sale-a-Bration event.  It will most likely be available in the next catalog (just guessing).  I scored a 1/4” border around the white card base.  The foremost blue flower is popped up on foam mounting tape.  That’s it!  This easy mailer is heading to an 80 something grandma and I sure hope she likes it.

 

Take care, and enjoy your day!

Musical Memories

 

Hello, again!  I’m back today with a birthday card for a four year old girl.  Musical Memories is the name of this stamp from the Laurence Collection by Stampavie.  I think it’s the sweetest image and since I make so many children’s cards I didn’t hesitate to drop it in my basket the last time I was out on one of those fun shopping trips at our local scrapbook store.

 

 

I colored with Copic markers on Flourishes Classic White cardstock.  Must have sweet papers for a sweet image so I used these from the My Mind’s Eye Howdy Doody collection.  I like how the rose in the dog’s mouth somewhat matches the rose in the paper.  I hand cut the banner for the birthday sentiment (something retired from Inque Boutique), and added ribbons and brads to match the paper.  And that about sums it up.  I’m off and running with my scissors to get more cards made before the end of the month.  Enjoy your day!

 

Stamps:  Musical Memories (Stampavie), Card Wishes (retired Inque Boutique)  Paper:  Sage, white, My Mind’s Eye Howdy Doody designer paper  Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black, Copic markers for coloring  Accessories:  Ribbon, brads, Scotch brand foam mounting tape