Flourish Valentine

Last day of daily Caardvarks sketches. I really liked this sketch.

The flourish on the black is The Angel Company. The paper is mostly stampin up, although 3 of those hearts are club scrap.

Count Your Numbers

Finally got last Saturday's Scrap and Stamp Challenge finished. Here's a layout about my son.

Our sweet boy has autism and sometimes he gets so upset that he can't think straight. When that happens, we say "count your numbers" and quite often it will help him gain a measure fo control.

Chalkboard Leaves

For today's Caardvarks challenge:


I meant it to be a bit cooler. Those squares are all the way through to the center. You can barely see the shadow of it, but I stamped leaves that were meant to be seen on the outside. I thought the gold glitter was a little more transluscent than it actually was... I didn't want to use white. But that gold is pretty darn opaque. Darn it. Oh well. I sparkes nicely. The leaves are scrapgoods stamps that I stamped in white and chalked with pearlescent chalk.

Floral Friends

Today's Caardvarks challenge sketch:

Got my club stamp in the mail... so I had to play with it. Everything here came from that kit. The inside is decorated with the stencil technique that they detail in the newsletter. This is a pretty simple card really. Stamped and watercolored the three flowers. Stamped the greeting and bird. That's it really. Much more simple than my usual.

Cowboy Birthday

Another day of caardvarks challenges. This one is fairly simple because I had a lot to do today. But this is probably in my top 10 favorites of stamp sets of all time. I love, love, love that foal. He is the cutest ever.

Nothing fancy other than a little bit of masking. Sorry about the scan. It is too dark outside to take a good photo of the card and I used some pop dots to raise up the main image and the tag. Stamp set is the angel company. Paper is club scrap and fancy pants. The tiny "happy birthday" is stampin up.

Faux Enamel Butterfly

Here's my card for day three of caardvarks:

I wanted to try a technique from last week's splitcoast stampers technique challenge: Faux Enamel. It was fun, but I think it does take some practice to perfect. I like my butterflys though. I also tied in today's color challenge: Crushed Curry, Basic Black, and Razzleberry.

Stampin Smiles!

Of homemade embellishments!

Well, day two of the cardvaarks sketch challenges... This card became an opportunity for something I LOVE to do... make my own embellishments. The splitcoast technique challenge this week was to make homemade buttons. I found some little (I mean very little) scraps of some of my favorite My Mind's Eye paper and made 3 buttons...

I'm also really excited about the new canvas embellishments I've been seeing in the scrap stores lately... but not so excited about the price. So I went to my JoAnns... bought a big chunk of canvas... and pulled out my big shot. The fabric flower was made thusly: I cut it out. Then I got it really wet. Then I dripped "Stream" colored adarondak ink (from those giant spray bottles) onto the center. I sprayed it with coffee colored glimmer mist, focusing on the edges. Yum. I also sprayed glimmer mist on the giant photo corner. I'm so glad to use these! They've sat in my stash for over a year.

Well, being rather pleased with the results, I decided that I would make a scrapbook page... because I get to keep those. I give cards away. It's a constant dilemma for me.

Similar stuff here. Same stampin up stamp set. Used up the last scraps of that paper. I even liked the title of the paper line: "tres jolie" (very pretty in french)... so I made it into an embellishment. The stamp set was an old stampin up set. The little circle I used in the center of the flowers came from the Angel Company. Paper is bazzil and club scrap.

Those little brown flowers are just saturated in glimmer mist. If you want the canvas to have a dilute look (like the large flowers) get it wet before adding the ink and then blot with a paper towel. If you want an intense look (like the little brown flowers) saturate dry canvas with the ink.

Those alpha stickers are again really old stash finds. They came from an old club scrap kit (like 5-6 years old-- score one for using up the stash and scraps from the scrap box!)

Cardvaarks!-- Day One

Cardvaarks blog is doing a 7 days of sketches challenge. Can I keep up?





Here's todays entry:

I also used some inspiration from today's featured stamper challenge on Splitcoast. Have a great stampin' day!

A Little Love Card

See... I can make cards! I just don't make them as often as I scrap. Lots of embossing here and some glossy cardstock. This was made for last week's splitcoast stampers card sketch challenge.

So Behind...

I'm so behind in posting my creations. I did some scrapping last week and forgot to post it.

Here's the first one. It was primarily prompted by the ScrapSaturday challenge blog to scrap my scrappy place. From there, I encorporated this week's splitcoast technique and color challenges.

The technique is masked frames. Basically, you put a mask in the middle and stamp around it to create a frame. I have two frames on this layout: a large square one behind the entire layout on the background and one on the stamped embellishment at the top of the page.

Other stamping of note: The top embellishment, the title letters, and the brad at the bottom of the page are all embossed with a really pretty "valententines" glitter embossing powder which has a mix of light pink and dark pink as well as the glitter. It is gorgeous in real life.

This layout began as a response to last weeks split coast color and technique challenges. This invite has been sitting on my desk for a while and when I saw the color challenge (real red, chocolate, and kraft), I new this was the perfect combo for this invite that I recieved for a cousing of mine.

I stamped the paper with the grid technique that was this month's technique challenge. I didn't have any magic mesh, so I used some "grid" ribbon I had. I painted it with white paint and "stamped" it onto the paper, Then I stamped the flowers and leaves in red and chocolate craft ink over the top of the grid. Then I cut it up to use on the layout... under the title... on the envelope under the journaling... and die cut as a flower in my layered flower (who need prima when you have a big shot?) The photo corners are cuttlebug embossing folders that I cut out and cut in half... then sprayed with glimmer mist for that little extra bling. That little heart is the stamped paper cut out with dimentional adhesive, then a little punched flower with a touch of bling.

A blank layout. This one kind of gave me fits for a while. It was in response to the featured stamper and the scrapbooking inspiration challenges. I embossed the suns and the title letters with a cool pepper colored embossing powder. Then used adarondak pads and a sponge to give it that lovely glow. I love that pressed flower sticker from my stash. It fits so perfectly. Hopefully the pictures for this one will come soon.

I made some cards also... I'll upload them tomorrow. I love these challenges because they force me to get creative with my stamping on layouts and soon I've found more and more ways to encorporate stamping into my layouts that make them totally unique and totally me. That's why I love stamping... it gives my layouts something that prefab die cut stickers just can't.