STAMPlorations is celebrating their 2nd birthday with a blog hop, linky party, prizes, and a stamp sale.
My cousin has a birthday right around the Fourth of July.
Here is my celebration card made with a sentiment from STAMPlorations celebration release, Party Time.
The card design is a quilt pattern made by paper piecing squares. Something a little different. I learned how to make this type of card at our craft club last week.
Here is the Mood Board for the Linky Party. I was inspired by shapes, especially the top right photo.
I'm linking up to the STAMPlorations birthday party HERE.
I made another quilted card in blue with red mats and a red button center for my brother-in-law. I will see him the day after his birthday, so I will use the sentiment Happy belated birthday that also is in this Party Time set.
This week Kristin gave us 2 purples and 1 yellow for our Color By Number prompt for Summer of Color 5. Details are on her blog HERE.
Once again, I experimented with my Gelli Plate, this being the third time to use it. For some reason, this time seemed a bit more challenging. I did learn that yellow and purple make yuck, even when drying between layers.
Here is one of the prints which I'll save for another day. This one has a real cool vibe going for it.
I watched this video. I liked the idea of pressing textures/designs into the gelli plate. But when I pressed my paper into the plate, I didn't get much of the imprint. Gonna have to practice!
I remember Carolyn Dube, in one of her recent videos, used strips of paper on her page. I decided I would use those strips that I tried to imprint with. After all, they had the pattern and the paint on them! Thereby, creating another hybrid Gelli Plate print.
I decided to try to complete this particular print as an actual 8x8" journal page. I love the weekly color quotes we're getting from Kristin so I incorporated this week's into the page.
Materials:
Delta Creamcoat Enchanted (pale purple)
USArtQuest Perfect Pigment Purple Mist
Daler Rowney Simply Acrylic Lemon Yellow
Copic Y17 Golden Yellow
Gecko Galzdigital imagesbutterfly and crown; fairy from Beauty Unveiled;
Stampin' Up embossing folder
Stampin' Up butterfly die/embossing folder
Tim Holtz lace stencil
Entering this in Gecko Galz Papercrafters Face Book challenges: July challenge Summer Fairies
Shar Briss and I go back quite a few years. I so enjoyed being on her design teams, as a Gingersnapper, an Unruly, and as a Rogue Crew member.
I am sad that she is closing the doors of Rogue Redhead Designs. I love working with her beautiful stamps.
If you'd like to read more about the closing and perhaps complete your collection of stamps at clearance prices, the details are on the RRD blog HERE.
To give myself closure, I'd like to share a few of the projects I made with stamps from Rogue Redhead Designs. I certainly will continue to use them on my projects. And when I do, I will think of my creative time with Shar.
For Week One's Summer of Color5, I posted a card because I was totally immersed in the Coffee Lovers Blog Hop. What I really wanted to do for this year's Summer of Color was to get out my Gelli Plate and learn how to use it.
So let's start over. I got out a bunch of 8x8 paper left over from a previous project. I opened the package and stared at the Gelli plate for awhile. I watched some videos by Carolyn Dube and was feeling pretty confident I could do this. It didn't go as smoothly as I thought it would. But then what does the first time out? I certainly can brayer acrylic paint. The tricky part was messing with the stencils, changing colors and overlapping them, and using both the negative and positive part of the stencil.. While making 3 papers, as part of the soak up the excess paint technique, I learned a lot along the way. Not bad for the first attempt.
Week Two Summer of Color5: 2 pinks and 1 orange (See Kristin's blog for details HERE) I did not end up with the same crisp result as in Dube's video--but, hey, that's okay. I like very much what I got and will use the papers as backgrounds. I also like that I used a 6x6 stencil which gave me a great border as a bonus. If you click on the photo, you can get a better, enlarged view.
You will note that I cheated and added a bit of yellow because there just wasn't enough contrast with the two pinks.
So to make it official for SOC5, here is a flower that I made using 2 pinks and 1 orange.
Then I went back and did Week One Summer of Color5: 2 blues and 1 green
This ended up being a hybrid. I used the Gelli Plate for the base and the green circle, then took my paper off the Gelli Plate and stenciled on stars and the globe (because the globe really is a die and had sharp points). I have no clue what this will end up being, but I love it so far....
Perhaps by the end of the six weeks of SOC5, I'll have a better understanding of the Gelli Plate and some great pages to journal with.
The Coffee Lovers Summer Blog Hop was so much fun! Once again, I was inspired by the many crafters' entries, introduced to new challenge blogs, and wishing I owned all the sponsors' products I didn't get to use all the coffee related products I own. My daily inspiration took me to specific places. But there's always the next hop and all the challenges in-between. Hats off to Amy for her dedication of time and energy to these hops.
Here's a recap of what I made for the Summer hop:
And of course the last item is a gift card with a $5. Starbucks gift card enclosed. It goes to one lucky commenter on that post. And the winner is....
I have yet to figure out how to get to someone's blog from Google+. However, I did get watch several of your videos, Cheryl, so I feel that I am the real winner, here! Please email me your snail mail addy, and I'll pop that card in the mail to you pronto!
A few months ago I made a page for my granddaughter using the Crafty Secrets card 10 Things I Like About ____. I needed a companion page for my grandson. I thought Count Your Blessings would work well for this.
Digital elements:
Marisa lined journal card and Sharon's yellow journal card and star outline found at Pixel Digital Scrapper. I was a bit disappointed that the Twinkle words printed out so pale. I added some shadowing to make it look 3-D Crafty SecretsBedtime Kids digital files: paper, title, row of sheep. ( I just love that background paper!) As well as the boy which I fussy cut and colored and placed on top of the digital page. Note he's holding a felt star. And he has a pet sheep! Materials:
yellow felt star trim
misc stickers from stash
Copic markers
Entering: Crafty Secrets/Heartwarming Vintage, June Linky Party Theme is for a Guy due June 14 I'm #10 Update: YAY! I won $25 in digital product!!!!
Today is the last day of the Coffee Lovers Summer Blog Hop. It went Friday to Friday--eight days of inspiring cards uploaded by amazing crafters. We have until Sunday to leave comments on the participants' blogs.
I managed to post something new for each of the eight days of the hop. This is the final post. I made a gift card with a $5 Starbucks gift card inside.
BLOG CANDY: one lucky person will be chosen to get this gift card.
1) Must have United States address for mailing
2) Comment must be on THIS post (only)
3) Winner will be chosen by Random.org from comments left on THIS post.
4) Winner will be announced on Monday after the comment deadline expires.
5) If I can't connect with the winner, another drawing will take place next week.
Thanks to all the wonderful sponsors who are giving prizes to the blog hoppers. Last year I won a prize from Two Paper Divas that included a Starbucks gift card. I thought I'd pay it forward and offer my own gift card. I studied the engineering of the Two Paper Divas card and created my own using heavy cardstock and Prima Coffee Break paper. Two Paper Divas generously gave all of us this digital graphic at the beginning of the week of this hop HERE. I printed it and colored it with Copics, then placed it on a matboard twinchie square, attaching it with a velcro clasp.
Combining Coffee Lovers Summer Blog Hop with the first make for Summer of Color.
I started with the Summer of Color Week One Color by Number Palette: 2 blues and a Green.
I chose a Red Lead Papercrafters tea cup pattern in those colors from their collage set to cut and place on their chipboard cup. (The chipboard cups and patterned paper cups on collage sheets match in size.) I then used a couple of different Spellbinders dies to cut two mats, one blue and one green, that matched the tea cup. I placed everything on a card that I had sprayed in my second color of blue.
Ink Colors I used: Faded Jeans Ranger ink pad (denim blue), Hydrangea Blue (Maya Mist), and Lettuce (Ranger green acrylic paint dabber)
I made this card for my sister-in-law's summer birthday when I see her at the lake. She likes these blue and green hues. And she is a tea drinker.
Sentiments are from STAMPlorations Celebrate (sentiment on bottom of card) and Eat Drink Be Merry *sentiment on tea bag) stamp sets
The June issue of Unruly PaperArts Blogozine is all about journaling. I didn't sign up to do an article this month because I don't journal, but I'm planning on learning a lot from the rest of the UPA creative contributors throughout the month.
Say What? Then why am I showing you some journaling? Totally out of my comfort zone here.
Music and Art are synonymous with me. I'm a big fan of the television show in the U.S.A., the Voice. This season I was so moved by Kimberly Nichole's version of the Radiohead song, Creep. that I decided to create my own interpretation of the lyrics and journaling seemed to be the best fit.
So where to start, since I can count on one hand the number of journal pages I've attempted.
This would be a good time to insert the information that I've signed up for a Finnebair class in August with the amazing Ania Dabrowska. Which means I've been studying her tworzyskoblog entries, watching her videos, taking pointers from her design team, and admiring the amazing work posted on our newly formed FaceBook page, Finnabair and Friends Open Studio.
TIME TO PRACTICE! and try the Finnabair technique. And let's not forget the arsenal of Prima products I've stock up on to master application.
For my first attempt, I decided to follow the step by step recipe for use of product on Design Team member Monika's stunning creation Collect Moments HERE, This was important because I'm unfamiliar with the purpose of all the gessos, soft gells, and modeling pastes. So I put product down on my page in the same order that she did. This was soooo helpful!
I also took to heart the suggestions from DT Rebecca in the Finnabair Spread Your Wings Academy Volume #1 post. Tons of layering using drywall mesh, torn tissue, and cardboard flowers and letters, followed by soooo many stencils!!!! I've sprayed and painted and inked so much that you can hardly see all the layers! Lots of circles to signify zero, nothingness.
For my creep and weirdo girls, I chose the misfit Dollhouse and Something Else digital images from itKuPiLLi. I just love her work. I had to assemble the doll parts so I combined various sizes and shapes of body parts to create my own misfits of creeps and weirdos.
My color palette: I wanted something that showed adolescent angst, since that is what the song is about--being a creep wanting someone perceived as perfect. Starting with muted pink, purple and green mists, they were too light. After listening to Ania's interview in which she discusses why she likes to use black gesso, I determined I needed a much darker palette to portray angst. I still needed my misfit dolls to blend into the color palette, just as some human misfits want to fade into the background. And I elinimated the green for envy, leaving just a hint here and there--it fought too much with the other two colors. There's some red ink stamping for passion.
It's going to be sunny and in the 90's here today. These hot chicks need to sit here in the shade and sip on a frappe coffee to cool down!
Materials:
Gecko Galz digital image from Girlfriends collage sheet.
recycled frappe top put on new cup painted with pink tinted gesso
DCWV Summer Scrapbook Kit in a Stack
Heidi Grace cardstock pad (green)
Stampin' Up baker's twine
Spellbinders curved rectangles dies
paper straw
This is a totally digital composition. I wanted to add more layers but the internet was sporadic last night, making me frustrated, so I went with something simple. I thought the Gecko Galz image from the Tea for Two digitalcollage sheet looked very British and was a perfect fit for the digital ping images in Tina's BitsO'Scrap June England kit found in Pixel Scrapper's blog train.
This is a fun, quick card, perfect for the coffee challenges. I just love this sentiment!
Core-dinations Kraft A1 card Stampin' Writechocolate chip marker to edge flower Riley and Company sentiment stamp Stampin' Up flower punch used on textured Panera coffee sleeve Archival Coffee ink pad
large dark brown button and light brown cord from stash
I'm trying to post something each day of the hop. So this technically was supposed to be posted yesterday. I need to say that I've had vein surgery on my leg and have to alternate activities to keep the circulation going. So I can't sit too long at the computer to blog hop and leave comments, can't stand too long to make a card, etc. Thank goodness we have an entire week for the Coffee Lovers Blog Hop and then a couple extra days to leave comments.
Verve Stamps is one of the super sponsors. When visiting them along the hop, I discovered they have their own hop going, and a challenge. So out come my Verve stamps and dies!
Verve A Cut AboveCoffee Die Stick It die cut adhesive Verve Coffee Stamp set Prima Coffee Break paper pad Stampin' UpWhisper White card stock, Early Expresso card stock and ink pad Stampin' Writechocolate chip marker (to outline flower paper on cup) Stampin' Up Hearts a Flutter Framelets and yellow baker's twine Cropodile--(FYI larger side is perfect size to punch hole in coffee cup handle!) Sizzix circle die Really Reasonable Ribbon brown crochet trim
flowers, half pearls, doily and brown fringe trim from stash Ranger Distress Paint Abandoned Coral to alter pink flowers
Challenges I'm entering: Coffee Lovers Blog Hop HERE I'm entry #305
Paper SweetiesInspiration#32 Party Time June challenge: I hate entering a challenge where I don't own any of the product, but perhaps that's the point of entering--maybe I'll be lucky enough to win some! I'm #9
I used the washi tape and gems that I had on hand along with this great sentiment from the STAMPlorationsCelebrate Sentiment Builders set. Stampin' Up baker's twine.
Entering these challenges: STAMPlorations June challenge: Stamps and Washi STAMPlorationsAnything Goes Challenge (never ending)
Here is another take on the Queen and Co challenge. I used the same pattern but this time I went with a kraft card and matching washi tapes. Sentiment is from Paper SmoochesGroup Hugs stamp set. I really like the looks of this one.
Coming up with a summer theme was easy with Dearie Dolls free digital images found HERE. The images even come pre-colored!!!!
Can't you just picture kids out of school, stirring up some lemonade and selling it to thirsty passers-by in 90 degree heat? What a great take on the lemonade stand--I wish someone here would start up a real coffee stand! I'd be their best customer!
Since this is a digital image, I digitally added a background of color and some shading to make it look more 3-D. That saved me a bunch of fussy cutting! Deciding the grass needed a bit more oompf, I used my die from Paper Smoochesbackground builders set to create some tufts of grass.
Red cardstock mat on top of card made with Stampin' Up crumb cake cardstock. Entering These Challenges Coffee Lovers Blog Hop HERE I'm entry #199 Chocolate, Coffee and CardsChallenge #92 Summer Fun due June 11 I'm #79 Sister Act card challenge #109 Anything Goes I'm entry #86
The inlinkz will be posted to the Coffee Loving Cardmakers blog at 6 am pacific on Friday, June 5th. Anyone is welcome to link up during Friday, June 5th at 6 am pacific until Friday, June 12th @ 11:59 pm pacific. There are no limits to the number of entries, the more the merrier. Please remember to keep the projects with a Summer theme.
Anyone is eligible for a Super Sponsor prize if they link up a newly created Summer Themed Coffee, Tea &/or Cocoa project, no back-linking please.Random.org is used to draw for winners.
Even more details, especially about all the prizes, are up on the blog now, which is HERE.
For my first card (I'm #73), I used a STAMPlorations stencil, some sprays, Tim Holtz chit chat stickers, and some very old alphas. Wanting to keep it in the summer theme, I used warm colors with a sentiment to match. (There was a 1959 Marilyn Monroe movie with this title).
I placed the stencil on stamp cardstock and used Ranger Clear Emboss It Dabber to go over the design. After removing the stencil, I sprinkled on Ranger Super Fine Clear embossing powder and heat set it.
Then I took my paper outside and sprayed it with ink sprays: Dylusions Squeezed Orange and Maya Road Bubblegum. After waiting a bit, I used a paper towel roll to sop up the excess ink.
I layered with coordinating pink and orange cardstock mats on top of a white card.
Entering these additional challenges:
STAMPlorations CASE it--I cased Deepti's card HERE going for the same ombre background. I was surprised hers was Heiidi Swapp paper. I got the same effect with sprays. Entry HERE due June 5
STAMPlorations Anything Goes challenge HERE open ended
