{LO 07} A Spoonful of Sugar

I have completely tumbled down the scrapbooking rabbit hole and I am now doing 12x12 layouts. Still cards and still project life, but man do I love full size layouts. I never expected to like the huge canvas, and always said I liked that cards weren't meant to last forever, but here we are.

This is my seventh layout, if you count my one double-page spread as two. So it's a new thing. I am definitely still finding my way, but I am enjoying it. This is from my birthday this year - I turned 32. We stayed home and DH made a steak dinner (his grill skills are unparalleled) and then we got a little cheesecake from the grocery deli and added fresh strawberries, strawberry sauce and whipped cream. Dessert makes birthdays worthwhile, right?

I used the Studio Calico February kit Front Row, plus Popcorn add on. I also have the Add On Patterned Paper add on, but I don't think any of these papers are from that. And yes, I have way too much patterned paper from this month! Luckily I don't have a huge stash and anything I don't get through will definitely find a good home in my collection.

I also used Dylusions Postbox Red mist, an SC butterfly wood veneer, a roller date stamp for the numbers in my lower embellishment cluster, Thickers in the Doll font and Amy T's  Baxter stickers for parts of my title. The grid paper is from Basic Grey's Hey You, which is where some of this month's SC papers came from. I used it to pull the aqua, cream and red together because I wanted all of the colors on one paper. Oh, and my sewing machine! I am pretty sure everything else is from the kit.

I apologize for the crummy photo. I need to get further above it to get it all the way straight, apparently. I will do better. As you can see, it is very simple. Some basic layering, three embellishment groupings, though they aren't exactly a triangle, and a lot of repetition.

Some closeups:

The title, and the first embellishment cluster

Subtitle, layers

Cluster 2 (32 detail)

Cluster 3 - I am here, at 32. The enamel dots on the left cover a mistake, where I stamped 30 upside down. Those dang roller date stamps get me every time!

Thank you so much for looking and as always, if you have any questions feel free to post a comment. Now turn off your computer and go create something!

Heidi Swapp Mists

So obviously I haven't posted in forever. There are lots of reasons but I am not going into them today. Moving forward!

Michael's is carrying Heidi Swapp's Color Shine mists (as well as a bunch of other products) and I love them. I have all but  four - I am missing black, red, purple and bronze. I did a video of swatches of these mists, plus my limited collection of Studio Calico Mister Hueys and Dylusions by Ranger. If you are interested, the video can be seen on YouTube and I do talk about the HS mists first.

I have to admit, I talk a lot. Probably too much. I will work on that! But in the meantime, if you want something quicker, I snapped a few photos as well. In my opinion, photos just don't do that lovely shimmer justice.

Without further ado:

Gold Lame

Tinsel

Primrose

Georgia Peach

Mustard

Chartreuse

Mint Green

Tropicana Teal

The Mint Green shows a bit of overspray from the Primrose - it doesn't actually have any pink tinge :)

I do want to mention that on the black, many of the colors look really golden. I was using Stampin Up Basic Black, so you may want to test the spray on your cardstock of choice, in a hidden area, first. Here is a photo of the four golden shades. From the top left and going clockwise it is Mustard, Chartreuse, Gold Lame and Georgia Peach.

Thanks for looking!

HYCCT1227 - Missing Aspens

Here's another CAS card using a set from CAS-ual Fridays Stamps. This time I used Calm and Gentle. The designer, Michele, explained that she had aspens in mind when she designed the set. I'm from Colorado too and my family is there, watching the aspens turn golden while I am halfway across the country missing them.

I actually made this card for the Window of Hope challenge at Splitcoast Stampers, hosted by Kittie747. She said:
My challenge participation today is to honor my brother-in-law, Louis D'Agostino who lost his life to cancer on July 12, 2012 and to honor my sister, Cynthia who will love and miss him forever. 

My challenge for you is to create a card with a Window of Hope. You may use window die cuts, window stamps, pictures of windows, hand cut a window using your craft knife, sketching a window, painting a window. The sky is the limit. Using pink on your card would be a special bonus.

I totally failed to use pink. I don't know what the deal is but I am in blue mode! I considered adding some pink rhinestones or something but really liked how clean it looked so...no pink.

For some reason the lighting was really weird and the photo isn't as clear as I would like, but the box to MD Anderson Cancer Center is sealed, so this is what you get!

I started by making the window with a square punch and a ruler. Then I lightly traced the center right square to guide my stamping. I stamped the trunks in VersaMark and embossed them in white, because aspen bark is white. Then I stamped the leaves in SU Summer Sun (retired) and lastly I used my Fiskars stamp press to stamp over the yellow with VersaMark which I set with clear embossing powder. All that embossing made the leaves shiny, and the trees resisted the Tumbled Glass Distress Ink that I sponged on to make the sky.

See how shiny the leaves are?

I popped the window up on tiny foam dimensionals and stamped the sentiment in Broken China. 

It was another one of those cards that was simple but not easy. I have got to stop stamping on my card bases! It took three tries, but the first was because I forgot my plan to emboss the trunks in white :). I should have done the leaves first so the trunks would be behind them, but I couldn't get the spacing right. I might re-make this for my mom and try it that way.

Thanks for looking!

HYCCT1216 : Brave Butterflies

Here is another card for the SCS Hope You Can Cling To month of challenges. Sorry if you are bored of these - all of my limited crafting time lately has been spent trying to catch up with these! Lots were made earlier in the month but never uploaded, too. 

So this one was for the Two Times the Fun challenge, hosted by Taylor (stagccva). She said:

When I think about breast cancer, and breast cancer awareness....I think doubles (for obvious reasons). My challenge to you today is to have TWO times the fun...with a little catch. Everything you use on your card, you have to use TWO of, but they must be slightly different. Two different patterned papers, two different buttons, two different ribbons, two different stamps (a stamp and a sentiment counts), etc. 

TWO of each thing - no more, no less. Have fun seeing double! 

I had an idea all worked out, but the Memory Box die I wanted to use totally failed to work in my old style Sizzix. I so need a Big Shot! It's on my Christmas list, but in the meantime I just switched up the sketch I had drawn out and did something totally different.

This is for the HYCCT1216 challenge (http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/forums/hope-you-can-cling-challenge-forum-f299/hycct1216-two-times-fun-chatter-thread-t562695.html). The challenge was to make a card with two of everything, no more and no less.

This card uses:
2 colors of solid cardstock (white Georgia Pacific and black from Hobby Lobby's PaperStore line)
2 patterned papers from the DCWV Black and White pack
2 ink colors - Distress Ink Picked Raspberry and Memento Tuxedo Black
2 types of ribbon - black 1/2" satin and black bakers twine from Maya road
2 die cut butterflies from the SU Beautiful Wings Embosslits die
2 punched butterflies, one SU Elegant Butterfly and one EK Success Butterfly Layering Punch
2 stamps, one from the SU Papillion Potpurri set and one from the K Andrews Designs Positive Thoughts set (which is on clearance 60% off right now!)
2 brads from my stash

I think that's it. Phew!

I brushed the Picked Raspberry over the debossed side of the large butterfly and the embossed side of the small butterfly to highlight them, and the patterned butterfly was done with a stamp. My favorite part is the faux bow, which is really just a bit of ribbon 'scrunched' in the middle and held with a brad.The strip of ribbon and twine is just a flat strip. I am so bad at bows!
I needed another brad so I added one here, and popped this butterfly up on foam for some dimension.

If you want to see other cards from this challenge, you can find the gallery here.

HYCCT1228 : Pretty Amazing

 

This card was made for the Hope You Can Cling To Clean and Simple Statement challenge  hosted by Leslie  (meerkat3). She said:
Hello, there. Here it is the 28th of the month, and you've probably done (or at least thought about doing) around 30 challenges so far. So, for my challenge, I chose Clean & Simple (CAS), partly because there's nothing clean or simple about the nastiness of cancer, and partly because I can't do CAS. It's true: I fear white space. 

So my challenge for you today is to make a Clean & Simple card, with a sentiment or word as your focal point. That's it - no other requirements.

I admit that I stretched it wee bit and added flowers but I just had to get my new stamps inky. What new stamps you ask? Why the Truth Is set from CAS-ual Fridays Stamps of course! I ordered this at 12:04 on release morning I was so excited. Michele shipped quickly and them stamps were packaged well (and cutely). Just for the record I am in no way affiliated, just a happy customer of this new company :).

The flower stamps come with plain line stems, but I took this narrow word border (also part of the set) and put it on my Fiskars stamp press, then put the flower stamp on the other side and used it as a guide to bend the words to match the stems. I think it turned out pretty cute! The sentiment is stamped in Distress Ink Picked Raspberry which made it a little less crisp, but it was the only pink I had with enough purple undertones to match the coloring I did on the flowers using Spectrum Noir markers. The black ink is Memento Tuxedo Black and the paper is Neenah Desert Storm.

There are two layers here, just because I had a hard time with the stamping due to my ridiculously bowed table top. I seriously need to replace it!

A little close up of my coloring with my Spectrum Noirs. Love how they look on kraft, and I think the Neenah works super well for blending without bleeding too.

I am also submitting this for this week's CAS-ual Fridays challenge, CFC76:Kraft On! I haven't ever participated in this challenge before but I think I am going to start doing it every week. I really like this style and would like to work on getting better at it. This week's challenge was to use kraft.

Amazing Thank You

Here is yet another thank you card. We have so many people that sent presents and brought us dinners, that thank yous are the majority of what I am making, outside of Hope You Can Cling To cards. Speaking of which, I have a ton of those to post as well but I need to edit them. Lately my crafting time is at night and the photos don't turn out very well so they all need to be adjusted a little.

So this card was totally created using stuff from my Simon Says Stamp September Card Kit, plus a white gel pen, Memento Tuxedo Black ink, my Corner Chomper and adhesives. A lot of card bloggers have made cards with this kit and I guess this card is pretty similar to a lot of them. I just love these patterned papers from the My Mind's Eye Bright Side paper pack and the Telephone Wire washi tape from Freckled Fawn.

A close up of the sentiment, popped up on foam dimensionals:

And a shot of the inside. That stamp is also part of the Simon Says Stamp exclusive set that came with the kit: Shoot For The Stars.

Thanks for looking!

Whimsy Thank You

Today's post and card are both quick!

It is always something, and today my husband has a big project due at work so he came home to work on it and interrupted my whole schedule :). I also had a refrigerator repairman here, which for some reason took a lot more input from me than I thought. Baby Jack is fussy and having tummy trouble, so I just snuck a few quick minutes for myself and churned this card out. I am sending it to a family member who sent a present for the new baby.

I have an old kit by Making Memories called "Whimsy" and I literally just pulled all the pieces out of that set. The only things I added were the card base (Neenah Desert Sand) the white gel pen, and the square of SU Chocolate Chip behind the blue square. Everything else is paper, stickers, buttons, chipboard and felt from the kit. And of course my signature goof up - in this case less than straight faux stitching and a crooked panel LOL.

Here is a close up of some of the details. The orange flower is felt, the pink one is chipboard and then there is an orange button. I decided not to do thread and adhered all of that with glue dots.

I think the whole thing took 15 minutes, max.

Thanks for checking it out!