Wednesday, April 29

SheetLoad of Cards design team call

Hello, everyone! I hope you're having a great day! Today, I'm sharing with you three cards and a bookmark, so get ready for a longer-than-normal post!

This is the very first time I've used a digistamp. All of the images were created by Dustin Pike, a very talented artist with the cutest images! These were some of his free downloads (and he has several on his blog) that I sized to fit an A2 card and a bookmark. He also has an Etsy shop with images for sale. Prices range from $2 to $3.50 - a bargain!

This post also serves as my design team application for SheetLoad of Cards. I used the sketch from the April 2009 issue, although each card will look different because I changed the proportions of some elements on each card and left off other elements. Because of the size of the bookmark, I completely rearranged the elements of the sketch, but still kept the same patterned papers.





This first card always makes me giggle. When I was a little girl, my mom tells me I ate hardly anything. I was a "string bean", as she says. So, she started calling me "Chickadee" since they are small and eat so little. Not long after, it was shortened to "Chickie" - which is still a nickname she uses for me to this day. Since I left off the sentiment, I had to come up with my own name - so "Hello, Chickie" it is!

I altered the sketch by rotating it 90 degrees, resizing the two patterned papers on the left side of the card and the focal image, omitting the sentiment and adding three buttons instead of two.

supplies ~ cardstock: Martha Stewart, dsp: Hot Off the Press Citrus, buttons: stash, image: Dustin Pike


This image is so adorable. It's supposed to be for Easter, but since there aren't any strictly Easter references in the image, I decided to go ahead and use it for an everyday card.

I altered the sketch once again by adding three embellishments instead of two, leaving out the sentiment, resizing the focal image and moving the two patterned papers to the bottom after resizing them, as well. I also swapped out one patterned paper and used a different one in its place. Instead of rounding all the corners, I just rounded the patterned papers and the bottom two corners of the card base.

supplies ~ cardstock: Martha Stewart, dsp: Hot Off the Press Citrus, buttons: Colorbok, jute twine: stash, image: Dustin Pike




This little guy looks so carefree and happy, doesn't he? I've never tried sponging before, so this was a first for me. This card is probably the closest to the the original sketch, but you can see that I resized the focal image to take up more space, I moved the buttons to the edge of the card and added some jute twine to the image.

This was actually the first card I completed, and I thought the twine was perfect for this image - the kites we made as kids were simple paper, dowels and twine with some fabric tails. Once I got started on the twine, it just kept popping up on the other projects in this post!

supplies ~ cardstock: Martha Stewart, dsp: Hot Off the Press Citrus, buttons: stash, jute twine: stash, image: Dustin Pike


For the "beyond the card" item in the DT call, I floundered at first. I thought about altering something, but I had this little guy sitting in my image box. Since this was such a small item, I decided to completely change the layout, but I really liked the idea of blocking the colors that the original sketch used. Using the same papers as the first three cards, I used different sizes to add interest and rounded all the corners. To spruce it up a bit, I layered two buttons at the top and tied them together with jute twine.

supplies ~ cardstock: Martha Stewart, dsp: Hot Off the Press Citrus, buttons: Colorbok, jute twine: stash, image: Dustin Pike

Phew! That was a big 'ole fat post! Thank you for coming by for a visit! I'll be back on Friday with a Hip Hop Hangover post. Last week was just too crazy for me to fit everything in, but this week I had more time to play.

See you later, gator!


Monday, April 27

Whimsy Challenge 2 ~ Monochromatic

Welcome to the 2nd Whimsy Stamps Challenge! This week's challenge is to make a monochromatic card. I gotta tell ya: this was a tough one for me, and I dragged my feet on it until the last couple of days before this post. I love color, and doing a mono card just seemed so....BLAH. I've seen a few really pretty ones, but I couldn't see how I was going to pull it off well.

So, here's my very first attempt at a monochrome color scheme. I love this little froggie, and he seemed the easiest animal in the Whimsy collection (after the polar bear, of course!) to get my mono mojo going. I started with a simple white card base and a sketch at Splitcoast Stampers. Then I used papers from the Citrus pad by Hot Off The Press to color block the background and mat the frog. He's colored with Prismas & OMS (of course!) and then I stamped the sentiment.

supplies ~ card blank: stash, dsp: Hot Off the Press Citrus, image: Whimsy Stamps, sentiment: Studio G

Not bad for a first attempt. Why don't you try your hand at this challenge? Head over to the Whimsy Stamps Challenges blog to see all the design team samples; there might even be a prize for one lucky entrant! When you're ready to link your card, make sure to use Mr. Linky to link to the DIRECT URL for your post (not just your blog's URL). If you need any help, you can contact anyone on the DT - we'd love to help you out.

Good luck!


Friday, April 17

Hip Hop Hangover


Welcome! Today I have two cards to share with you: one an itty bitty scrap card, the other an A2 CAS card.

This first card is only 3x3.5 inches. I have accumulated more scraps than I'd like, so I'm trying to do at least one scrap card every week. I found some lilac cardstock that perfectly matches the Basic Grey dsp. This card is entered in two challenges this week: Splitcoast Stampers' SC 223 challenge to use a sketch, and Unity's Hip Hop challenge to use a bow.

supplies ~ cardstock: DCWV, dsp: Basic Grey Lilykate, stamp: Unity, ribbon: stash









The second card is a regular A2 card that I CASEd from Nichole Heady of PTI fame. This one is also for a Unity challenge, this time to do some piercing. Kraft forms the base. I used two stamps from Unity's March KOM, but I cut apart the leaves and popped them up on dimensionals. I pierced above and below the focal panel, and finished the card with a pretty Martha Stewart double-sided satin ribbon.

supplies ~ kraft: Bazzill, green cardstock: DCWV, stamps: Unity March KOM, ribbon: Martha Stewart






Monday, April 13

Candy Alert!

You've probably already noticed my CandyBar over on the right side, but I want to take a moment to spotlight a really fun giveaway over at Max's Craft Creations. She's giving away 16 - yes, you read that right! - prizes. Just leave a comment & spread the word to enter. Head over now!


The first Whimsy Challenge blog challenge!

Today marks the first challenge issued by Whimsy Stamps Challenges! Challenges will be issued every two weeks, and there may be prizes involved! You can see the current challenge and all the design team samples by clicking here.

This first challenge was to create a Celebration card. How appropriate for the very first challenge! One of my favorite images from Whimsy is the Polar Bear, but today he is a BROWN bear!

I used last week's sketch from Friday Sketchers for this card, but I rotated it. I really wanted to make a card suitable for a man or boy, so I turned to my Basic Grey stash. I started with a 5 1/2 inch square kraft base, then used papers from Basic Grey's Boxer collection to adhere the layers with UHU Stic glue. The blue paper on the first layer is 5 1/4 inches, the beige measures 4 3/4 inches, the swirly multicolor paper is 3 x 5 inches, and the blue for matting the bear is 4 1/2 x 3 1/2 inches. I used two different stamps for the sentiment: the brackets are from Studio G series 25, and the "celebrate!" is from Inkadinkado's Chelsea Sentiments. For added interest I decided to cut out the sentiment. I love to use pop dots in my cards, but this card has a whopping 7 layers, so I left them off this time.

Be sure to visit the other gals' blogs for deets on their cards!



Thanks for stopping by to look today - have a great week!

supplies ~ kraft cardstock: Bazzill, dsp: Basic Grey Boxer, stamps: Inkadinkado & Studio G, bear image: Whimsy Stamps

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