Another Card from the Simon Says Stamp October 2014 Card Kit

Let me start by confessing that I'm not actually in love with today's card.  It's okay.  I think it's that I don't really like the bright colors and I'm not thrilled with my coloring.  They seem just a little bit too much, but I still had fun making it.  I started by die cutting some white Neenah card stock with my American Crafts/Amy Tangerine Plus One die.  I colored the heart with a copic and stamped my sentiment.  On the inner panel of the polaroid, I stamped the mug, colored the coffee, added highlighting to the mug and colored the background.  Then I cut the patterned paper down to slightly smaller than my card base and added my completed polaroid on top to finish it off. 

Got Cupcake? I Do and Lots of Upcoming Birthdays...

For some reason the end of September and beginning of October bring a lot of birthdays to my world.  Not much cake because many of those birthdays are for people too far to celebrate with in person, but then that's probably a good thing.  I certainly don't need cake, okay, well my waistline doesn't need cake.   So on Sunday, I spent some time in my craft room, watching movies and coloring the images from the Simon Says Stamp Birthday Farm Animals set.  (Can I just take a minute to say that Jennifer Lawrence is pretty darn amazing?  I watched American Hustle for the first time and was stunned about how well she played the part which is so different than Hunger Games, which I've watched probably a dozen times this year alone - it's a great background movie for crafting).

Anyhow, so once I had colored all my images, I wasn't sure what to do with them.  I was flipping through my dies and saw the polaroid die from Amy Tan's set and knew exactly what I was going to do.  I pulled out my largest stitched rectangle die from My Favorite Things' Blueprints #13 to cut out the background from the dotted paper from the 6x6 Sunny Side pad from Pebbles for my background.  Then I cut out the polaroid from white paper and made the frame for my goat image.  I stamped the sentiment from the set, added a little pink card stock behind the heart and finished it off with some Glossy Accents on the heart, the flame and the goat's eyes, some Pretty Pink Posh sequins and a little Marvy Liquid Applique on the cupcake (note to self:  put the applique on first and heat set it before the Glossy Accents). 

Wish You Were Here Featuring Newton's Nook

This week and next week are going to be crazy busy at work. I'm basically covering the work of three people for two weeks and one of those weeks I won't even be in this state. So, although, we're really short handed, I decided to take last Friday off.  I had been scheduled off since the beginning of the month to use some use-it-or-lose-it time before I lose it at the end of this month and I had worked long hours all week so I really needed a break, plus hubby had the day off.  We spent some time together doing a lot of nothing, which was nice.  He worked on Saturday, so I had thought about going into the office, but I also realized that I had things around the house I wanted to get done since I knew I was going to be working long hours and wouldn't to have any time this week or next.  So I stayed home and cleaned the house, snuggled a furball or two (at the same time!) and watched a few crafty videos in between loads of laundry.  It was the perfect break to feel like I was human again and not just a working machine.  Then I it was time to spend some time in my craft room to exercise a different part of my brain with some new goodies I've picked up recently.

Specifically, Newton's Nook recently released some new (adorable) stamp sets.  I'm such a sucker for Newton so I had to pick up Newton's Summer Vacation and my sister loves flamingos so, of course, I had to get Flirty Flamingos.  When I was catching up on my blog reading, I noticed Newton's Nook had a new challenge to create a beach themed card and thought it was the perfect opportunity to play with my new stamps.  You can find out all about the challenge over on the Newton's Nook blog here.  It's open until August 8th so go check it out and play along.

For my card, I started with the Flirty Flamingos set.  I inked up the solo flamingo in Memento Tuxedo Black ink and colored it with copics.  I then created mask for my flamingo so I could sponge in some waves with Distress Ink and sponge daubers and then colored in some sand and sky with my copics.  I used the Amy Tangerine dies to cut a polaroid shape.  I stamped the sentiment from the Newton's Summer Vacation and colored in the little heart with the same copics used for the flamingos.  I remembered having some "sand' paper and found in an old DCWV Summer Stack.  I used the Dotted Die from Avery Elle to cut out that paper and mounted my "polaroid" on it.  To finish it off, I added a few Doodlebug sequins, some Glossy Accents on the floaty ring and a some Wink of Stella on the waves. 

Welcome Baby

It's been a rough couple of weeks at work so I have been too drained in the evenings to play in my craft room. Last week, I literally came home, crawled in bed, went to sleep, got up, went to work, repeat until the weekend.... Last weekend, I was busy finishing up April's Project Life layouts and prepping photos for May, so I didn't even make a single card.  Today was another rough day at work where I feel so brain-dead that I just wasn't sure I could come up with anything creative, but I figured I could clean the craft room even as a zombie.  But a funny thing happened... there was this first blip in an otherwise flat line of brain activity as I started putting away the remnants of a 6x6 Studio Calico Lemon Lush paper pad from my April Citrus Twist Project Life kit, I was drawn to a piece of the green paper that I had die cut with the grass border die from Lawn Fawn.    I set it aside thinking it would work well on a card with some critters or something.  Then a second blip when I saw the cute Polaroid-like die from Amy Tangerine's Plus One collection for American Crafts as I was putting away the dies on my desk.  Then ... blip ... these cloud cut-outs would work as a mask for the background ... blip... these Distress Inks are the right color for a sky ... blip ... this red glitter paper would be cute inlayed in the heart cut out ... blip... oh yeah, I need a baby card for my co-worker (oh, and Mom do you have any sweaters made up?) ...blip... I have that new set from Newton's Nook called Wild Child that would work for a cute baby card ... blip ... blip ... blip... and ta-da!  It's all made from scraps on my desk and the Newton's Nook set I got the other day but told myself I couldn't use until I finish up Project Life for April.

So don't look to closely at the coloring.  It's a little blotchy because I got caught up watching tonight's episode of True Tori while I was cleaning (okay so I was talking back to the screen telling her that she's chickening out by not asking Dean if this is the only affair he's had, plus I really want to know and I'm bummed that she's going to handle it in "private" - you signed up to have the cameras follow you, now I want the dirt and you're denying me that) and my ink dried before I got to finish blending it and, honestly, in person, it doesn't look nearly as blotchy as it does with all that light on it so I'm leaving it alone. 

Yet Another Newton's Nook Card

I have one more set of Newton's Nook cards to share with you from my initial time playing with them.  I used the cute balloon image again, but this time I cut it out after inking it up and coloring it.  I made the one on the right using some cute paper from the Amy Tangerine 6x6 pad called Yes Please.  I cut it down to fit the front of a top folding A2 card with the sun and clouds in the corner.  I stamped Newton on the front and colored it all black to shadow under my colored image adhered with pop dots.  I made the banner sentiments the same way as a previous card in this series by water coloring some paper with a Mustard Seed Distress Ink marker then stamping my sentiment from Lawn Fawn's Sophie's Sentiments set and, finally, cutting it into a banner shape before adhering it to my card.  I though the card still need something, so I inked a cut a few clouds from the Lawn Fawn Blue Skies set.  The clouds seemed too white, so I added a little Distress Ink that doesn't really show in the picture.  For the card on the left, unfortunately my paper pad only had one page with the cloud and sun in it.  So I pulled a plain blue page from the Fancy Pants Park Bench 6x6 pad.  I used the extra colored watercolor paper to stamp and cut out the sun from the Sunny Skies set from Lawn Fawn.  Using that, I built the card a second time in style similar to the first.   

Good Fortune Card

I needed a quick card of encouragement for a co-worker and, quite frankly, I was a little too tired to work on one.  I started looking at some inspiration on Google Images thinking I might do something with Lawn Fawn's Summertime Charm set.   But the Good Fortune set popped into my mind and I found myself pulling out before I really had even given it any conscious thought.  I knew I had previously cut and colored some extra pieces and they were perfect for my need for a quick card tonight.  I only had to cut the "fortunes" for the cookie because I already had all the other pieces ready.  Then it was just a matter of layering the pieces on some plain white paper and finding the right colored paper to give the card some cheer. I was very drawn to this pattern from the Amy Tangerine 6x6 paper pad for Ready Set Go.  It was the perfect amount of color.  I added some to the inside and put my sentiment as if it's coming from the side of the card for a little visual interest.  This was a super simple card as I had so much pre-made, but I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. 

My 500th Post and Week 11

I cannot believe that this is my 500th post.  That just seems a bit crazy, but that's what Blogger says so it must be true.  How cool is it that it falls on St. Patrick's Day?  So how do you celebrate the day? 

Me?  Since I managed to get all the laundry done yesterday and finish up Project Life for last week (that's right, I'm still on track), I decided to spend this day doing other things I enjoy. I have corned beef bubbling in the crock pot and dear hubby has some good beer (that I will not be drinking - yeck).  After a quick run to the store for kitty food so Chewie doesn't throw a fit about not getting any canned cat food today, I'll be kicking up my feet and reading a library book on my Kindle app.  I have to say that it's nice to be able to check out library books at any time, but I do sort of miss the trip to the library.  The convenience of electronics just can't quite replace the pretty amazing experience of walking down the stacks and being seduced by smell of paper and ink and the visual smorgasbord of colors.

So, as I said, Project Life Week 11 is in the book already.  I finished it up last night while I listened to the Hawks make history with the most road wins in the regular season with a nail-biter of a 6th round shoot out win against the Thunderbirds.  Way to go Chase De Leo! I used that Portfolio collection from Pink Paislee again.  I'm pretty much down the dregs of it so this may be it's last appearance.  I love, love, love (ha!) using the Amy Tangerine date stamp.  Then I spent some time playing with my cameo.  I chopped down an arrow from the Ali Edwards design from the Studio Calico cut set from the Cut It Up class.  I loved the arrow, but I needed a shorter version.  But the piece I love the most is probably the hat I created from a hat card design.  I made some extra cuts here and there and welded the words "hat trick" to celebrate Brendan Leipsic's hat trick. So when all is said and done, here's this week in history in our house:

The Alamo

Here's the first of the insert pages from my recent trek to San Antonio.  I knew it would facing the first page for that week, so I needed to keep the paper somewhat coordinated with that layout.  The problem was, I only have random pieces of the Pink Paislee Portfolio 6x6 set I have been using for the last few weeks of my Project Life pages.  So I had to find a way to make this insert page work with paper no larger than 6 inches, but preferably much smaller than that.  While trolling through some of the inspiration I've pinned on Pinterest, I found this sketch from Sketch Saavy that I thought would be perfect for the pictures I had from my jaunt over to the Alamo and uses only 2x2 inch squares of random papers.  As usual, I kept the layout pretty simple.  I'm just not one to put a lot of stuff on it.  But this time I did try something a little different with the edges.  I wanted something to soften the white a bit.  I knew from week 10's layout that my Iced Spruce Distress Ink was a good coordinating color so I sponged the edges a bit, but then I smeared it too much in one spot and I didn't like that.  I decided to see if could tone it down with some white ink.  That didn't work.  My white galaxy marker didn't work either.  But white acrylic paint did okay, but then the paint really stood out.  I decided to fix that by painting a little all the way around the page.  That was perfect.  So that just left a title.  I really love these letter from Amy Tangerine.  They are just a little brighter than the rest of the colors, but I decided I didn't mind that.  I thought I was done with it, until I put it in the page protector.  Then I realized it would be nice if I added a few of the black rhinestones to tie the two pages together.