Anything Goes Sunshine Mail + Valentine's Twist

It's time for a new Sunshine Mail Foundation Challenge (January 15 - February 1). Our theme is "Anything Goes with a twist for Valentines Day" and the only real rule is that you send in at least one card (it doesn't have to be the card you enter in the challenge; Donation guidelines here).    

This challenge is sponsored by Meljen's Designs, so I used her Sweet Little Foxy digi stamp:

I paper-pieced the fox onto a shiny bronze paper, using a white cardstock and a Colorbök patterned orange paper. I added details with Copics and bright orange Liquid Pearls.

I used Core'Dinations cardstock and my Silhouette to cut the Fold & Tuck Flowers by Alaa' K, available at the Silhouette store. 

The sentiment is from an Inky Antics set, and is heat-embossed in shiny green on a raffia-type paper. I also used an orange burlap ribbon and a fun ladybug-themed lace from my stash. The backing paper is from Graphic 45.

I made the heart border in Sure Cuts A Lot (SCAL), cut it on my Silhouette from an orange cardstock, and added fluorescent orange embossing powder with a Versamark pen. I also made a versoin with smaller hearts, that I used inside:

Mema's Challenge

Inspiration/Challenges:
Card A Day Blog: Valentines
Crafty Hazelnut's Patterned Paper Challenge: Anything goes using PP as a backing / 2nd entry
Mema's Challenge: January BINGO* (second column: Embossing, Dies, Flowers) / 2nd entry
Rogue Redhead Designs #31: Paper Piecing

Update: This was the prize winner for Rogue Redhead Designs #31. Thank you!

Thank you for visiting, and hope you'll join us at Sunshine Mail,

Pilin' On the School Supplies

I suppose there's still some summer left, but School Time is coming up again! That's our theme this week at Pile It On: School Time and/or school supplies. We're sponsored by Meljen's Designs, so I used her Little Chalk Board digi stamp:

I printed the image directly onto a yellow library card I got from the Kraft Outlet. I colored it with Copics and glaze pens, and then stamped the "ABC" using the Chalkboard Technique.

The sentiment and "ABC" stamps are from Clear Art Stamps' Story of Me set. The notebook edge was cut from a notebook-patterned DP with a MFT die. I distressed the sentiment piece & library card with Antique Linen ink & my Prima Flowers tool.

The owl brad and star clip are from my stash...thanks Mom!

For the base, I inked a large TH tag with Fired Brick distress ink, and gave it a staple border. I made a "ribbon" with a rubber band.

Inspiration/Challenges:
Crafting By Designs: Anything Goes
Crafts and Me: Anything Goes
Eureka Stamps: Anything Goes
Kitty Bee Designs Aloha Friday Challenges: School
Paper Shelter Challenge: Anything Goes
Stampotique Designers' Challenge: Tag

Thank you for visiting,

First Birthday

Another week, another challenge at Meljen's Designs . . . And this one is her 100th, wow! I'm using her sweet little Giraffe and Happy Birthday sentiment to make this card, yet another boy birthday card for Card Cupids' March Card Drive!

It's also appropriate to celebrate the birth of our nephew; he arrived right on time and is a real cutie . . . although I still can't get over the fact that my little brother-in-law is a daddy (he's in his 30s now, but he'll always be a kid to me!) Happy first birthday sweet nephew!

The papers and banner are freebies from Quick Cards Issue 90 August 2011; I photocopied them onto white linen cardstock to give them some weight & texture. Now I can use them again! Magazine paper is heck to work with, anyhow.

Inspiration/Challenges:

Digi Doodle Shop's Challenge #98: Animals

Meljen's Designs Challenge #100: Sketch (right)

Sarah Hurley's Challenge 61: Birthday Celebrations

Orange you glad I didn't say Banana?

I've really been grooving on the challenges over at Meljen's Designs recently, and I couldn't resist this week's "Orange" theme. Again, I raided my paper stash and found several scraps that were just right for this card.

Sketch n Stash Challenge #82

Inspiration/Challenges:

Meljen's Challenge #99: Orange

Sketch n Stash Challenge #82: Jill's Sketch (right) + stash (paper, decorative tape)

Digi stamps by Meljen's Designs

Thanks visiting, hope you'll join me in sending in some birthday cards for boys for Card Cupids' March Challenge/Drive. 


Update: Whoop whoop, I won the 3 digi prize for Meljen's Challenge #99! Thank you!

Cuppas

As much as I love hand-crafting, I also enjoy designing on my computer. For this card, I used digital paper-piecing; basically, it's cutting & pasting using layers in PhotoShop (I used InDesign for the final card layout). I learned this technique via trial-and error over the years, but Arielle of Snappy Stampin' has a great Digital Paper Piecing tutorial. The Cuppa Tea & sentiment images are Meljen's Designs freebies, and were so perfect for this. For the "papers", I used a CD-ROM from Crafter's Companion, which gave me lots of coordinating papers to play with. 

The polka-dots are heat-embossed onto the ribbon; so easy and fun! The key is to tape the ribbon down onto your stamping surface. I heat-embossed an entire teacup brad in blue, but stamped onto the purple & green brads. The pattern is green embossed on the green brad. Both Dot stamps (silicon and rubber) are from Studio G.

I added some twine that I bought at Can You Digi It? for good measure!

Inspiration/Challenges:

• Cooking It Up #89: A Spooled Metal Sentiment (anything that comes on a Spool + something Metal + Sentiment)
•  spooled, silk ribbon from May Arts; Vintage Tea Cups brads from Hot Off the Press; digi stamp sentiment by Meljen's Designs
• Crafter's Companion February Challenge: Anything Goes 
• Digi Papers from their Beatrix Potter - The Tale of Peter Rabbit CD-ROM
• Critter Sketch Challenge #102: Sketch (right)
• Meljen's Designs Challenge #97: Anything Goes
• When I started making this card, I was following last week's Pastels challenge, but I finished it up for this week's...Thanks for the double inspiration!
• Party Time Tuesdays Challenge #55: Get Well Wishes

Shopping my Stash with MelJen's Designs + CPS Day 12

I bet you're getting tired of me bragging, but I'm on a roll! Well, who could resist the Jug Band set from Bonibleaux Designs/Dude Time Doodles that won my card a top 3 spot at Shopping Our Stash's People Who Need People challenge?! The boys are very excited, and egged me to make a last-minute card for their current challenge. Although the challenge is officially Valentine's themed, we also have the option of using one of their sponsor's images instead, and I just had to use my newly-acquired Robot Boy digi from Meljen's Designs! I wanted to make this a boy's birthday card for Card Cupid's February Drive, so no hearts, just a lot of love:

CPS Sketch #118

Oh, and you didn't think I'd pass up the opportunity to use another sketch from the CPS 5th Anniversary Celebration did you?! Today's it's Day 12, Sketch #118! (All my cards for the CPS Celebration are archived here.)

The shiny K.I. Memories papers are from my stash; actually, I took them from my mom's stash in Arizona, so they went a long way to make this card! I printed the sentiment (a freebie from MelJen's; Thank you!) directly onto the star paper, then paper-pieced the balloons and tiny stars on top (that I printed on white and colored with my Copics, same as the main image). I filled the sentiment in and added detail with gel and glitter pens.

The two stars on the bottom right are actually punched out; the punched pieces are the red stars on the top left. The lavender flower brad in the middle star has been in my stash for at least 4 years!

Happy unbirthday to you all!

CPS Anniversary Sketches 2-5!

The sketch challenge at Card Positioning Systems (CPS) is one of my favorites, so I'm excited to participate in all 15 sketches of their 5th Anniversary Celebration! I've already posted my card using their Day 1 sketch, and here are Days 2 - 5 (in order):

Day 2 / Sketch #166
Featuring digi stamp from MelJen's Designs

Day 3 / Sketch #54
Featuring digi stamp from MelJen's Designs

Day 4 / Sketch #220
Featuring digi stamp from MelJen's Designs

Day 5 / Sketch #38
Featuring digi stamp from Tiddly Inks
Candy Heart SVG set from Denise's Scrapbooking Room

I'm entering the card above into the following challenges:

Tiddly Inks Challenge #79: Valentine

iCopic Weekly Challenge #68: Hearts


Okay, off to work on the rest of the CPS sketches!

Happy Groundhog Day!

The adorable and apparently immortal groundhog Punxsutawney Phil did his little thing this morning, but I stayed inside and made this card for my husband, using freebies from MelJen's Designs:

That groundhog is too cute. I used Deconstructed Sketch #37 and the Loving You Challenge at MelJen's Designs DT Blog for inspiration. Thank you everyone! Happy Winter!

Hiya

The current challenge at MelJen's Designs is Blast from the Past, where we share the very first card we ever made using one of her images. Her Dandelion Mouse is one of my favorite digis. Here's my first card:

I love this stamp so much that I rented the Lawn King set from Raisin Boat solely for the included dandelion stamp! And I didn't even stamp the whole thing! Here's my new card with Dandelion Mouse, also inspired by the current Deconstructed Sketch:

Inspiration:
Deconstructed Sketch #16

Stamps: Dandelion Mouse by MelJen's Designs (thank you!), Lawn King set by Raisin Boat
Paper: DCWV Blossoms & Butterflies 8x8 pack, Hammermill, Recollections
Tools: Fiskars papercutter, Martha Stewart scissors, HP printer & ink, Adobe InDesign, SCAL & Cricut, Kut-Ups font, Marvy heat tool, Shrink plastic, sewing machine & thread
Other: ZipDry & Tacky glues, Memento ink, American Crafts & Michaels ribbons, Sakura gel pens, stash metal frame
Copic markers: E13, E17, Y13, B23, BG000, G07, YG03, YG67, Y000, RV02, E000

Flowery Shrink-Plastic Buttons

So how did I manage without knowing about Feline Playful until now?! It's such a wonderful resource for challenges, and I love all the info that's included. It's also really handy when you want to make a card for a challenge, but know you want to include something specific. For example, I wanted to participate in a challenge, but I wanted to include buttons and flowers on whatever I made, so I did a quick search on Feline Playful and ta da I discovered MelJen's Buttons & Bows challenge, as well as Scrappy Frogs and their Summer Flowers challenge. I was also able to find the perfect sketch, at Stampin' Royalty, thanks to their pictorial list!

The reason I was so keen on using buttons was because I saw a great tutorial on How to Make Buttons from Shrink Plastic at scissors.paper.wok yesterday, and finally pulled out the shrink plastic Mom sent me. I was really surprised how easy these were.

To make the daisy buttons, I started by making a template on plain white paper: I punched a 2-inch circle, folded it in half, and made the eye-holes with a 3/16 punch. Then I punched circles out of the shrink plastic and used the template to make the smaller holes. I stamped this lovely Daisy from SP & Company onto the plastic circles, using StazOn ink. To shrink the circles into buttons, I used my heat tool. That thing is amazing. It all happens really fast: the plastic crumples up & then suddenly flattens out into a circle (or, in my case, an oval, which was fine with me). I highly recommend using a surface with a lip (I used the top of a metal gift can) and something long to keep the plastic in place (used my reverse-action tweezers; just don't touch the hot metal!). To make sure it stays flat after melting, I used a tip from Mom: put a wooden stamp on it (wood-side down) immediately after shrinking. I used Copics to color the buttons after shrinking.

I made a tiny flower using the same process but smaller punches, and made a plain button that I then covered in yellow flocking.

I went ahead and chose my own color combo. I couldn't help making the daisies Black-eyed Susans, as they're blooming here and are so beautiful.

Inspiration:
Scrappy Frogs Challenge: Summer Flowers
MelJen's Designs Challenge #67: Buttons and Bows
Stampin' Royalty Challenge #81: Sketch


Tutorial: How to Make Buttons from Shrink Plastic at scissors.paper.wok

Stamps: Dandelion Mouse digi by MelJen's Designs, For all Mothers set by SP & Company, Happiness Ticket by When the Scrap Hits the Fun
Paper: Hammermill, Recollections, pre-embossed paper from stash, shrink plastic from stash
Tools: InDesign, HP printer & ink, needle, awl, Fiskars papercutter, Recollections punches, Crop-O-Dile, Tim Holtz paper distresser & scissors
Other: ZipDry glue, ZIG glue pen, Offray & Bargain ribbon, Recollections flocking powder, Copic markers, Versamark ink