I knew that I had a "frame" in my not-yet-used stash of dies and as I was paging through the stack, I found other unused dies to use. So I ended up with a simple all-white card!
Saturday, October 24, 2015
Merry Monday Christmas Challenge: Frame It
The latest challenge at Merry Monday Christmas Challenge is Frame It.
There are very few things that are more meaningful to me than the music of Christmas. If I wouldn't take endless grief from the rest of my family, I think I'd play it year-round for the sheer joy of it. I am not a singer, but I do play various instruments and I used to play piano and organ for church. There is no better moment in life than the end of Christmas Eve services when the piano and organ are thundering, and the choir and the congregation are all singing Joy to the World often with tears of sheer joy streaming down cheeks.
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Wednesday, October 21, 2015
Curtain Call Reminder: Pretty Pumpkins
This is my second post today - Freshly Made Sketches is just a post away!
Just a reminder that there is still time to play along with the challenge at the Curtain Call Inspiration Challenge: Pretty Pumpkins.
I wanted to use my new Thankful frame along with one of my favorite autumn sets ever - both from Reverse Confetti. I like the patterns on the stamps and they fit nicely inside the frame.
This is a different type of photo for me - I'm the gray backdrop gal. My crafting time is in the wee hours of the morning so my photographs happen when it's still dark. Consequently, my photo area and my camera settings are geared for that. Yesterday was unusual - my morning time didn't happen, but I needed to get this card done for Curtain Call. My normal set-up did not work due to the daylight coming into my craft room. I'd get odd color casts on my card, and when I tried to correct it in editing software, the golden colored cardstock turned greenish.
Clearly, I am SO not a photographer because I had no idea how to correct it all, and I was afraid to change my camera settings because I might never get them back! I solved my problem by taking my card outside! Now I'm wishing I could take photos in daylight hours - it's nice!! And it took minimal editing! (BTW - I don't live in a regular neighborhood - we all have 5 acre horse properties (but I don't have horses) - and the dead-looking "grass" is actually pasture!)
I hope to see you playing along with Pretty Pumpkins at Curtain Call!! It's that time of the year - I'm sure plenty of us have our pumpkin stamps out on our desk!
Freshly Made Sketches: Merry & Bright
It's time for a new sketch at Freshly Made Sketches! Today we have a sketch by Jen B.
I fell in love with this snowflake die from the moment that I saw it. It was designed by Kay Miller who has an Etsy store with clay ornaments just like this. Here's a sampling from her blog of the ornaments she has made. I fell in love with them last year so when I saw the dies, there was no doubt they would show up in my collection.
There are a million ways to build up the snowflake with the variety of pieces that come with the die set and there are a million different color combos. There are gorgeous cards out there on Pinterest, etc. and I looked at a lot of them for inspiration. I actually ended up lifting my color combo from bed linens at IKEA!
I have a new die that I think this sketch was made for! It's the perfect sketch for showing off a large die or a large stamp!
I also need to give credit to Laurie at Soapbox creations. I had made the snowflake one day and decided on the sentiment but with that bold snowflake, the sentiment seemed lost. I put it aside and the next morning, I saw Laurie's card using score lines with the sentiment. Problem solved!!
I hope to see you playing along this week with Freshly Made Sketches.
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The white dots in the center and edges are Mark Richards Glitter Domes. I used to get them at Archivers before they closed, but you can still Google them and they are available at various places.
Saturday, October 17, 2015
Merry Monday: The Moose is Loose
The Merry Monday Christmas Challenge for this week is right up my alley! The Moose is Loose!
First I have to say that I am absolutely amazed by the design team who all managed to find moose/meese/??? in their collection. It wasn't a problem for me either - I've had these moose die at the top of my to-be-used stack for quite awhile. I started with the sack and then realized I had a smaller die too - so made a matching card!
These have to be about the cutest animal faces that I have seen in quite some time! This Sack It die series by Taylored Expressions didn't come with the Christmas accessories, but since Merry Monday is a Christmas challenge, I hung an ornament from his antler and gave him a very dapper bow tie!
Then when I remembered that I had a small moose die too, I put him in a snowy scene decorating his own little tree.
On a post earlier this week, I talked about how strange it is that sometimes cards take forever to come together and, even though I work so hard on them, these are the cards that I'm never quite happy with. Just the opposite here - it was fun, it was fast (other than a million little pieces to glue on), and I am thrilled with the results! (Sorry - patting myself on the back a little here - but I found myself smiling at these guys the whole time they were coming together and am still grinning! That may stop when I wander back to my desk and see the dies and the paper scraps everywhere!)
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I also used a variety of gray and kraft-colored cardstock scraps to create these guys.
First I have to say that I am absolutely amazed by the design team who all managed to find moose/meese/??? in their collection. It wasn't a problem for me either - I've had these moose die at the top of my to-be-used stack for quite awhile. I started with the sack and then realized I had a smaller die too - so made a matching card!
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I also used a variety of gray and kraft-colored cardstock scraps to create these guys.
Friday, October 16, 2015
Playing with Watercolors: Blessings x2
I have had a fun few days during which I was able to carve out a few hours each day to just play. I have no friends with birthdays; there are no immediate holidays; no sympathy cards - I just played!! I am fairly certain that I have joined the watercoloring trend. I still have some hesitation because of the lack of control, but I absolutely love the results!
The first thing I played around with was simple watercolor backgrounds. There are so many ways to do it. A clean variegated wash is lovely. I also love just a pool of color - but even these pools can have variety - you can get a lot of those wonderful watercolor lines by using a heat tool to move the water around. So first I created a few different backgrounds.
The next thing I played with are the sampling of Zig Clean Color pens that I picked up just to play around with. I grabbed a stamp set on my desk that included leaves. After coloring dozens of them - I realized I wanted to use them on something and as luck would have it, I had the blue backgrounds sitting on my desk!
The first background was so clean, and the stamps are "doodly" - so I kept the colors bright and almost cartoonish. I used a light sentiment stacked on some dark to give it a shadow and spritzed it with some shimmer mist.
The second background looked more stormy to me, so I puddled various colors on each leaf to get a richer more variegated look.
The backgrounds on these cards use classic watercolors - in this case Kuretake Gansai Tambi. I love swirling these colors around in a pool of water and I would imagine these would continue to be an important part of my cardmaking. These cards also used the Zig Clean Color Brush Pens on the leaves. LOVE them too. It was so easy to get into the corners of these leaves and then to layer the colors up for a very rich look. (Of course, you could do this with a regular palette of watercolors and a quality fine trip brush - but it was very easy with the pens.)
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The first thing I played around with was simple watercolor backgrounds. There are so many ways to do it. A clean variegated wash is lovely. I also love just a pool of color - but even these pools can have variety - you can get a lot of those wonderful watercolor lines by using a heat tool to move the water around. So first I created a few different backgrounds.
The next thing I played with are the sampling of Zig Clean Color pens that I picked up just to play around with. I grabbed a stamp set on my desk that included leaves. After coloring dozens of them - I realized I wanted to use them on something and as luck would have it, I had the blue backgrounds sitting on my desk!
The first background was so clean, and the stamps are "doodly" - so I kept the colors bright and almost cartoonish. I used a light sentiment stacked on some dark to give it a shadow and spritzed it with some shimmer mist.
The second background looked more stormy to me, so I puddled various colors on each leaf to get a richer more variegated look.
The backgrounds on these cards use classic watercolors - in this case Kuretake Gansai Tambi. I love swirling these colors around in a pool of water and I would imagine these would continue to be an important part of my cardmaking. These cards also used the Zig Clean Color Brush Pens on the leaves. LOVE them too. It was so easy to get into the corners of these leaves and then to layer the colors up for a very rich look. (Of course, you could do this with a regular palette of watercolors and a quality fine trip brush - but it was very easy with the pens.)
SUPPLY LIST
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