Happy Valentines Day

And happy Saturday. It snowed again last night (a couple of inches), so everything is all white again.

Yesterday, when DH came home from work, he surprised me with these. Isn't he sweet. It has pussy willows in it. I love them. Every spring as children, we'd go hunt some up and bring them home. I will probably let these puff out a bit more and then take them out of the water and dry them. That way I can enjoy them for a long time, even if there are only three stems.

I made him a card using yesterdays' limited supplies challenge on SCS. I didn't want it to be frilly and feminine, so I thought I'd try to get the look of someone carving in a tree. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about.

I started the card last night, but needed to let it sit for awhile. I do that a lot. Spurts of creativity and then need to walk away and when I come back, I have new ideas. I rarely visualize a card in my head and just go with it. I almost always change what I was thinking would work and come up with different ideas along the way. That's just the way I create. Most of the time, the final creation is nothing like what I started out thinking I was going to make.



I started by stamping the bird heart in versamark on glossy white card stock. I couldn't use my heat gun since the house was asleep, so it didn't give me quite as sharp an image as I wanted, but I'm pretty happy with it anyway.

Then I stamped the woodgrain background (CHF) in chocolate chip over the heart. At that point, I was totally disappointed, because the heart wasn't showing up at all. So, I took a paper towel and rubbed over the ink to dry the versamark and then I brayed creamy caramel over the whole thing. Ta dah! The heart just popped out. I think if I could have heatset the versamark first, it would have been much more vivid. I wiped it again with the paper towel, but nothing much more came off.

I added some brads, scalloped square punches, the little bird and some leafy branches. With a bit of sponging and a sentiment, I was done. All in all a pretty simple card.

What's in it?
stamps: bird heart (Stampington & Co.), woodgrain backgrounder (Cornish Heritage Farms), always (SU)
ink: versamark, chocolate chip, creamy caramel, pacific point
paper: very vanilla, chocolate chip, tempting turquoise, glossy white
other: brayer, sponge dauber, brads, scalloped square punch, leaf punch (Martha Stewart), cuttlebug, bird nestabilities die (Spellbinders), foam tape

Thanks so much for stopping by. I hope you are able to spend the day with someone you love.

Moochas Amor

No hearts, no flowers, no pink, no red --- just moochas amor! Today's limited supplies challenge on SCS is to make a non-traditional valentine with some pretty tough limitations. I knew I was going to have to do some thinking. So I started looking through my stamps to see what I could come up with and this is the result - a valentine cow!
I almost went just black and white, but decided I wanted a bit of color for some pop, so I added some polka dot paper, which also makes this card work for the ways to use it challenge -- double good, wouldn't you say? I think the card is pretty self-explanatory, except the sentiment was done with magnetic alphabet stamps and I trimmed the ends of that piece in my key tag punch.

Supplies:
stamps: cow (Cornish Heritage Farms), sentiment (Making Memories magnetic letters - rummage)
ink: jet black stazon
paper: basic black, whisper white, dp (unknown)
other: key tag punch, ticket corner punch, crop-a-dile, ribbon (Michael's), mat pack, piercing tool, mounting tape

I'm so glad you stopped by. Have a wonderful day.

A fun New Year's Eve Party

Last night Lindsey had a party in the Jacksonbelle Embellishment members forum on SCS, which included some chatting, trivia, and stamping challenges, along with a lot of giveaways and fun. Here are the three cards that I made.
This black and blue card (and I don't mean bruised) was for a color challenge.
The flowers were stamped with black stazon ink on the white panel and again with brilliant blue ink on a scrap of white. I punched out the single flower with a 1-1/4" circle punch and layered it on a black 1-3/8" circle. I popped this up over the same flower stamped in black for a spotlight technique. The ribbon was tied around the white layer before I glued it to the black card base. The sentiment was stamped in brilliant blue along the flower stem and then I added some faux piercing in the corner. A very simple but elegant card.

Stuff I used: stamps: flower (stampendous), sentiment (warm words - SU)
ink: jet black stazon, brilliant blue
paper: whisper white, basic black
other: ribbon (michaels), circle punches (SU), mounting tape








A card using eyelets was another challenge, so I made a laced panel with designer paper and chocolate chip card stock. I used my crop-a-dile to punch all the holes and set the eyelets. Then I laced it with brown crochet cotton and a needle. I wanted to put an image over the dp, so I stamped the flower on acetate with stazon ink and colored it from the back side with copic markers. While that was drying, I stamped the same image on the right side of my really rust card base and colored it with SU markers. I coated the flowers with crystal effects. Of course, I now needed to let that dry, so I slipped the acetate underneath the lacing and folded the ends over to the back. Using my crop-a-dile again, I punched through the acetate and card stock and added eyelets to anchor the strip together and finished off the lacing. I popped up the panel and stamped the sentiment along side the other flower.

Stuff I used: stamps: oh, so lovely (SU), sentiment (Judith)
ink: jet black stazon, chocolate chip
paper: really rust, chocolate chip, dp (old world stack - DCWV)
other: crop-a-dile, creamy caramel eyelets, needle, brown crochet cotton, crystal effects, ruby red and old olive SU markers, R27 Copic marker, mounting tape





And the last challenge was a valentine card. I started by gluing some rich cranberry card stock to a piece of cereal box chipboard. Then I made a heart pattern and traced it on the back and cut it out. I was going to emboss with white on the heart, but then I remembered that I just got some new rub ons from SU and decided to use those instead. I added a row of diamond stickles along one side of the heart.

For the background, I stamped the flower from a new SU set called 'it's a beautiful thing' in purely pomegranate ink on naturals ivory card stock. I made the scalloped edge with a corner rounder without the corner guide, and then punched a 1/8" hole in the center of each scallop. I glued this piece to cranberry card stock and added a strip of black and some gold cord along the left hand side.

The sentiment from the same set was stamped on naturals ivory card stock and punched out with a large oval punch. Since I wanted a layer of dark card stock behind that, but don't have a larger oval punch that would work, I had to improvise. I punched a designer label punch and another oval from cranberry and glued the sentiment onto the designer label. Then I cut the other oval in half and glued each end behind the designer label so that it formed a nice layer on the ends. Both the sentiment and heart are raised on mounting tape.

Stuff I used: stamps: it's a beautiful thing (SU)
ink: purely pomegranate
paper: naturals ivory, basic black, non-SU cranberry
other: gold cord, white rub ons, corner rounder, 1/8" punch, designer label & large oval punches, mounting tape, diamond stickles

It was a fun party and a great way to end off the year. I want to wish you all a wonderful and blessed new year. Thanks for stopping by.