Happy Little Stampers: October Sketch Challenge

Hi everyone! I hope you all checked into the blog hop for my buddy Kylie's new stamp company- "Happy Little Stampers". She has some awesome stamps in the first release and rumor has it there will be a second release coming up in the not to distant future.

Now onto the sketch challenge for October. You know I had to do something spooky! It's Halloween time! 

No stamping!! Yikes- I hope I don't get tossed out on the street for not using stamps!!??!! My Martha Stewart punch is the perfect focal point for this spooky card. I rarely pull out my punches these days, what with all the dies that are available. Punches are becoming old school.

I masked out the moon and sponged the background with a few distress inks and flicked some water to add texture.

My card has no sentiment on the front. I almost NEVER do this, but it just didn't need it. The scene says it all, dontcha think?

Please  join us at HLS for some amazing challenges and check out what everyone else did for the sketch challenge!

The Male Room Challenge: Autumn

Good Morning everyone! Autumn arrived in the east coast last Weds. So today's challenge at the Male Room is right in keeping for the season. What's not to love about the fall? Time to put my long jeans back on with a sweater (by now, I am sick of shorts), crisp juicy apples (winesaps are my fav) the days are shorter (candles with dinner) and the changing leaves (long drives in the countryside).

How to make a an autumnal card without reverting to the inevitable of fall leaves? A perusal of my stamps revealed a cute fall stamp set from Hampton Arts, that I know I got for a good price from a "big box" store. 

This card had me stumped though. The background just wasn't coming together. I musta spent the better part of a day trying to make this work. Ever have a crafting day like that?

While I am not completely thrilled with this, I am at least satisfied and I know my personal sidekick is gonna like it. 

The stamp set came with the big bold "you".  I hand wrote the "nuts" trying to imitate the style. No bad. 

Tell me what are your favorite things about Autumn and play along with this week's challenge at the Male Room!

Chomp, chomp, chomp

Ahhhhh another day to enjoy before my weekend camping at work. I am always a day behind on the online card classes.  I have watched a number of videos on the no-line stamping but the videos by Kristina Werner were especially good. She said to start out simple and that critters were  a good way to begin. 

I just discovered an AWESOME new company- Reverse Confetti. Hey Jennifer, Kristina.... hey Simon Says Stamp, Ellen Hutson.... come on you guys ya gotta  promote and carry these awesome stamps and dies!!

The set I used my my first real foray into no-line stamping was "later alligator". How fun is this whimsical critter! I used my new Zig Kuretake Gansai watercolors. I got my set from Amazon and with Prime, I received them the day I ordered them!! Talk about instant gratification!!  

I will admit, my shading isn't perfect, but that is the great thing about using critters to start- they are forgiving.

Shopping Our Stash is having a very cute challenge this week- "show us your smile" Oh come on I couldn't not show off my grinning alligator, and well while this stamp set isn't the oldest in my stash, it has been lonely for the last week waiting for me to ink it up!

I am going out on a limb and enter a second card at Inkspirational. They want green and orange cards.

Pleeeeeeeeeease check out Reverse Confetti. You won't be disappointed!

Feelin' like autumn

 I work right across where the Pope will be staying when he comes to Philadelphia, needless to say it has been getting progressively more intense as we get closer to Friday. I have to stay at work the whole weekend. So I get camp out with some of my fellow workers. Because I will be at work all weekend I decided to give myself today off and play. I watched the first day of "Watercolors for Cardmakers: exploring mediums". 

I have both the Zig markers and the set Kristena was using, but I hadn't really had a chance to mess with them. I decided to play with them and enter a few challenges while I was at it. My card is a riff on Jennifer's and Debby. The stamp set is a very old Amuse set that I won when taking a stamp class. The poor thing had never been inked before today!

AAA cards is having an autumn colors challenge, so I am joining in there.

Addicted to CAS is having a challenge with leaves, well duh! This is a no brainer!

Lastly, Inkspirational has a color challenge using green ( the most beautiful color in the world!) and orange. Maybe I am stretching it, but I did use green and orange on my leaves.

 Surprise days off are the best! Well I better figure out what I will be taking with me this weekend. I am planning on a few make-n-takes with bored staff.

Check out the class and challenges and have fun creating!

Happy Little Stamper's Blog Hop

 Hey everyone! Exciting news! Happy Little Stampers are celebrating the first release of their stamps with a blog hop!! I am honored and thrilled to be part of the festivities. There will be all kinds of fun.

 Comment on the HLS blog and then continue on to each Designer. You MUST comment on all the blogs in the hop to be eligible for prizes.

You should have come to me from the awesome Melissa Lane's blog.   If you got lost, no worries. Just start back at the Happy Little Stampers Blog.

The blog hop will run for one week giving you enough time to hop through and check out what the designers have created.

One lucky commenter (selected randomly) will win the WHOLE release! Four sets of awesome HLS stamp valued at AUD $69.

Four lucky commenters (selected randomly) will win a gift certificate to the HLS store.

My first card uses the versatile holiday set called "Mixed Christmas Sentiments". when I first saw this set I thought what fun it would be to create a card using as many of the sentiments as I could.

Here is a video tutorial on how I made this card. 

 I laid out the sentiments to create a rough triangle shape with my MISTI.

I stamped and in embossed with white ink and embossing powder on watercolor paper. I took masking tape and masked out a triangle shape.

I gathered a variety of shades of green distress markers.

Using the distress markers I shaded the "tree" and with my waterbrush I spread the inks into each other  to create an ombre look.

I then cut the "tree" out.

  

I popped it up on my snow embossed base card and added the stump from would grain paper. I just love this clean, simple and graphic Christmas card.

I hope you are inspired by my card and enjoyed the tutorial. The designers and I are having so much fun playing with out HLS stamps. Please hop on over to the amazing Anita Bowden's blog!!!

The Male Room Challenge: Neon

I am going out on a limb with this card and that you all aren't getting grossed out by my card. It is a bit of a pun and I hope you get it.

This week at The Male Room challenge is to use neon colors. For a change I knew exactly what I was going to do. I had an unusual assortment of insect stamps for an insect board book I made for a friend. Guys don't want a cutesy flowery get well card. They are tough and can take something creepy and crawly.

For my neon colors, I used all the Hero Arts neon inks. I don't get to use them very often, so this was a great opportunity to dust the pads off and ink some stamps up.

Soooooo....... pull out your neon inks, markers, pencils or paints. dust them off and get your neon on!

Show us how you neon at The Male Room!

Wish Big!!

I have a couple of birthdays coming up. A guy and a girl. I didn't want to reinvent the wheel so I put my thinking cap on and took a gander at challenges this week and both Just Us Girls and Less is More had the inspiration I needed to get  the job done.

Just Us Girls  had a trend week challenge and what is more trendy than balloons. Here is a trend that I am actually on point with! I have tons of balloon stamps and dies!

The gang over at Less is More is having a OLC challenge and the key word is "wishing".

Well these two challenges fit together like peanut butter and jelly, tomato soup and grill cheese, bacon and eggs- geez I must be hungry!

For my one layer card, I made a stencil from the largest balloon in the Simon Says Stamp die set using masking paper. I sponged the base yellow color in and then layers a polka dot stencil over the balloon and sponged in the red dots.

I added the string and the sentiment from Papertrey Ink and there ya have it.

For the guy card, I changed it up a bit, instead of stenciling the balloon, I die cut the balloon with decorative paper and popped it up on the card base and added the sentiment with matching colors.

Well, I am off to have something to eat. Check out the challenges at Just Us Girls and Less is More.

The Male Room: Fruit

Today's challenge at the Male Room involves fruit. OK really how manly can fruit be?!!? But that why this is a challenge right?!!? Well first of, I don't have a lot of fruit stamps. It required a bit of rummaging through rarely used stamps. I found an old Hero Arts clear set- simply fresh.   It has been fun and surprising to find how many great stamp sets you can find on Amazon! Who knew?!!?

Back to today's challenge, I picked the apple from this awesome stamp set for a few reasons. One it is fall and that means it is prime apple season here in Pennsylvania, second there is the obvious or maybe not so obvious connection to the book of Genesis and lastly I really wanted to try my hand at coloring an apple with my copics.

Jane over at AAA cards suggested I link up to their challenge for embossing this week.

I kinda feel like I am cheating cos' it is just a very simply dry embossed with a folder. I usually try to stretch myself. But I will say that this particular folder is my go to when I want o add that little something to complete a card. I am sure you have something like that dontcha?Check out what the DT came up with over at AAA cards, some cool stuff!

If you check out the stamp set on line, you will notice I had to add the bite mark on my apple.

All I can say is if you don't like this card, well............ bite me!

I hope you will all play along at the Male Room with this fun and fruity challenge!

House of Cards- Stitch it Up

 

This month at House of Cards the challenge is to "stitch it up"

 I remember years ago I had a bunch of these different wheels, but as usual I got rid of them in a purge. Of course there comes a time when I really need one of the items that was purged. That was the case with my serrated tracing wheel. Thank God for Amazon where I was able to buy one for practically nothing.

 Today I am going to show you a quick and easy faux stitching tutorial.

For this technique you need a serrated tracing wheel and a ruler. I chose a simple diamond  pattern. Using the ruler I created a serrated pattern on my base card.

I covered the entire card with the pattern. This gives the card a quilted quality.

Using my MISTI I stamped my old large lotus background stamp and the ink doesn't take the ink so the card looks like a piece of stitched fabric. So dig out your tracing wheel and try this fun faux stitching technique!

To finish this card up I took the matching stencil from Hero Arts and added some shadowing and color definition.

I cut out the middle to create the frame for my sentiment- a favorite from Tim that I use over and over.

I guess you are wondering what I did with the piece that cut out huh? 

I finished my card by putting that piece on the inside of the card with my sentiment.

Be sure to head over to House of Cards and see what the other designers have come with and be sure to play along this month.