Hello Fall Card

So all those banners I combined in the Mojo Monday sketch? Found them in this week's Freshly Made Sketches challenge.

I used up some more of my (retired) Sangria Paper, combined with more Enchantment Fundamentals. I stitch outlined everything by hand with a black journaling pen, which is why I added the black washi tape and sentiment. 

I wanted a little more shine, so I added some Rose Gold foil tape to play off the copper twine in the brown flower button. The leaves came from the SOTM, and that HELLO is my favorite thin cuts die. 

Only two more days until our first Crafty Card Buffet!

Gratitude Doily Card

So out of the entire Stamp of the Month set this month, I think this Gratitude sentiment image is my absolute favorite. 

I combined some of the new Enchantment Fundamentals with some Sangria retired paper. I love how the patterns in the new fundamentals can support and extend whats already in my paper stash! I was working off the sweet new RetroSketches sketch.

I topped off the design with slate sequins topped with some rounded clear gems. I love the look of white doilies against bold colors! 

Crafty Card Buffet kicks on on Sunday!

Thankful Beyond Measure card

So I am (as I'm sure many of you are as well) completely in LOVE with Betsy Veldman. Everything she makes is Amazing with a capital A, and if you haven't met her yet, go there now. I'll wait...and you're welcome.

So this week she did this card for Papertrey Ink Make it Monday and I about swooned. Immediately I knew I had to MAKE THE THING. So I grabbed my September SOTM and got inky. I started with the new Mojo Monday Sketch. I wanted to spray my background with Distress Spray in Antique Linen, so I extended that second panel to meet the first so my card base wouldn't curl up. I also extended the banner bits into a shiny copper twine wrap because shiny, And copper. I hope Mojo Monday will forgive me!

Instead of florals I used the big pumpkin image. You can imagine how inky my paws were after I finished the leaves and pumpkin inking.I added some touched on shimmer pen and glitter gel to the background stamping, but the real sparkle is that copper twine, which I scored at Target. 

Don't forget my new Card Buffet is coming this Sunday! Hope to see you there!

Practical Scrappers Scrapping Our Stash Halloween Hop

Welcome to the Practical Scrappers monthly hop. This month our theme is Fall/Halloween, using up materials found in our stash. If you've arrived here from MONICA'S BLOG, you're on the right path!

My stash is about 99% CTMH. I have a few inks, and a snip of paper here and there that's not, but in general, most of my projects are made with CTMH products. Last month I was super excited to win an Instagram giveaway from Simple Stories and Big Picture Classes, and they sent me a huge kaboodle of Frankie and Friends goodies. Since I was elbows deep into Scardey Cat, Frankie and his friends sat neglected and lonely, just waiting for a chance to come out and play. I also had this pumpkin frame that I had painted in like August. I painted it, applied copious amounts of glitter....and then it sat. And sat. And collected dust. And sat some more. One day I moved my pile of Frankie stuff and laid it on top of my Pumpkin frame and suddenly I figured out what needed to happen. 

The frame was originally painted with orange acrylic paint and coated with orange glitter. The stem is multiple coats of brown sparkly nail polish. I pulled some old Chipboard letters from the closet, and coated them with some glow-in-the-dark fabric paint left over from making bat gadgets for my 4 year old's Halloween costume. They glow green in the dark! 

These chipboard pieces in this line are too adorable! I added some sparkly glitter and glow in the dark accents, plus wiggly eyes of course. 

At the bottom my collage was looking a little thin, so I cut some very skinny (slightly larger than 1/8") strips of Scaredy Cat Paper and curled it using my paper quilling tool to create some color burst filler for the cluster. You can see the glow in the dark paint on the windows, plus a generous sprinkling of black acrylic star embellies. I don't think I caught a close up, but I had a few gold sequins sitting in my scrap bin, so I added those and topped them with more wiggly eyes.

Attaching the chipboard to this chicken wire frame took a bit of finagling. I finally settled on putting tiny dots of liquid glass on the twisted parts of the frame and propping the chipboard in place until it dried. Once everything was tacked on and dried in place, I flipped the whole frame over and went to town drizzling on Liquid Glass with abandon and now it's a pretty sturdy little piece! And yes...since I decided I needed a pic of the back I added a bead of gold glitter paint along the rope binding where I didn't bother to paint the orange color. 

Next up on the hop is WENDI'S BLOG.  A list of all the scrappers participating this month can be found over at Practical Scrappers. Happy Halloween, Stampin' Friends!

Annual Inspirations Blog Hop #2

Welcome back to Day 2 of the Annual Inspiration Blog Hop! I'm off in Sunny California watching my Brother get married (yay!) but I've got the last of the 6 pages I promised this weekend. You can find the first 2 installments HERE and HERE. 

After all the paper piecing and work I put into the first layout, I wanted pages 5-6 to be easier. Luckily this Pathfinding paper has awesome zip strips...you know, the piece that you usually cut off and toss out? Chevrons and bitty heart circles = swoon! 

And the woodland animals in the Pathfinding Complements are just so cheeky and adorable! I'm trying hard to resist the urge to pop wiggly eyes on every one of them. Don't you just love his faint chevron patterned coat? Here's the Hop Linky party again - remember we'll be posting new stuff for 7 days total, so keep checking back for more CTMH Annual Inspirations goodness!

Annual Inspirations Blog Hop #1

Welcome to the Annual Inspirations Linky Blog Hop! Check back often over the next 7 days to see tons of fabulous artwork featuring the new goodies in the just released CTMH Annual Inspirations Idea Book!

Today I'm sharing the second set of pages of the 6 pages I've made so far with the new Pathfinding Kit. (You can find the other pages HERE.)

The chipboard Pathfinding Complements are so perfect for Fall! I just love the richness of the materials included in these adorable Pathfinding Assortment, a ten piece collection with wooden badges and embossed cork embellies. I think that this awesome wide Lagoon Heart Washi really makes these embellie clusters pop!

Now check out the rest of the hoppers using the Linky below. Keep checking back, as the hop is going on for 7 days, so new goodies will be added every day!

Turkey Time!

Happy November! I love this time of year...the leaves...the sweaters...the peppermint mochas. Oh wait. No coffee in over a year plus I'm doing the whole 30 = no peppermint mochas for me. Can I sniff yours instead? Sigh... Anyhoooo, this week my team met and we all whipped up Fall cards (which you can see out on my Instagram). This is my contribution, a multicolored embossed Turkey card based on the Sketchbook Saturday Challenge. 

I have two kinds of multicolored embossing on this card. For the background I stamped this Quick Cards stamp in Barn Red Pigment Ink that I sprinkled with bits of Goldrush embossing powder. After tapping off the goldrush bits I coated the whole image in Clear Detail powder and got to work with my heat tool. For the Turkey I inked the image with Goldrush Pigment ink, then used Sunset and Ruby pigment inks to add color to the edges. After stamping onto the matching Artiste diecut I coated the turkey with clear embossing powder and applied the magic (heat). That's a bit of the new Sparkle and Shine washi tape highlighting my stamped sentiment banner. His eyeball is a tiny dab of black fabric puffy paint. Gobble, gobble! 

I'm doing the NaBloPoMo challenge this month over at BlogHer, so you'll be seeing a post from me every day in November, boys willing. Head over to BlogHer to check out the fun!

Happy Fall, Y'all!

This morning I'm featured over at Practical Scrappers with this fun fall project!  When I found this chevron print burlap canvas I knew it would be perfect for a pretty scrappy door "wreath", which is ready to start hanging around on my front door now that Fall is really here. I had originally planned to make it more Halloween themed, but then I saw the Tuesday Trigger over at Moxie Fab World and I was immediately inspired to change my whole game plan. We still have a lot of green around in fall up here in the PacNW...plus if you've seen my work before, you know I don't need much encouragement to add glitter and flowers to any project! 

So I hit my stash pretty hard for this project, using up bits and bobs of all kinds of materials to build my flowers. I've got a bit of chocolate felt scallop border that I rolled up into a sweet rose. Layers of Garden Green and Colonial White cardstock were cut with our Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge to build the biggest flowers, topped off with bling from the Rosewood mini medley. I also cut retired Desert Sand linen B&T patterned papers and Creme Brule cardstock for the 3-D rolled flowers, also from Art Philosophy. The leaves and vines are felt. I filled the rolled flowers with glitter glitz and Sparkles, and tucked a little felt acorn detailed with Autumn Terracotta alcohol markers and a Sharpie pen in amongst the flowers and bling. I backed the wreath with a few layers of black tulle...which did not like the hot glue gun so much.

I cut my sentiment on the Cricut as well, using a deep brown glitter paper. The upper letters are layered onto cork from the Midtown shapes.  Most of the materials to build my wreath came from Close To My Heart. I found the burlap canvas at Joann's.  The sequins are from American Crafts filled with brown bitty sparkles. I attached everything using my hot glue gun so it'll be good and sturdy hanging on my sheltered front door. 

I'm linking up to the Paper Issues Halloween Party and the Heart 2 Heart Au Naturale Challenge. 

Now it's time to head off for another week of apple picking, sweater wearing, pumpkin spice everything fun. Happy Fall, Y'all!

Give Thanks!

Thanksgiving is coming up quicker than quick, and I've been buried in prep for the Black Friday Holiday Hoopla. I have a lot to be thankful for this year, so this was a fun project to reflect on while I was crafting; a little happiness therapy if you will.

I used the Card Patterns Sketch 141 as the jumping off point for my project tonight. I loved the idea of the little banner across the top, and I knew I wanted to make it something special. Then I saw the Championing Award Medallions Challenge in the Moxie Fab World and I knew what I wanted to do: a Thanksgiving Card I could use in my Holiday Mantel Display!
I used the polka dot print from the Wonderland Paper packet for my background print, mounted on some of my hoard of Textured Cocoa CS which I sanded. I trimmed the zip strip from the top of my B&T to use for the medallions. I scored that 1/2" x 12" strip every 1/4 inch, folded it up, then adhered the ends together to make a zigzag circle. I like to apply monoadhesive to a backing circle of CS then press the medallion onto the sticky circle to hold it in place. then I fill the center with Liquid Glass and then I pop a block on top to hold everything down while the Liquid Glass dries in the center for a more permanent bond. I added a link at the bottom of this post to a video tutorial by one of my favorite CTMH Artist that makes in in a (sort of) similar way to me, at least the squishing motion which is hard to explain in words.

I made five of these medallions, topped with Neutral craft buttons and Waxy Flax stitches or bows. I draped my medallion banner across the top of the card. Then I cut a 2" length of the super wide Striped Ribbon into 4 long skinny strips to make the banner ties, which are just glued on with Liquid Glass.

I added letters cut on my Art Philosophy Cartridge at 3/4", which I then flooded with Bronze Glitter Glitz for more of a holiday feel. I do this in two layers to get the raised effect with less drying time. A bit of that gorgeous wide striped ribbon and some faux stitching around the edges and I was feeling very thankful indeed.

This Post is linked up 4 times:
Moxie Fab Championing Award Medallions Challenge
Card Patterns Sketch 141
Heart 2 Heart Challenges Gratitude
Paper Issues Thankful for Fall

And, as promised, in case you need a visual on making the medallions:

Accordion Medallion Video Tutorial from Lisa Stenz