July Creative Crew Challenge: National Get Out of the Doghouse Day!

Today is the 15th and that means it is time for another Creative Crew Challenge.  Jeanette is our hostess this round and she discovered that the 15th is National Get Out of the Doghouse Day.  That's a new one for me 😆

Our challenge is to have a dog or another pet on our card, and include a dog house if we want.

I don't have many options for dog stamps, but did receive a Gus & Gertie stamp in my registration packet at Taylored Expression's Virtual Stamp Joy held last March.

This image warms my heart, because my daughter was quite an accomplished skate boarder. So, I think she would really like this image.

The background is blended with two inks, "Sprinkles" for the sky and "Granny Smith" for the grass.  Both of the inks are also by Taylored Expressions.  The stencils are by My Favorite Things: "Grassy Edges" and "Mini Cloud Edges".

Gertie and the skateboard are colored with Olo Markers.  The sentiment is also by Taylored Expressions and was part of the Virtual Stamp Joy package.

Thanks Jeanette for a fun and unique challenge this month! 

Drop by the rest of the Creative Crew to see their work. Links to their Blogs and Galleries are listed below.

Barb - Barb's Inkin' In Retirement

Carol - Lost in My Craft Room

Jeanette - Cre8tive Play

Lorraine - SCS Gallery

Terry - It's Totally Terry

Tracie - Crafty Creations by Tracie

July's Hot Mess = Success

Hot Mess = Success Day is the 12th, and I am a day late to post. Every month a group of friends challenge ourselves to get messy. We can do any sort of card or technique, as long as it meets our personal definition of getting messy.

I like to do this monthly challenge because otherwise I would avoid messy mediums and techniques. This stretches me and gradually increases my skills.  

Last month I played with Simon Hurley's Lunar Pastes and this month I tried his Solar Pastes.

Here is my card. 

All of it was done with three colors of Simon Hurley's Solar Pastes:
Golden Hour (gold)
Beluga (Blue)
Royal Flush (Purple)

These pastes are AMAZING! They apply so easily, very creamy. I also like how the colors vary when applied on black or white card stock.

I followed Simon's technique and put a blob of each color at the top of the black card stock.  Then I took the scraper and dragged the paste down the paper, over the stencil.  

The stencil is also by Simon Hurley and it's called "Deco Diamonds".

Using my finger I applied the same Solar Pastes to black card stock and cut the Be Kind sentiment and the oval.  The Be Kind dies are from Altenew.

The oval is popped up off the card front.  

I had so much fun with these Solar Pastes that I've already started my Hot Mess for August!

Be sure to stop by the Hot Mess Team and admire their creations!  Here are their links:

Jeanette

Barb

Terry

Carol

June's Catch Up Cards

Here it is, the last day of the month, and time for some Catch Up cards. A few of us were talking about our various virtual events and card making classes and our need to catch up.  So we dedicated the last day of the month as our Catch Up day.  We pick any unfinished kit, event, class, etc from the past and complete it, posting our project on the last day of the month.

Here are my cards for June:

These are from my subscription to Let's Stamp Together by Scrapbook and Cards Today. A kit comes every other month, each designed by a different company. An online class led by the company or designer is provided.

This kit is by Gina K Designs.  The kit included two stencils, dies and stamps and is called "Sending You a Squeeze".  I really like how bright and cheerful these are.

Gina led us through a great process where we made a template to use in a stamping platform, making all of the fruit at once.  This makes generating the cards easy and quick!

This one has a slight blend on the background panel using one of the stencils and light gray ink.

The sentiment is stamped directly onto the panel over the top of the stenciled design.

This card also has light blended gray using the other stencil in the kit.  

I like Gina's style with cards. She uses black so well to create crisp clean lines and highlight the other colors.

For the last card we created our own background panel by randomly stamping the cherries.  

I love going back to our beginnings in stamping. 20+ years ago, there was very little in the way of specialty papers, embossing folders, etc.  Randomly stamping smaller images was how we created a background.

All in all, these are a great set of cards for summer gifting.  They're going in the mail soon. Keeping my personal goal of sending cards to friends and family.

Here are the links for my friends in the Catch Up Club.  Please visit their blogs and admire their work from some past project or class.

Barb's Inkin' to Retirement

It's Totally Terry

Cre8tive Play: It's Cheaper than Therapy

June Double Duty: Taylored Expressions

On the 22nd of each month a group of us challenge ourselves to create 2 different cards repeating the same image, sentiment, etc on each card.  We have a predetermined list of the stamp company or specific challenge for each month and then...away we go!

Stamps by Taylored Expressions (one of our favorite companies!) were selected for this month's challenge. I decided to use their "Chip & Charlie Party" stamp and die combo.  I've had this adorable set for several months and decided to let it see some ink.

Here are the two cards that I made. 

Duplicated on each card:

• Color Scheme and layout.
• Embossed background panel.
• Sentiments from All Together Happy Occasions stamps and die. Stamped in Taylored Expressions Dragon Fruit ink & clear embossed.
• Taylored Expression's Confetti Stencil.

For the first card I started out using the stencil on black card stock and applied Lunar Pastes. This process meant that there was sufficient drying time between each rotation of the stencil. 

The Lunar Paste colors are:
Slippery When Wet (gold),
Later Gator (green) and Triple Berry (deep pink or magenta)

Here's a closer look. 

During each rotation of the stencil, while allowing the paste to dry I worked on the gold embossing of Charlie and his party and painted the image using some water and the same Lunar Paste colors.

The second card uses the same stencil with 3 colors of Taylored Expressions inks blended with brushes:
Blue Raspberry, Dragon Fruit and Mango.

The image is colored with Olo Markers to match.

Both cards are finished off with sentiments stamped in Dragon Fruit and clear embossed, then die cut.  These are from Taylored Expressions' line of "All Togethers", multiple sentiments on one surface that are stamped, and cut with one single die. I love that one pass makes so many!

Both cards have lots of doubling up so I think this was successful. Although the stenciling process using Lunar Pastes does take a while.  But the end result is vibrant and the added texture is great.  I did a full 6x6 inch piece of card stock, so I already have a strip made for another card.

Please visit the blogs of the other Double Duty members:

Barb

Jeanette

Carol 

Creative Crew Challenge: A Sketch Using Blue, Turquoise, Beige, Camel & Brown

This month Jeanette and Barb came up with a totally new approach for our Creative Crew Challenge.  

Barb randomly chose a card from her Color Box and voila! Our color pallet was set: Turquoise, Blue, Dark Brown, Camel and Beige. 

Jeanette selected this sketch for us.

Our rules of engagement:

• Use at least three of the colors
• Follow the sketch 

Here is my creation ⇨ 

Supplies:

Card Stock: Stampin' Up Close to Cocoa, Creamy Caramel, Tempting Turquoise and some random Beige paper.

Stencil: Splash by Taylored Expressions.

Inks: Honey Mustard, Sandy Beach and Blue Raspberry by Gina K Designs.

Stamps: Seas the Day by Colorado Craft Company and the little bird and grass are some stamps that I bought almost 20 years ago from a local craft store.

I had so much fun with this challenge. My hat is off to Barb and Jeanette for their creative approach for this month.  Now I need to go to the ocean!

Drop by the rest of the Creative Crew to see their work. Links to their Blogs and Galleries are listed below.

Barb - Barb's Inkin' In Retirement

Carol - Lost in My Craft Room

Jeanette - Cre8tive Play

Lorraine - SCS Gallery

Terry - It's Totally Terry

Tracie - Crafty Creations by Tracie

Hot Mess = Success With Lunar Paste!

Hot Mess = Success Day is the 12th!  Every month a group of friends challenge ourselves to get messy. We can do any sort of card or technique, as long as it meets our personal definition of getting messy.

I like to do this monthly challenge because otherwise I would avoid messy mediums and techniques. This stretches me and gradually increases my skills...I think!

Here is my card. Other than the sentiment strip which is colored with an Olo Marker, all of it was done with three colors of Simon Hurley's Lunar Paste.

The colors are:

Slippery When Wet (gold)
Triple Berry (magenta)
Later Gator (green)

The stencil and flower dies are part of the product bundle sent to Let's Stamp Together Subscribers.  It's by Spellbinders Paper Arts and it's called Sweet Stitching.

I applied Later Gator and Triple Berry in a diagonal direction.  Then the Slippery When Wet paste was applied randomly on top of the other colors. 

The panel has great texture and loads of shine!

Next the pastes were applied to the outer edges of the white card stock base.

The flowers are from a die in the Sweet Stitching suite by Spellbinders. They are cut on white card stock and colored with the Lunar Pastes using a paint brush and Iridescent Pops Of Color were used on the centers. Then the whole floral set was cut apart and arranged for the upper corner.

The black panel is popped up with black foam strips.  The flowers and sentiment strip are not popped up because this is going in the mail tomorrow!

The sentiment strip is from the Friendship set of Simple Strips by Taylored Expressions.

I love this stencil and the Lunar Pastes! I can see making cards this weekend.

Be sure to stop by the Hot Mess Team and admire their creations!  Here are their links:

Jeanette

Barb

Terry

Carol

Catch Up Day!

A small group of friends and I were discussing our need to catch up on our various card kits, subscriptions and virtual events.  We decided that our goal would be to post a card - or cards - from our unfinished stash on the last day of each month.  So...Here we are!

I see that I have fallen behind on this in 2024 (gasp!)  But, today, I start fresh!  Here's is my card:

This card is the last one for me to complete from the Taylored Expression's Virtual Stamp Joy which was held last March.

It's a top folded white base, with their "Sour Gummy" card stock for the embossed panel. 

The instructions were to use a wood grain background stamp on the panel as the first step. Since I could not find mine, I lightly inked the raised side of a wood grain embossing folder using the Sour Gummy ink pad. I placed the panel onto the inked side of the folder and rubbed my palm across the panel, being careful to keep the panel from moving so that it wouldn't blur.

Then the panel is dry embossed using Taylored Expression's "Baroque Bouquet" embossing folder. You want to position the card stock panel so that the raised image appears on the wood grain side, and slightly offset toward the left side.

The next step is to lightly apply "Silver Lining" Lunar Paste over the raised floral image. I did not have that color of Lunar Paste, So I used Silver Chroma Glaze by Brutus Monroe. This is considerably thinner than Lunar Paste, so I applied it with my index finger in a diagonal direction. Eventually I had to cover the whole panel and not just the floral image due to applicator error LOL.

The sentiment is heat embossed in silver and die cut with the coordinating die set. This is a cool set of sentiments and the matching die.  In one pass you can stamp and cut multiple sentiments at once. I love that!  The set is called "All Together - Happy Occasions" by Taylored Expressions. I highly recommend it!

The Sour Gummy panel is adhered to the white base, centering it top & bottom. A thin strip of Silver Foil card stock is glued to the bottom of the panel and the sentiments are attached with foam strips.

Even though I had to make some adjustments for what I had available, the end result is very near the original design from the class. I like the colors and the techniques so this will get a lot of use by me in the future.

Here are the links for my friends in the Catch Up Club.  Please visit their blogs and admire their work from some past project or class.

Barb's Inkin' to Retirement

It's Totally Terry

Cre8tive Play: It's Cheaper than Therapy

On the 22nd of each month some friends challenge ourselves to create 2 different cards repeating the same image, sentiment, etc on each card.  We have a predetermined list of the stamp company or specific challenge for each month and then...away we go!

Stamps by Newton's Nook Designs were selected for this month's challenge. I decided to use their "Roses" set which they so generously gifted to all the attendees at our No Foolin' Retreat, held this past Spring.

Here are the two cards that I made.

This card features the rose stamp which has been gold embossed on the background panel and onto the focal panel.

Both panels have been mounted on a gray card stock.  Gold gems were used for embellishments.

For the second card I ink blended the background panel. Then the rose image was stamped in black.

The focal panel was embossed with Brutus Monroe's Raven embossing powder. Then the image was colored with Olo Markers. 

I masked off the image and lightly ink blended some green around the image. Then the image was trimmed and matted with black card stock.

Both cards feature the birthday sentiment included with the stamp set. For this card, it was also heat embossed with Raven EP, then leftover ink from my brushes were used to color the background. 

This card was also finished with gems in black.

Lots of doubles for this month! Same image, same layout, same sentiment and the same type of embellishments.I really like this little stamp set. 

I had a bit of trouble with the black embossed parts smearing when ink blending and using the alcohol markers. I need to consult the expertise of my friends because I know that Raven is their favorite black EP. 

Please visit the blogs of the other Double Duty members:

Barb

Jeanette

Carol 

Time is really flying this year. It's time for another challenge for the Creative Crew. Tracie is our hostess this month and she chose "It's All About Flowers" for our theme.

Tracie sent us "Tulips for You" by Penny Black.  Isn't she adorable?

The image is colored with Olo Markers and fussy cut by hand.

I cut out extra bins of the tulips from the spare image that Tracie included and mounted them behind the image.

Then the main image is popped up using foam tape. 

The lovely tulip paper is from the "Foiled Floral" series by The Paper Source

I added a sentiment from the "Modern Script Sentiments" collection by Pinkfresh Studio and also popped it up.

The ribbon is from my stash.

Thanks for a fantastic image, Tracie! I really had fun with it. Now off to admire the other creative Crew cards! Here's a list and links to their blogs or their gallery:

Barb - Barb's Inkin' In Retirement

Carol - Lost in My Craft Room

Jeanette - Cre8tive Play

Lorraine - SCS Gallery

Terry - It's Totally Terry

Tracie - Crafty Creations by Tracie

 

Double Duty with Altenew!

On the 22nd of each month some friends challenge ourselves to create 2 different cards repeating the same image, sentiment, etc on each card.  We have a predetermined list of the stamp company or specific challenge for each month and then...away we go!

This month we feature Altenew which have incredible floral stamps with matching stencils, dies and embossing folders. It was a tough decision but  I settled on their "Perfect Gift" suite of stamps, dies and stencils. 

We received this set in the Spring Crop and Create virtual card making event.  The pink floral is the design from the class, modified slightly.

I used a combination of ink cubes from Tayored Expressions and Gina K Designs and the stencils to color the flowers and leaves. 

The background flowers are stamped in a light grey ink and the sentiment is cut from black card stock.

The second card uses the same layout, however the images and sentiment have been gold embossed on Black card stock.

The leaves and flowers are water colored with paints that have mica in the pigment for a nice subtle sheen.

The black panel is mounted onto a purple card stock, however it's not obvious in my photograph.

I'm pretty happy with my end results.  Both cards will be mailed later in May to friends for their birthdays.  This set will get a lot of use from me!

Please visit the blogs of the other Double Duty members:

Barb

Jeanette

Carol 

Party Time for the Creative Crew!

Hard to believe that it's mid April already and time for another challenge for the Creative Crew. Terry is our hostess this month and she chose "It's Party Time!" for our theme.

Terry gave us really fun images already die cut! "Festive Balloons" by Simon Says Stamp.  Also included were some great designer papers by Stampin' Up called "Pattern Party".

I colored the images with some borrowed Copics and also colored the floral strip of paper. Then the balloons were given some Wink of Stella to create shine.

The sentiment was trimmed and mounted on the reverse of one of the DPs and the final designer paper was placed inside.  I like that all of the papers were included on my card.

Please use the links below to drop by the blogs and galleries of the whole Creative Crew gang. 

Barb - Barb's Inkin' In Retirement

Carol - Lost in My Craft Room

Jeanette - Cre8tive Play

Lorraine - SCS Gallery

Terry - It's Totally Terry

Tracie - Crafty Creations by Tracie

Terry, you really gave us a fun and versatile kit to work with! I'll be putting the extra images to good use for upcoming birthdays.  Thank you!

Hot Mess with Alcohol Inks & Yupo Silver Sparkle

Hot Mess = Success Day is the 15th!  Every month a group of friends challenge ourselves to get messy. We can do any sort of card or technique, as long as it meets our personal definition of getting messy.

This month I decided to play with Yupo Paper and some Alcohol Inks by Tim Holtz/Ranger.  I took two sheets of Silver Sparkle Yupo paper and applied the ink with a blender sponge tool that Tim Holz uses.

Here are my two panels:

This one used 2 colors on the sponge, Dijon and Lagoon.  Of course they blended to a green. Which I liked so I used it.  Look how glittery that paper is!

The second panel has just the Lagoon blue ink applied.  The photo really doesn't do it justice.

Here's the finished card:

The balloons were die cut from a section of the green panel.  Turns out that Yupo paper is REALLY hard to die cut. Who knew?

Once I separated out the left and right balloon pieces from the die cut, I traced around them and hand cut the blue inserts to make the blue ones.

The rest of the green panel was embossed with a striped design and the balloons were glued onto the embossed panel. Hint: it would have been better to use the clear glue dots rather than liquid glue. The liquid glue moved around too much.

The Birthday sentiment is by Taylored Expressions and colored with markers.

All in all, I learned a few things about working with the ink, paper and die cutting it. That makes me happy!  I will be trying this again soon.  Maybe for next month's Hot Mess challenge. 

Be sure to stop by the Hot Mess Team and admire their creations!  Here are their links:

Jeanette

Barb

Terry

Carol