New Ippity challenge

Yesterday was my luckiest day ever in my scrappy life.  This blog has opened up world's I never would have imagined.  In an early morning email, I found out I have been chosen to be published in an online magazine.  I've been sworn to secrecy until the mag is released, so no more on that subject.  Then, later in the day, my scrappy friend's informed me I had won the Ippity Chick Challenge.  Free stamps heading my way!  Woohoo!  While reading emails, Scrapbooksteals.com informed me they had been on my blog over the weekend and want me to participate in an upcoming blog hop they are sponsoring.  Free goods to create with coming my way!  Yes!  Then, this morning, I read an email that was actually delivered to my inbox last evening.  I won the Unity Friends With Flair challenge and they are sending me 25 random stamps.  Wow!  More goodness to create with!  So, now my creative mojo is in high gear. Here's the sketch I used to create my newest card:

And here's the card I created from the sketch.  I used 2 different Unity stamp sets to creat the card: Key to Joy (butterfly image and zigzag border under the butterfly) and Quote Bundle Pack for the sentiment.

And here are a couple of closeups of the card to show some details.  I hope you enjoy it!

Crop Chocolate masking challenge from sketch

If you are looking for the Unity Friends with Flair blog hop, please look at the post below.

This week's challenge on the cropchocolate.com site is 2-fold.  We're to use a sketch by Dee Dee Catron, and we're to use a masking technique.  Masking is not new to me, but it's just been the past few months that I've been diving into the world of sketches.  At first, I followed the sketches quite literally.  As I get more comfortable using them, I find myself deviating from them quite a bit, using just some of the sketch as my starting point and seeing where it takes me. 

Here's Dee Dee's sketch

And, here's my take on it.  I chose to use the circle idea, substituting butterflies instead.  And, I stuck with one picture as the sketch did.  It was a rainy day when I took the pictures, so it's hard to see here, but there is a doily behind the year and floral clump.  That is how I chose to interpret the right side of Dee Dee's sketch.  I used Echo Park This and That Charming, Echo Park Note to Self and the masked butterflies are on a piece of Close To My Heart script paper form the Lucy collection.  Flowers were cut from the CTMH Art Philosophy cartridge at 2 and 2 1/2 inches.  Leaves are a Spellbinders die.  Butterflies and spray ink are Studio Calico.  The "spring" letters are white Thickers that I inked.  The year are stickers from the This and That Charming 12x12 paper pack. The 2 border pieces were cut from the Elegant Edges Cricut cartridge.

This is a close up of the masking.  I used the chipboard butterflies as my masks.  I first used Mister Hueys spray ink.  I didn't think they were quite distinctive enough after the mist dried, so I then added several shades of Tim Holtz distress ink  around the butterflies to give them some more definition.

This is a closeup of the floral cluster and a butterfly that is inked.

Hope you like it.  I sure had fun getting inky making it!

Unity Friends With Flair blog hop

It's Friday again, and here's this week's post.  The Unity stamps aren't immediately apparent, but they are there.  I cut this card out on my Cricut, cut out a flower with several layers, then stamped each layer with various Unity stamps.  I used my new SMAK kit, and a Bitty Backgrounds set to add some texture to the petals.  I then bent the petals to make them look a little more realistic, inked the edges, sprayed them with Studio Calico Mister Huey gold, and assembled them using a hot glue gun.

I also have a close up of the flower so you can see the Unity stamps I used a little better. You can see the various layers of the flower and the gold Mister Huey shimmer shows a little.

Sammy, being my assistant, felt that the card wasn't arranged quite right.  He wasn't pleased with the lighting, so he made some adjustments.  Here he is, earning his assistant status. Good boy!

Cricut Circle Magazine and Ippity Chick Challenge

Starting a blog has opened up the world of challenges to me.  I didn't enter many in the past because I didn't have a way to display my projects for viewing.  Now, with the blog, it is easy to link my entries to the contests and I am going strong.  This card uses two Cricut cartridges -- Letter Envy, and CTMH Art Philosophy.  I cut the 'Hello' and 'Hello' shadow at 1.5 inches.  The rest of the cuts are from the Art Philosophy cartridge.  The card was cut at 5.25.  The decorative square was cut at 3.5  The flower was cut at various sizes, with 2.5 being the largest and getting progressively smaller.  I stamped the flower petals with background stamps from Unity.  I used my new Unity SMAK kit for the petals on the largest flower, then the other flowers were stamped with images from Bitty Backgrounds.  I used a Viva Decor cream pearl pen to add some definition to the 'Hello'.  The hemp is CTMH.  the flower brad is from Creative Imaginations.  All the patterned paper and cardstock is Close to My Heart.  You can shop my website using the link on this blog.

Here's a close up of the flower.  You can see the stamping better.

 

Sammy likes to help with the photographing of the cards.  He is my toughest critic!

Happy Easter everyone!

Just a short post to display my husband, Shaun's, Easter card.  I used my all-time favorite Cricut cartridge:  Close To My Heart Art Philosophy. I cut the card at 5.5 inches, then 2 layers at 5.25. I used a Martha Stewart butterfly punch, Sassafras Lass Wee Bundle 6x6 paper, and another favorite -- a Viva Decor cream pearl pen to bling up the butterflies.  I outlined the flower with a black pen from my stash.  I hope you enjoy it.

Friends with Flair -- Unity fun on Friday

I made this card originally to use with the Kit of the Month sketch shown in myh previous post.  But, being the uncertain artist that I am, I thought maybe I had taken too much artistic license with it.  I turned the sketch upside down, & used a pocket instead of the scalloped border.  I'm new enough at this that I don't yet know what's acceptable and what isn't.  I would LOVE it if you would leave me feedback, explaining if there is a limit to how much you can "interpret" a sketch before you really aren't using the sketch at all anymore. 

So, instead of using this card for my KOTM challenge, I'll enter it in this week's Friends with Flair fun.  I used stamps exclusively from the July 2009 KOTM.  I hope you enjoy this simple but heartfelt card.

Crop Chocolate song Title Challenge & Unity KOTM

Here's the sketch for this month's Kit of the Month challenge on the Unity blog.  And, below, is how I interpreted the sketch.

I used the July, 2009 Unity Kit of the Month to stamp this card.  Paper was purchased from Cropchocolate.com.  It is Echo Park paper -- part of a 50 sheet random pack I purchased.  Ink is CTMH and Tim Holtz Distress.  The bling is from Hot Chocolate (kind of a grab bag type deal on CC).  I am also entering this card in a CC Challenge.  This week's challenge is using a song title.  Since I sing this song many times a week at the nursing home where I work, it seemed like a good title to work with.