Forgot to post

I realized today, while going through some pics, that I have a bunch of cards I haven't posted. So here's one -
I used Papertrey Ink's Cutting Garden. Such a pretty stamp set. I stamped all the images and used a brush and water to give it sortofa watercolor look. Then came back in and stamped over the same images again (this time leaving the ink full strength). I stamped the sentiment on vellum and clear embossed it. 
I've been busy today working on some decorations for a cake. I haven't done any cake decorating in years. I used to do quite a bit but the kids are grown up now and we don't have the same kind of cake spectaculars LOL! Some day I should dig out a bunch of cake pictures and post them. I was a little crazy (in a good way) back in the day when it came to cake decorating. I guess it's just more of that "I like to make stuff" thing. Cake, of course, come with a bonus feature - unlike cards, you can EAT what you make! And I do love me some cake! Anyhow this cake is for a Communion on Sunday (I told you... we have Communions aplenty in this family :-) and fortunately this nephew is somewhat local - only a little over an hour away - yay! so we get to go share in the festivities. ). I dug out the picture of the cake I made for my son for his First Communion and I'm recreating that cake - with some updates. Updates being I'm making the decoration ahead of time in Royal Icing (and not in buttercream like I did 18 years ago - which was crazy). Hopefully I'll have some pics to share by the end of the week. I gotta say I'm having a lot of fun. I'd forgotten how much :-)
Alrighty- thanks for stopping by and have a good one!

Papertrey Ink Blog Hop: Tilted

This blog hop challenge had me thinking since it was posted 10 days ago. Tilted could mean just about anything, right? I hadn't gotten a chance to make anything for it either in that time. Last night I had just finished putting some new Papertrey Ink stamps away - I put them in their new home :-) and take a long look at them wondering what I'm going to make with 'em. And one of the new stamp sets is called Sketched Shapes. It has a number of shapes but the one that got me thinking was the triangle. I pull out a clear block and slapped that triangle on it and grabbed the nearest ink pad and started stamping to see if what was in my head would transfer to paper. And it did. I had to go to bed (work comes so early in the morning... ugh) but after I got home I gave my idea a try on some typing paper (my stamping sketch paper LOL!) So here's what I came up with: it's three panels wide. I used that triangle and the arrow from Sketched Shapes. I also used a sentiment from PTI's Mini Blooms that I edited, separating it into three parts. When you open the card this is what you see next:

and when you open the card completely here's what  you get:

Blogger is giving me fits right now so I'm closing this up - I'm sending this card to my amazing daughter who is on the verge of graduating from college (illustration major) and I think she could use a pick-me-up right now - weeks to go and a ton of work. Thanks for coming by - have a good one! Oh  yeah.. sorry about the photos. I had a devil of a time getting pics to do it justice!

Make it Monday #113 Perfect Pearls

Okay so a funny thing happened on the way to this Make it Monday challenge (using Perfect Pearls or some other metallic powder) - I got distracted with cake.
This is not an unusual occurrence in my life.  I love cake. But I digress (as you, dear reader, know I am wont to do).
In this case it wasn't real cake.
(if it ain't real why bother, right?) I shall explain. I was filling the sugar bowl from the bag of sugar and I was about to throw said bag in the trash and I thought well looky there - right on the bag was a big fat piece of cake. See picture :-)

I thought to myself  - gee that looks about card-sized - the piece of cake. And so I cut away the front portion of the bag and set it aside until today and thought I'm makin a card with this. I cut out the cake and realized I was going to have to mount it on some cardstock (which i did). Then I knew I'd have to cover up that bit of red (the 5lb. circle that's on the right hand bottom portion of my slice o'cake). This is when the card was starting to come together in my head. I needed a big fat sentiment for that generous slice. I used the "Celebrate" from PTI's Think Big Favorites #13. I stamped it in Versamark on Dark Chocolate cardstock. I don't own any Perfect Pearls but I do have Pearl Ex - Micropearl (which looks kinda silvery - I'm just not sure how evident it is from my photo) so I brushed that on. I like how that looked and wanted to repeat the same thing in that problem area (the red circle on the cake). I cut out circles using my circle Nestabilities (Dark Chocolate and Fine Linen cardstocks) and stamped the little "Eat cake" from Cupcake Collection onto the dark chocolate cardstock. (I had to do a little masking to stack the words if you're familiar with that particular sentiment.) I diecut the wee stars from the Super Star Border die and finally I cut some Loop De Loop borders out of Fine Linen cardstock and attached those to the top and bottom of the card. 
So that's the story of my little mocha birthday card -it kinda looks like mocha doesn't it.... some kinda chocolate regardless - and in my mind all good birthday cake has some chocolate in it. Thanks for stopping by. Now go eat some chocolate cake for me!

On your Confirmation

okay so my last post was for a First Communion card. Now we're on to the Confirmation card for the brother of the recipient of that card.... did you get all that? LOL Now that lovely set I used on the Communion card has a sentiment "Confirmation" which is nice. But the images don't really reflect Confirmation. So... what to do. Gotta make my own. So here's what I came up with - the Holy Spirit :-). I just drew a dove and cut it out.

 I knew I wanted to try a few different things with that shape. I tried watercoloring with watercolor crayons then went back to the shape alone. Then tried using a little Pearl Ex to give that shape some shimmer. Finally I just came back to the shape itself (oh yeah just the dove not the haloed area). I ended up using a circle Nestabilities die to cut the circle in PTI Lemon Tart cardstock and mounted that on some PTI Spring Rain cardstock(and then a card base of white). I used some 3M foam tape to pop that dove up a bit. I added the "on your" with a Micron pen. And voila. Confirmation card done. Which is a good thing cos that little event is this week - I'd mixed it up with the Communion (which is the week after.)  I kept my original drawn cut out dove - he's tacked to my bulletin board so I can use him again next Confirmation LOL! (unless somebody comes out with a die I can use in the meantime. Wouldn't that be fine :-))
Okay thanks for visiting - have a good one!

First Communion

I have been looking for years - really - for a First Communion stamp set. I've seen some ok ones but nothing I was willing to spend some money on. So every time I had another First Communion in the family to celebrate (and there have been mmmmmmaaaaaannnnny) it pretty much killed me to go to the card store - but go I did. As recently as last month - a nephew celebrating First Communion and Confirmation all together. Right after that I happened to be looking at Marybeth's Time for Paper blog and saw her post of a Communion card. The stamp (from Serendipity Stamps)was perfect and I said "sold"! So here's my card (as there's another Communion coming up next week :-))
I colored using Copics for everything but the chalice. I tried a number of gold pencils to color in that chalice but I couldn't get the gold I wanted - so I finally used a silver Prismacolor pencil and mineral spirits. I used a Nestabilities die to cut out the image and stamped the "First Communion" sentiment from the set. The "on your" is just my handwriting with a Micron pen. I stamped out a bunch more of these images needless to say - so I could make more cards for the next First Communion. (After I hit the stamp store to get a refill on my one butter Copic pen........LOL) Thanks for stopping by. Have a good one!

Make it Monday #111 Take 2!

I know - another challenge card... yay for me!Yesterday afternoon I was trying out PTI's Beautiful Butterflies - finally. Life has been busy and I had to put it aside for a little while. Regardless I have a birthday card to make for a particular girl - and I thought the butterflies would make her smile. I had embossing powder still on my drawing table (with a million other things.... but I digress...) so I started stamping and embossing. For the butterfly panel - I initially stamped a few butterflies in Versamark then watercolored using the Sweet Blush reinker - leaving the white butterflies. I set that aside until this morning. Then I stamped again in Versamark and watercolored using the Hibiscus Burst reinker - leaving some sweet blush colored butterflies. I think you'll have to click on the photo to see the detail. I diecut the one large butterfly using cardstock and vellum and stamped on the vellum (with Raspberry Fizz ink) then clear embossed it. (The polka dots are from Polka Dot Basics.) I glued the two butterflies together added a button with some embroidery floss and the little attenae are some paper jewelry cord. I grabbed 2 more buttons, added floss and attached them to the sentiment - which is from Stylish Sentiments: Birthday. I originally planned to stitch on both sides of the panel - but my sewing machine had other ideas (rrrrr). However, my recipient won't be any the wiser :-)
Have a good one!

Make it Monday #111: Watercoloring Embossed Images

So this week the Make it Monday Challenge is to watercolor embossed images. I thought that would be some fun since I seem to be embossing everything I get my hands on lately. The hard part was to decide what I wanted to watercolor. Then I realized it wasn't so hard to decide after all - I can't seem to get enough of the Year of Flowers: Morning Glories stamp set from PTI. I stamped the flowers in Versamark then embossed with White embossing powder. I used reinkers to color in the the flower and leaves with a water pen I had on hand. There was a point where I thought I had those leaves dark enough - left it to dry and when I came back it had dried a lot lighter. But I decided against going back in and trying to get a little more definition. I really liked the way the flowers came out and decided to quit while I was ahead ;-) On to the rest of the card! I took the sentiment that comes with the set and did some masking so that I could have one line at the top of the card and the remaining line at the bottom. I stamped both in PTI Fresh snow and embossed with White EP - at the bottom you'll note I stamped on vellum that I'd diecut with PTI's Small Scallop Border Die.  Now for that Lemon Tart (yellow) center area - I decided to use the Polka Dot Basics stamp set. I wanted a subtle background so I stamped in Fresh Snow then used Clear Embossing Powder.  I did try Versamark - Clear embossed but that created a dark dot which is not what I was going for - the white clear embossed polka was just right.  Finally I used foam tape to pop up the image.
Alrighty- I'm off to make the most of this beautiful Saturday. Hoping to get in some more stamping for sure! Have a wonderful day!

Birthday Fox

You wouldn't know it but I've been making all kinds of cards but haven't had a chance to post. But today, before I get back to it (the card-making), I thought I'd post one quick. I used Papertrey Ink's Hello, Foxy stamp set (and die) for that ridiculously cute fox,  along with the Wonderful Words: Birthday die and sentiment stamps ("Happy" and "To You. From Me. With Love.") from Mini Blooms. Oh yeah - also the leaves from Turning a New Leaf stamp set. Those leaves are either clear embossed or embossed with white EP. The fox was colored with Copics.
Okay - I need to get back to making stuff.  :-)
Thanks for stopping by!
edited to add: I forgot to mention I used the PTI Woodgrain Impression plate on the "bIRthDaY"