Brrrr!

Are y'all starting to get some winter weather?  I think we've officially tipped over into winter this weekend, so that certainly got me in the mood to start making some Christmas cards!

Brrrr!!  I feel cold just looking at this card!  I used this week's Mojo Monday sketch and this wonderful Eat Cake Graphic image, "Sarah pulls Nicky and Otto."  Of course the girl has to do all the work while the boy and dog just take in the view!  I used watercolor crayons and SU markers to paint the image with my aquapainter. Here's a close-up:

The green Echo Park DP was cut with Nesties Labels 4 and the sentiment is a K&Co rub-on.  The brown DP is also Echo Park.  I punched two snowflakes, inked them with PTI Chai, added a button and some twine, and attached it to PTI Scarlet Jewel ribbon.  I made this a larger card-5x7-to accomodate the larger image (and because I just found a new stash of 5x7 envelopes in a drawer), and also put the image panel off-center so the lil' doggy could look up at the snowflake.

Now I'm going to go wrap myself up in a blanket to get warm!

Stay tuned for another fun winter card tomorrow!

Actual Cards!

Once I got my stamping room all organized, I quickly messed it all up again playing with some new items.

This card uses a huge jumble of new stuff!  The flower is the outline peony from Impress Rubber Stamps.  I stamped it onto Gina K Pure Luxury with Versamark and heat embossed it in white. Then I used watercolored it, using Memento Ladybug ink (I stamped the inkpad onto a cd case, then just picked up the ink from there using an aquapainter).  I know, I never would have thought "ladybug" would come out this gorgeous pink when it was watercolored!  I cut out two images to layer, but it still needed a little more here and there, so I cut out a third to add some extra petals. I added a ocean-breeze-but-really-looks-aqua-mist button tied with some linen thread.  For the card base, I stamped the small outline poppy on the top and used Waltzingmouse's Picnic Patterns for the bottom third, adding a Berry Sorbet ribbon in between.  The sentiment was cut from Nesties Label Four. The frame is from Waltizingmouse and the sentiment is from PTI Vintage Picnic (man, a lot of picnicing going on!), both stamped with Pink Lemonade Fresh Ink.  I colored two white brads with a copic to make an aqua mist design triangle (look at me talking all fancy!).

This was a quick card I did for this week's Splitcoast CAS color challenge of red, brown, vanilla, and kraft.  I cased it from this lovely creation by PaperInBloom.  The main panel is from Waltzingmouse--isn't it fabulous?  I covered everything on the stamp itself except the middle with a postit and inked up the red portion, then removed the postits and carefully inked the brown, then stamped it all at once.  The flowers are outline peony and solid peony from Impress.  And got to use some new brown & white twine.

In other news, here are some thing that are making me happy:
1) Students who "pinky-swear" they're going to work harder for the next test.
2) Getting an AWESOME Dr Horrible shirt out of the blue from my DH.  (Hey, have you watched it yet?  If NPH's shoulder shimmy at 5:08 doesn't make you giggle uncontrollably, then you must not be me.)
3) Finding loads of new settings on my camera and taking this adorable picture of Addison using "pet" mode:

 4) "Super Harvest Moon" tonight.  The sun will be setting directly opposite a full moon, so it's supposed to look pretty awesome. I'm going to head out to a high spot with my camera (in its new "sunset" mode) to check it out.
5) My blog peeps--whether you leave a comment every day, drop in a few times to say hello, or are just an anonymous follower, thanks for the interweb love!

DTGD Day One

Yesterday started the Dare to Get Dirty challenges on Splitcoast, which are only open to Fan Club members. Last year I decided to buy a 6-month subscription to the Fan Club for the summer so I could have instant uploads for the challenges. I played DTGD (and loved it!), completed all the challenges, and won a year's subscription to the Fan Club. Then this past spring, I entered a Unity challenge and won a 6-month subscription. So I think I've gotten my money's worth out of that first 6-month subscription I bought! I've completed four of the challenges already with these two cards.

I ended up working on this card for most of the afternoon yesterday, nothing was cooperating with me! I think it took 5 tries to stamp the hummingbird, 4 tries for the sentiment, 3 watercolored images, and 3 attempts at the "ribbon." And by "ribbon" I mean cherry cobbler cardstock, border punched, then crumpled until I could peel it apart. I ran it through the cuttlebug with just an embossing mat and shims to flatten it out, then put down a row of scor-tape and started pleating, then sewed it down. And check it out, those are faux brads on the ends! (ETA: I used regular ol' Elmer's to glue them. )

Other supplies: SU Elements of Style; Old Olive, Ruby Red, and Baja Breeze markers/inks for watercoloring; Soft Suede (I know! Like a good romantic comedy, my initial dislike has turned to love), Baja Breeze, Cherry Cobbler, and Gina K Ivory cardstock; Soft Suede and Memento Rhubarb Stalk ink.

First of all, please excuse the cigarette and smoking reference. I am staunchly anti-cigarette and yes, I do judge you (sidenote: I've also started judging people who don't use reusable grocery bags or water bottles), but it's part of the whole Mad Men scene, so I had to keep it in there. Anyway, Mad Men is starting again next Sunday, so I decided to do a birthday card based on the opening credits and my favorite SNL skit (which I've already linked before). I copied the image of the opening credits and pasted it into a word document, then resized it to 5.5 inches, printed it, taped it to a piece of black cardstock, and cut out the silhouette. I cut the shirt collar, cuff, and cigarette from white paper and glue them on, then glued the whole thing to a PTI Soft Stone base, printed with Moderne font. The inside is pretty much a transcript of the SNL skit:

which, if you watch Mad Men, you'll know is completely spot-on.

Chuy's update: We went there for a late lunch yesterday (and we were told the wait for dinner the night before was 3 hours! That's insane.) and, ok, so none of the other frames were decorated as much as mine, but my frame would definitely fit in with the whole decor. And someone did not think I was a dork when he was eating up some yummy free queso. ;)

SU Loot!

I spent yesterday morning reorganizing my SU colors and as soon as I filed away the last scrap, my doorbell rang--UPS with my SU order!  Yippee!!  So of course I had to sit down and start playing!

I think this is my favorite card of the bunch.  I cut out a Nestability Label One from copy paper and used it as a mask to stamp the Elements of Style flowers in River Rock.  Then I used the negative of the mask to stamp the flowers in Soft Suede.  I watercolored them using Pink Pirouette, Baja Breeze, and Wild Wasabi inks, then sponged over the whole thing with River Rock.

This one gave me fits trying to get a nice image using Misting with Markers technique for this week's ResQChallenge (well, probably last week's by the time I post this). Either I didn't spritz it enough or I would spritz too much or I would spritz too much on one section and not enough on another.  Definitely need more practice!  I used Ruby Red and Old Olive markers on PTI Rustic White.  The image and sentiment are both from Just Believe.  The red is Cherry Cobbler--such a yummy color!  It's on a kraft card base that I stamped repeatedly with another image from the same set in Versamark.  And I love the pattern so much I did another card with it:

Who knew River Rock would make me like Soft Suede?  But it did and I do!  I used Soft Suede ink for all the stamping, then cut out the label from River Rock and adhered.  The sentiment is from PTI Mixed Messages.

Tech Tip update: First of all, I'm glad I'm not the only one who didn't know that middle-click-link-to-open-in-new-tab trick.  I read about it on a geek website (lifehacker--go ahead and add it to your google reader now.  I'll wait) and they started the article with "Everybody knows [about this trick]."  Really?  Everybody?  Anyway, Maria and Charlene were also introduced to the scroll function, which happens when you click the rollerball when the pointer is not on a link.  And my real-life friend Laura said on a Macbook, it's command + click on trackpad to open the link.  Did you know the elevators in Apple stores do not have call buttons or floor buttons?  They just open on every floor every time.

Prettified

(ETA: Ok, for some reason this post was here and then it was gone so I hope it stays now!)
Sometimes you just get a hankerin' to get all prettified, y'know what I mean?  Not only did I straighten my hair yesterday for about the first time in 3 weeks (love curly hair summers!), but I also went all girly and pretty for my card:

I love the look of those gorgeous wet-paper-and-reinker Fifth Avenue Floral roses in the SCS gallery and sat down to experiment, even though I don't have shimmery white paper or reinkers.  I ended up using my SU Regal Rose and Rose Red markers to watercolor it instead. I stamped and embossed the rose onto SU Whisper White with white embossing powder.  Then I scribbled the Regal Rose marker onto a CD case and used my aquapainter to watercolor the rose, then went back and added the Rose Red for some shading.

At first I thought it was going to end up with a weird texture because the paper started to get goosebumps, but as it dried, the goosebumps went away.  After I had the rose, I went looking for a layout to use and chose this week's Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge. I cut out the circle using a Nestie, and then used a new Spellbinders Lattice Medallion behind it.  The medallion is not a perfect circle, so I tied knots on the longer ends with Hobby Lobby rufflly ribbon.  That was mounted using popdots onto a 4x4 square of Swiss Dot embossed paper, which was matted with another white square, which was mounted onto the 5 x 5 1/2 card base.  I punched the butterflies out of my first "trial run" rose (note: cameo coral was not a good plan with these colors)-there was just enough painted portion to punch all five!  I adhered with popdots and added two pearls to each.

I also don't think I've shared this card here yet; I made it a couple days ago for the Viva La Verve June Challenges.

I was in a very cheerful mood making this one!  The flowers along the bottom are from Wplus9 The Birds & The Bees set, stamped in Memento new sprout, dandelion, lulu lavender, summer sky, and PTI Sweet Blush. The sun is from Unity July 09 Kit of the Month, stamped on PTI bitty dot paper and cut out, with a PTI spring rain circle behind it. The PTI Sweet Blush strip was punched with Martha Stewart border punch, then stamped with the Wplus9 sentiment in Lulu Lavender. The PTI Lavender Moon butterfly was embossed then punched with MS Butterfly Punch.

I hope all my Canadian readers* had a wonderful Canada Day yesterday!
*okay, so I could have just replaced that phrase with "Emily," but doesn't it make my blog sound so international the original way?