For the Lovely Bride

I recently attended my niece's lovely outdoor summer wedding. Living a day's drive away meant I was not able to be involved in all the wedding planning and pre-nuptial fun, including a wedding shower. I wanted to send her something in those days ahead of the Big Day that let her know I was thinking about her; hence this card.

 

The dress image and sentiment are from the Waltzingmouse Stamp set You're Lovely. It was surprising how much this dress looks like the one my niece wore July 14! The floral oval is a die cut made with a Spellbinders metal die. I sponged and stencilled Distress Ink to provide some peach-toned shading.

In the close-up above, I am hoping you can see the detail I added to the gown. I doodled swirls all over the dress with a clear glitter pen to create a shimmery texture to the "fabric." 

The designer paper is from DCWV's Coral Couture line and the flowers have a subtle shimmer, as well.

Thanks for visiting today. I hope your summer is filled with lovely events and cherished memories like mine!

Gessoed Christmas Bird

I struggle with pastel colours. I admire them and enjoy looking at others' works that are soft and pretty, but there is something in my brain that just keeps reaching for deeply pigmented hues. Consequently, I don't have much in the way of pastel papers in my stash. I do have gesso, though, and when I want to go pastel, I find it tones down my more garish printed papers quite nicely.

For this Christmas card, I coated sheet music and some printed scrapbook paper with white gesso and let dry. Then I rubbed on some Distress Inks, trying to use lighter shades to keep to the pastel end of the spectrum. (I was not kidding about the struggle!) The sentiment is from Waltzingmouse Stamps. This is my entry in the Sparkle Creations Weekly Christmas Card Challenge.

WMS Blog Party June 2012

Here's my card for the Waltzingmouse Stamps Blog Party for June 2012. I used the inspiration photo to provide the colour-way.

The Authentique paper did the work, and coordinated nicely with the Big Blooms- Poinsettia stamps from WMS. The sentiment came from the versatile Say it Loud set. An orange Swarovski heat-set crystal and a few teal ones scattered on the background finished this off nicely.

Today was also Father's Day in Canada. I used the Stampendous Changito stamp I picked up on sale recently and coloured with Copics. So appropriate as my daughter used to do this when she was little! I used the WMS stamp "Thanks for being there!" for the inside greeting.

Part of my husband's Father's Day gift was this sock monkey adoption kit. Fun! 

Thanks for stopping by! Be sure to go and see all the inspiration on the WMS blog.

100 Sketches!

Congratulations to Waltzingmouse Stamps Sketch Blog. They have posted their 100th Sketch Challenge this week. Here is the sketch:

I rotated the sketch slightly and used a couple of different stamps from Waltzingmouse Stamps for this pretty in pink card.

I paper-pieced the dress and added some pearls and clear glitter for posh highlights. My Spellbinders Nestabilities helped frame the dress.

Thanks for visiting. Be sure to go and see all the entries for this special centennial sketch challenge. 

Mixed Media Collage

Recently I took a Mixed Media Collage Workshop at my local stamp store Stampers!, with pewter/metal artist Elitia Hart from Alberta. I had taken foundational classes with her last year and was happy to have an opportunity to take a project-based class with her.

Elitia provided us with 9 inch square pieces of masonite covered with lovely art paper featuring antique French postal marks. This gave us a sturdy base to apply our tooled metal. We used a Ten Seconds Studio mold to create a basic grid pattern that we then filled with some metal embossing, more of the art paper, coloured ink jet transparency art images, and patinaed copper which Elitia also provided.

I followed Elitia's design and sample fairly faithfully as I wanted to focus on technique. I added the Swarovski crystals, above, and an embossed black background mat, below, once I got home, but the rest was pretty much as Elitia instructed. I look forward to trying some other collages using stamped images and other mixed media ideas.

If you have an opportunity to take a class with Elitia, don't hesitate! She is a lovely, generous teacher with a supportive nature. She'll even help fix your odd boo-boo, as I can attest!

Sweet Birthday Wishes X 2

I normally only make one of anything, but I was having a lot of fun making this birthday card and the materials were all out, so I made two similar cards using the same layout.

The ticket is made with a die from Memory Box, and the matching stamp. I coloured it with Copic markers.

The sentiment is a Waltzingmouse Stamp. I distressed the bird wing to give it a bit of interest and the eye is a dot of Ranger's Enamel Accents. 

I cut the branch out of cardstock and popped it up on foam tape to 3-D it.

I put some pink-peach pearls in the center of the blooms made with a set of graduated Marianne Creatables dies that look like this:

By snipping one or more petals away and then glueing the shortened ends together, the flowers become 3-D.

Here is the second take. I added some glitter to the blooms, and I like the two-ribbon treatment on this one best.

Thanks for stopping by today!

Great Big Hugs

It's time for the Waltzingmouse Blog Party, which was delayed one week. The theme this month is "felt." Now - I am not a trendy girl. It takes me a long time to warm up to a fad or phase and pretty much once the parade has passed, then I start to get interested. 

There are four fairly "new" things for me in this month's card.

1) I used felt. I have long admired cards featuring felt embellishments, but I think this is the first time I have used it on a card myself. I made a little rolled flower with some pink felt in my stash.

2) I used baker's twine. I think I have only used this once or twice before, even though card makers have been tying one on for a few years now. I think Martha Stewart started that craze.

Sentiment from Frame-it Set, embossed in pink.

3) I made a fairly Clean and Simple Card. Totally atypical for me.

4) I made a PASTEL card. I never use pastel colours. I normally like deep saturated hues.

This card also works horizontally. How fun is that? Head over to the WMS blog to join in the fun and see all the lovely creations this month using those "little stamps that could" from Ireland!