Finally Fall

Yes it is finally fall.  The time of year I usually look forward to here in Northern California so that we get a break from the intense heat.  The funny thing is that we are just now starting to feel summer.  This summer was unseasonably cool, although we had a few scorchers it was nothing like we are used to.  So now that fall is officially here and has brought the 100 degree weather with it, it is time for a little inspiration to cool you down.  This week at Inktegrity we are being challenged to use our favorite fall colors.  I used this fun Tire Swing image and turned it into a tree with changing colors.  I think fall is the perfect time for swinging.  The sketch was from Tuesday Morning Sketches, but I flipped it around.  I paper pieced for the first time and added lots of inking and some pop dots for dimension.  I printed the base on the blue and then as you can see I cut the leaf bunches where the dotted line is in the original stamp so that some of the green would show around the edges.  I also added some distressed Stickles for the rope and Crackle Accents for the Tire and a border from my Martha Stewart loop punch for the grass.  I love printing stamps on a colored background so I don't have to color it all in!

Here is a side view so you can see how the tree pops up

By the way all the paper is from a pack of recollections Autumn something or other paper that I got on clearance at Michael's last year when I was still working there.  The solid paper is American Crafts and the bling is from the Michael's dollar spots.

Falling for Fall

It is the first full official Day of fall.  I love the brisk morning air, the changing of the colors and the fashions.  Of course here in Northern California we get a little more changing colors than the rest of the state but still not quite as much as the rest of the country.  This month at Sugar Sweet Paper Treats we were challenged to use fall colors in our projects.  This shaped card was made on my Gypsy with a couple of cartridges.  I used Paper Doll Dress up along with the handy hide copntour feature for the pumpkin.  The original cut has this as a jack-o-lantern but since I don't do Halloween I had to switch it up.  I welded two of the shapes together for the base of the card but trimmed off the vines.  Then I cut another of the same shape slightly smaller.  Because there is no shadow feature I had to cut the stem off, but that ended up working perfectly for me since my base was brown.  I inked it up and added some doodle lines and then on the orange piece I colored the vines green with my zig markers.  The wording and leaves are both from Gypsy Wanderings.  want to know what a dork I am?  Well I'm gonna tell you.  I made this border that I wanted of four leaves by starting out with the shadow and welding them together and flipping one, then cutting out 4 more leaves.  Yeah well duh, there is a border feature on this cart and other than the one flipped leaf it is identical to this one.  Oh well, this worked out so I could cut all the leaves in different colors from my scrap stash.  The red and yellow were enhanced with my Swiss Dots Embossing folder and three colors of stickles as well as some chalk ink and then pop dotted.  The word "Autumn" also has some inking and embossing.  A bit of doodling and some bling flourishes that were cut to fit complete the look. Anyway there is some surprise candy to be given away at SSPT from none other than the fabulous carrie from Greenbean's Crafterole so come play with us. 

It's Hump Day

It's Hump Day and that means it is time for Inktegrity Hump Day Inspiration.  I played along with the sketch this week.  I used Crafty Girl.  The paper from the first one is from DCWV and BoBunny along with an American Crafts base.  I used my petite scalloped circle nesties and my Creative Memories circle cutter and some bling from my stash.  The second one uses papers from My Favorite Things.  I also used a base from American Crafts and some pearls from my stash.  I used Stardust Stickles on both as well as my Zig markers for coloring and some chalk ink for the edges of the circles.  The winner of the challenge at Inktegrity this week gets to choose some digi images from the shop so come play with us.  Inktegrity is also sponsoring the challenge over at Corrosive Challenges which I also played along with.  The simple challenge was to use something from your stash that had been collecting dust.  Well these MFT papers were just the thing.  So there you have it; two chances to win some fabulous Inktegrity images!  I Can't wait to see what you all come up with.  

In other news my anniversary is tomorrow.  Anyone have any great ideas for a gift for my hubby.  He loves sports but baseball season is almost over so I can't get him tickets.  I'm stumped. 

Shhh... The secret's out

So I have not been posting because I had a secret and I just knew that I would blab it so I stayed away. But the secret is out!  I was chosen for the Inktegrity Design team!  I was lucky enough to discover them this summer when they sponsored a challenge I participated in and they have the most adorable images in their digi shop!  For the new team reveal there is a challenge going on.  The theme is Anything Goes.  The winner gets to pick some digis from the store so go check it out and see what the team has done to inspire you.  I chose Mr Robot to work with.  Funny story about this card I made.  I could not decide whether I wanted to use it as a Birthday or a Thank You card.  I had thought up some cute sentiments for each of them and finally decided it would make quite an unusual Thanks card and would be great for a male.  As soon as I finished it my son got an invite to a party this weekend and the kid loves robots!!  Well I guess I will be printing out this image again soon.  I also made a cute little tag to go with this.  Wouldn't that be adorable tied around some home made cookies or other goodies?  My fave thing about digi stamping is being able to change the size. 

So for the computer generated sentiment I did a fun technique.  I trimmed my piece down and inked the edges, but then I colored the whole thing with my Clear Stardust Jelly Roll pen, then covered it with 3 coats of Liquid Glass.  I love how it looks like a sparkly epoxy sticker!  Also I don't know if you can see all the shimmer in this card, but the image is colored with my Zig markers, then parts of it are covered either with the Stardust pen or my Copic Spica glitter pens.  The postage stamp shaped red piece is painted with Creative Inspirations paint in Garnet.

A few of my favorite things

I just got back from an extended weekend camping trip which is definately one of my favorite things. I came back and got to do the not so favorite task of unpacking it all and doing laundry and cleaning the mess that was created in the house while everyone was packing.  So after I completed all that and called in to find out that I was excused from Jury Duty today I decided to do some crafting.  I found this challenge while browsing a few of my favorite blogs this morning.  Jitterbuggin wanted us to follow a sketch and also use our 2 fave colors as well as one of our favorite things.  Well anyone who knows me also knows that I adore turtles.  Ever since my college sorority days(our mascot was a turtle).  I had a turtle named Buddy for a few years until my son was around 18 months and accidently let him loose.  So on to the card.  My favorite colors are chocolate brown, lime green and turquoise.  I couldn't pick just two so I used them all as well as a little yellow which happens to be one of my least favorite colors, but it worked so well in this card.  The scalloped circle and the turtle was cut on my Cricut Expression with my Gypsy.  I went in search of a turtle cut(love that search feature by the way) and realized I do not own a single cartridge with a turtle.  That is really just too sad.  Well I really liked the one from Create A Critter so I decided to recreate him with shapes from George and Basic Shapes.  He is not exactly the same but I love how he turned out.  A few flowers from my stash, some ribbon, a photo corner punch and some stamps(yes I did it again!) and it is done.  So back to pet turtles.  I have really missed having one since buddy left and this weekend while we were lazing in the Eel River my husband caught one.  So here is Buster

He is a Western Pond Turtle and Buddy was a box turtle so caring for him will be quite different but I am so ecited and the kids are excited to help take care of him.  maybe if we can show the hubby how well we can take care of him, he may reconsider getting us a dog. 

Razzle Dazzle Sparkle and Shine

My daughter's class used to sing a song in class.  Each child would get a turn with the Razzle Dazzle stick which was really just a stick with pretty ribbons flowing from it.  They would dance around in the center of a circle while the other child sang "Her name is Kamrie, she's like the sun, her Razzle dazzle has just begun.  Razzle Dazzle...Razzle dazzle sparkle and shine"  That's exactly what I thought of when I completed this card.  It is so sparkly and it makes me smile, which is of course what inspired the sentiment that I actually stamped myself.  Yes I did it.  My friend Christina sent me some little sentiment stamps for those times when I just didn't feel like pulling out my Cricut.  This was not exactly one of those times as I used it with my Gypsy for the yellow tag shape, but the rest of the cuts are Nestabilities or my Quickcutz cookie cutter dies.  The image is a free digi stamp from here and this card is for their challenge.  I used my Creative Inspirations paints to color the flower as well as some glitter that I sealed in with Liquid Glass.  The leaves are just some petals from an extra flower I printed.  Some stickles, American Crafts ribbon, SU dimensionals, a random flower also covered in CI paint and some KandCo gems complete the look.

Creative Inspirations paints layout

I have had these paints for quite awhile now but I have not used them as much as I would like.  I have done a few little things like the projects listed here and here.  Recently I was asked by the CI team to be featured on their blog.  Can I get a big woohoo??!!!!  I was in the midst of all the birthday craziness around here but still I couldn't turn it down.  I sat down to try to make a card for my son.  I had my mind on about a million other projects that needed to be done and I just couldn't focus...big FAIL.  So I decided to wait.  But I did set my paints and tools on my table thinking that maybe that would help inspire me.  That didn't really work out so well either.  All it got me was two kids begging to paint.  So about a week later I was lying it bed and all of a sudden it just hit me!  I was going to do a layout.  So that being decided the ideas just started flowing.  I got out my Gypsy and started designing.  The layout was totally planned.  The only problem was that I hadn't chosen a picture yet.  Anyone who knows me knows that I usually start with the pics and get inspired from there so this process was very different for me.  The next day I went out to the Dungeon (otherwise known as my scrap room or my half of the garage) to have a look at pictures I had.  It is very rare for me to do a one pic layout but that is what I had planned.  After searching through all my pics and coming up empty handed I was about to give up when I walked by my daughter's playdesk and found this picture. 

I had given it to her because I wasn't planning on scrapping it.  It was perfect.  I went to the internet and searched for pics of the book Caps for Sale.  The papers were chosen and I was ready to go.  But wait.  The papers I chose looked kind of maculine to me.  Blue and green.  I needed to add a pop of color.  This is where I turned to my CI paints.  I altered the blue on blue background paper byt painting some of the swirls with Garnet paint and a fine tip paintbrush.  I added a few Chocolate dots as well. Now I don't know how well you can see the shimmer, but along with the great colors is incredible shine.  So after alktering my paper I wasn't completly thrilled.  I actually didn't like it at all and was going to scrap the whole thing(no pun intended).  Well I started playing around with my colors and some flowers from my stash.  I really like the end result and it's probably one of my favorite layouts to date.  All of the red flowers were altered with the paint and the large ones also have stickles.  The blue flowers are Petaloo covered in turquoise stickles and the green are from the wedding aisle at Michael's and were already shimmery.  The red paper is also covered in CI paint as well as the brown brads and the brown border on the picture. 

If you don't have any of these paints yet, I highly recommend them.  I love that they dry quickly and have so many uses.  If you have some or decide to get some link up your projects to the Creative Inspirations blog and you can be their next featured crafter!