Almost Here!

Today I went to the movies with my sister June and saw Arthur Christmas. We had a grand time. Tonight I followed Mario on twitter #12Tags and Mario Rossi facebook for BTS or Behind The Scenes for Tim's 12 Tags on my android phone, while watching Zombieland with my husband then Revenge with Valerie. I even saw my son Allen for a few minutes. It's been a pretty eventful day.

I'm getting ready for Tim's 12 Tags which will premier at 12 midnight Mountain time. Mario's BTS has already shown Tim's Pine Cone die and Martha Stewart Glitter. I'll be fast asleep by the time Tim posts to his blog since I'm on the east coast. But I'll be up early in the morning to see that gorgeous tag and I think there is going to be a video. Then I'll be off to Archiver's to meet with some friends and we'll have a Tim day making tags. I'm excited to say the least.

One last thought and shout out to NaBloPoMo. This final day in November marks a milestone for me. I have posted every day this month and I have enjoyed it. It wasn't that hard. NaBloPoMo sent me a email inviting me to join them next month and post every day in December but I think I'll keep it an annual thing. But I will post more than I have been before this challenge started. I enjoy creating things and posting them. I found some challenges I really enjoy participating in. I have some followers now and even tell my friends now that I have a blog. I am starting to make new friends online. I've added some features to my blog such as labels with a word cloud and finally figured out how to get a decent shot with my camera without having to go outside. This is a good thing because with Winter coming it's going to get cold. Yes even here in Georgia it gets cold in the winter and occasionally we even have snow.

So if you're following my blog I want to say thanks. If you visit from time to time I still want to say thanks AND if you leave a comment Thank you very much!

Stars and Stamps Sketch Challenge # 97

These are for the weekly card sketch challenge at Stars and Stamps. Yesterday I posted a Red Shimmer card and the other cards I had put together but not finished. I finished the other shimmer cards the same way I did the first one but wanted to do something different for the pink cards.

Notice the white panel?

Originally I thought I would stamp an image to color where the white panel was but the balance was off. I quickly realized that while the white panel worked for the shimmer cards, it was not working with these bold pastels.  I decided to replace it with another panel of pink dotted paper to balance the one in the lower right corner. The paper is from a Anna Griffin Margot Carkstock pack that I have had for some time. I used Vintage Photo direct to paper lightly on the edges of each rectangle and the front of the card. The white scallop oval is a McGill punch and the stamp is Autumn Leaves AL3381 "Between The Lines". I use Archival Jet Black ink from Ranger. I colored the image with Staedtler Watercolor pencils and a Dove Blender. The edges of the scallop are inked with Vintage Photo Distress Inks and my blending tool.

Stars and Stamps Sketch Challenge # 97

So now I have a total of 16 cards I have made for Operation Write Home. 12 of these are Love theme. I have until December 10th to send in Love theme cards for the Archway + OWH Special Mission. They will match up to 5000 Love theme cards with packs of cookies to send to our Troops. So if you hadn't already heard about this mission, now you know why I have been making Love cards when everyone else is making Christmas cards. I'm going to go ahead and send these off to Operation Write Home for the Archway Cookies promotion.

Sending Love

Ranger's Seafoam White Embossing Powder and Hero Arts CG145 Reversed Flowers and Leaves

This is for the weekly card sketch challenge at Stars and Stamps. I like the simplicity. I put together 7 card  quickly using the sketch and I learned something. Do my stamping before I put my cards together. I thought since they were in panels I could just cut out all my panels and put them together quickly and then do my stamping and coloring. Unfortunately when I started stamping I started running into problems. Only this card is completed and I basically had to take it apart fix the areas that didn't stamp well and put it back together on a new base.

Stars and Stamps Sketch Challenge # 97

For this version of the card, I used Ruby Red shimmer paper for the base then cut the panels from shimmer paper in Gold and Silver and stamped them with the Hero Arts CG145 Reversed Flowers and Leaves background stamp using VersaMark ink and embossed with Ranger's Seafoam White embossing powder. I then stamped "sending LOVE your way" and the hearts with the blue ink from the  Archival Brillance Peacock ink pad from Tsukineko on Iced White paper.  The stamps are from Hero Arts. The background stamp is CG145 Reversed Flowers and Leaves, the message and a heart from Trees, Birds and messages CL 182, more hearts from Share Laughter CL 151 & one tiny heart from Sending Happy CL 305. I love how you can mix and match the Hero Art sets.

More to do!

Three of the other cards are with shimmer paper in the same colors but different combinations and 3 are pink with Yellow, Orange and Pink paper with a dot pattern. I'll probably do the all the shimmer cards like this but may do something different with the pastels. I hope to finish the up tomorrow and ship them off to Operation Write Home. I don't want to miss the Archway Cookies deadline.

Clean and Simple

Clean and Simple

I kept seeing CAS on several blogs. Finally I found a tutorial on OWH that explained what it meant. Clean and Simple. I was intrigued and wanted to give it a try. I had this piece of  teal acetate in my stash and it was large enough to fold and trim for a standard card. I picked a ribbon to go with it and went from there. I folded a piece of white card stock and made a liner to go inside the card. It is just tied in with the ribbon. Then I picked out my set of Hero Arts hearts stamps. I stamped them on the white card stock with Archival Jet Black ink. Getting them lined up with the circles on the acetate was not as easy as I thought because they are individual wood blocks stamps. I even used my light box to lightly sketch the circles on the cardstock. I didn't want them to be perfectly centered or even in the exact same location inside the circle but close. I used watercolor pencils and a Dove Blender to color the hearts. I also stamped one Heart on the inside on the upper left hand corner.

I had to pull out my 2006 Hero Arts Catalog to find the info on this stamp set. I had them displayed on a shelf on my wall and didn't realize the blocks were not marked, just the box which I no longer have. They are LL 989 Heart Messages - Stencil Print (reg). The acetate is Mod Circles HO636 from Hambly Studios.

I think it qualifies for Clean and Simple, but I'm not sure. What do you think?

I Love Grungy Monday 28

Alcohol Inks and Embossed Foil

Grungy Monday 28 at Studio L3 is a wonderful challenge to use Alcohol Inks and Foil Embossing using Tim Holtz fantastic Fall Pumpkin as inspiration. You can find Tim's Pumpkin here on his blog. He has a wonderful tutorial telling you exactly how he created his pumpkin. You can find Linda Ledbetter's beautiful Tim inspired milk carton gift box and the challenge for this week here.

You may recognize my butterfly from earlier in the week when I created it and posted it on my blog. I made my butterfly by covering  one of Tim's grungeboard butterflies with the foil and running it through my Big Shot with the Regal Flourishes embossing folder. Then I dripped on alcohol inks letting them dry between colors and although you can't see it here direct to foil Archival jet black ink on the raised areas. It really accents the alcohol inks. The body of the butterfly is a stick pen from Making Memories also covered in alcohol ink and the wings are connected with wire and tiny attacher staples. One thing you couldn't see before are the butterfly's antennae. They are light weight wire that is wrapped tightly around the wire ring at the top of the stick pin with the ends sticking out on each end to form the antennae. The light blue flower behind them helps to show them off.

Today I finished my project by covering the frame with the Inkssentials adhesive foil and embossing it with the Damask embossing folder from the same set. I already had this Chipboard Frame from a Making Memories kit. I used the alcohol inks and Archival Jet Black Ink per Tim's instructions.

The flowers are Grungeboard die cut from Tim's Tattered Floral Die. I used Rock Candy Distress Stickles and Distress Stains with a technique I learned from Tim when he was guest instructor in Jennifer McGuire's Inspiration Showcase class. The stickpin butterfly is pushed through the foam dots used to layer the flower with the big pearl.

The picture in the frame is one of my favorites of a trip I took with my daughter Valerie to the Chattanooga Aquarium in 2007. They have a wonderful Aquarium and a beautiful Butterfly Garden. I will always think of their Butterfly Garden when I think of Chattanooga.

Thanks for stopping by and taking a look. Be sure to leave a comment if you have time. Now I'm going to go and check out the other entries posted on Linda's blog. So far there are 23, but the challenge is open until tomorrow, Sunday November 27th at 8pm MDT. I really enjoy Linda's Grungy Mondays Challenge.

Circle Heart

Following a Kristina Werner Design Sketch

I first learned of Kristina Werner when I took a Jennifer McGuire online class. It was Inspiration Showcase class. I learned a lot from the class. It motivated me to get back into the studio creating and it introduced me to Kristina Werner.

Kristina had 3 really cute card sketches for the class that I really liked so I decided to check out her blog. Kristina had just started her Holiday Card Series 2011 on November 8th. For 25 days she posted a new card and a video showing her creating the card, using a variety of supplies. I loved the cards and I loved the videos. I have been hooked ever since.

The card I've posted today is following one of her Holiday Card Series 2011 designs. Kristina's card used Basic Grey Nordic Holiday. Following her design, I was easily able to use Basic Grey Sweet Threads to create a "Love" Card to send off with my box of cards for Operation Write Home.

I enjoyed Kristina's cards so much I decided to purchase the Virtual Card Class for Holiday Card Series 2011. For a mere $5 I was able to purchase a pdf file complete with beautiful pictures of all the cards, a supply list and direct links to each card post and videos. Now it is quick and easy to find any card in the series when I need a quick idea. Just like I did today. Kristina's card is gorgeous. If you want to take a look check it out here.

Thanks for stopping by.

Ruby

Happy Thanksgiving!

With all the Turkey projects circulating on the web I want to share one too.

Notice that the burlap background, painting on fabric and sewing techniques used here. All trendy in scrapbooking today. Except this is a project my daughter Valerie did in 1989 when she was 5 years old. I'm sure kindergarteners around the country are still painting their little hands and fingers to make Happy Turkeys for Thanksgiving.

I hope you all have had a Very Happy Thanksgiving!