CAS-ual fridays: long cards

The CAS-ual Fridays challenge this week is to create a 4x9 card... clean-and-simple-style!  And their words of instruction: you must resist the urge to fill it.

I kept it to one side with my bitty party birds... the birthday boy wears the hat!



stamps: little bitty bird+simple sentiments (both PTI)
paper: pear pizazz, blushing bride, marine mist, concord crush (all SU!), grid lines+kraft (PTI)
ink: versamark, chocolate chip (SU!)
misc: taffeta ribbon

princess-worthy

A card fit for a princess.

Not too much chatter today, since I have great friends coming over to make us a pot of gumbo.  They were appalled that my hubby and I had never tasted real gumbo... so in exchange for my making an apple pie, they are bringing the fixings for a great meal - can't wait!

A bit of sparkle on the wand was a must.

And I'm pretty sure I had a white "my little pony" with the same multi-colored mane when I was little...

My MFT mini-rolled rosette added a sweet, girly touch.





Have a fabulous weekend!

Baby on board!

One of my besties is having her 4th baby in October (yes, she is a very brave woman...) and I wanted to make her a special set of baby thank you cards.

I was inspired by Betsy's post on re-organizing her paper stash, and using up the scraps.  I covered a sheet of white cardstock with different-sized strips of patterned paper and chopped each 8.5x11inch paper into 4 mats.  So quick and easy!

The main image is from PTI's "enjoy the ride."  I die-cut the car shape, and stamped it with the car-outline.  I then inked up the filler stamp in baja breeze ink and "kissed" it to a grid-lines stamp inked up in walnut stain distress ink before stamping it onto the car outline.  Gives it a fun texture, doesn't it?

The car is popped up on foam squares and nestled onto a mat stack 1 shape (stamped with a coordinating image.)  The "thank you" on the banner is from a floral fusion set.

Each card is just slightly different - because of the patterned backgrounds - but I love them all lined up!

Thanks for looking!

there's no place like home...

Are you clicking your glittery red shoes together?

This week's MIM challenge was to paint with white ink.  I stamped the house from "boards and beams" onto craft paper, and colored the roof, door, and shutters before taking an aquapainter (a paintbrush with water built into the barrel) and painting the main part of the house white.

If you look closely, can you see that I masked all the windows and stamped a woodgrain pattern over the white ink?  I really did!  It's so faint in the picture...

I also did a bit of layering with the clouds, stamping the notebook lines from "it's official" on top of the white clouds.  I like the subtle texture it gives!  My sentiment was stamped into a label basic shape and stapled to the side.

Thanks for looking!

rub on the CAS

The challenge over at CAS-ual fridays is to create a project incorporating a rub-on or sticker.  I used rub-ons a lot when I first got into card-making - they're quick and easy, and no inky fingers!  But, I have to admit that the more I fell in love with stamping, the less I used my stash 'o stickers...

I dug up an old sheet of SU rub-ons - who knew it would be a clue into the future: the little owl became a punch and part of a stamp set later on :)

 I started out with a white cardstock base and stamped that with my large SU polka dot background.  On the kraft mat, I stamped "look who's turning" from PTI's "big birthday wishes" and found a jar die-cut in my scrap pile and rubbed-on the group of numbers inside.  I also rubbed-on the owl (and I had to rub a little flower onto her ear  - she was so old that a bit of her was missing!)  The arrow pointed right to the 2 makes it a cute little birthday card for a toddler!

Thanks for looking!

PTI blog hop: photo inspiration

I drooled over this pretty photo awhile back when it was popping up on pinterest... and now it's our inspiration for the PTI blog hop!  There was so much to work with here - this is what I came up with:

I like how the curtains frame the bench and all of the lovely fabric in the inspiration photo, so I took an orange mat and cut into it with mat stack 4 to create a frame for my own lovely "fabrics".  I cut strips of different patterned paper and sewed them into ruffles to mimic the mix of patterns found in the photo.

A bit of faux stitching around the frame, the corduroy button, and the stitching in the center of the butterfly were added to echo the "sew-y" goodness of the inspiration picture.

I layered 3 butterflies before stitching them all together - I love the little cushion with the floating butterflies!

Thanks for looking!

stamp-a-faire challenges 1, 3, 5, 8

I've just gotten home from a beautiful day outdoors - getting blistery red while my half-indian kids roasted themselves a beautiful tan color...

I thought I would see what I could whip up for the challenges - I've combined a few of them!

challenge 1: Create a project featuring patterned strips that are created with some of your favorite decorative elements.
challenge 3: Punch a window from you card cover and tie ribbon or twine from the window to the side of your card.
challenge 5: Your challenge is to take a solid shape, just like she did, and create your own custom "faux" border!
challenge 8: Create a card with an front cover that is cut back by an inch or so.  The extra lip invites you to add a sentiment, a strip of patterned paper, a bit of glitter, just so many opportunities!


And here's the card:

My cute little monkey of a nephew will be getting this card very soon!  There is a lot going on here, but I hope that a 3-year-old won't mind!  The border around the white mat was made by using a button stamp from button boutique.  I'm hoping the rest is pretty self-explanatory!

and, the inside:

Thanks for looking!

Bridal shower+PTI princess challenge

My sweet cousin, Julie, is having her bridal shower this weekend!  We're all really happy for her (mostly, that my grandmother can stop asking her when she's getting married... but I'm pretty sure as soon as the ceremony is over they'll have to deal with questions regarding when they're planning on having kids - ha!)

I used the special occasion as an excuse to do a little emboss-resist with PTI's "scattered showers".  I first inked up the umbrella in versamark ink, then white-embossed the image.  Overtop, I layered the Hero Arts Envelope background stamp and sponged bashful blue ink.  The white-embossed image "resists" the blue ink - love that!  My hot pink rosette was made using the MFT mini-rolled-rosette die (I had a question yesterday about how I made the felt rosette - same die!)

I don't know if you can see, but I sprayed the heck out of the card (except the rosette) with a homemade glimmer mist.  It really shines in real life!

I'm also using this card for the new PTI princess challenge - that was some great timing, Leah!

Have a wonderful weekend!

last class card!

I thought I'd give it one more shot before the week (and camp) is over!

I started out using my new "vintage wallpaper" stamp (my freebie for winning at CAS-ual Fridays!)  It's so pretty... I then stamped out the wreath (PTI's wreath for all seasons) on a mat stack 4 shape and layered the blues and teals overtop.  I couldn't resist adding a little felt rosette and brought in the green color with the leaves.

In other, non-crafty news, I'm trying to transition my almost 15 month old to 1 nap per day.  I think she's sleeping too much during the day, and then ready to party at night... any advice on how to get Maia to last past 10am?  And sleep longer than her regular 1 hour nap?  Or maybe I'm just dreaming on that last one... You'd think by the 3rd it would all be a breeze - amazing how different they all are!

Thanks, friends!

birds of a feather...

The challenge over at the