Some Happy Balloons

This my my submission for this weeks Less Is More challenge. The Diva's theme this week was "Things that move". :)

I'm still playing with ways to use ink from last weeks challenge. The blue background was another test I tried so instead of tossing it, I decided to trim it close to the color edge and stamp it with the balloons. The ballons are DP from the scrap bin (no clue what company) and to finish it off I embossed a scrap of white with dots as a carry over from the largest balloon; some stickles; and a mini tag from SU and a tiny stamp also from SU! I might go back over the stickles again, it seems to have a bald spot, but thats an easy fix.

Thank you for stopping by. I have more cards in the works, I just can't seem to finish anything. UGH!!

Summer In Texas .........

This is the 10 day forecast for Dallas Texas ......

I'm looking into property in Alaska ..... I am not a summer person and these temps are depressing the hell out of me. I'm literally house bound if I'm not at work. Not sure who is getting those 70's at night because a 3:30 this morning on my way into work, the temp was 90!!

I loathe summertime. :(

Home Made Smooch ....

It's Saturday which means a new challenge is up at Less Is More... yeah!! ... and what a fantastic challenge. Today is the dreaded One Layer Card which I tend to suck at; or at the very least struggle with; however today there was a lovely add-on to the challenge which was to use inks in a new way.




Here is what I did:
I heat embossed the leaf image in clear powder onto whisper white card stock. Then I placed several drops of Lucky Limeade ink into a mini mister and added a couple drops of water. I misted the corner area then blotted the excess off with a paper towel. I added a few more drops of water to the ink and sprayed again only further out into the card area. I repeated that one more time so there was a light, medium and dark progression of color.

Then I loaded up a paint brush with several big drops of Always Artichoke and "tapped" it onto the card creating the dark ink drops.

At that point I thought the card was going very well, but it definitely needed something else. I looked around and thought maybe I could spray it with Smooch. So I quickly made a "sample" card and sprayed it with the Vanilla Smooch from SU!. (there was no way i was going to try that spray on this card because I really loved how it was coming along and we ALL know what happens when we go too far ... disaster!!!) It was ok, but it really washed out the darker spots on the card and turned the ink drops into a funny greenish gray.

So I sat there thinking .... always dangerous ..... and wondered if the Smooch would take the SU ink. As I was washing out the mini mister my eye caught onto another cool SU product called Shimmer Paint/Ink. I already knew the Smooch faded out my green so I decided to give the Shimmer Ink a try.

It worked!! Unfortunately I don't know how much of each I used. I poured a few big drops of the Shimmer paint into the mister first and kept adding drops of Lucky Limeade until it was a nice blend with the overall card.

This card looks so wonderful IRL but I just can't seem to capture it on film (well digital actually). The glimmer from the home made smooch is definitely not showing up and the layering of color doesn't seem to show up either.

Poor picture aside, the coolest thing about this is I can have Shimmer Mists in any color I want. I'm going to take a stab a Ranger's Broken Glass next; it is one of my all time favorite blues.



Thank you for taking the time to visit, it is much appreciated.

Red White and Blue

This weeks challenge at Less Is More was to use the colors of your national flag. In my case the American flag and its proud red, white and blue. I love my flag, its beautiful. However as much as I love our flag and think it is wonderful, those colors should only be used on a flag. They look awful on anything else. (personal preference speaking)

I would say it's impossible to make a decent card with RW&B but the fabulous examples submitted for this challenge by the other ladies would disprove that statement. So what I will say is that I can't make RW&B cards and would rather they give us another acetate challenge. **sigh**

So keeping that key word "challenge" in my head I tackled this bad boy. On Saturday I was pretty pleased that I actually come up with a card that wasn't too bad. However, when I went to post it someone else had one so much like it and it was SOOO much better that I tore it apart and started all over again.
... and again
... and again

My only proud moment is right now, because I did NOT give up. As much as I hated this challenge, I did it. The cards suck and will hit the trash bin as soon as this post is completed, but I did it. So here are my attempts at the challenge. The first card is the fifth or sixth generation of the original and the second one is one of the several attempts at not using the stars. This challenge was a sinful waste of good paper. :(

Dare To Get Dirty 2011

It's the annual Dare To Get Dirty Challenge at Splitcoast Stampers! It began last weekend and ends tomorrow night. I posted one of the challenge cards early yesterday, today I'm posting two more cards that I have completed which cover a combined 7 challenges. yeah!!


This first card is my favorite so far. I just love how the blue pops against the kraft; unfortunately the touches of blue in the DP don't show up very well in the pictures I took. It looks so pretty IRL.

The flowers are made from punched Baja Breeze; sponged with Baja Breeze and Pacific Point. I then spritzed the pieces with water and crumpled them up. After a few minutes I semi flattened them out, let them dry, then layered the flower together, finishing it off with some old SU! beads that were gathering dust. The DP is framed in Baja, then i distressed both layer and sponged the edges with BB and PP. The lovely wood frame is from Kaisercraft, the leaves are die cut using SU!s Little Leaves and the lovely seam binding is also Baja from SU. The kraft card stock and DP are from Memory Box.




The card above covers 4 challenges and I really had fun making this one. I rarely make masculine cards so I tend to struggle with them, but this one came to me fairly fast and though it will never be in my top 100 I am pleased with it. I'm especially pleased with how the globe turned out. I'm not sure how to explain this, but what I wanted was to give the globe a roundness or to have the center puffed out as if I cut a real globe. So using the large handle on my scissors and a soft pad, I stressed the image from behind starting in the center working my way to the edges with decreasing pressure as I went. Not sure if that made sense, but the result was what I was after. I tried to capture the "roundness" in the second picture, but it doesn't really show up very well.

I used SU! Real Red, True Thyme and cream naturals card stock. The inks were True Thyme and Early Expresso.



So there are two more submissions for DTGD2011 and if I'm lucky I might be able to make two more cards today and maybe even come up with something for the LIM challenge. :)

Thank you for stopping by.

Eating Crow ...

This past week Splitcoast Stampers has been holding their Annual Dare To Get Dirty Challenge Week. Thirty eight (38) challenges over the course of a week hosted by current and past Dirty Dozen members. Its a fabulous way to spent a week especially if you are lucky enough not to work, or can take the time off. Unfortunately June/July/August are incredibly busy for me at work so I'm playing catch-up today and tomorrow. Needless to say I'll be lucky to finish maybe three or four challenges before Monday's cutoff, but if I combined a few challenges I might just get in a good 40%. :)

So now to the eating crow part:
I hate one layer cards. I suck at OLC. They never sparkle, say "wow" or even garner a "ohhhh". I never like the way they turn out and to be honest, I'm simply not talented enough to pull them off. OLC are the HARDEST to make in my opinion. So here now is a OLC that I just finished and for once, I absolutely love how it turned out. Its very plain but I think it works; more so IRL because the embossing doesn't stand out in the picture. So I guess I now have to say I suck at one layer cards 99.9% of the time. LOL!!

I embossed the image using SU!'s Chocolate Chip craft ink and clear embossing powder (lord only knows how I managed to get it centered); pulled out my re-inkers and colored away. Low and behold, the first OLC that I can truly say I like. :)

Thank you for stopping by, as always its wonderful to hear from old blog friends and new ones alike.

PS - Would have loved to have had this stamp for last weeks Less is More challenge; unfortunately it didn't arrive until yesterday.

Carole

Supplies:
SU! Faith In Nature
SU! Inkers: Pear Pizazz, Old Olive, Wild Wasabi, Sahara Sand, So Saffron, Early Expresso ...