Merry Creepmas with Poisoned Peas

This month's Poisoned Peas challenge is "twisted holidays" and Rick St. Dennis is once again our sponsor.  He has some really great images- both twisted and traditional.

I couldn't decide between two images this month so I went with both, one "twisted!" and one a bit askew.  First, my "twisted!" one.  It's colored with Distress Markers and I took a picture of it before I spritzed it with water not knowing if I was going to utterly destroy it in the process.  As it was, I DID water it more than I intended but I kind of like the result- it's almost like the glow of Christmas lights.

The second piece is something I think I'll give either my father or husband for Christmas.  I haven't added a sentiment but it'll be something to the effects of "Hope you have an OUTstanding Christmas!"  What can I say- I just can't help myself.

Both images have Decor pen "pearls" added to them, the red lights on the tag, and the pearls and red lights on NOEL on the card.

I hope you can join us this month in celebrating the twisted holidays!

Challenges:
The Crafter's Cafe: Tags
Here Come the Boys: Anything Goes
The Kraft Journal: Anything Goes

Christmas ornaments

I know, I know.  It's been a while.  I haven't been crafting much and I'm struggling to get into a holiday mood this year.  It seems to have come up SO fast and the weather is SO not conducive and I have SO much to do this year that I've been in a bit of a funk.  All that aside, here's a project that I undertook that took on a life of its own for a while.  I love love LOVE the ornament on the front of Stampin' Up's fall/winter mini and I HAD to have it all when the stamps and dies were on special.  I knew I didn't NEED them but I HAD to have them.  I started out by making two ornaments just to see how it would go.  Then I decided that these would be gifts for friends of ours and we'd give one to each of our relatives that we do gifts with.  Come to think of it, I need one more for other friends if we're to keep one for ourselves.  UGH.

I made the all blue one (without tulle) and the one from the catty front (the classic pine/cranberry one) to start.  Then I cut out ~280 pieces to make the other 7.  I stamped the images one morning, spent a few hours in front of the TV with my Big Shot cutting them out, scored them in the car on our 6hr drive to Thanksgiving, glued them together at my mom's house with my aunt handing me the pieces, bought the tulle at the local JoAnn's Etc. there (I WISH we had one of those here!!), and glued the tulle on during the 6hr return trip.  I finished up the center bits here at home.  Needless to say, they are TIME CONSUMING but if you've got time to kill (like a car ride), it's a project with a great end result.

Challenges: 
Shopping our Stash: Christmas (while a lot of this was new, the inks I used have DEFINITELY been around a while- the blue w/out tulle was the first ink pad I bought back in... 2003? and the papers for the rosettes is not new by any stretch.)
Top Tip Tuesday: Christmas
 

Guest design work for Express the Moment

A few months ago Kim over at Express the Moment (ETM) posted an open call for guest designers.  I've bought a few of ETM's kits and I really like the mix of papers and embellishments so I was thrilled to hear that I'd be designing for her after submitting my work.  I received the November kit which is full of great cream, aqua, beige, brown and orange colors and leafy designs.  I had grand plans for several 12x12 layouts.  Then all three of us here at ye ol' homestead were wiped out last week with the stomach bug (or possibly food poisoning in the hubby's case.  One day he'll learn to toss questionable cans of creamy soups!)  Of course, just as one of us recovered, the next went down so it was a bit of a lost week.  The end result was a change in my projects- I just wasn't up to tackling a stack of 12x12's.  Instead, I went for a variety of projects including some I haven't tried before which made it a bit more of a stretch and a bit more fun.

12x12 Layout

Post-it note holder

Tag

Card 1

Card 2

ATC

Decor

Thanks for the opportunity Kim!  Happy Thanksgiving all!

Nov. Poisoned Peas Please challenge is up

This month we're going with a "Walking Dead" theme- basically zombies and vampires.  Rick St. Dennis is our sponsor and I found an image in his shop that just made me smile.  Bunnicula.  I don't know if you're familiar with Bunnicula but I remember reading it WAY back and you just have to love a bunny who sucks the juice out of carrots.

I first went with a Halloween-themed ATC as fits a vampire of any sort.

However, then I was thinking wouldn't it be fun to use the image just like any other springy, Eastery bunny.  I may go back and work some decorated eggs into the card at some point.

Please join us in the fun this month over at Poisoned Peas Please!

Cards from a Tutorial Post at Just Some Lines

A while back, longer than I care to admit (stop laughing Jenn!), Jenn Borjeson asked if I'd be interested in doing a tutorial over at Just Some Lines.  I couldn't really come up with anything to share until Denice over at Wicked Wednesdays mentioned she really liked a background I'd done on an ATC.  Solved that problem.  Today Jenn is running my tutorial on Just Some Lines if you'd like to take a look.  Here are the two cards you can find there.

Eatin' Sand layout

Again, I've had a set of pictures paired up with papers for a long while just begging to be scrapped.  I actually won the Amy Tangerine line from American Crafts a while back but wasn't sure what I was going to do with them until I looked at these pix.  Perfect!

Ingredients:
All paper & embellishments: Amy Tangerine "Sketchbook": American Crafts
Thickers: American Crafts

CAS Halloween Card

Can you tell that the hubby took the little one and they headed out of town for the weekend?  Yep.  I've gotten a few pages done, a card made, challenges entered and a reservation scheduled for tonight's ghost tour in downtown Salem (of Winston-Salem.)  I still need to try to make a Phineas shirt for Sunday's Halloween party in case the boys are back in time for it and Beast needs his costume ready.  Anywho.  Card.  I needed another Halloween card and I liked the Big Picture Class "Happy Mail" circles challenge so I came up with a way to work them together.  I love this card in that it cooked up quick and baked even quicker- I had it done in about 15-20min.  YAY!

Ingredients:
Cardstock:(Only Orange, Elegant Eggplant, Whisper White, Basic Black): Stampin' Up, 
Patterned Paper: Target
Ink: (Black Momento) Tsukineko, (Black Soot): Tim Holtz
Stamps: (Scary Skeleton): Stampin' Up

Challenges:
BPC: Happy Mail: Circles
Crafters' Cafe: #9: Halloween w/ distressing
Unique Crafters: Halloween 
ColorQ: #160 (I didn't have any of the exact colors except black and white but I went as close as I could.)

Unusual layout

Well, for me it's unusual.  Partially because it's SO not what I normally do and partially because it's on trend... which I'm generally not.  LOL.  I had a picture of my son that unlike most of my pix, really didn't belong to an event and was a single photo.  I've been seeing lots and lots of layouts with layers and layers and LAYERS of paper and I kinda like them but since I don't do single photos, they just don't mesh with what I do.  Then there's that one photo.  I didn't use as many patterned papers as maybe I would have liked and probably could have used a few more embellishments but I'm just happy I tried something new and I'm generally pleased with the result.

Ingredients:
Paper: (Cardstock): Stampin' Up, (Patterned): Authentique, BoBunny
Brads: Basic Grey
Paper embellishments: Authentique
Alpha: (Amy Tangerine Thickers): American Crafts
Ink: (Pumpkin Pie, Summer Sun): Stampin' Up

Challenges:
Apron Strings: #19 (It's funny.  I was working towards challenge #18 though I didn't have any of the purplish color.  Then when I was almost done, #19 was posted and you would have thought that I'd copied the colors directly so I'm submitting it for #19.)

Beach Layout

I've had a bag of photos and matching cardstock and embellishments just waiting to be scrapped.  I pulled it out this past week, telling myself to finally do something with them.  Then I saw the Basic Grey sketch challenge and knew it was falling in place.  I raided my BG papers and found that the "Out of Print" papers I had left from a CKC class worked beautifully with the cardstock.  And the planets aligned.  To make the journaling tag, I gessoed a scrap of the BG paper until the pattern was subdued enough to write on.

Paper: (Cardstock): Coredinations, (Patterned): Basic Grey
Alpha: Studio Calico
Embellishments: Creative Imaginations

Challenges:
BG: Sketch

And now, time for Frozen Yogurt!

You may remember that the other month I did a post about pudding for ConAgra foods.  Well, I have another one and it's another yummer.  This time I was able to try Healthy Choice's Greek Frozen Yogurts, Raspberry and Vanilla varieties to be exact.  While I'm not a huge fan of plain vanilla anything, I wanted to try it since I do like to serve vanilla ice cream or frozen yogurt WITH things (like, oh, I dunno... brownies maybe?)  Both flavors were VERY rich, much richer and with more creaminess than traditional frozen yogurt.  They'd definitely appeal to ice cream fans who don't care for the lighter, less "melty creaminess" that frozen yogurt usually offers.  Personally, they were a bit too rich for my tastes since I prefer frozen yogurts and sherbets that are lighter.  However, I will say that while the vanilla was good, the flavor of the raspberry was simply wonderful.  And, at only 100cal per serving cup, they're certainly an allowable snack... even at midnight or so if you're a night owl that gets late night munchie attacks.

I haven't seen these in the stores myself so I don't know what the price point is but if you see them and the price is agreeable, I'd definitely recommend giving them a try.  I don't think you'll be disappointed.

WCMD #10: Sketch

And that brings me to my final WCMD challenge card- one for a Unity sketch.  I waited on this one because I just couldn't come up with anything that I loved.  I wanted to make a Halloween card and really only have "The Glowing Hours" to work with.  I couldn't figure out how to include the chandelier but thought the sentiment would be bland on its own.  However, I then looked at the sketch a bit differently and instead of seeing a section where the paper might be different, I looked at it as something that just wasn't entirely shown.  Something like the moon.

I wasn't able to get a photo that shows it well but the moon is made from a pearlescent paper and the highlights on the bats' wings are done in a pearly paint.

In retrospect, it's weird to have the moon over a bat and not the other way around.  My inks and stamps are put away.  Weird it is.

Ingredients:
Stamp: (The Glowing Hours): Unity

Ink: (Silver, Pearl Paint): Tsukineko, (Distress marker): Tim Holtz, (Night of Navy- sponged on moon): Stampin' Up

Paper: (Night of Navy): Stampin'  Up, (Pearl white): ?

Challenges: 
Unique Crafters' Challenge: Halloween
Unity Challenge: Things in the air
Unity:

WCMD #9: Texture

Yeah.  I'm still at it.  There are two more challenges over at Unity that are due tonight and I'm finally getting them wrapped up.  Between getting sick (subbing at a preschool meant I was exposed to lots of loveliness that I managed to pick up and hang on to quite nicely) and my parents visiting this past week, I'm just flat out behind.  But now, done.  Yay!

This was for the Unity Texture challenge.  I used some stripped corrugated cardboard, hemp twine, and edge distressing to give this some teeth.

Ingredients:
Stamp: (Play in the Sun): Unity
Ink: (Vintage Photo, Distress markers): Tim Holtz
Paper: (Basic Brown, Chocolate Chip): Stampin' Up, (Natural White resume paper): ?, Corrugate

Challenges: 
Unity Challenge: Things in the air
Unity: Texture

Happy Birthday Wicked Wednesday!

Hey!  Look at me skating in just under the wire again!  Oh well.  At least I made it to the party before it was COMPLETELY over!  This week's Wicked Wednesday ATC challenge was for their 1st birthday and it has... guess.... a BIRTHDAY theme!  Bet you didn't get that one did you!?  ;)

I went for a fairly CAS look on this one.  There are 2 pieces of wire on it- the red to look like a spring and a thinner white one to make the cupcake do a bit of a bobble.

Ingredients:
Stamps: (Out of the Box): Stampin' Up
Coloring: (Black Momento): Tsukineko, Copics, (Distress Marker): Tim Holtz
Paper: (Whisper White): Stampin' Up
Misc: (Happy Birthday rub-ons):? Wire

Challenges:
Simon Says: Favorite technique (Hand coloring and fussy cutting)

WCMD #8: Color challenge card

Yes, but wait, there's more.  This card was for the Unity World Card Making Day color challenge- olive, pumpkin, brown and cream.  Sounds like Thanksgiving minus red to me.

The two small leaves at the bottom right corner were punched from the leftover paper from my tree card.  I spritzed the hemp twine with the Smooch spray to color it the dark brown.

Ingredients:
Stamps: (Gobble Til You Wobble): Unity
Paper: (Chocolate Chip, Very Vanilla): Stampin' Up
Coloring: (Basic Brown, Old Olive, Pumpkin Pie inks, Watercolor crayons): Stampin' Up, (Log Cabin): Smooch Spray
Misc: Hemp twine

Challenges:
Unity: Colors

WCMD #7- Shaped card

Yep.  I'm still at it.  There was a challenge over at Unity for a shaped card.  I haven't really made shaped cards- I'm kinda a rectangular card gal.  I considered using one of my Spellbinders or Sizzix dies but then I saw a card over at Moxie Fab that I LOVED and it made me rethink the direction I was going in.  Once more, I decided to fill my canning jar.  While it's a bit smaller than a traditional card, the jar is HUGE and still makes a nicely sized card.

Though it's a bit hard to see, the pixie's wings and the centers of the stars have been glittered

Ingredients:
Stamps: (Jar of Sunshine, The Glowing Hours, Twinkle Twinkle, Playfully Pixie): Unity
Paper: (Whisper White, Basic Black): Stampin' Up
Ink: (Black Momento, VersaMark): Tsukineko
Coloring: Copics, (Colored pencils): Crayola, (Chalk): Binney & Smith, (Gold EP): Stampendous
Misc: (Twine): The Twinery

Challenge:
Unity: Shaped cards

Poisoned Peas Day of the Dead Inspiration

This month we have a "Day of the Dead" theme over at Poisoned Peas and we're being sponsored by Dilly Beans Digi Stamps.  

LOVE their "big eyes" line of images!  There's also some great Day of the Dead sugar skull images and I used one of them for my project this month.

I gessoed the tag and once dry, dripped India ink on it and blew it around with a straw (thank you Donna Downey for that one!)  After sealing it (I learned my lesson the first time- I guess I forgot that India ink and other liquids generally make a smudgy, smeary mess), I rubbed the tag down with some distress inks... and then sealed it again (distress ink on top of sealer doesn't exactly dry well).

The skulls were colored with Copics and... oh... you know... fussy cut.  SURPRISE!

Along the edges of the tag, I sprinkled on some "ice" glitter to "sugar" it up a bit.

I hope you join us in our Day of the Dead challenge at Poisoned Peas!  The winner of this challenge will get 3 Dilly Beans images of their (the winner's) choice- not too shabby!

Ingredients:
Image: (420-sugar skulls stack): Dilly Beans
Coloring: India Ink, Copics, (Broken China, Tumbled Glass, Faded Jeans Distress Pads): Tim Holtz
Misc: (Boho Blossoms XL Punch): Stampin' Up, Small gems (colored black w/ Copic)

WCMD #6- Christmas

Ingredients:
Stamps: (Kissmas & Mistletoe): Unity
Ink: (Whisper White): Stampin' Up, (Distress Markers): Tim Holtz
Paper: (Green Galore, Real Red, Whisper White): Stampin' Up

Challenges: 
Unity: Christmas
Scrapbooker's Paradise Ponderings: Sketch

WCMD #5- colored card

Ingredients:
Stamps: (Friends and Wine): Unity,  (Print Pattern): Stampin' Up
Ink: (Black Momento. VersaMark): Tsukineko
Paper: (Whisper White, Basic Black, Elegant Eggplant): Stampin' Up
Misc: Copics, (Watercolor pencils): Staedtler, (Crystal Effects): Stampin' Up, (Clear EP): Joann's, (Candi dots): CraftWorkCards

Challenges:
Unity: Coloring
Studio Calico: Harlequin
Play Date Cafe: B/W + Plum
Just Us Girls: Sketch

WCMD again... #4 Fall card

Again, not much to say other than I definitely kept this simple- not sure if it's not too simple.  The leaves overpower it a bit but I still like it.  I could have done falling hearts but I liked leaves.

Ingredients:
Stamps: (The Time is Now, ?) Unity
Ink: Tim Holtz markers
Paper: (Kraft, Whisper White): Stampin' Up

Challenges:
Unity: Fall
Moxie Fab: Thank you
Sarah Hurley: Autumn
DYSU: Warm Colors
Simon Says: Leaves

WCMD #3: stamped butterfly border

Not much to say about this one other than sorry for the dreary lighting.

Ingredients:
Stamps: (The Simple Things, Now & Always): Unity
Ink: (Rose Romance, Positively Pink): Stampin' Up, (Worn Lipstick marker): Tim Holtz, (Black Marker): LePlume
Paper: (Whisper White, Basic Black, Rose Romance): Stampin' Up

Challenges:
Unity: #6 Stamped border w/out border stamp
Studio Calico: 15min card

WCMD #2: Quick embossed card

I lucked out on this one.  I was going to do a white scrap with the sentiment in red on it.  As soon as I put white on it... nah.  Blah.  So red with white text.  When I opened my red scrap folder, this little strip with hearts punched out of it was right on top, left over from some other project I'd done.  PERFECT!

Ingredients:
Stamps: (Crappy Day): Unity
Ink: (Whisper White): Stampin' Up
Paper: (Whisper White, Kraft): Stampin' Up
Misc: (White EP): Joann's, (Heart border punch): Stampin' Up

Challenges:
Unity: Embossing
Studio Calico: Stamped background

WCMD Card #1- One layer

The orange flowers, the text and the green dots are embossed for shine, texture, and interest.

Ingredients:
Stamps: (Doilies): Studio Calico, (Qwick Qwips): Paper Smooches
Ink: (Yoyo Yellow, Green Galore, Only Orange): Stampin' Up, (VersaMark): Tsukineko
Misc: (Clear EP): Stampin' Up, (Candi dots): CraftWorkCards

Challenges:
Studio Calico: 1 layer
Paper Smooches: 1 layer
Octopode Factory: Lime, orange, yellow
Moxie Fab: Hello/Thinking of You

Run away!

This week's challenge over at Wicked Wednesday is to make a storybook character ATC.  What I really set out to do initially was to ink up the Stampendous Halloween raven background stamp that I picked up this weekend.  Then I was feeling guilty about not having entered anything at WW for several (SEVERAL) weeks.  Then I was thinking about what to do with my raven.  Then I was thinking about storybook characters. (See, I did it again.  I dragged you down into my stream of consciousness path again.)  Then I thought of my FABU Octopode Tweedledee/Tweedledum and Cheshire Cat images since they're the only storybook characters I have.  Raven.  Tweedledee/dum.  Raven... WAIT!  Aren't Dee and Dum terrified of a raven or an eagle or something.  Quick!  Run to Boy's room and yank "Alice in Wonderland" off the shelf!  Miraculously open to the Dee/Dum chapter!  Yes!!  They're terrified when a... crow flies by.  Ummm.... CLOSE ENOUGH!  Dee!  Dum!!  RAVEN!!!  YES!!!!

And this is the end result.

 

Ingredients:
Stamps: (Tweedledee/Dum): Octopode Factory, (Raven Background): Stampendous

Colorants: (Concord Crush, Marmalade): Tim Holtz, (Watercolor pencils): Staedtler, (Versamark, Versamarker): Tsukinekoo

Misc: (Embossing enamel): Stampendous, (Embossing powder): Joann's, (Stickers): Creative Imaginations

Challenges: 

Wicked Wednesday #51: Storybook character

Stampendous: Embossing

Frosted Designs: Embossing

My OLD sketch and thoughts book

I've been trying to do some of the Big Picture Classes' "Big Idea Festival" challenges and today's kicked my butt over to my shelves to dig out my long-forgotten sketch and thought book.  It's a simple blank book my BF from high school gave me at graduation.  Pathetically, I've never filled it entirely but I do enjoy pulling it out and periodically adding to it and perusing my history.  It has things from college, grad school and beyond in it.  Thoughts, project ideas, sketches, weird dreams I had, Christmas lists, AFI Top 100 movies for several themes, notes I took when industry animators came to visit at school, etc.

Here's some random images/pages from the book.  You can see it's been through the ringer- I had to put masking tape and then electrical tape on the spine to hold it all together.

This is the page I did for the BPC "School Lunches" challenges.