SCS CAS Design Team Entry

This week is the design team search in SCS. Clean and simple always used to be a problem for me, but since I've been back from my stamping hiatus I've found CAS design to be much easier. For this challenge Denise used the Macy's cosmetic counter as a starting point, so instead of makeup we needed to use paint on our cards. It could be water colors, acrylics, re-inkers, wet embossing etc.... I used ink pads for my source of color. I have waxed paper palette paper which I stamped on, then used my paintbrush and watercolor paper to paint the background with ombré stripes. The cake was also colored with the re-inkers then coated with clear embossing fluid.

Take a look and SCS and leave a little love if you would. Thanks!

My card - click here

A Busy day of Stamping

I spent the whole day stamping today. It felt great! I've been participating in the SCS Love Fest challenges and wanted to catch up on all the ones I missed over the past week. Here are my 7 challenge cards, let me know which are your favorites.

Roses are Red

Created for a challenge on SCS using flowers on a card. I dug out and old set from Stampin Up a technique I pinned on Pinterest. Of course I didn't visit the blog when I pinned it, but did today when I decided the CASE the card. It's a design by juliehrr of course. She was one of my first stamping idols. Love how her simple designs always look amazing!

For this card I stamped and embossed in white on Kraft cardstock, one of my current favorite looks. I can never get my copics to look bright enough on Kraft when I color I though... It's always a little muted. The trick according to Julie is to use good old water based markers! I pulled out my stampin up markers which have been collecting dust since I discovered copics and voila! They colored beautifully on Kraft! Plus the water based marker wipes off the white embossing powder easily for a nice vibrant look. Love it!

You can see Julie's blog post here http://papertrufflez.typepad.com/paper_trufflez/2012/01/flower-trio-on-kraft.html

Thanks for looking! Let me know what you think and post a link if you try it.

Oh one last thing.... It's my 500th blog post. Yiiipppeeeeee!

Cleaning the desk & using the scraps

I really needed to clean off my stamping table from all the scraps of paper I used last week.  I've been putting them in a pile meaning to file them away with the other scraps, but decided to combine all of them into a card instead.  All the dp scraps were pieced onto kraft paper card blank.  I tried to go with the original sizes as much as I could without trimming and somehow got it to work.  The ribbon was also left over from a another card, worked colorwise with the rest of the paper.  I used the my new favorite polka dot die for the background behind the owl, but since he was kinda blending in to the kraft color, I added an ivory circle.  

Thanks for looking.... next post will be #500.  Maybe I need to stretch myself a little and work on something besides a card for that?

Congratulations.... Twins!

Today's teapot challenge on SCS was to create a card for the birth of twins, one boy and one girl.  I found this super cute stamp from My Favorite Things 2 little bunnies (perfect for twins) and a teacup, perfect the the teacup challenge.  I colored the bunnies with copics, then used a stardust pen to color in their ears, tail and feet.  I then went searching for designer paper to go with my "baby" colors - which lucky for me all came out of my scrap bag.  I love when I get a chance to use up scraps without having to cut into something new.

My favorite part of the card are the rolled, scalloped roses from My Favorite Things. They really only take a small bit of scrap paper (about 2x2) and they are really easy to roll up and secure with a dot of hot glue.  I made three for this card and then cut the leaves from another dotted scrap of paper then heavily sanded the edges so they weren't so bright against the pale colors.

The silver edging on the main layers is from Flower Soft.  They are simply super thin metallic lines to outline images.  Love them!  Someone gave me a couple of packets a few years ago and I still have some left.  You can find more here.

Thanks for looking!

Chalkboard Card

Today's challenge on SCS was chalkboard stamping. It's so easy to do and has such a cool look to it. Simply emboss on black card stock with white EP then use white ink to add some chalk dust to the edges.

I made this card with a teacher in mind, so I used some alphabet paper from vintage 45 and made a homemade apple with a trimmed circle punched from a dark red DCWV paper which I sanded to added distressing. Then I added a little cuttlebug punched leaf to top it off.

Thanks for looking!

Cosmo full of love

I was looking through the Impression Obsession blog and saw that an upcoming challenge was "your choice" using their stamps. I have a bunch of them from my stint on their design team and particularly love the Leigh Hannan stamps. I used Funky Valentine for both of these cards.

The first card uses the Cosmo stamp. I colored it with copics and lots of glitter from Spica glitter pens (my favorite obsession right now). The dotted layer was cut with a Spellbinders polka dot die, which I had to buy after seeing a card made by clownmom on SCS.

The second card was made for a SCS challenge. I love the green and purple together, which were the colors in the inspiration photo I choose. This card was also colored with copics and highlighted with Spica glitter pens. You can see the glitter a little bit on this one.... It's always so hard to photo.

Let me know what you think. Thanks for looking... And thanks for all the nice welcome back comments. It's great to be back!