A "Timely" Post

Taking a few minutes to post today... I have these two card made with the In Hand set - I just love the style of that hand image! As much as I adore flowers, I do need to make more "guy" cards, and I think these work well (cuz let's be honest, not everyone is into golf or hunting ;)

For this first card, I added a bit of color with Prismacolor pencils, and layered it with BasicGrey paper. And I even dug into my embellishment stash and added a few of those metal things (photo turns?).

Playing off the time idea, I paired the image up with Ps 90:12. The hand is stamped in brilliance pearlescent olive ink, so it has a rich shimmer to it (but not over-the-top sparkley), and I just paired it up with some scraps of 7gypsies paper.

Speaking of scraps, our next smARTworks' Tea Party will feature "scraplings." So what are those? Well, basically it's a little card made from scraps - most frequently it's 1 1/4" x 4 1/4" (the little strip that's left if you chop a standard 5 1/2" x 4 1/4" card down into a square). So why don't you dig through the paper piled up on your desk - come on, we all have those, right?! - and join in the fun this coming Wednesday (4/8). If you have images from smARTworks please use them, but any and all stamps are welcome!

Time...

Time. I don't seem to have much of it these days - instead of having ink on my hands, it's paint. Ah, the joys of getting a house ready to sell! :) But enough blathering - on to the crafty stuff!

This card was made with the In Hand set, with the background script from One Smile. I started by randomly stamping the hand image onto a piece of the kids' drawing paper, then aged it up with a variety of scrunching, inking, and scraping. I then stamped the script onto a plain old white card base, and then browned it up through a mix of ink and twinkling H2Os (yes, it does have just a bit of shimmer to it). I then mounted the page onto the base, with the little bullnose clip to add interest. The final step was stamping the sentiment onto some scrap paper, then trimming out the words individually and adhering. Simple and fun!

So what else is going on? Well, Susan (yep, the smARTworks guru herself :) is hosting our next Tea Party and we're all going monochromatic. We'd love to have you join in the fun - the party is next Wednesday, Feb 11, so get stamping!! Susan has also launched a fabulous smART Bucks incentive program through which you can earn discounts or "purchase" this gorgeous Botanicals sheet. The images are stunning, and hopefully I can share some of my creations soon. And lastly, have you checked out From the Cookie Jar lately? I'm telling you, the ladies have been cranking out some beautiful cards lately.

Well, I'm off and running again. Hope you're all having a great week!

Playing Catch-Up

Can you believe it's already Monday - and that February is just a few days away?!? Yes, 2009 is already beginning to fly by...

As I was clearing up some stuff on the computer, I came across these two cards and realized I'd never shared them. They both feature the Clock Collage set, and the first one also uses the oh-so-versatile script block from One Smile and the sentiment is from Opportunity Trio. For the first one, I used textured card stock as the base, spritzed with glimmer mist. Gorgeous! I used a ribbon slot punch to create a filmstrip type effect with black cardstock, and I fancied up a stickpin with a few beads (and a dab of matte accents on the tip to prevent puncture wounds :)

The second is all about the contrast of black and white - I used patterned paper in opposite quadrants of the card base, and matted the image with black to make sure it "popped" against the white. Doesn't get any easier than that!!

And one last thing to attend to - our next smART Cookie Tea party is this Wednesday! Giovana is our hostess, and we're to bring out the "stitches and ribbon." Both would be lovely, of course, but she's graciously allowed one or the other - and faux stitching is even allowed :) Hope you can join in the fun...

Make every hour count

I realized that I had one last project from my cardmaking marathon that I hadn't shared. This little card (4 1/2" square) features another of the new images from smARTworks (clock collage) I stamped the main image with brilliance ink (love that bit of shimmer!), then layered it with BasicGrey Boxer paper. I layered it onto a card base made from rust cardstock, but it looked a bit too stark, so I stamped the script (One Smile) with versamagic wheat ink. Perfect way to break up the solid color without detracting from the focal image!

Another ATC

Well, I was reading over the info for tomorrow's event, and I realized that each person is allowed to enter two ATCs. So of course I had to make another one! These are the same size as a baseball card, so it's fun but also challenging to work on such a small canvas. This time I used patterned paper (BasicGrey - Scarlet's Letter), then layered on some funky lace, vellum, and die cut clock hands. The "tick tock" is stamped using Technique Tuesday's small Williamsburg alphabet (clear set), and then I handwrote "it's later than you think." And let me tell you, that's soooooo true! This girl needs to get to bed...

By the way, since I've mentioned several times that I've cut myself off from spending on craft stuff, I thought perhaps I should add a word of explanation about tomorrow. I am actually helping out at a vendor booth, so not only do I get in free, I even get paid to be there! I've adapted my personal challenge somewhat for tomorrow: I can't spend more than I earn. I'll have limited shopping time, which will certainly aid in that goal, but I am just looking for a few things so hopefully I can be a good li'l stamper. I'll report back on Monday!

My first ATC!

I'm going to the Allentown Rubber Stamp & Paper Arts Festival this weekend (more info here), and they're having a little ATC (Artist Trading Card) contest. The theme is Clocks: Tick, Tock, and the winner gets "rubber bucks" that can be used at any vendor booth. I've never made an ATC in my life, but the lure of freebies is just too tempting. I started with Going Gray cardstock, then stamped it with a few images from the "It's About Time" set. I then swiped over that with a few different colors of acrylic paint, and overstamped a few words. The finishing touch: some actual watch parts (purchased from this same expo, several years ago). I layered it onto some cardstock, so I now have my very first ATC. The small size is fun to work with, but I think I'll stick with cards for now. And you can bet I'll let y'all know if I do win!

day lived well. check.