New Challenge - Fall

You may have noticed that the smARTworks Design Team hasn't had a "Tea Party" in awhile... well, we've changed things up and have launched a new challenge! You can find all the details over at the smART word blog - but the basic gist is to create a card inspired by the word fall. Pretty easy, right?!
Now that we're in South TX, I'm missing the beautiful fall colors, so decided to recreate them here. I randomly inked up the leaf image from Revel with a variety of Brilliance inks (love those little Dew Drop pads!) to create the background, and the sentiment is from Wave Good-Bye. The spine of the card was scored, glued, punched, and laced up, so the part that opens is 4 1/4" square. And you see that lovely leaf embellishment? Well, that was liberated from my kids' craft stash (leaf craft kits from Oriental Trading). The hazards of having a craft crazed mother - nothing is safe! :)

Another Tea Party!

So here we are again with another smART Cookie Tea Party! As mentioned in my last post, Giovana provided this lovely inspiration piece. Somehow in my mind, these bright flowers translated to a fallish card (I'm blaming it all on the orange!)

So here's my little creation, made with smARTworks' Wave Good-bye and the flourish from Stella. I started by misting some white cardstock with a couple colors of glimmer mist, then I stamped the sentiment. I trimmed that down, then took the excess cardstock and layered on a few more colors; I then stamped the leaves onto that and trimmed them. For the orange panel, I stamped the flourish along the side and bottom of the orange panel, then added the sentiment and placed the three leaves. I love it when a card goes together this quickly!

Susan, Dina and Giovana will be posting their creations throughout the day, and we'd love to have you play along as well. Just leave a comment so we can check it out! And if you upload to SCS, please use keyword SCPT2.

Make Each Day Count

Another fun card with the Leaves #1 Set from smARTworks. I started by stamping the leaf on plain white cardstock with Ancient Page ink, and then I coated it with Ranger Crackle Effects. I used a piece of scratch paper to spread it pretty thin, so I'd get fine "crackling." I let it dry overnight, and then went to work on it this morning. I rubbed in three different Distress inks, then layered it onto a piece of burgundy cardstock (darkened with ink). I also distressed the edges on that, and then accented the panel with a round clip and ribbon (SU). But now what to do for the rest of the card? I settled on the pretty patterned paper from Rusty Pickle; it reminds me of a calico print. I used just a small piece (with the edge distressed, of course), and then adhered it to the card base (SU River Rock). The final touch was the sentiment (from To Life!) which I split using my SAMJ. I'm very pleased with the final result - I think it showcases the gorgeous leaf quite nicely.

Enjoy the Journey

We've just returned from a mini-vacation; we rented a cabin at a nearby state park for a few days, and had a wonderful time. I made this card before we left, anticipating our "journey," but didn't get it posted.

I stamped the leaves (smARTworks, Leaves #1) in gold encore ink, then sprinkled on a variety of colored embossing powders. (Hint: next time you have a food sample with a little spoon, save the spoon for projects like this!) I layered some scraps of brown cardstock onto the artichoke base, and stamped the sentiment (To Life!) on mustard. I added a single copper brad for a bit more dimension, then adhered everything.

Hope you're enjoying whatever journey you're on today!!

Golden Leaves

Our temps were definitely feeling more fall-like last night, so I thought I'd share these two cards featuring the Leaves #1 Set from smARTworks (seen here). I started out with a fairly large piece of white glossy cardstock and stamped the leaves with gold brilliance ink. Next, I overstamped them with burgundy ink, and then sponged on burgundy and rust. The photos don't really do it justice, but I promise it's quite lovely.

This first card also uses the Blessings set (here). I first stamped the sentiment with the gold ink, but it didn't show up well enough. The handy, dandy stamp-a-ma-jig to the rescue! I lined it up just slightly to the left, then stamped again in black. Great effect! I also edged the main panel with a sliver of gold paper (taken from a wedding invitation envelope I had saved).

After I made the first card, I had a decent sized piece of the leaf print left, so I decided to make this second card. This time, I used Psalm 31:14-15 (here) It got a bit murky when I resized the photo, but it says, "But I have trusted in thee O Lord; I said, Thou art my God. My times are in thine hand." I layered the leaf square onto a piece of black. I punched the corners (retired SU southwest punch), then wrapped it with gold cord to frame it out. It's also popped up on foam dots for added dimension. In my recent sorting spree, I discovered some black foam dots that I had forgotten about, which worked beautifully for this project. White foam can be very distracting when layered between two dark colors...

Hope you all have a great day!!