Saturday 28 September 2013

Muse #36


Welcome to a Muse challenge post. This is one of my favourite challenges, and I've been absent for awhile, focussing on outdoor pursuits, but am excited to dive back in on this rainy, fall day.
 
If you've seen the card showcased over at Muse for inspiration, you may be wondering how on earth I got to here from there?
Good question! I started out with some lovely weed-type stamps, and did some silhouettes, adding white embossing and sponging on top like Karen M did above, but wasn't overly impressed with my results. I decided to change things up and try some leaves instead, a move that was inspired by this empty Kleenex box:
Once I had the silhouette background stamped, I couldn't bring myself to add embossing or sponging to it because it looked somehow "finished", so this is what I ended up with.
Although it does look entirely different than the original inspiration (and more like a Kleenex box!), it does have a similar layout, a silhouette background, and a butterfly element as a finishing touch. And I'm a little infatuated with it at the moment, so I'm opting to post it rather than starting all over again! Hope you like it , too.

Thanks for stopping by,
T

Supplies
PTI: turning a new leaf set, wonderful words dies, fine linen cardstock and ink
SU: bitty butterfly punch, silver, white and smoky slate cardstock, smoky slate ink
Other: scrap of white cardstock, Recollections pearls

Wednesday 25 September 2013

FFC17/PTI Blog Hop

Hi there,
 
I hope you are getting lovely fall weather like we are seeing here in Manitoba. It was a gorgeous day, and it's a little hard to think about Christmas right now, but it's deadline day for another Festive Friday Challenge, this time a color challenge in navy, white and silver. I decided to combine that theme with the September PTI Blog Hop today, a wreath challenge.
I die cut a few layers of SU brushed silver card stock with the wreath die from MFT, and blinged it up a little with some silver ribbon and rhinestones from Michael's. I embossed a PTI Think Big Faves greeting in silver on enchanted evening cardstock, then dry embossed a background with their plaid impression plate, and adhered everything to stampers' select white card base. Pretty simple. I just wish I could capture the sparkle of the rhinestones in a photo!
 
Thanks for stopping by,
T
September-Blog-Hop

Wednesday 11 September 2013

FFC16

It's Festive Friday deadline time. I did make this card last night, but had to wait 'til after work today to get some pics in daylight conditions. Was so thoughtful of my kitty to help me out by climbing in the back of this photo! Can you see her butt on the left side?
Here's my furry baby, Jezebelle. You'd think she was part dog the way she follows me around!
This is a trigger challenge to make a holiday project based on the word "peace", so I decided to use a negative die cut of the word peace from PTI's wonderful words as my focal point and keep the rest of the card fairly simple and serene. The background is a monochromatic snowflake pattern from an older SU DSP pack that was called wintergreen, or something along those lines.
I added "joy & love" from the wonderful words additions set, and some snowflakes from an old wood mounted stamp in silver embossing. It still needed a little sparkle, so I embossed 3 lines, and adhered 2 strips of scor tape and added some dazzling diamonds glitter. Lastly, I popped up the white panel and the little bits with foam tape for some added dimension.


Thanks for stopping by,
T

Tuesday 10 September 2013

OLW156

Welcome to One Layer Wednesday! This week's challenge is hosted by Ardyth, and the theme is paint chip - a one layer project all in one color, in varying shades. After a couple of attempts, I decided on purple in plum shades: lavender moon from PTI, and orchid opulence (or fairy vomit, as Susan calls it!) and rich razzleberry from SU. The orchid actually looks a little more lavender in this lighting than in real life, and it's hard to tell the that greeting is in rich razzleberry. The flower on the right is also razzleberry, but stamped off. Unfortunately I was too late to get a daylight photo. The days are getting so short already.

I started out trying to do a masculine card with green polka dots. It was awful! Then I switched to floral, which worked out OK, until I smudged the greeting a bit!
I did sort of salvage it with a blender pen. It's not perfect, but not too noticeable.
 
Thanks for stopping by,
T

Tuesday 3 September 2013

OLW155

It's September. Can you believe it? It stills feels like summer, and I wish it was, but my husband went back to work today, so I guess it's officially time to get back into a routine. And get back to stamping more regularly!

When I saw that Karen was doing a silhouette challenge for this week's One Layer Wednesday, I decided to dive in. I absolutely adore silhouettes, and have a ton of stamps that work well for this technique, so I just needed to decide which one to use. It wasn't a hard choice because I had a new set from PTI (Meadow Greens) that was dying to be test driven. I stamped the images in sepia Versafine ink, and blocked off an area to sponge with chartreuse and limeade ice ink from PTI, plus daffodil and peach from SU. The card base is rustic cream from PTI.

This was my first attempt, which went a little awry:
 I stamped the images with SU espresso ink, and it smudged a bit when I sponged over it. It may have been fine if I had dried it better first?  I also got a dark smudge at the bottom where the greeting was supposed to go. No problem. I just cut the back off, then sliced of the smudge to make a square card face, and trimmed it down a smidge so it could mounted on a 4 1/4 x 4 1/4" espresso card base, giving it a bit of a frame. I hate to waste cardstock, so if I can figure out a way to salvage a mistake, I'm all over it. A little ribbon, and label to house a greeting, and voila! I got two cards out of this effort - one that is one layer, and one that is not.

Thanks for stopping by,
T