The other dogwood card

One more non-Christmas card to finish out the week - here is another card made with the Double Dogwood set from smARTworks. I mentioned how my colors and combos get a little more bold when I'm under pressure...you should have seen where this one was going before...somehow turquoise and blue got involved in the color mix. Thankfully I came to my senses and just went with a mix of pinks instead. The image is colored with Prismacolor pencils, and a bit of white acrylic paint.

Tweaking again....

....but this time over at the Digisig Diner. Hopefully it's a little easier to get around in now, with information on separate pages instead of in tiny print on the sidebar. I'm still adding more samples, contending with a twitchy internet connection...grr...

Impression Obsession DT Challenge: Shaker cards

Today the I.O. team is featuring a new product - Shake-It Pouches! This was my first time working with these self-adhesive shaker enclosures, and they are so fun and easy to use. Here is some info from the Impression Obsession Winter 2009 supplement catalog:

Brand new from Impression Obsession! These self-adhesive shaker pouches make creating shaker cards and shaker elements for your scrapbooks quick and easy. We have five different sizes and shapes to choose from. These pouches are self-adhesive; you simply stamp your image, place your shaker materials in the middle, and peel and stick the shaker pouch on top. Cover the lip with an overlay or frame, and your shaker card is done! No more tedious placing of foam tape on acetate. They are only 1/8" deep so can be mailed without additional postage. Everyone loves to receive these cute cards, and now you can make them just as quickly as a plain card!

I found that the Coluzzle oval template had a size that fit the oval pouches perfectly, so I worked with that shape this time...I guess I'll have to order more! At $5 for 10 of them, and remembering the pain of making those little frames with foam tape and acetate...I'm sold...

This card was quick and super simple. I used an image from the Birthday Cakes clear set, colored it quickly with Neopiko markers and added a few dots of white acrylic paint. I laid down my colored panel and poured out a little confetti in the center of it. Next, I removed the liner from my Shake-It Pouch, aligned it over my image, and set it down over the image, trapping the confetti in. I cut a corresponding-sized oval in the striped panel and arranged the scalloped panel and ribbon around the opening, then positioned the panel over the shaker element. Next, shake, shake, shake... come on, you know you want to!

I'm not crazy about how this card photographed, but I'll share it anyway...I messed with the colors and got it a little too 'something'. But I like the fish and the idea, so here's a quick rundown of how I made this card:

Stamps used:
Funky Fish clear set
Birthday Cakes clear set('birthday')
Sentiments I – Add-ons

The sentiments set includes the word 'wishes' and an alphabet - I inked up all but the 'w' and then stamped in the single 'f'. Heehee!

For the shaker element - I stamped the vines and fish in pigment ink on watercolor paper, then embossed them with clear detail powder. I laid a mask over the scene and sponged Stream ink from the bottom up, then blended the ink with a waterbrush. I added some shading to the fish with Neopiko markers. Just wanted to show you that the shaker pouches are deep enough to use dew drops for your shake-y element!

Be sure to check out what the rest of the team did to Shake-It up....their links are to the left!

Pearlescent Dogwoods

Let's take a break from Christmas cards this week, huh? I want to share this card - when I ordered my last batch of stamps from smARTworks my eye fell on lots of floral stamps in the catalog that begged to be colored... Susan recently started carrying Niji Pearlescent Watercolors too, so that factor thrown into the mix resulted in this sparkly card. This is Double Dogwood, by artist Darlene Poole of Heavenly Smiles Original Designs. I love large florals...

I used a sentiment from the Hummer set - that's a gorgeous set by Darlene too, with lots of versatile sentiments. The background flourish image is from the Stella set, and that background panel was embossed with plastic canvas.

The flowers are watercolored with the Pearlescents - I stamped the image 3 times and layered the flowers, shaping them a little while they were wet. I remembered a tip from Linda Duke about shaping flowers by laying them in your hand and pressing the center into your palm - I did that to these while they were still wet and let them dry first before layering them on my card. Each flower has a little Crystal Lacquer and Diamond Dust in the center. Check out the shimmer on those petals!

New site!

Heartfelt Creations will be debuting their new-and-improved-and-super-spiffy website on Tuesday, Nov. 17th, so be sure to check over there for lots of new features! If you haven't signed up for their newsletter, do it now - there will be a special email sent to their readers Monday night with a newsletter-exclusive coupon, plus you get a coupon for signing up anyway...!

Beary Cozy

I made this a while back and forgot to post it! This is Beary Cozy, one of Heartfelt Creations' line of bear stamps (click HERE to see them all!). There's something about the way he is snugged right up in that blanket, with it wrapped around his arm...guess I just miss feeling that cozy here in the tropics! I just pretend, in our air-conditioned office... heh...

This image is perfect for a layered paper tole technique, and was fun to color too. I stamped him 3 times (I think), and colored each layer with Neopiko markers and Prismacolor pencils. I've had the quilt paper for a while, and when I saw this image thought immediately of using the quilt paper - with all the pastels it makes a great gender-neutral baby card. I pierced around the edge at each printed stitch, just for fun.

Tweaked!

Thought I'd spend some time this morning unwinding and messing around with my blog. I was getting tired of the darkness of it. Kinda like this though...whaddaya think?

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.............

If you have the Tim Holtz ruler with the grid on the back (Idealogy line) do NOT clean it with the odorless mineral spirits you have sitting on your desk........ *sob*........no more grid on mine......

Gratitude

Just a reminder that there's a new monthly challenge underway at the smART-word Challenge blog! The word of the month is Gratitude, and I chose to use that word as an inspiration for this simple thank you card (which one of these days I will mass-produce to show our gratitude to our faithful supporters...but ugh, I hate mass-production...). I used 2 of my DK sets for this card: Combo Sentiments & Dance. The border strip that goes across is embossed with a Cuttlebug die that I ran through my Zipemate with the embossing pad instead of the cutting plate. Here's a close-up on the flower, so you can see how I layered it...there is foam tape between each layer. The finished card size is 4-1/4" square.

New Stamps at smARTworks

Are you ready for a new stamp release? Susan over at smARTworks has added new pages to the online catalog! You never know what you may find there...there's a little bit of everything this time!

Click here to go directly to the new catalog pages - the new release starts on page 179.

Here is some artwork that I contributed to this new batch of stamp sets....

(Yep, that's my Benny in the 'Wonder' set...I designed that set with gratitude, thinking of the time we nearly lost him to Dengue Fever...wow, did we see the marvelous works of God then!)

Sooooo........whatcha think?