Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!  Trick or Treat!  I finished my witches hat just in time... The Ranger blog is having a little contest for Halloween projects and I will be linking this up over there. They are sharing Candy's fabulous project on the blog and you need to go see how clever she was in creating her spooktacular project.

I got this hat partially created and then it sat for a long time waiting for me to get the inspiration to finish. The crafting contest had me pulling out my Visual Artistry set and Stampers Anonymous stamps to finish this.

The base is a paper mache witches hat.  I painted it with orange acrylic paint.  The background is stamped randomly with Memory Box Vintage Halloween in black ink.  The next step was apply Wendy Vecchi Black Embossing Paste over sequin waste randomly to apply a little texture.  After that dried it sat on my desk. :)

I then stamped the family from the Visual Artistry Journey set and cut them out to place them in my tulle bow.  I die cut branches from cardboard and painted them with a combination of Ranger Distress Stain - Walnut Stain and embossed with black embossing powder.   I stamped the spider using black ink on acetate and heat embossed using black embossing powder. I cut them out and attached them to the bow and the tree.

Now I am ready to go out on my broom. :)   Have a wonderful Halloween! I hope you get all treats and no tricks!

Suzz

All Hallows Eve

Are you all ready for Halloween?  We don't get any children by our house on Halloween so we go to my MIL house on Halloween to Trick or Treat and see all the cool costumes that people think up.  This morning I finished a tag and card for my daughters.

I used the Stampendous Owl  for my tag for my older daughter.

I had created this tag awhile ago using cardboard painted with white acrylic paint. I then layered on a distress stain upon which I added a crackle finish.  After it dried it looked like wood which gave me inspiration today to use the owl. I die cut branches and a stamped the Stampers Anonymous Halloween wish.  On the backside I added a pocket for a gift card and a Halloween wish.

I made this sweet card using the Stampendous Pumpkin Kiddo  for my youngest.  

 I created a few different mono printed backgrounds using a gelli plate with red, orange and white paint from Americana  I cut up the print to create the background and inside the card.

I stamped the pumpkin kiddo using black ink on white cardstock. I cut the circle around the image.  The girl is colored using STAEDTLER Karat Aquarell watercolor pencils.   I added an edge of micro orange glitter.

The inside has a pocket for a gift card for a local ice cream store.  My daughters love this place as it serves a soft frozen yogurt with a variety of toppings that you can scoop. 

I have one more Halloween project for tomorrow. I hope I have time to finish it off. :)  Have a lovely day!

Suzz

Charming

The challenge this week at  Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge is Anything Goes! That means anything that inspires you!  Come join in for a chance to win a $50 gift voucher at Simon Says Stamp!

I took this challenge to play with a little bit of everything following the thoughts of fairytales.

I started with a old Golden Book as the base.  I covered it with tissue paper which was decoupaged to the surface and covered in gold and bronze metallic sheen.  I added a coat of gold embossing paste over a stencil to add a damask texture.

I added layers of flowers, die cut text butterflies and a dimensional Eiffel Tower.  I took an idea-ology birdcage and trapped a heart gem inside.  The edges were covered with tissue tape and colored with a touch of gold paint.

The inside pages are different sizes and shapes:

As you turn each page you can see the layers built into the pages to allow different opportunities for journalling and photos:

I added text with the harlequin stencil painted in white and pink acrylic paints.

The reverse side has sprays. The edges were torn and gilded with gold.

A few accents to coordinate and the back inside cover includes a layer of die cut cardboard.

The back cover and view:

The front cover finished and put together:

Products: Metallic Finishes, Memory Box Butterfly Die, Sizzix Fleur De Lis & Eiffel Tower Die, Flowers, Prima Flowers Flourish Stencil, Wendy Vecchi Gold Embossing Paste, 7 Gypsies Metro Tape, Idea_Ology Regal Adornments, Tim Holtz Idea-ology Bird Cage Charm, The Crafters Workshop Harlequin Stencil, White Paint, Pink Paint

Don't forget the challenge was moved and the new blog is up here:

Come play along with us at  Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge for a chance to win a $50 Gift voucher from  Simon Says Stamp.

Thanks for stopping by!


Suzz

Christmas Tag

I am back with my second tag...   I am playing along with Linda's Funkie Junkie Tags and this one is inspired by week #5 sponsored by her Funkie Junkie Boutique.   

Linda's tag had a sweet Santa image framed out in the center of the tag.  I started with wooden frame which I backed with a stamped image of Father Christmas.  I stained the frame with brown distress stain and added hints of gold with gold paint and embossing paste.  The background is a mix of paints, stamping, tissue paper, and distress inks. I died ribbon and lace to coordinate.

Products:  Ranger Distress Stain - Walnut, Ranger Archival Ink - Coffee, Brown Pearls, Brown Lace, Twine, Ranger Distress Ink  - Vintage Photo, Aged Mahogany  Artistic Outpost - Snowy Woods, Ranger Distress Paint - Gold, Ranger Distress Stains - Gold

Thanks for stopping by!

Suzz

Beauty of the Season

Happy Friday!  It took me all week to create two tags. Slow creative process. :)  I am playing along with Linda's Funkie Junkie Tags sponsored by her Funkie Junkie Boutique.  I also mixed in the colors from the Mixed Media Color Challenge #10 into one of my tags.  I am going to share that tag today and share my other tag later this week. 

I didn't have some of the elements found in Linda's  tag, so I decided to focus on the layout and the design.    The background was created using a gelli plate, sequin waste and pearlized paint.  After it had dried I smeared a dye ink over the surface to capture the pattern and the coral color found in the challenge. I added birds from Artistic Outpost and colored them with STAEDTLER Karat Aquarell pencils.  The flowers were dabbed with gold paint.  The trim is metallic and from Ranger / Tim Holtz smeared with the same gold paint.  The background is painted with Ranger Metallic Stains.

Products: Artistic Outpost - Snowy Woods, Artistic Outpost - Midwinter, Birds of a Feather, Ranger Distress Paint - Gold, Ranger Distress Stains - Gold, Brass, Pewter,  Ranger Archival Ink - Coffee, STAETDLER - Karat Aquarell Watercolor Pencils

My inspiration:

Thanks for stopping by!

Suzz

Trick or Treat?

Are you ready for Halloween?  I haven't made my annual Halloween cards for my kiddos yet.  The challenge this week at  Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge is spooky.  This will get me inspired to work on my cards for my kids.   

I decided to pull out my beeswax and melt pot to play around with a mix of textures.

The background has a hint of stamping in brown ink. I then added a layer of blue mist and green paint.  I decided to put my beeswax over the stamped image. I poured the beeswax over the background and then added a touch of sequin wasted in the corners with the beeswax  poured over the waste. After it cooled down I pulled it off and smeared gold paint over the texture.  

The vintage witch is stamped on the background in brown ink and then stamped onto tissue paper using black ink and decoupaged onto the surface. 

The sentiment is from stickers with a hint of blue dye ink smeared over the surface. I painted metal letters and framed them with a touch of black twine. The edges were gilded with the gold paint.

The ribbon and lace were spritzed with mist and touches of gold paint.


Products: Artistic Outpost Vintage Halloween, BeesWax, Melt Pot, Idea-ology Seasonal Chit Chat Stickers, Sequin Waste, Ranger Archival Black Ink, Coffee Ink, Paper Artsy Fresco Finish - Mermaid, Limelight, Prima Numbers, Ranger Distress Paints - Gold,
Lace, Ribbon, Twine

Come play along with us at  Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge for a chance to win a $50 Gift voucher from  Simon Says Stamp.

Stampendous and Scrapbook Adhesives Hop On

Today is the grand finale for the Stampendous Design Team and  Scrapbook Adhesives by 3L blog hop! 

For my project today I used one of my mixed media backgrounds I created last weekend.  I pulled out the background  and cut it into a tag shape.

I distressed the edges with green ink.  I stamped the Cling Snow Bird and the branch twice once on the tag and another on white cardstock. I colored the bird using distress stains and a waterbrush. I used the Scrapbook Adhesives by 3L  foam squares to pop up my bird.  I embossed the images using Stampendous embossing powder.  I added Stampendous Ultra-fine red glitter to the berries and gave them a coating of crystal glitter.  The background has a smattering of the Mica flakes.  The Christmas Blessings stamp was stamped in brown and embossed with brown embossing powder.

Hop along for inspiration from the rest of the design team:

Stampendous Impessions

Scrapbook Adhesives Blog

Asia King
Cyndi Bundy

Jamie Martin

Janelle Stollfus

Krissy Fossmeyer

Kristine Reynolds

Lea Kimmel

Rhea Weigand

Suzanne Czosek

Tenia Renee Nelson

Tobi Crawford

Don't forget to leave comments for a chance to win one of three fantastic prizes!

Thanks for stopping by!

Suzz

Artistic Outpost October Design Team Hop

Welcome to the Artistic Outpost Design Team Monthly Hop.  The design team whipped up a variety of fun projects for the hop this month! 

I was lucky enough to have some crafty time on Saturday with Lisa and we created a variety of mixed media backgrounds together.  I picked one of the backgrounds as the inspiration for my card.

Products: Artistic Outpost - Typography, Artistic Outpost - PaperBoy, Artistic Outpost - Loverly London, The Crafters Workshop Stencil, Tim Holtz Stencil, Wendy Vecchi Gold Embossing Paste, Ranger Distress Paint - Mushroom, Ranger Archival Ink - Coffee

Hop along for inspiration from the rest of the team:

Gerrie

Lisa

Suzanne

Tracy

Linda

Allison

Terry

Kate

Thanks for stopping by!

Suzz

Stampendous & Scrapbook Adhesives Hop

All week the Stampendous Design Team is hopping along with  Scrapbook Adhesives by 3L!   There are three prize packages up for grabs.  You just have to hop along all week and comment on the projects. Three randomly selected comments from all the comments will be selected to win the prize package.

My card today is celebrates a little Halloween fun:

I stamped the background panel using a teal ink and the Stampendous Haunting background stamp.  I paired it with some fun papers in teals and orange.  My center image is the Wicked Owl from Stampendous.  I gave him height and dimension using the Scrapbook Adhesives 3D Foam Squares. I love these squares and use them all the time.

I taped down all my panels using the EZ runner permanent tape.  The images were colored with watercolor pencils.  The circle was sponged with Ranger Distress Inks - Rusty Hinges.

Hop along to see all the fun projects:

Stampendous Impressions 

Scrapbook Adhesives Blog

Janelle Stollfus

Suzanne Czosek (me)

Tobi Crawford

Here is the prize package:

Thanks for stopping by!

Suzz

Voyage

The Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge is Nautical Nonsense. Anything nautical related can be your inspiration.

I interpreted the challenge as an opportunity to pull out my brand new DarkRoom Door Sail Away set.

 I smeared the surface of a  map from an old Atlas with a touch of white paint. I stamped the images using Ranger Archival ink onto the dried map. I highlighted the image with a touch of color using watercolor pencils and waterbrush.

I decided to add a touch of hemp with metal findings. The edges were distressed and mounted on a kraft cardbase.

Products: DarkRoom Door Sail Away,  Stampers Anonymous Classics #1, Hemp, Prima Junkyard Jean Findings, Waterbrush, Brad, Distressing Tool, White Acrylic Paint

Come play along with us at  Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge for a chance to win a $50 Gift voucher from  Simon Says Stamp.

Thanks for stopping by!

Suzz

Fall

Happy Fall!  We are having some beautiful fall days here.  We just went apple picking a few weekends ago and this card is reminiscent of that.

I used the new Artistic Outpost Hayride plate along with the ruler from the Whimsical Melange plate. Unfortunately the local farm stands around here typically don't have fruit or vegetables that are homegrown as the time to grow them takes all summer. :) 

I also used a ticking stamp from the Kudzu Kafe to create my pattern in the background.  I distressed the edges with a distressing tool and sponged on brown dye ink.
The images are colored with STAEDTLER Karat Aquarell watercolor pencils with a touch of white highlight from a Signo Uni-Ball Gel pen.

Have a wonderful Friday!

Suzz

Trick or Cheese?

I love the sweet House Mouse images.  I am having fun coloring the images and the kids love the sweet images too!  I am sharing two of the Halloween images released by Stampendous. 

Th image was stamped using water resistant ink and colored with STAEDTLER Karat Aquarell watercolor pencils.  I created a spotty background by using an eraser on a pencil and inked it up with dye ink and stamped it on the background. I added a touch of watercolor pencil to the circles.  I then stamped the sentiment using the tiny alphabet and dye ink.

Products: Stampendous - Trick or Cheese , Tiny Alphabet

My second card is something I shared previously on the Crafts N Things blog. 

The images are colored with STAEDTLER Karat Aquarell watercolor pencils.  The image is Stampendous - Dino Treats.  


Have a wonderful day!

Suzz

The Funkie Junkie Twelve Tags

Linda is hosting a twelve tags challenge over on her blog sponsored by her boutique The Funkie Junkie Boutique.  I have been delinquent in playing along with her fabulous tags so today I have 3 tags to share for her first three weeks.

Tag 1 inspired by her beautiful tag #1: 

 Linda's tag showcases the beautiful blackboard stamps from AO.  I decided to use a scrap I had of blackboard cardstock. I stamped Stampendous flowers and berries using versamark and heat embossed using Ivory embossing powder. I pulled a sentiment from Penny Black for the sentiment. .  I then tied multiple ribbons on the top in coordinating colors. I smeared chalk over the embossed areas to add a hint of color.  I added a touch of pink stickles on the berries to add texture.

Tag 2 inspired by her lovely tag #2:

 I loved the soft golden hues on tag two and three so I created the backgrounds of my tags by using a Gold stain over the white cardstock. I then added a layer of Lustre (Gold) over the stained background.  I then added a touch of bronze paint stains.   I dug through my die cut stars and deer and heat embossed them using Aged Gold Embossing Enamel (Stampendous).  I repeated until there was a nice thick coat of embossing and then stamped with a swirl stamp from Hero Arts and script from Stampers Anonymous on the stars.  The background is stamped with stamps from Artistic Outpost.

Tag 3 inspired by her golden tag #3: 

This one I started with the gold embossing paste on the stars but decided to use the Santa and when I added him I wanted to emboss him with black embossing powder which then attached to the gold stars so everything went black embossing powder. :)  I added a sentiment form AO new plate Christmas Chalk.  I wasn't happy with the end result. I do like the striking black with the gold background.  I will have to redo it in the future using some of the elements.

Thanks for stopping by!

Suzz

Foil & Muslin

The Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge this week is about being inspired by the extremely talented  Tammy Tutterow.  All you have to do is hop over to her blog find something that inspires you and share it with us at the Monday Challenge! 

There are so many fun tutorials on Tammy's blog I had a hard time choosing one to play with.  I decided on one of her tutorials featured here that uses sticky back metallic sheets.

Can I just say that I am glad life doesn't have to be perfect to be wonderful?  That just sums up my design aesthetic.  If I make a card with clean lines it takes me 4-5 times as I really have a hard time not smudging or tearing something. This technique was right up my alley.

I started with a sheet of metallic foil with the sticky side placed up.  I took a lovely sheet of the Pink Paislee Hope Chest double sided paper and placed the side I wanted showing through up onto the sticky side of the foil. (My first mistake as I was supposed to put it face down. )  I then spritzed with water until I could start rubbiing off the top layer of the paper. 

This is what it looked like while I was working on it. You have to decide how much paper you want to remove on your background.  The more paper you leave on the background the easier to apply the watercolor over the surface.

I then stamped the flowers over the surface using Black Versafine and heated it with black embossing powder. I repeated until I had covered the surface.  I stamped the sentiment in the top left corner using the same technique.  I stamped two additional butterflies on an extra piece of the background.

Color the images and butterfly using watercolor pencils and waterbrush to soften the colors. Cut out the butterflies and attach.

My second technique was inspired by the distressed linen post.

The distressed linen technique reminded me of a technique I had discovered while painting muslin.  While working on a previous project I painted muslin with white acrylic paint. After I had painted the muslin   I lifted up the muslin and  there was an imprint of the linen on the craft mat. I loved the washed out effect of the texture of the fabric created by the paint on the craft mat.  For this tag I started with a piece of kraft cardstock.

I stored the muslin for later use and took the kraft cardstock and cut it into the shape of a tag.  You can see it is uneven coat and not perfect but gives a lovely texture.

The next step was to apply gold embossing paste around the edges.  I let this dry.  I then repeated with touches of silver embossing paste over the surface and used a damask stencil to apply sections of silver embossing paste.

After everything dried I stamped script over the background randomly using Stazon black ink. I then stamped the other images onto tissue paper using stazon and applied them with decoupage.  I added black gems to hang my chandeliers.

To add the sentiment I added a smear o fwhite paint to the tag.  Let that dry and stamp the sentiment using the StazOn ink.

 I wanted to show the ribbon up close. I glimmer msited the ribbon with gold and waited for it to dry and then used the same stencil with gold embossing paste and applied a layer of damask to the ribbon.

Products: Artistic Outpost Paris Exposition, Visual Artistry - French Connection, Wendy Vecchi Gold Embossing Paste, Wendy Vecchi Silver Embossing Paste,  PaperArtsy Hot Pick 1009, Stampers Anonymous - Wonderful Life White Acrylic Paint, Muslin, Black Gems, StazOn Black Ink, Art C Damask Stencil, Tissue Paper, Metallic Foil Sheets, Pink Paislee Hope Chest, Signo Uni-Ball White Gel Pen, Hero Arts Butterfly,

Come join in and share your Tammy inspired project with us at  Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge for a chance to win a $50 Gift voucher for  Simon Says Stamp.

Thanks for stopping by!

Suzz

Create, Fly, Dream

Good Morning!  I started playing yesterday with some new stamps, dies, and stencils that I won over at the Mixed Media  Color Challenge.  They are My Favorite Things Designed by Mona Pendleton.  I decided why not use them with the new Mixed Media Color Challenge.

I started with the stencil and a light blue paint. I smeared it randomly over the background.  I loved the effect and was thinking mermaid. :)  I then aided spritzes of pink glimmer mist in areas over the background. I then added a smear of white paint around the edges.  I stenciled on the butterflies and stamped a few in red.

I stamped the lovely sentiment along the bottom.  I then found some Kelly purkey stickers to add my words smeared in pink ink.

The challenge inspiration photo:

 Products: MPD Winged Beauties,     Stencil MPD Scallops,   Stencil MPD Winged Beauties,  Kelly Purkey Simons Says Stamp Exclusive Stickers

Have a wonderful Sunday!

Suzz

Tim's October Tag

Tim's October tag really challenged me as I had none of the shapes he used on his tag.  I decided to use my tag background I created a few months ago for his tag. I decided to add an owl in a silly birdcage using the bright colors he used in his tag.

 The background was created last month and I added a touch of purple paint to the surface. I then used the stamps from Artistic Outpost Whimsical Melange, Gothic 31, Halloween Treats, Vintage Halloween.

Have a wonderful Thursday!

Suzz