Butterflies and Brocade

City Crafter Challenge this week is to show the inside and outside of your card.  I paired the challenge up with the Fashionable Stamping Challenge #18 - Butterflies or Bugs.

 I took the idea and made a window card.  So the pretty inside can show on the outside. :) 

Here is the front of the card on an angle so you can see the frame is lifted which will hopefully protect the butterflies in transit.

 And the inside:

I didn't put a sentiment or verse inside yet. I will add something when it goes to it's final destination. :)

The background is created using that beautiful Brocade Background stamp from Our Daily Bread and the Butterfly Bush is from the Faith set and the sentiment form the Simple Things Set.

I used Walnut Stain Distress Ink and added a touch of pink watercolor pencil to the butterflies. Blended with a waterbrush.

The background is stamped multiple times using the walnut stain dye ink and smeared with white acrylic paint.

I punched the border and added a strip of the background to the inside to highlight the punched border. 

The sketch is from Wee Memories Challenge.  This is Jenny's last challenge and I was happy to play along one more time.

Hope your day is fabulous! 

Suzz

Dreams and Flowers

Happy Memorial Day!  We are planning on grilling out later and definitely spending some time in the pool. The weather is going to be very lovely and warm today. My MIL is coming over later to share in our dinner. I will have to clean off the patio set so we can eat outside if the weather permits. (My youngest loves to eat out on the deck and is going to be thrilled)

I had a chance to play in a couple of challenges today and was thrilled to see Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge was to use your favorite stamp. Wee memories challenge is to be inspired by pinterest or etsy which are  both great sources of inspiration.

Here are my cards created by a little inspiration mixed with some of my favorite stamps:

and a second card created at the same time with the same idea...

The beautiful inspiration photo from Etsy a picture taken by Liz Garnett:

The Agapanthus stamp from Stampendous is one of my many favorites and worked beautifully with the inspiration photo.  I also added in a few of my other favorites: Websters Pages papers, Hero Arts Antique Engravings Butterfly, and my Verses Rubbers Stamps.

I had so much fun playing with some of my many favorite products today!
Have a wonderful day!

Suzz

Friends - Wee Memories Challenge # 57 - Stamp It

Wee Memories challenge this week is to Stamp It and I thought it would be fun to ink up these fun girlfriends and create a card with them.  I am sure my DD's will want to use this for one of their friends. 

The image is drawn by Mo Manning. I am a huge fan of her work. (Thanks to Alice and her lovely cards using Mo's images I started looking for her images in rubber)  There are a couple of companies carrying her images in rubber and I purchased the BFF stamp from Stamping Bella.  The background is the friends definition from Hero Arts. The sentiment came with the image and a wonderful sentiment for the image.

The image was stamped on watercolor paper and colored with markers and a water brush. The background was stamped with brown pigment ink. The ground was painted with the waterbrush and distress ink.

The butterflies are cut using the new Memory Box Butterfly Delight die cut and Memory Box dots paper.

The little tags are from a Hero Arts clear sentiment set.

Hope your Saturday is off to a good start. I have a few errands to run today and lots of cleaning. (Sigh) Seems like the dust bunnies have been playing in my house this week.

Thanks for stopping by!

Suzz

Happy St. Patty's Day!

I wanted to create a special card to celebrate St. Patty's Day.  This card is also posted on the Outside the Box blog today and is for the Wee Memories - Challenge #47 Green is Here!

This will go in the cards box  for next years St. Patty's Days birthdays.

I started with stamping the lovely Memory Box Shamrock stamp using Memento Bamboo leaves onto music paper from a learning how to play the piano book. Hand cut and sponge the edges with brown dye ink.

Stamp background using Renaissance Tile (Memory Box) repeatedly using same green dye ink over white cardstock.

Stamp sentiment (Memory Box Happy Birthday Candle) using brown pigment ink.

Have a blessed day!

Suzz

A Touch of Spring

I decided to use up a few scraps I have had on my desk and play in a couple of challenges. Wee Memories challenge #42 this week is to use up scraps and Flourishes challenge is The Winter Thaw Challenge .

Here is what I created:

Here is the inspiration photo from Flourishes:

It felt good to create a card using flowers and butterflies! LOL! The three backgrounds on the sentiment and card have one piece from pattern paper and two I created to look like the other one. (Frustrating as I only had one scrap of the PP and couldn't find any others so I had to create my own two backgrounds. :) Can you tell which is the pattern paper?

The rest is stamping, embossing and coloring using a variety of techniques. (copics, watercolor pencils)

Products: Verses QQ0830-D Spring, Hero Arts - DesignBlock Large Flower Pattern S5471, Hero Arts Antique Engravings, Old Letter Writing S4878

Hope your day is wonderful!

Suzz

Pretty in Pink and Gold

I had fun this morning playing with some Tattered Angels Chalkboard Paint. The colors were inspired by the Moxie Fab World - Color Inspiration - Metallic.  The other challenges include: Wee Memories Challenge #40 Anything Goes, Simon Says Stamp - Bingo (Glimmer, Ribbon, Gems), Tuesday Throwdown - Distressing, Card Patterns - Sketch #99

I am a big fan of the Pure Innocence images and this one is so sweet with her little fairy wings and magic wand. This card will be for one of my daughters although they both are not interested in pink anymore. I still love the pink though! :)

Products: Impression Obsession Coverall, Pure Innocence, Hero Arts - Valentines Sayings, Crepe Paper, Tattered Angels - Chalkboard Strawberry Shortcake

The second card was created for the Moxie Fab challenge as well using The Paper Companies papers. After I finished it I realized it looked so much like other cards I have been making that I decided to do something completely different.

Papers: The Paper Company, Verses Rubber Stamps - MA0322-F, Sizzix Die Cut, Spellbinders Butterfly

Hope your day is wonderful!

Suzz

Got Directions?

The challenge at  Wee Memories challenge this week is Anything Goes. The sponsor is iCopic which means the prize is fabulous! (Ciaos)

This is my card for the challenge:

 

I saw this sweet paper from October Afternoon called Campsite and then found the coordinating stamps. I usually don't do the cute animal images but I thought the bear and fox were so sweet in this set.

My favorite part of this card is the piece of map I cut up and folded in his hands to make it look realistic. My daughter said "but it is upside down!" Perfect touch as he looks so lost and you know he is not going to ask for directions. HA! 

All the paper is October Afternoon. The bear and sign post are stamped using Ranger Archival ink, Versafine Vintage Sepia  and colored with water and watercolor markers. The directions on the signpost are empty and you can write anything you want which I did trying to emulated the etched effect in the wood.

The sentiment is from Hero Arts but I think works perfectly with us getting lost sometimes in life. :) 

Hope your Saturday is going well... I have some fun news that I wanted to share.. I am very happy to say that I am joining the Design Team for Chapel Road Stamps at Class Act. I am looking forward to creating with their beautiful stamps. 

Thanks for stopping by... 

Suzz

Wee Memories & Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge

Two new challenges for me...

The Simon Says Stamp and Show is a new blog which will have weekly challenges. The first challenge is Things with Wings.  (Great prize! Go check it out!)

Wee Memories challenge this week is Butterflies. One of my favorite embellishments. :)

Now this card  is going to look familiar to my previous card because I created this background as a possible background for my dress form but decided it was the wrong background for my mannequin but it begged me not to put it in the Island of Misfit cards.  I listened and made it into a card with my favorite butterflies.

The background started from a piece of white cardstock. The damask were stamped with Versamark and heat embossed with clear embossing powder to create a resist. I then sponged over the surface using a mix of oranges and greens and browns.  I then ironed off the embossing powder on the damasks to stamp over the surface.

I tried something new that I had never tried before after watching too much Design Star. (We are all addicted to that and The Next Food Network Star).  I wanted to see if I could get the rustic torn effect of patches of my background showing through another pattern. So I took a piece of thin copy paper and tore open holes and along the edge to give it a mask but a mask with rough edges. I then stamped over the mask onto my background. It doesn't show up too much here but next time I am going to sponge the edges after I stamp to really show the effect. I like how it turned out.

After that I stamped some of  my flowers and weeds. I then stamped my sentiment with versamark and heat embossed using white embossing powder.

The butterflies were created using the same colors as the background but after they were stamped and sponged I added clear embossing to make the colors pop.

Hope you enjoyed my pattern paper I created. :)

Products:

• Hero Arts - Antique Engravings
• Hero Arts - Real Flowers, Real Watercolor Flowers 
• Hero Arts - Essential Messages
• Hero Arts - Simply Handmade
• Hero Arts - Damask
• Ranger Distress Inks - Crushed Olive, Rusty Hinge, Wild Honey
• Memento - Rich Cocoa
• Versafine - Vintage Sepia
• Versamark Watermark Ink
• Clear and White Embossing Powder
• Flourishes
• Copic - E37 (Colored the gems)

Thanks for stopping by...

Suzz