Thinking Inking

Leaf Wreath from Inspiration Photo

Welcome! This week Wendy Sue Anderson challenged the Cosmo Cricket DT to create something inspired by the Pottery Barn catalog picture shown below. While I loved the picture, I was really challenged--for instance, what Cosmo Cricket papers could I use for all of those neutral tones?

Hmmmmm. I thought I'd go the leafy-wreath and window route next. Luckily I had picked up a perfect punch for the job when I was in Milwaukee last week at the Artist and Display store, a Punch Bunch Dusty Miller punch. 

I punched the dusty miller shapes (which reminded me of oak leaves) from papers in the Earth Love Mini Deck. The wreath base was cut with two Spellbinders dies, a Scalloped Circle and a Plain Circle. I attached the leaves with Ranger's Matte Accents.

The Window shape was cut with a Fiskars paper cutter. Each pane is 1-1/4" square, with 1/4" in between panes. I embossed it after I finished with a Papertrey Ink Wood Grain Impression Plate, but I would suggest that you consider embossing before you cut the panes since the panes stretched a bit while I was embossing them.

The Happy Fall sentiment is from Papertrey's Friendship Jar Fall Fillers set, while its frame is from the original Friendship Jar set. The label die is also a Papertrey die, the Jar Label die.

There are some lovely projects on the Cosmo Cricket blog here, all using the same inspiration photograph. I hope you get a chance to visit!

Where Every Leaf Is a Flower. . .

I hope you've had a fabulous Friday! Before I forget, several of you had asked how to get the mitten texture with on my mitten card from Wednesday. I'm hoping to get a short video up early next week--perhaps that will help. For today's card I chose a new JustRite cling set, A Day in the Country. I've been eager to color this image, and I finally had a chance to do so yesterday. I also took pictures as I went. You can click on any picture to make it larger. 

I colored the pumpkin, basket, corn, and gourd first, though I went back later and added some cool shadows.

Here I've added leaves and a a couple of winter squash, as well as adding some blue-violet tones into the shadow areas to cool them off and make them seem to recede.

Here I've deepened the shadows more. Mmmmmmm--I love what the blue-violet shades do to the shadows on the warm shapes! (Marianne addressed shading and shadows at length in the first Copic Intermediate Certification class in Chicago last week; if you were there, the BV shadows are for you! :-})

Finally--nearing the end with the apples, a hint of sky, and a few more shadows.  I put only a tiny bit of cool gray in the foreground since my light source was from in front, high, and to the right of the image. Again, you can click on any image to enlarge it if you will find that helpful.

Cardstock that I used for the focal image was Copic's Blender Card; it comes only in white presently, which didn't work well with my Cosmo Cricket Nutmeg paper, so I airbrushed some Copic E21 on the entire focal image after cutting and embossing it with a Spellbinders Plain Square Nestability. I also inked the edges with distress ink. I love to color!

Thanks for visiting.

P.S. I still have room for a few more people in my Novi/Detroit Copic Basic Certification on Tuesday, November 16. If you are interested, look for details here. Thanks!

Vintage Christmas

Welcome back! When I got back from Chicago, I had a couple of fun packages waiting, one of which was an order from Waltzingmouse Stamps. I had ordered a Spellbinders-compatible frame set and a Christmas sentiments set--Holiday Labels 14 and Compliments of the Season (currently backordered).

I stamped the frame on Papertrey Ink's Kraft cardstock with Scarlet Jewel ink and cut and embossed with with a Spellbinders Labels Fourteen die; I love this shape, especially when paired with the skinny ovals! For the center I stamped the sentiment on Vintage Cream cardstock in Scarlet Jewel ink and then cut it with a Petite Ovals die before adding distress ink to the edges of both pieces. 

Patterned paper is a piece of Melissa Frances Holly paper--a little more muted than the Scarlet Jewel ink that I was using, but still in the same family. Ribbon is some off-white Hug Snug seam binding (from e-Bay) that I colored with a few Copic markers--first E07 (which was a little warm), then RV29 (to cool my too-warm hue), and finally some R59 (to mute the other two layers of color). It's a bit more saturated/intense than it should be, but I still like it. :-)

 

The Zva Creative pearl swash was white (PE-03CA-110), which I airbrushed with a Copic Airbrush System and Copic E07 to add a bit of color and make it coordinate with the paper. One hint: when you airbrush with a darker Copic marker on a hard surface, it may get a bit sticky. The best product that I have found for sealing the surface and taking away the stickiness is Creative Impressions Super Seal. It is a water-based sealer, so it won't make the markers run like a solvent-based-sealer would. My usual craft-haunts were out of it, but I found some at Overstock.com if you are needing some.

That's about it--have a lovely day!

October Zva Blog Hop Winners and a Bit More. . .

Good morning! I'm sorry that I'm a day late posting the official list, but I had a schedule conflict yesterday. You may already realize that one of this month's blog hop winners did not come from my blog, but I managed to pull together a little prize package anyway--not as cool as the official one, but it was what I had in my stash. First, the official list:

We'd like to congratulate the five October Zva Blog Hop winners! Their names will be found on the following blogs:

Jillian Deiling Cassity: http://scrappyjilly.blogspot.com
Veronica Goh: http://scrappychic-pages.blogspot.com/
Ingrid Danvers: www.ingriddanvers.com
Teri Anderson: http://terisplace.wordpress.com
Carole Maurin: http://scrapalolette.canalblog.com/

One winner from each of the five blogs will receive a Zva prize package worth $30.00. Congrats winners!

Now for my unofficial "consolation prize" winner (chosen by Random.org): number 48

48

Geny said...

Love love love this Debbie, such a nice collage of different pieces that all fit together!

ReplyOctober 25, 2010 at 12:09 PM

Yay, Geny! I need your address, and I'll send you some Zva goodies. Thanks, everybody, for playing! I'll have a regular post up in a half hour or so--still writing it. . .

JustRite Twelve Weeks of Christmas Blog Hop Eight

Welcome to JustRite Stampers’ newest Wednesday feature, Twelve Weeks of Christmas Blog Hops Eight! Every Wednesday up until Thanksgiving some of your favorite designers will be joining some of the JustRite design team for a series of Christmas blog hops, showcasing JustRite’s entire Christmas Collection of stamps.  And don’t forget that JustRite has some Christmas stamps in their newly released CLING line of stamp sets -- you can find them HERE.  This week, the designers joining the JustRite design team are the Flower Soft and The Shabby Tea Room challenge blog design teams; so mark your calendars for Wednesdays at 9am Central for some great Christmas gift, card, and project ideas, starting at the JustRite Inspiration blog!

As soon as I saw the mitten stamp in the new JustRite Cling Sparky the Snowman set, I knew that I wanted to use it for today's card. I love coloring mittens with my Copic markers and adding texture with the Colorless Blender, and I had just relegated an old cotton sweater to the rag/texture pile a couple of weeks ago--perfect for texturizing!

Besides the mitten stamp, I used most of the snowflake stamps from the Sparky the Snowman set to stamp the flakes in glue pad so that I could sprinkle them with glitter on both the background paper as well as on the Spellbinders Labels One die cut to which I attached the mittens

Here is a close-up of the Copic markers that I used, all in JustRite's trios or quads here.

 

Papers are from Echo Park's Wintertime line, and buttons and ribbon are from Papertrey Ink (Blueberry Sky). Card size is 5-1/4" square.

I hope you have an opportunity to visit these designers’ blogs to see what fabulous JustRite Christmas inspiration they have for you on the hop today. Thanks for stopping by!

JustRite Inspiration Blog

JustRite Design Team:

Sharon Harnist 
Angela Barkhouse  
Sankari Wegman  
Stephanie Kraft  
Kazan Clark  
Michele Kovack  
Kellie Fortin  
Barb Schram 
Debbie Olson  (here)
Becca Feeken  
Heidi Blankenship

Flower Soft Design Team:

Jeanne Streiff 
Debbie Seyer  
Gini Cagle 
Linda Beeson 
Deb Felts 
Cibele Glazer 
Vicki Garrett 
Dina Kowal

The Shabby Tea Room Design Team:

Debbie Marcinkiewicz 
Nicole Segnere 
Clare Buswell 
Pattie Goldman 
Lisa Golzbein
Cathy Clarke-Sanite

Zva Creative October DT Blog Hop

It's time again for the Zva Designers to join together to share a project that we have created using some of our favorite Zva Creative products. I am hoping that you will take some time to join us for a little bit of fun again this month!

The Blog Hop begins at Kim Hughes' blog, Paper Hugs. She will have the complete list of all blogs that are participating in case there is a glitch along the way. If you would like to play along, I am linking to one of the Zva designers and that designer is linking to the next and so on. Hidden on five of the blogs is a Zva Creative prize package! Those blogs will be randomly chosen after the hop is over, so it's important to leave a comment on as many blogs as you can along the way.

The Blog Hop starts now and runs through midnight US Eastern Standard Time on Tuesday, Oct. 26, and the five winners will be announced on Wednesday, October 27, on each of the five winning blogs. The full list will be found on Kim Hughes‘s blog as well (linked above). We will do our best to notify each winner, but it's best if you can pop in to all of the blogs once again on Wednesday; plus, you never know what kind of inspirational creation that you may find there. All you need to do is leave a comment on this Zva Blog Hop post. You do not need to leave a comment on each and every designer's blog post to qualify. The more times you leave a comment along the blog hop path though, the more chances you will have to be one of the lucky winners.

I had fun with a little red and back vintage card for my husband. He's been playing Mom as well as Dad while I was in Milwaukee and Chicago for the last few days--he's a "keeper" indeed! My chosen Zva Creative product was the black rhinestones (Jet .5cm) that adorned my scalloped-grid edge. I paired them with some of Cosmo Cricket's new Circa 1934 paper, Ginger, Bette, and Astaire (shown here on the blog).

Stamp sets that I used were Papertrey Ink's  It's Official and Just the Ticket. I also used one of the elements from the Circa 1934 line's Elements page to get that antique typewriter. Dies used were Papertrey's medium Scalloped border and their ticket strip die. Mini paperclip is a Tim Holtz piece. 

So, do you have time to see some serious bling?  The blog hop begins here: Kim Hughes' blog.

Your next stop is here: Tara Orr's blog.

Thank you SO MUCH for joining us!

Holly Jolly

Welcome! I'm in Chicago with the Copic Crew for the inaugural Intermediate Copic Certification class--having a fabulous time! I added just a few snapshots here in Facebook.

I'm supposed to be getting ready for a meeting, so I'll keep this post quick. I love the Papertrey Tiny Treats series--the images are small but fresh and quick to color. Here I've used an image from Tiny Treats: Christmas set and paper from the new Christmas Prints paper.

These are the Copic markers that I used. The B21 and B63 were what I airbrushed the background with, leaving my Spellbinders Plain Circle Nestability in place as a mask while I airbrushed.

That's it--sweet and simple! Thanks for stopping by. I'll be heading home from Chicago tomorrow, but I should have a post ready Monday morning again. Have a great weekend!

JustRite Twelve Weeks of Christmas Blog Hop Seven

Welcome to JustRite Stampers’ newest Wednesday feature, Twelve Weeks of Christmas Blog Hops Seven. Every Wednesday up until Thanksgiving some of your favorite designers will be joining some of the JustRite design team for a series of Christmas blog hops, showcasing JustRite’s entire Christmas Collection of stamps. You also might see some projects from the JustRite design team, using some of their newly released line of CLING stamps. (You can see the new collection of cling stamps HERE.)  This week, the designers joining us are most of the Spellbinders and Caardvarks design teams, so mark your calendars for Wednesdays at 9am Central for great Christmas gift, card and project ideas, starting at the JustRite Inspiration blog!

Today I have another small gift project to share. I chose JustRite's small oval Christmas Joy set to showcase on my project. Earlier this year I had purchased a box of Stash tea bags and loved how the bottom of the box had a semi-circle cut out so that the box became a tea bag dispenser. That made me wonder what other flat little packets I could create a box-dispenser for; and today on a candy and cereal aisle, I found just the thing--the Ghiradelli Chocolate Squares.

I stamped my Christmas Joy image in Tuxedo Black Memento ink, masking out the word joy from the center of the wreath since I wanted to use a word border. Next I colored the leaves and ribbon with Copic markers (G24, G28, R22, R29, and R59). I dotted the berries with a glue pen and sprinkled them with red glitter. I used two Spellbinders Plain Oval Nestabilities to emboss my oval image, but cut with only the outer die. The frame is created with a Labels Four die.

After a few trials and errors, this is what I came up with for a box. The measurements are included except for the little flaps--the size really doesn't matter on those. I think mine were about 3/4". I used a circle cutter to cut that flap in the third panel and saved it to attach back to the bottom inside of the box toward the end.

I put my box together with some 1/2" Scor-Tape on the small flaps and attached that bottom curved piece as the inside base of my box.

See how the chocolates should slide out? 

 

I wanted to be able to leave that ribbon wrapped around the box while the chocolates were pulled out, so I wrapped it around the box and attached both ends inside the box. The little holly label will hold the flap shut until the recipient wants to open it.

If you use the measurements that I used up above, your box will easily hold eight chocolate squares. That leaves a couple for you to taste-test while you work. ;-) The bag of chocolates was $2.89, and I used one sheet of 12" x 12" Cosmo Cricket Mitten Weather paper (Woolens)--under $1. That's a fun little economical gift!

Please visit these designers’ blogs to see what fabulous JustRite Christmas inspiration they have for you on the hop today:

JustRite Inspiration Blog 
Spellbinders Blog 
Debbie Olson 
Kimberly Crawford 
Sharon Harnist 
Beth Pingry 
Amy Crockett 
Kellie Fortin 
Latisha Yoast 
Becca Feeken 
Lucy Abrams 
Sankari Wegman 
AJ Otto 
Beate Johns 
Heidi Van Laar 
Kazan Clark 
Julie Overby 
Peet Roeven 
Michele Kovack 
Judy Hayes 
Kathy Racoosin 
Stephanie Kraft 
Terre Fry 
Angela Barkhouse 
Holly Simoni 
Heidi Blankenship

'Tis the Season

Hello! It's been a busy week as we celebrated my in-laws sixtieth anniversary with visiting family over the past few days, but I haven't totally forgotten about the blog--truly! I have a Christmas card and gift post to share, using Papertrey Ink's new Big and Bold Holiday Wishes on the card, along with the 2010 Holiday Tags set for the tag on the tea tin. 

 

I had a fabulous little Zva Creative rhinestone flourish to use (CRW-01CB-145), but it needed to be shabbied up a bit to work just right. I used my Copic E33 marker and airbrush system to airbrush the flourish and give it a warmer tone.  Shown above is the flourish still stuck to its plastic backing piece, after airbrushing. 

And here it is attached--just right! Papers are from Cosmo Cricket's Mitten Weather line (Deck the Hollies). The sentiment is cut and embossed with a Spellbinders Labels Fourteen die.

I used PTI's Pure Poppy ink to the stamp Merry Christmas, and the same ink after being stamped off twice on scrap cardstock to stamp the postmark. The snowflake is stamped in Papertrey's Chamomile Distress ink, which I use a LOT. Dies that I used here were Spellbinders Labels One and Plain Circle Nestabilities. Ribbon is some dyed Hug Snug Seam binding. The tea tin is a Papertrey Ink product, found here. 

Hmmmm. . . Now what should I put in the tin? Thanks for stopping by!

P.S. Giovana Smith is working on a card drive to bless two young people who are affected by Spina Bifida. You can visit her blog to find out how YOU can help. Thanks!

Papertrey Ink October Release, Part 2

Welcome back! I have a couple of non-seasonal pieces left to share from my October Papertrey Ink release pieces. I used the Year of Flowers: Marigolds set in combination with a sentiment from Everyday Button Bits to create a clear get well card. Background paper is printed from Dawn's October 2010 Color Couture download (scroll down toward the bottom of the home page).

Here are the Copic markers that I used to color the marigolds--all Papertrey Ink Copic combos. 

For Heather's Mini Scrapbook Series: Journaling Circle, I created an 8" x 8" page that fits in a shadowbox frame. The bottom border is cut with PTI's new Victorian Lace Border die, and paper is from Cosmo Cricket's Material Girl line (Measuring Up, back side).

Well, that's it for the last of my October 2010 Papertrey release pieces. I hope you have a fabulous weekend!

Papertrey Ink October Release Night, Part 1

 Hello! I thought I would share my Christmas and holiday cards from this month's Papertrey Ink release tonight and a couple of non-seasonal pieces tomorrow. First up is Dawn's On Ice set--aren't these skates just darling? I used a 1/16" hole punch to punch holes for some cotton embroidery thread-took a few minutes, but it was worth it! The little pom-poms are cut from some cotton lace that I had on hand. Paper is PTI's new Christmas Prints. 

Next is Alli's Holiday Sparkle set--what a fun concept! I used her little deer, colored with Copic markers, and added a red rhinestone heart nose and black pearl eyes. Paper is last year's PTI Christmas paper, Rustic Snowflakes.

Becky's Merry Little Christmas set is simply sweet. I love the graceful curve of that branch that the star hangs on. I used Christmas Red Stickles on the holly berries, and a glue pen and Prisma Glitter on the star.

What about Nichole and Mish's collaboration in the Friendship Jar Holiday Fillers set? I adore the jar sets, and I thought that this little snowman was fabulous! 

Here are the Copic markers that I colored the snowman in a jar with.

I must have been channeling Heather, a.k.a."Pinefeather" here--the Holly Jolly set was just begging to be used with Kraft cardstock! For the holly berries I used red glitter.

I have a house full of company now, but I'll try to post my non-seasonal pieces tomorrow some time. We're off in the morning to take twin three-year olds, a two-year old, and my ten-year old to an alpaca farm to see the new cria, and maybe to the apple orchard after that. Sounds like a great photo op day, doesn't it? Thanks for stopping by!

Quick and Easy Tags

It's almost time for the October Papertrey Ink release!  Today the design team has a second group post featuring some quick and easy gift tags. I have a couple of tags for you.

First is a little "Let It Snow" tag featuring a tag from the new 2010 Holiday Tags set (available at midnight on October 15), along with some new Papertrey Ink patterned paper, cardstock, ribbon, and dies.  

I cut two of the scalloped edge pieces so that I could put a to and from on the inside of the tag. The tag is framed by the handle of the little gift bag. I'm thinking that some gift cards for my harder-to-shop-for recipients might fit nicely in this little bag.

Next I have a mistletoe tag--I love the grace and simplicity of this image, not to mention that I can add pearls as mistletoe berries. 

Be sure to see what the other Papertrey girls have been up to, and thanks for stopping by!

Nichole Heady
Betsy Veldman
Dawn McVey
Erin Lincoln
Heather Nichols
Kim Hughes
Lisa Johnson
Maile Belles
Melissa Phillips
Michelle Wooderson
Niki Estes