city crafter guest designer--♥YUM!♥

i am very honored to have been asked to be guest designer for week 16 on the city crafter challenge blog, particularly since this week it is my very lovely and always inspiring friend cheryl nelson's turn to act as hostess! cheryl's theme is ♥YUM♥ and the only requirement is that your project be in some way food related--you can use food images, or food-related items... (an apron, recipe card, kitchen utencils, etc) ...there's a lot of room here, so feel free to go wild in any direction you like! :)

this week's sponsor is digital delights, who are offering a $10 prize voucher to the winning entry! the design team was given a selection of adorable digital delights digi-stamps with which to work, but like all ice cream cones everywhere, this one was really calling my name!

i couldn't decide whether to go all techy with my project, or get seriously hands-on and traditional. 'cause that's the best part about digi-stuffs, isn't it? you have so much *CHOICE*! finally i decided to make something with each mindset, to show how flexible these babies are!

first i went entirely computery:

ok, not to be braggy, but how cool is custom-made, one-of-a-kind giftwrap??! and it was EASY AS PIE...or, in this case, ice cream!

first i opened the uncolored ice cream cone image in photoshop and used the paint bucket tool to color the cone and the swirls of soft serve. after i saved each color of image (so i can use them later, for something else!) i went into broderbund printshop and opened a blank 8.5 x 11" page, and placed my brightly colored ice cream cones all over it. i flipped some of the images, and rotated others, to get a nice "random" placement of images. i even let some of the cones dangle off the edge of the digi-canvas, the way they do on "real" giftwrap. when i was happy with my design, i just printed it out; then all i needed was a little bit of tulle (embellished with tiny epoxy hearts from my stash) and one cut-out cone as decoration...et voila! my favorite part of this is that by saving the file i can print out as many of these as i want; plus it'd be really simple to add a child's name, or the occasion (wouldn't this be great for birthday party "goodie" bags?!) to make it even more personal!

on the other hand, sometimes you just want all the fun of touching and cutting and pasting REAL PAPER, dontcha? so for my second project i went hard-core old skool:

yep, it's still the same image, but the vibe couldn't be more different, could it? again, the great thing about digi is the convenience and choice...but you don't always have to use it in a super high-tech way. for this one, i merely printed the blank cone, cut it out, and used it as a template to paper-piece in the traditional way, which i then embellished with lots of hand- and machine-stitching to add loads of texture. of course, you can do that with rubber or stencils, too; but what's nice about these digi-stamps is, you can make anything from nice BIG birthday cards (this one's 5 x 8.5) to tiny inchies...using just one stamp! gotta love that, right?! :)

many thanks to cheryl and kirsty for this awesome opportunity. the ♥YUM♥ challenge will run until 11:59pm EST, next monday, august 9th; be sure to check out the city crafter blog to see all the fabulous designer projects, and i do hope lots of you will play along with this super-fun challenge! ♥

(~materials for giftwrap~ ice cream cone digi-stamp from digital delights by loubyloo; plain inkjet paper from staples; tulle & epoxy heart stickers from michaels; made using adobe photoshop & broderbund printshop software; ~materials for paper-pieced card~ ice cream cone digi-stamp from digital delights by loubyloo; patterned paper: making memories, laura ashley, scrapbook wizard, bo bunny, doodlebug; glossy white cardstock: ranger; purple & tan cardstock: core'dinations; stick pins: joann essentials (re-colored with a sharpie pen!); ribbon: making memories; embroidery floss: dmc; other: sewing machine; adhesives: uhu gluestick, 3m foam tape)