Stampin' with the Sisterhood!

I am honored to have been named Queen of Snark for my Pink Halloween card at The Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers; especially since the prize is being a guest designer on their new challenge, SoSS173: P is for Penguin! 

Here's my card:

I was slightly bummed out to realize I don't actually have a penguin stamp; but then I remembered I had Eyelet Outlet Penguin Brads! This also meant that I could use my current favorite stamp set, Mythical Grumplings from Taylored Expressions. I'm not gonna lie... I'm kind of obsessed with that Yeti! I built a wintery landscape using scraps of a bunch of white and blue snowy-looking patterned papers and finished off with a few EO Snowflake Brads.

I hope you'll join me and the Sisterhood for this super-fun challenge, which runs through November 27th! ♥

Oh, What a Stylish Web We Weave

Because ordinary spiders make everyday webs, but Eyelet Outlet Spider Brads (and Mini Spider Brads!) demand something a little fancier... like a beautiful mandala web on a gorgeous pink card:

I stamped an older Mandala from MFT onto plain white bristol board, and embossed with white powder, letting the design go off the top corner of the panel, to make it slightly more spider-web-like. Then, using the white embossed image as a resist, I colored in the panel with a blend of Picked Raspberry and Spun Sugar Distress Oxides. Then I let my Spider Brad and Mini Spiders move in and make themselves comfy. I added panels of Glitter Black Tape, Pink Foil and Coloring Book Tape... (which is actually leaves and flowers, but looks rather web-like if you trim it down to mat size!) ...and affixed the whole thing to my A7 card. The sentiment is from Taylored Expressions' Halloween Pennant Parade Set.

I'm joining in one of my favorite challenges of the year: Pink Halloween at the Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers; and you have until 11:55 this Friday (10.30.20) to join the fun over there!

I hope you'll be inspired to get out your Eyelet Outlet goodies and see what kinds of Halloween fun you can cook up!

Stamping (Somewhat) Snarkily with the Sisterhood!

I was extremely honored to have been named The Queen of Snark at the Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers for my Pink Halloween card. And the best part is that I get to be a guest designer with them for the new challenge which is called, "Q is for Quip".

Before I show my card I figured we should agree on a definition of "QUIP". According to Dictionary.com a quip is:

quip [kwip] (noun)

a clever or witty remark or comment. a sharp, sarcastic remark; a cutting jest. 

a quibble. an odd or fantastic action or thing.

So basically it seems like pretty much any snarky sentiment could potentially count as a quip. Which gives us a lot of scope, lol! Mine is more silly than snarky, but it's a stamp my craft bestie Stephanie gave me yeeeeeeears ago and I don't use it nearly enough. Plus... it feels pretty quippy to me!

sinatra image scanned and reduced to fit my A7 card; sheet music, dictionary pages and trading stamps from my stash of vintage goodies; sentiment stamp: drs designs; flourish stamps: fancy pants;  patterned paper: photoplay, basic grey, craft consortium; plain white cardstock: staples; inks for edging: ranger distress; ink for sentiment: gina k amalgam; adhesives: elmers brand tape runner, scotch create gluestick

Since the joke revolves around Sinatra, clearly Frank should be the star of the card. I found the perfect image in one of the Sinatra bios I own, but since it's a very nice book that is definitely not for cutting up, I photocopied it, which also let me reduce it slightly in size. I built a background of dictionary paper and sheet music, added some vintage trading stamps and did a bunch of very subtle stamping of flourishes on top of the collage base. So subtle, in fact, that you can't really see them very distinctly, but it knocked down the bright whiteness of some of the papers and kind of ties everything together. I added the sentiment on nested label shapes and called it a day.

Please head over to the Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers and check out the other "Quip" cards... then start planning what you will make for this fun challenge! ♥

oh what a tangled (♥PINK!♥) web we weave...

it's time for one of my very favorite challenges of the entire cardmaking year: ♥PINK HALLOWEEN♥ at the sisterhood of snarky stampers! here's my card:

background painted in peony colorburst on strathmore watercolor paper; zendoodles done with faber-castell's pitt artist pens in sizes XS, S and 1.5; alphabet stamps: echo park (brush lettering) and studio g (typeface); spider brads: eyelet outlet; glitter paper mats: american crafts POW papers; ink: ranger archival; adhesives: elmers brand gluetape, sewing machine 

i've done zen-doodle spider webs* before, but they're always a lot of fun, so i see no reason to stop now, lol. especially when i can watercolor the exact perfect background shade of pink (thank you, peony colorburst) and i'm kind of a bit besotted with my eyelet outlet spider brads, who look very handsome in their custom-made habitat, don't you think?

i'm linking up (again!) with the simon says stamp monday challenge blog's "walk on the dark side" as well as the craftaholics-r-us #39 halloween themed challenge.

*my apologies to the arachnophobes out there; tomorrow's post will be completely and entirely spider-free, i promise! 

bring on the stamps, bring out the snark!

i was super-excited to be named the "queen of snark" by the sisterhood of snarky stampers for my pink halloween card (apparently i was the only one who drew a zen-doodle spider web on pink?? go figure!) the prize for such an honor, apart from the obviously enviable bragging rights, is to be their lovely guest star in a future challenge, and mine starts today. the challenge is "W is for WATERCOLOR"!

ok, yeah. i think i can swing that! here's what i made:

water color media: colorburst pigment powders by ken oliver crafts; stamps: script=love to stamp, crackle=cherry pie, leopard=rubber stampede, type=stampin' up, paisley flourish=sassafras lass, music=glitz design, damask=hero arts; ancient jumbo pink glitter letters: making memories; woodgrain patterned paper: pion design; adhesives: elmers brand gluetape, 3m foam tape, gluedots, sookwang tape; tiny brads and epoxy shapes: eyelet outlet

as usual, i had like 37 ideas, and 36 of them were pretty straightforward. so OF COURSE i chucked those immediately and went with the only really weird one, lol.

i decided to make a card full of watercolor flowers, but i wanted them to look almost paper-pieced, so i decided to stamp the different shapes with various pattern and background stamps. i got to use up a lot of the little random bits of watercolor paper that i use at the end of the a watercoloring session to finish off my pre-mixed color burst colors, though, so it was a bit of a stash-buster in that sense. yay!

i cut my floral shapes from scraps of water color paper i had painted with various shades of color burst, then stamped each flower with a different pattern stamp. after inking the edges, adding a few eyelet outlet enamels and teeny brads, and scribbling some little details in pen, i assembled the flowers.

then i used the flowers to adorn my oversized sentiment, "BLOOM". i put some flowers over the letters and some under; i also varied the height of the elements-- some of the pieces have as many as three layers of foam tape to make them stand out!

i'm hopping in on the simon says stamp wednesday challenge, whose theme this week is "anything goes".

my only regret is that whereas i feel very happy with my watercoloring effort and pretty pleased with my stamping technique... alas, i didn't manage to work in any element of snark with this one. ah well, maybe next time. of course, there are a gazzillion ways to interpret, "W is for WATERCOLOR" and the sisterhood have a bunch of different ones to inspire you. why not hop over and check those out right now?! ♥

♥PINK♥ halloween

one of my favorite groups of crafty blogging ladies happens to be the sisterhood of snarky stampers, and one of my favorite challenges they have each year is ♥PINK HALLOWEEN♥!!! so here's my card:

patterned paper: basic grey; black glitter cardstock: doodlebug; pink glitter cardstock: making memories; adorable spider mini brads: eyelet outlet; heart stamp: hero arts; scribbly alphabet stickers: sticko; chipboard alphas: thickers/american crafts; pens: faber-castell pitt artist pens in 1.5, S and XS nibs; ink: ranger archival and colorbox chalk; adhesive: sewing machine

ok, so, yes, my eyelet outlet mini spider brads are making another appearance, because i really love them! and also because, frankly, i don't actually own allllllllllll that much halloween stuff. i do own quite a few pens, though, and i was happy to have an excuse to try out my other arachno-centric halloween card idea, which involved doodling a zentangle-inspired web. which was absolutely as much fun as i hoped it might be, so you'll no doubt be seeing this idea again. like next halloween, i'm guessing. :)

i had so much fun with this part of the card that it wasn't until quite near the end that i realized i hadn't actually *STAMPED* anything. so the hearts are admittedly a bit of a retro-fit, but they kind of tie the card together, and focus the eye on the sentiment, so i'm callin' it a win.

i'd also like to join the fun with the simon says stamp monday challenge: halloween 

as well as the paper players' theme challenge #315: halloween

meanwhile, the unicorn challenge blog's current theme of "pretty pinks or halloween" suits me for both options, lol, so woohoo!

please hop over and see the amazing cards from the sisterhood of snarky stampers and link up your own ♥PINK HALLOWEEN♥ card!

swear if you dare??!

that's the latest challenge (#21) at the sisterhood of snarky stampers, with whom i'm excited to be guest designing* this fortnight:

ok, technically it's called, "p is for profanity" but either way, i'm pretty sure you can already see what the snarks are looking for, right? yepper, this is your official chance to go all the way with the sarcastic greeting card; an in-your-face journal page; an atc that asks the musical question, "WTF?" (with or without the initials!) or, if you're like me, you can take a more humorous approach. i made two cards, although if this fabulous unity stamp that stephanie found was available as a digi, there might've been three. meanwhile, the first card is my favorite, because, well, it's got 1960's sewing pattern ladies speaking in 2014 slang, lol! what's not to love about that?

ladies and sewing pattern info from a 1965 simplicity magazine; patterned paper: amy tangerine/american crafts and basic grey; alphabet stamps: studio g; black glossy cardstock: ranger; ink: colorbox and ranger archival; adhesives: elmers brand gluetape runner, 3m foam tape

the next one is jeff's favorite**. in fact, of the elebenty zillion ideas i "tested" on him, it's the only one at which he laughed out loud. although in my defense (sort of) quite a few of the others were fired at him whilst we drove down an especially traffic-laden, construction-based stretch of I-95 through philadelphia, where i seriously doubt that john cleese performing his entire repertoire of silly walks would have received more than a tense smile. but this guy got an actual chuckle, so i had to draw and color a more polished version to make into a card:

cupcakes drawn with faber castell pitt pens (S and XS) on strathmore watercolor paper and colored with tombow markers; patterned paper: dear lizzy/american crafts and basic grey; alphabet stamps: studio g; white glossy cardstock: ranger; caption typed on a scrap of avery clear label; ink: colorbox and ranger archival; adhesives: elmers brand gluetape runner, 3m foam tape

and now i hope you'll check out the awesome creations of the snarky sisterhood although possibly it's best not to be accompanied by any tiny little friends or great big bosses, since i'll remind you that this week, "p is for profanity" and those ladies take their work seriously! ♥

*i won SoSS challenge #19, "h is for hopeful halloween" an honor of which i'm particularly proud, because a pink halloween card was a brand new frontier for me.

**during the creative process, we had a totally serious conversation concerning the relative merits of the cupcake saying "eat me" vs "bite me"; at one point jeff suggested he should say, "go frost yourself!" (complete with a very convincing "joe pesci in goodfellas" accent) which remains the sentimental favorite around here, for obvious reasons! :)

if you thought ♥PINK CHRISTMAS♥ was a stretch...

...howsabout PINK HALLOWEEN*???!?! that's the current challenge at the sisterhood of snarky stampers, and it's a doozie, don't you think?! technically, it's called "H is for Hopeful Halloween" and you can choose between making a breast cancer awareness themed project OR a halloween project... but... if you choose halloween it has to be MOSTLY PINK!!! i have to admit this one even gave me pause, and there are not alllllll that many crafters who love pink as much as i do! but eventually, i came up with this:

haunted house cut from some dcwv patterned paper; tombstones etc fashioned from doodlebug and 7 gypsies scraps; moon and background created using artist's loft watercolor paints on strathmore watercolor paper... then stamped with rhonna farrer flourishes using ranger archival ink; other stamps: purple onion text + tim holtz crackle pattern; sentiment** and bats drawn with faber castell pitt pens in medium, superfine and extrasuperfine and shadowed with a grey tombow marker; gems: recollections; adhesives: staples brand gluetape runner, 3m foam tape

i took my cue from a couple of the (awesome!) SoSS design team projects, in which the designers used pretty traditional halloween images, but used pink where a more traditional rendition would most likely have gone with orange or gold. after that, it was pretty easy! the only fiddly bit came after i decided to color the plain white windows of the patterned paper haunted house a sort of orangey yellow. i actually finished and assembled the whole card and went to bed, thinking i was done.

the next morning, when i saw it again, i found the window color just completely jarring. luckily i realized that it would not be that hard to affix small pieces of pink patterned paper over each of the windows. so that's what i did. it took a while to cut allllllllll those little suckers out and fasten them on, but i definitely think it was worth the effort!

and now i hope you will check out the amazing projects at SoSS and consider linking up your own ♥PINK HALLOWEEN♥ masterpiece before noon on friday, october 31st!!!

*yes, i will at some point get back to a normal schedule in which projects that are NOT pink get made and shared, i promise!!! :)

**i've been looking at, reading about, and practicing hand-lettering all summer, and this blog post is one of the best ones i've found for creating "faux" calligraphy; the secret is to write the whole phrase in your THINNEST pen, leaving some extra space around the letters; then fill in just your downstrokes with a thicker line. easy, peasy!