Creation Staycation Wrap-Up

It was a super-fun weekend playing along with Paper Anthology's Summer Creation Staycation, on the PA FaceBook Page; it's always fun to hang out with crafty friends, either in person or online! Here are some cards I made for a few of my favorite challenges:

for Elisabeth's Summer Fun Challenge

Here's a shocking true confession: I've been wanting Lawn Fawn's "Sweetest Flavor" mini stamp set for ages and since I happened to know there would be a Summer Fun Challenge I treated myself. I knew I wanted to add some accessory brads to the adorable kawaii cones and that the perfect place for them to gather would be under the palm tree from Taylored Expressions' Build-a-Scene: Tropical diecut set, which is not in the online store, but there are still a few at paper Anthology.

 (ps: it's possible I also treated myself to LF's uber-cute Little Dragon and Tiny Fairy Tale mini sets, too...)

for Shari's Slimline Card Challenge

I am obsessed with Vicki Boutin's "All the Good Things" line from American Crafts. I'ts not available on the PA website, but many of the papers can still be found in the store, including this watercolory masterpiece called "Soul Food" which I think is pretty perfect with the stamps from Dare 2B Artzy's "Say It With Words" floral set, that I've stamped over strategically smooshed ColorBurst.

for Linda's Masculine Themed Challenge

k, gotta say right out, there's NO current product here at all, though similar vintage ingredients can be found in my Deluxe World Traveler Collage Assortments, found at Paper Anthology! But the patterned papers are ancient scraps and the tapes came over with Mrs. Noah on the Ark. The best thing about funky collage cards, though, is that you can pretty much combine ANYTHING and make it work!

♥♥♥

And thus another fun Paper Anthology Weekend Event draws to a close; 

many thanks to everyone who participated!

Brads and Eyelets? I Might Have a Few...

Are you ready for another new challenge in our Summer Edition of Paper Anthology's Creation Staycation? Ok, here ya go:

It's no secret that I'm a huge Eyelet Outlet fan and Design Team member. And I really do LOVE using both round and decorative brads... there are so many fun styles to choose from! For this challenge, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to create a project which features brads or eyelets of any size, shape and brand. They don't have to be the focal point of your design, just work a few in somewhere. 

Once again I stress that you don't have to make your brads or eyelets be the FEATURE of your design! But... it is possible to do so, and one of my favorite Brad Tricks is to scale down my focal point using inchies, little frames or, as in this case, faux polaroids! Mine is just over 2.25" and has a beachy background made with blended Oxides to hold Eyelet Outlet "Flamingo" and "Sun and Cloud" Brads; and yes I've slipped in a quartet of classic round eyelets for good measure. The soft woodgrain patterned paper from Echo Park's outstanding "Summer Fun" collection reminds me of the boardwalk in Wildwood, NJ; scene of many wonderful childhood memories! 

How can YOU play along? Visit the Paper Anthology FaceBook Page! ♥

Let the Challenges Begin!

Paper Anthology is back for a brand new Summer edition of Creation Staycation! It runs through Sunday, August 2nd, and all crafters, world-wide, are invited to join us on the Paper Anthology FaceBook Page! There will be a total of eight brand new challenges, hosted by Elisabeth Ostrowski, Linda Duke, Shari Morris and yours truly, with...

Ok, yeah, we're just barely sneaking in under the wire for Christmas in July, lol, but it is still July for four more hours, so let's go for it! I'm guessing you've already got the gist of what we're looking for here, but I'll spell it out: Get a jump on the Winter Holidays by making a Christmas or Hanukkah card or layout!

I love nontraditional colors for holiday cards (and PINK for pretty much anything, lol) so I went "summery" with my palette. My A7 card has layers of sheet music, doilies, tiny paper flowers and a bit of Prima's "Pretty Pale" collection. But the star of the show is definitely Penny Black's "Glorious" poinsettia, which I diecut from watercolor paper and colored with Distress Oxides, using sponge daubers. Not gonna lie: I'm really happy with this one. 

Want to play along? Come and hang out on the Paper Anthology FaceBook Page! ♥

Creation Staycation, SUMMER Edition!

I'm excited to announce that Paper Anthology is back for a brand new Summer edition of Creation Staycation! Starting at 4pm on Friday, July 31st and running through Sunday, August 2nd, we'll have EIGHT brand new challenges, plus Zoom meet-ups on Friday and Saturday nights. Not to mention discussion topics, quizzes, sales and specials, and... waiiiit forrrrr iiiiiittttt... PRIZES! Join us on the Paper Anthology FaceBook Page! ♥

Crafty Tic-Tac-Toe

It's the last day of Challenge *REVEALS* for Paper Anthology's Creation Staycation, but of course the event continues until Tuesday night and there will still be trivia questions, daily prizes, Zoom chats and more! The last of my challenges as a hostess is a crafty version of Tic Tac Toe. First, here's my card:

Now here's the board, but of course if you're playing, you need to link up in the comments of the correct post on the Paper Anthology FaceBook Page! I'm putting the board here, though, because it makes it easier to explain what I did. I used the diagonal that starts in the top left corner, which gave me FLOWERS + Stash More Than a Year Old + BLING.

Pretty much EVERYTHING on this baby is more than a year old, so there's that out of the way. (The Indian-inspired background paper is from a store that I think closed in... 2012??) My flowers are for once NOT in your face, they are kind of cameo appearances, to the little wooden elephant with the henna design. The bling is a Prima "Say It With Crystals" and I cut it apart a bit and pieced it back together to fit the space better. There's also a scallopy bling border which was in the box with all my miscellaneous bling, which means it's VERY old and I have no idea whence it came. But for being a weird cobbled together card, I really love how it came out!

That's the great thing about challenges, they push us out of our comfort zones! 

Feelin' Blue?

Then I have the antidote for you! Because we are smack in the middle of Paper Anthology's Creation Staycation, a weeklong virtual crop of sorts, with sixteen (16!) different challenges to pick and choose from, plus prizes, games, live Zoom chats and more! Paper Anthology is, of course, my lss and located in Kenvil, NJ, but crafties from all over are welcome to play along! Hop over to the Paper Anthology FaceBook Page for all the details!

My friend Linda Duke is the hostess of this challenge, it's called Christmas With a Twist and the "twist" is that you cannot use red or green! 

I actually LOVE non-traditional colors for Xmas, so I was all ready for this one! One of the things Linda wrote in her introduction was that the absence of red and green meant no Santa in his distinctive suit, and no Xmas trees. I respectfully refute the latter! See?

blue landscape from an old ideals magazine; paint chips from benjamin moore; tree die: echo park: snowflake dies: sizzix and impression obsession; trees and hills dies: penny black; blue dotty cardstock: core'dinations; white patterned papers: bella blvd, teresa collins and best creation glitter paper; snowflake gem and snowflake sequins: eyelet outlet; sentiment tim holtz/ideaology; ink: colorbox; adhesives: elmers brand gluetape, xyron, 3m foam tape, sookwang scor-tape 

My inspiration is the cyanotype landscape from a vintage Christmas Ideals magazine that I've used as my background. If Ideals could print pages that were all blue --and they sometimes also did other colors, but I think nearly EVERY copy I've ever seen had at least one page that was ALL BLUE-- then my card can be all blue too! If the design of this looks eerily familiar, it's because I cannot expect to play along in a bunch of fun flash challenges this week, and keep up with everything else, whilst "reinventing the wheel" every time. So I basically just made a second version of this week's Jingle Belles card. But without the green, obviously! :)

I hope you'll check out all the different challenges and maybe even pick at least one to play along with! ♥