fa-la-la-la-LAYERS!

we're still having a blast with music-themed cards at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ so here without further ado is my second attempt at this fun prompt:

(vintage: sheet music; decorative cardstock panel from a pack of basic grey holiday stickers; patterned paper: basic grey, autumn leaves, reminisce, echo park, dcwv; velvet paper: sei; ancient letter stickers: k and co; velvet flower brad: creative imaginations; little bird from mindy terasawa's "i believe" digi kit, designer digitals; ink: colorbox; adhesives tombow monorunner, scotch gluestick, 3m foam tape, sewing machine)

i used a recent deconstructed sketch (#53) for this one, i just love how flexible these are!

you can see i've piled on the layers: layers of paper, layers of hand-cut poinsettias, clear acrylic letter stickers layered onto paper and then cut out to form the little dots on the lower left of the sketch.

this might be my FAVORITE way to use vintage sheet music-- or at least, one of my MANY favorite uses-- basically just as another variety of patterned paper, but one which packs an extra punch by putting people in mind of the sounds of the holiday as well as the visual delights!

c'mon along to JINGLE BELLES and link up with us... we're dying to see ♥YOUR♥ favorite way to use sheet music, or any other music-themed embellies!!!

i can, therefore ICAD! :)

a few more index cards for you, based on prompts from the awesome ICAD(2) project at daisy yellow, which i am ♥LOVING♥ beyond all reason! both of these are based on the prompt list for week one, which i am working through in a circuitous and laureny way.

card #3: yellow

ok, so apparently a lot of these are going to be collages! :) 

which is both good and bad; good because it's my favorite medium and it's totally FUN to be able to get as free-style and weird as i want*; bad because ideally i'd like this project to also have a "try new things" factor in which i push myself to work in media where i'm less comfortable. i'm hoping that part of it will develop more as i go along.

 card#4: map

apart from the fact that this is unintentionally** a complete homage to my art journaling idol dina wakley, i really like this; i love silhouette images cut from vintage paper, i love sewn outlines, and that stamp just HAPPENED to fit perfectly. yay!

by the way, if you're tempted to join in on this, i highly recommend it both in terms of creative inspiration AND just plain joy! and no, it's not too late! in one of my favorite posts at the daisy yellow blog, (which of course i cannot find now, sorry!!!) our hostess tammy makes a brilliant point, and i quote:

"you don't have to catch up, 

you just have to START"!

(she's right you know!!!)

♥♥♥

*if you were ever to transport yourself to the inside of my brain... (which, trust me, i DO NOT recommend, for sooooooooooooo many reasons!!!) ...but if you did, i think you'd find the decor is a lot like this card, except it's in shades pink rather than yellow. just so you know. :) :) :)


**no really, i swear! though admittedly when i did realize it, i went ahead and enhanced the feeling by adding the heart!

super-stashy father's day extravaganza...

...that (sigh) just totally looks like an ordinary card. because somehow, the ones you spend the longest on, and sort of fall in love with, always do, don't they? or is that just me?? 

in any case, i'm still excited about this card, and even more excited that this week's challenge (#54) at shopping our stash is ALL ABOUT father's day, so we want to see your best masculine color schemes, your coolest "guy card" ideas, and your manliest papercraftin' manifestations! here's mine:

(patterned paper: my mind's eye, 7 gypsies, cosmo cricket; decorative tape: tim holtz; acrylic brackets and clocks: heidi swapp; rub-ons: basic grey, making memories, 7 gypsies; inks: ranger, colorbox; adhesives: tombow monorunner, sewing machine)

ok, so, as i said, this thing doesn't LOOK all that impressive-- probably because i could've whipped up something similar using pre-made digi-frames and brushes in a few minutes. but in fact this time i went super-stashy and super-OLD-SKOOL: every single flourish, all the distressing, even the gazzillion layers around the edge were put on one at a time by me using a wholllllllllle lotta old white rub-ons, loads of tissue tape, a million inks, more rub-ons (in black this time), some ancient heidi swapp ghost shape clocks and then finally some serious sewing-machine enhancement of "father" and all the edges of the main panel. 

phew. 

don't get me wrong, apart from the fact that jeff's dad is one of my favorite humans on the planet... (and also the living embodiment of the quote i used!) ...just from a creative standpoint, making this totally fun and completely satisfying. i just wish it didn't still LOOK LIKE i whipped it up in a few minutes using pre-made digi-frames and some brushes. sigh... :) :) :)

i hope you'll jump over to SOS this week and link up your own super-stashy, mega-manly creation; but at least go check out the DT cards because they are ♥AWESOME♥ and guaranteed to inspire!!!

what are ♥YOU♥ doing for the next 61 days?!

i'm doing THIS:

the VERY INSPIRING index card a day project, devised and hosted by miss tammy on the fabulous daisy yellow blog!

my darling stef found it, of course!* and being as i've totally fallen off the art-journaling wagon lately, i immediately decided that i physically NEED to do this, just to get back in the vitally important "pointless art"** habit. so i started and i mean to keep going. i'll probably post some of them (maybe all?) in little clumps! here are my first two cards.

for #1 the prompt was "take a voyage":

(mme clouds paper, illustrations cut from a magazine and a vintage book, a stamp i got at long's drugs in the ala moana mall and a dymo label)

for card #2 i grabbed one of the ideas from list of prompts for the first week #8 "grid":

(k and co + american crafts alphas, plus 9,000 types of decorative tape including these brands: heidi swapp, hambly, tim holtz,7 gysies, free view, martha stewart and... ok, lots more...) 

making these was the most fun i've had in quite some time... i love just going crazy and gluing stuff on instinctively, without much of an agenda. my plan is to try to do these in about 15 minutes each evening, and my only rule (apart from the governing concept that each prompt be accomplished on a 3x5 index card) will be to NOT to toss out or start over on a card, no matter what happens, just KEEP GOING. so whaddaya think-- wanna play? check out daisy yellow for all the details, then jump in, darlings!!!!! ♥♥♥

*one of the many, MANY wonderful things about being friends with stephanie is that at least a few times a week i get emails with the MOST AMAZING links to things that lovely lady knows i will enjoy. kind of like a personalized boutique version of her fabulous LINK LOVE posts every thursday!***


**i use the phrase "pointless art" in the best possible sense: to make things aimlessly, without deadlines or expectations or an attachment to a finished product; to try techniques and experiments that may utterly fail to LOOK GOOD... but teach important lessons (or are just FUN!);  in short the ultimate expression of bruce mau's point 3: process is more important than outcome!!! ♥♥♥


***btw, if you are not reading those, you are missing out BIG TIME!!!

sometimes when you combine challenges you get amazingly serendipitous results!

 ...and sometimes you just get a bit of a muddle. alas, this card falls into the latter category, i fear:

(vintage: masked and misted book paper, battenburg flower, postage stamps; patterned paper: basic grey, pink paislee, mme; digi stuffs: house of three "spring junque"; pearl flourish: prima; loose pearls: kaiser; tissue tape: tim holtz; brad: my mind's eye; stickers: ka nd co, sticko; white glossy cardstock: ranger; border punch: martha stewart; adhesives: tombow monorunner, 3m foam tape, scotch gluestick, gluedots)

because, whereas i absolutely ♥LOVE♥ all three challenges i combined... which were city crafter's "ticket to ride" (use at least one ticket AND a mode of transportation in your design):

the beautiful, soft, summery current palettte at color throwdown (#194):

and mojo monday's sketch #243:

somehow, i think that i got so over-focused on trying to meet the various requirements that i sort of, in the words of my new blogging friend gini,  "forgot to ensure it made a pleasing looking card."* yeah. that's totally what happened here. :)

there are some things i really like about this one, though: the strips of tissue tape which make up the pennant-shaped bit of the sketch; the fact that i used up a lot of little leftover bits and bobs; and, especially, test-driving a set of colors i might not have thought of otherwise. so i'm gonna chalk this one up as a triumph of experimentation-- if not design-- and move on to the next thing! 

happy weekend, darlings! ♥

*for the record, when gini said that about these amazing cards she made for opus gluei's "sew what" challenge i HEARILTY DISAGREED; in fact they are every bit as beautiful as they are cool and original!!! ♥♥♥

fa-la-la-la-lauren!

if you hung out with us at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ last year, you'll already be aware of the fact that both stephanie and i absolutely looooooooooooooove holiday music and look for any excuse to incorporate it into our cards, our prompts and our post titles. so you had to know we'd have at least one fortnight in which we'd challenge you to incorporate sheet music, music-themed products, or a song title into your holiday cards... and guess what... THIS is it!

i built my card around this sweet little retro-style cardstock embellishment in which the words and music to "silent night" have been shrunk down conveniently into ATC-size, perfect for card-making!

 (patterned paper and border sticker: fancy pants; sheet music icon and pale blue snowflakes: october afternoon; chipboard word: tps; snowflake die: memory box; other snowflaks: k and co, recollections, sticko; brads and lace: making memories; adhesives: tombow monorunner, scotch gluestick, 3m foam tape, sewing machine)

i used this great (layout) sketch (may 21st) from sketch support:

i flipped it horizontally, and condensed it slightly, but otherwise i think it's a pretty straightforward rendition. nearly everything on here is either a "pre-made" or a leftover or both; for some reason it always fills me with pride to be "using up" bit of neglected stash! i did, however, cut right into that full sheet of background paper; and i didn't even cut it in the most efficient way, because i really liked that there was a sort of horizontal line of snowflakes and accents right where the sketch called for one, and i thought it surrounded my collage rather beautifully, so i quite defiantly sliced it just THERE in order to get the maximum effect! :)

why not see what old stuff ♥YOU♥ could use up... or perhaps what new stuff you got in the post-christmas sales and haven't had a chance to play with yet? find a bit of sheet music, or some music-related paper or embellishments, or even just use your favorite holiday song title on the front of the card, and hop over to JINGLE BELLES to link up with us between now and wednesday, june 13th!

cheryl nelson should really get half the credit for this!

afterall, it is she (well, ALL the CCCB ladies, but especially cheryl) who made me really LOVE doilies again, and without that little push i would never have made either the dogwood card or this one! but i'm getting a little ahead of myself... first... i should really say...

HELLO, darlings, and welcome to shopping our stash challenge #53 about which the lovely miss carla says this:

May Flowers 

Anything floral related- flowers, floral, roses, sunflowers, gardens, vases, potted flowers, etc; you can use paper with flowers in the design or use flowers as embellies as well (not just limited to floral images).

so that's easy, right? who doesn't love flowers?! whilst i was considering what to make, i was also surfing around a bit, and saw that the doilies and lace challenge at moxie fab world wants us to use a "doily or lace in an innovative way"; then i saw that the current assignment at the order of the opus gluei (where i've not played in waaaaaaaaaaay too long!!!) is ♥SEW WHAT♥ for which they ask us to, well, *sew* on a project. so i started thinking about ALL of those things, and grabbing some supplies, and at the end of a long, inky, painty, stampy, sewing-machine-intensive evening i had this:

(patterned paper: pink paislee; mists and inks in various blues and greens: glimmer mist, maya mist, radiant rain, smooch spritz, ranger re-inkers and distress inks, colorbox pigment and chalk inks;   other: paper doilies, individual fake white hydrangea blossoms from a michaels stem (plus some prima paper flowers), tiny pearls, sewing machine; adhesives: tombow monorunner, gluedots, scotch gluestick)

lovely husband jeff refers to cards of this type as "science experiments" because of the fact that i usually wind up standing at our kitchen sink muttering, whilst surrounded by vials and bottles and sprays, and apparently he always has the vague impression that i *MIGHT* just possibly blow something up. or at least stain it irretrievably. fortunately this time the only things which changed color completely were the (previously white) flower blossoms, the pink paislee mistable "darling doilies" paper, and a tiiiiiiiiny little section at the edge of our dish drainer where i let my stamps dry, which, now that i come to think of it, might have been a bit blue just there when we got it... no, honestly...

i did go a tiny bit crazy with a bunch of different mists; then i used a few understated pattern stamps to add more colors of blue and green in the form of distress and chalk inks, and then, when i had the background the way i wanted, i stamped the top half of donna downey's glorious hollyhocks... which became the "shadow" for my sewn-on petals. at the end, i added bits of real doily to the shiny resist ones on the paper, did a bunch more sewing, and called it a night. 

  

i hope you'll stop by SOS and see the super-inspiring DT examples, before heading off to ♥YOUR♥ crafty laboratory in pursuit of your own wonderful, super-fun, flowery experiments; then link them up before next monday, june (already! can you BELIEVE it?!) 4th!