i think i may have set a record...

...for number of inky accoutrements used in one card, that is. it's my second "cardstock christmas" card for ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ and this time i decided to lock up my cuttlebug and try to make something from the ground up using just plain white paper. so here's what i came up with:

(stamps: glitz design, tim holtz, hero arts, purple onion, stampendous, tattered angels; mask: pink paislee; inks: ranger, colorbox, stewart superior; mists: studio calico, tattered angels, smooch spritz; florals and leaves: making memories, we r memory keepers, petaloo; ribbon and brads: my mind's eye; lace from my stash; plain white cardstock: staples; glossy red cardstock: ranger; adhesives: staples brand gluetape runner, scotch doublestick tape)

yes, that really was just nekkid white staples brand index stock when i began; and no, i guess i really didn't know when to stop, lol. :) but boy was it fun. i went a little nuts with stamps, mists, a mask, and elebenty hundred rubber stamps. i wish i had thought to take pictures as i was working, though possibly if i had, i'd be online looking up how to get ink stains off a camera right now instead of writing my post, so maybe it's better this way. by way of compensation after the fact, here's a photo of the stuff i used:

as usual, i'm linking up with patrice's 52-card-pickup; also the lovely ladies at merry monday are hosting an anything goes christmas challenge for the entire month; meanwhile the paper players are celebrating christmas in july, so i'm jumping in there, too. yay.

of course, you don't have to go into a stamping frenzy to play along with us at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ you need only to make a card WITHOUT any designer/patterned paper in it, and you can do that in any way you choose... and i cannot wait to see what you will make, darlings! ♥

i may have accidentally cheated a little...

...on the color challenge i'm entering. but we'll get to that. at the moment i'm so excited to have had a little extra blogging, surfing, and unscheduled card-making time this week, that i'm almost giddy! it's all because of the floor re-finishing escapade, of course. because i have to be HERE in the house... but i'm basically trapped in the guestroom to escape the noise and mess. there are definitely worse fates, don't get me wrong!

so yesterday on my SOS teammate jessi's blog i saw the great multiple-sketch scenario to celebrate tuesday morning sketches' fourth birthday and i was determined to play. then i saw the berry berry fun "strawberry farm" challenge at city crafter, and i thought, "oh yeah!". finally, the current palette at color throwdown seemed like the perfect jumping off point for combining the other two. in a wave of enthusiasm, working with my rolling office chair pulled up to the edge of the bed, i made this:

(flower photo taken by me, printed on kodak premium high gloss paper and cut out; patterned paper: echo park, glitz design, basic grey + gingham gift wrap + old book paper that's been misted a bit + a digital music brush printed on inkjet transparency; strawberries: very old pack of glitter rub-ons from the $1 aisle at michaels; punches: ek success, recollections; alphas: american crafts; labels: dymo; washi tape: recollections; ink: colorbox; adhesives: staples brand gluetape runner, 3m foam tape)

ok so... for starters, it's not BERRY BERRY strawberry, is it?! nope. there's only one little berry on there!

in my original idea there was a whole border of them!!! but somehow the big flower sorta took over. i've still got the sentiment, though; and to make up, i put some more berries inside. see?

i did a lot better with the sketch part. i chose the one on the lower right, obviously:

admittedly, again, the big honkin' flower really took over, didn't it? i could've trimmed up, but it was so beautiful i didn't quite have the heart, so i just let it burst off the card! then there's the color palette, which is luscious, don't you think?

but you see the problem, right? i think my turquoise shade is more green than it ought to be; the one in the palette is quite a bit bluer. partly it's the way the card photographed, but also, when i saw the palette originally, it was in the evening and on my iphone, so i thought i was pretty close. in the daytime, on the big computer screen, i have my doubts. so i will totally understand if i am disqualified, especially since color throwdown is ALSO celebrating their anniversary... (FIVE years! congrats!) ... and they have some awesome prizes you should really check out!

i'll be back tomorrow with my second card for our JINGLE BELLES cardstock christmas prompt; i'm pretty proud of this one... i actually broke out quite a few rubber stamps, and serious inkiness ensued! ciao for now, darlings!

it happened during "floor-pocalypse"!

the good news: we're having the (vintage, hardwood) floors in three rooms downstairs sanded and re-stained, and i think they are going to look AMAZING when they are done!

the bad news: i have to be home all week, but cannot get into my office/art lair because they are plastic-ed off and it would require going through the workspace and breaking the awesome floor guys' meticulous dust-minimizing seal; also the a/c cannot be on downstairs and it's hot! so i'm basically camping out upstairs with my computer.

the other good news: i finally got caught up on photographing and posting my ICAD cards, amid more noise, but (thankfully!) less dust than i expected. woohoo! i'm calling this a win!!! ♥

 032: stamps and stamps

vintage postage stamps glued randomly to a card, then stamped on with a BUNCH of different swirly stamps, then sewn swirls on top. and a butterfly! it got a bit "muddy" at the end, but i still kinda like it.

033: definition/monochrome

two ideas, all smooshed together, in collage form. plus... cookies!!! :)

034: fourth of july

when we were buying our house, the owners mentioned that the local country club puts on a great fireworks display, and that our deck has pretty much the best view of it you can get from anywhere. they were sooooooooooooo right!!! ♥

035: transparent layers

this card is entirely flat, but has LOADS of layers, thanks to the wonderful collage tool known as the inkjet transparency. i use them mostly for cardmaking and travel books, but since they are on the pricey side, i always fill in every single bit of space on an 8.5x11" sheet, even if that means printing random digital files. then i put the "extra bits" in my collage file to use later. the buddha and 

lotus are both (heavily photoshopped) photos of mine; the chinese text is an anna aspnes brush, i think.

 036: stream of consciousness

ok, i honestly planned to do traditional (written!) journaling on this one, after i laid down a background of collagey bits. and then somehow the collage bits BECAME the "stream of consciousness". so i just went with it.

037: best friends

ok yeah, i'm definitely in a hardcore collage phase. part of me thinks i should be pushing myself to use other media and shake things up a lot more. the other part is having soooooo much fun gluing and layering that it's just NOT LISTENING. guess which is winning??! :) :) :) 

038: another rainbow

wouldja believe that the yellow part of this collage is the leftover "frame" bit of a sheet of small 3/8" round label stickers? and if you do believe that, can anybody tell me *WHY* i would've saved such a thing??! ok, well, to do this. obviously.

have you checked out the ICAD page at daisy yellow? howsabout the flickr group? both are awesome, i do assure you, darlings! ♥

hello (again) sunshine

back in january i showed you the minibook i made for our little getaway in clearwater beach, which i filled with journaling and souvenirs while we were on the trip. one thing i never quiiiiiite got around to adding were the photos and the cover treatment, probably because we came home from vacation and jumped right into the adventure of buying and moving into the new house! in the midst of unpacking and organizing my lovely new office space, i came across the nearly completed book and thought, "i should really finish that"... and since this week's challenge at shopping our stash is to make something with a summer theme and/or summery colors, i thought this was the PERFECT time to do that. so i did. see?!

(patterned paper: sei, echo park, my mind's eye; stickers: sandylion, jolee's, recollections; alphabets: american crafts pink remarks and yellow fabric thickers; ink: colorbox; adhesives: staples brand gluetape runner, 3m foam tape, sewing machine)

this was my first time working with a 4.5x6.5" travel journal, but i have to say it was perfect for this trip! postcards and business cards are already exactly the right size, and with a bit of trimming you can fit most everything else you might like to save, such as brochures and menus and things. of course standard sized photos are ideal, so it was my plan to include a bunch of those. but at the moment i'm completely re-obsessed with instagram, so i decided to go with a bunch of smaller square pics instead. c'est la vie!

here's a shot of the whole book, which is full of maps, postcards, napkins, tickets stubs, and all the other ephemera of travel, as well as plenty of hot colors, cool photos, and a record of the fun we had in the sun this january. i love having this little record of the things we did in florida!

hop on over to SOS for even more summery fun, and to link up your own card or project with us! ♥

cardstock christmas!

yepper, darlings, we've reached that week of the ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ year in which we eschew the joys of patterned paper and go allllll the way back to basics by grabbin' some plain cardstock and adorning it ourselves! this can be done by stamping, punching, misting, inking, stitching, gluing, embossing, beading, sanding, tearing, diecutting .. well, heck, it can be done ANY WAY you want! me being me, i did a little bit of *everything* lol!!! 

core'dinations cardstock... plus a few little tiny scraps of doodlebug's glitter paper; vintage lace and eyelet; ribbon and sitcky pearls from michaels; tim holtz and cuttlebug embossing folders; sizzix xmas tree die; microbeads; mists by tattered angels, jenni bowlin, and studio calico; various distress inks; adhesives: staples brand gluetape runner, 3m foam tape, scotch doublestick tape, sewing machine;

yeah. told ya. you thought i was using the word "everything" in a hyperbolic writer-ish sort of way, didn't you? but no, what i meant was, i actually did some punching, misting, inking, stitching, gluing, embossing, microbeading, sanding, tearing, diecutting... oh yeah and at the very end, i stuck a few tiny little pearls on top! i call this my salute to texture, and i'm pretty proud of it, actually!

one thing i didn't do on this card was any stamping... but miss stephanie did so on her card (which you HAVE TO go and see, asap!!!) with such amazing creativity, dexterity and skill, that i figured we were covered. maybe i will try that next week. in the meantime, i hope you will amass your own pile of cardstock, set upon it joyously with the technique of your choice, and join us! ♥♥♥

even MORE icads...

...including my favorite one of the year so far, can you guess which of these it is??

026: asian collage

possibly the most random collage i've ever made... entirely composed of leftover stuff that was sitting on my desk!

027: frida quote

the orange flower illustration was cut from a magazine ad, and accidentally ripped while i was getting ready to glue it down. so i ripped and wrinkled it more, and stuck it back together with washi tape. serendipity in action, darlings!  

028: abstract new york collage

this is from the day jeff and i went into the city to goof off. it's got part of a high line postcard as its base, a bodhisattva from the rubin museum brochure, and a bunch of random text. oh yeah and some tiny flying fish that have been in my leftovers pile for over a month. because-- weirdly enough-- they just totally WORK in this context, lol!!! :)

029: five last books

this was one of the prompts from the week five list, the typed card slides into the pocket i made from the empty seed packet; the base of the card is a bit of a (already falling apart when i found it!) paperback book cover

030: book quote

i had dymo-ed this quote to use on the ICAD above, but in the end it seemed kind of too big, so i decided to save it and let it be the star of this card, instead! (ps: hey, g: 'member these puppy stickers from thrift usa??!)

031: quilty layers

remember my sos quilt cards from a couple of weeks ago? well, i had a bunch of scraps leftover. they were too small to save but too big to toss, so i glued them randomly to an index card, but then i couldn't decide what else to do, so i put it aside, until the other night when i decided it needed LOTS of rub-ons, a leftover flower, and some twine. yep. that's what it needed, all right! :) :) :)

so have you guessed my favorite? actually, i quite like ALL of these, but if you guessed 028, you are right! i loved that day, i loved the little brochures and things we collected, and i loved coming home and gluing random bits to a card as a keepsake. plus... who doesn't love tiny flyin' fish??! i mean, c'mon!!! :) :) :)

PS: the index card a day project is devised and hosted by miss tammy of the daisy yellow art blog, and EVERYONE is welcome to participate! you don't have to catch up, just start... and have FUN! ♥♥♥

SOS108: red, white and blue!

in honor of of the upcoming independence day holiday, this week at shopping our stash, we are making cards that are red, white and blue! of course, this being the "world wide web", it doesn't seem quite fair to ask EVERYONE to embrace our national colors, so if you'd prefer to use the colors of your own flag, go ahead and do that, instead! even for americans, this might seem like a little bit of a stumper... i mean... no matter how patriotic one is, how many of us actually send cards for the fourth of july? not me, i confess, so i was a little bit unsure what to do. and then i realized that there is plenty of red white and blue gorgeousness in the world that's *not* covered in stars and stripes. so i went secular, so to speak. see?

rub-ons: basic grey; florals: petaloo; brads: my mind's eye; white cardstock and gluetape: staples; other: scrap of denim, secured with xyron adhesive to a bit of cardstock, and machine stitched to card

for some reason the idea of blue denim covered with white rub-ons was really attractive to me. maybe it's all the printed jeans and shorts i've been seeing? i went looking for some denim print paper, but then i thought, "why not REAL denim?!" so i xyroned a bit of a pair of old jeans to some sturdy cardstock, cut a panel sized to fit a "long card", and then sewed around the edge, just for a little extra security... but actually... the adhesive worked really well, and i doubt it was really necessary. i used white thread, though, to give it a little extra design appeal. then i affixed my rub-on* which i cut into a a couple of pieces so that i could better accommodate the flowers in the center. those are attached with brads; again, just to be really sure, since i was working on a textured surface. and that was it, after a little panic at the beginning, this was actually one of the simplest and easiest cards i've made all year. go figure! :)

and now i'm sure you'd like to see what my fellow SOS dt members have done, so off you go, darlings, and i hope you will have an especially festive and safe weekend... no matter what you have planned on the fourth! ♥♥♥

*i tried a little experiment first, with an offcut of denim and an "extra" bit of a basic grey rub-on. i would heartily recommend this step, since not all rubs are created equal!!! in the case of the bg ones... i've never had one dry out or otherwise go astray, and this was no exception. i did take care to burnish the design realllllly well and pull the covering off slowly, but other than that i took no special precautions!