Holiday Home

At least some of the Cardologists have decided that this Holiday Home stamp set in the Stampin' Up holiday catalog ranks among their favorites.  Check out all the little stamps that come in this set sized to "fit" the houses. This cute Santa and reindeer have been appearing in front of the full moon all over blogland.  Tonight we made our version (or should I say versions?).

We all started by masking a moon shape and sponging ink on glossy paper, using four Marvy blues with a little Memento black to darken the corner.   While that dried, we stamped, colored and fussy cut the three houses.  The hard part was picking a card color; mine is cherry cobbler with a thin black mat. The streetlamp and tree were stamped directly on the card and a line added to ground them.  Then the houses were popped up on the panel.  We turned the streetlights "on" with our white pens and added a little bling (of course) on the Christmas lights and wreath.

I hear we might have a little snow in our day tomorrow.  Ho Ho Ho.  Susanne and Melba, we missed you tonight.  Hope you are feeling better soon.

Thanks for visiting.

Blog tag

Hello, friends,

This is going to be a long post today, because my stamper friend, Susanne, tagged me for the "getting to know you" blog tag and I can be rather longwinded sometimes.   I hope you visit Susanne's blog, Keep In Touch, and get to know her if you don't already. 


Susanne likes stars, I know, and random spots of color on her cards so in tribute I am starting with this card I made today.  The saying says that she is a friend that brightens any day and inspires me.

So let's get right into those pesky, thought-provoking questions.

1.  What creative projects are you currently working on?  It is my favorite time of the year - Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas are in close proximity - so I am working on holiday cards.  Ever since that day when my coworker, Lisa, introduced me to "the crazy ladies that spend all their money on stamps", I have focused on card-making.  All the other crafts I used to do - embroidery, macramé, crochet - have been shelved.

2.  What inspires your designs?  At first, I gravitated to stamping for the camaraderie, thinking I had no artistic ability.  There came a day when I confessed to our artist friend, Bonnie, that I didn't know what I was doing.  She kindly invited me over for some one-on-one time and showed me how to add dimension to a card.  I made the first card I actually liked that day, a Christmas card for my mom, and an addiction was born. 

I have six Cardologist friends who challenge me with their unique styles and keep me sane.  Now that I have an iPad, I also find inspiration from other talented people online. 


3.  What method/process do you apply to each of your creative projects and how long does each take to complete?  Once, in college, my artist roommate told me to just close my eyes and "see" what I wanted to draw.  I have to honestly say there are only rare occasions when an inspiration will just pop into my head like that.  More often, though, I start with one thought - use this paper, or that stamp - and try to grow an idea.  I like challenges that present a color scheme or a layout as a starting point.  I can still struggle for days with the details unless I give myself a deadline.


4.  If you had to describe your signature style, what would it be?  My sister, who is not a stamper, can usually tell which of my friends has made a card.  We each have our unique style, but describing it is hard.  if it helps, my friends call me the Engineer.  I fall somewhere between One Layer Simplicity (which is very difficult) and Lacy Victorian (too time consuming).  I like clean cards with dimension or movement. 


5. What are three crafting products/tools you can't live without?  Eeek, only three?!  I could say "my kit" that I take each week to stamp with the Cardologists but that would be cheating since it is full of essentials (not to mention it has grown to three heavy bags).  Seriously, I will not give up my Big Shot since it is a rare card that does not benefit in some way from die-cutting or embossing.  I also need my Scotch clear glue since it gives me a second to rethink my positioning.  And I love all my paper, getting great enjoyment from matching textures and colors.

And I am at the point now where I would pass the torch on to another blogger.  None of the Cardologists, with the exception of Susanne, who introduced me to blogland,  have blogs.  So first I give you a sampling of their styles. 

Being new to blogland, I do not know other bloggers well enough to tag them.  So I am going to give you links to sites that I find inspiring. Since there are quite a few, I picked sites with less than 300 followers.  I am hoping you will have time to visit them and say "hello" from me.

Angela, From the Tool Shed
Nikki, My Sandbox
Becky, Scrappin' and Stampin' in GJ
Janet, Swanlady Impressions

And now I am off to my sister's house for Sunday family dinner and a movie night.  If you read all this blog this end, I thank you for your kind attention. I hope to see you in blogland.

 
 



Halloween 2014

It is a few hours away from All Hallow's Eve so I post the card I made for this season. 

Susanne was a little under the weather tonight and didn't make it to the Cardologist's party, so Susanne your card is in the mail.  I hope you are feeling better soon.

I had intended to put googly eyes on the outside and place the owl inside.  However, I couldn't find my googly eyes - since I am only half unpacked from Stamp Camp that is not a surprise.  So, on the front the owl goes.  Of course, she had to have her feathers dyed orange and purple for the occasion...and a little green makeup for the beak and toes.

The Spider Web sentiment is from DRS and inside,

"Wishing you a delightfully frightful Halloween night!" which I believe is an old Close to My Heart stamp.


Thank you for visiting.

Fairy wishes

 Hello, my friends,

The Cardologists believe chocolate is necessary for the creative process. Needless to say a lot of M&Ms went into this project.   The card took over my whole afternoon.  It started as a simple small card but then it called to be switched around and made into a buckle.  (The actual card went through several metamorphosis until ending up as a gray card with embossed swirls distressed with blue.)



 The fairy stamp is a Penny Black stamp. I stamped her twice and popped up the head and star.  I stamped the wings twice with Staz-On on acetate, and cut them out, leaving a tab to slip into the slit I made along her dress.



It wasn't going to be a Christmas card either but when I went looking through my stash I found this sentiment that fit perfectly. 







Spellbinders Labels Twenty-two  formed the "buckle" and framed the sentiments from two different Stampin' Up sets, one retired, one Petite Pairs.



Thank you for visiting today.

Butterflies

My sister likes butterflies, and even though we are past the season to see them here, I found myself making a butterfly card this week.

My friend, Susanne, found a technique posted by Therese on  her website Lost In Paper this month using solid dies with embossing folders to create a frame for a matching stamp.  To our dismay, the Cardologists do not have many solid dies.  I have one solid die, but no stamp to match so I tried the technique with a set of dies from Impression Obsession that I fortuitously received in the mail this week.




The effect of the frame is lost unless you peak under the butterfly in the closeup, so it would work better with a matching stamp, and as we found out from our experimenting, if the die is sized to leave a border around the stamp.

The butterfly was cut from a left over scrap of ink applied direct to glossy paper. The word stamp is from a Stamp Camp set; the embossing folder is from Provo Craft/Cuttlebug. 


Thanks for visiting my blog.
Dora