Well Behaved… or… Not?

Mostly I’m naughty… I think…. at least with sketches.  I like rules because they give me boundaries and usually I see things in black and white with very few grey areas…. however with crafting I break all the rules…usually…  but not today!  {Go ahead, pick your jaw up off the floor….}

Today I followed the sketch and left everything in it’s right place.

Brent did not scold me.

Like he really ever does…

Usually he just gives me a hard time.

But that’s his job.

I {heart} him.

 

But moooving on…  Here’s today’s sketch:

Excellent sketch, but  totally not how I would normally lay things out… but I believe that is the point of a sketch CHALLENGE, right?  To challenge us to step out of our box and stretch the imagination and challenge ourselves to do something and grow!

So.. I obeyed the rules.

And my brain stretched.  You should have heard it.  Scary sound.

Heather sent me some fabulous stamps to play with again and I decided to use a FABULOUS sentiment from her newly revealed set, “Well Behaved”.  I believe that it’s being revealed today, Tuesday, and you’re gonna luuuuurve it!

Again, I pulled out the Basic Grey “Lemonade” paper kit and went to town.  I had so much fun stitching on the last card (and my cross stitch threads box was still on my desk) that I decided to do a little more stitchin’. With metallic thread that was a pain to separate and work with…  Woot!

And I didn’t want to use the big ol’ circle as a stamped bit, so I pulled out the beginnings of a funky flower I’d been working on earlier in the day.

The flower is made using some scraps of paper and tulle (that funky netting stuff that you usually find under wedding dresses or as the veil) and a DESIGNER button.. hahaha!  Anyway… I blinged it up with some Stickles (icicle flavor) and let it dry forevvvvvvver.  I tied the button with some metallic thread.  I used some home made glimmer mist and spritzed it on the paper parts of the flower.  You can kind of see it on the green paper (bottom left of it).  In real life it’s all shimmery and luuuuurverly!  Oh yah, and the light pink tulle (which came from my sweet friend, Jeanne Tomshack, is inked up with some CTMH Vineyard Berry ink to distress it even further.   My fingers were so gross. LOL!

Fiddled with the sentiment placement and decided on this:

Here’s the final product.   I did elongate the card a little to allow the uber long sentiment to be placed on it and fit a little better.

 

Thanks for stoppin by today!  Think of me as I slave away over numbers and contracts and customer payments and tax prep today at work.  Tee hee! :)

~Inky Smiles!

PS… Answering the last post comments.  

1) THANK YOU for your kind comments on my charms!  You made my day.
2)  YES!  An Etsy shop is likely in the works.  I am going to try my hand at selling my creations, both paper craft and especially jewelry.  (Jewelry posts coming…)  I love making jewelry and can’t wait to share my creations! 
3)  I have to figure out the whole Etsy thing and a shop name. LOL!

Supplies:
Stamps – Skipping Stones Design’s “Well Behaved”
Paper – Basic Grey “Lemonade”
Ink – CTMH Vineyard Berry
Miscellaneous"- Kaisercraft Rhinestones, pink tulle, Stickles, Silver metallic thread, border punches.

Scrap My Scraps Challenge: Card Set #6

Sadly, we are at our last set of Scrap My Scraps Cards… I have enjoyed this challenge IMMENSELY. It’s been so fun to see what each player comes up with using the same pieces. It’s fun to see each person put a little of themselves into each project.

I will be doing another Scrap My Scraps Challenge in the next couple of months with different papers. If you would like to participate please leave a comment on one of the SMS posts and I will contact you when we’re getting ready to play again. I will mail you the card “guts” packet and you get to keep the cards. All you need to do is send (email) me the photos of your finished cards.

Here’s Card Set #6


The “Rules”:

1. Create one card from each layer stack thingy.
2. Use ALL of the pieces that go to each card.
3. Use any stamps to complete cards.
4. You may add one piece of extra cardstock to the card and any extra embellishments.

(More like guidelines, really….)

The Players:

Alisha Trussell
Jeanne Tomshack
Kathi Carlson

We started with:
Leftovers from the CTMH Cocoa Cafe promotional paper pack. I have gobs of this stuff! It’s sure to make an appearance again sometime.

My Original Card:
My card was super simple. You can’t really tell from the pic but the stamped sentiment has glitter on the edges of the “ice cubes”… It also has an old watermark on it from when I was a consultant. That link is dead and gone. I couldn’t find the original card, but did find the original picture of it! My card has a similar layout to Jeanne’s.

Kathi’s Card:
One of Kathi’s signatures in her design style is birds. I love how Kathi is able really make birds work. Ilove this bird in the “rushes”. It makes me think of laying on a creekbed listening to water rush by while the birds sing in the bushes.



Jeanne’s Card:
I love Jeanne’s embossed background and flowers. If you look closely (click on image for a larger view) you can see that Jeanne has taken a spacer “bead” for jewelry making and flattened it out and added a brad to the center to bling out the flower. The embossing on the flowers and the background give it kind of a lacey “filigree” look. I love it!

Alisha’s Card:
Alisha and Kathi must have had the same brainwave again… They have similar layouts for their cards with similar themes… Alisha’s is missing the bird, but has the organic stamp! I love the bow and the simple sentiment…. Enjoy Life {and Alisha, it looks like you found your missing bamboo piece... lol!}

Hope you enjoyed this round of Scrap My Scraps! See you soon!

Inky Smiles!

Manly Man Card Contest Entries so far....

I 've received a couple of cards and am extending the contest by one day... I will announce a winner on Tuesday evening. Deadline to enter is Tuesday (Feb 5) @ noon MST (US).

I will choose a random winner to receive something fun (like say a mini CTMH stamp set with 4 stamps) from my stash and some other goodies...... Hrmmmm....

Please email a pic of your card to me at: inkysmiles at g mail dot com (no spaces, insert appropriate punctuation) or post a link in the comments section to your card in your online gallery.

If you've submitted a card and it's not here, PLEASE email me!

Also, some entries are marked with personal contact info by the creator, if you want a link to your blog, and your photo is not already marked, please leave it in the comments so our viewers can see more of your art. I have personally checked each FABULOUS blog that was in signatures of emails sent with the cards. THEY ARE AWESOME!!!! I am loving blog hopping and seeing all of your wonderful art & BlueIcicles FREAKIN COOL HAIR!!! (If Brent would not have a hernia, I would SOOOOOO do it!

Here's what I've received so far: {CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED}

Happy Friday! Cards for the MEN in our lives

It's Superbowl weekend and each of us celebrates it a bit differently. Brent and I usually have a "Superbowl Commercial Party". Neither of us is really into sports much at all (ok, with exception of most of the Olympic Sports) and so we have a party to watch the commercials. This year our friends, the Coopers, are hosting it. HEHE! Basically, we get together, eat really good tailgate party junk food and yell, "SHUSH... QUIET.... COMMERCIALS are on... COME QUICK!"... lol! Generally we're playing games or just enjoying each other's company while the game is playing... but when those commercials come on, you'd better not interrupt! LOL!

Superbowl Weekend exudes "macho-ness" to me and I've been thinking that I need to spend a little time working on some more masculine cards for the men in my life. ("My Men" being, Husband, Brothers, Father, Father in law, etc.) I've got a good stash of swirly girly flowery and floofy cards... perfect for the women in my life, but I don't have much in the way of masculine... It seems that it's much easier for me to whip out something pretty and feminine.

Well, I got this really cool random stamped paper last fall from Brenda Harmless as part of our 2 part swap and decided that the design was decidedly masculine to me. I realized this morning that I have not shown this card yet. It is one of my absolute favorites of last year! I was stressing about what to do with the fish paper, but one night I had a fabulous dream about this fish card.. LOL! I woke up in the middle of the night, went out to my kitchen and grabbed a piece of paper and scribbled out what I could remember.

It's kind of hard to tell in the photo, but I cut the fins with my kraft knife and popped them out with some glass micro beads that I piled up on heaps of liquid glass, I rubbed some glitter on the scales of the fish. The sand section in the frame is actual sand paper from my woodshop. LOL! I just tore a few pieces, layered them and glued them in place. The frame is one of my favorite aspects of the card. I snipped some twigs from old trees along the creek in our back yard and glued them together with liquid glass and then tied with twine. It was a big pain and took forever, but I like the finished product. :) I chalked all over the card with pearlesent chalks from Pebbles, Inc and dirtied up the card with ink and doodled with a marker. It was sooo much fun to make!

So this weekend, while your men (or even you) are enjoying the Superbowl festivities, your challenge is to create some fun, masculine cards for the men in your life. Use something out of the ordinary on your card (like I did with my twigs!) and post a link (comment) on this post to your card and I will pick a random entry on Monday for a surprise paper crafting treat! Show us some masculine themed cards! :)

Click image for larger, detailed view

Materials used:
American Crafts Ribbon
CTMH Papers and Inks
Stamps - Roughin It & Outdoor Trek by CTMH (not sure which set the RS paper came from)
Misc - Liquid Glass, misc metal embellishments, twine, glass micro beads, twigs.
Cuttlebug machine and embossing folders, sand paper.

Tuesday Bonus Challenge....

Ok, Ok, so it's not papercrafting related... but that's ok... my blog is fairly diverse!

I have a new "obsession". Ok, so maybe it's not an obsession, but it's something that I have enjoyed immensely over the last several days... Can you guess what it is?

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Here's a clue:

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Leave a comment on this post and tell me the significance of this 1950's Red Chevy Truck and I will randomly draw a name to win something from my stash on Friday.

*edited* Hints are added in the comments throughout the day until someone guesses....

Also, don't forget to keep voting for Sketch Challenge {005}!

TFT-Sketch Challenge {005} VOTING IS OPEN!

VOTING INFORMATION:
* Recruit your friends and family to vote for your submission. (PLEASE COMMENT ONLY TO THIS POST with your votes. I won't count votes that I have to hunt for.)

* Voting will be closed on Friday, Oct 19th
The winner will be announced within 24-ish hours.

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In no particular order, here are the awesome entries I received.
You may click on each photo to view it larger.

Color Challenge {001}

I was perusing wedding cakes a while back, no particular reason other than they are fun to look at, and I am addicted to Ace of Cakes... Anyway... I saw this cake and loooooved it. I would never in a zillion years put these colors together, but they sure look good on this cake!!!

Here's your first Color Challenge..... Create a card, layout, or other piece of art using these colors as your inspiration. I'd love to see them, so share away!

Inky Smiles!
Erin