MORE SPRING CRAFT KIT CREATIONS

I've been continuing to work with the items that came in my Spring Craft Kit and here are a few more of my creations. You know it is very interesting that when I first received this kit I wasn't too excited about it. It was much brighter and more pastelly (is that a word?) than I like. I put off for over a month even looking at it again. BUT.....once I got started using it I fell in love! I am now going to be so sad when there is no more to play with and I must move on. And that moment is coming real fast there is not much left but a few scraps of patterned paper and even less of the card stock. I think I may have a dozen or so brads left and that is it for the embellishments.

So why did I fall in love with this kit once I began using it. Well for one thing I think that anything I determine to throw myself into creating with I eventually fall in love with. The more I use something that seem useless the more I seem to find uses for it. Also it has been so rainy and dreary here in Maryland this month (over 9 inches of rain so far) that the papers in this kit provided a much needed cheery bright spot in my day. I found myself smiling as I worked with them.

This first card didn't start out to be a baby girl card. In fact it started out a disaster. I began working with one of the self adhesive chipboard flowers that came in the kit. (They were my biggest challenge). I added the oversized brad for the middle of it then tried to put it against the patterned papers I had left. Nothing worked it kept getting lost. Next I thought maybe a scalloped circle under it would help and I had a piece of the pink patterned paper, but the scalloped circle was too big so I placed a smaller circle between it and the chipboard. That worked but it was still boring so bring out the piercing tool and white gel pen. Finally I had something I liked that worked against the striped background paper, but wow it's 4 layers! To balance the vertical stripes I added the ribbon on a diagonal line under this medallion. At this point I needed something in the lower right to balance everything and I wanted it to be a sentiment. For some reason that even I don't understand when I looked at the card I thought of a baby rattle and since the medallion was primarily pink it became a baby girl card by stamping the New Baby sentiment on pink! It works for me how about you?

From babies to birthday's. This second card also has a chipboard flower with a large brad on the inside. But this one looked just fine with no other additions. Maybe because it is a more normal shaped flower image. I echoed the flower by rolling the background on the card stock using So Saffron and one of my jumbo wheels from SU. More flowers on the panel of paper down the left side of the card. Then I was tired of flowers and so stamped the happy birthday message on a striped paper. Cutting around it with the same scalloped scissors I used on the sides of the panel. Something more was needed and I decided it was a splash of color so I found a strip of golden yellow card stock, but it was narrower than the sentiment piece! What to do? Well you can see what I did. I scalloped just the ends of the strip and cut it long enough to place a brad in each end than put the sentiment on top using dimentionals. I think it looks like it is floating on a stip if paper ribbon. Finally,I wanted to put three brads in the lower left. Now that I was almost done with the card I got to hurried and lazy to get out a punch template and ensure that the brads would be evenly spaced. (I blame it on my ADD kicking in.) So of course when I put the brads in they were all wrong and totally ruined the card. <> I was ready to kick myself around the room and scream in frustration. I took a break, came back refreshed and looked at the card again....more sighing....Ah ha! I'll cover up the holes that are miss punched. You can se what I came up with. Now the only problem was that when I opened the card there were those pesky holes still staring me in the face! HA, guess what's on the inside covering the holes........A second little punched strip of the patterned paper that you see on the left hand side of the card. Problem cratively solve and card salvaged!

FLY BABY WEEKEND OF STAMPING FUN! part 2

I made a boo boo and got my challenges out of order. Lee actually gave us the third challenge. So sorry Lee. How could I have messed this up. I love making nugget boxes and of course I love chocolate and yours was to make a nugget box. Like with the Criss Cross cards; the Jan VSN was the first time I had attempted a Nugget Box. I had seen them and even received several in swaps at last years SU convention, but I never tried to make one because I thought they would be so hard. In fact they are so easy. I am thinking that I will be making lots of these for special Valentine treats. I have a whole, well almost a whole, bag of nuggets and if I give them as gifts I won't be tempted to eat them all. Back to this nugget box. This time I used designer doubles sided paper to make my box. I like the paper for the sleeve, but I think I prefer the more sturdy card stock for the bottom box.

Now back in order of challenges. Jennifer issued a second challenge. To make a card with no "BLING". I had another baby card that needed to be made and it is for a little boy so I figured this was the challenge for that. Boys don't need bling like little girls do. I used the same Baby Talk stamp set but of course this time its in blue. And since only paper and layers could be used for interest I worked with some papers I have to make things interesting. I hope Archer likes it and we'll just have to wait and see if some day he likes baseball. I colored these images with BIC markers. Nothing fancy, but I have 36 colors to choose from in my set. Lots more than I have in my selection of Copic and Prismas. They work but don't blend together well and you can see lines.

The final challenge of the weekend was from Sarah. It was a new one for me. It was to create a door card. I really had fun with this one. I decorated both the outside and the inside of the card. I used some retired SU paper from 2006-07 catalog. Paper that I love so much it had fallen into the I'm hoarding it category. The stamp set I used is also retired. It is "All About U".
I really enjoy using my retired sets, but I guess that is because I try really hard not to buy sets that I don't really really love. (If I didn't put that restriction on myself I think I'd probably end up buying them all!)

Here is a picture of the card closed. I tried something different with my oval and scalloped oval punches on this card and I like the way it worked. I didn't want to add another card stock color to the card, but wanted to use the layered oval and scalloped oval. Using the same card stock for both was not going to work it looked way too flat and I didn't like the way it looked with Purely Pomegranate under the oval. What I did was this....I had already stamped the work LOVE with green craft ink and embossed it with clear powder so I thought why not try embossing the edge of the oval. And I did. I ran the edge of the oval around on my craft pad being very careful not to get ink on my fingers and transfer it to the front of the oval. I slanted the oval just slightly so some of the ink went onto the front of the card. I then ran the edge of the card around in a pile of embossing powder. I held it with the long tweezers from my tool kit while I heat set it. When it cooled I attached it to the scalloped oval with two dimensionals just to raise it a bit. I did like the way it turned out. The LOVE oval is only attached to the door on the left side. This gave a very simple outside. When you untie the bow and open the card this is what you see on the inside. The U was embossed twice. I used the same craft ink that I used on the LOVE in the front. Embossed once with clear powder. While the powder was still hot and sticky I added more powder and heated it again. Then this time while it was still hot and sticky I sprinkled it with Dazzling Diamonds and heated it a third time so the diamonds would embed into the embossing.

This was a fun weekend of stamping. And I was able to get all the cards I needed to send out this week made using the challenges. ALSO I finished up the 30 set challenge that I began back in December. Since December 1 I have used 30 different stamp sets. Many of them ones that I have not used in a long time. I think I may just start on my next 30....Also I have been telling myself that I need to begin learning how to use papers not just stamped images on my cards rather than hoarding my lovely papers. I have been challenged by what I have seen friends do with their cards and papers. I have a ways to go to perfect using this new medium, but I am happy with what I did with them this weekend.

A big Thank You to Diane for setting up thse challenge weekend. And though I did not get to McFarland I think I can say I was content in my own stamp room playing with my friends in our virtual setting.

FLY BABY WEEKEND OF STAMPING FUN!

This weekend there were some SCS FLYBaby friends that had a get together in McFarland, WI. You might ask why McFarland? Well for stampers that's an easy question to answer....it's because that is where Gina K's store is located! They had such fun meeting Gina K. and inviting her to become a FLYBaby; which she did! They stamped and laughed together all weekend. Alas, many of us FLYBabies who lived further away from McFarland did not make it there, but we did stamp together using a set of challenges we issued to each other on line. Here are the cards I made for these fun challenges.

The first challenge was a sketch challenge posted by Diane. I had several cards I needed to be making this weekend to be sent out on Monday and I used this challenge to make a baby card for a special little girl named Aimee and her parents of course. It was a pretty straight forward card to make. I colored the image of the baby basket using my SU Stampin' Pastels and a blender pen. The stamp set used is a retired set called Baby Talk.

The next challenge was given by Beth. It was a lonely unloved challenge. We were to use a color card stock, stamp set and embellishment that we didn't really like and hadn't used in a long time.......The card stock was easy for me. I went right for my Bold Bright selections. They are my least favorite to use. Their name says it all. They are just too bold and too bright for my tastes. I chose Orchid Opulence for my card stock. It's really bright! The stamp set I chose was Botanicals. A very old SU set. It is a set I like a lot, but I don't think it has been off the shelf in two years. Which says a lot since I've only been stamping two and a half years. It is a set I purchased on E-Bay. The embellishments I choose where the old silver SU brads that are shaped like diamonds. I've just never found a way to use them. I'm stuck on thinking brad = round. I also used a piece of wide organdy ribbon I found languishing on the bottom of my ribbon box. I did add some Going Grey and Basic Grey card stock and Stamped the main image on water color paper coloring it in using SU watercolor crayons and an aqua painter. Guess what....when I got done I discovered I had a card I liked very very much. I only wish is didn't have to be a sympathy card that will sent to a friend who lost her young college student daughter in a car accident this weekend.

I issued the third challenge. It was simply to use one or multiple tags on the front of your card. I did two for samples. I will only show one here. On it I used a pre-made tag from SU. It was from their tag sheet sets that they don't make any more. I guess it doesn't really both me that they don't carry them any more because I have more than I will ever use and I got them in my demonstrator kit when I began as an SU independent demonstrator August 2005! Obviously not one of my favorite items to use. They are actually why I issued this challenge. I wanted to challenge myself to finally use one! I colored my image here with a compination of Copic, Prisma and SU markers. I'm still not sure which I like the best. They all have their strengths and weaknesses.

The last challenge card I will show in this post was given by Jennifer. We were to make a Criss Cross card. I made my first card of this type in last weekends SCS January VSN weekend. They are such fun and I was glad for the opportunity to make another so soon. Maybe this will help set into my mind that this is a type of card to make more often. With February coming I'm finding myself making lots of hearts, love, and Valentine themed cards. I did make three of them this weekend. This is the second one here. I also used one of the hat-pins From my SU Pretties Kit. I really don't like using these. I find them very difficult as a design element. In fact the one used here with it's ribbon was one I put together to use last weekend and I just couldn't get it to look right. I am happy with how it worked on this card. BUT it will have to be a card that I hand deliver to someone. Cards with these would definitely take extra postage and probably would need to go into a padded envelope.

So those are the first four challenges. I will post the rest of my challenge cards in another post later this evening. Right now my fingers are getting tired! And I'm going to go visit some other BLOGS to see what others have been up to this weekend!