Just celebrate

This card was made 100% today... often my cards are made over multiple days:

Supplies:

• Brett Weldele Scribbles stencil with the following LSG Magicals: Luminous Lemon, Poppin' Pink, Urban Amethyst, and Blazing Black on Canson Mix Media paper
• Core'dinations base cardstock
• Core'dinations metallic kraft-core 
• Dina Wakley heart 
• Tim's sentiment

I plan to enter this into the following challenges:

• TGIF: celebrate (they are 2!)
• SOSS: par-tay!

SOS: Coffee or tea?

This week at Shopping Our Stash we are asking you: will it be coffee or tea?

Please shop your stash and create a project with a coffee or tea theme!

Here's my offering for this week, made entirely of items already on my desk:

Supplies and notes:

• The background panel and coffee mug were painted in February with Color Bursts; mug drawn with a Micron pen.  
• The stitched circle was already die-cut with a die from Autumn-- thanks!  It was cut from Strathmore watercolor paper.  I brushed the sentiment with Black Soot DI.
• The stars were cut from drawings a week prior to this project with my Cricut.

That's it!  Simple.

...and... I made a few more coffee-inspired crafts, just for your viewing pleasure:

This will go to my hubs' BFF... he's the academic coffee-philosophy type... though he'd hate to hear his description, LOL!  

Here's another, just because it's funny...

This will go to a coworker.

For more inspiration, grab a cup of something warm and go check out the SOS page!  Geez... those girls are talented! Join the fun!  Shop your stash!  As my friend Teri says, "Make room for more!"

SOS: Roses

Thanks for visiting!

This morning we are kicking off another Shopping Our Stash challenge, this time encouraging you to dig up some roses!  No pun intended🌹... or was it???

Here's my creation, which is an art journal layout:

How about some process images?  Okay!

So, this is what I started with.  There are many ways to "shop your stash," and one way is to finish projects you've started... this spread was actually two independent pages that both happened to have roses on them... what luck! For the record,  I never touched the top page -- it stayed the way I found it (a Nancy Drew page with LSG Magicals plus a library card with Teresa Collins modeling paste through Tim's roses stencil then Color Bursted and sprayed with Glimmer Mist).  The bottom page had been inked with DOx in early March... actually, the first time I played with DOx.  The circles are Seth Apter stamps.

Found this pre-clipped beauty in a zip-lock... I was like, "Well, no idea who to give credit to..." 

...fast-forward a few hours: doing some spring cleaning, look what I found!-- a virgin sheet! Credit goes to Marsh Johnson.

Added these 7-year-old 7 Gypsies cards and coated them with a little white Liquitex gesso-- otherwise they faded right into the background. 

Roses at bottom-left are years-old (3?), from a Creative Imaginations packet.

You can hardly see it,  but I added some Dina Wakley Media Tape... definitely a stash item-- I don't use it as often as I ought.

Oh, goodness!  Check out the cracks from the Distress crazing medium, accented with Vintage Photo Distress Stain.  "Love" was writ with industrial stencils and black Liquitex gesso. It was outlined with WOS in gold,  and some lovely Good Riddance lyrics were added.

Supplies: Well, I kind of shared the supply list during the process pictures, but I will just add that the tassels were from Michael's-- another dollar-bin stash item.  I just attached them with a few slits, but since this book is still in use,  I removed the tassels for storage.  I'd like to think I'll re-attach them when this book is done... but my memory is terrible.

Hope your memory is better than mine and you don't forget to join us this week at Shopping Our Stash... dig up some roses!  (Pun intended this time!)

For fabulous inspiration, visit the gardens of the SOS team's creative minds!

JUGS... the colors...

Well, I made this for the JUGs current color challenge...

... I knew I wanted it to be a simple birthday card,  but I'm disappointed with the lettering I decided on!  I truly gave it done thought,  and it looks like I just scribbled it on there!  Gahhh... maybe I'll tear the panel off and fix that greeting!

Supplies:

• DI in Spun Sugar, Scattered Straw, and Dried Marigold 
• Tim Holtz Boxes stencil
• Strathmore watercolor paper 
• 3M foam tape
• Tombow pen

More Mixed Media

Here's a little offering for More Mixed Media, whose current challenge is AG + yellow:

And here's a close-up:

Supplies and notes:

• Library catalog base
• Tim's patchwork stamps inked with Distress Embossing Ink and embossed with Recollections clear EP
• Colored with LSG Magicals... yum
• The flower panel was from my stash, popped up with 3M and coated with Distress grazing medium
• The whole card was mounted on an old index filer card for a little sturdiness

Library card flowers

Yet another crafty use of library cards:

Supplies:

• Black Recollections cards
• Corners clipped with Fiskars punch
• Library cards punched with Tim's wildflowers dies

Love the look of these... what do you think?

Geometric Happy Birthday

I accidentally deleted the image showing the extreme shimmer of this card... enjoy anyhow and trust me when I say the Magicals are magical!:

Supplies and notes:

• DCWV watercolor paper having the golden geometric design colored with Lindy's Stamp Gang Magicals from the Jingle Bells set of December
• The circle die is from Autumn, and I used it on Strathmore watercolor paper and added some more Magicals
• The sentiment was written with my finger on the computer screen, then cut out with my Cricut

I'll share this at Happy Little Stampers:

A Sunday in early spring

Here are some tags I made for the girls:

Supplies and notes:

• The egg stickers are from Target
• Framing mat bases coated first with transparent Ranger texture paste mixed with Martha Stewart glitter... that you can't really see... then sprayed with Dylusions 
• Old seam binding; ribbon from Andrea at Snapping Monsters
• Wood butterfly, tulip, and "Bloom" from Target
• Flowers from my stash
• The green washi is a new purchase from TJ Maxx... gosh, I need to use my washi...

I'll share these with Inkspirational:

I'll also share at Simon Says Wednesday for their spring inspiration challenge:

Quail hello

It's no secret that I love birds, and who can resist a quail?

Supplies:

• Strathmore watercolor paper cut from an image on Cricut Access 
• Quail then colored with various Color Bursts 
• "Hello" written with Faber-Castell Pitt pens

That's it!

I'll share this at Addicted To CAS:

Stars

How about a starry layout?

Supplies and notes:

• Dyan Reaveley's journal sprayed with Dylusions in After Midnight and Vibrant Turquoise.  I took a paintbrush in water and "painted" any of the just-spray parts so no white remained.
• Next, I added DecoArt metallic paint to the top and bottom of the pages with my finger, and also painted line-stars.
• The trees were added by using the negative of Tim's treeline die as a stencil with Black Liquitex gesso.
• Stars on trees and below were made by using DecoArt Metallic Lustres through a Heidi Swapp stencil.
• The black stars were actually drawn with my finger on my computer, then cut by the new Cricut. Very cool, huh?  I glued them on with Mod Podge  and rubbed them lightly with more Metallic Lustre
• The quote was written with WOS in gold.  

I will share this with Stamps and Stencils' current challenge: Lucky stars.

April Showers

April showers bring May flowers, right???  I hope so!

Supplies and notes:

• The backgrounds are both library cards coated with white Liquitex gesso 
• A true rainbow of colors added in rainbow-order with DOx's, dried between colors (click to zoom... you won't be disappointed)
• The umbrellas are from a goodie bag from The Funkie Junkie Boutique.  I painted them with Tim's Distress Stain in Black Soot.
• These are both backed on little index dividers from way back when, then Tim's easel's are backing them.
• The typed sentiment is typed on the reverse of a catalog card and edged with Black Soot, and the other sentiment is brushed with Black Soot

I'd like to share these with the folks at:

• Make My Monday: April Showers
• HLS April Watercolor Challenge: AG + Rainbow
  
• Mixed Media Mojo, April: Spring showers
  
• Frilly & Funkie: April Showers

Magic fish

I drew this from a picture I took in Maui... it was in a pond at the resort,  and my daughter and I thought it was a magical fish who would grant our wishes...

Here's the picture... see what I mean?-- it looks magical...

Supplies:

• Strathmore watercolor paper 
• Micron pen for drawing
• Color Bursts used as watercolor
• Faber-Castell pen for sentiment

I'd like to share this at Simon Says Stamp on Wednesday... geez, I'm cutting out close!  The theme is "Happy Birthday"... Happy Birthday,  Wednesday blog!  Here's to the next eight years!

SOS: Momma said knock you out!

 This week at Shopping Our Stash, we are encouraging you to use your punches and dies!

Here is my offering this week... a tag!

...click to see the detail... you won't be disappointed!

I am relatively new to the die-cutting world.  Autumn at Sew-Paper-Paint got wind about a year and a half ago that I did not have a die-cutting machine and-- get this -- sent me her Cuttlebug!!!  Since then,  I am slowly accumulating dies, but none are truly hoarded stash items yet... I use the dies I have fairly evenly...

Then last month I bought a Cricut Explore Air 2... holy Toledo. Geez.  I'm slowly learning how to use that.

And of course I have a small stash of punches... mostly boring and practical,  haha!

Supplies:

• Library catalog card base coated with a layer of Teresa Collins modeling paste through a stencil made from a Tim Holtz Mixed Media die (those spots), and coated roughly with Weathered Wood Distress Paint... then it sat in my stash for months...
• Fast-forward: I cut the card wth a Tim Holtz arch die
• Card sprayed with Dylusions in Vibrant Turquoise 
• Card then smooshed in some Broken China DOx
• Bundled Sage Distress Paint used initially to highlight the center,  but that did not provide the brightness I was looking for, so I went wth some Liquitex gesso in white and further brightened the center,  and also rubbed some on the edges.  You can see my drying wasn't fast enough in between stages and the gesso really drew up the Vibrant Turquoise. 
• Finally,  for the background,  I sanded the spots a bit to help them stand out.
• The gal is from one of Tim's pads.  I splotched some Adirondack gold mixative on her and around the edges to make it appear old. I mounted the picture on a scrap piece of heavy packing kraft, cut to look like the base of an old photo.  The kraft was inked with Frayed Burlap DO and misted for spots (though you can't see...).  I snipped the edges with a Fiskars corner punch and wrote Debaser on it... what can I say... the song was on Modest Mouse radio.  It's a song by The Pixies, and up until I included the link above,  I had no idea what the song was about.  Well, the girl *is* so groovy...
• The flowers were already cut in my stash from a few weeks ago, and I added Color Burst to them.  Yum.
• The heart was also in my stash.  It was cut with a Fiskars punch from a rejected watercolor panel. 
• Fiber was laying on my desk and it just matched the tag perfectly... originally from Andrea, thanks!

Here is the stash math: four dies used and two punches used.   Not bad...

Join us!  C'mon... it is beyond amazing to use stashed items,  and it feels even better to share at Shopping Our Stash! 

Happy Camper #2

...and here's this:

Supplies:

• All paper is from my stash... can't recall who made the woodgrain, but the green polka-dots are from DCWV's succulent-building kit.
• Dies are all Recollections 
• Trailer cut from a scrap of leftover watercolor paper and inked with DIs; curtains and door paper-pieced... I somehow smudged a curtain so I dabbed some Bundled Sage Distress Paint to try to cover it... rrr...
• Tim's stitch-stamp run down either 
• Hearts also cut from scrap watercolor paper; stitching doodled with a Micron

This is the second card earmarked for the girls while at camp... I've got to get busy!

I will share this with the folks at Mod Squad.  Their current challenge is to use paper-piecing.  This isn't very intricate, but it's effective!

Happy Camper #1

...I titled this "#1"  because there are more...

My girls will *both* be going to summer camp this summer, so I have to prepare now!  (I hammer them with mail so they have to get up during mail call in front of the camp and sing songs like "I'm a little teapot" and the "Barney" theme to get their mail!  Ah... the joys of parenthood...)

Supplies:

• Background base is Tim Holtz resist paper
• Background first inked with DOx in Broken China and Faded Jeans,  then Vintage Photo,  Peeled Paint and Cracked Pistachio
• All dies from a Recollections set, this is their first use. "Happy Camper" cut from some previously inked Tim Holtz resist paper, and the trailer was cut from Strathmore watercolor paper and dressed up with DIs and a Micron 005
• I used Tim's stitch stamp on the edges, then distressed them with a Making Memories distressing tool.   (Just for info-sharing's sake: I also owned the Tonic tool and did not like it... the Making Memories tool is much more ergonomic.)

I'd like to share this at the following challenge:

• HLS April AG with dies... what a funny language... I remember a couple years ago when I didn't know the lingo... HLS stands for Happy Little Stampers, and AG is Anything Goes! Hope that's helpful to at least one human. 
  

Butterfly stamp

Carved a new butterfly stamp... see?

I played with it a lot the day I carved it (the only craft day I had last week was fruitful!),  so I will enter the various cards into various challenges...

Rainbow butterfly birthday:

 Tim Holtz resist paper wth Color Bursts; butterfly stamped in Ranger Archival on Yupo which had been inked with a rainbow of Adirondack AIs; sentiment written with a Sharpie brush marker and highlighted with gel pens.

...zoom for the full effect...

Lino-looking thanks:

Butterfly inked with Distress Embossing Ink and embossed wth Recollections EP; painted with Loew Cornell watercolors; sentiment written with a Zig Emboss-writer and embossed with Recollections EP.

Greeny-moth:

Butterfly  (Uh... I think it looks moth-like on thus tag... don't ask me...) inked with Distress Embossing Ink and embossed with Custer's Last Stamp EP in silver; watercolored with Loew Cornell colors; library catalog card base textured with Teresa Collins modeling paste through a stencil made from a Tim Holtz Mixed Media die; once dry, sprayed with Dylusions in Fresh Lime, then pewter EP (by Custer's Last Stamp) added while spray was wet and then heated. Moth mounted with 3M foam tape.  Darice metallic hemp added to hang. 

I'd like to share Rainbow Butterfly Birthday with:

• Simon Says Monday: Make a rainbow 
• Simon Says Wednesday: Happy Birthday
• Casual Fridays: Rainbow 
  

I'd like to share Lino-looking thanks with:

• STAMPlorations April Theme and/or sketch
  

I'd like to share Greeny-moth with:

• Tag Tuesday: Things with wings... but not birds!

Thanks for following this strange post... I should have done it all separately like usual.  This is too busy for my taste!