Freshly Made Sketches

Here is my offering for Freshly Made Sketches #118:

Here is the sketch:

Supplies and notes:

• Marion Smith paper, and the pink is Anna Griffin
• Studio 113 "Thank You" sticker
• Wilton doily painted with Tim Holtz Distress Paint in Antique Linen, then I colored the little flower centers (stamen) with a purple-y/fuschia-y gel pen
• Viva Paper Pearls in Cream 
• I flipped the sketch, then kept it mail-friendly (low-clearance, etc.)

Sketch Saturday #393,and an examination into a crafter's mentality...

(Regular card blog at bottom.  Crafter psyche rant commences... now:)

Dear Readers: I have found my self personifying a card-- calling a card or a project "he" or "she" in the past-- and as I opened this email to type, I could not spit out what I would normally say: "Here he is," or "Here she is." Whoa!  I noticed that I couldn't spit out the basic information in my characteristic casual language... it surprised me.  Like, I am always so "friendly" with my projects.  Even if I am not pleased with the way they turn out, I still give it the ol': "Well, it's not the prettiest little card, but, aww, the little scamp..." as if the card is some rescued mangy dog.  Not this card!  

So, in my weird way, I felt guilty that I had no attachment... until I started considering the facts: I had set out to make sympathy cards.  Okay, who actually likes to make sympathy cards??? OMG, no!  I can look back at cards from the past-- and I've done some decent sympathy cards, I guess-- and upon examining this'n, I can positively say that, without a doubt, sympathy cards are the most challenging and my least favorite flavor of card!  And for two separate reasons!: i.e. because it is challenging does not make me dislike it!  Right?  Do we all feel this way?  It has been an interesting discussion with myself!  

Further, might I add that I did not know the woman who died.  She was my Mother-In-Law's cousin's wife.  Yes, we exchanged xmas cards, but I'd never spoken to the woman.  So my personal attachment was not great.  But I still hated making these cards for her family!  Ahhh... I feel too much.  It surprises me. 

And to close on all of that, can I now wrap it up full-circle and say that I realize the root of my problem is "feeling too much," and yet I feel absolutely nothing for these cards?  The irony.

To the two people who read that, I owe you a bottle of something... :)

*   *   *

Here it is, my card for Sketch Saturday #393:

Here is the very nice sketch:

Supplies and notes:

• I ended up with bonus enveloped from my xmas cards... I don't think I had to tear any up as the result of writing mistakes!  Anyway, so I have a stash of nice 4x8" envelopes that I get to use now!  
• I used an old Rubber Stampede stamp inked with Tim's Gathered Twigs and Frayed Burlap then spritzed and pressed in successive generations with slight re-inking and spritzing
• I tore a piece of DCWV for the stripe, and I added a piece of scrap vellum
• No sentiment... what the hell do you even say?  I guess "With Sympathy" works, but I always prefer sentimentless anyway... Rrrr.  Sympathy cards. 

HLS CASE Challange

There's a new challenge in the Blogosphere: Happy Little Stampers: CASE the Designer.  I haven't CASE'd much, but I also don't back down from a challenge easily!  Here's my simple CASE:

We've been assigned the task of CASEing Kylie Purtell's colorful card:

 

Hmmm... Don't mind the alignment...grrr...

Supplies and notes:

• Such a cool card-- hard to do it justice!  
• I had this card's image in my mind when I came across some DP that the mastermind of Snapping Monsters, Andrea, sent last month... she is an amazing artsy chick, and also an incredibly thoughtful human.  She dug through her stuff and sent bird paper.  Uh, bird-nerd here.  I love it all.  Anyway, the colors of this particular sheet seemed like the muted colors of this card.  Boom. Selected.
• I flipped Kylie's LO, used a Fiskars punch on the corner(s), edged it all with Color Box Chalk in Creamy Brown, and sprayed with Tim's Distress Spray in Picket Fence.  And sprayed again.  And again.  Did not get the splattery effect I wanted.  That's fine. I went another direction. In order to balance the sentiment (which I'd stamped with MementoLuxe in black with a Tim stamp), I inked the Stamp-Anon Honeycomb stencil with black, spritzed that sh!t, and pressed it to the corner.  Subtle but effective.

Simple card... I feel a little guilty that it's so simple, but I tried adding rhinestones, sequins, studs... nothing matched the weight of this, so I left it alone.

Retro Sketchin' in the new year!

Happy New Year!

This card was made for my BFF who got engaged on xmas!  Wheee!  It is also an appropriate card to celebrate the new year. Below the card is the sketch I used, courtesy of Retro Sketches:

Supplies and notes:

• Being BFFs with someone allows certain, shall we say, privileges... such as being a collaborator on Pinterest boards regarding WEDDINGS!!! AHHHHH!  I stayed up LATE late late last night pinning, pinning, pinning.  Well, the BFF loves all things nautical, and her to-be apparently loves the Patriots.  (I know the guy, and I knew he was a Dodger fan, but the Patriots-themed things she was pinning threw me for a funky loop...)  Anyway, so that's where I "married" (ahahaha) Patriots colors with the nautical theme, and Authentique paper SAVED THE DAY.  Blue anchors on one side, red + white stripes on the other.  Ohhh sweetnessss.
• The white-ish paper is Core'dinations white cardstock painted with Antique Linen Distress Paint and Tarnished Brass Distress Stain.  The Authentique pieces got the same treatment.
• The anchor came from the auction in my parent's town... it was this plastic piece that had set in the sun for eons... the gold had faded to a drab green-gray plastic, so I treated it with some Liquid Leaf
• The twine was  from the Michael's cheapie bins... score!!!
• The stamp is from a set I bought for my girls last xmas from Target... the Handmade Modern brand.  I stamped it with Tim Holtz's Distress Embossing Ink and used Ranger EP in Princess Gold (ordered from The Funkie Junkie Boutique... visit, people: I am hecka frugal, and her prices are highly competitive and the service is terrific!) It was stamped on vellum.
• The sentiment is Tim Holtz, stamped with the EP above

Colour Q...

OMG and LOL... this is, like, soooo twelve-year-old...

Kind of mocking my oldest, but really, I must say, she is an incredible girl, and I could scarcely be more proud of her. As this card started to come together from literal scraps, I channeled my eldest's style and went with it. See how cool she is?

Here is the sketch from Colour Q #322, where I'm entering this baby:

                               

Supplies:

• The strips were all from my scrap box... was looking for some nice "Coastal Cabana" look-alike and pulled these three strips-- thought they looked cool together so I went with it
• The background is Core'dinations
• The sequin strips were from the Target bins (ummm... it's, like, totally my favorite right now...)
• The "Hey" stamp is Recollections stamped in black MementoLuxe ink, just single-tap
• I edged the scraps with Tarnished Brass Distress Stain

Double-dare

Here are two cards made for CMHD #174:

(Get it: double-dare???) And here is a close-up in which I was attempting to show the funky texture and sheen of the Fired Brick:

Here's a visual on the specific challenge:

Supplies and notes:

• Here's my chatter: while I'm satisfied with the results here,  I wish I had an extra five hours to play with these exact same materials.  As often happens,  I had different visions at the beginning of this project.
• Preface for process: the second card occurred as the bi-product of the first by using the stencil to print
• Tim Holtz's Distress Paint in Fired Brick and Mowed Lawn used over a Heidi Swapp stencil 
• Not sure who made the "Thank You" stamp-- got it years ago on a sheet with a ballerina, a typewriter, and some other random stuff
• Stamped the sentiment with a Memories pad in Sand
• I used generic thin washi tape on the first card, purposefully grungy, to create a rough border.  Without it, the image was not visually contained.  It bothered me.  I think because the second print is so open,  it fades just fine into the white border.  Or better, anyway...
• Scattered Prima Sugardots across the second

And just for fun,  here's a quick pic of the shack:

All buttoned-up as of a few weeks ago,  just in time for the snow!  In the spring we will insulate, finish the siding and trim, loft the top,  and properly add electricity... very cool.  And here's my old lady-dog... just like an old lady: wants to nose in and peek around, but then plods back to the house to lay by the fire :)  Here's to old dogs having health in the new year...

To my sis

Well, I made this card for my sister.  Pandas were her favorite animal as a child.  Might be still.

Anyway, she spoiled me for xmas, and this will be her "Thank You".  I'm also hoping it will inspire her to create art more than she does.  She and my brother are incredibly talented artists, yet she shared with me recently that she is just "not into it" these days*-- no time, yada yada.  I'm like, "You don't have kids!  Trust me: you have time!"  (That is not to say that childless people are not busy, but because I know my sister is talented combined with the fact that I don't believe she has any other time-consuming hobbies [she might say "sleep"], I think she could scratch out a little time.)  Anyway, anyway, anyway... I digress.

Here's her "Thank you":

*And to be fair and to share happy news, she actually DID get creative for xmas!  She painted pictures for me, my brother, and finished a piece that my mother (also a crazy artist) had left unfinished for years.  This is my new precious:

I wish I'd taken pix of her other art gifts-- she is awesome.

I was planning to enter this into Sketch Saturday #392 but I was too late.  How about Inkspirational: Bah Humbug?!  Okay!

Here's the sketch, FYI:

Supplies:

• Duh... an old library card as the base
• I stenciled the base using a Tim Holtz Stampers Anonymous Stripes stencil inked with Tim's Victorian Velvet and Vintage Photo, misted, and pressed.  It also got a little Mermaid alcohol ink on it... hmmm... how did that happen? (You should see that stack of technique cards I have stacked up.  Fun stuff happens.)
• The panda stamp was from a junk heap in the school (every school has a dumping-ground room, and every teacher insists they don't dump, but we all do it...) Anyway, I grabbed these awesome basic animal stamps.  Worth their weight in gold.  I love them.
• Studio Calico stars
• Prima sugardots
• ARC cherry wood tape (this stuff is radical... along with birds, I have a thing for wood and trees)
• "THANKS" stamped out in MementoLuxe black using a Target $3 alphabet