Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Cards for Kids?

Little kids or your own kid....even if they aren't so little anymore, lol!!

My daughter started at CSUN yesterday...I'm so excited for her. She has been wanting to go to this University for so long and her dreams are finally coming true. (She is a Deaf Studies Major) We are so proud of her! It's been a long battle, from the University not accepting any new enrollment, to finding funding, ect.. Patience and Perseverance won and she's started yesterday as a Junior with an AA from the Jr. College where she started.

So here is a little card I made for her to send her off, (it's been kind of fun having her back at home, but don't tell anyone, lol)


I was totally inspired by the card Jennifer McGuire did on Monday for the Hero Art's Blog.

And here is my girl...I made her take a picture for her first day, just like I used to when they were little.



Thanks for stopping by
TTFN!


Tuesday, August 23, 2011

2nd Post of the Day

Well I'm back with another post. Another card from my inky weekend. This also falls into the embossing category for CAS-ual Friday's. And since I couldn't decide which one to enter into their challenge I decided to enter both!




For this card I started off again with a white piece of cardstock that I stamped and heat embossed with Hero Art's CG330. Next I applied a generous amount of Spun Sugar distress Stain onto my craft sheet, added some "Pearl" Perfect Pearls and laid the embossed cardstock into it. Once it was dry I used my Spellbinders Label die to cut the shape. Added a bit of ribbon and a button. I love how much coverage you can get with the stains!!

Thanks for stoppin by!
TTFN!

CAS-ual Fridays

Well my inky weekend is paying off. I checked out the CAS-ual Fridays blog yesterday and saw that the challenge this week is Embossing. So I too a couple of pieces I inked over the weekend and here is one of the cards I came up with..




If you saw yesterday's post you will notice the die cut flower is from one of the pieces I did over the weekend. For this one I applied Antique Linen distress STAIN on my craft sheet, added some Sunflower Perfect Pearl to it. I had already white embossed the image on the background (Hero Arts Dot Flower Background CG330) so I just laid it into the stain mixture. I wish you could see the extra gold sparkle in it. Next I just did a dry emboss on my Vagabond and wah-lah! The pearls are Kaiser Craft Latte.

Thanks for looking and have fun playing with your inks!!! And Dana, I would love to see what you create!
TTFN!

Monday, August 22, 2011

Hello Friends!

I've been playing around a bit this weekend with my Distress Stains. I watched a video on the Tim Holtz blog this past week, so I thought I would jump in and try some of the techniques he shared. Here are some of the pieces I created and I'm working on turning them into cards.



I just started out with some white paper, mostly Bazzill. I just cut 81/2 x 11 pieces into 4's (4.25x5.5) and started trying the different techniques. I really would like to find some other cardstock to try as well. In the video he uses his tags and there are a few things that didn't work out as well on the Bazzill. Anyway you can see one of the cards I came up with  below.

For this I just heat embossed the Lg Lotus pattern in White and then swiped the distress stains across. The colors I used here are Antique Linen, Wild Honey, Faded Jeans and Vintage Photo. This was so easy!! I have a few more colors on order and can't wait to get them. Especially the Picket Fence. He shows some really cool stuff with that. I finished another card tonight with another piece in the photo so I will get it photographed and uploaded tomorrow. Sometimes it's just fun to play and get inky! It's one of my favorite things to do!!

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend.
Thanks for stopping by!
Hugs!!!!

Monday, August 15, 2011

This weeks PDC Challenge #94

I've been having some fun with my new Hero Art's stamps and decided to try my hand at this weeks color challenge at The Play Date Cafe.



I love the warm rich tones of these colors. I kept it pretty simple but really liked how it turned out. I used my new HA background stamp Flower Dot Pattern CG330. I stamped with Rich Cocoa Memento Ink on the yellow cardstock, backed  it with the teal and also stamped that in Rich Cocoa. I added the flowers and a little twine for a more country feel. The pearl was colored with Copic BG49.

Thanks for stopping by, and have a great week!
TTFN

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Talk about Cute!

I've bee spending some time with my family taking photos, and I finally got some really cute one's of my new "Great" Niece. She is just 2 month's old and is now smiling and giggling. Thought I would share a couple.



What a joy this little one is!!! She also has 2 older brothers so a weekend with them can really wear me out. The boys and I are usually in charge of desert and this time we made "Mud Worm Pie" yes as disgusting as it sounds it really is good. We filled an Oreo cookie crust with chocolate pudding topped it with whipped cream, added crumbled Oreo cookies and gummy worms coming out of the top. They LOVED it, and thought it was so funny to serve. Wish I had gotten photos but it was one messy project and I'm usually the photographer.

I also spent some time the past couple of weekends visiting stores here in the So Cal area. They do a "Shop Hop" every year and what a perfect way to find out where and who all the stores are. And even better I have family here who is very familiar with the shop hop. It was wonderful to spend the time with Tashia! I hope I have time to create this week....I found a few things I've had on my wish list while I was out hopping!

The blessing of being back here in this crazy city is definitely family!!!!

Have a great week!
Hugs!

Friday, August 12, 2011

Happy Friday!!!

Yes it's Friday and I have neglected my blog for a Week! Sorry, I wish I could say it's because I started a new job but no, not yet!

Here is a card I did this week with one of my favorite new Hero Art's stamps!!! (Part of my Fab 5 winnings :-)


For this card I used Distress "STAINS". Wild Honey, Faded Jeans and Peeled Paint.  Such a quick and easy card.

And here is a picture of the fun stamps I got to choose from Hero Arts. (4 stamps and 2 packs of layering papers)


Sorry the picture isn't better...lighting at night isn't great. I just couldn't wait to ink these up!

I hope you all have a fab weekend!! Thanks for stopping by...TTFN


Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Hero Arts Challenge

This month's challenge over on the Hero Arts Flicker group is "Creatures and Kids Cards" and the technique is "making a scene". These are 2 things I rarely do. So here is the card I labored over for the better part of a day, lol!

The timing was perfect as my nephew's Birthday is coming up next month.


So here's what I did. First off I'm on a bit of a tight budget so I found this darling Hero Art's Monster Digi over at 2Peas for only $6. I uploaded it to my Silhouette and converted it into a print & cut. (I know I'm doing that alot lately). Next I used my Photo Shop Elements to place the words and also uploaded that to my Silhouette. I laid it all out on the screen before I cut anything. Once I had it sized the way I wanted I broke the pieces out and used the print & cut function to cut the monsters, the party hats and the balloons. I stamped the cloud background (HA S5215) using distress ink, tumbled glass. Then I ran it through my printer to print the sentiment on the top. I ran a piece of patterned paper through my printer for the bottom half of the sentiment. I used Copic's to color the monsters, balloons, and party hats. On the teal hat I stamped the Magical (HA CG211) background in white. I used embroidery floss to tie off the balloons, that was the final straw, oh I mean step, hahahaha. I used pop dot's for the Red monster (my nephew's favorite color) and for the balloons. Whew! I can't believe I did it. Thanks Hero Arts for stretching me ....Fun challenge.

Thanks for stopping by!
Hugs!

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

This weeks CAS-ual Friday

Challenge:


For this Clean and Simple card I used Hero Arts CG311, Small Sweet Petals and a Hero Arts, Silhouette Digital image, tall_vases_C01015_23067.
I stamped and embossed the flowers in white on clear vellum. I colored the back to each flower using Distress Stains, Broken China and Spun Sugar. For the vase I converted the image to a print and cut and then used my Copic's to color it in and then added some black and white enamel accents. This one is off in the mail today for my Mother-in-Law's Birthday.

Thanks for stopping by!
TTFN

Monday, August 1, 2011

Another PDC Challenge

Wow I can't believe almost a week has gone by since my last post! Luckily I have these blog challenges to keep me focused, right :-)...

PDC Challenge #92

I love this photo collage. So much inspiration here. I hope you can see the pieces that inspired my card.

I started off by using the sketch pen function on my Silhouette. The Love was sketched using the Gold Metallic pen. Next I traced an outline of the "Love" and cut it out to use it as a mask. I blended Tattered Rose Distress ink for the background of the "Love" panel. I used the Hero Arts Digi Butterfly kit to create the butterflies. I again used my silhouette to do the butterflies as "print & cuts" then colored them in with Copic R32. The pink in the Love was done with Copic R81. I will tell you the nib on my marker didn't do well with the metallic ink from the Silhouette pen. (luckily I can replace the nib). I used Copi Y28, Lionet Gold to color the pearls, a Martha Stewart Border punch and the Hero Arts Old Letter Writing for the Card base background. It's hard to see but I wanted a soft text for the background and stamped in Antique Linen.  

Thanks for stopping by, I have another card that I will try to blog later....job hunting is keeping me busy.

TTFN!
Karen