My Favorite Ink Pad challenge - Lilacs in Bloom

Hi again,

I'm playing catch up with my blog posts this week, it's been a long and crazy few days at my job that pays the mortgage. Sometimes I just wanna stay home and play in my studio. Unfortunately, work is a necessary evil. 

The challenge this week over at Simon Says Stamp and Show is "your favorite ink pad".  Well that's a no-brainer for me.  It's Seedless Preserves distress ink.  But my favourite color in general is PURPLE! I love purple, I am obsessed with purple. The fact that lilacs are purple and start blooming at the end of May around here made me want to create a "thinking of you" card as a tribute to my Mom.  My Mom had this HUGE lilac tree in her backyard.  I've never seen anything like it.  When that tree was in full flower, the fragrance was unforgettable.

I dry embossed the cardstock with the Winterberries folder by Tim Holtz, added a wee bit of colour with distress markers.

Next, I coloured some white paper with Seedless Preserves distress ink and added some shaded lilac for a cooler tone. Then I went to town punching out the flowers using the Martha Stewart hydrangea punch.  I shaped them and adhered them with glossy accents.  you can see the dimension I got in the 2nd picture.  I stained the crinkle ribbon and added a sentiment on a die cut ticket.

                                   Here you can get a better view of the layers of flowers

http://simonsaysstampandshow.blogspot.ca/2013/05/challenge-favorite-ink.html

12 Tags of 2013 - May

Hi again,

I had a lot of fun with the Tim Holtz tag this month, I made 2 versions...

1) copied Tim's tag almost exactly (I didn't have the same stamp) and used a bit different of a color combo

2) made my own vintage cinema tag with the same techniques.

You can check out the link to the May tag here. http://timholtz.com/12-tags-of-2013-may/

Hope you like them, I know I do.

Rogue Traveller Canvas Passport to Fun challenge

Hi again,

I'm sure it wasn't just me, this winter was the longest, most drawn out test of seasonal affective disorder EVER! When we returned from Southeast Asia, I thought it would have been spring. No such luck.
To cope, I started making paper palm trees. I designed this 11x14 canvas to put on display in my living room, using the fabulous picture of a classic VW camper van as my jumping off point.

I found the picture on Pinterest. The photo credit linked back to desert-dreamer.tumbir.com  A thousand apologies if this is not correct. It's an awesome pic and it reminds me of the jungles in Indonesia that we visited in February.

to start, I made the trunk of the palm tree with some recycled paper bag, twisted it, and sprayed it with color shine.  The fronds were die cut from BoBunny paper, and more recycled packaging for the "looking glass" compass element. I fussy cut a bunch of leaves from the Graphic 45 Tropical Travelogue collection.

 I can't remember the company which the background paper is from. I found it in the sale bin at my local scrapbook  store.  I added some lightweight modelling paste around the edges and also created a stencil from the palm frond die to add more visual interest on the edges.

 here you can see the recycled plastic packaging I used to make a cool compass.  I added some remnant rubs to the canvas as well.  Those packs are awesome. You can put them on everything (like Franks Red Hot hahaha) I glued some jute twine around the plastic to give it a more finished look.

I knew I needed some more red on the canvas to visually balance it with the picture, so I stitched some great metallic thread through the one side.

I really love how it turned out. I am going to submit this piece to Simon Says Stamp and Show for their weekly challenge:  http://simonsaysstampandshow.blogspot.ca/2013/04/challenge-passport-to-fun.html

I Love Babies!

Hi again,
My good friend and co-worker had her first baby in April. I love my art hobby so much because it lets me make heartfelt and personalized gifts.

I made the step card while she was still pregnant and didn't know the sex of the baby. General pastel colors always work well on a card for a new mom to be. However, once I colored the teddy bears, they were way too bright for the card, ARGG! Not to worry, after consuming copious amounts of coffee, I remembered the "tone down" technique. I simply cut out the images and pounced alabaster fluid chalk ink all over the colored pieces. Voila! Instant muted color that fit with the background papers. Dollar store trinkets and a chipboard rocking horse complete the card.

Welcome to the world little one.