InkspiredTreasures.com

Window Dressing Faux Brick

Here is my cat, Bleach, sitting in the window!  Really!  It does look like her!

When I saw this set, I thought it would be perfect for the Faux Brick technique from Technique Junkies Newsletter’s last issue, June/July 2008.  So I tried to replicate how a house would look…the bottom is brick and the top (using the Twill stamp) is wood siding.  Fun!  The brick color is Creamy Caramel with Basic Gray speckles in it.

The base card is our new Bali Breeze cardstock.  The window I stamped in Basic Gray and used my watercolors to color.  The shutters I cut from Creamy Caramel and used the crimper..then rubbed Basic Gray over the ridges.  I stamped the cat on Basic Gray, used the speckles stamp and cut out and placed her in the window.  The Kraft taffeta ribbon hides the seam between the "Faux Brick" and the Basic Gray "siding".

I’m anxiously waiting for my new catalog order to arrive tomorrow.  I already told the UPS guy today that he’d be back tomorrow with TWO boxes for me!  He said "that doesn’t surprise me!"  Hmmm, wonder if he has several SU demos on his route?

I’m slowly crossing off all the "to do" items on my list.  Oops…forgot about dinner.  Maybe I can convince my hubby to take me out tonight!  Have a great evening!

Dreams du Jour

This is another of the Fab 4 swap cards I made for friends, Mary, Julie and Liz.  I love the soft look on this one!  I used the Pink Pirouette base, with the Pink Pirouette floral print from Bella Rose, then softened it with a layer of cardstock vellum over top, secured with pink mini brads.  The bottom of the vellum and designer paper were both scalloped with the new Scallop punch.

The focal point, I used a 2 3/4 x 2 3/4 square and punched the Scallop punch (centered) on each side.  That gave me a little scallop frame for the postage Love stamp.  I tied some taffeta ribbon around one corner and added a cut-out butterfly to the other.  I watercolored the Love stamp with my Blender Pen and the ink pads Kiwi Kiss and Pink Pirouette.  Again, I LOVED how this card turned out!

Hey demos…check out the September Stampin’ Success!  My winning Schoolhouse Rocks submission is photographed in there!  Woohoo!!!

I have a class tonight, some assignments due AND a Stamp Camp this weekend!  Crazy busy this week!   However, I did get my bank breaking order placed yesterday with EXPEDITED shipping!  Hope to get it by Thursday so I can play!  Woohoo!!!

MIA and Wow Flowers swaps

I know, I know!  I disappeared on you, didn’t I?  Did you miss me?  lol!  I didn’t even get time to work on or post the Blogger’s Challenge on Friday.  To make up for it, here are TWO version of cards I made for my Fab 4 swap group…they got the Tangerine Tango one.

Friday morning I had a medical test done that took over 2 hours.  Good news is that I was able to work on my Control Freaks Swap Cards while I sat there waiting on the test.  Bad news is that after the test I felt very sick to my stomach.  By the time I felt better, my son had arrived to visit for the weekend.  I hate to spend time on the computer when he is in town, so he took precedence…sorry!  He took us out to dinner on Friday night, which was an unexpected treat!  On Saturday, we had to get him to a wedding and then run a lot of errands…then went out to the Lake since it was BEAUTIFUL weather here and had dinner with our friends.  Today we spent the day with him and then took him back to the airport.  I miss him already!  The rest of the day I have spent digging out from the mess in my Stamp Studio!  I just DROPPED everything there after I got back from Convention last Sunday and have only moved the mess around to do a few things.  Thankfully, everything is almost back in its proper place and I can work again!

The difference between the two cards (besides colors of course) is that I used two stars to go behind the Happy Birthday circle stamp from Wow Flowers and a Pretties Kit half pearl for the center of the flower.  I liked the combination of Tangerine Tango and Blush Blossom with Chocolate Chip!  The background is Twill again!  I just LOVE that stamp!  And, of course, the preorder stamp set Heard from the Heart is wonderful for the greeting!

Hope you had a wonderful weekend, too!

Wow Flowers

I’ve been busy today working on my Control Freaks swap.  I must have been dreaming about it last night, cause I woke up with an idea.  Well…unfortunately…the time it took to complete each one was WAY longer than the time I have to spend doing them.  But…it did turn out cute!  I will show it to you within the next couple days.  Today’s card is a sample  that I made up for an organized swap at Convention, but decided not to use it, even though I did like it!  It is similar to the one I finally decided to do (see a couple posts back).

I used the new set, Wow Flowers, and the new Bella Rose paper.  New colors are Riding Hood Red, Pink Pirouette and Kiwi Kiss.  I used Riding Hood Red and the Twill background on the strip across the center.  The Kiwi Kiss Wow flowers were punched with the 1 1/4 circle and then I applied a 1/4" circle from my Kiwi Kiss Faux Diamond Dust paper in each of the centers, plus the center of the Thank You flower.

Today my bulk order of catalogs arrived and I’ve been busy getting them sorted.  A couple of the gals ran right over to get them (hi Cynthia and Angie!)  I have a big shipment that needs to be mailed out to Canton (only a couple more days, girls!)  I’m sure everyone is enjoying going thru them and checking out all the eye candy!

Have a great night!

Votive Cards – Bella Rose & Dreams du Jour

Some time ago, I received an awesome Votive Card swap from Katrina Merryman with my PSCubed group.  She and I have never met, but have known each other online for probably 5 years.  THIS convention I FINALLY got to meet Katrina in person!  Oh what fun!  We had sent each other photos of ourselves in case we would run into each other.  I was leaving a restaurant and saw a gal that looked like the photo.  I asked her if she was Kat and introduced myself.  She SQUEALED and we started hugging!  So much fun to meet up with her!  Unfortunately we didn’t get a lot of time to talk, but I did run into her many times during the Convention.  It is great to put a face with a name.

Pat over at Technique Junkies featured Katrina’s Votive Card in this month’s August/September 2008 Newsletter.  If you don’t subscribe, this card ALONE is worth the subscription price!  Pat over at Technique Junkies also has a preorder of her 6th year CD going on!  Make sure you check it out…it has over 85 techniques on it!

I made up a couple samples for the Newsletter, but this one I made up for a couple swap friends.  I think I already mentioned my Fab 4 Swap group, Mary, Liz and Julie.  This was the 3D item I made for them!  I included a little battery operated tealight that flickers thru the vellum when it is turned on.

The base of this Votive Card is Riding Hood Red cardstock and I used layers of different Bella Rose designer papers to decorate the outside of each panel.  I stamped the butterflies with Basic Brown ink on the vellum.

I did use a couple punches, the 5 Petal Punch, Scallop Circle Punch and a new designer button to decorate the front.  I was happy that the gingham ribbons didn’t retire, their narrow width makes it easy to feed thru the button holes.  Inside I stamped the Dreams Image from Dreams du Jour with Basic Brown, colored it with my blender pen and the ink pads and layered it on two Round Tab punches to make a circle out of the Chocolate Chip cardstock.  I finished with a few Ruby Red mini brads and cut out a small Butterfly for the back.  I love how these turned out!

Dreams du Jour Calendar

This was the 3D item I did for an organized  swap at Convention…I needed to make 18 of them.  It is an clear acrylic picture frame with a magnet on the back.  I purchased them at Michael’s for 99 cents each.  I used my Crop A Dile to punch two holes at the top (actually the bottom of the frame) so I could run ribbon thru it to hang it if they wanted. 

The insert is a base of Pink Pirouette cardstock and Bella Rose check paper.  I did the scallop punch on a strip of Riding Hood Red for under the checked paper.  Dreams stamp from Dreams Du Jour was stamped with Chocolate Chip on Whisper White, then I used my blender pen to pick up the colors of Kiwi Kiss and Pink Pirouette for coloring.  A mini Ruby Red brad is in the center of the largest flower.  I just placed a strip of Kiwi Kiss paper behind the Dreams stamp for some added color.  I dyed the White Grosgrain Ribbon with Kiwi Kiss ink, slid it thru the holes and tied them in the back.  I added a medium calendar I purchased from www.skybluepink.com.  Makes a nice gift!  I like to do these for small gifts at the holidays! 

I think I caught up on my sleep a little bit…evidentally we had a bad storm last night…I didn’t even hear it.  lol! 

Dreams du Jour

Oh my…my head is STILL fuzzy from Convention!  It is just filled with all kinds of ideas, memories and jet lag!  The energy is just amazing.  I know I’m exhausted…I’m sure everyone else is also.

I had such an awesome time meeting up with online friends, my downline and sidelines and people from Stampin’ Up! corporate!  They are so friendly and generous with their time and ideas!  I did introduce myself to THE Kristina Werner!  How exciting to meet such an awesome designer in person and even get a big HUG! 

I also received a ton of awesome gifts and swaps…so many I can keep you coming back for MONTHS with the clever ideas!

This was one of my swaps for an awesome group called Fab 4…Mary Brown, Julie Dinn, Liz Shultz and myself.  We were all display makers for the last Leadership and have become friends!  We organized a personal swap between the four of us and we did 3 cards and one 3D item.  This was one of the cards I designed for that swap. 

The butterfly and greeting stamps are from a new set called Dreams du Jour.  And I used a great color combination of the new In Colors, Riding Hood Red, Kiwi Kiss and Chocolate Chip.  I used some Bella Rose designer paper…note the two little Pretty in Pink mini brads in the upper left corner.  I punched 1/4" circles from Chocolate Chip to go under them for accents!  The White Taffeta ribbon I dyed Kiwi Kiss, although the color looks wonky in this picture, it is entirely covered in person…the greeting also looks faded in the picture, but not in real life.  Weird.

OK…now I’m really off to take my nap.  I can hardly keep my eyes open!  lol! 

I’m back!

I’m so SORRY!  I just returned from Convention and found out that my Blog has been down since Tuesday when I left!  I’m just posting a quick email to let you know that I am back up and running.  Too tired tonight, but tomorrow I promise to show you all the NEAT roommate gifts, Convention News and swaps I made for Convention!

Check out my previous days Blog post…I really did pre-date a few things for you to see while I was gone!

Thanks for sticking with me!

Connie

Blogger’s Challenge Week 58

This week’s challenge was to use Old Olive, So Saffron, Rose Red and Pumpkin Pie.  Bright!  Actually, I did like the result!  I think this set, Window Dressing, is SO cute!  I wanted to make some swaps cards with it, but ran out of time…

On this card, I did use some of the striped Old Olive paper from Summer Picnic…it is such a great textured stripe.  I also couldn’t believe I actually had this ribbon that matched the colors EXACTLY!

I stamped the window and pumpkin images with Basic Grey on Very Vanilla and then used my watercolor crayons to color and shadow the images.  I mounted it on So Saffron and used the ticket corner punch on the top corners.  Then I overlapped a piece of Pumpkin Pie and a piece of Rose Red behind the So Saffron piece.  To My and Friend from Fundamental Phrases were stamped with Basic Grey also.  I punched the Trio of flowers from So Saffron and placed an Old Olive mini brad in each center.  I love how this came out!  Even with coloring, the card came together pretty easy!  If I have time, I may cut some paper and take them with me on the plane to finish.  Of course, I’ll need to use only Stampin’ Up! current product, but I’m sure I can find something to replace the paper and ribbon I used.

I’m anxious to see what the other Blogger’s did with this week’s challenge! 

Have a great weekend.