Waiting for Spring

Yes, still waiting for spring. One of the signs I rely on to tell me it's really spring is the first sighting of the Goldfinch. I just love those little guys. They are so bright and cheery, and their happy little chirping puts a smile on my face every time.
I CAN'T WAIT FOR SPRING!!!!
Okay, I will calm down now....and try to patiently wait.

In my wait for spring, I decided to do an American Goldfinch card. I love the stamp, it's from Northwood's Rubber Stamps. I used another technique from my all time favorite TJN (Technique Junkies Newsletter). This technique is the Marker Wash from the October 2007 issue.
I did use watercolor paper as they state in the instructions, and have found that the results are much better when you do. The water is able to float around better and give you awesome results, I think, anyway.
I basically just scribbled brown marker around the edges of the card, then loosely colored the bird and the tree branch. I then spritz it with water and hit it with my heat gun to speed up the process and to keep the edges distinct where the water pooled.

I have been admiring a lot of the paper piecing I have been seeing online, and decided to give it a try on this card. So I stamped a couple more goldfinches, colored them and cut them out...definitely time consuming...but I feel it was worth it. Then I used pop dots to put space between each layer.
Here is a close up of the layers. It's a little fuzzy...but you get the idea of the dimension.
I was going to layer this on a lighter brown card base..to match the edges, but DH thought it got lost in all the brown..so he suggested the orange card base....YAY hubby! It definitely made the goldfinch stand out like I wanted.

Cricut fun

Here are some butterfly embellishments I made from a sheet of Basic Grey paper (Jade Pattern from the Motifica collection). I used the BUTTERFLIES font from dafont.com (uppercase "B") to cut the butterflies, using the Sure Cuts A Lot program with my Cricut. This butterfly has no body, just wings, so it is really versatile and you can use it with just about anything...and create your own body, too!
I have had this Basic Grey paper for so long...and that really was one of my least favorite sheets in that collection...until I made butterflies out of it, that is. I LOVE the way that paper looks when it is cut out. I used it for butterflies, a ric-rac type border and I cut my name out (letters welded together using the Sure Cuts A Lot program) then made a shadow for it in a dark teal color. So much fun to play that way!
I had to think of something to use for a body for these fun wings. I remembered making paper beads a long while ago, and thought they would be a great shape for a butterfly body. So, I cut out some extra long triangles of the same great paper, rolled them up...long end to short end. I stuck a bamboo skewer into the rolled up paper and rolled it over my Versamark Watermark pad a few times to get it full of ink. Then my plastic container of Clear UTEE (Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel)came out and I dipped the inked up roll into the powder and embossed it. I did that 2-3 times to get it nice and thick. I wanted it glossy and I wanted it sturdy. I let it cool, and there was my body. I found a few different colors of copper wire, and grabbed some plain cream colored beads from my stash for the heads and put them together with glue dots.
I really like the way they turned out, and am certain I will be starting to use my "oh so very horded patterned paper" a whole lot more now that I see what it looks like when it has been through the Cricut!

Here is a close up of the paper bead, you can see all the great colors from the paper showing through. I am happy with the way all the colors pull together for the body and the wings.

I don't know what I am going to do with these butterflies yet. Part of me wants to make a framed name for The Room (my stamp/scrap room) using the name I cut from the same paper. But I also found a half finished scrapbook page of my Senior pictures from high school...and it is in similar colors and I have fall leaves everywhere..which is perfect because I loooove leaves, and I looooove butterflies. I just can't decide yet. But, in the mean time, I do enjoy looking at the butterflies on my work table for now.

Snow Birds

The color combination on this card was actually inspired by a co-workers new Columbia jacket. It was a teal/aqua color and chocolate brown. I just loved the way the colors seemed to compliment each other. So, I set out to recreate it. I found card stock that was as close as possible...and although this looks more blue than tealish..it is a little different in real life...less blue than it looks here.

I have been playing with this border punch for a while and have come to really love the look of it. That was sitting out on the table, so I played with it..and punched the edges of the teal/blue/aqua card stock. I'm not sure how I came to pick the cute little snow birds. I have always loved that stamp but, to date had not done anything with it that I thought really showcased the stamp. I think the biggest reason I picked it was because it filled so much of the open space of the teal...and I didn't have to figure out what else to add to it to fill in that space. I stamped the birdies in Timber Brown StazOn ink. I then used my Heidi Swapp edge distresser (looks like a pink Pac Man) on the long edges of the chocolate brown card stock...layered it all..and my card was done. I really like this card....because it is simple...because the colors compliment each other so well, and because it really gives a lot of attention to a favorite stamp. Hope you like it, too. :o)

Zen meets Cricut

This card is a mix of all kinds of things. The "H" and "B" were stamped..a great set of alphabet stamps from Just Jhone. They are large alphabets that are an open line image. I am into Zentangles which is a form of doodling, so I filled in the letters with some zen-doodling. I had just got my Cricut and had to play with it. The "appy" and "irthday" are from the Opposites Attract cartridge. I was also on the Triple Play (technique from TJN) card kick when I made this. I had some trouble trying to fit the HB on the flap I would normally have on a triple play card...so I had to improvise. So I kept the dimensions for the size of the card...and then remembered a great idea that I learned from a stamping friend Denise Krueger. She makes the most amazing cards and uses a single sheet of card stock as the base, just a tad larger than the card, then adheres the folded card to the base. It's a really fun look, and it worked perfectly for this card....and it still fit into a business sized envelope.
Jhone (from Just Jhone...now unfortunately closed) was the recipient of this card. It was destined to be hers, since it was her alphabet stamp set I used and we are Zentangle buddies...and it was her Birthday last month!

My first Wall Art

I saw this saying and have wanted it up on my bedroom wall just above our bed for a long time now. Well, since I now have a Cricut, and downloaded the Sure Cuts A Lot program...I decided to take the project on myself.
I used Scriptina font for the word "together". I don't know what the font was that I used for the rest of the words, just picked something fairly plain. "IS A" is a smaller font size and non-bold. "WONDERFUL PLACE TO BE" was larger and in bold. The leaf accents are from a dingbat font called Florals 2 that I downloaded from dafont.com . I put this all together in Sure Cuts A Lot (SCAL). I didn't have the 12 x 24 mat...so I put the letters together so I could fit everything on three 12 x 12 mats and cut them out. I also didn't have the special release paper to put the words up on the wall, so I improvised. I used blue painters tape. I put the tape on a piece of foam board, sticky side up...and lined my letters up along the bottom edge of the tape (letters were backing side up). It was a great way to line up the letters. I should have maybe stuck that painters tape on my shirt a time or two, because it was a bit stickier than I had expected. But it worked fairly well. I did have to remake the the "S" in IS and the "N" in WONDERFUL because my tape stuck a little too well....but the really cool thing is that I was able to go make them quick and finish the project. I have no idea what I would have done if I would have purchased the words and ruined them putting them up. I think having the Cricut is going to be lots of fun!

Here is a shot with part of the bed in it...it is centered above the headboard.

This was really fun to do...and pretty easy, too. I think I will be doing more of this!!

I have a Cricut!!

I am now the proud owner of the Cricut Expression. It was my Valentine's Day gift from my hubby. I have had a great time with it so far...and I just decorated it with some left-overs from my first try at wall art. These are the inside of the leaves that decorate the phrase I put up on our bedroom wall. I kinda liked the way the insides looked...and I love leaves...so I popped them onto the Cricut, I thought they looked cool on it...so they will stay. :o)

Oval Butterfly

I found this technique at the Stamper's Quest Magazine
It still makes me laugh when I look at it. (you can see the original inspiration card if you click the link for the e-zine above). I really loved the look of the technique and I just got the Inspired By Nature stamp set from Stampin' Up and I wanted to use the grass instead of flowers. The original plan was to mask the grass and stamp a lions face so it looked like it was peaking through the grass. I found a roll of Magic Mask that hadn't been used in a long time...cut out a rectangle the size of my card and then used my Creative Memories oval cutter to cut the oval out of the center. That was the mask for my oval. Well, I sponged my ink around the edges, stamped my grass... the lion face just didn't work like I had planned. It was a little too big for the oval and the grass...and it was looking off to one side. So, I spent the evening looking at the card...trying to figure out what would be the best thing to fill that space...words? a bird? a bug? Ahhhh....a butterfly! I stamped and colored the butterfly, then stamped it and colored it again to cut out for dimension. I was pretty satisfied with the card...proud of my choice to fill that space. It had been a while since I had seen the original card that had inspired me...I remembered the oval and flowers...but not the butterfly. I really thought that was my own genius to add the butterfly. Well...I was in for a surprise when I went back a while later and saw that butterfly on the original! LOL! I still like the card...even if it isn't as "original" as I thought it was. It's a great technique and really fun to do. I think I would like to try making a mask from some of my Nestabilities. I gotta make a list of things I want to do!!

You really should check out the Stamper's Quest Magazine....lots of inspiration there!

Fairy Dance - More Triple Play

Here is the last Triple Play I made using the chocolate brown 12 x 12 scrapbook paper. I used the same blue patterned paper as the last one and Timber Brown StazOn ink for all the stamping. The Fairy is from Enchanted Ink, Swirls are clear stamps from Inkadinkado, and the saying is actually the green rubber from Appalachian rubber stamps that I thought the saying came from on the last card. I was wrong. I don't know where that other saying is from. (the o wind, o mighty wind). If you happen to recognise it, let me know, I'd love to have the correct credit given for it.
And here is a close up of the fairy.

Wind...am I crazy??

I know, the subject matter does really does challenge my sanity...but I have had this phrase forever. It's green rubber from Appalachian Rubber Stamps...bought it well over 10 years ago..and this is the very first time I have ever used it.

This card started with the color combination. I really loved the tealish blue patterned paper that came from a big paper pack from Hobby Lobby. I loved the way it looked with the dark brown paper. I went through my verse/phrase stamps and found this one (believe me...I live in North Dakota...I am NOT a big fan of the wind...but the phrase somehow makes it seem romantic in a way....okay...okay...bring on the straight jacket)Anyway...I bought these great swirly leaves and trees clear stamps from Inkadinkadoo...and they seem to be perfect with that phrase and it all seems to go so well with the Triple Play technique...had to use up another of that brown from the Coffee card below...and Ta Da...this is what resulted.