Bottle Cap Art Doll

I have another inspiring creation for the Lost Coast Design & Carmen's Veranda challenge - Stamped Backgrounds!

Isn't she great?

Hope on over to the LCD/CV Blog to check out how she was made...

Bottle Cap ART Doll

Don't forget, today is the last day to enter the Stamped Background challenge!!

You don't want to miss out on your chance for free stamps.

Birthday Bunnies

Hello all my inky friends!  I hope you've been doing well recently. I know I've been a bit MIA lately...I've been strolling down memory lane.  I rescued a bunch of old family photos and paper memorabilia from a dumpster.  Yes I've been dumpster diving - well technically Bob (youngest son) did the diving (thanks Bob!), I did the sorting - LOL!!   I can't wait to share some of it with you...it brought back so many memories as well as surprises as I hadn't seen most of the photos and none of the other ephemera.

Anyway, today I took a bit of a break to make a card for a friend!  She recently turned 50 and is having a celebration over on her blog - Crafty Nomad - a Bunny Hop - lol...  She loves bunnies and is featurning bunny art on several of her posts. She invited everyone to help her play along by posting a bunny card of our own creation so I thought I'd join in the fun.  Here is the card I made her....

To make the card I sprinkled a tiny bit of Nuance pigment powder onto my craft mat...one blue, turquoise and a lime green color.  Remember, just a teeny tiny bit - a little goes a long way when using it for monoprinting.  I then misted the powder with water and pounced several white card panels on the resulting colorful mix.  I then let them all dry.

Next I stamped the bunnies onto one of the panels, colored with Prismacolor Colored Pencils and used an Inktense watercolor pencil to create the grass.  Finally I stamped the sentiment then mounted it onto a blue card blank.

A close up of the bunnies...

I tried to give them each their own personality. 

This was so much fun I may have to make another bunny card!

Supplies:

Nuance Pigment Powders

Imagine - VersaFine Clair Ink - Nocturne; Craft Mat

Prismacolor Colored Pencils

Inktense Watercolor Pencils

Just For Fun Stamps - Bunnies & Sentiment

Cardstock

Adhesive

Keep on Swimmin'

Happy Friday!!!

Today I have a fun card for you which will hopefully help usher in the warmer weather and if not the sentiment will come in handy to help keep us going until it does show up - LOL!!

Three little fishies and their hopeful optimism!

Stop by the Imagine blog to see a complete supply list and instructions for making this card.

Keep on Swimmin

CAS: Bubbles!

I hope you're all surviving this Spring

 that seems like the never ending Winter! 

I was looking through some of my challenge emails yesterday and found the Bubbles challenge from Addicted to CAS.  It was the perfect opportunity to use a new (to me) stamp set from Hero Arts...the Color Layering Octopus!  It actually came out last year but I just discovered it recently when I was looking for a different stamp set.  The moment I saw it I knew I had to have it!

Isn't he so stinkin' cute?  I just love him and his little fishy friend!  The entire card was stamped using VersaFine Clair inks - I started off by stamping the base layer of the octopus with Verdant and layered Green Oasis over top.  I used Warm Breeze for the bubbles, Nocturne for the sentiment and finally Summertime (isn't that a great name?) for his little friend.

Here's a close up of the octopus...such fun!

I can't wait to stamp him in other colors...so many ideas :)

Supplies:

Hero Arts - Color Layering Octopus

Imagine - VersaFine Clair - Verdant, Green Oasis, Warm Breeze, Summertime, Nocturne

White Cardstock Card blank

Yeah! House of Cards Top 5!

What fun, my card below was chosen as one of the top 5 for Marches challenge...

Colored Pencils on Black or Dark Cardstock.

Stamps - Rubber Stamp Tapestry

Imagine - white ink

colored pencils

Club Scrap - Cardstock

Lost Coast Designs & Carmen's Veranda - Stamped Background Challenge!

Hello my ink stained friends!  I have some exciting new to share with you today...I have been chosen to be on the design team for Lost Coast Designs & Carmen's Veranda!!  I am very excited about this - I have admired these stamps for a very long time, they are very artsy and work well not only on cards but in mixed media arts and collage too!  I can't wait to share my creations with you, I have been having lots of fun with them.

Every 2 weeks LCD/CV hosts a new challenge...my first piece I get to share with you was inspired by their new challenge - Stamped Backgrounds.

I started off by stamping the Pencils Background onto a piece of white cardstock using VersaFine Clair Nocturne ink. Each pencil was colored using a variety of watercolor and colored pencils. This was mounted on a blue card blank.

The next layer is a piece of self adhesive vellum that was colored with Nuance pigment powder. 

Georges and Lewis was stamped once in VF Clair Nocturne and a second time with Paradise blue VFC ink.  The shirt was trimmed from the second image and affixed to the first.  I stamped an extra pencil with green, brown, grey and pink ink which was trimmed and pieced back together to create the pencil which I tucked under his arm.  He was affixed to the card panel using double stick foam tape.

Finally I die-cut the sentiment and inked it with a bit of the Paradise ink.

I hope you hop on over to the blog to check out the other inspiring creations and possibly enter one of your own for your chance to win $$$ to acquire your own Lost Coast Designs & Carmen's Veranda stamps!

Supplies:

LCD/CV - Pencils Background; Georges & Lewis

Imagine - VersaFine Clair - Nocturne, Paradise, Rain Forest, Morning Mist, Acorn, Charming Pink, Sponge Dauber

Die-Cut, Vellum, Cardstock

Lost Coast Designs - Check it Out...

So excited to say that I am now a part of the awesome design team for

Lost Coast Designs

& 

Carmen's Veranda Stamps!!

I have been wanting to get back to the more artsy side of stamping and this is the perfect way to do so...these stamps are so cool and look great alone or mashed together in a collage. I can't wait till you see what I've been up to!

Pretty as a Picture Challenge

Lost Coast Designs and Carmen's Veranda's second challenge for the month is Pretty as a Picture (see the inspiration photo at the bottom)!  I decided to play along and this is what I created...

I was inspired initially by the birds nest but then as I looked at it again I was also struck by the colors...vintage barn red, the blue from the eggs and the stark white of the freshly painted trim.  How could I resist.

I started off by cutting a piece of cardstock 4.25 x 5.5" and ran it through a wood grain embossing folder.  I colored the panel using 3 different Nuance reds plus a bit of grey/black.  I then swiped a white ink pad over the raised areas and immediately smudged it around just to give it a weathered feel. I sponged Acorn and Fallen Leaves VersaFine Clair ink around the edges.

I stamped one of birds from the Three Birds stamp set on white cardstock using Paradise blue VFC which was then fussy cut.  I twisted twine into a loopy birds next and stapled it onto the panel. Finally I die-cut a few branches which were sponged with brown ink added them to the card and finished it off with a few white flowers.

My rendition of Pretty as a Picture!

Lost Coast Designs/Carmen's Veranda Pretty as a Picture Challenge

Supplies:

Lost Coast Designs - Three Birds

Imagine - VersaFine Clair - Paradise, Acorn, Fallen Leaves; irRESISTible Pico Embellisher - Electric Blue; Memento Luxe - White; Sponge Dauber

Nuance Pigment Powders

Sizzix Die/Embossing Folder

Take It Challenge Rollagraph #1

Happy Friday! 

It's been quite a week here...

hope yours has been great!  

Today I wanted to share a fun new challenge that I thought I'd bring back. Quite a few years ago I held a challenge where I sent out the same materials to several people and they created a card or other project with the materials and shared the image with me.  I then shared all of the projects on one post showing what everyone came up with.  

Well recently I was able to purchase NOS Rollagraph stamps and there were a few wheels that had several duplicates. I am going to sell some of the dups on my Etsy store but I thought I'd share  some with you as well!

NOTE: I have the 7 participants for this round of Take It Challenge! Thanks to all who volunteered, if you haven't already send me your snail mail addy please do so and I'll get your stamps out to you.  If you didn't get in this round, no worries...I will have another soon!

So here's what I'm going to do...I'm going to send out the Flagstone Rollagraph stamp out to 7 people. Once rec'd you will create a project incorporating the stamp into your design, send me a photo of the finished design within 2 weeks then I will post all of your creations along with one of my own all together to reveal the results.  

So who's up for a challenge?  You'll have approx. 2.5 weeks to complete your project (I'll give you the exact date once the stamps have been sent.).  You don't have to pay anything, I'm going to cover the cost of the rubber stamp and postage myself. I'll take the first 7 people who are interested.  Please either post here or e-mail me at ronijj @ gmail . com (no spaces of course).  I will need your snail mail addy as well so I can send out your stamp to you.

If all goes well we will have another Take It Challenge in May and possibly beyond :)

Take It Challenge - Rollagraph #1 Participants:

1. Ionabunny

2. SusanK

3. Erin

4. Tonya

5. Cindy 

6. Theresa

7. SusanP

As you will notice in the photo above the stamp has been removed from the wheel.  If you prefer to have your stamp sent on the wheel, plmk.  IMO it's cheaper to send and easier to store off the wheel.  In fact, I have removed all of my rollagraph stamps from the wheels and store them in a single box...

This is one 8.5 x 11 x 2" box! It has approx. 75 stamps so far and can hold loads more.  

FAR less room than trying to store all of the stamp wheels. 

And here is how I keep track of what I have...they are arranged by theme.  I mark the stamp name and number on the back of the rubber and they are stored in sequential order so I can look for my design in the book and locate it quickly and easily in the box.  If I have a wheel that doesn't have a number on it I assign one randomly.

Spring Flowers Challenge

Hello Friends!

I hope you're having a good day today. 

I wanted to share the new April challenge over on 

Just For Fun Rubber Stamps...Spring Flowers!

I wanted to share a few...o.k. several flower cards with you...

Hope you stop by and give it a try!

Supplies:

Just For Fun Rubber Stamps - all images n sentiments

Imagine - Memento Dye Inks, Memento Dual Tip Markers, VersaMark, Clear Embossing Powder, On Point Glue, irREISTible Pico Embellisher, Sponge Daubers

Kuretake Watercolor Paints 

Niji Watercolor Brush

New Card Sketch

Inky salutations my artsy friends! I hope you're all fairing well today. I had a rude awakening this morning...snow!  I know many of you have been dealing with the resurgence of winter this Spring but up till now we had been spared.  Unfortunately we woke up to the white stuff today....my dog was not happy about it either - he refused to go out ;)  LOL!!  I think he's had enough of winter like the rest of us.

Today I have a new card sketch to share with you that I made for the Club Scrap Card Challenge for April.  

And here it is...

And this is what I created!  It was made using supplies from the Daffodils kit (03/18), paper flowers from Prima and VersaFine Clair inks.  The splatter background is actually a stamp from the kit that I stamped all over with yellow then went back and stamped the orange in a few locations (so it didn't over power the yellow). I didn't notice it at the time but the orange strip (which is a cut-a-part border) is almost a mirror image of the flower I stamped on the tag!  Looks like I planned it that way but it happened purely by accident.

I hope it inspires you to get inky and you go ahead and give it a try!

Rainbow Pinwheel Wreath!

Check out my new wreath I made to welcome in Spring/Summer!

It was made from white cardstock, stamps from Rubber Stamp Tapestry and VersaMagic Inks!!

Complete instructions and supply list can be found here:

See How to Make a Paper Rainbow Pinwheel Wreath

Happy Easter Friends!

(German Postcard from 1909)

Hope you have a blessed day!