Stampotique Challenge SDC25!

Do you like free stuff?  I DO!!  Here is a chance from some great prizes.   Pat Huntoon's Technique Junkie Design Team (that includes me!) is participating all week in the Stampotique Designer's Challenge. One lucky participant will win a Two-Year subscription to the Technique Junkie Newsletter (on-line only) and a Fancy Folds and Motion CD. The other winner will receive a $30 gift certificate to use on the Stampotique Store.    Instructions for participation follow my cards.

I was so tickled with this mushroom image as it was just perfect for the barn wood technique!!  It is colored with copic markers and also uses the 'out of the box' technique.  The background features the Faux Barnwood technique from the February/March 2011 issue of Technique Junkie Newsletter.




The next card also features the barnwood technique but instead of using the traditional brown, I used blue.  I also used some of my favorite images from an artist named Maryse Carrier!  You may recognize her drawings as a past artist for Magenta stamps.  BUT.........NOW her artwork is carried by Stampotique and I couldn't be more happy.  Her images can be found in the Stampotique store HERE. 

 OK, stampers, here are your rules for participation:

1. For this challenge, use Stampotique Stamps only.
2. You must use either the Faux Barnwood Technique or another Technique Junkie technique of your choice, and state which one you used in your post.
3. On the Stampotique Designer's Challenge blog, you must link directly to your challenge post, not to your general blog.
4. The contest will close on March 8, 2011, at 5 PM EST.
5. Have fun creating and show us what you can do!

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If you want to see other pieces of artwork from this challenge, make sure you hop on over to the Stampotique Designer's Challenge blog.........you'll be happy you did!

Emboss or Die Sneaky Peak

Here is another sneaky peak at the Emboss or Die innards.  This is the same technique I showed you before.....scallop dress.  Well........you didn't think I would show you too much did you?  ;-)   I used vellum for this skirt.  I don't know why but it is terribly hard for me to do pastels.  If you look at most of my cards, they are really intense colors.........I'm trying to learn!    The Emboss or Die CD is almost ready to ship!  You can get yours and be one of the first to have it in your hot little hand......just click on the Emboss or Die CD PayPal on the sidebar!  BTW......I don't get the money!! 

I thought i'd show this card to you today because the two cards that I DID do today are submission work that you can't see!

Hambo Hoedown Pelican

This is my card for the Hambo Hoedown this week.  We received a free pelican digi......isn't he darling?!!  Our color palette needed to contain, blue, brown and tan.  I layered the pelican several times.  Unfortunately I had my larger lights for taking pictures set up in a different room to film tutorials for the TJ newsletter so only had my little lights........not perfect but they sure gave the pelican a good shadow.  The pelican and the BG are colored with copic markers.  I gave the sand some texture and did the cloud treatment that Marianne Walker showed us the other day on her ilikemarkers blog.  The sentiment was generated on my computer. 

My Mom's Valentine

Sometimes everything just fall together soooo easy.  The card I did for Valentines for my mom was one of those.  I think I had about 15 minutes total into this card.  Knew what I wanted to do.....coloring went super quick.  I was tickled with it and she was wowed!!  ;-)  I thought it was interesting that when I used the red copics to color the rose, I wanted a darker color for the shadow and I used V06!!  A violet no less!!  I'm going to have to remember that!

The image is a digital from Fred she Said.  You can't tell from the picture much but the flower bunch is cut out and mounted above the heart.  It is also hard to tell that I have gold leafing all around the outside edge of the heart. 

I also got two more cards done today that are some of my assigned submission cards.  DONE.....and ahead of time.  ;-)

Suspenseful! and an Accident Final Report

Well.......I've been creating but you WILL have to wait.  Some of the new techniques coming out in April are soooo much fun!  I've had a blast creating and filming them!  Got four of my six submission cards done yesterday.

Today was very fun for me........I had a call from a high school classmate.  We are planning my 40th reunion (like, when in the world did THAT happen) and were rejoicing at long lost members that have been found with the wonders of the internet! 

Monday on the other hand, wasn't as fun.  After see the Neurosurgeon they have now determined that I am medical stable but am not responding for any treatments.  I've decided that surgery just isn't necessary at this point.  I'm willing to live with the low grade back pain and numbness in my feet.  Very discouraging.  I can still pray for a healing though!  ;-) 

Still getting it done!

My resolution is still going strong.....and I haven't missed yet.  You just aren't going to see some of my creations until the next TJ newsletter airs in April!!

BUT today I did two cards.  I'll post the second one tomorrow.  The first one is the Valentine I made for my hubby.  This ubber darling image is from Hambo stamps.  The minute I saw it I wanted it for hubby's valentine.  I drew a larger briefcase for the inside and made it a flip up so that the final sentiment could be under the briefcase.   Unfortunately, I had the sentiments already printed off and the computer wasn't ready to print them again so I just put them in place and colored around them.  My DH didn't care!  ;-)  Image was colored with copics.  I saw that piece of yellow paper and thought it would be great for the image.  I cut it down to size and mounted darker paper behind.....I thought it kind of looked like a doorway!

HoeDown Monster

This week on the Hoedown challenge, we are to use a Hambo stamp with a heart somewhere on the image.  The freebie image we received this week was a darling little monster.  He just spoke spots and layers to me so here you have it!  I didn't have a heart stamp so I just cut a heart into a piece of paper and used the hole as a mask to sponge the heart on the sentiment.  I didn't want to make the monster green since he would be for Valentines day, so I chose purple and lime green......two of my favorite colors!  I also took a side picture so you could see all the layers.  I popped the body above the tail and the eyes above the body.  I wanted the heart to be raised too but not beyond the hands so I cut out the hands and 'wrapped' them around the heart.  Hope you enjoy!  There are lots of other entries this week already....head on over to the HoeDown.....the link is on my right side bar.

Tapping the Helmet!

The card today is for the HoeDown Challenge by Hambo Stamps.  You can click on the Hoe Down link in the right side bar.  The challenge was football.  Okay......I do have to preface this with the statement that I really don't care to watch football.  If I want a good nap, all I have to do is put on a football game and I can be asleep in 5 minutes.  I think it is the crowd noise!

Anyway...........I rate the teams according to their helmets.  The cooler the helmet, the more I root for the team.  Seahawks, cool helmet.  Dolphins, cool helmet.  Rams, WAY cool helmet.  There are more but NOT Green Bay or the Steelers....they are NOT on my cool helmet list.  So, I wasn't going to root for either team on Sunday.  BUT then I heard that the "G" doesn't really stand for Green Bay.  On a Sports Inside website, the article said that the "G" actually stands for "Greatness!"  So........with that in mind, the Green Bay helmet climbed a few notches in the cool helmet list. 

So, with the challenge being football, I just had to do the card shown.  I did a spotlight technique for the helmet and market tapping for the background.  Hope you enjoy!!

THEN..........I was really busy on Sunday and Monday night as I finished up 28 of the thank you cards for my rhodie society trophy donors.  It looks just like the red rhododendron card I made for my hubby that I posted a couple of days ago.

Cricut Mickey for Valentines

My daughter asked if I could make some Valentines cards for her to buy for her nieces and nephew (my grandkids).  So....I thought it would be a good time to try out the Mickey and Friends cartridge I had purchased.  I did learn one thing.......next time I'm going to make it a LOT larger.  Those tiny pieces for the eyes and the tiny red piece for Mickey's shirt drove me nuts!  Cuttlebug highlight for the background.  The Minnie card will look the same just with Minnie instead.  I'll have four of these ready for her tomorrow.  I also got 28 cards ready to assemble today.  They will be the same as the Bday card I did for my Hubby.  It was a productive day for stamping but not for housework....only one load of laundry and one load of dishes!

 I also participated in a challenge on CDAC.......you should remember this challenge.  I posted a card yesterday that I made.........only to find out that I had used the wrong digi!  Well,, this card has the correct digi artist for the challenge.  This was a fun challenge.  The participants picked 10 elements for a card and you were to choose 5 of them to make you card.  I chose, embossing folder, ribbon, border punch, faux stitching and the color pink.  You can just barely see from the photo below, the diamond glaze that I put on the cherries.  It looks really great in real life.  The digi is from Designed2delight and is colored with copics.  I was really pleased with the copic coloring on this.  I tried not to over color it as I often tend to do!

Ray's Birthday card

Here is the card that I did for my hubby's birthday.  We both love rhodies and have been in the Portland chapter of the American Rhododendron Society (ARS) since 1984.  Many years ago, I drew up this rhodie and had it made into a rubber stamp.  The stamp was really too little for this card, so I scanned in the stamped image and decided that it was too grainy.  Then I blew the size up pretty big and redrew it, rescanned, cleaned up and printed it out as this size.  Colored it with copics.  The BG piece is a Cuttlebug highlights piece and the flower uses 'out of the box' technique.  The sentiment is from SU.  I decided that I love this so much that this layout and image will be my thank you cards this year for the ARS trophy donors.  So that means I'll be making about 26 more of these but with thank you instead of "it's your day'.  Since my time is limited, I scanned in the image above that took me a long time to color and will print out the other 26!  My image so I can do as I wish!  Yeah!!   I did enter this in the #5 Red Hot Challenge at DYSU.  Here is the link to that challenge!

I'm the trophy chairman in charge or purchasing the beautiful trophies we have every year for our Mother's Day Show.  I get to buy, glassware, china, pottery, metalware, etc.  It is a lot of fun to spend other people's money.  I buy things that I would like to win since I have won a few over the years.  Hope you enjoy the card.

Just a Valentine!

Sometimes I wonder if I would forget my head if it wasn't attached!  I had a challenge to complete for CDAC.  It was a potluck challenge from Designed2Delight.  Got sidetracked after I got off the computer......had to go back up the stairs from the Stamp Hole to find the challenge potluck list.  Got back down to the Stamp Hole, grabbed the image I had colored and ready to go for a couple of days.  Picked my 'potluck' items (ribbon, corner punch, stripes, embossing folder, and the color pink.......you had to pick 5).  Took the picture of the finished card and then went to post on the challenge.   Sheesh!  Silly me.........I had a digital image from a different designer instead.  Well....that's my story and I'm sticking to it!  I hope you enjoy it even if it was wrong for the challenge!  Image from Just Some Lines and colored with copics.  I hand cut the heart around the sentiment and for the shadows.  I AM so excited.....still keeping my resolution......but then again it IS after 7 pm and dinner isn't made yet.

AHTIA DON'T LOOK!!

Can you tell that I'm working on birthday cards for my relatives!  Hee Hee.  The first card isn't for my daughter-in-law's birthday but a decoy so her card doesn't show on Facebook! 

The first card is called total texture and is a TJ technique from the current newsletter.  I used paper from the Paper Temptress and in real life it is just beautiful!

Now for the other card.  The stamp is from Inkadinkado and paper from Hot off the Press and Bazzill.  I made this for a color challenge card over at Copic Creations.  The challenge was to use cool colors.  So, NO yellow, red, orange, or yellow green.  Do you know how hard it was to do flowers and greenery without my yellows and yellow-greens!  Augh!!   I wish the camera had caught the subtle light colors in this card.  I airbrushed light blues and some Red-violets into the sky.  The colors are really more that what you see!!!!   Someday they will invent a camera that can do artwork justice!  I also used my new MS butterfly punch.  Hope she likes it!

TRAVIS DON'T LOOK

Okay.....I'm posting several other cards first because I don't want my son-in-law to see the first picture on Facebook!  Today is barn wood.  The first two cards are ones that I did as design work for the TJ newsletter early in January using the new Barn Wood technique.  I had a lot of fun making the window on the one card.  Stamp credits are "I brake for stamps" on the first two cards.

Now for the card that I made for my Son-in-law, Travis.  I am sooooooo tickled with this card.  I wanted to make him a card with a tool box on it.  Alas, no tool box stamp to be found in my stamp hole.  So.......I can draw that.........I say to myself.  Well........it was a lot easier in my head than on paper.....took me a couple of hours to get the drawing the way I liked it but I LIKE IT!!  I hope that you do too.  I had the design for this card in my head and it actually looks like what I wanted!  So many times, that does NOT happen.  I colored the image with copic markers.  Then I remembered that I had these neat screw snaps that I had been hoarding for about 5 years and they were perfect to finish off the card.  To the right of the image is another piece of barn wood.  Maybe some fancy dancy stamp company will see it and want to buy the image.......hahahahahahhahahah!!

Catching up with my creations!

Even though I haven't posted what I created in the last couple of days, doesn't mean that I haven't been creating! Here I'll have to catch you up with what I've created!

The first one is a Valentine card that was ordered for a young boy. The digital image is from Hambo Stamps! The background is a technique junkie technique called plaid. When I originally made that background I didn't like it and threw it to the side.....but it was perfect for the dog! Hope you like him!

The next one uses a free image I got from a recent blog hop at CDAC (Crafter's digital Art Center) from a darling company called DoodlePantry.  It is such a happy image!  I used an 'out of the box' technique for it. 

This next card also uses an image from the CDAC hop from a company called CS Designs.  I used a technique called "Neutral Shadows" from the most recent TJ newsletter.  When I first downloaded this image, I thought that I wouldn't care for it as much but with it colored, I LOVE it!  Colored with copics then the bow was cut out and embossed after coloring with Versamark and a sparkly clear embossing powder.  Thank you CS Designs.

The next card uses an image from Priscilla Styles.  This wasn't a freebie but a beautiful set I purchased from her.  It didn't turn out exactly like I wanted......I was a little disappointed in that....but I like it just the same.  Next time I want to layer the flowers more and put it on a square card.  I think it is the card size that I really don't like for this image.  Another thing I would do different it to use a printed sentiment inside the heart and much larger than the little tine print on the heart I used.  It does look sooooo much better in person.  The ribbon photographed really funky!  Colored with copics.

Next is a sweet old fashioned Valentine image from Twisted Papers.  Isn't he just as sweet as can be!  I decided to make him really pop that I would level him up several times.  The balloons have three layers (base and two more) and the boy has two layers with a third layer only from the waist up.  Instead of keeping the layers flat, I used my took to round them a little to give more dimension.  When I got done with this card, I was terribly pleased with the depth it seemed to have.  Not just with the little boy but with the color of the card as well.  The background was Cuttlebug highlights and that layer really made it in my opinion!  I have 26 thank you cards to make for my rhododendron society so I think I'll use this color combo with a red flower.  It should be a real eye catcher!  I posted a side view of this card so you can see the rounded layers.

Finally!!!!!   I bet you thought this post would NEVER end!    When I had my card sale in October I made these Exploding Surprrise Boxes and they were a huge hit.  I ended up making 22 of them!!!  These last two were ordered by a friend who didn't need them until this time of year.  Just before I ran out the door to deliver them last Saturday I snapped a few pictures.  Now I wish I had better pictures of them.  I think you can get the idea though.  There are 20 different surfaces on the different layers.  Some people use the layers for photos but I put sentiments or decorations on my layers.  The bottom layer has two sections that have a pocket so that the person can insert a gift card or money or whatever.  The sentiments were pretty generic so that it could be used for lots of different occasions.  The middle birdcage was cut from my new Cricut...(I LOVE my Cricut) and the butterflies are 'suspended' with an acrylic strip cut from a Cuttlebug folder package!  Around the base of the birdcages is FlowerSoft to create a little interest!  I had the flowers that I used on the tops for many years and am happy to find a use for them.  It is hard to see but the top butterfly on the lid does have wire antennae.  Hope you enjoy them!  Each box took about 3 hours to finish!