SSD Sketch #101

I won a free stamp set from Skipping Stones Design a couple weeks back for this card: http://mprantner.blogspot.com/2011/10/fall-card-for-ssd-create-and-h2h.html.

I chose Gray Hares, which is a great versatile set for Easter, Birthday, and Get Well Soon cards, and decided to go with the Get Well Soon theme for this card.

The bunny and balloons are stamped in second generation black ink, and then paper pieced. I added a touch of pink to the bunny with my blending pen.

The borders are Kraft borders that I covered with black ink. Rather than sponging the ink on the borders, I think it's faster to just take your inkpad and swipe it over the border. You can very quickly get a very saturated color this way.

One more thing, the sentiment is not normally curved. This is one of my favorite things about acrylic stamps, you can bend them, curve them, etc. In this instance, I shaped the sentiment to follow the line of the bunny.

Even with the paper piecing, this card came together very quickly. Hope you like that little bunny as much as I do!

CTMH Supplies Used:
Paper: White Daisy, Olive, Lucky Level 2, Fanfare Level 2, Smoothie
Ink: Black, Sorbet
Other: Kraft Borders, Blending Pen

Other Supplies:
Skipping Stones Design - Gray Hares

My Creations Journal cover for Play Date Cafe

Finally getting around to doing/posting some more artwork! I've been experimenting with the My Creations Journal, which is a 5x7 size with a pocket on the front cover made from our Memory Protector material where you can slide in photos/artwork. It really allows you to customize the cover based on what you want to use the journal for, and at $7.95 is a great gift idea.

Anyway, I saw this week's Play Date Cafe challenge--incorporating a splash of color--and thought it would be perfect for a journal cover. This was really an easy project to do, great for keeping my hands busy while catching up on some TV shows. I used the edge distresser on the black and white stripes that I layered over a scrap of red paper, and ran that whole piece through the paper trimmer afterwards to make sure I got a nice clean edge on both sides.

The letters are from the 'Typewriter Keys' alphabet set, and then I used a Kraft Border sponged with black to finish up the left hand side.

I really like how the border mimics a spiral ring notebook, and the lines/stripes also kind of speak to a notebook in an abstract way.

Moxie Fab World Beautiful Borders Challenge Card

I saw this challenge last week (http://www.moxiefabworld.com/2011/06/next-moxie-fab-world-challenge.html) and knew exactly what I wanted to do. I've seen a bunch of quilted cards, mostly based on the Log Cabin quilt, and I thought that type of card was perfect for this challenge. I wanted to do a different pattern, and remembered that I have Carol Doak's 300 Paper-Pieced Quilt Blocks. The book comes with a CD with all the quilt block patterns and allows you to create whatever size block you want. For this challenge, I changed the black (normally 4") to 2 1/2". Then I made four and put them together to form the pattern.

Then I just played around with my Kraft Borders leaving some plain, some sponged but placed right on the quilt square base, and adhering some to another strip of paper and sponging over both. I really like the graphic nature of the card. The beauty of this design, and using quilt blocks as inspiration is that you could have taken the four blocks and put them together in different ways to make a number of different cards with different focal points, but I like the pinwheel pattern this creates. Hope the folks over at Moxie Fab World like it too!

CTMH Products Used:

Accessories: Kraft Borders

Exclusive Inks: Outdoor Denim, Ponderosa Pine, Garnet, Chocolate

Papers: Smokey Plum, Ponderosa Pine, Twilight, Outdoor Denim, Colonial White, Bamboo

Creative Rhythm Layout Using Cherish

I wanted to share with you a recent layout because it shows how adaptable Jeanette Lynton’s how-to books are to whatever your scrapbooking style may be as well as the products you have already invested in.

I talked a little about my scrapbooking style in a previous post, but I should also share that until I learned about CTMH, I was basically a Creative Memories girl. That’s what I ‘cut my teeth’ on in terms of scrapbooking. I have a lot of their products, like them, and regularly use them. I think it’s foolish to believe that one company can meet all your scrapbooking/papercrafting needs. There are so many unique and different products out there and limiting oneself limits your creativity. That said, I do believe that CTMH brings something unique to the scrapbooking world, and the quality of their products is top-notch (or I wouldn't have gotten involved with the company).

Most of this layout uses my stash of CM products. The paper/pages are all CM. But, I used the Creative Rhythm pattern from Cherish (pg 37) to put this layout together, and I really like the results. Now, you can follow the directions in the book to a tee and get a GREAT looking page, no question. But, as I have mentioned in the past, I’m still getting used to the whole idea of patterned paper, and am just more comfortable with solids. This layout calls for three different patterned papers as well as two different colors of cardstock. So, what I did was alter it a little. I used a yellow and brown cardstock and counted the white from the page as a third ‘color’. Some of the paper/cardstock was used sparingly, so I ended up combining some of them to stick with the three color scheme. Then, as a substitute for a patterned paper that was basically cut to resemble a ribbon, I used one of my all-time favorite CTMH products: Kraft Borders. And, to add some pizzazz, I stamped little circles from the Enjoy Life My Acrylix set using chocolate ink.

I’m really happy with how this layout turned out. It demonstrates how functional/adaptable the CTMH line is with whatever products you know and love already, and shows how any one layout can be very simple or more intricate based on your personal style.

CTMH Products Used:
My Acrylix: Typewriter Alphabet, Enjoy Life
Ink Colors: Chocolate
Embellishments: Kraft Borders
Layout: Creative Rhythm, from Cherish

Heart to Heart Challenge - Create background paper to use on a Father's Day card

As I mentioned in the previous post, I've been excited about the possibilities of creating my own background paper, and have been experimenting with it this past week. My upline emailed me yesterday to tell me about this week's H2H challenge. You have to create your own background paper and then use to make a Father's Day card.

I had already been kicking around a plan for how to use the 'Something Splendid' stamp set my upline had given me. It's a really pretty set with large flowers where you build the flower by stamping the flower petals, then details, the center of the flower, and also includes some leaves/leaf vein stamps. I used the smallest leave, stamping it in a circle to form the flower/starburst images. Then I used the center of the large flower as the large circle and the center of the small flowers in clusters. It took a couple tries to get the spacing right, but I was really pleased with how this came out. It's pretty abstract but organic at the same time.

I used the paper to make a 5x7 card, accenting it with kraft borders sponged with Garnet (same as the large circles on the paper, also used Garden Green and Desert Sand). The other stamps were from The Works alphabet and the Lucky workshop set.