Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Fun & Girly Journal

So I tried something new.. I decorated the cover of a notebook! I started looking in the catalogs and blogs for ideas, when some just hit me, so here it is:



Ok, so I pieced it together on a piece of white paper cut to the shape of the cover. All the pieces are from the Sweet & Sour dsp except the green, which is Certainly Celery. My favorite part is the bottom corner. Here's an upclose:



After cutting the background dsp, I stamped flowers from the Build-a-Roo set in Pumpkin Pie. I used the "masking" technique laid out by Lee Conrey. It worked well and looks good. Then I stamped and cut out butterflies and popped out their wings. Of course it wasn't complete without rhinestones and pearls.
Another part I really enjoyed seeing come together was the big bow! This is the best bow I've ever tied! It took a lot of maneuvering, but...



Tah-dah! Also, underneath the bow, the middle section is made of Pumpkin Pie paper with sheet music stamped in Pumpkin Pie, then embossed with the Elegant Lines embossing folder. I thought that would be kind of interesting.
Finally, I made one more little piece of art on my cover:



The piece is Certainly Celery; I stamped a tree in Certainly Celery from the Thoughts & Prayers stamp set, then punched out flowers with the Itty Bitty Shapes punch pack out of Sweet and Sour dsp. I finished each off with a rhinestone or pearl center!
This was a fun project that only took a few hours (I take a loong time on each project) and turned out quite nicely!

Thanks for stopping by!

Monday, June 27, 2011

Elegant, Yet Manly Birthday

So I needed another birthday card for a family member, this time for a guy. I used a sketch from Stampin' Royalty (their site is http://stampinroyalty.blogspot.com/):


I actually heard about this site on Julie's blog, and jumped at the oppurtunity to join another sketch challenge! So here's my card:




I used papers from the Elegant Soiree DSP. The first layer is a Crumb Cake base card (I love this color), followed by Early Espresso bordering the designer paper. The focal image is a 2-1/4" square of Espresso, followed by a 2" Crumb Cake square, then a 1-3/4" circle of designer paper with a 1-7/16" circle of Vanilla with a stamped Happy Birthday in Espresso. The string tied across is actually dark brown hemp twine, tied around a dark brown button. I improvised... Here's the button detail:



What's funny is when I started this blog a few days ago, I was taking pictures with my iPod. That's why they aren't very good. However, my mom has a high quality Canon camera, so I took these pictures and figured out how to get them on my blog. It worked!

Thank you for stopping by.

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Sweet & Sour Birthday

I was looking through older sketch challenges and decided to play around with #203. Here's the sketch:


Again, I had to use the Sweet and Sour specialty papers because they're the only good coordinating papers I have right now.. and they're cute. I also needed to make a birthday card because I'm going to a family reunion, and several family members have birthdays in July! Here's my card:


And here's an upclose of the details (I added pearls!):


Thanks for viewing :)


Saturday, June 25, 2011

My First Sketch Challenge

Here's my first attempt at the Stamping 411 Sketch Challenge!
I used this week's Stamping 411 Sketch Challenge:

I used the Sweet & Sour Specialty papers from Stampin' Up, with a Pumpkin Pie base for the card. The stamps are also Stampin' Up, and I couldn't help but put rhinestones in the centers of the flowers :)
I was inspired to try this out by my demonstrator, Julie Beltramo. Her blog is http://justjulieb30.blogspot.com/, and it is a great place for ideas and Stampin' Up info.
The Sketch Challenge was created by Kerin and can be found on her blog http://stamping411.blogspot.com/. It is also extremely helpful in finding ideas and sharing them with others!


 Thanks for stopping by!