She Who Stamps & Scraps

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!   Today we have a new color challenge for you at Our Creative Corner, hosted by stamping guru Anne Marie Hile.  

To ring in 2012, Anne Marie asks that we use the following colors:  

bright pink

bright green

bright yellow

bright purple

These are not my go-to colors but a challenge is a challenge, and most of the time I really end up liking having been pushed a bit out of my zone.  I went with Distress Inks for my colors, and then used clear embossing powder and heat set the whole thing to get some brightness. 

The giant alpha stamp is by Wendy Vecchi (Studio 490) and the lady is an oldie from Catslife Press.  I love that I can write whatever I want on her mesage board.  

I added a flourish (Tim/Sizzix) and a bit of the ornate on-the edge die to ground her.  The tiny tag is also Tim/Sizzix and I adhered it to one of his Idea-ology pins.

Thanks so much for popping by! This challenge runs through January 6 and all are welcome. Just make any paper crafting project you wish using those four colors and link it to the OCC blog.

I'm also linking mine to the Anything Goes challenges Sunday Stampers and Simon  Says Stamp.

Wishing you & yours a wonderful New Year filled with health, happiness, and lots of love & laughter.

Marjie

Warm Wishes on Christmas Eve

Merry Christmas & Happy Hanukah!  Today at Our Creative Corner our theme is Home for Holidays.  

Our host, Sharon Wheet, asks that we look around our own homes for inspiration and create something with a bit of sparkle or glimmer.  

With all the decorations out for Christmas, I had a lot of inspiration.  It was hard to choose, but I kept coming back to all the holiday cards arriving in the mail, and all the warm wishes extended between friends and family.  

On Wednesday I was able to watch a class on my computer, taught live from Germany by the very talented and funny Nat Kalbach.   

Nat inspired me to try her masking technique. First I stamped the tag using lots of Tim Holtz stamps and Ranger distress inks.  Then I arranged the little MM alpha letter words and covered them with torn masking tape.  Check out Nat's site for a whole tutorial.

The chipboard letters are sprayed with Color Wash and stamped with a honeycomb pattern, then embossed twice with UTEE.   I wanted to do a spray over the masked words (my wishes) but I didn't want to lose all that layered stamping on the tag itself, so I went with one of the lightest sprays I have - Butterscotch Color Wash.

Here's a pic of the background before the mist and a close-up on the letters.

I added some of Tim's metal flower parts and a few brads, then roughed up the edges before tying on the ribbon.

Simon Says Stamp & Show is wrapping up a Tim Holtz theme this weekend.   

Thanks so much for visiting.  I wish each of you the happiest of holidays.  If you have time to play during the week, I hope you'll join us at Our Creative Corner.

Marjie

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our Creative Corner - Holiday Card + Color Challenge

Saturday means there's a  new theme over at  Our Creative Corner ~ this time it's a color challenge offered up by our very creative host, Anne Marie Hile.   The challenge is to create a holiday card using four colors (light pink, light blue, red, and white) plus a touch of sparkle. 

I made my card with papers from the new Jovial Line by Basic Grey.  I took the pink sheet of patterned paper and cut nine squares from one of the Sizzix Originals square frame dies.  I inked them very lightly with brushed corduroy distress ink before running them through my Xyron for adhesive.  The squares are filled with decorative sticker from the same Jovial line.  I used an EK notebook punch for the left edge and spritzed it all with Biscotti Perfect Pearls Mist by Ranger before adhering it to my black card.

Now for the chuckle (or groan)... check out the card I posted yesterday.  This was supposed to be today's OCC card.... notice all four colors + the sparkle of the embossed flower?  Yep.  Notsomuch on the 'thank you' which I realized when I was all done and about to post.  

I'm terrible about reading recipes, too, and fairly often find out I've skipped a somewhat important step.  Oh, well.  Luckily I had time to think of something else and these new Basic Grey items all played very nicely together and satisfied the challenge.

Can't wait to see what you'll make this week!   Please join us.

Marjie 

Our Creative Corner Challenge - "All Ruffled Up"

Updated 12/29/2011:  

Thank you Gingersnap Creations  for naming me a Ginger Gem for this one!

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Our theme this week is ruffles at Our Creative Corner. Our hostess, Anne Marie Hile, has provided a series of inspiration photos which you can see at the OCC site.  

Anne Marie suggests using a ruffled ribbon, lace, paper, fabric or ruffled embellishments.  Lots of room to play!  I notice she didn't say "a ruffled clown's color" but I think the one shown I've stamped here should count.

I used the technique Tim Holtz demonstrated on Day 8 of this year's 12 Tags of Christmas to paint and ink the tag.  My clown collage stamp is by Stampers Anonymous.  I also used a Rubbernecker script stamp, a Dyan Reaveley alpha stamp and a Catslife Press sentiment stamp.

Inks are all distress inks from Ranger (lots of different blues and greens) as well as black Archival. Also used the snowcap white paint dabber.

I used two strips of colored raffia rolled tight and intertwined to tie my panel onto the tag, and popped it up with foam tape.  One of Tim's Ideology word charms and a spinner finish it off.

I hope you'll join us at OCC this week. I'm also entering this into the raffia challenge at Gingersnap Creations.   Have a great day!

Marjie 

OCC - Sketch Challenge

This week at Our Creative Corner we have a sketch challenge for you from our host, Wendy Janson.  I used 7 Gypsies papers on mine.

I cut the circles and sentiment from the Cricut George & Basic Shapes cartridge.  The notebook border strip is an EK Success punch.  The little tag is also 7 Gypsies and the word is a stamp.  I added a few black metal photo anchors and brads, and edged everything in black soot distress ink.  Here's Wendy's challenge sketch:

The challenge is open through midnight on Friday, December 9th.  Please pop on over to the OCC blog to see what the design team has come up with.  Everyone is welcome, and any type of paper craft works.  Hope to see you there!

Marjie 

Thanks, Art Peeps

My sincere thanks to all of you who've been so supportive since I've joined this community this year. I've met so many kind and supportive people as a result of starting my blog, and I truly appreciate all your support, suggestions, and encouragement.

This week at Our Creative Corner our hostess Holly Kean has posted a photo for the challenge. We're asked to create a card or other paper project based on inspiration from the photo, which is a picture of an elaborately set Thanksgiving table.   I couldn't take my eyes off the print on the tablecloth, which looks suspiciously similar to a certain embossed grungeboard I had on hand.

I cut the sign and two tags from Tim's Sizzix dies and inked them heavily with Stone Gray Staz-on before edging them with Black Soot Distress Ink.  I stacked several cuts of the sign holder and attached the sign to it with eyelets and  black waxed linen.  The sign itself is popped up on foam tape. The letters are Tim's Apha Parts.

The papers are Basic Grey, from the Vagabond and Black Tie collections.  Basic Grey has a challenge right now for mixing and matching paper sets, Gingersnap Creations has a color challenge (GC124) to use black and gray, and Simon Says Stamp has a theme of Thanks or Thanksgiving.

I hope you'll join us at OCC this week. Click here to see Holly's inspiration pic.

Thanks for the visit.  Hope you have a fantastic day!

Marjie 

A note of thanks

Saturday means another challenge at Our Creative Corner, and this week we're led by the talented Wendy Janson!

Wendy's given us pumpkins as a theme - either the image or the color - you decide.  

I tore a scrap of some older Basic Grey embossed vellum and added a mix of Bo Bunny and Stampington papers.  I inked the circle and rectangle pieces with brushed corduroy distress inks and heat embossed, to tone them down so they'd look better with the vellum.  I used three EK punches (zigzag, scallop, and label), a butterfly from a magazine, and a few brads.  Everything is edged in black soot distress ink.

The layout of the card came from this sketch at Mojo Monday:

 

I hope you'll pop on over to the OCC blog and see what Wendy and the rest of the design team have created.  The challenge is open to all and runs through midnight on Friday, November 18th.

Thanks for visiting!  

~ Marjie

10-Speed

Saturday already?  The week flew!  We have a new challenge for you at Our Creative Corner this week, led by the fabulous Tui Nathan.  Tui wants us to make something masculine, but with color(s) that are not traditionally considered masculine, plus any neutrals of your choice.  

Update:  Apparently the design team whined so much that Tui modified the challenge to be plain old masculine, unless you crave the added challenge of going with non-traditional colors.  So go for it... either way, we hope you'll play along!

Tui says: "Think about using textures, plaid, checks, stripes, argyle, stamped images and sentiments also brads, grommetts, twine, string, burlap, then add the colour - think yellows, oranges, pinks, purples, reds, pastels, and finally add in your neutral.   Be creative and have fun!"

I of course immediately thought about stamps.  I was happy to ink this fellow up for the first time. He's by Rubbernecker... I got him over the summer when I demoed for them at a stamp show in New York. The quote is by Charles Schultz and seems to go pretty well with my biker.  I thought he looked a tad too serious so I gave him a hat from Dyan Reaveley's Birds on a Wire set that was popped up on foam tape.  The gears are a die from Tim Holtz/Sizzix.

That's it for me.  Hope you'll join us this week at Our Creative Corner.  The challenge runs through midnight on Friday, November 11th.

Marjie

Follow Your Bliss

It's time for a new challenge at Our Creative Corner and Tui Nathan is our host this week.  Tui's challenge is to use fancy folds on your project.  I googled 'fancy fold cards' and was amazed at all the possibilities. There are tons of videos on YouTube demonstrating methods of folding.

My style's less formal so I went with fancy folds on a tag that is part of my card.  I bought this really neat stamp last weekend at The Ink Pad in NYC and realized if I stamped it front/back I'd have a beautiful folding piece.  I stamped it once, cut it out, and placed it backwards on my stamp again to match it up.

It's by Stampotique.  I colored the tag with an ink blending tool and the new Halloween distress ink colors before making score lines for the folds.  Then I did the same to the main panel, stamped the circles (a large Studio 490 background stamp) and heat embossed with clear powder. Did the same to the panel with the sentiment by Stampers Anonymous and the tiny punched heart and tag.  I heat embossed just the cover of the tag fold-out. I printed my interior sentiment on the computer and cut/inked/adhered.  Tied the tag booklet shut with waxed linen and hung my little 'open' tag from it.

I really enjoyed Tui's challenge, especially after finding a way I could make it work in my own style. We hope you'll visit us at Our Creative Corner this week and join in our challenge.  All are welcome and you can make any type of project you like... just include a fold or two!

I am also entering this project at Inspiration Emporium and Use it Tuesday for their current color challenges.

Thanks for the visit.  Hope you have a great day!

Marjie

Fabulous Faces - Our Creative Corner Challenge

I'm so honored to be hosting for the second time this week at Our Creative Corner!  

I've chosen faces as our focus.  Show us what you’ve got… whether you like vintage ladies in lace or fresh and funky kids…. steampunk engineers or shabby chic chicks…. even photos of yourself or your family. Please show us your favorite faces this week. 

You can stamp, draw, paint, download them.... there are countless options!  Whatever your style may be, I bet faces have played a part of your artwork at some point. 

This beautiful girl is my niece Jessica. She's just started college and has a great future ahead of her.  I matched her up with two of my favorite face stamps , a Hero Arts script stamp, and a Catslife Press sentiment.  

All the paper is manila inked with mustard seed, rusty hinge, and black soot distress inks.  The large border stamp at the bottom is by Stampers Anonymous.  I've used one of Tim Holtz's fragment tags over the small face, and two border punches (EK success). The wooden gear is an eBay find.

Thanks so much for stopping by.  Hope you have a great weekend and that you'll join us in our faces challenge at Our Creative Corner this week... it's open till midnight on Friday, October 28th.  All are welcome.

Marjie