Creative Artiste Mixed Media Challenge Guest Design

There's nothing better than the feeling of scrubbing off inky, messy hands after a good play session in the studio. 

I have the honor of being a guest designer this week over at Creative Artiste Mixed Media Challenge. I happen to love this challenge because it's always anything goes as long as it's a mixed media project. 

One of my friends asked for a special commissioned card for his wife on their anniversary. 

I started with a piece of white background and stamped it with a text background stamp and Walnut Stain Distress Oxide. I spritzed with water and then added two drops of Cosmic Shimmer Watercolour Ink. 

Next, I added another layer of stamping with Visible Images Fibrionaci stamp, embossed in Speckled Egg Distress Glaze. 

I decided on the different elements I wanted to bring into my card - a peach frame that I covered with blue and gold InkaGold to antique it, and a white butterfly that I sprayed with Distress Spray Stain and then added Speckled Egg Distress Glaze before heat setting it (and almost starting it on fire. :o ) 

I started layering my card with Prima flowers, my frame and the butterfly, and then added little bits of ivory frantage around the edges before dusting it with some Speckled Egg Distress Oxide Spray Stain. 

I added some romantic, gushy words to make it appropriately lovey-dovey for an anniversary and - I've got to say it turned out sooooo pretty. 

Thanks for popping by, and I hope you'll go get all inky and play along at Creative Artiste. 

Love & Romance - Shabby Chic Card

I am in my favorite zone right now - all things red, pink, and heart-shaped!! That's right, Valentine's are in the house and I'm having a blast.

I have a big thank you to give out to The Card Concept challenge this week because they are feeding my V-day addiction with their new inspiration image.

Seeing that vintage paper in the background made me want to go all shabby chic with my designs, so that's exactly what I did.

I incorporated the vintage paper, the notes of green, pink and beige, and brought some beautiful paper flowers (by Recollections) into the mix.

The sentiment is from a set I designed for STAMPlorations called Strong Women. I love how mushy gushy it makes me feel. 

But listen, friends, Valentine's day isn't all about being mushy. If you've visited my blog a time or two, you know by now that I LOVE humor. 

Enter: 

This sentiment from my A Funny Kind of Love stamp set. That set is FULL of fun sentiments for lovey-dovey occasions.

So there you go - two similar cards, one sweet, one snarky.

By the way - for my bloggy followers, you can get 20% off these stamp sets in the STAMPlorations shop by using my personal code: STAMPGIRLBECCA at checkout.

I'm going to enter my cards into the following challenges:
Frilly & Funkie - Shabby Chic Valentine
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday - Color of Love
Try it on Tuesday - Hearts and Flowers

 Now get your beautiful behinds over to Card Concept and check out all the inspiration from designers who have super diverse card-making styles! 

STAMPlorations November Challenge - Newsprint and Sketch

ACKCKC!! I was away traveling in New England and totally forgot to schedule my post for the STAMPlorations November challenge - Now I'm in for it! 

This month at STAMPlorations, we're playing around with newsprint (that's our theme) and we also have a rad sketch. How our challenge works is that you can use either the sketch OR the theme OR both. (CHOICES! woo!) You can also use any brand of stamps that you want. (MORE choices! Woot!) And there's some great prizes, too! 

I looked around my craftroom for some newsprinty paper, and my eyes landed on an brown paper packaging bag. Not newsprint, but that's what my brain wanted to play with. 

I decided to make my own layered flowers and started by stamping some little blooms from the VIGNETTE: Eclectic Florals set. I fussy cut them out and layered them together in various ways, using a brad to hold them all together - and act as a pretty shiny thing for the center. 

Next I found a center panel that I wanted to use and pulled out my Dreamweaver glossy black embossing paste through the Botanical Lush ARTplorations stencil.

Then I used one of my favorite techniques to add funky texture - I heated it up with my embossing gun! When you heat it, it begins to bubble and crack. 

Oooooooooooooooooooooooo!

And here it is - all together!

Sentiment is from the Blooms Sketches set and paper is from Graphic 45. 

So play along with either the theme or the sketch. 

I'm also going to send this card over to the following challenges: 

Little Red Wagon - Mix It Up

Mixed Media Monthly Challenge - Texture 

Paper Flowers - A What Not to Do Guide

Frilly and Funkie Challenge blog tasked us with creating paper flowers this week. Due to my lazy nature, it's been a long, long time since I handmade my own flowers. Usually I let Prima or Recollections do the work for me. 

But, because I have fallen in love with this new challenge blog (thanks Pamellia) and have become a veritable pauper by browsing through the Frilly and Funkie Boutique store, I decided to give it my best attempt. 

You, my lovely readers, are about to profit from my mistakes - or at least laugh at them.

I am one of those rare breed of people who looks at an object and sees something else entirely. Like what it could be used for on a card. Consequently, I really hate it when people send me package fillers because it means I am practically obligated to stick it in some drawer to be used at a later date. 

The flowers I decided to make were a product of some thin packaging paper. Which brings me to step one of What not to Do when creating paper flowers. 

Do not attempt to cut uber thin, wrinkled packaging paper on your Cricut. Yes, your Cricut can cut vellum, which is also thin. No, it will not cut this. Just don't. You will spend the next half-hour inventing new curse words as you try to peel bits of paper packaging from the adhesive sheet. 

So, that brought me back to good old fussy cutting. I started by making a 5 pointed flower piece, followed by a slightly smaller 4 pointed flower piece, and then an even smaller 5 pointed piece. 

After cutting out the petals, I rubbed each piece with Old Paper Distress Inks, to add dimension. For the very centers, I cut a circle and then cut tiny strips into it, then painted it with Perfect Pearls - perfect gold and added a teensy pearl. Lastly, I curled the ends of the petals.

Which brings me to my second What not To Do when making paper flowers. Do not spend a half hour cutting out paper petals from the most delicate paper and then decide to try out your brand new spray stains. Things will not end well. Delicate paper will not sop up liquid. But it will disintegrate when you attempt to move it. 

And then you will entertain the thought of giving up and not playing in that challenge you really wanted to play in, before inventing new curse words, and then sighing in futility and starting all over again. 

But when you finally do finish those flowers, you'll probably remember why you went through all the trouble - because the end result will be gorgeous. 

I used some gold fibers from an old cord to add texture behind the flowers, and I die cut a black doily and painted the edges with Perfect Pearls, letting some areas get more saturated than others for a more distressed effect. 

For even more texture, I took some red feathers and added some glitter to ends of one of them, giving it a good juxtaposition between hard and soft.

After I had all these pieces, I piled them all together and....

...grinned happily. If somebody translated me onto a card, this is what I would look like. I think I'm going to make myself this card for my birthday.

Papers are from Carta Bella and the sentiment is from Penny Black's Lost Without You set.





I'm sending this card on over to the following challenges:
Frilly and Funkie - Winter Blooms
Penny Black and More - Anything Goes
Paper Players - Thank you for the awesome sketch!

**EDITED** - I was very inspired by the Paper Players sketch and truly wanted to link up over there. I apparently didn't read the rules very well, because I can only link up to 3 challenges while playing along. So I've removed the other challenges, and my entry links to them.
 
I haven't had much opportunity to make my rounds this weekend because I was babysitting two lovely little girls and helping them make a birthday card for their mommy (my cousin and best friend). 

Sorry for the terrible lighting, but I was not about to let those adorable little stinkers into a room full of paper products, so the basement craft table it was! :D They were pretty enamored with my stencils and spray stains. 

Well, I'm off to play some catch up! Thanks for stopping by. Please leave me a comment so I know you were here!