Sorry it's been awhile!!! Pocket Letters

Wow, it's been way too long since I've updated my blog. So sorry.... I've had so much on my plate lately and just haven't had enough time in the day. 

If you haven't already seen the new release from Stampotique and taken a trip on the blog hop, you have to check it out HERE!

There are some fabulous new stamps and a new designer too!

We have a fun ATC swap going on too at the Facebook page

If you can I would encourage you to join us.

I wanted to show you a pocket letter that I created for a swap with one of the Stampotique design team members.

I love pocket pages but haven't made one just yet. I really don't have a clue what I'm doing haha!

Funny thing is, I ended up making two of the pocket letters haha!

I used loads of new stampotique stamps and also some older ones.

Stampotique stamps I used are:

Medium Bee with Tiny bee - By Jo Capper-Sandon

Bella and Lola by new designer - Tracy Scott

Small Homes Quote - By Janet Klein

Kassa's Bloom - By Karen Hayselden

Phrase Cube and Lightening Bug - By Terri Richardson

Beach Huts - By Kate Crane

Flower Cube, Animal Cube and Agatha Flower - By Magda Polokow

Take your Time - By Daniel Torrente

Whisker Monster - By Kira Nichols

Paisley Background - By Arwen McCullen

Whew!! That's a lot of stamps!!! These pocket letters were a lot of fun to put together and I hope my partner likes them :)

Thanks for stopping by and Have a wonderful day!!!

Stampotique and Alice in Wonderland Mash Up

Hello and welcome back to the blog. I'm so excited for this post because it's kind of a tribute to one of my favorite movies of all time "Alice in Wonderland". The new movie "Through the Looking Glass" is coming out today and in honor of the release all of us Stampotique designers decided to do a special project. You can check them all out at the Stampotique Designer's Challenge Blog.

For my project I made some Alice In Wonderland playing cards, only two so far but it's a work in progress haha!

I used Stampotique Stamps:

Playing Card Front - By Arwen McCullen

Moth Fab - By Daniel Torrente

Mad Hatter - By Janet Klein 

If you have an Alice project you'd like to share, come on over to our Facebook page and share it with us :)

I'm off to see the movie, Cheers! 

Stampotique Challenge 239 Nature

Hi everyone,  thanks for stopping by again and welcome to another weekly challenge at Stampotique

This week Arwen is our hostess and her challenge for us is "Nature"

Here is what Arwen says about this challenge:

"Create a project with only nature items in it, no humans or animals"

Well this one should be easy because I just love nature and everything it brings. 

I decided to do a journal page this week and used one particular stamp that I just love

Sunflower Large - By Janet Klein 

I also decided not to go with my usual bright colors and went with more of a nature inspired color pallet 

I hope you like my project and that you will come by Stampotique this week and join us for this fun challenge.

For more inspiration see us on

Facebook

and

Pinterest

Stampotique Challenge 234 - Time Challenge, 30 minutes or less

Hello and welcome back to the blog today. This week over at Stampotique that challenge is hosted by Sue. She has asked us to make something in 30 minutes or less. eeeeK! Who is freaking out here? haha! 
Here is what Sue says about this challenge:

"We can sometimes get caught up in big production pieces. My challenge to you this week is to make something in 30 minutes or less (not including the time it takes to gather your supplies) I look forward to seeing what you create. 

I am really not big on time challenges because it's so hard for me to do anything in 30 minutes or less haha! It almost always takes hours for me to make anything. This is a good challenge for me though. 
I decided to make a couple of cards for this one. 
For my first card I just had to use one of Terri Richardson's new images.. (love her)
I think this bird with baby is the perfect stamp for a Mother's Day card, don't you?
I used Stampotique Stamp -
Under My Wing

for my second card, winter has really gone crazy this year here in Colorado so I made this card
to sort of remind myself that Spring is coming haha!! 
The wording is a piece of paper that already had all the writing on it and I simply cut it out to fit my card, I love how it begins "How to survive the winter" haha

I used Stampotique Stamps:
Snowy Fran by artist Daniel Torrente
Crow Line - By artist Janet Klein

Come on over and join us this week for this wonderful challenge

For more inspiration see us on

Facebook

and

Pinterest

Stampotique Challenge 233 - Use Squares in any form

Hello everyone and welcome back to my blog. It's Wednesday again and you know what that means. Another fun challenge over at Stampotique.

This week Corrie is our host and she is challenging us to "Use squares in any form"

Here is what Corrie says about this fun challenge:

"I am very fond of circles in my work, so I wanted to get out of my comfort zone and use squares for a change and I would like you to join me. Have fun this week!"

I too love using circles and I don't use squares often so this was a challenge for me

I worked in my art journal again this week

My background was painted with Dina Wakley paints and a sponge

I also used some washi tape that I just bought, it's one of my favorites of all my washi tapes now. haha! I figured it was perfect for this challenge because it's all different colors of squares

I used Stampotique Stamps:

Mushroom Forest, Large Fleurfly by artist Janet Klein

Peace and Love with words on the side (only used the words here) - By artist Kate Crane

Calendar Cube - By artist Daniel Torrente

Come on over to Stampotique's Challenge Blog this week and join us for the Square challenge.

For more inspiration see us on

Facebook

and

Pinterest

Stampotique Challenge 228 - Hues of Reds and Pinks

Hello all and welcome back to the blog today. It's Wednesday again so time for another challenge over at Stampotique

Sue Davies is our hostess this week and she is challenging us to use "Hues of Reds and Pinks"

Since Valentine's day is coming up this is the perfect challenge.

Here is what Sue says about this challenge:

"With Valentine's Day around the corner we have all seen hues of reds and pinks, I challenge you to create a Stampotique Valentine's Day creation inspired by reds and pinks"

For this challenge, I decided to go clean and simple and make a Valentine's Day card

For this card I used Janet Klein's image Cowardly Lion from Stampotique. 

Come on over to the Stampotique  Designer's Challenge Blog and join us this week.

For more inspiration see us on

Facebook

and

Pinterest

Stampotique Challenge 216 - Tag

Boy am I behind this week or what? The challenge started on Wednesday but I've been super busy so I missed the deadline. Anyway, Coby is our hostess this week and her challenge to us is "Tag", here is what she says about this challenge:

"I do love tags but I use them too often. So please show me a tag on your project."

So I worked on a simple tag this week. 

I used Stampotique Stamps:

Silence Speaks - By Jo Capper-Sandon
Crow Line - By Janet Klein 

I hope that you will join us for the challenge this week. Come on over to the Challenge Blog and check out the inspiration from our wonderful design team too.

Stampotique Challenge Card For A Child

Hello everyone, it's Wednesday and it's time again for another challenge at Stampotique.

Our hostess this week is Janet and she is challenging us to make a "Card for a Child" here is what she says about this fun challenge

"So often we create to amuse ourselves or other adults. Children love stamping and enjoy to see what is created especially for them. For this week’s Stampotique Designers Challenge I am challenging you to create a card that will have appeal for a child, be it a young one or teen."

This week I kept it simple but sweet. I made a card for a girls birthday

I used Stampotique Stamps:

Dorothy - By Artist Janet Klein

Towering Gifts - By Artist Daniel Torrente

Barcode Text - By France Papillon

Come on by the Challenge blog and take part in this wonderful challenge this week. You could win a 30.00 gift certificate to the online store. 

Stampotique Challenge - Only Two Stamps

Welcome back to the blog today, it's Wednesday and you know what that means, it's time for another challenge over at:

Stampotique Designer's Challenge Blog,

  Nellie is our hostess and she is challenging us to "Only use two stamps" Here is what Nellie says about this challenge,

"I tend to use a lot of stamps when I create something. Thought I might challenge myself and all of you by limiting the number of stamps. So no more than two stamps please!"

It's so darn hard to just chose two stamps to play with, specially with all the wonderful stamps you can get from Stampotique.

For this challenge I decided to do a journal page

Although I didn't want to pick I decided the two stamps I chose are:

Mushroom Forest and Large Fleurfly both by Artist Janet Klein

Hope you like my colorful page haha!

Come on by the Stampotique Challenge Blog and join us this week. You could be in the winning for a 30.00 gift certificate to the online store.

Thanks for coming by and have a great week

Stampotique Challenge 204 - Twinchies

Hello and welcome back to the blog today. Wednesday means another challenge over at Stampotique's Designer Challenge Blog YAY!! 

Our hostess this week is Janet Klein and her challenge is "Twinchies"

Here is what Janet has to say about this challenge:

"Twinchies are small works of art that measure 2 x 2". Create a set of twinchies using your favorite stampotique stamps"

For this particular challenge I decided to do a journal page with quite a few twinchies. 

This page reminds me of the Brady Bunch but I called them "The Crazy Bunch" haha!

I used Stampotique Stamps:

4 Dwarfy Gnomes and Goat Monster - By Kira Nichols

Blessed Skellie - By Roc Nicholas

Young Ignis - By Magda Polokow

Moth Fab - By Jill Penney and Daniel Torrente

Waltzing Fleur - By Janet Klein

This was such a fun page to create with all the Stampotique images. I hope you will come by the Designer's Blog and join us this week, you could win a 30.00 gift card for the online store.

Have a wonderful day!!

Altered Puzzle Week 11

Hello and welcome back to another week of the Altered puzzle. We are onto week 11 and only have two more weeks to go after this one. Unfortunately, you will have to wait until August for the last two weeks of this challenge. I will be on vacation until after July 27th so I will resume the tutorials when I return and we will finish the puzzle up in August. 

Here are the links to the previous posts for this challenge

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

Week 5

Week 6

Week 7

Week 8

Week 9
Week 10

Our Facebook group is here:

Facebook Group

For this week's pieces I wanted to do something fun and quirky so I painted both of my background yellow
Yellow is a fun color, that's why I went with yellow.

For my first puzzle piece I used a stencil along with Archival ink

I then used another stencil to draw some arrows

(later I added more of the first stencil)

After I did those two steps, I forgot to take photos again BUT.. all I did was stamp a sentiment I got from a Tim Holtz Stamp set and I used images from

Vera Lane Studio - By Artist Janet Klein

I simply printed them onto cardstock and then colored them with copic markers. I then cut them out. 

I also used one image from Stampotique called  Hat Cube By Artist Daniel Torrente

Here is my finished first piece

For my next puzzle piece, I decided to do a Minion, love those minions. My background really reminded me of a minion head LOL

I started out by making several different sizes and colors of circles. 

These are the circles I created

Once my eyes were put together I also created the overalls by just cutting some blue paper and adding stitching with my white gel pen.

I also added some hair by cutting out some really thin and tiny pieces of black paper

I punched out another smaller circle from black paper and cut it down to create my little smile for my minion

Next Iglued everything down and added his goggle straps
It's hard to see his hair in the photo but here is my finished minion.

and here are the two pieces together

I'm having some issues with my photo library on my MAC so I wasn't able to add my "signature" to my photos.

Here is the final puzzle together so far. Only two more weeks to go until we are done!!! I hope your as excited as I am. 
Again, I'm on vacation thru the end go July so we will pick up in August again. This will give people time to catch up too.
CHEERS!!!

Stampotique Designer's Challenge - Use Ribbon

Happy Wednesday everyone, it's time for another challenge over at Stampotique Designer's Challenge Blog

and this week our hostess is Corrie and she is asking us to "Use Ribbon" This week

Here is what Corrie says about this challenge:

"I struggle to use ribbon in my projects but I do like it. So I want you to show me what you do with ribbon. Have fun! Corrie"

I figured I'd make a card for this challenge. I love adding ribbon to cards. Here is my project:

It's kind of hard to see in the photo but that plate at the bottom says "Friendship" 

I used Stampotique stamps:

French Journal Page - By artist France Papillon

Crow Line - By artist Janet Klein

Come on over and join us this week for this fun challenge.

Stampotique DC198 Favorite Stamp

Hello all and welcome back to the blog. This week over at the 

Stampotique Designer's Challenge Blog we have a new challenge and our hostess is Gez. She has asked us to use our favorite Stampotique Stamp this week. Here is what Gez says about this challenge.

"We've ALL got one! What's yours! We would love to see your favourite Stampotique images (if you can pick one!) on your creations this week. Which stamp makes your heart skip a beat!"

Ok Gez, it is going to be so tough to chose just one stamp. I love ALL of my Stampotique Stamps so this is going to be a real challenge.

I basically picked five or six that I really like and did eenie meenie miney mo!! HAHA!

So this week I am using one of the stamps I got when I first joined the Stampotique design team andI have always loved it.

Carol's Flower Large - By Janet Klein

I have used this flower quite a bit but I wanted to do something a little different with it this week and so I worked in my art journal.

I stamped my flower all over the colored background of this page

I then colored all the petals and centers of the flower (this covered up most of the stamping) 

I then re-stamped all the flowers again 

I think this page came out really beautiful. 

I liked this page so much that I created two postcards with the same idea in mind

These are my backgrounds before adding the flowers

and After adding the flowers and painting them

I hope you have enjoyed my creations this week, come on over to the Designer's Challenge and join us this week, if you can chose your favorite stamp. (that's the tough part)

CHEERS!!!

Stampotique Challenge 192 - Springs

Welcome back to the blog... This is is Wednesday, which means there is a new challenge over at the Stampotique Challenge Blog and our hostess this week is Valerie and she has chosen the theme "It's Spring, It Springs"

Here is what Valerie says about this challenge:

"Actually use springs or something that makes things spring up off your project!"

What a fun challenge this was and I love the idea of creating something that "springs" off the page. I decided to make a brooch this time, something I can wear or display

Here is what I did:

I used Stampotique Stamp:

Medium Bee - By Jo Capper-Sandon

I stamped several of the bees using Stayz-on ink onto shrink plastic and used my heat tool to shrink them down

I also used my sharpie marker to color the bees

I also used Stampotique stamp

Carol's Flower Large - By Janet Klein

I simply stamped the flower onto heavy weight cardstock and embossed, I then colored the flowers using colic markers and sealed them with gloss medium

I attached my mini bees using thin wire that I shaped to look like springs, this way it looks like they are flying around the flowers

I used E6000 to attach the bees to the springs and the springs to the flowers

I also used E6000 to adhere a pin to the back of the flowers, in order to wear the brooch or pin it somewhere to display around the house

Here is how the brooches turned out.......

and this is the back of my brooch

I hope you will come on over to the  Stampotique Challenge Blog this week and join in on this fun challenge. Make something that just "Springs" to life. 

Have a great day!!!

Stampotique Challenge 191 - Circles

Welcome back to another Wednesday with me and Stampotique.

Today is Wednesday and that means another fun challenge over at the Stampotique Designer's Challenge Blog

This week our hostess is the talented Magda Polakow and she has chosen the theme

"Circles"

Circles are quite fun and are actually one of my favorite things to work with when working on journal pages.

Of course that means I decided to do a journal page for this week's challenge. 

This page was a "wipe off" page when it began. I used it to wipe off the excess of my paint from my brayer while I gelli printed

I added painted circles, paper, stamps and doodles to the page and I even got out my sewing machine and stitched onto the page

for this page I used Stampotique Stamps

Circles Cube - By Daniel Torrente

Postmark - By France Papillon

Capture the Magic  - By Roc Nicholas

Stitched Houses - By Janet Klein

I really like the outcome of this page, it represents my home and family and what they mean to me. 

Thanks for coming by and make sure to check out the challenge over at The Designer's Challenge Blog there is always a monthly drawing for a 30.00 gift certificate to the online store. 

Altered Playing Card Challenge Week 25

Thanks so much for coming by, I owe some of you an explanation from my absence last week. I know that most of you (on Facebook) already know that I was absent last week because I fell and ended up with a concussion. Those of you who are not members of the Facebook page had no idea and I apologize about that. I didn't come online at all last week due to the fall. I took a pretty scary spill down my basement's unfinished stairs and hit the back of my head pretty good. Had a baseball sized bump and went to the ER. Thankfully everything was ok and I didn't have any internal bleeding but I had a concussion and pretty serious bruise and lump. I'm much better now and feel more up to crafting and blogging. Thanks to everyone for the well wishes last week!!!

We are now onto week 25 of this challenge

If you have missed any of the previous week's here are the links

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3
Week 4
Week 5
Week 6 
Week 7
Week 8

Week 9
Week 10
Week 11
Week 12
Week 13
Week 14
Week 15
Week 16
Week 17
Week 18
Week 19
Week 20
Week 21
Week 22
Week 23
Week 24

and our Facebook group

Facebook Group

and the Pinterest Board link

Pinterest Board

I figured that we would do something simple and not too tough this week
I have always loved the ideas and styles of Wendy Vecchi and this week our backgrounds are going to be inspired by her technique from last years CHA .... If you want to watch the video on how this is done click HERE she demos how to do this technique and with what supplies. 

You need some glossy paper for this technique and I used Ranger's glossy, I just cut a few pieces that were slightly larger than my playing cards

You will also need some different colors of Archival re-inkers and a bottle of alcohol or Ranger's blending solution

All you are going to do is add a few drops of the re-inkers onto your craft matt. For this one I also used Gold Mixative by Ranger and Tim Holtz

then add some alcohol or the blending solution

take a popsicle stick or paint stick and run it through the alcohol and the re-ink colors slightly

The simply run your glossy card stock through the colors

You can add more blending solution to your paper so that the colors run together even more if you want them to, just let the colors swirl together one your page, it's very pretty once it's dry

(I used the only colors I had in re-inkers LOL, I don't have many)

For the second card, I tried a different color combo and actually used silver fixative and black this time

So this one came out so cool and amazing and then I ruined it!! I had to toss it and start again and my second one didn't come out as good but I used it anyway

I then glued my pieces of colored paper onto my playing cards

and trimmed to size

First Card

second card

Playing with the first card I added some stenciling onto my background with a star stencil that I made myself
Using Archival Ink and a distress tool, I went to town
(I didn't have a start stencil that I liked, so I made my own with card stock and an exact knife lol, you should really try this one day, it's fun)

I really love how the archival ink goes onto this glossy background, it's almost transparent

Next I created some whimsy houses with printed card stock and  Janet Klein's new stamp Stitched Houses

I also used my gel pen to draw some "twinkles" around all my stars

Then I adhered my houses
I used permanent markers like Sharpie's and Bics
to draw stems and flowers

I used another permanent black marker by Faber Castell to draw a border around my card

and lastly I added my sentiment with Kate Crane's new stamp
Peace and Love
Here is my final card

For my second card, I used a stencil and archival green ink to create a background

I taped off the parts I didn't want on my card and used a distress tool to stencil

the green in the butterfly and grass really brings out the green in my background

Here I go using washi tape again LOL
I am going to use this thin washi tape around my edges

I got all carried away and forgot to take photos of the steps... so sorry
I added my washi tape around the edges and used a sentiment from a fortune cookie fortune
The Gnome guy is a stamp from Kira Nichols called 4 Dwarfy Gnomes - there are 4 of them but I only used one here
I just colored him with copic markers and cut him out
Here is my finished card

and here are my two cards together

This week was really fun, I bet it would be more fun with more re-inker colors, I need to get some more of them. 
Have fun and enjoy this week!!!
See you all next week, only a few more to go!!