Sharpies!

Have you seen the current (for a few more hours) Moxie Fab Tuesday Trigger challenge? If you like butterflies, or watercolours, or fashion, this one is hard to resist. 

I am still tickled by my discovery of Sharpies+rubbing alcohol+rice paper, and thought it would lend the right effect for this inspiration photo. 

Don't be surprised if you see more of this technique here in the next little while. ☺
Also, how can I resist adding this to Simon Says Stamp's current anything goes challenge? 


Supplies: white and purple cardstock, rice paper, Sharpies, rubbing alcohol, Martha Stewart butterfly punch, pop dot tape Pin It Now!

Being Inspired...

I've been feeling quite amused lately by the acronym CASE. What a great way to gloss over the fact that as a crafter, you're looking at someone else's work and, well, um, copying it. And yes, it does expand out to "copy and share everything", but that word COPY is not so blatant when it's hiding in the short-form, is it? 
But. Rarely does a CASE become a clone of the original, and it is a great way to have a starting point into a creation that often strays quite far from the original inspiration. So I'm going to stop blathering and show you my latest CASE. :D This is the final card Donelda chose from the March/April issue of Paper Crafts magazine: 

Isn't this card by Barb Murphy (on p. 41) great? Love that panel down the left-hand side. Now... this would be one level of challenge if I had alcohol inks and glossy paper... which I don't. So I looked around the virtual world for some ideas on how I might get a similar effect. One possibility came from an idea I'd pinned a while back on Pinterest, using Sharpies to make a tie-dye tshirt. (Now Sharpies I have!) The other idea came from my talented friend Virginia (yes, I mentioned her on Wednesday, too) -- she made flowers by dying coffee filters with distress inks!  I grabbed my Sharpies, some rubbing alcohol and a coffee filter. Dots of Sharpies, drips of alcohol, and let dry. That experiment led to the flower on yesterday's card! Then I wondered what other papers might be fun to try. I have tons of rice paper, and decided to experiment with it. And here is what happened:

I think it looks pretty good! Instead of lots of colours, I went with pink, blue and purple. I was fortunate enough to have a sheet of blue cardstock that worked perfectly. A mat of white, a Unity sentiment (hello, Friends with Flair Friday!) and done! 
Besides Friends with Flair, I'm going to link this up to the current Simon Says Stamp Anything Goes challenge. 
Happy Friday!


Supplies: white & blue cardstock, rice paper, Unity You Deserve Happy stamp, Colorbox frost white ink, white embossing powder, Sharpies, rubbing alcohol Pin It Now!

Inspiration from Paper Crafts Magazine...

... and beyond! ☺
I wonder if perhaps Donelda and I left our two toughest inspiration cards from the March/April issue of Paper Crafts magazine to the last. I know these were two very challenging cards for me this week. I looked to other inspiration to help me make this week's cards my own. Today Donelda and I are CASEing the last card I picked, this one on page 44 by Laura Pryor:

I know I had an idea in my mind when I picked this card, but by the time I was ready to act on it? Gone. And any time I've tried to do a background like this, I have not liked the result; it always just looks scribbly to me. So then I thought back to a recent post by the always-inspiring Kasia Curry and ended up with this: 

I pulled out a spectrum's worth of Sharpies (Copics are for real crafters, obviously) and drew lines just as Kasia did to make my main panel. It turned out so bright and cheery! It made me think right away that a Paper Smooches sentiment would be the perfect match. And since I rarely (okay, possibly never) put buttons on my cards, I used this layered die-cut flower instead. But you'll have to wait till tomorrow to find out where that inspiration originated! ;) I really liked the extra-long format of Laura's card, but ended up going with a four-bar size (3.5 x 4.75 inches) in the end.
I'm going to link this card up to the current Paper Smooches SPARKS challenge -- the inspiration photo has the bright colours and graphic lines that go with this card, I think. Wow, that makes the fourth source of inspiration for this card, I think? I'm also linking to the latest Anything Goes challenge at Simon Says Stamp and Lily Pad Cards' flower challenge.
Tomorrow we're back with Donelda's final choice -- I had some serious fun with her pick! 

Supplies: white cardstock, coffee filter, Paper Smooches Birthday Buddies stamps, Brilliance graphite black ink, clear embossing powder, Sharpies, Spellbinders carnation creations dies, hemp cord, pop-dot tape Pin It Now!

Little Girls Rule at Crafty Creations Challenges

Sunshine and rainbows and ribbons for hair bows; that's what LITTLE GIRLS are made of!

That's our tag line this week at Crafty Creations Challenges: make a feminine creation for a little girl. Our sponsor this week is A Day for Daisies, and when you see all their sweet images, you may wonder WHAT I was thinking using the one I did. Don't worry, I'll explain! 

I realize this isn't an obvious little-girl card. I made it with a specific girl in mind, however; one who loves flowers and pretty things. I knew these poppies would appeal to her. I printed the image on watercolour paper and coloured the poppies with watercolour pencils. The photo doesn't capture the shimmery background my pale blue Twinkling H2Os added. (It captures the blue, just not the shimmer. :P) Instead of cutting the image out, I ripped the edges along a ruler to give a bit of an artist's canvas look to it. It's then pop-dotted on the red mat on a cream card base.
I will admit: I had a second reason for choosing this particular image. My talented stamping friend Virginia Lu has recently been the inspiration behind a challenge on Lily Pad Cards called Virginia's View. I've meant to play along each time it's been posted, and of course have never managed to squeeze it in. And now this is Virginia's last one! So I was determined to join in. And since this is the inspiration pic:

... it all seemed to be too perfect to pass up. It also just so happens there's a few days left in the Lily Pad flower challenge, too. 
Our winner this week will win a $12 gift card to the A Day for Daisies shop, so why not show us what you think little girls are made of? 

Supplies: cream & red cardstock, watercolour paper, A Day for Daisies Poppies, watercolour pencils, Stargazer Twinkling H2Os, pop-dot tape

Pin It Now!

My Turn to CASE a Card

Today it's my turn again to pick a card from the March/April issue of Paper Crafts magazine for Donelda and me to CASE (copy and share everything). I picked this card for the masking technique used: 

Sometimes I need bonk-on-the-head reminders like, hey, you could mask out an area of a design and put a sentiment! Sarah Jay was nice enough to provide just such a reminder with this pretty card on p. 22 of the issue. At first I thought I'd go the flower route, too, but eventually went off in an entirely different direction. 

I stamped and embossed the sentiment first, then masked it with a row of small post-its, which were handily just the right height for the job. I then stamped and embossed first the top, then the bottom of the key and music stamp. Of course, picking an image like this, rather than smaller images, meant taking extra care in getting them lined up just right. Finally, I stamped and embossed the long music strip, matted it with the black and added it down the left side of the card. 
Since it's Friday, I'm going to add this card to Unity's Friends with Flair linky fun -- even though I did sneak one non-Unity stamp in there (shh! the music down the side). The main stamps are from the Unity kit Key to Joy, so I hope I'll be forgiven. ;)
I'm looking forward to seeing what Donelda came up with for this one! 


P.S. As you may have guessed, my computer issues are resolved. All it took was an hour with a helpful call centre representative... and a credit card. Who knew my little cat could repartition hard drives? I really do know to close my laptop when I leave it unattended, but she was fast asleep... :P


Supplies: black & Stampin' Up very vanilla cardstock, Unity Key to Joy, Local King Rubber Stamp notes, Brilliance graphite black & Versamark inks, clear & pale gold pearl embossing powders, Martha Stewart border & Marvy corner-rounder punches Pin It Now!

More Fun with Donelda and Paper Crafts Magazine!

(This is an abbreviated version of what I would otherwise write: computer issues! I'm on our "other" computer, so I'll do my best...)

Donelda and I are at it again! We've picked a few more cards from the March/April issue of Paper Crafts magazine to challenge each other. Today is Donelda's choice, and yes, it was a bit of a challenge...

We are using a fabulous card on p. 52, and I'd tell you who made it if all the info wasn't on the computer that my cat reformated somehow. :P (Donelda will have all the details.) I really liked the slant of the card, so to speak, and followed the layout very closely. My computer woes also kept me from generating the printed sentiment I was thinking of, since of course I didn't have a stamp that was exactly right. Polka-dot ribbon "leaves" work, right? This may even turn into this year's Mother's Day card, we'll see.
Now, off you go to see what inspired Donelda! Of course, I'd love it if you left a comment first. ☺

Supplies: white, black & Stampin' Up rich razzleberry cardstock, Hero Arts musical clef stamp, Versamagic perfect plumeria chalk ink,  Spellbinders carnation creations dies, Stampin' Up grosgrain ribbon, Marvy corner-rounder punch, Recollections black half pearl Pin It Now!