Belli Challenge #75 - Halloween Glitter

This week's Belli Challenge is to use something glittery or sparkly in Halloween colors. What colors spring to mind when you think of Halloween? Black, orange, purple, and green are the colors I associate with Halloween.

We have a wonderful sponsor for the Belli Challenge this week, Shirley's 2 Girls. They provided the Belli Girls with this adorable digi image called Mazie. I colored her with Copic markers, and then added touches of glitter with 4 different bottles of Stickles.

I really wanted to use this spider web embossing folder that Mom gave me, but I had to think about how to make it "pop." I saw the black glitter pen on my table, and had that proverbial "lightbulb" moment. Can you see the glitter in the little embossed grooves of the spider web? :-)

The picture is a little off because I had to tilt it for photographing. I wanted to capture the glitter as well as the spider web embossing.

Go check out what Shirley's 2 Girls has to offer, and then check out what the rest of the Belli Girls created over on the Belli Challenge blog. You're going to love the creativity!

Stamps: Shirley's 2 Girls digi image - Mazie, sentiment from Stampin Up
Ink: Stazon Black
CS: Black, Orange, White
Other: nestabilities, Stickles (black, purple, green, orange), Copic markers, Word Window punch, Modern Label punch, ribbon, spider web embossing folder, black glitter pen

Exciting News!

I have some exciting news to share with y'all! Head on over to The Sweet Stop to read the news!! :-)

I don't have a card to share tonight, but rest assured, I have been stamping. I can't share them with you just yet.... Nothing like a teaser, huh? LOL

TS16 Indian Summer card

This week's challenge on the Truly Scrumptious blog is to use the sketch and a minimum of 3 stamps, not including the sentiment. Oh my...... 3 stamps?? I put on my thinking cap, and of course, silhouettes came to mind immediately.

I pulled out my Cornish Heritage Farms Nature Silhouettes set, and started stamping. I used the fern, the flowers, the leaves, the dragonfly, and the butterfly stamps, in addition to the sentiment.

To make my stamped image coordinate with the background paper, I sponged Curry, Tango Tangerine, and Melon Mambo wiht just a hint of Chocolate Chip around the edges. Isn't that reminiscent of a brilliant fall sunset? :-)


Stamps: Nature Silhouettes (Cornish Heritage Farms)
Ink: Chocolate Chip, Curry, Tango Tangerine, Melon Mambo
CS: Chocolate Chip, Vanilla, Curry, Indian Summer Basic Grey dsp
Other: sponge, flowers, buttons, branch punch, leaves punch, nestabilities, Chocolate Chip ribbon

Shimmery Autumn

The Sweet N Sassy Stamps yahoo group issued a color challenge - Chocolate Chip, Saffron, and Mustard. Don't those colors just scream autumn? I pulled out the Autumn Blessings set from Sweet N Sassy Stamps to create this card.

The leaves are stamped with Copper Encore ink onto watercolor paper, and then covered with copper embossing powder. After heating the powder to melt it, and then letting it cool, I watercolored the leaves with Saffron and Mustard reinkers. I used Chocolate Chip reinker in the areas between the leaves. Yes, that is ONLY Chocolate Chip in there - I think it separates when too much water is added, and you get that lovely reddish brown hue.

To further enhance this leaf background, I dabbed a sponge into Champagne shimmer paint and rubbed it all over. There is the most gorgeous shimmer on this background.

I stamped the sentiment, cut it out with my nestabilities, and then sponged Saffron, Mustard, and Chocolate Chip inks onto it. Since I had already used the shimmer paint on the background, I decided to add some to the sentiment as well. I love the shimmer on this card. I hope you can see it, too. :-)

Belli Challenge #74 - Fall or Halloween theme

This week's Belli Challenge is to create something with a Fall or Halloween theme. We have a wonderful sponsor for this challenge - Creative Cuts and More. They provided the Belli Girls with all kinds of different die cuts, and the team had so much fun playing!

I chose this A2 Arch Window card and created a fun fall scene. I had just received the Autumn Trees set from Cornish Heritage Farms in the mail, and I just knew it would be perfect with this window card. That scarecrow and those leaves and pumpkins are just too much fun.

You could create all kinds of scenes with these window cards. I need to order some more of these cool A2 Arch Window cards so I can do a winter scene, a spring scene, and a summer scene! :-)


Here is the second project I created:



This is the Bell Box in an eggplant color. I stamped the vase of leaves and the sentiment onto Vanilla cardstock and then cut them out with my nestabilities. Then I colored the vase and leaves with copic markers before sponging around the edge. On the sides of the Bell Box, I stamped some leaves with Vintage Cream pigment ink and applied various colors of chalk to mimic the leaves I just colored with the copic markers.

The box was so easy to put together. It comes pre-scored, so all I had to do was fold and apply some Killer Tacky Tape to the ends. This makes it so easy - no measuring, no cutting, no scoring. That gives me more time for the fun part of stamping and coloring! :-)


Don't forget to check out what the other Belli Girls have created for this week. There are so many great projects - you have GOT to see the coffin that Deb Daniels created! Go to the Belli Blog to view all the great eye candy this week. While you're there, check out the prize that a lucky winner will get from our sponsor, Creative Cuts and More.



Happy Fall card:
Stamps: Cornish Heritage Farms - Autumn Trees, sentiment from $1 bin at Michaels
Ink: Memento Rich Cocoa, Mustard, Pumpkin, Cocoa, Curry
CS: White, brown Bazzill from Creative Cuts and More
Other: copic markers, ribbon, sponge

Autumn Blessings Bell Box:
Stamps: Autumn Abundance & Fall Elegance from PTI
Ink: Memento Rich Cocoa, Close to Cocoa, Vintage Cream (PTI)
CS: Eggplant Bell Box (from Creative Cuts and More), Dusty Durango, Vanilla
Other: sponge, copic markers, nestabilities, ribbon, hole punch

Vintage Christmas ala Steubner

The Featured Stamper challenge over on SCS is all about Shannan Steubner this week. I met Miss Shannan at a shoebox swap earlier this year, and she's a real sweetie pie. I love browsing through her gallery for inspiration, and this challenge is a great excuse to case her work. :-)

I chose to case THIS card of Shannan's, but I made a few changes. One is the color scheme, obviously, and I made mine a Christmas card. I used snowflakes instead of flowers, and the snowflakes are covered with the new Picket Fence distress stickles.

The sheet music background and the sentiment are from Cornish Heritage Farms. The snowflakes are die cut from a Spellbinders snowflake die. After the stickles dried on the snowflakes, I sponged them a little bit to get them sort of vintage-y. Thanks for the inspiration, Miss Shannan! :-)

Stamps: Aged Sheet Music scrapblock, Christmas Centers (from Cornish Heritage Farms)
Ink: Ruby Red, Old Paper distress ink, Walnut Stain distress ink
CS: Ruby Red, Vanilla, White
Other: Picket Fence distress stickles, button, linen thread, snowflake die, nestabilities Labels 1, sponge

Sarah Kay kitty

I love the Sarah Kay stamps - they remind me so much of the Holly Hobbie character that I grew up with. For this card, I picked my papers and colors first, and then colored the image based on the colors in the background paper.

The little crochet butterfly is a new design that my friend Leah sent me - isn't that adorable? I love the open winged butterfly; it's so sweet and delicate. You can find that and other wonderful items here. If you don't see what you want, you can always email Leah for a custom order (that's what I do!). :-)

I saw this particular layout on Lynda Benden's blog and I just loved the clean and simple elegance of it. I wanted to see how it would look with a Sarah Kay image, and I have to say, "me likey!" Hee hee hee!

Stamps: Stampavie Lucy & Kitty (I bought mine from Stampers Dream), Stampscapes small grass
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Mellow Moss, Old Paper distress ink
CS: Sage Shadow, White, Daisy D retired dsp
Other: nestabilities, sponge, copic markers, jumbo eyelet, sage ribbon, vanilla ribbon, Top Note die cut, crochet butterfly from Paper Blooms

Autumn Silhouettes TSSC86

I love the quick and easy sketch on the Technostamper blog, so I whipped out one last card today. After this, it's time to clean the kitchen and get ready for bed. Tomorrow is a work day for this Cinderella. :-)

I found some old Basic Grey papers and they look like autumn colors, so I went with an autumn silhouette for the main image. The silhouettes are from the Dream Silhouettes set and the sentiment is from the Autumn Blessings set, both available from Sweet N Sassy Stamps. The flowers are from my stash as well as the button.

MOJO #103 Corn and Leaves

I've got the day off from work today (yippee), so I actually had time to play in the Mojo Monday challenge. I haven't used this image from Harvest Home (Stampin Up), so it was time to get it inky. :-)

After I picked the designer paper and cardstock colors, then I was able to color my image. I used my aquapainter and reinkers, and then after it dried I sponged very lightly around the edges.

The sentiment is from the retired set With Gratitude (Stampin Up). I looked high and low for a current sentiment that would work, but I just couldn't find anything. So I turned to my beloved retired sets and this one is perfect.

Happy Labor Day!

Stamps: Harvest Home, With Gratitude
Ink: Suede, Ruby Red, Mustard, Saffron, Timber Brown stazon
CS: Suede, Ruby Red, watercolor paper, Autumn Traditions dsp
Other: Suede ribbon, aquapainter, sponge

Gerber Daisies Trio

While I was recovering last month, my mom gave me this Gerber Daisies stamp set from Flourishes. She knows how much I love gerber daisies (my FAVE flower), and she wanted to give me this instead of real flowers. Does she know me or what? This is the perfect thing to give me! Thank you so much, Mom!!!!!!!

As soon as I was able to sit down and color again, I wanted to make a card to thank my mom, my grandparents, and a dear friend for their well wishes. My grandmother loves pink, so one card has pink flowers. My dear friend's favorite color is red, so I used Rose Red for her flowers. My mom gets the special blush/cameo/salmon/pinkish colored flowers - these are the gerber daisies that I love so much.

The flowers are stamped onto watercolor paper, and then colored with an aquapainter and reinkers. I couldn't find any designer paper that would work well with this image, so I made my own with the Fine Gingham backgrounder from Cornish Heritage Farms. I love how this makes the cards feel so country-ish. To age them a bit, I sponged the backgrounds as well as the ovals with Old Paper distress ink.

The only thing left to finish these cards was a tiny touch of ribbon. I used the Bow Easy to make some tiny bows and attached them to the "stems" of each card. All three cards went into the mail as soon as I finished taking this picture. It's been a week now, so I think it's safe to post this and not spoil the surprise for them. :-)

Stamps: Fine Gingham backgrounder (Cornish Heritage Farms), Gerber Daisies (Flourishes)
Ink: Archival Black, Rose Red, Regal Rose, Cameo Coral, Old Olive, Summer Sun, More Mustard, Old Paper distress ink
CS: Old Olive, Regal Rose, Cameo Coral, Rose Red, watercolor paper
Other: aquapainter, ribbons, brayer, bow easy, nestabilities

Rubbernecker challenge #27 - Cut it out

The challenge over on the Rubbernecker blog is to "Cut it Out." Bev is challenging everyone to pick up their scissors and cut out an image to be placed on the card. For me, that usually means paper piecing, so I looked through my stamps to see what would be easy to cut out. I picked the stained glass daisies.



Isn't that fun? I used three different kinds of designer paper from Basic Grey here. The darker pink/peach color in the center is colored with copic markers. After I finished the card, the black was just too overwhelming, so I looked around for something that would help make it not so stark. I found the Versamark Dazzle pads that I bought last year, and went "why not?" So I smooshed the Champagne Dazzle pad all over the card and now it has a very subtle shimmer to it - really neat!



If you would like to play, just go check out the details on the Rubbernecker blog. Happy Labor Day weekend!

Stamps: stained glass daisies by Rubbernecker, sentiment from Stampin Up
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Versamark Dazzle Champagne
CS: Blush Blossom, Cameo Coral, Basic Black, Lily Kate dsp from Basic Grey
Other: white buttons, linen thread, oval punches

Chocolate Chip Joy

This is a card that I just sort of put together on a whim. I was playing with the new Shimmer Paints from Stampin Up (in the new holiday mini), and decided to paint the embossed petals on the red panel of cardstock. How fun!

I had cut the "JOY" from the new Suede cardstock, but it didn't really pop out over the striped paper. So I tried Chocolate Chip and it seems to pop out better. It's fun to create a non-traditional Christmas card now and then. :-)

Pieced Country Apples

This week's Belli Challenge is all about apples and pencils and back to school. I've paper pieced some apples as well as a yummy apple pie on this card. Wouldn't this be a fun card to give to a teacher along with a yummy apple pie or apple tart or apple fritter? Mmmmm......


Stamps: Baked with Love, Let's Get Stuffed (all from Cornish Heritage Farms)
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black
CS: Real Red, Whisper White, Basic Black, Old Olive, Caramel, retired designer papers
Other: nestabilities, sponge, wide red grosgrain ribbon, red glitter pen, copic markers

Note - this post was drafted and scheduled before the surprise announcement from SU yesterday. I have other posts scheduled as well, and I am not sure what to do about those. We'll just wait and see.