SKETCH CHALLENGE #PP629

It's Sunday morning and Jaydee's got a Sketch Challenge for us this week at The Paper Players. I've been playing around with an idea for my St. Patrick's cards this past week when the time presented itself and decided to apply Jaydee's sketch to my idea. I don't think I'll use this square card for my general mailout because of the costs of postage, but it has all of the elements I want to include - I just need to work with it a bit more and see how to convert it to a size A2 card. 

I started with a 5-1/2" square top-folded card base. The center element is a die-cut circle that I cut into the card after matting it with green plaid printed paper. Most of you will recognize the Tim Hotz "Snarky Cat" that I stamped in black ink, colored with Copic markers, and fussy cut to attach him to the face of the card. The confetti behind him is a combination of stamps and his beer mug is from a very old St. Patrick's Day stamp that I printed, colored, and fussy cut. I stamped his balloon on white stock, fussy cut it, and stamped the Go Green and colored the balloon before attaching it over the circle.

The inside is the main focus of the card, with the silly sentiment from Funny Bones by Riley & Company (#RWD-995) that I bought some months ago with the express purpose of using it on my St. Patrick's Day cards. "Don't Judge me." is from the same Tim Holtz set of Snarky Cats. 

We have lots of inspiration this time of year for cards, with the highly anticipated arrival of spring. The other ladies have come up with some great ideas for you! Come and join all of us!

The Paper Players: PP629 - A Sketch Challenge from Jaydee

 

'E' IS FOR EXPLETIVE

BAH-HA-HA-HA!! The Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers #228 is pushing the edge with this month's challenge - and I love it! Their "E is for Expletive" post starts with this warning:

 

  

This is my response to their challenge:

I had fun with this card, enjoying the contrast of two very refined ladies in their pearls and the sentiment. I need to give credit to Unity Stamps for the sentiment from "Drink & Cuss". Unity's stamp image was too large to use on my card, so I generated the same sentiment with my computer. The background paper is a very old sheet of Graphic 45 "Kraft Reflection Collection". I die-cut a stitched rectangle from paper that was left over after I fussy cut the ladies. I wanted the lady on the right to be holding a glass of wine, so I stamped a glass from the same Unity rubber stamp set on kraft card stock with PTI "Soft Stone", fussy cut it out, and slipped it into her hand.

The final step after gluing all of this down to a black card base, matted with some coordinating papers, was to use a bit of white gel pen to bring attention to the wine glass and jewelry.

So, if anyone else needs a break from all of the hearts and flowers of February, you can join me over at The Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers:

Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers: SoSS Challenge #228 - E is for Expletives 

Added March 7, 2023:

CAS GET WELL

I'm glad Claire's Clean-and-Simple challenge #PP628 this week for The Paper Players is "Get Well". It gives me an opportunity to have a get-well card in the drawer when needed. It seems like sympathy and get-well cards are the ones I make the least, so when I need them, they're not always available!

I knew I wanted to use this sentiment from Lawn Fawn ("Scripty Sayings") and wanted to find an image that matched the character of the script. I chose Inkadinkado #60-31604 "Funky Flowers" and stamped them on the right edge of a top-folded white card base with Memento "Bamboo Leaves" ink. I stamped the image a second time on a white panel and over-stamped the sentiment on both surfaces with Memento VersaMagic chalk ink in "Purple Hydrangea". I die-cut a deckle-edged rectangle from the second panel, colored it with Copic markers, and blended green and blue inks at the top and bottom. The final step was to attach the rectangle to the face of the card base with dimensional foam, matching up the flowers and sentiment, and added a small purple twine bow over one of the knots on the sentiment. 

Check out the beautiful cards my fellow designers have provided for your inspiration!  

The Paper Players: PP628 - A Clean-and-Simple Challenge from Claire

MID-MONTH HALLOWEEN CHALLENGE

Here we are at the mid-point of our February Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge! This time around I chose to be inspired by the lower left quadrant - black/white/orange hearts and skeletons. There's so much to choose from here and there's still a couple of weeks left in the challenge.

I started my card by fussy cutting a silver foil skeleton from some of my favorite Park Lane Halloween paper. I sponged some orange ink over a Tim Holtz stencil, adding some tiny, stamped hearts and a bit more smooshing of orange on the corners. I made a stencil of a heart and sponged it is orange and red inks and overprinted part of a Halloween pattern from the back of a witch stamp in black that I've had forever and used over and over. I white and red-orange heat embossed the sentiment from a Valentine stamp set on a strip of black cardstock, glued the skeleton to the white panel (after attaching it to a black card base) and slipped the strip over and under his legs. The final step was to glue a clear heat-embossed red-orange heart to his chest with some dimensional foam and attach two googley eyes.

This has been a really fun challenge for me and now it's your turn. Get out those Valentines supplies and repurpose them as a Halloween project. Or if combining these two holidays is not your thing, just make and share a regular Halloween card - that will be one less card you'll have to make as October approaches! Our designers have several great additional inspirational cards for your consideration. 

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: February 2023 Mid Month Reminder

 

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY, EVERYONE!

Sharing some Ghirardelli boxes I made for Valentine's Day a couple of years ago and wishing you all the sweetest of days!

EASTER NOTE CARD

Sunday really sneaked up on me this week and here's a new challenge from Ann at The Paper Players already. I hate having to 'slap-dash' a card, but here it is - not a great testament to Ann's lovely color choices of balmy blue, crumb cake, petal pink, and so saffron. I immediately thought of Easter eggs. Easter isn't a holiday that I pay a lot of attention to, so my stash is sadly lacking in Easter-related supplies. Improvising is the name of this week's game! 

I raffled through my stash for egg dies, a wreath stamp (Impression Obsession), chick stamp (Avery Elle #ST-19-08 "Peak-a-Boo Pets"), a basket (PTI "Basketful of Blessings"), markers, and blue twine to come up with this quick Easter-themed note card. Now I need to refurbish my square white cards so I can send this. 

Hopefully, you will all find the time to do Ann's color challenge justice. It looks like the other designers have done a great job of providing you with some inspiration!

On a personal note, I finished up some work this week for a medical spa and the second floor of an historic 1896 building in downtown Medford that is still in the original family. It's been a fun project of researching original wallpaper that was found in the renovation and reprinted in Indiana at an historical wallpaper printing company. It's not quite finished, but the owners came into town on Tuesday to see the progress, which put a huge pressure on me to get things pulled together enough to show it. I'm pleased to tell you that they are happy with the results, and it will be a matter of just a couple of weeks before I can get it completed to my satisfaction. I'm supposed to be retired, but the additional $ is hard to turn down when it's presented!

So, with all of that behind me, my plan this next week is to get my office pulled back together - it's a major mess and shared with my crafting projects. My plan is to spend some serious time with cardmaking. I didn't manage to get Valentines out this year, but I have an idea for St. Patrick's Day that I'm going to proceed with.   
 

V IS FOR VINTAGE

My 'little' brother's 75th birthday is coming up in just a couple of weeks, so I decided to jump off from the current Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers challenge #227 - "V is for Vintage" but without the snark. I did snark on last year's birthday card but will give him a break on this big one! 

When I think 'vintage' I think wine. My brother was born in 1948 so I found a 1948 bottle of Chateau-Margaux Premier Grand Cru Classic online, printed the image, and fussy cut it out. I started with a panel of cream-colored text paper that I stamped a row of bottles and glasses (Unity Stamps "Drink & Cuss") in a claret ink. The sentiment is another Unity Stamp rubber stamp set "Let's Get 'Sip' Faced" that I gold heat-embossed onto a dark green card stock and mounted with metallic gold stock. After matting with a claret-colored paper, I mounted all of this to the face of an ivory card base and glued the bottle to it with some dimensional foam. The final step was to add some metallic die-cut stars and line a matching envelope with the same claret-colored paper.

Oh, and for anyone out there looking for a 1948 bottle of Chateau-Margaux Premier Grand Cru Classic, you can purchase one online for just $2,012!

Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers: SoSS Challenge #227 - V is for Vintage

BIRTHDAY WISHES

I was working on two challenges this morning - Seize the Birthday #254 "Candles" and Time Out Challenges #231 Photo Inspiration. I think the simpler the card, the harder - I know, that sounds counter-intuitive but for me it's true. If you screw up the stamping on a CAS card you do it over and over and over until it's not screwed up. You can't just cover a mistake with an additional sequin or blend inks. 

To accomplish what I wanted I used a very old stamp that is a single candle, so to stamp it I masked off the flame from the candle each time I stamped it in a different rainbow color and then meticulously moved the white cardstock piece over just under 1/2" and repeated for all 6 colors. Then I masked off the tops of the candles and stamped just the flames with two tones of yellow, moving the cardstock back the other way. I die-cut the cardstock with a stitched rectangular die and matted it with black. After white heat-embossing the sentiment on black, I trimmed it down, mounted it to the white panel, and added a white eyelet and black twine. This was all mounted to a top-folded white card base and the final step was to glue 6 tiny orange gems to the flames. The light is a bit flat today so I couldn't really get the sparkle on the candle flames.

Seize the Birthday: Reminder #254 Candles  

 

TIME OUT Challenges: Challenge 231 - Photo Inspiration

  

JUST A NOTE

This note card is about as simple as they get! It's in response to LeAnne's current theme challenge #626 "A Song in the Air" - a card with music as a theme for The Paper Players.

I did several similar cards this past week while I had my pink and red papers and inks out. I happen to love these little birds from My Favorite Things - you'll see them on my cards from time to time. The music measures are part of a stamp set "Love Notes" from several years ago. I don't know who the manufacturer was. I stamped them with PTI "Sweet Blush" on a white card stock stitched die-cut rectangle, added the sentiment from the same set with PTI's "Pure Poppy", and attached it to the face of a pink card base. The printed paper I used for my bird is also from PTI. That's it!  

https://paperplayersprivateblog.blogspot.com/2022/12/feb-5-pp626-theme-leanne.html

Go over to The Paper Players blog and see what the designers have offered up as inspiration! What's not to love about LeAnne's theme this week?

WHAT'S THE FIRST THING YOU THINK OF IN FEBRUARY?

Halloween cards, of course!!

It's the beginning of a new month and a new challenge at Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge. And our fearless leaders, Darlene and Diane, have come up with some unique Halloween images combining Halloween and Valentine's Day! I had a hard time settling on one of the images in the inspiration board, but finally decided on the top left quadrant - bats bearing gifts!

Last month, while wandering around my favorite arts and crafts store, I hit a sale of expired Halloween stamps and dies. The "Is the moon out tonight?" stamp (Impression Obsession #CL553) was where I started by stamping it with Hero Arts Pigment Ink "Unicorn" on a square of gray cardstock. I cut and folded a 5" x 5" black card base and mounted the gray square to that. I overlaid a partial printed tree image from my Parklane "Boo" that I fussy cut from a larger image. The count and bats are a new-to-me die from Whimsy Shapeology #WSD406 "Dracula Going Batty". I attached Dracula to the face of the card with black dimensional foam and finished with a fussy-cut heart of candy corn from some very old Halloween paper.

Usually, I don't finish up the insides of the cards until I send them out at Halloween, but this time I couldn't resist! I created the sentiment on my computer, cut it out with circle dies, and added 2 more bats and an orange heart cut from the same paper as the candy corn heart.

I used up most of the last scraps of my hoarded Halloween hearts paper on the envelope, although there's a tiny piece left that may end up somewhere on my mid-month card!

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: February Anything Goes Halloween

This is a really fun mood board that you must try your hand at! Take a look at the fabulous cards from our Design Team.