GETTING MY SNARK ON!

I've been contemplating the latest Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers #251 - "D is for Die Cuts". Today I have some time on my hands, so I headed into the craft room for further contemplation. The idea I decided to pursue was to make a really pretty card and contrast it with a snarky sentiment. How do you think I did?

I used one of my favorite techniques, which I guess is called "spotlighting", starting with a 5-1/2" square top-folded white card base. Using a floral stamp from Hero Arts + Gina K (#PR101), I stamped it on the face of the card base with PTI "Soft Stone" ink, plus 2 more times on additional card stock squares. I won't go into all of the technicalities - just suffice it to say it took a bit of engineering to get all of the layers die cut with the selected square dies and trimmed to fit the card base in graduating layers. I colored the roses on the original card front with my Copic markers and over-stamped the Unity Stamp "Itty Bitty" #IB-948 and heat embossed it with silver powder. Before assembling the card I silver-embossed the outer edges of the second layer and die cut a small row of stitching holes on the colored area to pull some silver threads through.  

The final step was to assemble all of the layers and glue them to the front of the card and attaching a small die cut heart over the stitching. This photo gives a better look at the metallic silver elements:

So here's a link to Edna's invitation to join her with your creative die cutting project: 

Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers: SoSS #251 - D is for Die Cut

On a personal note: Sometimes to amuse myself, I check the Urban Dictionary for their definitions. I looked up "snark" today and came up with this - "A smart ass remark made by wanna be hipsters who think they cloak their douchebaggery in a self important sense of fey cleverness and ironic witticism." OUCH!! 

DOUBLE STENCILING TECHNIQUE

Happy Sunday, all! At the current Seize the Birthday Challenge, the designers are featuring an interesting stencil technique that I thought to try my hand at - Double Stenciling. They have a link to a how-to video and it's really a fun thing that I think I'll try again soon.

I began this experiment with some pale pink smooth cardstock and, using yellow ink and blending brushes, I stenciled circles. Then I overlaid an overall squares stencil and brushed on pink. I trimmed the panel down with a stitched rectangular die and matted it with mustard and charcoal cardstock. My disappointment with this card is that when I over-stamped the sentiment with charcoal ink, it really faded as it dried. I should have left it in my Misti and re-stamped it after it dried or added some clear embossing powder to deepen the color. The Impression Obsession Hollyhocks are my absolute favorite flower dies - I've used them over and over and never get tired of them. In this case, I die cut them in charcoal and coral and glued just the coral blossoms onto the charcoal bases. I also tucked in a floral stock in charcoal from Tim Holtz. 

Seize the Birthday: Seize the Birthday #285-Double Stenciling

Added June 28, 2024:

On a personal note: With school ending and all of the end-of-the-school-year activities for my husband through the month of June, I just haven't been making cards much, so it was fun to get back into crafting today. In addition to the busy social activities, I've been doing some heavy-duty gardening and our front yard is now finished! It looks a bit sparse at the moment with all new small plants, but by this time next year it should be a proper native pollinator garden.

I'll end by sharing a photo of our grand-twins at their Moving-up Ceremony last Friday evening - I can't believe that they are now high schoolers. It's Alexis, Colin, and their younger sister Kaitlyn. I thought this was a great picture of them! In September they'll be 15 and in October Kaitlyn will be 10.

PICK YOUR POISON!

Mid-June already and time for a new inspiration card for Two Old Bats Anything Halloween Challenge! I finally gave up on trying to make anything wedding-related and decided on the idea of "Pick Your Poison" from the top-left quadrant of our mood board.

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: June 2024 Mid Month Reminder

I used Tim Holtz's "Happy Hour" dies as a jumping off point and die cut the glasses from vellum.

I prepared a black 5-1/2" square card base and attached a couple of square patterned scraps I had in my stash for a background for my creepy cocktails. The sentiment was generated on my computer and trimmed to fit the width of the purple square. I selected three coordinating purple, orange, and green pieces for the drinks and fussy cut various creatures and items from some coordinating DCWV "Boo Crew" printed papers. I love these papers! You can see from the coordinating envelope paper where the bat and spider come from. The ghost coming up from the martini glass is a Trinity Stamps die that was new to me this past Halloween.

This was fun to make! I'm hoping you'll get out your Halloween supplies and play along with us this month. If we get 25 or more entries, this fun die will be randomly chosen to send to one of the entrants:

ANOTHER FAMILY BIRTHDAY

And today is my daughter-in-law's birthday! Anyone who follows me knows I haven't been very active here lately. It just seems like there's always something else to do. For me, the more active I am, the quicker the ideas come - so to step in to make a new card required a swift kick in the butt by way of a challenge. The current Tic Tac Toe Challenge #249 provided the necessary incentive. I used the first column down - Layers/Die Cut/Patterned Paper.

I think this definitely ticks off the boxes - many layers, a die cut gift card envelope and leaves, and patterned paper. I started with a white 5-1/2" square top-folded card base and attached an embossed 5"square that was matted with a 5-1/4" square of the same paper. Then, using the same white card stock, I die cut a white gift envelope and lined it with black and white printed floral paper and attached that to the front of the card. I die cut some PTI leaves from black and white dotted paper and tucked them into the envelope, along with some fussy cut flowers from the same patterned paper as the envelope liner. Rummaging through my envelope stash, I found a bright pink square envelope and decided to use it and felt I needed a bit of pink on the card to match. I white heat embossed the sentiment and die cut it into a tag. The final step was to pull some twine through the tag and attach it to the gift envelope, overlapping a couple of fussy cut flowers from the patterned paper. I also ended up lining the pink envelope with the black and white patterned paper. 

 

TTTC249 - Featured Designer Jeanie - Tic Tac Toe Challenge

Added June 22, 2024:

SPECIAL BIRTHDAY CARD

June 4th and a date I'm not likely to ever forget - my son was born on this date at 6:00 AM in Redondo Beach, California 50 years ago! He started out thinking he would celebrate tonight at one of his restaurants that is closed on Tuesdays, but as the date got closer he got less and less excited about it. Last week he announced to us that he really didn't want to make a big deal out of this and thought to wait until next Sunday when his mother-in-law has bought tickets for the whole family to go on a jet boat ride and dinner down the Rogue River. His wife said she wanted to invite friends over to their house tonight, but he was afraid that he would have to cook (he does all of the cooking in their house - Dani can barely boil water). So we offered to host and cook, and still not much enthusiasm. Finally, Dani decided this was too important a birthday to just ignore, so she took matters into her own hands and is ordering food in for a party with all of their friends.

I struggled a bit trying to come up with a decent 50th birthday card but finally settled on highlighting his lack of enthusiasm:

If this looks familiar to any of my followers, then you're right - I cheated and tore apart a previous card to build this one. I took all of the Tim Holtz people off of this card and replaced them on a new black cardstock accordion-folded card base. The sentiment that I generated on my computer seemed very appropriate!

I made this custom envelope, and here is the complete presentation as he will open it:

That's it! We went in on a new propane grill as a gift from the entire family, and are planning to take it over this evening and tell him that we're expecting him to grill for everyone. Thankfully, he has a great sense of humor!

JUNE TWO OLD BATS HALLOWEEN CHALLENGE

9:00 PM on June 1st here on the west coast and it's time for a new Two Old Bats mood board! It being June, this mood board features wedding imagery. I started out working on baking a wedding cake, but it flopped seriously, so I went with some skeleton imagery. I'll try again at mid-month and see if I have any more luck. 

Two Old Bats Halloween Challenge: June 2024 Anything Goes Halloween

As one of my lovely Design Team members has said, there's something to be said about making the paper work for you on a card! This Trick-or-Treat image has been in my stash for a very long time. I trimmed it down with a stitched rectangular die and matted it with a pale gold cardstock to pick up the tones from the fussy cut moth that was on one of the Park Lane "Haunted Hollow" papers. I love the skull image on his back! Before attaching it to the card with dimensional foam, I stamped the sentiment with Hero Arts "Unicorn" pigment ink. When it dried I over-stamped with Hero Arts "Butter Bar" ink. I was disappointed that when it dried it was not as intensely gold-toned as before drying. I'm thinking it would have benefitted with a couple more coats of the Butter Bar after drying. I'll try this overprint technique again sometime soon to see if I can get the colors a bit more intense.

The envelope was a plain black one from my stash and I lined it with a skeleton paper from American Crafts "Happy Halloween".

We would love to have you join us this month in our challenge! We're still trying to give away this really cute "Spooky Tree" die from Tutti Designs, and if we get more than 25 entries you could be a winner!