The card that got away from me!

     Ever have one of those cards that just keeps getting more complicated? I had a long card session this afternoon and only managed to get one lonely card made!  Here's my final card. This is for Diane's challenge called Two By Two and Side by Side inspired by a sister's study whose logo features pink and purple. I thought this image would be perfect for the challenge.

I didn't set out to do a 3D look but was only going to paper piece. Once I started adding the piecing I had some "issues" with paper depths varying and poor planning on my part. At any rate, I just kept adding layers and figured while I was adding them I might as well pop some too. I watercolored by scribbling markers onto acetate and then using a wet brush to paint the image.

So irritated by the smear!!! I actually had to stamp a 2nd base circle because I laid my piece down to add adhesive and put it right onto the piece of acetate I'd used for my water coloring!!! So, I cut around my entire image, stamped onto another circle, added a little grey shading and then proceeded to smear the sentiment when I was putting together the scallop panel behind the images. This piece is a long piece of scallop edged Eggplant with added snips to allow me to curve the piece around the circle. 

Stripping Down

     Today's Hope You Can Cling To Challenge is called Stripping Down. Holly asked us to use strips on our backgrounds. I keep bags of my strips over by my tabletop cutter. For this challenge I pulled out strips in two color schemes.

The beauty of making "strip" cards is that the strips can be any width or length. I ended up going with all browns and creams instead of the blues and the other is pinks greys and silver.

I use my glue stick to coat the area I want to cover.

I line up the strips along one edge and let the other side hang over the edge of the piece of base card stock.

Once I have my area covered, I flip over the base and snip off the excess of the strips.

Here's the pinks version. I left an area free of strips for my sentiment and glued a white die cut over the top.

I made this one with the strips vertical at first but when I saw the picture I decided to flip the tree the other way.

I added some scoring to frame the strips piece and used a piece of polished stone paper to cut my sentiment.

Mixed Multiple Pumpkins

   I couldn't resist playing along with the Mixability and Free for All Challenges today though I'll still make a card for the Hope You Can Cling To Challenge later. Here's the final card.

Stamps: Truly Grateful, Craft Smart-pumpkin Paper: Kraft, Pumpkin Pie, Black, Watercolor paper, placemat Paper Size: A2 Ink: Stazon Black, Old Olive, Pumpkin Pie, Soft Suede, MS chalk inks Accessories: Bronze Sharpie Marker, Old Olive and Pumpkin Pie markers, Paintbrush, Spritzer, 2 1/2" circle punch, squash tendrils, Tombow MonoMulti, Sponge Techniques: Watercoloring from ink pad lids, Masking, Spatter, Sponging

Read more: 

http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/gallery/photo/2566584#ixzz3F66GFJTS

I cut a strip of watercolor paper and stamped my first pumpkin (wish I'd stamped it a bit lower...I ended up cutting off a bit of the bottom so the middle pumpkin didn't still look like it was floating!) I then masked it and stamped 2 more.

I cut a couple more masks to keep layering the pumpkins on. The free for all was to use multiple images of the same stamp.

I smooshed some ink into the lid of my ink pad and spritzed a bit of water in then used a paintbrush to watercolor the pumpkins.

I painted in the leaves as well then used a marker to "flick" in some added detail on the pumpkins.

I masked over the pumpkins again to smoosh on 

some chalk ink 

I flicked the pumpkin and olive ink onto my rough background and also shook my Bronze Sharpie over the bg. I added dots of bronze onto the pumpkins as well.

I flicked some spatter and Bronze onto my image panel as well. I wish I'd masked over it when I went to flick onto my upper sentiment as I got a rather large trail of bronze going across my panel. :( I used some dried squash tendrils as accents.

Hope You Can Cling To Day ONE!!!

     And we're off! The first three Hope You Can Cling To Challenges were posted today. I've been scrolling through the gallery adding comments and WOW....we're off to a good start already. I had cards made for the three kickoff challenges so here we are! 
       Lydia kicked us off with a paper tole technique challenge. Here's a close up of my raised elements....lots of fussy cutting going on here as well as some metallic accents with markers, liquid pearls and stickles.

The finished card.Stamps: Stampendous-Deco Lady, Tim Holtz-Life's Possibilities, Michael's-Music Notes Paper: Soft Suede, MME dp, Very Vanilla Paper Size: A2 Ink: Versafine: Onyx, Smokey Gray, Sepia Accessories: Sharpie Bronze Marker, Silver Smooch Paint, Buttercup Liquid Pearls, Dazzling Details Silver Sparkle, Studio G Glitter Glue, Stampin' Dimensionals, Lace, Twine, Silver Cord, Cutter Kit Distressing Tool Techniques: Paper Tole, Distressing

Read more:
 http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/gallery/photo/2563753#ixzz3ExDGGCXE

While I had my Deco Lady stamp out, I decided she might look cool on this black bg I had and her stars would fit Lori's Shine On challenge. Stamps: Quick and Cute, Stampendous-Deco Lady, Tim Holtz: Life's Possibilities, Michael's-Music Notes Paper: white, black Paper Size: A2 Ink: Versamark, Versafine Onyx Accessories: Brayer, White and clear ep, Glitter taper, Dazzling Details Silver Sparkle Techniques: Brayering, Embossing

Read more:
 http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/gallery/photo/2563864#ixzz3ExCrDZEs

Last card for today was for Dina's challenge to use something with a handle...just had to go with umbrella man, and in honor of Dina I used a work surface protector sheet and went with a mixed media technique!Stamps: See Ya Later, Music Note wheel, Artifacts Paper: Marina Mist, Daffodil Delight, white, black, TPS-Kraft dp Paper Size: A2 Ink: Soft Suede, Versafine Onyx, various on my scrap piece, Tsukineko-Eucalyptus spray, MS chalk ink Accessories: QuicKutz-Sun die, Tim Holtz-Umbrella Man die, Ranger-Weather Vane paint dauber, spritzer, sponge, dry wall mesh Techniques: Dripping, Sponging                                Read more:
http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/gallery/photo/2562923#ixzz3ExCXRVBd

Are you playing along with us? Come check out the challenges here.  If not, you're missing out on the chance to lift the spirits of women battling breast cancer at MD Anderson and also on more than $5000 in prizes from your favorite crafty companies. So what are you waiting for? Get to stamping!

Getting Excited!!!

     It is the last day of September!!!! Know what that means? Tomorrow starts the month long feast of challenges and the awesome card drive for breast cancer patients. Really looking forward to the Hope You Can Cling To challenges at splitcoaststampers this year especially both because I'm more involved as a hostess for one of the challenges, and because my mom's breast cancer journey continues. Hope you'll join along. I'm going to give you a teeny sneak peek of a couple of sample cards I've made just to whet your appetite!

    And here's the main motivation behind my involvement...pardon the poor picture quality. Mom and I had a stamping day together a while back and this is the only picture I have of our time.

Spritzed Scribbles

Really fun mixed media challenge today that had me breaking out the crayons! Ky called it "Go Scribble" and had us scribble with bright crayons over light cardstock followed by a dark spritzing.
Here's my first card.

I embossed my watercolor paper with the ef and then used crayons to color the embossed parts. I used the side with the stems raised.

I spritzed over the top with Walnut Ink

I used a semi-dry wipe to clear off the ink.

I wanted some blue so I smooshed my ink pad on acetate and watered it down to paint blue between the bamboo.

Here's a closeup of the final look.

Round 2-starting to add the crayon

Painting in the blue

Card #2 which will go to my dragon-loving about to be 14yo son.

Left Handed Doodling

    Whew, sometimes challenges are really challenging! Today for the Mixability Challenge at splitcoastampers Dina asked us to doodle with our non-dominant hands! I was hanging with my youngest DD who was still doing school and used what I had right handy (pardon the pun) which was index cards and a fine point pen. My first piece started with a tree I copied from the cover of a book, What On Earth Am I Here For? I freehanded the tree and leaves with my right hand, then added my bark doodling with my left. 

I'm glad I chose bark for my doodling as you can see my hand wasn't real steady! I used Gelatos to color most of the leaves and a metallic Sharpie for the rest. 

 

     I used brown acrylic paint to color my tree and it sort of covered up all my hard work....so, pulled the pen out again to add the "bark" back to the tree!I think my hand got a bit of brown paint as well!