Scalloped Mermaid

I hope everyone had a fabulous World Card Making Day weekend! I got 7 cards made! Hooray! One of those cards was for the Moxie Fab World Offest Scallop Gallop challenge that ends, of course, today. One day, I will not be a last minute crafter. Maybe. ;)

As soon as I saw this challenge I knew I wanted to pair the scallops with The Greeting Farm's Mermaid Anya. She's the cutest mermaid around! I love how this turned out. Once again with the red hair, purple shells, and green fin. What can I say, The Little Mermaid left an indelible mark on me! And I just love red hair. One day I'll have it again! I used a ton of Copics in her hair. I wanted it to have some texture. I need more practice, but it's a decent start. :) Since mermaid Anya doesn't have scales on her fin I made dots with the colorless blender and then drew in scallops with the clear spica pen, again, just for some texture. Her hair baubles have stickles on them.

The scallop scales are rows of SU Old Olive cut with the PTI large scallop border die, sprayed with vanilla Smooch Spritz, and adhered to each other with 1/8" scor-tape. I flicked them up with my fingernail a little bit, too. The purple ribbon was a gift so I don't know who makes it. It's a beautiful shade! I wish I had cardstock to match! The sentiment is from a longer Hero Arts sentiment but I just inked the 'hello'.

Thanks so much for looking!

Supplies: Stamps - The Greeting Farm Mermaid Anya, Hero Arts A Warm Hello

Ink - Memento Tuxedo Black

Paper - Papertrey Ink Stampers Select White, Stampin' Up! kraft, Old Olive

Other - Copics (E00, E30, YR02, YR04, YR07, YR14,YR18, E09, YG03, YG06, YG09, YG11, YG93, V12, V15, V17, 0), clear Spica pen, Papertrey Ink Large Scallop Border Die, 1/8" Scor-tape, Vanilla Smooch Spritz, Stardust Stickles, purple double-stitched ribbon

Heart to heart Card Drive and Happy October!

Happy October everyone! It's my birthday today! Lunch with all my guys, free mocha toffee frap, and lots of birthday messages and calls makes for a very nice day. I'm hoping to get a little crafting in tonight, too! We'll see, though. I kind of miss sleep. ;)

Speaking of crafting, you need to make a card for Carolyn King's Heart to Heart card drive. Carolyn lost her grandmother to Alzheimer's a few years ago and has a card drive to honor Alzheimer's caregivers. They need appreciation and recognition! It is exhausting caring for someone with Alzheimer's. There is a huge prize as well.

My grandmother passed away from Alzheimer's this year. Her care progressed from her just needing to be driven places, to having my brother live with her to be sure she took her medicine and didn't fall, to full time supervision. It took a lot of energy from a lot of people to take care of her. I miss her. A lot. Her birthday is coming up and I can't think of a better way to celebrate than by thanking the people who are helping patients and family members walk this road. I've made three cards so far and I'm hoping to make several more. I'll take them to the nursing home where Grandmommy was living, but Carolyn provides an address and even a sample note if you don't know where to send a card or what to say.

My card details are very simple. The first card uses the Clean and Simple challenge sketch from Splitcoaststampers this week. The fabulous pumpkin is from a set that Carolyn designed in honor of her grandmother and she donates her proceeds to the Alzheimer's Association. (She rocks. And she's super fun, too. I know, I got to meet her once.)
The second card I made from old mail. The flower is torn from the base of a card my kids destroyed and the the leaf is torn from the cover of a jewelry catalog. I inked the edges, glued the layers together, and added some stickles and dew drops. Dawn McVey has an awesome tutorial on making flowers like this (much better than this).

Go make a card for Carolyn's card drive and head to her blog. You might win an amazingly huge prize and you will definitely make someone happy. Complete win.

Pumpkin Card Supplies:
Stamps - GinaK Designs Whimsical Autumn, Thanks a Million
Ink - Memento Rich Cocoa, Tuxedo Black
Paper - Papertrey Ink kraft, Stampin' Up! Old Olive, Chocolate Chip, Georgia-Pacific white
Other - Papertrey Ink Woodgrain Impression Plate, Orange Zest button, twine, Nestabilities Scalloped Rectangle, Copics

Flower Card Supplies:
Stamps - GinaK Designs Inside and Out
Ink - Palette Burnt Umber, Stampin' Up! Tangerine Tango, Old Olive
Paper - Stampin' Up! Bashful Blue, Papertrey Ink Dark Chocolate, orange and green scraps
Other - Dew drops, Stickles, Papertrey Ink Large Scallop Border, green grosgrain

Leaf Sympathy

I have a hard time making sympathy cards. I think most people do. How much is too much and how plain is too plain? What's a good color scheme? If the card is for a man, that just makes it even harder. Some really good friends had a death in their family and it was on the husband's side. I'm sure he wouldn't have minded if I sent him a card with flowers or butterflies on it, but he would definitely have known I didn't make it for him. Leaves seemed like the perfect choice. Still natural, but not as girly. A Year of Leaves has some gorgeous ones.

The Clean and Simple challenge on Splitcoaststampers was to use red, brown, kraft, and ivory, with optional orange. The Create blog challenge was to make a card with leaves. I wanted to go clean and simple anyway, so this was a perfect choice. The card is A2 size with a kraft base, dark chocolate mat, and a vanilla woodgrain panel. The woodgrain impression plate is so useful. I'm not really sure how I ever made cards without it. I stamped over the impression in Memento Rich Cocoa ink. There were a few blank spots and I was able to fill those in with a Stampin' Up! Chocolate Chip marker. So happy about that! The leaves are colored with Copics and trimmed out. I purposely did not glue the tips down so it looks like the leaves are just resting on the card. I think I will make up a few of these to have on hand for the future.

Supplies: Stamps - Stampin' Up! Sincere Salutations, GinaK Designs A Year of Leaves

Ink - Memento Rich Cocoa

Paper - Papertrey Ink kraft, Dark Chocolate, GinaK Designs Pure Luxury Ivory, Georgia Pacific White (for leaves)

Other - Copics (E33, E35, E37, YR62, YR65, YR68, R22, R24, R29), Papertrey Ink Woodgrain Impression Plate, Stampin' Up! Chocolate Chip marker

Win Melanie's New Set!

Yay! Look what I found on
Melanie Muenchinger's blog!

"Melanie Muenchinger is releasing a companion to her "A Year of Flowers" called "Buds and Vases", a die cut stamp set filled with brand new flowers and containers, this Thursday night, September 30 at 10 PM CST from Gina K Designs! Be sure to check out her sneak preview of the set on her blog and enter for a chance to win the set!"

She has some GORGEOUS samples of this new set! You can comment for a chance to enter and blog about the giveaway for a second chance to win! How cool is that?! And look at all the cute stuff that fits in the jar from other sets? (That's Melanie's picture, btw, - used with permission of course - I never even thought about coloring strawberries that pretty!) Can't wait for this! So, quick! Go enter!!!

Papertrey September Blog Hop Challenge

It's Papertrey Blog Hop time again! And in true fashion, I'm squeaking in at the last second! Good times! The challenge this time is to use a tip or technique we've learned from another stamper. Wow. There are so many amazing artists who have taught me so much! Someday I would love to do cards for all of them. This particular card uses a couple of things I've gleaned from Nichole Heady herself combined with all the fabulous colorists out there who have taught me so much about Copics: Debbie Olson, Theresa Momber, Sharon Harnist, and, of course, Colleen Schaan to name a few. Nichole rocks the white on white so much and I never would have thought to use the square punch to make the notch on the sentiment if she hadn't shown it on her blog. Now, I can't stop doing it! I really cannot say enough about the tips and tutorials and inspiration I have gotten from these crafters, but did I mention it's the last second?

Supplies: Stamps - Papertrey Ink In Bloom, Daily Designs Sentiments
Ink - Memento Tuxedo Black, Palette Noir
Paper - Papertrey Stamper's Select White, Lemon Tart
Other - Copics (Y00, Y11, Y15, Y17, YG91, YG93, YG95, YG03), Basic Grey half pearls, square punch, Papertrey Woodgrain Impression Plate, lots of foam tape!, Cutterbee scissors

Candy Winner!

The winner of my blog candy, as chosen by random.toddler, is Denise! Yay Denise! I'll get in touch with you on your gift certificate asap! Thanks eveyone for the sweet comments. Happy last day of summer!!

The Unpublishable!

It's coming right for you! Run, run for your lives! It's...the Unpublishable! Cue B horror movie music. Yes, I do amuse myself. Thanks for noticing. ;) I just had a card published and it was super exciting! And it was on my first try even! Since then, however, I've been submitting and not having any success. But that's ok! I love the cards I've been making (well, mostly) and I learn something everytime I go through the submission process. And I'm really excited to share these rejected cards because I think they're pretty cute. And I bet you've made some pretty cute cards that haven't turned out to be contest winners, or published in magazines, or maybe haven't even gotten many comments. So let's all stop being mean to ourselves and saying things like "Oh, I'm not very good."It's just not true.

This sweet little reject was made for the Cards: All Occasions call. I was trying to come up with an unusual color combo. I like these colors together. SU's Basic Gray and Old Olive, PTI Hawaiian Shores, and some incredibly heavy base weight GinaK Ivory. The butterfly was stamped on PTI white and colored with Copics then trimmed out. I ran a black marker around the edges at the suggestion of a friend, but I don't think I will do it often. I totally get why you should do it, but I don't have a very steady hand for that kind of thing and it just seems fraught with peril. The grey (or gray, I guess, since that's how they spell it) is scored with a Scor-Pal. I love doing this! GinaK has a great tutorial on StampTV. Basically, you place the cardstock on your scoreboard with two corner points on the same line and score at 1/2 inch intervals across the cardstock. Flip it so the opposite two corner points are on the same line and score again creating the diamonds. I matted the gray with the Hawaiian Shores. The olive border is the SU open scallop border punch. I stamped 'thank you' on a strip of olive and cut out the notch with a square punch. I only adhered the straight side so it looks a little bit more like a flag banner. I thought about sewing it but was too lazy/nervous. I've had great success sewing on paper and horrible failures and since I was stamping this the night of the deadline I didn't want to risk it. The butterfly is popped up on pop dots. I'm almost out of those things. Must get more.

Anyway, there you have it! Look for more rejected cards coming soon! :)

Supplies: Stamps - GinaK Designs Hope is Faith, Inside and Out
Ink - Memento Tuxedo Black
Paper - GinaK Pure Luxury base weight Ivory, Stampin' Up! Old Olive, Basic Gray, Papertrey Ink Stampers Select White (for coloring)
Other - Copics (BG10, BG45, BG48), Stampin' Up! Border Punch, Scor-Pal, Square Punch, pop dots