GRS Weekly Recipe!

 

It is my turn this week to host the GRS Weekly Recipe.  I wanted to use my new Enchanted papers, a Chevron Stripes background stamp that had yet to see ink, some new-to-me Jolee rhinestone bats, and this fun Hallow's Eve stick chick.  I just love their long, skinny extremities, and using diagonal lines in a layout is a fun way to accentuate them.

I colored the image with Copics, then sponged in a stormy Halloween sky with soft yellow and yellow-orange inks using a scalloped circle as a mask.  There's just a tinge of gray-black along the edges to give it a tiny bit of spookiness.

The inside layout is a repeat of the sketch, using the party invite sentiment from Invite to Fright.










Notes:
Hallow's Eve stick chick
Chevron Stripes "coverall" background stamp
Invite to Fright sentiment
Memento Tuxedo Black, Cantaloupe and Dandelion inks
Copic blending paper
Copic markers
Enchanted designer paper
orange glimmer ribbon
Jolee bats
tulle

Flower Soft Santa Toppers

Welcome to my blog, With a Stamp and a Song!  If you're hopping with the Flower Soft design team, you should've arrived here from Linda's blog!  We are sharing some beautiful projects using our new series of Santa toppers.  These are gorgeous full color printed images that quickly create the focal point of a card, ready to be embellished with Flower Soft or Glitter Frosting for a fast and easy finish.  They're great for "mass production" of cards for your Christmas list, but they would also make lovely coordinated gift sets or even impressive home decor projects for the holidays.

I used Forest Santa to make a simple, standard-sized card.  Santa's beard and the fur trim of his suit are embellished with ultrafine white Flower Soft.  There's even a twinkling sprinkling of Glitter Frosting snow illuminated by Santa's lamp.  I just love the beautiful blue of this glowing scene!  (It's so hard to do justice to a photo with Glitter Frosting!)

For the inside, I used (stamped off) Memento ink to stamp a Silhouette Stamps Christmas Sentiment under a light dusting of snowflakes.  Glitter Frosting brings a little sparkle without overwhelming these delicate images.  I used distress ink on the edges to bring the warm woodland hues of the topper to the inside of my card.

Notes:
Forest Santa (check out Magical Santa and Workshop Santa too!)
Ultrafine White
Glitter Frosting
Flower Soft Glue
Silhouette Stamps Christmas Sentiment
Memento Danube Blue ink
Tim Holtz tea dye distress ink
Sheer "twinkle" ribbon
jute thread
button

From here, you will be visiting Cibele!  Just in case you're lost, here's the entire list, so you can make the rounds, including our FaceBook page and the Flower Soft blog!  So very happy to welcome new team member Vicki!  :)

• Jeanne Streiff 
• Krista Riley
• Stephanie Lee
• Dawn Lusk
• Linda Beeson
• Deb Felts (you are here)
• Cibele Glazer
• Jen Buck 
• Vicki Henderson Harper
• the Flower Soft blog
• Flower Soft on FaceBook

Boo!

I *love Love LOVE* stamping for Halloween!  Today's card is for this week's CPS sketch, sponsored by the {Stamps} of Life.  This sketch, with all its layers, was right up my alley and lent itself perfectly to the use of spooky2scare.  It is fun and just spooky enough!  ;)

Notes:
TSOL spooky2scare
TSOL chevron dies
Stephanie Barnard Colorbox ink
We R Memory Keepers designer paper
Bella Blvd washi tape
Crate Paper trim
Blumenthal Lansing button
Doodlebug twine

GRS DT challenge

It's GRS design team challenge day!  Our challenge is to use shapes...we could make a shaped card, or use shapes ON our project.

This challenge was a real stumper!  I thought about it for ages before an idea finally came to mind, and then I had trouble translating it from idea to reality.  I wanted to go for a simpler, more clean and graphic style than usual, and was hoping to achieve an illusion of a road extending from the foreground to the horizon, but after fussing with the hexagons for a while, I ended up with plan B!  Modern mo-ped meets uneven old-towne brick road!  Even though I'm missing my mojo (which unfortunately often happens for a while after I return from vacation), I still had a good time trying!

Visit the GRS blog to see what my teammates created for today's challenge!  And visit ihp to see the GRS sets that are available there!  LOTS of new product has been arriving from CHA, so you're likely to find lots of new pretties!

Notes:
Girls Wanna Have Fun custom set for ihp
Memento ink
Copic markers
black Spica marker
Lifestyle Crafts hexagon dies
Ranger distress ink
foam adhesive
ric rac
button
twine

CPS sketches

School started this week in Florida, so Summer is coming to a screeching halt and Fall is fast approaching.  It seems rather abrupt to me since our Summer was so busy.  I'm not quite ready for it to be over!  There are things yet to do that will be difficult to squeeze in once the routine of school cranks up in earnest.  Once Labor Day is over, we'll have to sincerely buckle down and get back to the grind.

As reluctant as I am for Summer to end, I'm looking forward to working with the wonderful colors of Fall.  This season is one of my favorites for stamping, with the fun brights of Halloween and the warm hues of Fall leaves and Thanksgiving turkeys!  I'm sharing two such cards today, both for Card Positioning Systems from this month's sponsor, The {Stamps} of Life.

My first card is this week's sketch, a combination of patterned papers from Kaiser Craft in a fun arrangement of layers with a cute little turkey as the focal point.  

Notes:
The {Stamps} of Life turkey2stamp stamp set, chevron dies
Kaiser Craft designer paper
Memento Rich Cocoa ink

Ranger tea dye distress ink
Copic markers
May Arts pom pom trim
foam adhesive

buttons

This is last week's sketch, which in the flurry of visiting with family in upper Michigan and then a Tuesday travel day, I completely forgot to upload.

Notes:
The {Stamps} of Life sea2flower and dots2love stamp sets
Stephanie's Colorbox inks
Basic Grey designer paper
Ranger tea dye distress ink
Robin's Nest dew drops
May Arts sage faux suede ribbon
blingy brad

Visit the CPS blog to see more great designs using this week's sketch!

ihp DT challenge!

It's time for this month's i {heart} papers design team challenge.  I was browsing Pinterest and found a beautiful inspiration photograph from a blog called A Creative Mint.  The colors are so clear and clean, almost transparent!  Those corals and oranges seemed to be everywhere at CHA...

My first impulse was to pull out the jar of flowers from GRS' Bloom and Grow, but then I had brand new Invite to Fright stamps that hadn't even gotten inky yet, and they just happen to look best in orange, so I pulled out my new Memento inks and the Authentique Enchanted designer paper.  Its color palette includes some of the ivory, creamy yellow, yellow-orange, orange, and orange-red hues that are prominent in the photo.  I used the rock-n-roll technique with Gray Flannel and Tuxedo Black for the swirly frame, and with Cantaloupe and Tangelo for the sentiment and pumpkin.  I was tempted to tie on a pretty turquoise bow...but then the card recipient isn't likely to see this photo inspiration, so I decided against it!

My original plan was to decorate a lovely transparent lemon-flavored sucker with candied corn inside that closely matched the colors in the vase of flowers...but the orange-flavored one with a spooky spider really looked prettier with this spider web patterned paper, and certainly has a much creepier aura!  I used my Scor-buddy to score 2 inch strips of paper each 1/4 inch to make the accordian-fold "web" embellishment.  Fun stuff!

Notes:
GRS Invite to Fright stamp set
Authentique Enchanted designer paper
Tuxedo Black, Tangelo and Cantaloupe from the Gumdrop ink assortment
Gray Flannel from the Snowcones ink assortment
Creative Impressions crinkle ribbon
dimensional adhesive
Scor tape
Scor buddy

Here's the list of today's participants!  Be sure to leave Loretta some extra love...this is her last hop with us as a design team member.  I just don't think it will ever be quite the same without her.  :(  Of course, I will be forever and always hoping that she will join us often as an alumnus in the future, and our paths will stay entwined!  {{LOVE you, Loretta!}}  She is going on to some amazing, wonderful things and I am very excited for her!  xoxoxo

• Carolyn
• Deb
• Gretchen
• Loretta
• Lori
• Tracy
• Kate

A few tips on bow-tying!

Here on my blog and also in the card-making classes that I teach, I get lots of comments on my bows.  :)  I love ribbon!  Most of my cards have bows of some sort...sometimes a small, stylish bow, but more often than not, a big, poufy one!

Last week over on Paper Craft Planet, Lyn shared her method for the perfect bow.  For this week's tutorial, I'm sharing a few of my own tips and tricks for tying bows.  Hopefully you'll learn something new that will help you tie a gorgeous bow on your own projects.

I'm happy to say that you'll be seeing lots of bows here on my blog...May Arts shared a lovely package of ribbon with each of us on the Our Craft Lounge design team, so I have lots of beautiful ribbon to play with!

Girls just wanna have fun!

Hi friends!  Happy weekend!  Hope you're having a good one!  

I took a few days off from blogging to recover from our travels and to spend time with my husband for his remaining days off from work.  Monday will be back to work for him, although I'll be starting back today because I've got several deadlines looming!

If you're a local, I hope you'll check out the Copic class I'm teaching Monday evening at Scrappies in Palatka.  We'll be coloring these fun Mo Manning girls on kraft card stock.  This is a long, tall card with just a little bit of frilliness and bling to make it just girlie enough!  I would love if you'd join me!

Day 3 GKD Inspiration Hop

The Design Team for Gina K. Designs welcomes you to another fabulous Inspiration Blog Hop!!! Gina and the Design Team will inspire you with many beautiful ideas! And as you hop through their blogs, make sure to leave a comment on each of them because we will choose a few random comments and those stampers will each win a grab bag of deeply etched, pre-cut Gina K. Designs stamps! To see the full list of winners check the Big News forum at Stamp TV a couple of days after the hops!!

Today our team is sharing projects using the Sun-Kissed Autumn kit and the "one FREE with three" set, Fall Foliage.

Here's a very clean and simple design using one of the leaf images from the kit along with the coordinating print of designer paper.  A card like this only takes a few minutes to make so it's easy to make multiples...this sentiment is one that will work for nearly any occasion at this time of year, so it is a nice style to have made ahead and saved in the stash for when you need it!

This one is also relatively easy to make using Memento inks of various colors and the rock-n-roll technique.  It's still a clean and simple design but has a more elegant appearance with the layers and sponging.

I had to fussy-cut the leaves for both of these designs because I've been away from home all week visiting my in-laws in upper Michigan...had I been home, I would have used the cut files and my Silhouette Cameo to cut them!  There's already a nice collection in the GKD store for quite a few of our sets!

Notes:

Gina K Pure Luxury card stock

Sun-Kissed Autumn clear or rubber

Fall Foliage clear or rubber

Memento Rich Cocoa, Cantaloupe, Potter's Clay ink

Tim Holtz tea dye, frayed burlap distress inks

Copic markers

GKD Sun-Kissed Autumn designer paper

Spellbinders Labels 18 dies

ribbons and dies from the stash!

Check out all the amazing designs and inspiration:

• Gina K
• AJ Otto
• Beth Silaika
• Carolyn King
• Cathy Tidwell
• Deb Felts
• Giovana Smith
• Jimmi Mayo
• Lee Murphy
• Lori McAree
• Melanie Muenchinger
• Sharon Harnist
• Suzanne Dean
• Tami Mayberry
• Theresa Momber
• Tina Gilliland
• Vicki Dutcher

GRS New Release!

It's time for two new appetizers from Gourmet Rubber Stamps!  I left for a week in upper Michigan before my sets arrived, so they're probably next door in the pile of mail that our sweet neighbors collected for us and I don't have any samples to share yet, but I do have links!

Here's "Old School"

and this is "Invite to Fright!"

Both sets are available from i {heart} papers.  Visit the Gourmet Rubber Stamps blog to see what ideas our GRS design team has for using them!  I'll be getting them inky soon!