Altered Bird Houses

I had tons of fun covering and decorating these wooden bird houses with Stampin' Up card stock, and designer series paper.  The color scheme and most of the papers are from the recently retired DSP called Gingham Garden. I love the bright cheery, colors and knew they would brighten up this dark corner in my kitchen.  

This 3D display is being entered into the challenge at CanYou Case It challenge blog found HERE. This is challenge site is new to me and I'm excited to be participating this week because I love 3D paper crafts.   I'm not sure how this challenge site came to my attention but I recognized the name of one of the site creators. Amanda Frankel is a VERY talented paper crafter and fellow SiSer from Illinois. Stampers in Stitches (SiS) is a Stampin' Up! group in Illinois headed up by Glenda Travelstead. Glenda's monthly meetings are full of information, ideas and instructions and many of those ideas come from Amanda.  I sure miss those meetings and those wonderful stampers!
Please enjoy the tour around my birdhouses! 

 

The bushes were made with the Word Bubble Framelits, sponged and shaped with a stylus on a piercing mat

I made a mini flower box out of card stock stamped with the Hardwood stamp. The roses were made just like the Spiral flower die but I made my own out of a 7/8" scallop circle punch. The little Night of Navy spiky flowers out of grated card stock.  I dipped a piece of floral wire in glue and rolled it in grated card stock. The greenery is made out of a strip of card stock that I fringed, the leaves from the Bird Builder punch and a contraband (gasp!) punch.

The fence was made with the retired Pinking Hearts border punch, snipped away some pieces and added strips of card stock for the horizontal pieces.  The pink swirls were made with a retired Sizzlit die and I wish I had not added those but couldn't reverse that decision without having to recover the entire house...SIGH. The wool felt balls were from a Sale-a-bration kit.  I wish Stampin' Up would offer more felt items in the annual catalog. 

Retired Lattice BigZ die.  Yellow flowers are made with Petite Petals stamp set and punch

Freshly Stamped Poppies

Another day another card!  This time for  the weekly challenge at Freshly Made Sketches found HERE.   I love all of the cards made by the design team!  Those ladies are awesome and have some of my favorite blogs to visit...check them out!  This week's card sketch initially made me think of a never ending card which is what I made recently for my son's birthday.  I'll show that card at the end of this post because I first want to show this weeks sketch and my submission.

                       

STAMPS: Pleasant Poppies, Express Yourself

PAPER: Real Red, Whisper White, Bashful Blue DSP

INK: Real Red, Blendabilities- Cherry Cobbler, Daffodil Delight and Old Olive

OTHER: white embossing powder

Here is the never ending card I made for my son.  If you don't recognize the card as a Minecraft Creeper then you must not know any school age children:-).  The front of the card was made with 1/2" squares. The squares that join at a fold are cut slightly less than 1/2" so that the card could be folded without creasing and "smooshing" the card stock squares at the fold. I didn't want the white card stock showing thru at those spots so I sponged the coordinating color before adhering the squares.  This took quite a bit of time and patience but when my son told me how awesome the card was...well, it was all worth it.  The other images were printed from the internet onto Whisper White card stock except for the name, that was made with 1/4" squares.  Want to make a never ending card? Here is where I learned--Splitcoaststampers   You can make these cards any square size you want.  mine is a 4x4 so the four pieces of card stock needed are sized 2x4.

A Happy Day with My New Stamps

I'm back with a new card entry for Mojo Monday. I missed a week on that challenge blog because I was briefly stunned by disbelief!  My card was selected as one of the winners in MojoMonday's monthly contest!  Check it out....

My card from that contest can be seen here. Because MojoMonday is run by Julee Tilman, and she also owns Verve Stamps, the winners get to select a free Verve stamp set!   (I know, I know, you are having a hard time containing your excitement for me.  Your utter joy at my accomplishment must be overwhelming. Luckily, for my family, I've been able to keep my cool and continue to run the household and care for them.) The stamp set I chose is called Be Blessed and was used for this weeks challenge. Aren't you glad there was a reason for my shameless self promotion?  

Soooooo, enough tooting my own horn and on to this weeks challenge.  You can find it here at MojoMonday. Here is the sketch and my card.

STAMPS:  Verve- Be Blessed

PAPER:  Old Olive, Melon Mambo, Pumpkin Pie, Whisper White, Melon Mambo DSP 

INK: Old Olive, Pumpkin Pie, Melon Mambo

OTHER: Circle Framelits, 3" Circle BigZ die, Square Lattice embossing folder, 1/8" Old Olive taffeta ribbon, Old Olive candy dot

A Golden Cherry Garden

Back again with Mojo Monday challenge 348. Here it is....

I love this color combo!  I kept it pretty simple, not a lot of layers...except for the flower. It was stamped and colored four times.  I cut each layer individually and adhered it on the bottom layer by gluing the center and used dimensional under the petals. The very center layer does not have dimensions I just bent the petals up slightly. Here is a close up.

STAMPS: Secret Garden, Field Flowers, En Français

INK: Memento Black, Gold Encore, Blendabilities- Cherry and Daffodil

PAPER: Calypso Coral, Cherry Cobbler, Whisper White, Brushed Gold, Gold Fancy Foil Vellum

OTHER: Gold Embossing Powder, 1 3/4" circle punch, CircleFramelits 

Simple Wetlands

A very simple, almost one-layer card for Freshly Made Sketches found here.  The sketch and card...

Just a simple wash of water color on the base card and the center panel. 

STAMPS: Wetlands, Cherish sentiment by Rubber Stampede

PAPER: Watercolor paper

INK: Staz-on black, Soft Suede, Sahara Sand, Crumb Cake, Baked Brown Sugar, Soft Sky, Tempting Turquoise, Island Indigo

OTHER: Naturals Designer Buttons,  7/16" Trim, Linen Thread

Regarding a Blendable Dahlia

Back again with my entry to this week's Mojo Monday challenge found here.  Here is the sketch...
                                                 

.....and my card

The flower was colored with the new Stampin' Up! alcohol markers called Blendabilities. These are alcohol based markers and they make beautiful vibrant colors.  They are sold in sets of three shades to make blended, gradient color that allows you to create areas of shadow and highlights.  I've seen awesome examples made by people with real artistic ability....but you are at my blog and this is all I have to offer!

STAMPS: Regarding Dahlias, Pretty Petites (altered)

PAPER: Whisper White, Smoky Slate

INK: Memento Black, Coastal Cabana Blendabilities

OTHER: Silver 1/8" ribbon, Modern Mosaic EF, Petite Curly Label punch