Life Isn't Fair.....

Yep, its true. Sometimes it sucks! Ha! I have had this idea rolling around in my head for a few days and when I saw this Gem Orange inspiration piece in today's Inspiration Challenge with the apples and the colors, I knew this was the time to get this idea out of my head!

When I initially saw this sentiment from the new FireCracker Designs by Pamela set Love Bites, I thought of a friend that is going thru a tough divorce. Then later I thought it applied to the rough time I have been having with my job lately. I like this sentiment because it says "I am sorry, and I understand" without getting all teary eyed!

Stamps: FireCracker Designs by Pamela Love Bites
Paper: Papertrey White, Basic Black
Ink: Momento Tuxedo Black, Creamy Caramel, Chocolate Chip
Accessories: Copics, Stamp-a-majig

Enjoy!
Michelle B.

Springy Turtle & Fish Tank Tutorial

Ah, spring, can't wait! The current Artful INKables challenge is Think Spring and you can find the details here. One thing I love about spring is the return of the birds and other critters so I created this card to give you some inspiration. I hope you'll play along for a chance to win some AI stamps!

Want the Tips & Tricks on how I made this look like a 3D fish tank? Thought you would so I made some pics while I was creating. (and BTW, I used to call these Tuesday Tips, Tricks, and Tutorials with a number but I never seem to hit them on Tuesday's any more and I can't remember what number I am on SO....lets just forget about those details and get to the goods!)

I started by stamping all the images into position. The water line by his feet did not extend all the way to the margins so I just roughly drew them in with a fine black marker.

Next I colored in the turtle and the cattails with Copics. Notice I left a white space between the turtle's shell (above the water) and his legs (below the water).

Next, I placed a large sticky note (or 2 stuck together in this case) across the piece to mark the horizon line (aka edge of the water behind the turtle). I also masked ONLY the parts of the turtle that are sticking out above the water (I used Eclipse tape and I keep these to use over and over!). I sponge a lighter blue ink all over the exposed water area. Notice that I sponge right over his colored feet to make them appear to be under the water.

Remove the masks....so far so good.

Now I mask the water line with sticky notes. I wanted to capture that little water ripple right in the center so I used Eclipse tape to mask off that detail (probably not necessary but I just can't help myself sometimes!) I sponge a darker blue ink right along the line of the sticky note and blend into the water just a bit. It may be helpful to turn your piece upside down so you can see what you are doing a little better.

Remove the masks and you have a fabulous fish tank effect! Fun isn't it?!?! All I have left to do is add some Mothermark Clouds, sponge some green on the water plants along the bottom, and assemble onto the card backing with the ribbon.

Stamps: Artful INKables Pond Friends
Paper: GP 110, Pacific Point
Ink: Momento Tuxedo Black, Baja Breeze, Pacific Point, Certainly Celery
Accessories: Copics, Stamp-a-majig, Nesties, ribbon from a swap, fine black marker

Enjoy!
Michelle B.
"Queen of the Scene"

Said Sarcastically.....

I used to work in a department that said "just another day in paradise" whenever we were having a bad day! I've been working a lot of hours lately and I'm kinda burned out. Remembering that saying inspired this card to cheer myself up and get moving on a Monday morning!

I stamped the images and then masked the water with a sticky note. I cut a little island curve into another sticky note and sponged in River Rock. I removed that sticky and sponged in a bit of Bashful Blue. Next I sponged a bit of Pacific Point just along the horizon line (sticky note). Finally, I colored in the images with Copics.

Ahh, now I feel much better!

Stamps: Artful INKables Paradise Island
Paper: Papertrey White
Ink: Momento Tuxedo Black, River Rock, Bashful Blue, Pacific Point
Accessories: Copics, Stamp-a-majig

Enjoy!
Michelle B.
"Queen of the Scene"

FCD January Hop!

Welcome to the January Firecracker Designs By Pamela Blog Hop! This month's theme is "Reduce Reuse Recycle." A horse-loving co-worker was telling me that she needed a small calendar on her desk this year and I bet you could probably see the little light bulb going on above my head! I decided to make a calendar from an old CD case I used to keep stamps in.

NOTE: The official start time of this Hop is Friday, at 8:00 AM (EST). If you arrived early, please be patient as all the links may not be live yet.

This is a “circular blog hop” where the only beginning is wherever you start!! You will know you are at the end of your blog hop when you’ve come back to the blog you’ve started from! (It’s not a huge circle…so it should be easy to remember where you started.) The winner will be chosen from a mystery blog hostess that we don’t even know who it will be until the hop is over…so that’s why you’ll want to leave a comment on EVERY blog, so you don’t miss out!**To find out if you’ve won… you will be contacted by Pamela via e-mail (so be sure to leave it with your comment.) and you can also find out on Pamela’s blog after the blog hop ends on Mon, at 8:00 PM (EST).

Now, to continue the circle, you will need to hop on over to SHELLY'S BLOG!!!!

Deets on this calendar: The hardest part was finding a calendar! Most are created with tiny little calendars that you can stamp around. I wanted to stamp ON the calendar. I finally found this one that was created in Excel. This enabled me to enlarge it and still space it properly on the page. OK, so once that trauma was over, I simply stamped a horse onto the calendar, added the flourish around the month title, and sponged some brown onto the edges. There are so many good sized horses in my Horses of Courses set that I only had to repeat each horse once! Here's a few other months so you get the idea:

Stamps: FireCracker Designs by Pamela Horses of Courses
Paper: GP110
Ink: Creamy Caramel, Riding Hood Red or Bravo Burgundy I can't remember!
Accessories: empty CD case

Enjoy!
Michelle B.
Designer for FireCracker Designs by Pamela

My First Collage

I've been working tons of hours so I'm sleeping in instead of doing the sketch challenge today. Boo hoo! But I do have this beauty to show you!

I've been wanting to try a collage ever since I saw Michelle Zindorf's tutorial. Why so long? I was chicken to try, didn't think I had the right stamps, blah blah blah..... I've gone back to that tutorial a few times and finally realized what I was missing. I didn't feel like I knew what stamps to put where in order to make this work. I think I finally have the recipe and my new stamps from Artful INKables were perfect!

Here's the recipe:

Color - You need at least 4 variations of the same color. I have: very light (River Rock), medium light (Creamy Caramel), medium dark (Close to Cocoa) and dark brown (Chocolate Chip).

Images - One kinda large mostly white or very light image. Swirls or leafy vines of some sort are a must. Several other images of different sizes.

• First, place the large mostly white image off center. Mask or clear emboss. Surround by the lightest ink (I used River Rock).
• Color the bottom 1/3 with the medium dark ink (I used Close to Cocoa).
• Color the top 2/3's in the medium light ink (I used Creamy Caramel). This is best if done kinda sloppy - leave some lighter and darker areas. Don't completely cover your lightest area with that main image.
• Add some areas all around randomly with the darkest ink (I used Chocolate Chip).
• Then fill in with various images and colors of ink. I started with the largest images first (diamond pattern and swirls). I added the swirls in 2 colors for depth.
• Add one image in black (the wolf print).
• Fill in the rest with smaller images/sentiments in various browns.

This was so fun that I could hardly stop myself from filling up the whole page!

Stamps: Artful INKables Into the Moonlight, Artful INKables Fictionally Inspired
Paper: Whisper White, Black, Close to Cocoa
Ink: Momento Tuxedo Black, River Rock, Creamy Caramel, Close to Cocoa, Chocolate Chip
Accessories: Copics, clear detail embossing powder, Virsamark pen

Enjoy!
Michelle B.

Love Bites

Did you miss me? Yeah, me too! Last week I worked a ton of hours and then I hunkered down all weekend with my stamps to prepare some upcoming posts for you so stay tuned!

The new release by FireCracker Designs by Pamela has a set that gives a nod to the Twilight series of books. This sample features the new set Love Bites. Not a Twilight fan? Make sure you check out this set versatile set anyway. You can pre-order this set and the other new sets and save $$. While you are there, make sure you check out the Twinkling H20's that FCD now caries!

This was a pretty quick and simple card to make. I colored the main heart image with Copics. I heavily sponged the Creamy Caramel panel with more Creamy Caramel ink and a bit of Chocolate ink. The red and chocolate panels are also sponged with Chocolate ink. The sentiment is handled the same way.

Stamps: FireCracker Designs by Pamela Love Bites
Paper: GP 110, Real Red, Creamy Caramel, Chocolate Chip
Ink: Momento Tuxedo Black, Creamy Caramel, Chocolate Chip
Accessories: Copics, Word Window Punch, Modern Label Punch

Enjoy!
Michelle B.

All Lovely Dovey for the AI "Charm"ing Hop!

Welcome to the Artful Inkables’ “Charm”ing hop! If you arrived here from Lisa's blog, then you are in the right spot! If not, you should begin the hop on Kristin’s Blog (Artful Inkables), so that you can get the full show.

I was looking at this charm with those cute little birds all snuggled up into a heart and was saying to myself "they are all lovey dovey." So I decided to pair this charm with this bird from A Bird's Song and add some hearts cut with my Cricut. Wouldn't this be great for Valentine's Day or an anniversary!

Now you've been told along the way that there will be a prize giveaway at the end of the hop and here you are! Be sure you left a comment on the blogs along the way in order to be entered into the random.org drawing because................. Artful INKables will be giving one lucky winner a set of their choice AND a matching charm! Whoo Hoo!

I hope you enjoyed the hop and you are inspired to add some charms to your next creation!

Stamps: Artful INKables A Bird’s Song
Paper: Real Red, GP 110
Ink: Momento Tuxedo Black, Baja Breeze
Accessories: Charm from Artful INKables, Copics, Nesties (to cut out that half circle), White Prismacolor Pencil, Cricut and Doodlecharms Cartridge, embroidery floss

Enjoy!
Michelle B.
"Queen of the Scene"

Watercolor for a Change

I don't know why but I felt like watercoloring. It's not my best skill so I really should keep at it until I "get it". As my focal point, I choose this beautiful flower from the FireCracker Designs by Pamela set Fall Flowers.

I stamped the flower and leaf. Then I watercolored the image by first applying the color with my blender pen and then moving it around with an aqua pen. I started with the lightest color and then worked to the darkest. The DP was embossed with the Textile Texture folder and then sponged with Soft Suede.

Stamps: FireCracker Designs by Pamela Fall Flowers
Paper: Watercolor Paper, Soft Suede, DP from Mike’s
Ink: Almost Amethyst, Perfect Plum, Elegant Eggplant, Chocolate Chip, Soft Suede, Certainly Celery, Garden Green
Accessories: Blender pen, Aqua Pen, Textile Texure Embossing Folder

Enjoy!
Michelle B.

Twilight Inspired Bookmark

For Christmas, I received the 4th book in my beloved Twilight series. I've been putting off starting the book because I don't want it to be over! I told myself I couldn't start this book until I made a proper bookmark using my new Twilight inspired sets from Artful INKables. I usually use a scrap of paper torn from a piece of mail or something really classy like that. Ha!

The images were stamped, colored, cut out and pieced into place. I choose to use this sentiment as I am still undecided which team I am on. Here is a closeup:

Stamps: Artful INKables Into the Moonlight, Artful INKables Fictionally Inspired
Paper: Basic Black, Real Red, GP 110
Ink: Momento Tuxedo Black
Accessories: Copics, Nesties, Ribbon from Pink Hedgehog, Horizontal slot punch

Enjoy!

Michelle B.

Disco BABY!

OK, so its a really long story about how I got to this but essentially I had 48 hours notice that I was having 14 girls over to my house for a scout meeting last Friday night. I decided to work on the dance badge which included talking about dancing thru the ages. Couldn't skip Disco, right? My kids wanted to make a disco ball so they found a ball in the basement and we used the Scallop Circle Punch to punch silver metallic paper and taped the punches to the ball. We hung the ball from a ceiling fan blade and spun the fan on low. HA! We moved all the furniture out of the living room so the girls had plenty of room to dance. I even led a Congo line. I think the meeting was a success and we'll laugh about this for years to come!

Michelle B.

Drawn or Stamped?

I had started out with a slightly different idea but this project just kind of took on a life of its own. I had intended to use this fabulous tree from FireCracker Designs by Pamela with a red barn (also FCD) in the snow. But I got to stamping in the grays and thought it looked kinda cool so I just ran with it. It reminds me of the pencil sketches my little brother used to do.

There is only ONE color of ink on this project (very odd for me!). I stamped the large tree, the hill, the barn, and the small trees (masking the barn roof to tuck some trees behind). Then came the sponging. I masked and sponged in the shadow of the large tree, some ground for the small trees, a shadow for the barn, and just a bit in my snow drift up front. Hmmm....still needed something so I put a few mountains in the back. Here's how I sponge mountains. I'm laughing at myself because I kept the mask from that tutorial oh so long ago and its the exact one I used on this project! Ha! Lastly, I used my blender pen to add a few shadows under the roof line of the barn, at the base of the tree, etc.

Stamps: FireCracker Designs by Pamela Create-A-Scene, FireCracker Designs by Pamela Scenic Byways
Paper: Papertrey White, Basic Grey
Ink: Going Grey
Accessories: Blender pen

Enjoy!
Michelle B.
"Queen of the Scene"

CIC4 & TESC96 New Stamps in the House!

Just received a package containing some new stamps from Clear Dollar Stamps. So, I had to hurry tonight and make this card for the Clear Dollar Stamps challenge CIC4 this week to use brads. I had the design all planned out in my head...just needed those stamps to arrive! I was able to squeeze 3 new sets onto this one card! The sketch is TESC96 from Taylored Expressions.

I started by embossing the bottom section of the white card base. Next I used a circle Nestie to guide me in stamping the sentiments in a circular arrangement. The brads fit nicely in the space between the embossing and circular stamping. Then I went on to my main image area. I used a torn post it to mask off the snow area. Bashful Blue was brayered on the sky area and a touch of Blue Bayou was brayered on top of that. I sponged Not Quite Navy around the sky edge. The tree was stamped in black and then I stamped the tree again in Soft Sky to create the shadow in the snow. The little bird was stamped, colored with Copics, and white highlights added with a white Prismacolor pencil. I used a blender pen and Soft Sky ink to color in a little shadow for him. I added "snow" to the tree branches with a white gel pen.

Stamps: Clear Dollar Stamps Walk In the Park, Clear Dollar Stamps Deer Wishes, Clear Dollar Stamps Snowman Wishes
Paper: Papertrey White, Bashful Blue
Ink: Soft Sky, Bashful Blue, Blue Bayou, Not Quite Navy, Momento Tuxedo Black
Accessories: Nestie, Snowflakes Embossing Folder, Brads from Mike’s, White gel pen, Copics, White Prismacolor pencil, blender pen

Enjoy!

Michelle B.

"Queen of the Scene"

AI Silhouette Mini Book

It's time for another Artful INKables challenge. This time the challenge is to create a monochromatic card. Hope you'll play along and get your chance to win some AI stamps! Here are the complete details. Now the challenge actually said "card" but I just received a Bind-It-All from my wonderful DH for Christmas and couldn't wait to use it.....so my piece is a mini book.

I started by stamping these lovely flower silhouettes from Plant Prints in just Virsamark onto some Very Vanilla cardstock and embossed them with clear detail embossing powder. Then I brayered Creamy Caramel at an angle from the 2 opposite outer corners almost to the center. Next I brayered Chocoloate Chip at an angle towards the center but left some of the Creamy Caramel showing. I adhered my piece to a chipboard coaster, sponged the edges in black, and bound it into a book with some white pages in the center and a plain brown covered coaster for the back. A few ribbons and .... Ta da!

Stamps: Artful INKables Plant Prints
Paper: Very Vanilla, Chocolate Chip (back), GP 110 (filler pages in book)
Ink: Creamy Caramel, Chocolate Chip, Basic Black
Accessories: Virsamark, Clear detail embossing powder, Bind-It-All & wire, ribbon from Pink Hedgehog, Coasters, corner rounder (for filler pages)

Enjoy!
Michelle B.

Another Christmas Catchup Post

I've been working on lots of projects that I can't wait to show you over the next 2 weeks but for now, you'll have to settle for a catchup post. Every Christmas I give away a few gift cards. Every Christmas I wait til the last minute to figure out how to package them. Ug. When will I learn?!?!

This year, I found a free template from My Time Made Easy for these cute little boxes and also the DP on the center box. You can get yours HERE. PS: Those little boxes are the perfect size for a pack of crayons to fit in....I tested it myself!

The other two boxes are decorated with various colors of pink and blue inks and the Stampin Up Snowfall set. Ribbons are SU and Pink Hedgehog. Brad's from Mike's

Oh, and did you hear? I made the Top Crops over at Taylored Expressions for my Beautiful Mermaid card. Yippee!!!

Enjoy!
Michelle B.

Pretzel Carrier

So, let's begin with the loooooong story of how this project came to be. Months ago, my husband brought drinks home from the local gas station in this carrier. I decided to keep it for a future project.

Then on New Years we went to a party at a friend of my 7 yo son. I had never been past the front door of the house before. When I walked into their kitchen I was blown away. It was decorated in only black and white with accents of silver and the black was mostly in the form of damask prints. It was absolutely gorgeous! Now, I brought chocolate covered pretzel rods to the party and I was thinking I should have altered this drink carrier to put them in but I didn't get that done. Ever since, I've been thinking about the altered pretzel carrier that didn't happen and that gorgeous kitchen.

Today I go to see what the inspiration challenge is over on SCS and I find this piece (again the total black and white thing going on). ALL RIGHT ALREADY! I will go and make the black and white altered pretzel carrier thingee so I can get that thought out of my head. Shew, I feel better now! Ha! I rolled up some gold paper just for the pic to give you an idea of what the pretzels would have looked like in there. I was too late for my party but maybe this idea will work for you in the future!

Stamps: Artful INKables Plant Prints
Paper: Basic Black, GP 110, Silver paper from Mike’s
Ink: Momento Tuxedo Black
Accessories: Scallop Edge Punch

Enjoy!
Michelle B.