WMS Friendly Feature

It has been quite on my blog for way too long. It was very unexpected. I have missed my craft time and am learning that I really need to make time for it as it helps me be a better person. For those who have still hung around I want to let you know that I have been very honored to be asked to be February's Friendly Feature over at the WMS Team Talk Blog. WMS stamps are one of my favorite stamp companies. Below is my peek so if you would like to see the full card plus the extra one I created please go over to the WMS Team Talk Blog and leave me a message.

Flutterby is back!

It is August and that means that the Flutterby Challenge blog is back and ready to go. We enjoyed our summer and hope that ya'll did too. Our first challenge of this month is an easy one: Any thing goes as long as it has wings. We thought this was a good way to bring back the fun since it is a popular one with ya'll.

For my card I decided to do just what the challenge suggested and use something other than a butterfly. With school getting ready to start back up and fall on its way, I decided to use a cute owl for my card. He is from PTI's Wise Owl set and the branch and leaves are from PTI's Take a Bough. I paper pieced the owls body and wings with paper some old Basic Grey paper I had laying around. The card base background and the background for the owl was from Basic Grey's Basics White pad to add to the school feeling.

Poppies Sympathy

My family had an unexpected death this past week and so I needed to create a sympathy card for family. He was a good and simple man. He loved his wife and daughters and was always one to make others laugh. He will be missed terribly. With that in mind I set to creating a card for them with poppies. These are beautiful flowers that have several meanings with one of them being remembrance.

The card it self is a simple three layer card: base is vanilla then kraft and then vanilla again. For the top layer I used PTI's Botanical Silhouettes and stamped the leaves in green with the poppies in red while the sentiment is in kraft. I then took some colored pencils to the flowers to help add a little depth. Once everything was stamped/colored I used the Linen plate from PTI to emboss the whole layer. Creating these cards aren't hard for me though. Sad yes, hard not as much. It's finding the words for the inside that cause me problems because really what can one say...

Celebrate Something

Whatever it is that you want to celebrate go for it! That's the theme of this card. I found out that Curtain Call is back and for their welcome back challenge they gave us a nautical inspiration collage. Now let me let you in on a little secret...I own not one nautical stamp. This proved to be a bit of a challenge for me to get in on the fun.

I decided I would pull from the colors of the inspiration: blue, yellow, green, with just a touch of kraft/brown. While going through my stamp to see if I could use something for the nautical vibe I came across my WMS Off Beat Background. In this amazing set there is a stamp with two stripe for creating plaid, well I used them for the stripes that one typically sees with the above theme. I simply masked off the thin strip. I went with blue stripes since that royal blue purse was the first thing I saw and then the yellow shorts. I wasn't in the mood for an all stripe card so I kept digging through my stamps and came across PTI's Heart-2-Heart #5. This set is a sweet little banner building set, and what boat isn't complete without some little flags/banners. I didn't want my banners to be all one color so I pulled three from the picture. Since my blue wasn't as bright as the purse, I went with a softer yellow, and my third was the green from the palm peeking through in the above picture. The striped flag is still blue to carry that theme through (and because I wanted it to be my dominate color) while the heart banners are the soft yellow. I knew the green would be a tad brighter so I kept the green banner down to only three (and if you noticed they are placed in a pleasing triangle). I used the lined flag image to stamp it onto white c/s and then with a watercolor brush and watered down ink I painted in the flags. The sentiment was stamped in the stamp blue I used with the stripes and flags to finish it off. However, once I layered it together i felt it was missing something. I inked a strip of white c/s with the yellow ink and layered it just so that it is peeking from under the flags/banner and then with foam dots I put the image panel down. Still not right, so I die cut three small hearts from kraft c/s and covered some of the hearts on the yellow flags. I figured kraft was very nautical since it is used for straw hats, warfs, boats, etc. The other hearts I color with a glitter pen and then went over with glossy accent to help define them. For the finishing touch I add some brown faux stitching down the side with the stripes and yellow was and round the bottom corner of the card. I great card that could be used for a baby shower or just because.

Love Birds

Today's card was inspired by not only a sketch, but a talented blogger as well. Tracy did an amazing card with mini-tutorial on creating a hidden window for your card. When I saw the card I couldn't wait to try it out myself. The Fusion Card Challenge was just the ticket to get my creative juices going too.

I used a PTI mat stack die to cut out the frame. The banner was created by placing some washi tape onto vellum and then using a banner die to cut it out. Once glued down I did some faux stitching all the way around to give the frame and banner something to anchor them. The scene on the card base was created using PTI's Little Bitty Bird set because I really liked the birds from the photo of the challenge. First I stamped the image with brown Momento ink and then used my copics to color in the images. I thought the green leave accented the bird nicely and allowed me to use the colors from the photo too. To get my sky I simply coated the birds and leaves with glossy accent and once dried I lightly sponged Tumbled Glass around it. I didn't feel it was complete so I added the sentiment from the same set as well as the heart. I then colored in the heart with copics and went over it with my glitter pen. I then popped up the cover piece with the window and banners over the scene. I had so much fun with this that I created another card that I will share later this week.

Let it snow frame

Continuing with the snowy background that I have been creating lately for my cards, I created a framed one. I promise My next card will not be Christmas-y, lol. It feels great getting caught up on my Christmas card stash though. There are times when I want to just buy our cards, but then I look through my stamps and get inspired. Playing along with WMS's Christmas card challenges and Festive Fridays really help inspire me too. In fact, I am going to throw this on into the ring for the current FF challenge: Snow.

This time I decided to use the background as part of the framed scene I created. It was super easy to put together using the Country Landscape die by Memory Keepers. I simply die cut the image three times and cut them how I wanted. I then took a glitter pen and colored and outlined the parts I wanted to sparkle. A few punched, sparkled snowflakes and a sweet sentiment finished it off perfectly. A CAS card without the typical solid background.

Here is a close up of the sparkle.

Stary Christmas

I've got another Christmas card for ya'll today. This one if for the WMS Christmas Card Challenge - July. This is the month I am hosting the fun. We have made it to the half way mark. How is everyone doing with their Christmas Card stash? I admit that I fell behind, but I have now caught up and feeling the pressure (that I create for myself) go down as I watch my stack of completed Christmas cards go up.

The month of July for Americans and Canadians is important because we both celebrate our country's birthday (on different days). It is important to me personally because it is also my birthday month. In honor of all of these big celebrations and the "stars" of them, my challenge to you is to use at least one STAR on your card. Also, be sure you used at least one WMS stamp on your card (this doesn't have to be the star).

I created two cards again with each one being just a touch different but both using the same sketch from CASE(E) this Sketch!. With the one you see above, I splattered some Iridescent Gold Glimmer Mist. The one on the right below has no glimmer mist but I did stamp a trio of stars in the upper corner of them main image. The card base is vanilla that I lined in gold. I used a navy c/s for the next layer and stamped three different stars (the largest and smallest are from WMS sets) in gold ink. The gold glitter strip if sticky back paper I found in my stash. Bonus b/c this means the glitter won't come off and create a mess. I used WMS's Festive Foliage for both the sentiment and image. The bottom layer of holly is the second generation stamping for a softer look while the main leaves and berries are popped up and stamped full force.

Be sure to head over to the WMS gallery to link up your card so that we call all "ohhh" and "awww" over them too.