WUAC Wednesday (Thursday....)

  So this week's WUAC Wednesday is a little bit different. I won't be posting a series of photos that will go through the process of me whipping up a card. Instead, this week I'm just posting pictures of a project that I'll be having guests make at my open house this Saturday! So the two pictures feature a gift card holder. Jinnee actually found the template online found HERE. A SUPER cute gift card holder that is really easy to make with a few score lines and some paper and sticky strip. Now here I've made it using Sahara Sand, Olid Olive DSP, Always Artichoke and either Not Quite Navy or Rose Red. I'm not 100% thrilled with the color combination. I had a really tough time pairing colors up with the Old Olive DSP. I think I might play around with some other papers I have and come up with a different color scheme for the open house. Speaking of which...

So this Saturday between 12 and 3 pm, will be my very first public open house. I don't have huge plans for it to be honest. I've got some friends coming and a neighbor. I did post a big sign up on my window and had a poster up on a community bulletin board at Sobey's for a few days but I really don't suspect it'll draw a lot of people in. And of course I did a massive Facebook invite and I've got a couple responses from that. Along with my open house, I'm having my friend Rosie over who is an Epicure consultant. I'm super excited to have her because the first time I was at her open house I didn't buy a lot of things but the more I use what I bought, the more I want to buy!!! Makes me uber excited. I'll have to clear out some space in our "pantry" (really just a china cabinet that the previous owners let behind for us).  So I'll post some updates after the open house and hopefully get some pictures and what not. If you're in the city and interested in coming, leave me a comment with your contact info and I'll get some more info to you. 

G'nite! 

WUAC Wednesday Rules:

1. You have 1 week to make a card inspired by the card I've made. It can be any inspiration that is related to this card. So that means it can be the same layout, design, stamp set, colors, etc etc.

2. Link it to Mister Linky below. If I find a spam link or if you link incorrectly, it will be deleted. Link to the blog entry and NOT to your general blog.

WUAC Wednesday

So this is finally a WUAC Wednesday that I haven't combined with another card challenge. Why you may ask? Because I'm sick and I'm tired and it's late and most of all, I'm lazy. =) So I started off this WUAC Wednesday with a 3.5"x3.5" card. I trimmed the one edge to be 1/4" shorter so I'd be able to scallop the edge and be able to fit a sentiment so your cardstock should be cut at 6.75"x3.5"

Next I took my beloved scalloped edge punch to put a nice border. Remember to scallop the shorter edge!! I've scalloped the wrong edge many many times. Now I know many of the punches we use, we face it upside down so we can see what we're punching and I was doing the same thing with the scallop edge punch, lining up the scallops from the bottom. But alas, I figured out a nicer way!! You ever go to punch an edge and realize at the end that you never end up having both sides of your paper end off on the same scallop? One side may have a full scallop while the other side has 1/2 a scallop or worse, 1/4 scallop. So what you can do now, and SU has designed it quite nicely (just took me a while to figure it out!) is take your paper and line up your two paper edges along the picture they've given you to see how you'd like the two ends to look. I've found my paper would look best with about 1/2 scallops so that's where I start. I punch right in the middle of my card (not moving my paper from where I've lined up my edges).

Next I just line up the punched scallops to the scallops on the front rather than on the bottom like I was doing before. Also helps punching this way because you can push down as opposed to using just your fingers when you had to look at the punch from the bottom to line up. I don't know about you but when I figured this out tonite, I thought it was ingenious!!! Perhaps everyone already knew this but boy do I feel SMRT!! (and yes, I meant SMRT)

These cards are super easy to make so I whipped up a bunch of them. Here I've scalloped 4 little guys.

Next I used SU's Seeing Spots stamp set that I accidently aquired when I ordered it by accident for a customer. I started with Sahara Sand and the boldest stamp out of the set.

Next I used Chocolate Chip.

Now you can put ANY color here which is the nice part. Just make sure you've got matching cardstock and any color would look great on here. I've used the retired Blue Bayou and in color Riding Hood Red.

I was looking for a nice solid sentiment and decided to steal the sentiment from SU's Upsy Daisy. I love that set. Now I didn't want to use the "for your friendship" portion so that's where SU markers come in. I love how you can pick and choose what to stamp in whatever color you want with the markers. So I took Chocolate Chip and colored just the "Thank You".

Now here's the finished card. All I did was stamp the sentiment and cut out a little strip of coordinating cardstock 3.5"x 0.75" and glued it on. I actually came up with this card one day with Regan. She was making a V-day card and I was trying to copy the Simply Sent Elements and More kit in SU's current catalogue. I made it a bit larger and gave it to Regan for her 30th birthday. I also did coordinating envelopes for these little guys.

WUAC Wednesday Rules:

1. You have 1 week to make a card inspired by the card I've made. It can be any inspiration that is related to this card. So that means it can be the same layout, design, stamp set, colors, etc etc.

2. Link it to Mister Linky below. If I find a spam link or if you link incorrectly, it will be deleted. Link to the blog entry and NOT to your general blog.

Color Inspiration 45

So I didn't think I'd have time to play this week's color inspiration by Kristina but it's Jamie's parents surprise retirement party tonite and we have to leave the house in like 10 minutes so I honestly just WUAC'ed and I'm not 100% happy with it but honestly that was probably the fastest I've EVER made a card. So the lines aren't super straight and the layout isn't unique but oh well!! And to my dismay, I don't have stamp set that says Congrats!!! Can you believe it?!?!? So good thing I just put in a order and got the Congrats set from Sale-a-bration! I was excited because I thought, "Hey I have the Chit Chat rub-ons, there MUST be something I could use in there." But nope, not a single thing. They had everything from Happy Birthday, to Hugs and Kisses to even Welcome Neighbor!!! Geez... So I had to handwrite the word in and I know my handwriting is AWFUL but when push comes to shove... that's not the right saying is it? When you're desperate... that's better... Anyways I'm feeling absolutely awful today. I think my headcold is peaking today and I've been blowing my nose every 3 minutes. Nuclear green snot is never a good thing....

Ingredients:

Stamps: Baroque Motifs

Accessories: Ribbon (the black is from Walmart, the sheer one underneath is from an old gift I got), white gel pen, Pretties Kit

Paper: Basic grey, basic black and whisper white

WUAC Wednesday, iheart2stamp & TCPTues49 Challenge

Well it's my very first iheart2stamp AND TCPTues challenge. It's also another week of WUAC Wednesday!!! Now I know Regan and Arlie are the only two that play WUAC Wednesday but I still enjoy sharing a card on Wednesdays. Well maybe it's starting to become a bit tiring because I'm always staying up late posting Tuesday night. Tuesday is also when we go over to Jamie's parents house for supper. So I didn't get home till just after 9 pm. Then I had to poke around and see what I wanted to make! So of course now it's 12:30 and I'm tired tired tired!!

So the challenge colors are light pink, light yellow and light blue. Boy oh boy did I have a hard time combining those colors with the sketch. I described the color challenge to Jamie as such, "Oh boy, oh wait, girl, oh wait, gender neutral." So I decided to use some pink as the main color since I've been in a girly mood lately. Why you might ask? I have no idea why... LOL. So here I decided to start with a regular A2 white base, then I cut Pretty in Pink at 3.5"x4.5" and Pink Pirouette 1/8" smaller all around.

Next I needed to try and incorporate some light yellow so I chose to stay in the Soft Subtles family and used Barely Banana in 4"x2 1/8" and layered some Pretty in Pink DSP on top (cut 1/8" smaller again).

Then I cut the next layers using Barely Banana, Pretty in Pink and Whisper White. The Barely Banana is cut at 3"x 2 1/4" and the rest 1/8" smaller (and so forth).

So now it was time to include the dreaded blue!! I pulled out Baja Breeze, Bashful Blue and the retired Soft Sky. I also decided to use the Itty Bitty Buds set because it's the only floral set that I felt suited the colors and had enough different small sized stamps that I could use the different blues with.




So I stamped an extra blue flower just to the bottom right of the picture to cut out and have a yellow brad in it to put a touch more yellow. (I'm not sure which "yellow" the brad is.. I think it's actually So Saffron).

This picture I just wanted to take to show how many flipping layers this card has. I think Arlie is absolutely right. I'm a big layer-er... She's a big border user, although she did make 2 cards WITHOUT border punches!! I haven't seen them yet though because I can't convince her to start a blog!

Now for the gluing together. I wanted to use a friendship stamp so I can give this card to Jinnee and of course I had originally cut out a flower already that's beside the sentiment and glued it in place but then I had no room to stamp! What'd I do? I tried to stamp anyways so I ended up stamping it crooked. Gr...Chucked that and redid the whole thing.

Now I skipped a few steps but they're pretty easy to imagine. I bought these two buckets of little flowers at Staples!! Only cost $5 each and you get loads of them. They both also have a little goldish shine to them. Like they're sprinkled with gold dust or something. They say bride because they're actually table confetti. So I just took a few of those, pierced a hole with my crafter's tool kit and added some yellow brads. I actually retract my guess that it's So Saffron and I change it to Barely Banana because it's a Soft Subtles brad pack... Anyways then I used some pop-up glue dots, cut them in half and glued them in place. Lastly to finish off I cut a piece of Bashful Blue cardstock and DSP and layered that on. The sentiment is from the retired SU! set Best Yet. Boy do I LOVE that sentiment set. Probably my most used set to date. Alright, lets see if I can get into bed by 1 am. G'nite!!













WUAC Wednesday Info:
1. Your card needs to somehow link to the one I've posted. It can be the same layout, colors, embellishments, stamp set etc.
2. Link to your blog entry (NOT your main blog) in Mister Linky below. Any links that are entered incorrectly or do not actually have a WUAC card will be deleted.
3. There's no time limit but there's a new WUAC every week.

Mojo #76 & Color Inspiration #44

I'm cutting it pretty close for this week's card challenges. I just haven't had time!! This morning I had a team meeting with my Stampin' Up team and so whatever time I did have I just sat around making swaps for it. So this week I've yet again, snuck in two challenges into one card. I just don't have enough time to make a seperate card for each individual challenge. Even with my cheat and combine method I STILL am not able to participate in all the challenges that I would like. Just take a look at my "Card Challenges" links on the right hand side of the page. It's crazy how many there are and how many MORE there are out there. Anyways this week I've combined Mojo Monday and Kristina's Color Inspiration.

I aboslutely LOVE my new Anya stamp set. I have yet to use nurse Anya and teacher Anya but the angel Anya is just so darn cute!! Regan said she tried buying her on the Greeting Farm website but it's sold out. I also checked out All That Scraps (I LOVE this site by the way) and they're sold out of most of them as well. One of the sites that DOES have it in stock is my most hated Treehouse Stamps. Beware though!!! It may say in stock but you might just have to wait over a month for your order because "it was out of stock".

Back to the card though... I don't know if you can tell from the picture but I used dimensionals throughout the layering. I even popped up her wings! But this is what Jamie had to say about it, "Why are her wings popped up? Her wings should be in the back!" and while yes, I agree he is right... I still think the wings look cool. Jamie just wants me to "make her a bobble head, cuz that'd be COOL"....

Ingredients for this card recipe:

Stamps: Angel Anya (The Greeting Farm), Best Yet (Retired SU)

Paper: Pink Pirouette, Chocolate Chip, Whisper White, Bella Rose DSP, Chocolate Chip DSP, watercolor paper

Inks: StazOn in Jet Black, Close to Cocoa, Chocolate Chip, Pink Pirouette, Pretty in Pink

Accessories: Brown satin ribbon from Walmart

Tools: Paper piercer, blender pen, aqua painter

WUAC Wednesday & OCC Sketch Challenge

So yet again another late night for WUAC Wednesday. I really gotta find a way to post WUAC Wednesday eariler. Perhaps I should start cheating and just make up the post over the weekend and just save it as a draft till late Tuesday nights. I'll have to definitely think of something because these late nights are killin' me! Especially since I've got to wake up early tomorrow for work. So lets get started! This week's WUAC Wednesday I've combined with my very first Our Creative Corner (OCC) sketch challenge.

If you remember my huge rant about Treehousestamps, well this is one of the stamps that I got from there. I'd probably just get future Greeting Farm stamps directly from their website. So this super SUPER adorable stamp is called Angel Anya. There's a huge series of Anya stamps and I've got 3 of them: angel Anya, nurse Anya and teacher Anya. I also have little cute Ian as well. Now for some reason I had really wanted to use the blue designer paper from SU.

So I cute out your basic card base (5.5"x4.25") and made the blue designer paper 1/8" smaller to layer onto the white base. I stamped angel Anya in StazOn onto water color paper. I used StazOn rather than regular black Stampin' Up classic ink because I was planning on watercoloring the image and StazOn will prevent any smearing.



Now as usual I'm in a little bit of a rush to get to bed so I didn't even bother taking photos of the coloring. I was determined to color the entire image with just blender pens but alas, I had to succumb to the aqua painter and used it a touch as well. I attempted to do the oh so popular shading but it didn't turn out quite as hot. I first colored all the hair in Barely Banana. Then I just took Summer Sun and went around some of the edges. I have no idea where the "sun would hit" so I just color whatever. The dress is a combo of Pink Pirouette and Rose Red.



Next I needed to use my trusty Coluzzle to cut out an oval shape. You get two templates when you buy the Coluzzle from Stampin' Up (one oval and one circle). Super easy to use. Just line up your paper and use the blade that's with the kit, stick it in the groove and pull. Super simple.



Decided finally to layer the Whisper White onto some Brocade Blue. I would have never used that blue but thanks to Kristina's last color challenge, I still had pieces of it floating around.







Now this part made me super sad about my Coluzzle. I really hate how the size difference between one oval and the next is SOOO gimongous. I really had a smaller border in mind but at this point I couldn't figure out how to alter the template to get me a smaller cut.






Now I know you might think this picture and the previous one are exactly the same at first glance but look closely. I thought the white background was a touch plain so I took out the trusty sponge and sponged the background with Bashful Blue and Summer Sun.




Now I skipped a few pictures here but I'm really trying to save on time. I cut out a strip of Whisper White and scalloped the edge. Than I layered onto it a sheet of the exact same designer paper but just flipped (Yes the polka dots are on the other side of the swirly). I needed to add some ribbon to the card to tie it into the sketch so I used some Vanilla satin ribbon from Walmart and some blue ribbon I've had for probably over 10 years now that I just haven't used.

Glued both the extra piece of cardstock on and my ribbon. Lastly I popped up both Anya and the main oval with dimensionals.

To finish off the card I needed a little something something in the corner so I pulled out my trusty Prisma flowers and decided to add a pink and yellow one together. I put them together with mini glue dots and added a pearl from my Pretties Kit. Then I added it to the card with a pop-up glue dot.
Final product.... Tah dah! That only took me eons to do!! Boy watercoloring really takes a long time. Especially when you suck at it. Oh and in case you haven't noticed... I actually did a few more things. I pierced the edge of the oval for something extra and I also hand cut/eye-balled the Brocade Blue oval to make it smaller. Hope you've enjoyed another WUAC Wednesday and that you'll WUAC and post it for all to see!



If you'd like to play along for WUAC Wednesday, the rules are simple:
WUAC that has something related to the card I've made. It's being kept real simple right now so that means you can do anything!! It can be the same color, the same stamp, the same embellishments, the same technique or even the same tool (Coluzzle or scalloped edge). Post the link to your blog entry in Mister Linky below. Please do NOT just link your main blog address or link to your blog if you are not playing along. Those links will be deleted.

**P.S.** I have NO idea why the pictures and spacing are so messed up. I looked and looked at the html and all the coding stuff. I'll have to try looking again another day. It's 1:30 and I gotta wake up for work soon enough. So sorry about the hard read with spacing and such. Hopefully I can fix it. G'nite!

FREE BLOG CANDY!!

So I sorta tricked you with the title. I'm not giving away free blog candy. But I'm not lying completely. The awesome Starving Artistamps has a great give-away. I absolutely ADORE the Doodle Factory stamp sets and only owning one set is definitely NOT enough!! The rubber is awesome and the characters are SUPER cute. Starving Artistamps has super fast delivery too!! So on the left is a sample of a new set from Doodle Factory called Easter. Now all you have to do to enter for this super cute set is spread the word about the new stamp set. Do as I did, post an entry about the new set on your blog and go and post a comment on Starving Artistamps blog. Give me a mention also otherwise they won't believe me that I'm promoting their awesome stuff!! And trust me, the stuff is pretty awesome. Now up up and away with the word spreading!!