Finesse the Dress

This is a new contest for me. This weeks challenge was to design a project using this dress as inspiration:

It is a cute dress, not something I would ever ware for a number of reasons. Here is my card:

I took a second photo so you could get a better idea:

I adore the turquoise/gray combo however I don't own turquoise ink so I went with blue. Trying to capture the embroidery in the dress I did a clear emboss over pumice stone ink. Than I inked over it. Keeping the idea of fabric in mind I pleated white (I don't own gray.. note to self get some) ribbon down the inside of the front panel. As it needed a bit more I added that great black ribbon. I curved the top corners in order to give it more feminine feel

I'm very happy with the results.. It's busy yet simple. This was the first card I did were I sketched out something and then created it. It didn't come out like the sketch but I like it. :D

Here's most of what I used:

InLinkz.com

The sentiment is from my favoritest stamp set ever! Oh my do I love this set. There's some serious love going on. It's from Close to my Heart, unfortunately you can't just look at it on their website.. disagreeable. You can find it in the catalog but who has time to flip through 100+ pages? (It's towards the end) I did find it on ebay though. Here is the set on ebay. The other negative Close to my heart has are their prices. I don't like that I have to pay full price.

It was worth the money I will say that. I use all the time.

I hope your having a great weekend.

Katie

Happy Haunting

Halloween is so much fun. There are three contests going on asking for Halloween cards. :D Here's the required badge from Wee Memories:

Here is my card:

As I said yesterday Betty hooked me up with the die (web and spider) She had cut it out on this great gray paper however once I inked up the background it got swallowed up. So I went over the paper with Copic 100 to make it stand out more. Thankfully she sent me more than one :D

I can not remember who the maker of the die is... I can say it's no longer available via retail sales. (I bet it's on ebay) Second generation stamping was done with the tree.

Here's some of what I used:

InLinkz.com

The floss and buttons are from my stash. I'm entering this into the current Simon Says Stamp Challenge cuz SSS is awesome and $50 is a handy prize. I've also discovered another challenge with Paper Crafts magazine. Thanks for showing me this Jenn your awesome. :D

I'm off. It's Friday woot! woot! I have my stamping 102 class this weekend. Very exciting. It's fun to craft with other people.

Katie

New Friends

Sorry I didn't post yesterday, I wasn't in a craft mood. I've been putting alot of mental work on that card I'll be submitting to the publisher. Not that extra time will give me a better chance, I just want to make sure my best foot is forward. Anywho I wasn't in a crafty mood. Instead I went with DK on his supermarket run... :D

Ages ago I talked about some loot I got from a new friend. I decided to participate in a RAK swap. (I had to google...rak.. Random Act of Kindness... thank you webaverse, thank you.) I was partnered with Betty. She's awesome. We had a month to send out a gift. Betty was on it like white on rice. I felt bad as I took me a little longer to get my box out. I did order some items for her.. anywho..

Here is a pic of all the goodies she sent me:

So great of her. She hooked me up good. The one thing that I forgot to put in the photo was the blue StazOn ink. She, since then, has sent me die's and an adorable card that I just got a few days ago. I used one of her die's in the card I will be posting tomorrow. :D

Part of the RAK we were required to make something for the other person. I made Betty this card:

Simple card. One of the coolest things she gave me where these little tags so cute. I'll have to get them. I flipped it over and inked the back side and sent one of them back to her. There are 3 different rolled roses. The larger one is a bit to big for a card that would be mailed. The two smaller ones are just fine for cards :D I tried to give it a vintage feel as that's more Betty's style.

I didn't send her as much stuff however I included to new stamps, 1 being a background stamp. One of the highlights I sent to her was See's Candy. I thought it was important to send some of California's best, even if it wasn't craft related.

Making new friends is fun. :D

Katie

Lawnscaping Challenge #19

For some reason this was tough, I had to do a card since Lawn Fawn are my favorite so I took some Copic's to work and on my lunch I colored these leaves. Brought them home and gave them life.

It's fairly simple. All the white is embossed. Last night I just couldn't think of what else to add. My mind really was focused on that other card I've been working on. Looking at it now I can see some stitching would be nice, or if i did a bit of text background on the sentiment. I'll have to do that on the next one.

I actually have the list of Copic's I used for you :D

r24, r22, r27, r20, y4, y6 y8 yr04, y13, y15, y19, yr15, yr16, yr18, y38, y32, y35

I also used a tad bit of the new seedless preserve limited edition distress ink.

Here's everything else I used:

InLinkz.com

I hope your having a good Tuesday,

Katie

We have Ghosts

I've slowed down on the card making.. well that's not 100% correct. Actually I've decided to enter a card into a publication. I haven't finished it yet, it's not due until the 1st. So I've been going slow and playing with different ideas. From everything I've read one must submit their very best work which is why I'm taking my time. The sad thing is once it's done and entered I can't upload a pic until it's been decided. You'll just have to come over to see it. :D Once it's either been accepted or rejected I can and will post a picture of it. Until then all I can say is it will have butterfly's.

I'm also hoping to get an entry into a Copic Contest.... the winner will be put on next years catalog. I know it's pie in the sky however I have to start somewhere. So no cards for you today. But I do have something really cool that I did make a few years back. As I stated previously I adore decorating. I don't get to do for all the seasons, I do have a life. But I make time for Halloween and of course Christmas. Like always I can't just tell you what I've done I have to tell you the story behind it.

Picture it Costa Mesa September 2007 it had been pouring rain all morning. The clouds broke around 2 to give us a stunning blue sky with some patchy white cotton ball like clouds with storm clouds in the distance. The trees were bright green just after their bath. Inside the hall was lit up with 200ft of various sized paper lanterns. Becky, my newly acquired cousin, took a 50ft isle runner cut it in half and painted huge Chinese words which lined the back wall. Fresh Orchids where on every table. Frank Sintra filled the air. The atmosphere was upbeat and happy or at least we were. You can imagine the occasion. :D

We were left with hundreds of paper lanterns. We side towards the Asian design, its the one design style Dk and I can agree on. To our surprise a few years back we found orange jack-o-lantern paper lanterns and at 1.69 each we had to get some. We have a cute 8 x12 ft porch right by the front gate of our complex. Since we already owned the lights for paper lanterns it was a perfect fit. The problem was we only had 3 pumpkin lanterns and 5 lights needed to be filled. What to fill it....plain white lanterns would be boring next to the pumpkins so I took some white tissue paper and glued it to the lantern. I cut up the bottom end in strips. In word I filled in some ovals with black ink printed them, cut them out and glued them on. Ta da.. ghost paper lanterns.

I had Dk take some close up photos. He has a degree in photography plus his arms are much longer than mine :D These are brand new pumpkin lanterns. After being in the California sun our old lanterns were quite faded. Last year we went to buy some new ones however we were out of luck.. they didn't have any. However they had some this year. :D I had Dk buy 6 so we'll have them for years to come.

The Ghost:

I adore how a light breeze will bring this guy to life. I used super 77 for glue. For those of you who know a few things about craft glue this glue runs circles around glossy accents. It makes a huge huge sticky mess and can only be used outside but it works. This ghost lantern is 3 years old it's been outside 24/7 for 12 weeks or so and folded up in the garage the rest of it's lifetime. It's been through Santa Ana winds, rain, fog and summer like heat. That paper is not coming off.

This looks awesome at night and with some haunted mansion music playing it makes for a great Halloween evening.

Only 3 weeks to go. :D

Katie

The Rabbit

As promised I said I would tell you about the luggage cards. Dk's parents left to visit his sister in DC on Tuesday. I was asked to make cards to hide in their luggage just as Dk's parents had done for them when they were kids going on a trip.

Before I go on you need to understand the family joke. One Sunday before Dk and I were married, I believe we were engaged. I and Dk's Dad were in the garage, it's evening the garage faces west so the sun did a wonderful job of lighting up my skirt in ways that one would see to much. So at dinner Poppi made a point to tell me about the show I had put on. I'm a kidder and one for jokes, I can take it. (I was raised by an RN trust me I can talk about anything.) Well he went on and on with what felt like forever... honestly it was prolly only a min or two...

As I've stated in the past I have a pretty serious background with working with children. Kids are good about wanting to talk about things they shouldn't talk about so I learned to be a master at changing the subject. That is except when Dk is around he's one smart cookie and won't let me get away with it... I digress.. back to our story.

Anywho here is Poppi going on and on and on.. I had my fill so I quickly pointed out the back window yelling "Look at the rabbit!!" He stops, turns his head at the speed of light, eyes as wide as they could get... "where?!" lol oh man was that funny. We all had a good laugh. For his birthday I found a nice terracotta rabbit on clearance I had to get it for him. Then, sometime later, when they went on vacation they told us the rabbit is watching us. They come home to find their rabbit had been blind folded.

lol it even went a step further when on our honeymoon Dk found a stuffed rabbit wearing a blind fold with little eye holes cut out in his luggage. This past Christmas I was given not 1 but 2 rabbit statues for our porch. (that's a story for another day)

OK on to the cards... I made 3 mini cards:

lol can you guess what is inside the blue one? You got it:

It's the little things. Thankfully the rabbit was the last card they found. I just had to make him glow :D

Crazy last Minute

I'm not a last minute person. My sister in law isn't really either but minutes before a televised conference was about to start she texts me asking for baby cards.

You see her parents would be flying out to see her so any cards I made for the order she placed needed to be done by the last time we were to see Dk's parents. Which was about 24 hours from the time of her text... so I hit the ground running and bam this is what I came up with. Simple and to the point:

With not much time it was the best I can do as I had her other cards to finish and 3 special cards for the luggage... I'll tell you that story tomorrow as I have work to catch up on today.

I made 2 of each for a total of 4 baby cards.

Time to get back to work,

Katie.