HDH - The Naughty Corner

Of course my first post in a long while is for Haunted Design House; how could it not?

Their theme this month is The Naughty Corner: You can either make a naughty project, or a project about someone or something who's been misbehaving or create something with corners, or decorate the corners.

I went with naughty; well, actually, I went with the rewards that come with taking your punishment well.  So, unless I sorely misinterpreted naughty, please see below....

Challenge - Butchered Blueprint

As always, the weekend brings us my Haunted Design House submission.  This week we're working from a Butchered Blueprint. 

I have to admit, this is my first time doing a blueprint and I set to work creating.  Surprisingly, it came together fairly quickly and wow, it was frightening and not in a good way.  Hubby looked at it and went 'huh'.  So, for future reference, when the person who loves you most in the world can't think of a single thing to say about your art, perhaps it's time to sleep on it.

And I did - and below is what I came up with. 

I rubber stamped my broken doll (unmounted blue rubber) with Memento and colored it with pencils - ugh, brown and blue is the atrocious color combo on the jacket.  I mounted him on a bit of doily that I had thrown away because it didn't go through the die machine correctly.  Some felt, embroidery floss and a few more buttons and I was set.  

The final step was the stick pin in the heart.  Sad little thing. 

As a bonus for sticking with me this long - here's a close up of the best part of my first attempt - I made the 'blood drop' on the pin with embossing powder.  So cool!

Thanks for stopping by!

Macabre Monday - Pirate's Booty

It's time for another Macabre Monday over at Haunted Design House - this week's theme is Pirate's Booty.  I decided to go with a map, said to show the location of a chest of coins owned by infamous pirate, Calico Jackman.  Unfortunately, Captain Jackman was caught and hanged for piracy before he was able to retrieve his treasure.

This is the 2nd map that I made - the first one's ashes lie partially melted into the carpet of my craft room.  Did you know that you should not apply open flame to paper that has hairspray on it?  My left brain knows that, my right brain not so much.

Using Versafine, I stamped the map on a thin piece of stationary and added some script, as well as various nautical designs that I thought a sailor might have on a ledger page.  I marked the treasure with a Stazon X and distressed the entire thing with Walnut Ink and water.  While the page was still wet, I took an embossing stylus and wrote some numbers and words along the edge; the ink darkened them up nicely, and folded the map up to get the nice dark creases and let it sit for about 10 minutes and then opened it up flat.  Once the paper dried, it turned brittle.

I refolded it and got out the matches - let's gloss over the fate of the first map, shall we?  After going outside, I strategically burned the edges and some creases of the map.  I made the seal with wax and an unmounted stamp coated with Stazon.  The blood is Memento ink right out of the refill bottle.  Ta-dah, Calico Jack's treasure map.

  

I had a little time on my hands and decided to play with some clay and came up with some Krakken tentacles.   The base is covered in cloisonne embossing powder and the tentacles were darkened with a black ink wash.  It's a perfect paperweight for the map.   

 Thanks for looking!

Gingersnap Creations Challenge - Things That Leap

It's time for me to jump back into the Gingersnap Creations challenges; I've been away too long!

This time, I'm going for the Once in a Blue Moon challenge - Things that Leap.

I can't tell you how much I adore this set from Komodo.  It comes with the water rings, the lilypad and the tiny little frog.  I wanted a little more depth than normal, so while the lilypads are colored with Memento and stamped on white paper, I stamped the frog on acetate with StazOn (inked it green and then rolled the feet/head in black) and mounted it with foam tape - it's basically a shaker card without anything inside the shaker pocket.  

I love the color scheme as well - blue and green is becoming one of my favorite combos.  I used a great  die from Papertrey to make the border accent.

Thanks for stopping by!

Random Redhead Challenge - Planes and Trains

Slipping in under the wire again at Gingersnap Creations for their Planes and Trains Challenge with a hint of steampunkishness. 

The vellum is printed with clocks and I stamped the plane on the front with StazOn but the other images are on cardstock underneath the vellum. 

This is one of my favorite sentiments, I use it for 'missing you' and 'thank for your help' cards.  I love how hazy it is under the vellum. 

I didn't like how boxy the finished card was, so I ran the top panel through a edging die to add the cool border on the left. 

As always, thank you for looking!

Gingersnaps Challenge - On the Road

I'm just a posting fool this weekend!  I have been crafting my little heart out and I was so pleased to find out that Gingersnap Creations was doing some Steampunk themed challenges.   I've been plotting on the best way to raid my husband's toolbox.....

Below is my entry for their On the Road Challenge.  I don't have any car stamps, but I found this cool picture in my ephemera stash.  No need for purloined toolbox items yet, but soon.  :)

I stamped the letters in Memento and highlighted the Gear embossed background with the same using a dauber. 

Enjoy!

Birthdays and Frogs

The sun in shining - what is up with that? 

So, I am going for another two  new challenge blogs today.  Crazy me!  I actually love this color combo - the orange isn't something that I normally reach for when I'm doing crafting, but I thought this all went together perfectly. 

I'm entering this into the Speedy the Cat's Friends Challenge - Flowers over at  Marks Finest Paper,  as well as the DIY Embellishment challenge at Tuesday Throwdown because I made that fabulous little flower from 4 loose flower petals from Oriental Trading Company.   This will be my first time entering a challenge on both of those blogs.  

I added beads to some Pennywise Arts micro beads and dropped a little frog charm into a card shaker (that I also got from Pennywise) and sealed it up with a stamped background.   I don't know where the lily pad stamp came from - it's foam mounted white rubber and comes with an adorable little frog but it was busy when I added him.  The leaves and the sentiment are Papertrey Ink.

Enjoy! And thanks for looking.

Monochromatic

Blogger is still being a total pain and won't allow me to comment on 75% of the posts that I see.  I hope they get this resolved soon. 

Anyway, I decided to be brave and branch out with a few more challenges.   Over at Less is More the challenge is doing a CAS card that is monochromatic. 

I think it turned out nicely - I originally stamped the sentiment crooked, so I 'fixed' it by stamping the sentiment on the same color paper, punching it out and layering it over the original goof.  I think it gives it a little bit of omph without going overboard.

I wish my photography was as satisfying as the card.  It seems a little washed out.  I have got to figure out what I'm doing.

I also did a card for last week's challenge for the same blog - Pick A Square - but didn't get it uploaded in time.  

Apparently I like the lower right hand of cards.  LOL!  This was my first card using this particular Papertrey Ink stamps and I enjoyed working with them.  Although, they do seem to stamp better with chalk inks - I need to expand my color selection, I only have about a dozen colors.  Time to warm up the credit cards!

As always, thanks so much for looking.

Flowers, Flowers

I love making flowers for my cards - a few years ago, I purchased a 500 flower pack from Oriental Trading Company.  It had 3 shapes, in 4 colors. I adore making these little flowers:

The small bud is one layer, the larger flower is 5 layers and the dual color flower is 4 layers plus 1 layer.

Here's the card:

I really love using the palette stamps for my backgrounds, particularly when I'm stamping on textured card stock.  I've also found that I get the best image when I layer color if I do a combination of inks - in this case, I used two Memento dye inks for the background with Brilliance pigment ink for the flourish.   I spritzed the stamp with water before I stamped on my paper.  You can see the faded water droplets on the dye portion; the Brilliance didn't react at all. 

Enjoy!

Another Spring Card

So, I have no idea what the ettiquette is, but Whoot! I'm squeeing about getting a Ginger Gem Badge for my Panic! at the Disco inspired project.  Thank you!

Today's card is Spring inspired again.  I love the rain, but a little sun wouldn't be unwelcome right now.

I wanted to play with some very cool bumpy glittery wrapping paper that I got from Pennywise Arts - I glued it directly to cardstock since it was so thin.  The image is colored directly on the stamp with Memento markers (my favorite technique for coloring) and then stamped onto white paper.  I then covered the entire image using the Essential Glue Pad (dab, don't rub, or the image will smear) and covered it with irridescent glitter.  I may add a ribbon, but I also like how simple it is.

I also thought I'd share a picture of my workspace - I have a huge light table but, as you can see, I've managed to clutter it up until I have nothing but a corner to work in.  Sadly, I'm pretty sure that I took the picture because I was impressed that my work space was so neat...

Please tell me that other crafters have this problem!!

Enjoy and thanks for looking!!

Spring Robin

It's been snowing here! What is up with that?  To conteract the winter blahs, I'm posting a springy card.   Hey, look at that - there's actually stamping on my card!

I think Penny Black stamps are fantastic; they're great for using markers to color directly onto the stamp so you can blend and smudge and mix.

I used Memento markers on the bird image and the leaves (I really love how the leaves turned out) and stamped it on glossy paper (I added the eye after I stamped it).  I stamped the sentiment on vellum and layered it over the glossy - it's hard to tell in the picture, but there is a subtle layering effect.

Enjoy and thanks for looking!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Just want to wish everyone a Happy Valentine's Day! 

My First Challenge and Everything You Never Wanted to Know About This Card

So, I decided to do a challenge and I picked Gingersnap Creations - Coffee and Cream.  They have some fantastic entries.

Of course, I decided right away that because of the color combo I would do vintage  - a technique that I definitely struggle with.  How can you struggle with vintage, you ask? Because things generally touch in a random and crazy way.  Yes, yes, I stuggle with collage as well.  My batty brain just likes to make things that are even and symetrical. 

So, here is my first try: 

Let me regale you with the birth of this card - it was originally a 3 x 7 card. But it was too long and I cut it down.  Then I ripped one edge - too much - and trimmed it up.  Now it was way too skinny.  So I decided to go with an ATC, and I trimmed some more, added some pages from a 1940s book, did a little distressing and made a flower of distressed petals and a furniture brad that I beat around with a hammer.  For reasons unknown, once the flower was attached, I was thrown into a tailspin and decided that it needed to be a card again and ta-dah!  I'm not sure what my reasoning behind the pink is - perhaps there should be a sub-grouping of the challenge called Coffee, Cream and SweetnLow. 

On the plus side, I did notice that this fit in nicely with another challenge - Paper Pals Arts - Those Were the Days Vintage Theme (PPA80) so I'm going to be brave and enter it into both.

Thanks for looking!  As always, concrit and comments always welcome.