Challenges (Variable)

SUOC37 – Occasions Mini Favorites

January 24, 2012 Jentimko 14 Comments

Oh will you like the challenge this week at SUO Challenges! We are asking you to show us your favorite products from the Occasions Mini. The hardest part will be choosing, of course! For me, I knew I was going to order Bordering on Romance as soon as I saw it. And I knew I was stamping it on a butterfly.

The colors from the Twitterpated DSP are so beautiful that I wanted to add them here as well. I stamped the image on a butterfly from my Beautiful Butterflies die in Basic Gray ink, then watercolored it with Riding Hood Red, Baja Breeze and Basic Gray using a Blender Pen. The little flowers were stamped and colored with the same inks. I included at scalloped border made with the new Adorning Accents Edgelits…so fantastic! You knew that I couldn’t avoid the call of a new ribbon and I have added it here (Pleated Satin Ribbon) and attached a Seam Binding bow. The new big pearls are perfect for the center of a bow (or a flower) and I love them. Some additional Basic Pearls were added to the butterfly. So I guess I went a little overboard with my new products but when they are this pretty, how can you say no?!

So I have a little announcement and I have waited until posting this to tell you. I am officially a Control Freak!! Ok, I am a control freak on a lot of things but I was asked to join the Control Freak Swap Group (aka, some of my Stampin’ Up heroes). This was my card for the first swap I did with them. The cards I got back are amazing!! Thanks to the whole group for such inspiration!

Well, this afternoon is a big test on my knowledge of aircraft systems. Yep, I had one week to learn all the systems of the Airbus 319/320. Lots of studying! In fact, I need to get back to it now. I hope you have a fantastic week and I can’t wait to see all you share with us from the mini!

Stamp: Bordering on Romance; Paper: Twitterpated DSP, Basic Gray Whisper White, Baja Breeze; Ink: Baja Breeze, Riding Hood Red, Basic Gray; Accessories: Big Shot, Beautiful Butterflies Die, Baja Breeze Seam Binding, Baja Breeze Pleated Satin Ribbon, Large Basic Pearl, Basic Pearls, Adorning Accents Edgelits

SUOC36 – Try a new technique

January 10, 2012 Jentimko 5 Comments

I am so excited to share with you the SUO Challenge for this week. It is perfect for the new year, I must say. We are asking you to try a new (to you) technique. Fun! The hardest part will be choosing what to try.

I wanted to see what came of using a Faux Tile technique using my Simply Scored Scoring Tool. I was inspired by the color challenge from Pals Paper Arts PPA126. They chose Not Quite Navy, Baja Breeze and Very Vanilla. So that led me to making Faux Delft Tile. I love this flower stamp from the Sale-a-bration (SAB) set Fresh Vintage and it seemed perfect for using with this. I took a Very Vanilla sheet that is 3″ x 4 1/2″ and scored it at 1 1/2″ increments. Make sure you go over your score lines a couple of times to create nice deep indents. Randomly stamp your image making sure you don’t press too hard. This works particularly well with larger stamps but it was not too hard with this one. Using a sticky note, mask the score line and sponge a bit around each square to mimic tile. I stamped the images in Not Quite Navy and sponged with Baja Breeze. Finally I added an oval embossed with Designer Frames and fussy cut. The sentiment is from Day of Gratitude and punched with an Extra-Large Oval Punch. The edges were sponged to match the tile panel. A couple of Basic Pearls and done.

This is a fun technique. And my husband said…hey, it really looks like tile. Success! I can’t wait to see what you will create for this challenge!

My first few days of training went well last week but it showed me how much I have to do to get ready for flying. I’ll be busily working on some aircraft systems studying this week but there is definitely room for some stamping too. I’m still trying to get ahead on all the upcoming challenges. I will be back tomorrow with a new layout from Freshly Made Sketches. See you then!

Stamps: Fresh Vintage (SAB), Day of Gratitude; Paper: Not Quite Navy, Baja Breeze, Very Vanilla; Ink: Not Quite Navy; Accessories: Simply Scored Scoring Tool, Big Shot, Designer Frames Embossing Folder, Basic Pearls, Dimensionals

All products are Stampin’ Up!

SUOC35

December 27, 2011 Jentimko 2 Comments

After all the holiday preparation, the team at SUO Challenges is a little punchy this week!! We are creating projects with our punches and can’t wait to see how you use yours. Now I will freely admit that I am not a “punch art” talent but I know that many of you are. I always love seeing what people create!

There is nothing quite like a punch to simplify your life and make a quick card so I went with that idea for my card. This is a birthday card for a friend of my oldest son. She loves orange so I figured a Pumpkin Pie flower was just the thing! I punched out 9 Scallop Circles from some Brights Designer Paper and layered them alternating the patterns. The background was the Old Olive dots pattern from the same DSP and plain Old Olive card stock. The sentiment is from Inviting. I got the sketch from a Fall-to Layout Challenge (171) from a couple of weeks ago. Once you punch out the Scallop Circles, just crumple the papers to soften the fibers. Then layer them (with a Basic Black scallop as a base) and re-fluff. I sewed them together but you can use a brad too.

My mom is leaving today and we have been busy with all the holiday stuff. I hope to be back a little later in the week with some new things. I hope you are having a great week. Thanks for stopping by and I will see you again soon!

Stamp: Inviting; Paper: Brights Designer Paper Pack, Old Olive, Whisper White, Basic Black; Ink: Basic Black; Accessories: Scallop Circle Punch, Neutrals Button, White Taffeta Ribbon, Dimensionals

SU Only Challenge 34 – Merry and Happy

December 13, 2011 Jentimko 11 Comments

For the next two weeks the team at SU Only Challenges is celebrating December holidays…all of them! The challenge is “Merry and Happy” and we want to see the cards you make to share your joy.

This is the time of the season that I tend to lean on some favorites to make my remaining cards. I am woefully behind on my Christmas cards and Dasher came to the rescue (again). I combined him with one of the prints from Frostwood Lodge DSP. The sketch comes from Inkspirations Challenges #99. I love that I could use those little squares and get a pop of color. The sentiment comes from Bright Hopes. Early Espresso Baker’s Twine was used to tie up a Crumb Cake button. I think I’ll be making a few more of these!

When you see what the rest of the team has made you will be so impressed. It is clear that we love our December holidays!! Can’t wait to see what you will make!

I’ll see you tomorrow with a Freshly Made Sketch! Until then, thanks for dropping by and have a great day!

Stamps: Dasher, Bright Hopes; Paper: Frostwood Lodge DSP, Early Espresso, Crumb Cake, Whisper White; Ink: Cherry Cobbler, Early Espresso; Accessories: Early Espresso Baker’s Twine, Neutrals Buttons, Dimensionals

All products are Stampin’ Up!

Creative Crew Tree Tag

December 6, 2011 Jentimko 8 Comments

Hi everyone! I am here today with another of my Creative Crew Challenge projects. The Creative Crew Gallery is so inspirational this month. You’ll be amazed by the variety of projects! Staying within my chosen colors of Early Espresso, Cherry Cobbler and a neutral, the challenge is to create a home decor item (keyword: CCREW1211HF, CreativeCrew).

The amazing and talented Connie Babbert from Inkspired Treasures created a card for one of the Freshly Made Sketches challenges that had a cool Christmas tree on it. Immediately I knew I wanted to turn it into a tag. I contacted her to make sure it was okay to CASE (Copy and Share Everything) for a class. Not only did she say yes, she had a brilliant suggestion. Her card used real buttons but for a tag class (5 tags of each design) that isn’t practical. She said to use the Buttons #5 Die. Problem solved!! Stampin’ Up demonstrators are really some of the most generous people I know! I adjusted the measurements a little from hers. My largest triangle is a 1 3/4″ square cut on the diagonal and then a 1 1/2″, 1 1/4″ and 1 ” square cut the same way. The sentiment is pulled from the Season of Joy word stamp and the tree trunk is Early Espresso Quilted Satin Ribbon.

Now just look at my little bag on my entry way table. Isn’t it great?? I stamped the tissue paper with the snowflake from Bright Hopes to make it coordinate with the colors of the tag. I also found some wrapping paper that matches this tag for my presents so cross another thing off of the Christmas to-do list!

I hope you enjoy this little tag idea as much as my class did! Thanks again to Connie for the idea! I’ll be back tomorrow with the latest Freshly Made Sketches Challenge. This week is my turn on creating the sketch! Thanks for stopping in today. Hope your week is great!

Stamps: Season of Joy, Bright Hopes; Paper: Frostwood Lodge DSP, Crumb Cake, Early Espresso; Ink: Early Espresso; Accessories: Big Shot, Buttons #5 Die, Early Espresso Quilted Satin Ribbon, Baker’s Twine, 1/8″ Hole Punch, Dimensionals, Crystal Effects (on the button)

All products are Stampin’ Up!

Fun Flowers Hair Band

December 3, 2011 Jentimko 13 Comments

I mentioned before that the Creative Crew Challenges this month required us to choose a color group for all of our projects. I almost stumbled on the wearable art challenge. What to make with Early Espresso, Cherry Cobbler and a neutral??!! Then I remembered the Deck the Halls fabric!

I found a cool tutorial on these poofy flowers at Jones Design Company and I thought it would be fun to use on a hair band. Now their tutorial has you hand cut flowers out of felt. I let my Big Shot do all the work and it cut my fabric with the Fun Flowers Die (I cut about 5 layers at a time). She also cut the little corner before adding the hot glue and I did not do this step. I did not take pictures (unfortunately) because this was my first try and a big experiment. Wish I had because it was easy! The first thing I did was take my Cherry Cobbler Seam Binding roll and grab the end of the ribbon. Found a center thread and started pulling until I had enough scrunched ribbon to double up for the center. I simply folded it in half, added some hot glue to the ends and stuck it to the center of my felt piece (I did use felt as the base like in the tutorial…might try just the fabric next time). I gave it some time to set up and then started adding the folded up flowers until the base was full. Then I set it aside to dry. I cut a slightly smaller circle from the felt and created a “sandwich”. First the smaller felt piece, then the hair band, finally the decorated felt piece. I attached the two felt pieces with hot glue and smooshed the hair band in-between.

My next critical step was to check it with the toughest critics of all…two 8 year old girls! I knew they would be honest! Two of my oldest son’s best friends helped me out and they are both “pictured” here with permission of their moms. Now I thought about this as a hair band, of course, but apparently one of the new trends in the young girl crowd here is to wear the hair bands on their wrists. I have to say, this is really cute that way!! I am starting to debate other options including velcro. These could be interchangeable but then just making a bunch to go with every outfit is easy enough. I think I may make more for some nieces as a fun treat! I knew was on to something by the reaction of one of the girls. I took the hair band to a workshop at her mom’s house on Tuesday night. I had promised her that it was hers as soon as I was done with pictures and the party. In my packing up I inadvertently put the hair band in my bag and brought it home. She was none too thrilled with me in the morning when she expected to get up and wear it to school. Needless to say, I have fixed my error and saw her wearing it the very next day!

I will give you the cautionary tale of the hot glue gun. Ummm, the glue is hot. Yep, I was a little too quick to touch the glue while sealing the two felt circles and burned my finger. Don’t let it happen to you! My finger is fine…no worries.

Tomorrow is one of my favorite classes of the year, the Christmas Tag Class. I will be back next week with some of the samples! Until then, I hope you have a fantastic weekend! Thanks for stopping in today!

Accessories: Deck the Halls fabric, Cherry Cobbler Seam Binding, Big Shot, Hair Band, Hot Glue Gun, Felt

Creative Crew Sketch

December 1, 2011 Jentimko 7 Comments

Happy December everyone! Today I am bringing you the first of my Creative Crew projects for the month. Our overall theme this month is Color My World and the whole team chose different color combinations for their work. My colors choices were Early Espresso, Cherry Cobbler and a neutral. Yes, yes…I chose to work with some of my very favorite colors for the holidays!

I thought this sketch was so much fun and really unique. You have to go see all the different variations that the Creative Crew team came up with!

My card has a very clean feel to it. The contrast of the dark rich Early Espresso and Cherry Cobbler snowflakes against the Very Vanilla really appealed to me. I love that this is a card that can be made in large quantities and mailed without extra shipping charges! Perfect for those last minute Christmas cards! The sentiment is from Season of Joy. I isolated one of the phrases from the big stamp of words. Basic Pearls seem to be just the right finish for these snowflakes. So glad they come in packs of a lot of pearls!! I seem to be using them on everything!

I hope you will be able to join us at Splitcoastampers this month. If you use this sketch the key words are CCREW1211DF and CreativeCrew. I will be posting more projects over the next couple of weeks but if you want to see them all go check out my gallery.

Thanks for dropping by today. I hope that you have a wonderful day!

Stamp: Season of Joy; Paper: Early Espresso, Cherry Cobbler, Very Vanilla; Ink: Early Espresso; Accessories: Big Shot, Northern Frost Die, Basic Pearls

All products are Stampin’ Up!

SUOC33 – Holiday Colors

November 29, 2011 Jentimko 9 Comments

SU Only Challenges is back with another awesome theme – Holiday Colors. We want you to show us the colors that inspire your holiday decorating, card making and crafting. I have to say that it wasn’t a big stretch for me to commit to my color selection on this one. The color of the season for me this year has been Always Artichoke. I have been drawn to this color for many years but my use had faded a bit over the last couple of Christmas seasons. Well, it has come back with full force this year. I can tell you there is a direct correlation to my getting Bright Hopes and the resurgence!

I love the tree in Bright Hopes…love it. The simple elegance lends itself to monochromatic cards and I have enjoyed making those all season. It seemed appropriate that I make another for this challenge. I started by inking the tree in Versamark Ink and then with my Always Artichoke Pad. After stamping it on Naturals Ivory, I heat embossed it with Clear Stampin’ Emboss Powder. I did the same for the sentiment. Pictures can never capture how much the heat embossing adds but the bit of texture and shine is pretty in person. I added a little more holiday feel by scrunching up my Always Artichoke Seam Binding along the edge of the tree panel. I just ran a little glue along the edge and created the pleats behind the panel. This panel was popped up on Dimensionals. I put the sentiment on a little banner to add a little more dimension. Of course the tree isn’t complete without some Basic Pearls so I added one to the center and two little one on the sentiment banner. Because it is a Christmas tree, this card also qualifies for the Our Creative Corner: O Christmas Tree Challenge.

I am so excited to see all the color variations you will show us this week. Remember that you have 10 days to participate! The team has provided some fantastic inspiration as always!

I will be back tomorrow with a new challenge from Freshly Made Sketches and Thursday will bring new Creative Crew projects. Hope to see you back as the week goes on! Have a great day!

Stamp: Bright Hopes; Paper: Naturals Ivory, Always Artichoke; Ink: Always Artichoke, Versamark; Accessories: Heat Tool, Stampin’ Emboss Powder, Always Artichoke Seam Binding, Basic Pearls, Dimensionals

All products are Stampin’ Up!

SUOC32 – Gratitude

November 15, 2011 Jentimko 10 Comments

I am continuing my trend of non-Christmas cards (although I do have some to show you soon) with the challenge from SU Only Challenges this week. Our theme this week is “Thankful”. Let’s face it, many of us have so much to be thankful for that it is nice to be able to share that gratitude with others. A handmade card speaks volumes about how much someone means to you!

I knew I wanted to use my Day of Gratitude set again for this card. The variety of projects you can make from this is seemingly endless! This particular leaf is so great when it is cut out and even better when you have a bunch of them. Fortunately, it is also very easy to cut out!! I decided on a really clean presentation for this one and love the results! The leaves are attached to the card with Mini Glue Dots. I created a banner for the phrase (the one word inked with a Stampin’ Write marker). A Basic Black button finishes it off with thread colored with a marker.

The colors for today’s card are from Create with Connie and Mary. Yes, that is SU Only Challenge’s very own Mary Brown. These strong colors were perfect for my leaves!

I’ll be back tomorrow with another Freshly Made Sketches layout!! Thanks so much for stopping by today!

Stamp: Day of Gratitude; Paper: Whisper White, Basic Black; Ink: Basic Black, More Mustard, Cherry Cobbler; Accessories: Neutrals Buttons, Mini Glue Dots, Dimensionals

Creative Crew Scrapbook Challenge

November 7, 2011 Jentimko 10 Comments

I told you on Friday a little more about the Creative Crew at Splitcoaststampers and I am back today with the scrapbook page challenge for the month of November. We were to take this pocket card tutorial and utilize it on our page (or make a whole page based on it). During the last two months I have escaped the scrapbook challenge because they were 3-D projects instead but there was no more hiding this month. Yes, I am not a scrapbooker. I don’t know why but it scares me…the whole permanent nature of a page thing, finding the right picture, actually choosing a picture, something. I have made pages in My Digital Studio (MDS) which have been my lead-in to making a traditional page. I confess that I needed inspiration and went to one of the best possible sources…a Stampin’ Up Artisan Award Winner. Jenn Picard is inspirational and I looked to this page as a starting place. I’m sure you can see the influence on my page.

I started with the picture and took it over to MDS. I added the Define Your Life digital stamp and then adjusted the picture to sepia. This really seemed to set the tone for the rest of the page. I figured the safest thing to do was stick with colors and stamps that are squarely in my happy zone so I went with the Well Worn DSP and French Foliage. I am so in love with those leaves! I created the little pocket like the challenge asked for out of Cajun Craze and wrapped some Linen Thread around the fold. I was still missing something so I added some Early Espresso Satin Ribbon (retired) and the Antique Brad. The little pull-out tag got a Mini Library Clip and some more Linen Thread. Funny how this wasn’t nearly as hard as I was making it out to be. I may even end up with a whole scrapbook one day…

Well, off to work on my cards for a “Wow Christmas Card Class” I am holding next week. I’m sure I will have lots to share from that one. I’ll be back on Wednesday with another fun layout from Freshly Made Sketches. Thanks for stopping by today!

Stamps: French Foliage, Day of Gratitude; Paper: Well Worn DSP, Natural Ivory, Cajun Craze, Early Espresso; Ink: Early Espresso, Cajun Craze, Soft Suede; Accessories: Mini Library Clip, Antique Brad, Early Espresso Satin Ribbon (retired), Linen Thread

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