a card a day in may - 5/28: I'M SORRY

Hi, friends! Time for another ACADIM post, once again. :)


I know this design is very similar to the last card I made.. it seems that sometimes when I'm make a lot of cards all at once, designs tend to cross over from one card to the next, slowly morphing and eventually changing. Does that ever happen to you? Plus, I have a bunch of other projects I'm working on at the moment that I just can't show yet and because of that, I think my creative mojo is about tapped out for now. Anyway, super simple one here, I just used that Impress Leafy Stem again and a little generation stamping with some Stampin' Up inks. Not sure how I feel about this one yet... I like it, but sometimes I think there's something missing..... ??

Alrighty, thanks for checkin' in today! Only a few more days to go, can you believe it?! See you tomorrow!

SUPPLIES
papers: GP (white) and SU" (celery)
stamps: Impress 5169E and Hero Arts CL342
inks: Stampin' Up (celery and choco chip)
other: Hero Arts pearls

a card a day in may - 5/17: IN MY PRAYERS

Hello, friends! Time once again for my ACADIM post. :) I've got a vivid one for you today...


I've had this Memory Box stamp for a while now, and it's been ever-so patiently waiting for me to ink it up. Being a solid, reverse-silhouette image, of course I had to do some sponging with clear embossing over the top! ;) I tried to achieve a sunset look... what do you think?

You can see another example and read a brief description of this technique HERE (second card down).

Thank you for stopping by and for your sweet comments. See you again tomorrow!

SUPPLIES
paper: Stampin' Up (old summer sun, I think?), Georgia Pacific (white), and JoAnn's (black mat)
stamps: Memory Box Reverse Bird & Grass, PTI (sentiment - Lovely Vases)
inks: VersaMark, Ranger Distress (Scattered Straw & Spiced Marmalade) and Vivid (Fuchsia & Plum)
other: sponges, Ranger clear embossing powder, heat tool, Memento marker (black), Hero Arts gemstones and pop dots

so sorry - pub

Hello there! Once again, I let the blog go for over a week. :P It'll be nice once we start school again... a daily routine, consistency... always a good thing. :)

Here's a quick card that was done for SNR quite a while back. It was for an "I'm sorry" assignment. I remember being quite pressed for time making this... I think it was right around the time of my day on the Hero Arts blog, or maybe when I was helping to co-ordinate the Winter Wonderland Card crop. Regardless, I wasn't overly pleased with it... I'm still not. But it uses a cool technique:



The flowers were colored with markers and then spritzed with water for that mottled, watercolor look. The flecks were made with my Color Spritzer from SU, but you can make your own with a re-inker and an old toothbrush. Just put a couple drops of re-inker onto a non-porous surface like a CD case or coffee can lid. Lightly dip the bristles of your brush into the ink, gently tap off the excess, and then use your finger to flick the bristles so they splatter ink onto your project (practice on scratch paper first, to get the right distance from your paper). Oh, you might want to cover your work surface with a few newspapers or magazine pages to catch the stray splatters, and gloves are also a good thing here, otherwise you'll have ink under your nails for DAYS. ;) Of course the Color Spritzer from SU takes all the work out of achieving this look, but in a pinch, a toothbrush will suffice.

I finally got pics of my more recent cards - yes, I said CARDS, plural LOL - but I've decided to try submitting them! So I won't be posting them here just yet. ;) I've never had the courage to submit to a print magazine before. We'll see what happens. :)

Hope your week is off to a great start! Thanks so much for reading... I appreciate it so very much. XO

SUPPLIES: all paper (yo-yo yellow & mellow moss), stamps (upsy daisy & inspired by nature, can't remember the name of the set for the sentiment... it's from an old SAB set), and inks (markers - yo-yo yellow, mellow moss, always artichoke, chocolate chip) are SU.

Another winner!

And another WOW for all the great comments! I am actually very excited about making our Thanksgiving dinner this year, now that I have all of these great ideas, so thank you! The dishes you all mentioned sound absolutely fabulous! :D

On to the winner... random.org picked a number for me, and that number is...



...comment #19, which belongs to...



DAWN!!! Congratulations! I can't seem to find an email for you, so if you could email me (link in sidebar), I will get your stamps out to you right away! :) And thanks again everyone for playing. More give-aways to come soon. :)

Here's a real quick card I did for a "sheer/transparency" publication assignment over at SNR. The floral panel underneath was stamped with various SU! images and inks, and the sentiment was stamped on the vellum and heat embossed (click to see larger):


Just a real simple one here. The inks I used are actually very vibrant, but with the vellum overlay, they look much softer. A tip when heat embossing on vellum: try to use vellum card stock and detail embossing powder if at all possible. Vellum card stock is thicker and more resistant to warping, and the finer granules in detail EP will usually melt faster, and therefore lessen the chances of warping your vellum as well. Also, keep your heat gun at a considerable distance and in motion during the entire process. It takes time to emboss on vellum, so patience is key... but the results will definitely be worth it. ;)

Thanks again for peekin' in today. Hope your weekend was a good one! :)

PAPER - Stampin' Up! card stocks and vellum card stock
STAMPS - Stampin' Up! "Petal Prints" and "Close As A Memory" stamp sets
INKS - Stampin' Up!
MISC - black detail embossing powder and heat tool, organdy ribbon

Pet Sympathy

Still quite a bit under the weather over here. Not much energy to get through the daily grind, let alone to have fun and create.

However, I needed to whip up a quick sympathy card for the in-laws who had to put their beloved carin terrier, Kodiak, to sleep recently. It's believed he had kidney cancer and it all happened quite quickly and suddenly, as he was only about 7-8 years old. :( Here's the card I managed to get done... pretty basic and self explanitory, albeit a lousy pic (click to see larger):

I went with colors that always seem to say "dog" to me - red, black and brown. I wanted to use images that were animal related, as opposed to using standard sypathy images, like florals. I soon realized that I should probably invest in some sort of "pet" (dog) stamps, as this little paw print was all I had to use. I also remembered why I never use my Making Memories alphabet anymore... it's AWFUL! Irregular gaps between letters, uneven inking surface... if it weren't for the great font and the fact that it matches another larger alpha that I have (MaVinci's Reliquary - "It's My Type"), I probably would've chucked the set a long time ago! :P Anyway, I used my Cricut machine to cut out the tag, which is supposed to resemble a dog's tag. Everything is up on pop dots. Pretty easy.

I really feel for my MIL over her loss. Kodiak was originally her father's dog... adopted young as a companion to help him cope with the death of his wife of over 50 years, MIL's mom. However, he only survived a few more years before passing on himself and leaving Kody in MIL's care. The bond between MIL and Kody was strong. That dog was the last living piece of her dad (parents), and now he, too, is gone. :( It hit her hard. I hope my card reminds her that we love her and are thinking of her.

Kody was so much fun... just a sweet, fat, :D ball of energy. He was a good dog. :)

Well, the couch is calling my name. ;) Have a great weekend and thanks for peekin'.


SUPPLIES:
Card Stock: Unknown (scraps, LOL)
Stamps: Rubber Stampede (paw) and Making Memories ("Rummage" alpha - sentiment)
Ink: SU's Close To Cocoa and Memories
Misc: Offray gigham ribbon, circle punches, Cricut machine, and pop dots

The kind of card I hate to make

"What kind of card is that?" you say?

Well, that would be the sympathy kind. :(

My SIL lost her dad back in October. And just a few days ago, lost her cousin - to whom she was so close while growing up. Two very significant people in her life are gone in such a short period of time, and my heart just breaks for her. :(

I have been playing with acetate a lot lately and since her favorite color is purple, this is what I came up with for her (click to see larger):


I knew going into this that I wouldn't be able to get a very good picture of the card, thanks to the acetate. I did what I could. Hopefully you can see enough to get a good idea of how it looks IRL. Regardless, I've decided that I LOVE working with acetate, so be on the lookout for more acetate cards soon! ;)

All in all, I'm very pleased with how this card came out. Don't you just love it when you have an idea in your head and you're able to successfully translate it to paper?! That's what happened here... I'd had an idea like this in my head for a while now, and I'm just SO thrilled I was able to make it work. The masking, the two-tone flowers, the design on the acetate... since I think the card is pretty self-explanatory, I'm just gonna say "YAY!" and leave it at that. LOL ;)

Have a GREAT weekend and be sure to hug the ones you love. :)


Supplies
paper - SU! Whisper White, Pale Plum and Perfect Plum
stamps - SU! "Close As A Memory" and Autumn Leaves' Swirls
ink - SU! Pale Plum, Perfect Plum, Mellow Moss (marker), and StazOn white
misc - acetate, Perfect Layers tool, SU! ticket corner punch, and rhinestones
technique - masking

"I'm Sorry" card and FeedBlitz on the fritz

As much as I tried to get this posted last night, time just wasn't going to allow it. LOL

Here's a card I needed to make for hubby. Or, maybe I should say, hubby needed me to make it for him. LOL ;) Poor guy.

Floral and background images © Stampin' Up! ("Heartfelt Thanks" set, "Fine Lace" and "Linen" backgrounds). Sentiment stamp source is unknown.

This card makes me 3-0 for my self-imposed background challenge. And I used not just one, but two background stamps on this card! (Woo hoo, go me! LOL) It's difficult to tell from the pic, but I used SU!'s Cranberry Crisp classic ink to stamp the Linen background on the Cranberry Crisp card stock. Then, I took my sponge and sponged more Cranberry Crisp ink all around the edges, concentrating heavily on the corners. I LOVE the subtle texture that the Linen background gives! I may not use my background stamps often enough (hence the challenge), but I must say that Linen is the one I do find myself reaching for more more than all the others. The Fine Lace background was stamped with true Thyme classic ink onto Mellow moss card stock for the green mat (another great, versatile BG) which was also distressed with my Heidi Swapp Edge Distresser and mounted up on pop dots. The floral image was stamped with Cranberry Crisp and True Thyme and then over-stamped with classic black ink for the line detail. I LOVE the Heartfelt Thanks set, which is a Two-Step Stampin' set. It's basically fool proof - you'd be hard pressed to make a bad card with that set! ;) Finally, I stamped the sentiment in the bottom corner and added a little ribbon on for the finishing touch. I find myself going through ridiculous amounts of that black gingham ribbon. LOL

Here's another shot of the same card, which shows a little more detail in the images, but the colors aren't as accurate as the first photo:

Floral and background images © Stampin' Up! ("Heartfelt Thanks" set, "Fine Lace" and "Linen" backgrounds). Sentiment stamp source is unknown.

I don't know why the first pic looks so far away... it would definitely be the better pic between the two had it been a little closer. But I was positive I had filled the frame in that first shot...? I don't know what happened. Anyway, I'd love your opinions on which pic looks better, Thanks!

Also, FeedBlitz is having some issues recognizing updated feeds, so yesterday's post didn't make it out to those who subscribe. I'm so sorry about that. I'm hoping they have the issue resolved soon so the subscribers don't have their inbox bombarded with all the updates all at once! I apologize in advance if that's what ends up happening, but unfortunately, I have no control over the issue. :(

I hope your weekend is treating you well! Basically one week left before the holiday! I'm glad to finally be caught up with the majority of my tasks, so I can start enjoying what's left of this wonderful season. It's by far my favorite holiday and I love to revel in every single moment of it. :)