i lost my mojo

Somewhere is the crazy design team call of so many companies - i lost my mojo! I havent crafted anything in a few days. The sad thing is i lost my mojo so much that i havent posted anything and i even have projects ready to post! I wont go into why i lost my mojo because the intention is not to get people to blow smoke up my booty so to speak.

I am hoping for my mojo to return since there are some fun things happening in the next few days in the world of paper crafting!

Today is WUW or What's Up Wednesday with My Favorite Things which you can read about here. This is a relatively new things with MFT. There are a couple of fun challenges that just maybe, if my mojo returns, i'll do today. But in honor of WUW, i wanted to post my card i did for the December Guest Designer challenge. You should check out the winners - their cards are really fab.

And here's mine...


The Challenge was to watercolor on a card. There are SO MANY ways to watercolor. I decided i wanted to try a new technique to me, but one of the oldest to watercoloring! I used watercolor pencils and a technique i read off of Christi Snow's blog Altered Ambitions about a week ago. I do own watercolor pencils... so i figured this would be fun! But i'm a marker girl so it was a little bit of a challenge. I opted to NOT color in one of my Who's That Girls. Mainly because i couldnt find one of my stamp sets! More on that later! But then i got to thinking... and i wanted to try to shade something that would be really different for me. So i pulled out my Boho Blossoms set (it needed some love anyway) and got to coloring. I first stamps out a few images on different papers because to be quite honest, i had no idea what i was doing! And then i got to coloring. When i finally decided i found something i liked (which wasnt on watercolor paper because i couldnt even find that to try it out... more on that later) i then stamped out a few more so i could practice with some different color options. I didnt even know what these pencils would look like once water touched them! So then i decided to go with just 1 lonely shade. haha. I'm so used to blended multiple colors to get the shading effect i wanted. I was pleasantly surprised that i could get the shading effect i wanted with just 1 pencil. Here's a closer look at the flower itself...

It's not a super close up photo, but you can see it a little better. I basically just outlined the spots i wanted to appear darkest. Then i used my h20 pen to drag the color thru the rest of the flower. And i did it on just plain ol georgia pacific paper. Now if i had wanted to do a lot of watercoloring it wouldnt have worked. the paper would have gotten very warped. But for this, it worked fine. I did try to use GP for my background and shade around the edges using a different watercoloring technique (using the ink from my ink pads and my h20 brush) but the water started falling apart and warping. SO i decided, well that was a fun idea, but it's not happening! So i altered my overall card design. It was an easy card to put together, and i think it's pretty. I might just start watercoloring a little more! Now if i could just figure out how to use my prismacolor pencils and gamsol! haha.

Ok, so if you are just interested in the creations... this is the time where you hop on along to someone elses blog. Because now i'm going to get at all the "more on that later" stuff. As i was trying to create this card - i was about to give up before i even got started! I couldnt find the stamp set i wanted. anywhere! I've only used it 1 time and i got it in september. So how did i lose it? I still havent found it y the way. But as i searched, i decided my stamp collection was out of hand. At least my storing method. I only began stamping about 2 years ago. About 2 years ago exactly actually. I started buying some close to my heart stamps with a stamp club in november of 2006. My oh My how crazy my stamping collection has become! But because of it's growth, i just find new places to store them and none of them are in the same place. I've got CTMH in one spot, SU in another, Unity on the bookcase, and all my autumn leaves and other clear stamps in cd cases and then in metal baskets. My "nicer" clear sets have been split - some in cd cases and then in a tower on top of soem cubicles (thats the papertrey, Verve and MFT station) but then some of them havent been put in cd cases yet because there is no more room in the tower. My studio g's are in a box and misc wood mounted's are split between soem drawers and a large roll out tote by junkitz. Some of my plain rubbers has been put on cling and are in cd cases but other are stored in a basket (all of my staving artist and pink cat are there) and then my bellas i store on a very large book ring thats hung next to my desk. Do you see now why i was flustered!? So then i decided, well let's just go with something different! And had a plan in mind for the boho blossoms set. So i went ot get my watercolored paper. You guessed it... couldnt find that either. I was about ready to just throw everything out the window and give up all together! This is when i decided my craft room needs a MAJOR overhaul! Its not that i cant clean it up and make it look pretty or that everything is in boxes in the middle of the floor as it was once before - its now i have places to put things but not organized method!
Unfortunately, i dont ever get solo time in there to go thru stuff. So it will be a slow process getting it redone - but it will be redone! DH is going to go with me to Home Depot some night this week so i can get more shelves and more places to get things up and out of reach (i'm REALLY tired of jack pulling stuff out). Hopefully once i have a few new places i can go thru everything and put things together in a cohesive manner! Once i finally accomplish the task, i'll be sure to post it!

Oh and one last thing... i found another blog candy for you to check out...
http://www.karinhoeve.blogspot.com/ to win a super cute purse she made and some other goodies
and
http://scrampinmama.blogspot.com/2008/11/its-time-for-blog-candy.html for a little love from i{heart}papers!

Read more...

Whew - what a week! I've been wanting to post, but just havent had a whole heck of a lot of time. Sad sad sad. But i did create this card yesterday. I was very excited with the turn out. I had the idea about a week ago and even went out to buy this stamp just to create this witchy card! haha.

The stamp is by My Favorite Stamps and comes with all kinda fun things to create a sweet card. But i decided to color her legs green and created a spooky decor by paper piecing her walls to have a funky black wallpaper (all patterned paper is by reminisce). Her floor is hand drawn.

The sentiment is by the new Spooky Sweets II set by PaperTrey Ink. Overall i was pleased with the outcome of this card. It's always fun to me to use stamps in a manner that they werent intended for!

Thanks for visiting and feel free to leave me a comment!

Read more...

A good friend of mine is due any day with her second little girl! I'm so excited for her and plan to fully spoil her rotten now that i know i'm having 2 boys! Or at least i can do crafty pink girly things for her. This card i made so i can be prepared for the day she says she's here! Since my in-laws will be in town (my mil loves crafting so i'm sure i'll be very busy going to every craft store we have - she has none where she lives in canada) and my birthday is THURSDAY! i'm afraid i wont get the time to make a good card for her, so i planned ahead! WOOHOO for planning ahead!!

So here she is... Baby Buttercup by stamping bella. She is colored with Copic Markers (i even colored her ahead of time while we were CAMPING last weekend). I finally broke out my nestabilities dies and cut out little baby buttercup. Her edges are inked and then i raised her with pop dots. I always like the look of alot of dimension on cards but then next do much about it so my goal this time was to have lots of "levels" :)
I also used my fabulous Swiss Dots cuddlebug folder and finally broke out my new Martha Stewart butterfly punch. Oh how i love this punch! It's whimsical and elegant at the same time and it punched thru my cardstock like buttah! To make this punch pop out, i folded up the wings and added some cinnamon stickles to the center to make the butterfly's body. I also embossed the cardstock with the swiss dots before punching.

Sentiment is from Essential Sentiments by My Favorite Things. I used the word window punch to punch it out. FYI - every stamp in the essential sentiments stamp set works perfectly with the word window punch by Stampin Up.

Any other questions... please feel free to comment or email!

Thanks for looking!!!!!

Read more...

Here's a card i made with My Favorite Things stamp - She's Having a Baby.

Her dress is paper pieced with Bo Bunny Cardstock and i also used DCWV textured cardstock. And she's colored with LePlume Markers. :)

Thanks for looking!

Read more...

Here is a card i made for a friend of mine in Indiana. I've never sent her one of my handmade cards. I'm hoping she likes it!



I made this card with my new "My Favorite Things" stamp that came in the mail (super duper fast shipping for sure, i ordered and received my stamps within 2 or 3 days! The set is called Boho Blossoms and it has super cute stamps in it. 2 flower designs (which you see on the card) and similiar in fashion, 2 heart designs. Lots of words in the same script as the word friendship and then a few little florishes, small flowers, hearts, etc. It's a super fun set for sure.

I used Purely Pomegranate cardstock and ink with a week with of Regal Rose ink for some of the small flowers. The colored twine i got ages ago and had forgotten about but the color matches the purely pomegranate perfectly! The large flower has been cut up and popped up with a pop dot. Fun trick for cut out flowers, if you run the petals between your finger you can "soften" them and make them curl up (or back, whichever effect you are wanting. It helps to make the cut out design really stand out!

Read more...