WWC78 - The "B"s Have It

I absolutely love today's challenge!  Do you know how many words begin with the letter "B"?  Our Watercooler Artists certainly found out when we set out to create some samples for the challenge.  Jean Fitch decided it would be all about "B"s.

And the list doesn't end there.  I thought of a few additional "B" words and took those as the theme for my card.  So which words did I use?  Barnwood, boards, boots, blue, brown.  That's five "B"s in one card!  And I got to use one of my favourite stamp sets from the Annual Catalogue, Country Livin'.

Stamp Sets:  Country Livin', Guy Greetings

Paper:  Tip Top Taupe, Sahara Sand, Crumb Cake, Whisper White, Dapper Denim

Inks:  Tip Top Taupe, Dapper Denim, Whisper White Craft 

Tools:  Paper Snips, Aqua Painter, Woodgrain Embossing Folder, Sponges

I hope you'll come on over to the Watercooler Wednesday Challenge and check out the cards created by the other Watercooler Artists.  Have you decided which "B" is going to star on your creation?

PCCCS204 - HAppy 14th Anniversary

What better time to create an Anniversary card than when you have to meet the deadline for a sketch challenge when you're part of a Design Team?  It certainly came in handy and gave me inspiration for the layout of my card.

I chose to design my card around one of the prettiest designer papers in the Annual Catalogue, the Affectionately Yours Specialty Designer Series paper.  What makes the paper so special?  I love the copper embossing on two of the sheets and I also love the happy colours in the floral design.  For my Anniversary card, I had plans to use a fair bit of copper embossing and so the additional copper in the paper would add to it and emphasize it.  I especially liked the copper-embossed splatters on the complementary Night of Navy cardstock.

Stamp sets:  Gorgeous Grunge, Number of Years

Inks:  VersaMark, Copper embossing powder

Papers:  Heavy Whisper White, Night of Navy, Affectionately Yours DSP

Tools:  Large Numbers Framelits, Botanical Builder Framelits, Rose Garden Thinlits

I hope you'll check out the other cards created by the Design Team at the Paper Craft Crew Challenge.

The Wacky Watercooler Blog Hop Celebrates its 3rd Anniversary!

As you can see from the title, this is a very special blog hop to which we're welcoming you.  It's our 3rd Anniversary. As blog hops go, that's quite a milestone because many don't last as long.  Not only has ours lasted these three years, but it has thrived.  New people have joined in along the way and we've also attracted a nice, large group of followers.  Life is good!

You can see the original hop if you click HERE.   You'll notice that we're lucky to have all the original "pioneer" participants with us for this Anniversary blog hop.  We're also lucky to be able to share this blog hop with several of our more recent "hoppers".

As you will remember, if you've wandered through our blog hops before, our blog hop is presented in a circular fashion.  What does that mean?  Wherever you begin in our blog hop, whether you go forwards or backwards through the participants, eventually you will wind up precisely where you began.  I hope you'll take time to visit all the participating blogs and, perhaps, leave a short message letting us know  what you've thought of our posts.

If you've been moving forwards through the blog hop, you'll have arrived here from the very talented Terri Antoniw.  Weren't her projects terrific?

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Our first project for this blog hop is an Anniversary card.   There are a lot of stamp sets which I could have used but I had this idea in my head and was determined that it would be translated into a card.  Armed with Window Sheets, Gold Foil, the Gently Falling embossing folder and the Curvy Keepsake Box thinlits, I proceeded to trace out and then hand cut my pieces.  I'm happy to say it all worked out.  You can see I've traced the thinlit onto a Window Sheet twice, the second time just to the right of and below the first tracing.  That became the top of my champagne flutes.  The Gold Foil became my champagne (with the embossing folder providing the bubbly effect).  I've limited my colours to Basic Black, Whisper White, Gold and Delightful Dijon.  The stamps which I used for my sentiments are from the Balloon Celebration and Number of Years sets.  

I love it when the images in one's head turn into an awesome card, don't you?

And since this is black and white with a pop of colour, I'm entering it into the SUO challenge this week.

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Our second project is all about using stamp sets which were introduced three years ago and have continued to be current today.  Truth be told, there are not many of those.  I chose to use one of my favourites, Wetlands.  This is a stamp set which will remain with me even after it finally retires.  I love the images that much! 

Instead of creating another card, I chose to make a keepsake rock for my sister who is going through some extremely serious health issues at the moment.  We grew up in Victoria and so the coast and all things coastal are dear to us.  What could be better, therefore, than to use the Wetlands images for this gift?  My rock is nice and flat and just large enough for this purpose.  First I sponged some Whisper White craft ink over it and wiped it off.  This sealed the rock and also gave me a better overall colour to which to add my colours and images.  The colours I've sponged onto the rock are Dapper Denim, Peekaboo Peach, Flirty Flamingo, Delightful Dijon, and Soft Suede.  Once those had dried, I stamped some splatter to the lower area using the Delightful Dijon ink and also stamped some splatter to the upper area using the Whisper White craft ink.  I love the Gorgeous Grunge set for the variety of splatters.

Finally, when everything was nicely dry, I stamped the sandpiper images as well as a partial reeds image onto the rock using Basic Black archival ink.  My sentiment is from the Thoughtful Banners set and is also stamped in archival ink.  Because I want this rock to last, I've chosen to seal it using the retired Crystal Effects.  

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Our final project is a CASE of a project from the original blog hop.  Since I was one of the "pioneers", I chose to CASE (copy and share) one of my own projects but, of course, using current products.  I love the Affectionately Yours Specialty Designer Series paper because several of the sheets of paper are beautifully embossed with the new Copper embossing powder.  It's so elegant and is therefore perfect for a current "take" on the pillow box which I shared in my original post.

Instead of using the Flower Shop bundle (which is still current after three years), I decided that my flower would be created using the wonderful Botanical Blooms bundle.  I used Vellum just as I did for my original but this time heat embossed it with the Copper embossing powder.  I also added a touch of the Copper heat embossing along the edges of the Night of Navy "girdle".   You'll notice a tinge of green on the leaf and some peach on the petals.  After colouring them with the Mint Macaron and Peekaboo Peach markers, respectively, I added clear embossing powder and then heat embossed that to give it more sheen.  The sentiment is from the Pop of Paradise set, Night of Navy heat embossed using the Copper embossing powder as well.

I love the way the current paper and products make this such an elegant pillow box, don't you?

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 And that's it for my projects.  I hope you've enjoyed them as much as I enjoyed creating them.  From here you'll be visiting another wonderfully creative stamper, Deborah Smart.

WWC77 - You're Amazing!

This week's colour challenge is hosted by Marsha Reed who has restricted the neutral to be Very Vanilla.  Of course I got it all wrong!

You'll note that the dark blue is Night of Navy.  Anyone can read that, right?  Well, when it's late at night and one is in a real hurry and simply glances at the colours, one makes a mistake and uses Dapper Denim.  That one was me.  So, my card's neutral was Whisper White and the dark blue was Dapper Denim.  Under normal circumstances that would have been funny.  When one is rushed and realises one's mistake, one becomes even more frazzled. 

Take two on the card resulted in the appropriate Very Vanilla for my neutral.  I also used the appropriate Night of Navy.  And, even though I almost drove myself totally crazy picking and glueing all those little die-bits into the rose and leaves, I really do love the result.

Cardstock:  Night of Navy, Very Vanilla, Mint Macaron, Sweet Sugarplum, Pink Pirouette

Inks:  Night of Navy

Tools:  Rose Garden Thinlits, Tombow Glue

Stamps:  Watercolor Wishes (card kit)

I hope you'll check out the cards created by the other Watercooler Artists at our Watercooler Wednesday Challenge.

PCCCS203 - Celebrate your Fabulousness!

Welcome to another Paper Craft Crew Sketch challenge.  Our sketch for this week is a fun one.

Just think of all the wonderful Designer Series Paper you can show off with this design!  I went directly to the Irresistibly Floral collection.  What could be better than those wonderful floral designs and being able to use your sponge brayer (or sponge or spritzer) to make it any colour you please?  My choice was to use my Sweet Sugarplum ink to brayer the background colour.  Then I used a slightly dampened kleenex to remove any ink that was on the "embossed" lines.  Did that ever make them white and "pop"!

My base cardstock for this 5 1/4" x 5 1/4" card is Tip Top Taupe.  Then I used my Softly Falling embossing folder on a piece of Whisper White  and lightly sponged Sweet Sugarplum over the raised dots.  After attaching that to my base, I attached the diagonally cut sponged DSP to the lower portion of the white layer.  I left the large tag white and Tip Top Taupe  but added a few pops of colour with the Mint Macaron piece behind the tag and, of course, the butterfly which I cut from a piece of the Affectionately Yours Specialty DSP.  A few silver sequine and a piece of the new burlap ribbon and the card was done.

I hope you'll check out the other Design Team cards and enter your own at our Paper Craft Crew Challenge.

WWC76 - You're In My Thoughts

It's time for another challenge and this one is a Clean & Simple challenge hosted by Penny Hanuszak.  Penny's theme for the challenge is "butterflies".

Since I love butterflies and there are a number of wonderful butterfly stamps in the catalogue, it was just a matter of deciding which images I would use.  That sounds simple, doesn't it, but when I laid my stamp sets containing butterflies on the table, I realised that I loved them all.  That made choosing a whole lot more difficult.  Things got a bit tense over here when I put aside my second stamped piece of Whisper White because I had changed my mind---again.

Finally it came down to the simple fact that I had missed my deadline and I had to go forward with a stamp set.  And so I chose the Kinda Eclectic set and never looked back.  We have new rules for the clean and simple and so I chose to have a base for my card using the Dapper Denim cardstock.  Then I cut a piece of Whisper White onto which I would do all my stamping.  Since I wanted a tag but our new rules do not allow any embellishments or die-cuts, I decided to do a bit of masking.  That way I could have my tag but still follow the rules.

I chose the sentiment from the beautiful Watercolor Wishes Kit and stamped it using Dapper Denim.  Then I cut my tag using Tags & Labels Framelits so that I could use the tag shape to mask my sentiment and stamp over it leaving the tag shape empty of stamping.  And so I added the sun image using Crushed Curry ink.  Then I stamped one of the leaf images using Mint Macaron stamped off once above the sun along the right side and then below the sun on the right side.  Finally I added three of the larger butterfly images using Dapper Denim ink stamped off once.

After I had completed all those images, I took the tag blank and centred it over my sentiment so that I could trace around the perimeter using Dapper Denim ink and then sponge lightly into the tag shape to give it dimension.

I hope you'll check out the creations by the other Watercooler Artists at our Watercooler Wednesday Challenge.  I'd love to see your clean and simple card linked up this week.

WWC75 - You're Always There for Me

This week's challenge over at the Watercooler Wednesday Challenge is a sketch hosted by Deborah Smart.  I love sketch challenges.  They make you think in terms of layout first.  Certainly it is more disciplined than an otherwise "open" creative process.

I frequently change the aspect of the sketch, putting it on its side or flipping it vertically.  This time, however, I stayed with the sketch the way it was presented.  It gave me an idea and I ran with it.  I would combine the beautiful From Land to Sea stamp set with the new Seaside embossing folder.

I began with a base of Heavy Whisper White.  My next layer of Dapper Denim cardstock was first embossed using the Seaside embossing folder, then each raised "ripple" was brushed with the Wink of Stella, and finally attached to the base.  The long rectangle used a base of Whisper White and then another layer of Whisper White upon which I stamped the lighthouse image, masked the bottom, and then carefully stamped the mountains from the In the Meadow stamp set to give the impression of land on which it was built.  For the squarish rectangle, I used a base of Kraft paper and then a layer of Whisper White upon which I stamped the sea turtle image twice and then the sentiment from the Love You Lots hostess set.

All my images and backgrounds were watercoloured using my Aqua Painter and various inks.  The tiny bubbles around the turtles are stamped with an image from the Timeless Textures stamp set.

I hope you'll check out the wonderful creations by the other Watercooler Artists at our Watercooler Wednesday Challenge.  We'd love to see your creation linked up this week.

I've also included my card in the SUO challenge #152, Delight in Nature.

As well as in the Addicted to Stamps and More Challenge, anything goes.