random.on purpose.

Trees and Tape

Skating under the wire here again...  This fortnight's Jingle Belles challenge was to use washi or other decorative tape to make a holiday card.  I've had some decorative packing tape for several years and never used it for anything, so I thought I'd pull it out and give it a test run:

I just wrapped a strip around cardstock and matted it on a red card base, added a stamped and matted tree image (Michelle Clement for Purple Onion Designs) and a stamped and matted sentiment (The Cat's Pajamas).  All of the corners are punched with Stampin'Up's ticket corner punch.

I have about seven more cards in my head for this challenge, but since the deadline is this evening, I doubt that any of them will get made until a later date.  I did make a small gift enclosure-type card a while back that also fits the challenge - and even uses actual washi tape:

The sentiment is from the Stampin'Up! Good Greetings set, stamped in Real Red.  

And that's it for me today!  Greg returned Monday night from a 3-week work trip to the frozen tundra that is Syracuse, New York, and we have things to do!  Catch you another day, and thanks for stopping by!

Baby-stepping Into Brave

True to my resolve to be brave this year and a) try new things and, b) do things that I've put off for too long and, c) do things that I used to enjoy but haven't done for far too long, I bought some canvases and some paints and some brushes and winged it on a project to fill up the massive empty wall in my dining area (you can click on the picture to make it a bit bigger):

This painting (technically three of them I suppose, since it spans three canvases) was inspired by several paintings that I saw on Pinterest.  I sort of combined an idea from here and a color scheme from there and another concept from somewhere else, and this is what I ended up with.  Finished size is 49" x 20".

Considering that I haven't picked up a paintbrush to do "art" (as opposed to painting or faux-finishing a wall) for a couple of decades, I'm pretty pleased with it.  It fills the space nicely, incorporates the accent colors we're using, and my husband likes it - all positives, right?

I've got four 6" square canvases with backgrounds painted, waiting for me to decide how to finish them, to go in my kitchen, and another 16" x 20" blank canvas that will have a painting of some kind for my guest bathroom eventually, so I'm going to continue on with some artistic endeavors (go, me!) in the near future.

I have a couple of Easter projects in the works, and I've been finalizing my stamp storage re-vamp and a couple of other organizational/storage projects, so that's some of what I've been up to, and some of what is on tap for the blog in the upcoming days/weeks.  Meanwhile, have a fabulous week yourself, and thanks for stopping by!

You May Gnome as a Leprechaun

In my enthusiasm for yesterday's project, I failed to notice ALL of the information for the Free For All challenge.  It was supposed to have a St. Patrick's Day theme and use a tutorial...oops!  I remedied the situation last night by making another project (I KNOW!):

This is a matchbook candy holder, designed to hold one Ghirardelli chocolate.  The tutorial (another super-quick-and-easy one) is HERE.  This is a great example of making the best of limited supplies, as well.  I don't have any cardstock this shade of green, so I used the same marker as the one on my leprechaun to color the edges of white cardstock to create a mat for the dp.  The dp is ancient DCWV, and I did some random stamping to create shamrock paper (Mowed Lawn distress ink and a Studio G stamp).  I don't have any leprechaun stamps, but I have a handful of gnomes.  This cute guy is from Recollections Garden Gnome, and I stamped him without his tall cap, then drew in a leprechaun hat instead.  I colored it with just the pencil lines in place, then outlined with a Micron pen afterward (the ink would have smeared otherwise).  Amazing what you can come up with when the need arises, eh?

I know I haven't been all that chatty lately -  just throwing a project up and going away again - but there's not a lot to say right now...  Things are in flux (as usual) and I'm percolating and there's nothing final enough to say so, so I'm just not saying :)  Hang in there, folks - more on the way!  Meanwhile, I hope the bits and pieces that I'm posting are at least a little bit interesting...  Have a great weekend, and thanks for stopping by!

Spring Notes

I don't know if this post will make those of you in the frigid northeast feel better or worse, but here's the project du jour:

Springtime in a (mini) pizza box!  Today's Free for All challenge was to do one of the tutorials (which I almost never, ever do) and I chose to make a pizza box!  I was also inspired to make these little notes.  This week's Queen for the Day Kecia (aka Little Sea Otter) has a fantastic gallery with lots of eye candy, but I was particularly smitten with this card:

I'm sure you can see the similarities (and differences) in her version and mine...  The tutorial for the pizza box is HERE, and is probably the quickest, easiest project EVER!  Pretty darn cute, too, if you ask me...  I made a belly band to hold it shut and wrapped lace-edged ribbon and orange ribbon over the band to pretty it up a bit.  A die-cut square and a bow top it off.  I plan to make envelopes to go with the cards before I send them off to their destination...

Stamps: Grass and sentiments by Stacey Yacula Studios for Purple Onion Designs, "for you" from Stampin'Up! Good Greetings, tulips from Close to My Heart Wonderful Charms, bee from Recollections Kid's Play Borders; Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black; Paper: Recollections white, unknown green; Accessories/tools: Bic and Prismacolor markers, Spellbinders heart square die, Hobby Lobby and unknown ribbon, Micron pen

How Old Are You Now?

Hello again!  I took some time this morning to make a card for yesterday's Splitcoast challenge to use numbers on a card, and today's challenge to use three or more of these colors: Baked Brown Sugar, Crisp Cantaloupe, Coastal Cabana, Hello Honey, and Pistachio Pudding, with the "dessert option" of making a baby card or a birthday card for a child:

This is another small-ish card (3 3/4" square), because I wanted to use my Nestabilities Scalloped Square dies and that's what size the largest one is.  I put my folded card base in the die so the top edge was just shy of the cutting edge, so the tops of the scallops are intact.  I've seen others do this many times, but it's the first time that I gave it a go.  I'll have to do it again, though - easy and effective!  I managed all five of the colors in the numbers (Hampton Art Postscript Calendar) and little girl (WhipperSnapper Sugar 'n Spice), two of them for the mats, and stamped the sentiment in Baked Brown Sugar (Inkadinkado Kid Quotes Friendly Advice).

I'm juggling about five different projects right now, some of which I will be sharing here very soon, so watch this space!  I hope your week is off to a great start, thanks for stopping by, and do something to make your heart happy!  Later...

My Favorite

Good morning, and happy Friday the 13th!  I'm hosting the Queen for the Day Challenge again today over on Splitcoast, honoring redlynny.  I discovered her just after Christmas, and LOVE her style!  I added this card to my favorites folder, and warned her that I would probably CASE it for every occasion:

How adorable is that?!?  True to my word, my version is geared toward Valentine's Day:

The greens match each other MUCH better in real life, but I don't know how to edit the photo well enough to fix that...  The sentiment is something that I say to my husband and kids quite a bit, and that's my boyfriend grinning at us from the card (don't tell my husband).  He totally fits the theme of the card, because he truly is my favorite Stampotique stamp :)

All the paper and cardstock is Stampin'Up! (Everyday Enchantment dp, Calypso Coral, Pool Party and Pear Pizzazz cardstock), I used The Cat's Pajamas Heart Trio die and some Bic and Prismacolor markers, and that's all she wrote!

Enjoy your day!  This supposedly "unlucky" date is usually "opposite day" for me - I have the best days EVER on Friday the 13th - hope you do, too!  Thanks for stopping by!

All That Jazz

On a roll, apparently...  Here's today's offering:

The challenge was to incorporate music into a card.  I've had this wheel f..o..r..e..v..e..r...  It's Jazz, from Stampin'Up!, unmounted now, of course, and it retired eons ago.  Ditto the Quirky Alphabet (also SU!) that I used for the "i love you".  The other alphabet is from PSX and is appropriately titled Love Letters.  I used the same rainbow colors as on Monday's card and called it good...

Hello, Again!

I told you I'd be back!  I considered waiting until tomorrow to post this since I posted earlier today, but the deadline to link up for the Jingle Belles challenge is this evening and I missed last week, so here I am again...

We were supposed to "get in shape" (which actually IS one of my resolutions, and I'm doing well so far, thank you, but I digress...) and make a shaped card:

I love the WhipperSnapper snowmen (I have three so far), and this guy is large enough and "chunky" enough to stand alone, although - for a card - he's a bit diminutive (just under 4" square-ish).  You know me and my affinity for all things small, though, right?  I thought a bit of paper piecing would be appropriate (and easier than coloring), so scraps of Basic Grey Boxer and Pebbles Real Life papers got stamped, trimmed and glued down.  I did use a Bic marker for his nose, and a gold Sharpie for the buckle on his hatband, though...  Pretty much all there is to this story!  Thanks for stopping by, and so long again!

Feelin' Groovy

I had this post ready to go yesterday, but forgot to hit "publish" instead of "save as draft" - doh!  I'll probably be back this afternoon with more, but here's this, in the meantime...

I was cleaning up after making Monday's card and noticed that the paper towel that I had used to soak up the ink and water from my embossing folder looked remarkably like tie-dye.  It had to be done:

"Back in the day" we always wore frayed, faded denim with our tie-dye, so I pulled out some ancient dp (either DCWV or Provo Craft - can't remember now) and used a Heidi Swapp edge distresser on it.  A little clear embossing with a peace sign stamp (TPC Studio Eco Friendly), an embossed sentiment (Close to My Heart Groovy), stack everything up and walk away happy!

I separated the layers of the paper towel and only used the top one, stuck to white cardstock with a spray adhesive and trimmed to fit my design, in case you were wondering...  Okay - off to get my car fixed, and then PLAY TIME!  Later, loverlies!

Showers of Love

I started the week off right - TWO challenges in one card!  Behold:

The Clean and Simple challenge was rainbows, and the Try a New Technique challenge was embossing folder stamping.  The tutorial for that technique is HERE.  I may or may not have mentioned that I am not big into trying techniques - they are time-consuming and frustrating for me, and I sometimes never love the results.  HOWEVER - in keeping with my resolve to be brave this year and try new things, I am baby-stepping into the technique realm (the hostess of the challenge said it was an easy one).  I threw away several attempts at getting something usable, and still had to cut an oval out of the piece because the rest was un-good...

Since this was also for a clean and simple challenge I didn't want to get too carried away, so I just cut a mat for my rainbow oval, embossed some watercolor paper with the same folder that I used to stamp, and layered them on the base.  I wanted to do a ribbon tag for the sentiment, but all of my dies were too big.  I used the Decorative Label punch to make mine.  To do it, you punch out the label, then re-insert it into the punch like this:

Easy peasy!  The Word Window punch was used for the sentiment itself, which is written by moi with a Pilot Precise pen...

Pacific Point cardstock and both punches are from Stampin'Up!, the dies are Spellbinders, the embossing folder is by Darice, and the watercolor paper is Strathmore.  I can't remember if the ribbon is Stampin'Up! or Martha Stewart, so you'll have to do your research if you want some, too..  Ink colors (all Stampin'Up!) are Real Red, Tangerine Tango,  Daffodil Delight, Gumball Green, Pacific Point, and Blackberry Bliss.

And that pretty much wraps up my morning!  I should probably go do something that will help pay the bills now...  If any of you have a brilliant idea (or two or three or six) of ways that I can make $$ without getting a "real job", I'd be oh-so-grateful if you lobbed them my way.  NOTHING is too silly or outlandish or whatever for me to consider!  I'm currently doing organizing and interior design work, but I have a tendency to burn out quickly, so options are good...

And with that, my dear loverlies, I am off!  I hope your week is starting creatively, as well (or at least pleasantly), and thanks for stopping by!