Holy Smokes!

I'm pretty excited! My card was chosen in the Top 10 of the K Werner Color Challenge #17!!! Out of like 200 entries! This was the first time that I participated, but I think I'll be doing it again next week. (hee, hee) Makes me a little giddy when people like my stuff :o)
You can see all the other wonderful creations here. Thank you for all your kind comments! They truly make my day :o)

A Pirate's Life for me...

When I was little, my favorite ride at Disneyland was The Pirates of the Caribbean. When I got older (and still now), my favorite actor was/is Johnny Depp. I fell in love with him in a little movie called Crybaby. Naturally, my favorite movie is...yep, you guessed it! The Pirates of the Caribbean! I'm still so in love with pirates that I've decorated my son's room in them and buy every pirate stamp that I can find! I sure hope he ends up liking them too! :o) My friend nicknamed my son Mayhem when we were trying to pick out funny names for our kiddos. She had a son 3 days before me. I call him Riot. So we have Captain Mayhem and his First Mate Riot. :o)
Anyway, here is a card I designed to submit for a guest designer challenge. The company is called Whiff of Joy and has some really cute images. For the challenge, you are to create a card using Katharina's sketch and submit it to her by 30 July. Without further ado, here is my card:

I used the Billy set from Pink Cat Studio. Such cute, cute images! The owner, Melissa, has even added a fun bonus of being able to name your set. I also used the background plate image of skulls and crossbones. This card is 4.25" square. The first layer is 1/4" smaller of Basic Grey stamped with the skulls and crossbones in Craft Whisper White ink. The next layer is the map image stamped in VersaMark and embossed with black ep. Next we have Captain Mayhem! He is matted on Real Red and colored with a mixture of things. I only have a couple of Copics, so I used the Skin White E00 and Cool Gray C3 to do an outline. Black is a Marvy Uchida marker and the red, gold and silver are Fiskars gel pens. Then I used my blender pen with various SU! colors to color his hair, money bag and little dots for his cheeks. The tag is cut out with the Slider dies in my Cuttlebug. That Cuttlebug is absolutely the best stamping purchase that I have made! I stamped the Yo Ho Yo Ho image in black and colored in the skull and crossbones with a Fiskars white gel pen. I finished the inside of the card too. I matted a piece of white on the inside, sponged the edges with Going Grey, stamped the sentiment from CC Designs It's My Birthday set and the little dog from the Billy set in the corner. He is colored with those Fiskars gel pens also. Lastly, I drew some little lines around his tail to make it look like it's wagging. Hope you like it! Thanks for looking! :o) lyss

KWerner Color Challenge # 17

Mmmm...I love this color combo! Although, I didn't think I would because Sage Shadow and I have not previously been friends. I've never participated in K Werner's color challenges before, but I got this gorgeous set called French Quarter by Inque Boutique and knew these colors would be just perfect for it. Doesn't the main image remind you of bind weed? Ha! For a weed, it's very pretty but a PITA! Trust me! I have too much of it!
First I cut out a large oval with my trusty Nestabilities in PTI white and a larger scalloped oval in Rose Red. I then stamped my image in VersaMark and colored with a Qtip and SU pastels. I love the soft look of pastels - they're just so pretty!

I just got my Petite Oval nestabilites set from Cut at Home, so I, of course, had to use them for the Verve sentiment (in Regal Rose). I've been using these a lot lately. :) I ran a piece of Sage Shadow through my Cuttlebug with the Swiss Dots embossing folder - I think that one is my favorite! It is so versatile. Matted that on more white, bumped the main image and the sentiment up on some nice, thick dimensionals and attached all to the Rose Red base. I wanted to mat more stuff on Regal Rose, but found out I am completely out! Not even a scrap to mat the sentiment on or anything - nothing, nada, zip. Eek! Oh well! To finish off the card, I cut another piece of PTI white for the inside of the card and stamped the main image three times up the right hand side. I used Regal Rose and stamped it off once on scrap paper to give it a softer look. Thanks for looking! Hope you all have a great day! :o) lyss

Another go at it...

Here's another go at a brayered sunset card. I love these cards! They are a weakness of mine; I just wish I could make them look as good as they look in my head! That's the problem with trying to copy greatness!
This time I tried the technique on PTI Stamper's Select White cardstock. Michelle was kind enough to leave me a comment on my last post with advice on how to lose the lines - brayer the lighter color from bottom to top and dark from top to bottom. *Bing* The light goes off in my head! Bummer for the anal retentive perfectionist in me! I can still see the lines! I tried to sponge the Pumpkin Pie ink around the line between the So Saffron and PP a little bit, but since my stuff is still at my mom's, I didn't have the right type of sponge. I used a paper towel, which works, but not the best. I then sponged/*toweled* some Really Rust in a circular motion across the top of the scene. I used the grass/flower stem image from PTI Honey Bees again and drew a couple of cattails on with a Marvy Uchida black marker. A little sponging with black across the bottom and the card was complete. Oh, except for my crooked Verve sentiment! Really gotta learn to use that Stamp-a-ma-jig thingy more often! Thanks for looking! :o) lyss

Unfolding

Another garden post. When I moved into my house six years ago, the front flower garden consisted of a dry bed of dirt about a foot wide and five feet long to the left of the front walk and a 2 x 5 foot long bed in front of the porch that housed weeds and three random rose bushes. I used to hate roses! We moved in to our home in late November, so the following summer I proceeded to rip two of the larger bushes out. They made absolutely no sense to me! I left this gorgeous peachy orange number that is to the right of the front door and in front of the posts that hold up the roof. The other two were a lavendar climbing rose in the center that had nothing to climb up and a crimson climber, again with nothing to climb up. They were very odd and tall and stood right in front of the picture window. Anywho, now I love my peach rose bush. It is so pretty and throws off so many beautiful roses every year. They are a lot easier to maintain than I had at once thought. Blah, blah, blah! Sorry so long winded...I just wanted to share this rose pic that I call 'Unfolding' Hope you have a great day! I'll be posting another go I had at the sunset brayering technique a little later on :o) lyss

Swimming through the Reeds

Sorry for the poor quality of the picture! I had fun creating this card; I'm finding that my favorite images are those that I can color. My mom had the idea to create a scene with the grass/flower stem image from PTI's Honey Bees set of the fish from SU! Fishy Friends swimming through the reeds. I watercolored this image with tons of colors! Soft Sky, Night of Navy, Buckaroo Blue and Almost Amethyst on the big fish; Cool Caribbean, Almost Amethyst and Vintage Violet on the little blue fish; Purely Pomegranate, Pumpkin Pie and So Saffron on the other little fish. The water is Ballet Blue, as is the cuttlebugged cardstock. The base is PT Lemon Tart. The birthday part of the sentiment is from Happy Everything and the fishes part is from Very Punny. Hope you all are having a terrific start to your week! :o) lyss

Organization and a card

A couple of months ago I moved all of my stamping stuff over to my mom's house. She has a full 1600 sq ft unfinished basement that she was allowing me to take over with all my craftiness. Unfortunately, I found that I don't create very much when I have to plan to go over to her house and can't just take 20 minutes to get something started. Bummer! So I have to bring everything back over to my small house and try to find a good spot for everything. I decided to stamp out all of my sets and create my own categorized catalog of stamps. That way things can be stored in another room and allow the small space I have to be used for all my embellishments, etc. So yesterday Mom and I spent the day stamping most of my sets. She continued and allowed me to be creative for a bit - I made 3 cards! That is amazing for me! I am a very slow stamper - it generally takes me 1-2 hours to do 1 card. Since I haven't been around my space, lots of ideas have been brewing in my head; so I guess, in a way, it worked to have everything elsewhere. :o) Anyhow, on to the card:

So many of my new sets have yet to see ink (but now they have, LOL!) and True Friend was one of those. I was inspired by this journal that Laurie Schmidlin did quite a while ago. She used soft sky and pumpkin pie inks - such a strange but incredible combination! I used the rock and roll technique to kiss a little PP ink onto the tips of the flowers. I like the flowers that have a little less PP, but all in all, I like the card. I took a small, leftover strip of black and ran it through my Cuttlebug with the Swiss Dots embossing folder. I also sponged the edges of the main image with Soft Sky ink and then distressed the edges. The sentiment is from Verve Stamps, the old red rubber Fancy Florals set (the new acrylic set has the sentiment as well). I stamped on VersaMark first, then Basic Black, then onto the paper. I tried embossing with black embossing powder but didn't get quite as good of coverage as I would have liked. The background is SU! Kraft paper stamped with the large medallion image from True Friend in VersaMark . That's pretty much it! Hope you like it and have a wonderful weekend! :o) lyss

ETA: Sorry about the photo, I can't get the coloring just right. It doesn't look quite that turquoise IRL. It really is very soft...like Soft Sky! Ha! :o)