Lil’ Inker Designs April Release Day 1 ~

Welcome to the April release for Lil’ Inker Designs!!  We have a super fun stamp and die set we’re introducing today called Mom & Dad Sentiments.  The dies are ‘Mom’ and ‘Dad’ word dies with fun little twists to them.  I am soooooo in love with these word dies!!  They are just so awesome.  Check it out!

Isn’t the @ sign for the ‘a’ perfect??  Totally adore it!  I used the negative die cut with a scrap strip of patterned paper to highlight this fabulous die.  ‘You’re the best’ is from the accompanying sentiment stamp set – such a wonderful, clean font that pairs well with everything.

To begin, I impressed the soft stone layer with a linen impression plate to give it some texture.  Next, the sentiment was embossed above where the die cut was going to go.  Very simple, but the words say it all.  Here’s a little peek of the products I used today

This is a hop with prizes – two $10 gift certificates to the Lil’ Inker Designs store!  You should have arrived from the amazingly talented Alicia’s blog.  Your next stop is to Amy for some fabulous eye candy, I am sure!  If, per chance, this is your first stop or you’ve gotten lost along the way, head on back to Laura, our fearless leader, at the Lil’ Inker Designs blog!  Have fun hopping.  See you tomorrow with a couple of fun projects  Thanks for bopping on by!

 

Alyssa

Sweet Guest Stamping ~

Hi there!  Happy Easter to all those that celebrate!  We’re not into the religion of it in this household, but we sure do love that Easter bunny and hunting for eggs!

I alluded yesterday to having something fun up my sleeve for Sunday.  I’m super excited to announce that I was chosen to be the Guest Stamper for Sweet Sunday Sketches!   Karen chose my card from SSSC179 to play along with today’s sketch.  Thank you, Karen! 

I needed a birthday card for a dear friend’s momma, so I set to work with this fabulous sketch and some new goodies from Papertrey Ink.  (Gee, they take a long time to ship!!  I wish I didn’t love them so…)

I knew right away I wanted to use my Year of Flowers: Mums dies but didn’t have a ton of time.  I cut them out of Autumn Rose and some old Stampin’ Up color and clear embossed them.  A few flicks of Copics really brought the flower and leaves to life.  I didn’t have any patterned paper that I liked with it, so I kept the background neutral.  I really love Soft Stone and Smokey Shadow together; they’re much warmer than just using black and white.

Here’s a little detail of the dimension and texture

The tilted panel did give me a bit of pause because I couldn’t decide how to stamp the sentiment.  I called in some reinforcements via text and made sure it would be ok to align it with the card base rather than the tilted panel, and got a resounding yes! Yay!  My straight laced ways were having a hard time with it Since this is a twisted panel, I’m linking it up to the Crazy 4 Challenges #179: Twist, and also to Simon Says Stamp Challenge: Anything Goes. 

 

And the wonderful sketch…guess you can see where I got the polka dot background idea.

Make sure you bop on over to Karen’s blog, The Sweetest Thing (try getting that song out of your head now!), and see her wonderful creation!  I hope you play along too.  Thanks so much for stopping by!  Come back tomorrow for the first peeks at the release for Lil’ Inker Designs

 

Alyssa

White Out ~

Hey there!  I’m bopping in really quick with a  card I made the other night for the 10 Minute Craft Dash #14.

 

Great colors!  Although, in my memory the pink was a little more blush than hibiscus.  Sorry Paulina!  This card was completely made in my mind before I even sat down to create.  It’s amazing though how much your heart starts to race and you forget where everything is, how to tie a bow, where your stamp block ran off to, etc.  I barely finished in time!

It’s so white!  This seems to work for everyone else but me, lol.  I’m happy I finally used the Trendy Treetops set I bought so long ago though!  Here’s a little glimpse of my stopwatch to show just how close I came

Ok, I have a super fun post going up tomorrow!  I hope you’ll stop back by to see it.  Have a wonderful Easter weekend

 

Alyssa

Not a stamp in sight ~

Hi there!  I thought I’d pop in today with a little card that I made for a recent publication submission.  Of course, I didn’t get that happy email, so I’m sharing it here.  Also, it just so happens to fit in with CFC95: No Stamps.

I keep a little secret Pinterest board that is card inspiration.  I don’t know why it’s a secret board, really, but that’s the way I have it set up.  Anyway, the inspiration picture was of a covered notebook using triangle shapes.  So I pulled out my Harlequin coverplate and got to work.

I think this is a great design that would look fabulous with so many different colors!  The fun little scallop circle softens the edges of all these diamonds.  I’m thinking I may have to use this background and replace the die cut word circle with a felt or colored flower.  So many possibilities!  This one is great too because it’s super flat and easy to mail.  Well, that’s all from me today!  I have a few other ideas brewing for some cards this week, so I hope I have time to play today.  Also, we’re having a little release from Lil’ Inker Designs next week.  Be sure to come back on Monday

Thanks so much for stopping by! 

Alyssa

Cloud9 March Challenge ~

Hello!  How’s your weekend going?  Ours is pretty chilly.  We had a winter storm warning in effect for last night and today – we were supposed to get around 14” of snow.  We woke up this morning to…nothing!  lol  Later, it started to snow and looked like it was going to get nasty.  We wound up only getting about 1.5” and most of it has already melted.  Gotta love Colorado!  Anyway…

This card was inspired by a few challenges out there – the first being the Cloud 9 March challenge.  I also wanted to play along with the CASE study challenge #131, who’s muse this month is the one and only Julie Ebersole.  Here are the photos for them

                           

Both are just so beautiful!  Unfortunately, I don’t have any Wplus9 Designs floral stamps, so I used the Flourishes Lenten Rose and white embossed it on kraft.  Before I colored it with Copics, I used a waterbrush filled with bleach to lighten up the areas I wanted to color.

This is such a pretty card IRL.  Not sure if it really comes across on the ole blog.  Since I wanted to use this for the Cloud9 challenge, I needed to come up with a stamp to use.  The only sets I have are holiday related though.  So I took two sentiment stamps from Classic Christmas, masked out the ‘season’ portion and added ‘year’ from a happy new year sentiment.  I’ll be able to use this as a birthday card now!  Yay!  The only thing I wish I’d done differently on this card is to not add the doodled frame.  I’ve done a doodle once or twice before and liked the outcome but this one got a bit messed up, and the more I added to try to fix the look, the more I jacked it up!  Argh…too much coloring and time spent on this to change it, so I’ll just have to chalk it up to a lesson learned.  Don’t focus on that though, k?  Let’s just look at the pretty effect of the white embossed flower

Two more challenges I’m entering this into are the Simon Says Stamp A bit o’ green, and the Oozak March challenge: Anything Goes with Spring.  Flowers are springy.

COPICS: YG11, YG13, YG17, R30, R32, R35, R37, E42

Thanks so much for stopping by!  Have a great rest of your weekend!

 

Alyssa

Happy Birthday, Designed to Color ~

Hi all!  The Lil’ Inker Designs Color Team has, well, teamed up with the Designed to Color Team to celebrate the first birthday of the Designed to Color magazine!  How fun!  We have a blog hop with prizes and lots of amazing eye candy.  You should’ve arrived from the fabulous Lisa’s blog.  If not, the hop list is at the bottom of this post.  Here we go

I chose to use a little cutie from the 2 Cute Ink line of stamps aptly named Cutie Cat.  The flowers are stamped a second time and popped up on a thin dimensional foam tape.  The layout is the current Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge.  Such a great one!  The papers are Echo Park This & That Graceful.  I used the Lil’ Inker Designs Stitched Sentiment Flag stamped with a little sentiment from The Sugar Kissed Cottage Surprise! 
Image: Cutie Cat
Medium:Copics
Fur: W3, W5, W7
Ears: R02, R05
Grass & Flower Leaves: YG17, YG23, YG25, YG95
Flowers (clockwise): BV00, C1, Y35; R32, R35, R37; R81, R83, R85, R89, Y35
Image: Cutie Cat
Paper: Papertrey Ink Stamper’s Select White, Hawaiian Shores; Echo Park This & That Graceful
Elements: Papertrey Ink Hawaiian Shores button, silk ribbon, banner die; Spellbinders circle and scallop circle dies; Sizzix argyle embossing folder

Ok, so I mentioned prizes…all you have to do is comment on this post for your chance to win!  I would love to know if you ever dislike something you’ve made and rip it apart, making something new with the image you colored?  The hop is open through March 7th, 11:59pm CST.  Winners will be announced no later than March 9th!  What can you win?


Designed to Color is offering up the current issue, as well as the June/July, Aug/Sept and Oct/Nov issues!  Yay!

Lil' Inker Designs is offering up 2 stamp sets of the winner's choosing!!



Here’s the hop list:
Designed to Color http://www.designedtocolor.com
Carisa http://ladyguineveresinkyfaeries.blogspot.com/
Laura N. http://www.thecraftysister.com/
Lisa http://lisabeesponderings.blogspot.com/
Alyssa http://critterlyss.blogspot.com/    <------ You are here!
Lizzie http://www.ohsnaplizzie.com/
Kim  www.paperperfectdesigns.blogspot.com
Judith http://jgsnook.blogspot.com/
Susie  http://www.TheDiesHaveIt.com/
Leah  http://thechroniclesoforange.blogspot.com/
Mary http://maryjdesigns.blogspot.co.uk/
Lis  http://mycraftblogumentary.blogspot.co.uk/
Taylor http://taylorusry.blogspot.com/
Isha http://www.hobbyandideas.blogspot.ca/
Lil’ Inker Designs http://www.shoplilinker.blogspot.com

Now you are headed to Lizzie’s blog!  Have a blast, hoppers! 
 
Alyssa

Can I get a “do over”? ~

Hi there, bloggy friends!  How are you all?  I’m super excited to have the next two weeks off!  I have nothing planned except getting some publication submissions finished and submitted.  Oh, and I’m starting a little kids photography experiment, so we’ll see how that works out. 

So, I’m curious…how many times do you make a card you’re not too happy with and rip it apart to make a new one??  Me?  Kind of a lot.  I tend to use challenges as my jumping post, and I’ll get it in just to make the deadline.  I’m going to show you two today that I had to “do over”.

The first is one is from my guest designer stint for JUGS.  We were to make a zipper flower.  That trend came and went quickly, didn't it??

You can find the original post here.  I was never fully in love with the flower, but it was fun to challenge myself and do something new.  Unfortunately, due to my inability to thread a needle, I chose to use Scor-tape to make the flower…it didn’t hold.

Instead of trying to make the zipper flower over, I chucked it and saved the base.  After a whole year, I needed a birthday card for my lovely sister-in-law.

I used the Bloom Builders 3 die from Papertrey Ink in Autumn Rose.  I think this version is better because the turquoise was a little too bright for the vintage-ish color scheme. 

 

What do you think?  Better?  I’m still on the fence about it.  I think maybe I should’ve used a different blue, like ocean tides.  Oh well!  She loved it

 

 

 

Ok, so here’s the second card.  I initially made this for the PTI blog hop last July.  I loved the background and stamping those gorgeous roses, but I always hated the layout.  It needed something to set the roses apart from the background.  Then Gayatri came up with the perfect card – it’s like she plucked it right out of my brain!  I guess great minds think alike!  LOL

I didn’t want to re-stamp that background, so I carefully pried off the band holding all the roses.  It did rip in a couple of places, so I had to keep the focal point in the bottom third of the card.

 

I used the scripty font from Delightful Dahlias because it tied in so well with the script background text.  This was sent to my MIL for her birthday this year…and I think it was even on time!! 

So, do you “do over” your cards, or do you hand them off to people you think will appreciate them/not care that much?  I’m curious…       Thanks so much for stopping by!

 

Alyssa