Happy Birthday Steampunkin!

My new DT cohort, Niki from Pawsitively Creative is having a birthday today, so hop on over and show her some love.  You will be so inspired by her awesome makes!  As you can tell by her blog background, Niki loves industrial and steampunk.  I was lucky enough to have my friend Bonnie loan me this fabulous gear stamp by Stampers Anonymous.  Thanks Bonnie!  I had a blast using it to make this card.

I tore my three panels then stamped and embossed the top and bottom in gold.  Then I proceeded to layer watercolor, mostly black, but also some green and brown.

The focal image is a new stamp by Kaiser Craft, I thought it was so cool and could go either steampunk or Victorian easily.  Do you agree?

The bottom two layers were stamped with Finnabair texture stamps by Prima.  I love every one of these!  I tucked in some scrap papers that I had stamped and watercolored to complete the collage.  I do hope Niki will like the card (and that it made it to her on time!)  Niki, you are such an encouragement and I am so excited to be on the Anything But Cute DT with you!  Happy, happy birthday!

I'm joining these fab challenges:
Simon Says Stamp: Anything Goes
Rhedd's Creative Spirit: Anything Goes Mixed Media
SanDee & amelie: Anything Goes Steampunk/Industrial
Simon Says Stamp: Show us your Metal
Let's Craft & Create: Cards for a Man
Mixed Media World: Get in Gear
WOW! Embossing Powder: Anything Goes w/ Embossing

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Anything But Cute Design Team Announcement

I have anxiously awaited this day for weeks, and I've been about to bust!  I have been invited to join the Anything But Cute Mixed Media Challenge Design Team!!!  Today the announcement is being made on the blog HERE, so it's official!  EEEK!  Please stop by and check out the projects I've shared for my introduction.  I'm super excited that the fabulously talented Lisa from A Mermaid's Crafts will be joining along side of me.  The team consists of some of the SWEETEST and most inspirational girls in crafty blogland.

Pamellia

Niki

Branka

Sara Emily

Anne

Lisa

The coolest thing about Anything But Cute is that it is a teaching blog.  There is so much to learn from the DT inspiration.  Newbies to mixed media are encouraged to jump right in with the challenges.  The criteria for joining is simple, to create mixed media artwork, to follow the current theme, and not to add cute imagery.  LOVE IT!  

I'll be sharing my first project with the design team on May 5th.  Trust me when I say the challenge is going to be off the charts!  Thanks again for welcoming me to the team and thanks in advance for your comments of encouragement.  

Springtime Floral Watercolor Card

My poor baby has been sick with a virus and high fever for days, so no crafting for this mama.  Thankfully I remembered that I forgot to post this card I made with my new Graciellie digital stamps.  So I have a pretty springtime floral card for you today.

 My friend Carol had given me this cool braille paper I thought it would be pretty to watercolor, it has such a nice texture.

 I added some light script stamping in black for contrast.  I really roughed up this background and like the depth it gave.

 How can you not love this beautiful flower image!  So pretty, well done Gracie!

 Here are my projects made with the New Beginnings set this month.

 And here are my projects made with the Dear Friend set last month.  Join me on May 1 for the next release and giveaway.

I'm playing along with these challenges:

Simon Says Stamp: Make it Girly

Scrappy Land: Oh Happy Spring

Through the Craft Room Door: Anything Goes

Card Mania: Spring

Crafty Addicts: Anything Goes Girly

Moving Along with the Times: Spring Flowers

Italian Distressed and Embossed Tag

 Hello!  Thank you for your visit today and for your kind comments about my projects lately.  I haven't had the chance to craft in a week and I miss it terribly!  Art time = happy Autumn.  Today I wanted to share a tag I made for our local swap.  The recipient chose the theme Italy.  Lucky for me, my dear friend Bonnie had shared a few stamps when she was cleaning out her supplies.  This window scene was perfect!

 This winter I had a play day with a couple of friends and we worked on tag backgrounds.  This one is embossed with my Tim Holtz damask stamp in Princess Gold.  It is such a beautiful powder, but my friend said it is hard to find.  Lucky for me, she let us use her supply!  Thanks Charlotte!  <3

 I created a similarly inky panel and stamped the windows in Galaxy Black and clear embossed.  I stamped my tiny crackle stamp over that in Sepia.  The drips are splats of Glimmer Mist in a black and gold color.

 I added some vintage seam binding over a bundle of string, with a flower and key to accent.  Then I decided to stamp another architectural stamp Bonnie gave me and cut it with Nestabilities dies.  I tucked the circles below my layers, then finished the topper with a circle damask brad.  It definitely has a vintage vibe and I hope the recipient will like that.  Thanks for looking!

I'm sharing with these super challenges:

Allsorts: Ribbon & Roses
2 Creative Chicks: Anything Goes
Sweet Stamps: Anything But a Card
Mixed Media Warriors: Moodboard

Words & Paintery: Moodboard

Masculine Steampunk Journal Layout

I was so inspired by the girls at Frilly & Funkie to create a masculine layout in my junk journal.  I really wanted to give this page a steampunk vibe, but don't have any gear stamps or dies.

 These two pages were taken in different light, and seem to show the spread completely differently.

They also show off the variation in color a little more and the metallic stamping with this cool chain link fence stamp by Finnabair / Prima.

 I guess you've noticed that I generally work in a monotone color palette.  I decided to try adding the color opposite on the color wheel to this rusty spread and see what happened.  I love how it turned out!

 I was inspired by some of the artists who used clocks in the steampunk style.

This is another piece that I used tons of stamps - I think nine!

 I added some bits of metal mesh to my focal bundle.

And then a clock as the main embellishment.  So this time I didn't glue my layers down fully and I'm much happier with the result.  The bundle still lays flat, but looks as if it has a lot more dimension.  Only two spreads left and my journal will be complete.  (At which point I will make another exactly like it.  LOL!)

I'm sharing with:

Frilly & Funkie: Boy oh Boy!

Retro Kraft Shop: Retro, Vintage, Shabby, Steampunk

Altered Eclectics: Anything Goes Mixed Media

SanDee & amelie's: Anything Goes Steampunk/Industrial

Mixed Media World: Get in Gear

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Embossed Floral Watercolor Card

I definitely shouldn't have had that much coffee this afternoon...  But since I did!  I decided to roll with the inspiration and create another floral birthday card, using the same Stampendous flower embossed in white.

This is how my panel started, similar to the other two, but I couldn't make the elements work, so I ended up cutting it square and using the off strip to make the tag/sentiment.

I used a different damask set from the Tim Holtz set this time and a different Prima texture stamp too.  Notice how parts of the damask fade away, that is what I love!

I guess there isn't much contrast in this card, but IRL it is much prettier.  I tried to balance things with the Martha Stewart lace punch.

I really loved sections of the piece that I made the tag with.  Here you can see the dimension.  Thanks for bearing with me through all of these tonight!  It sure feels good to sit and play!  :)

Here's a shot of all the pretties lined up!  I love seeing all of this color!  <3

I'd like to share with:

Simon Says Stamp: Birthday

Simon Says Stamp: April Showers

More Mixed Media: Yellow

The Mixed Media Card Challenge: Sunshine

Really Reasonable Ribbon: Flowers with Ribbon

Craft Stamper: Spring Flowers

Prima Floral Stamps and Tim Holtz Daisy Punch Birthday Card

Please excuse the back to back posts, but I was trying to squeeze in some more birthday stamping for the SSS 7th birthday bash (not to mention the SEVEN $50 prizes...)  Anyway, like I was saying in the last post, I decided that I should just do what I do and then why not do it again and again when it works well?  So I whipped out another card using the same techniques as the last one.  This time I took a pick so you could see the layers of stamping and how the ink flows more in some areas than others when you stamp onto your wet watercolor panel.

I went a little heavier on the stamping this time, and it was so much fun!

I decided to break out my new Prima flower stamps.  I had cut out a bunch of them, intending to loosely watercolor them like so.  I wanted to brighten the background up, so I switched to a different paint.  For the background I was trying to use up some dried WC in my palette and it was pretty, but I wanted to go brighter for a birthday card.

Over the weekend I played around with making embellishments, to get me through the creative lull.  I punched out a bunch of Tim's new daisy flowers and dipped each cut into pools of distress ink, then shaped them.  I tried to mix the colors up a little.

So what do you think about this card featuring ELEVEN different stamps?!  Ha!  That's gotta be a record...  The sweet focal image is Paperbag Studios.  :)

I'm playing along with: 

Simon Says Stamp: Birthday

Emerald Creek Dares: Anything Goes

Craft Stamper: Spring Flowers

A Vintage Journey: Spring is in the Air

Country View Challenge: Spring

Penny Black: Birthday

Embossing Resist Watercolor Birthday Card

Today we received good news on our little guy, no surgery for the badly broken arm!  So must stress is lifted, praise the Lord!  This weekend I spent a lot of time in the art room, but never produced anything.  I had wanted to make a batch of CAS birthday cards to celebrate Simon Says Stamp's 7th birthday/blog challenge.  People, I cannot do CAS.  I give up and am moving on...  Tonight I decided to give one more attempt to making a floral card design for the birthday challenge, but with my own spin and mixed media touches.

I was thinking about the pretty effect the Tim Holtz damask stamped background from the angel tag was, so I tried to recreate the effect here.  I first bathed my card in watercolor, then inked the damask stamp in SU!'s Orchid Opulence, spritzing a few times to make it run well.  Then stamped it onto the semi-wet card.  I just let it bleed however and love that look!  Some areas were too dark, so I dabbed with a wet baby wipe.

This gorgeous flower is by Stampendous.  The leaf stamp is a super oldie by Magenta, maybe 15 years?!  Look how cool the watercolor pooled between the veining!  JOY!

I decided to use the gold side of some scrap matboard my friend Bonnie gave me to die cut the Tim Holtz die.  When I had everything pretty much designed, I thought how cool it would be to have some more white ares in the colored sections, so I embossed this fab texture stamp by Prima over the dry panel.  I really like the layers of stamping and patterns.  It ain't CAS!  It ain't FLAT!  But it's a very happy birthday card to SSS and for my BFF, Trish.  <3  LOL!  And I'm really loving the magenta palette these days.  Can you tell?!

I'm entering these fab challenges:

Simon Says Stamp: Birthday

Penny Black & More: Birthday

A Bit More Time to Create: Anything Goes

Retro Rubber: April Showers (Watercolor)

Amusing Challenges: Make Your Own Background

Crafts Galore: Anything Goes

Seize the Birthday: Floral