Seeing Red

Stamp Credits:
Birds on Wire and text - Stampers Anonymous (Tim Holtz)

Clock - Leavenworth Jackson, Bird - Stampin' Up!
Heart die and embossing folder - Cuttlebug, Flower - Prima

As much as I try to play with pastel colors and lighten up here and there, at heart I'm a dark and fiery color kinda gal :) I had a great time throwing ink around for this tag, I like the heat that comes out of it. Even my quilting tends to be on the darker side, making for some interesting times on group projects. I like deep earthy colors.

Currently I'm working on two quilts - one group project in shades of blue, and one sampler quilt using batiks in pretty funky bright colors, and I'm planning to add a third project in purples, blues and greens for my daughter - a graduation quilt.

Here's a 'Drunkard's Path' block for the group project. The background fabric looks white in this photo, but it's really an ice blue with white feathering, lovely and delicate looking.

And a 'Card Trick' block for the batik sampler (I told you the colors are funky!)So now I have to get off the computer and make another block for the group project, I'm thinking about a blazing star. The class that I'm taking is strictly hand-stitching, so there's no machine work here, every piece stitched by hand. Are you working on any fun projects right now, paper, fabric or otherwise?

Lightening Up :)

Stamp Credits: Darkroom Door, Stewart Gill paints, Cuttlebug texture embossing, Nestabilities die cuts

OK, so sometimes I do manage to play with lighter colors, and it's so not my comfort zone, but I'm pretty happy with this one. The background for the image is this amazing shimmery pearlized paint by Stewart Gill - seriously, they have incredible products - their paints do wonders on paper AND fabric, the fabrics stay flexible even after painting. I met the Stewart Gill team at a quilting show and was so impressed with how versatile the products are, love the wide range of colors and finishes they offer, paper and fabric artists you really NEED to try them out! I'm hoping to play a bit more with inking and painting fabric, if only there were more hours in the day and less work to get done ;) I also put the SG paints on some modeling paste recently - works great on that too.

I'm trying to put together some Easter projects, love these flowers from Darkroom Door, and I'm even having fun with these Easter egg colors for a change. I have a pathological bias against pink for some reason, but I know others like it so I'm giving it a go ... do you have a color that you find hard to work with?

'P' is for Patience

Stamp Credits: Lettered background - Judikins, Letter P - SU!,

scratch background - Stamper's Anonymous (Tim Holtz)
Distress Inks and masks - Ranger

'P' is for patience, I don't have a whole lot of that right now - my computer is kaput, hopefully it can be revived again, it's like a patient that keeps coding, or a cat with 9 lives, I need it to keep being nursed along because a new computer is NOT in the budget :) I'm on a borrowed 'puter for 10 minutes, so this will be brief, I can't access blogs or Facebook at work (wonder why that is??) so I may not be around too much until my antique computer is fixed.

This card is actually P for Paul, my nephew, whose birthday is today! I had fun messing around with Distress Inks, a scratchy background stamp and mini masks - ink everywhere. P is also for Penny - here are the links to Penny's amazing altered purses:

The purses have their own flickr set at: Penny's Purses on Flickr
Would you like to try making some yourself?
Here's an altered purse tutorial by Penny
If you make one, be sure to add it the
Upcycled Handbags group at Flickr

Hope you had a fun St. Patrick's Day and gave the green beer a wide berth - whoever thought that one up?? Here's what the leprechauns left for my kiddos - green M&Ms, much better idea :)

Stamp credits : Stampin' Up!

Inky Fun!

Stamp Credits: PaperArtsy (house and flowers), SU! trees

Distress Inks, Kaiser bling gem

I had fun over the weekend joining some challenges in WinterFest over at Two Peas in a Bucket. This little card (above) is an ATC made for the Little Houses challenge, I like the way the distress inks look like watercolor in the background, love that funky little house stamp from PaperArtsy. Two Peas is an online store, but also has message boards where like minded folk (totally obsessed stampers, scrappers and photogs) chat about paper arts, the board members are known as "Peas".

I had the great good fortune to meet up stamping friends (and Peas) Penny and Lianne at the Carson Rubber Stamp Convention. Unfortunately the show is shrinking year by year, very few vendors this time around, but we enjoyed scouting around for what's new, hopefully the shows later in the year will be larger. While we were there we bumped into more Peas - Tami, who I tried to meet up with at CHA and missed, and Wendy Vecchi, who probably thinks I'm a stalker because I watched her demos at the Ranger booth at CHA for a long time, and yesterday turned up again when she was demo'ing her fab Studio 490 stamp range and unique grunge flowers at the Stampers Anonymous booth - here's a group mugshot:

Stamping Peas: Tami, Lianne, Sue, Penny & Wendy

Penny is carrying one of her amazing altered purses, this one has an Australian aviatrix on it - where can we find a link to those Penny?

Open Invitation to The Laundry Fairy

Stamp Credits: Stampin' Up! stamps and oval punches,
Cuttlebug background, Spellbinders Nestabilities die cut,
Ranger Distress Inks

I used a card I'd made earlier (the lighthouse card) as a springboard to make this one - why keep reinventing the wheel? Truthfully I'm more motivated by creating from the ground up, I like the challenge, but with a deadline looming and limited creative time available, I needed to adapt something I'd already made and get a jump start on the project. I like this one more than the original, a bit more ink, more color, more fun.

Hoping to make a few more cards and projects this weekend, I need to play with molding paste for a swap (where did I put those brass embossing templates?), lots of birthdays, anniversaries and special days coming up that I have to prep for - wish me luck :) I'm open to major creative inspiration, and I'm more than willing for the laundry fairy to stop by anytime she'd like to grace me with her presence ...

SkyWatch Friday - Sundowner

This view of the sunset over Manhattan Beach is taken from my Aunt's balcony - it's a great view all day long, and then this reward at the end of the day, wonderful. I can't decide which photo I prefer, so I'm posting them both :)To see what other skywatchers are finding when they look up and out, check out SkyWatch Friday.

TGIF!

Free St. Patrick's Day Images

Hi all, just a quickie to let you know that Lisa Vollrath has once again gifted paper arts and vintage image fans with a free image countdown to St. Patrick's Day - check out The Original Printables Holiday Countdown and please remember the rules - before you download images, you must post a link to this page to your web site or blog, or include the link in a post to an online art group or message board. Once you have posted the link, feel free to download to your heart’s content.

Deer in the Headlights

Stamp Credits: Stampin' Up! stamps and punches (oval)
Cuttlebug background, Spellbinders diecuts, Maya Road ribbon.

I'm really feeling I have so much to do that I've come to a grinding halt. Does that ever happen to you? Life is super busy, at work and at home, and I'm doing things that have to get done in order to keep moving forward one day at a time (work, laundry, school lunches, evening meals, basic hygiene :) but other things could be getting done if I just stopped spinning my wheels. I'm overwhelmed, not to the point of totally stopping, but certainly to the point that I'm just losing a lot of time thinking things through, and not getting them done. Yuck!

I have several major projects due this week at work, and hopefully once those are done and dusted I'll be able to get my act together and be more efficient around here too. In the meantime, there are several cards I need to make and mail for overseas birthdays. I hear you, why not just buy some? Nope, can't do it :) The card above is one that I made a while ago, I struggle with masculine cards, maybe I'll use this one as a jumping off point for the cards I need to make now. Hmm, NOT making my life more difficult, that would be novel :)

Do you make your own life difficult too?