Cure for the Monday Blues with Winnie & Walter

Hi folks! I'm very excited about this post, as it involves one of my favorite stamp companies (Winnie & Walter) and one of my favorite blogging friends (Taheerah). This month Winnie & Walter is sponsoring all of Taheerah's Cure for the Monday Blues Challenges with an awesome $30 gift card for the winner each week!

As usual, Taheerah has selected a super-inspiring photo for your crafting delight:

So much to love in this photo ... the charcoal circle, gold dots around the edge, golden pine cone, white base, all great elements together.

I had to incorporate them ALL into my card! (Please do excuse my night time photography, as I really wanted to fit this post in before traveling to CHA.) The base of the card uses a mix of w&w Creative Screenings and freestyle droppings of Heidi Swapp color mist. The pine cones from w&w Winter Wonderland are embossed in gold and fussy cut, with a hole-punched circle of glitter paper on top. The vintage seam binding doesn't really relate to the inspiration photo, but I like the additional interest it adds. Being white like the card base, it doesn't take up too much visual space.




I did feel a sense of delight that the theme of the "Eat Drink And Be Merry" sentiment (w&w Eat Drink Gingerbread Man) ties in with the charcoal dinner plate from the inspiration photo : ) The secondary sentiment is from Bubble Talk.

A final element pulled from the inspiration photo is hidden inside. Not sure if you noticed, but there is a leopard pattern in the lower right hand corner of the photo. Perhaps a chair? That translated to a zebra print on the inside of my card. This is one of my favorite things about playing in challenges. It never would have occurred to me to use that paper were it not for this challenge. In fact I've had the paper for years and it's never been touched. Now I couldn't imagine the card without the zebra inside. A little sassy, I think!

Anyway, I sure hope you get a chance to play along with Taheerah's challenge this week. Remember, Winnie & Walter is sponsoring all of the challenges this month, so if this week doesn't work out for you, be sure to come back later.

Thanks for stopping by!
-Kelly 

Functional Friday - Hollywood Regency Valentine

Hi all! I'm very excited to start a new feature on my blog ... Functional Fridays! 

You may know that I LOVE to think of different ways to use products. Honestly, I am easily distracted, so it helps me be creative if I can just focus on one supply (stamp/die/tool/etc.) and then exhaust the possibilities of it.

Now that I've joined the Top Dog Dies Design Team and will be posting every Friday, I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to feature one die for the month in a more structured format. Each Friday I'll post a project that's been made with the die, and at the end show a collage of the different projects. We all like getting mileage out of our supplies, so I figured chances are good that someone out there would be interested in a series like this.

Sound good? I sure hope so!! : )

Here we go ...

 

 This card uses the Heart Border Die cut in a matte gold paper. I really wanted to take advantage of all those tiny holes, so I used this as a guide for a basic stitching project. The style that I was going for on this card is ...

  

source

  Hollywood Regency. 

Black, matte gold, simple lines, but with some flair thrown in ... love this style for something a little different.

In keeping with this style, I chose a ribbon (really sold as a skein for knitting purposes, but SO much more economical than ribbon sold by the yard) with Hollywood Regency style colors and stitched an outline of a heart. It helped to sketch this out ahead of time so I could see what it would look like. I just die cut a sample heart border from copy paper and used a pencil to mark where the ribbon would go. Then I filled the inside of the heart with long stitches. Very easy.

The elegant nature of this style also calls for a tall card, but I like sticking to the standard 4 1/4" x 5 1/2" size so I just made the panel tall. Hopefully that gives a similar effect. The sentiment (CAS-ual Fridays Smitten) is perfect for this vintage Valentine, as I think "smitten" was probably used in the 1930's. I'm so happy when a sentiment ties in with a card like this!

Thanks for stopping by, and I look forward to sharing another project made with the Heart Border Die next Friday!

-Kelly

OK, Who's Going?!

Hi all! I'm really looking forward to meeting some awesome people at CHA in a few days:

Julie & Shay from Winnie & Walter

Susan Opel
Zoey Scarpelli

Tenia Nelson

Who else is going?! I don't want to miss a single person!

I've only been to summer CHA before, and that was when it was in Chicago. Here's the ubiquitous self portrait with Tim Holtz:

  
I really hope to see Dyan Reaveley in action. I'm not going to be there on Friday so I couldn't sign up for her class, but I'm hoping to catch her at the Ranger booth. Here is her art journal that I drooled all over:

She's in the black bandana, whipping out a few projects like they were nothing.

Anyway, I'm counting down the hours!! In addition to crafty paradise, going from -30 wind chill to 75 and sunny is a whole other sort of heaven : )

Thanks for looking!

-Kelly

2014 Year in Review

It was interesting going back to read my 2012 and 2013 Year in Review posts, so I figured I should keep the tradition going and post a 2014 Year in Review. I picked 15 for the upcoming 2015 year.

• 2013 Year in Review
• 2012 Year in Review

Still Playing with Barn Stars

First post for this new company called Winnie & Walter ... beginning of a love affair : ) Color blind test.

Getting mileage out of a snowflake die set

My favorite ... an easel card that you hold to light and see the Big Dipper.

embroidery hoop decor for Valentine's

50 Lego valentines for my kids (with a gem turned upside down for a potion bottle)

 

Die cut vintage postage stamps

Rotate Mom stamp to make Lorax flowers

Chain link die into a charm necklace

Washi tape jelly fish

Altenew giraffe with mane, and sunset

My attempt to be a little artsy with water colors

Scribble and color in, just like childhood

Card candy swap with friends

Trying a collage style

tone-on-tone with nice, thick paper

Thanks for stopping by to check these out! It's been a wonderful year being inspired by so many talented artists in our community. The bottomless support we all have for each other is very special, indeed. I'm really looking forward to what 2015 holds for us.

Loving wishes for a Happy New Year!
-Kelly

CFS Release: Smitten

The final stamp set in this release for CAS-ual Fridays is Smitten. And how appropriate, as that's exactly what I've felt about these large, scripty words! This card is pretty simple, but I though it would make a good masculine valentine that's got a bit of sass to it. I tried to make it more masculine by choosing dark purple for the heart.

Thanks for checking out these three days of the CAS-ual Friday's release! You're not going to want to miss checking out the other Ink Squad girls:

Marcie | Jingle | Virginia | Deepti | Zoey | Angie

Thanks for looking!

-Kelly

A Challenge for You!

Even if you don't pay attention to give-aways very often, I'd HIGHLY recommend taking a look at Winnie & Walter's Birthday Bash Celebration.

• A chance to win all the stamps from 2014
• ten different challenges, giving away $50 gift certificate each (they're open for a MONTH!)
• A chance to be an April guest star (with stamps of course)
• freebies

It's big, folks!

My challenge is to pick a stamp and rotate it multiple times to see what you get. Sometimes you can imagine it ahead of time, sometimes it's a happy surprise.  

Here are a couple examples of what I'm talking about, but head to the Winnie & Walter blog for more details and to link up your own creation. I really, REALLY can't wait to see what you talented folks come up with!

Here's the scarf from Stampets: Penguin. The two ends of the scarf make the sides of the petals, and the neck of the scarf makes the orange center.

You can rotate a word to come up with a fun design that's also part of the sentiment.

This is a card I made awhile ago, but it uses the same rotating technique to make a compass-like design.

Really hope you can check out this celebration, and enter a challenge, or two, or four, or ten!

Happy Birthday, Fusion Challenge!

Happy New Year, everyone!! 

 We're celebrating the one year anniversary of the Fusion Challenge with a twist! Each of the team members has chosen someone to play in the challenge with them. When I heard about this, my mind started racing trying to figure out who to choose. Luckily, I didn't have to think about it too long, because I saw the inspiration photo, and immediately thought of Wida Miller. She's fun, she's sassy, she totally knows how to throw a party on a card. And that's just what she did ...

Wida's card looks amazing in pink, gold, and a variety of pretty patterns. Don't you just love it?! Thanks so much, Wida, for joining our celebration. It's wonderful to have you here!

Like Wida, I loved the pinks and gold from the photo, and had to do something similar. The charcoal paper is actually really thick wrapping paper that I found for half price at TJ Maxx after Christmas. LOVE the subtle shimmer it has. Score!

 
My mother-in-law gave me my first set of Copic markers for Christmas this year (YAY!!) I put them to good use right away and colored the strips of muslin I cut for the party banner. Such an easy way to get custom-colored fabric.

Then sentiment is from Avery Elle's Aim High set, and the patterned paper inside is Pebbles.

 

I'm also linking this up to Darnell's NBUS Challenge since it's the first time I've used this fabulous Avery Elle set. It was part of the generous prize package from Stamping Royalty.

Here are some fabulous cards by our design team!

Amy Tsuruta

Betty J.

  Danielle Robeson

Deepti Malik

Julia Aston 

Katie Brooks

Lynn Mangan

Kimberly Wiener

Lyndal Higgins

Michelle Williams

Michelle Lupton

Stephanie Severin

Winners: Will be chosen by all of our teammates in two weeks. We each will choose one favorite. The winners will be announced at 4 am (PST) in two weeks!


Thanks for looking!
-Kelly