Fish and Flowers and Lots of Challenges

I've been doing some major therapy and finished several cards for challenges this weekend. I am having a lot of fun with two Gina K Designs stamp sets illustrated by Theresa Momber.  Here is what I have to share so far.

I made this fish sweatshirt card for the Release Party Sketch Challenge hosted by Theresa over at StampTV.com.  I wonder if she realized that the little fisher guy in her set, Gone Fishing, makes the perfect "i" for the word fish from her Eat. Sleep. Fish sentiment. I discovered this by accident and decided to use it on a sweatshirt stamp from Just So Sporty. I stamped the sweatshirt on white and blue sheets from the Basic Grey Granola pad.  I cut the sleeves and hood from the blue shirt and paper pieced it to the white shirt.  I also stamped the "F sh" from the sentiment stamp using a black marker to omit the "i".  Then I used a Stamp-A-Ma-Jig to line up the little fisher guy. The sweatshirt is mounted on a piece from brown paper from the same pad and then mounted on Pure Luxury Black Onyx.  I used a real piece of burlap and stitched the border with black DMC embroidery floss.  Stampin' Up's retired Blue Bayou matched the blue from the paper pad perfectly. I inked up a small piece with the same color ink using the SU background stamp, Sanded.  The striped piece is also from the Granola pad.  Attached some pewter brads and put it all together on a PL Black Onyx card base measuring 5" x 6.5". 

Next is this card I made for Lee's Release Party Color Challenge. She challenged us to use Aqua, Lemon and a neutral.  Most people were using white as the neutral so I decided to pick a different color.  I chose Pure Luxury Chocolate.  The aqua is Cool Caribbean and the Lemon is Pure Luxury Lemon Drop along with some lemon colored paper from Basic Grey Origins paper pad. I love the font used for the Happy Birthday sentiment from the set Sending Sunshine and could not resist using it here.  The daffodils are also from Sending Sunshine.

The paper flower on this one was originally intended for the Color Challenge card but was too big.  So I decided to make another card with the similar color scheme, but adding some Kraft and a piece of green satin ribbon. Sentiment and butterflies are from Sending Sunshine.

My final card is my entry for Tina's color challenge to use Ocean Mist and Tan Leather with a neutral.  I used the spotlight technique on the flowers and kept the card simple.

I hope you enjoyed your weekend. It had been dreary here and sign of sunshine for the next few days. Good stamping weather. :o)  Back to work tomorrow and another crazy week.  If you have time, please leave a comment let me know what you think or if you have any questions about anything I've shared.  Make it a fabulous week!

Transparent Bookmark

Karen has an awesome challenge this week over at StampTV.  She hosts the weekly, Anything But a Card challenge. This week the challenge is to make a bookmark using a folded piece of plastic or transparency sheet and embellishing it with stamps and other fun stuff.

I made a masculine bookmark with the new Gina K Designs stamp set, Gone Fishing. I stamped the Cat O Nine Tails with white Stazon onto the folded transparency. I stamped the fisherman and the sentiment with Night of Navy on Pure Luxury Kraft card stock and cut it out with the Labels One Nestabilities die. I drew a fish line with a white pen and I coated the word FISH with glaze ink from a Sakura glaze pen. I added some brads in the corder for a manly hardware look. The Pure Luxury In The Navy mat layer is also cut from a Labels One die, the next size up. I embossed it with the Argyle embossing folder and adhered it to the transparency sheet. Then I wrapped the striped ribbon around with the ends meeting in the middle front. I also added a small ribbon tab to the top. Finally I adhered the Kraft layer with 3M foam tape.

Gone Fishing Guest Designer

Theresa Momber illustrated a fabulous new set for Gina K Designs called Gone Fishing. I have never been dissapointed with any of the sets that she illustrated. The images are always incredibly detailed and give stampers the ability to create amazing scenes or simple cards so easily. I was smiling from ear to ear when she asked me to be her guest designer. And I said yes without even knowing what the set looked like. That is because I knew it would be awesome, and it is! :o) 

There are so many great images in this set. My favorite is the father and son (or uncle and nephew or grandpa and gandson) sitting on the edge of the dock waiting to catch that big fish.  For the first card I am sharing I used several of the images to create this fun scene and I used a sketch from Card Positioning Systems (CPS #163).  I tried to embellish the card but still keep it manly.  So I cut a strip of burlap and removed some of the threads to create a frayed look. I used some cream colored DMC crochet thread to wrap around some of the corners.  It reminded me of rope from a boat.  And the sign in the bottom corrner is from another set illustrated by Theresa called Happy Camper.  The scene is stamped on Pure Luxury Kraft card stock.  I colored it with Koh-I-Noor colored pencils and blended with paper stumps and baby oil.

Of course after they were finished fishing and caught the big one they had to mount it to the wall.  That is what I did on my next card. And this mounted fish doesn't sing. LOL!  I made the wood piece with the Labels 8 and the FREE digi paper download from StampTV.com.  After cutting it out I sponged the whole piece with Vivid Tuscan Tan and then edged it with Memento Tuxedo Black ink.  I colored the fish with Copic markers and mounted it with 3M foam tape. I added some brads for nails to hang it up and tied "rope" (more DMC floss) on the layer behind the wood mount.  The DP is from Cosmo Cricket Nutmeg Mini Deck.  And I used Pure Luxury Kraft and Green Apple.

After leaving a comment to let me know what you think head over to blog of the other Guest Designer for Theresa's new set, Mary Anne.  She has a wonderful story that she shared about her brother and fishing.

Spring Birthday

I made this scenic card last weekend with the Gina K Designs set Sending Sunshine. The starting point was the piece of blue and white fabric that I used for one of the background panels. From there the card came together.  I even pulled out some old So Saffron DP and used the sewing machine to enhance the fabric look. I have so much fun playing with stamp sets like this one. It is rewarding when I can create a fun scened like the one I have here.

I made meatballs today and they were yummy. I found the recipe on AllRecipes.com.  Here is a link in case you want to try them out.  I also bought a can of Organic Pizza Sauce and some Italian Cheeses to add to the meatballs.  I heated the pizza sauce on the stove and then mixed it with the meatballs. After I plated them up I tossed some cheese on top.  I made some brocolli too and put cheese on that. Very yummy dinner.

I pray you have a fabulous Sunday. I teach Children's Church tomorrow and then I get to go to my mom's house in the evening for a Turkey dinner. I don't eat the Turkey, but I do enjoy the rest. And I think she's making chocolate cake with peanut butter icing for desert. Yum! Also hope to get a little stamp time in after church.

Daydreaming Rae and Multitasking Jordan

I love these teen images from Mo's Digital Pencil. They are a lot of fun to color and they remind me of my 12 year old niece.  I actually made these cards a few weeks ago and never shared them. I tried to keep the colors bright and fun. Because that is what tween/teen life should be about, right?

This first card contains the image called Rae with Journal. I love how she is daydreaming with the butterfly fluttering nearby.

This second card contains the image called Jordan Multitasking. She can shop, eat ice cream, and talk on her cell all at the same time. Amazing!  I used to be able to multi-task.  I must be getting too old. LOL!

I hope you enjoy viewing the cards I made.  If want to get these images for yourself you can purchase them directly from the artist here.  They are digital images. I find it best to print them with a laser printer when using Copic markers.

New Look

I decided to give my blog a bit of a makeover. I was tired of the blue and white. Since my favorite color is green, I found an awesome template with lots of green goodness.

If you are looking for the StampTV cookbook hop post please scroll down to the next post. You don't want to miss the yummy recipes that the CSS Design Team contributed to this free cookbook.

StampTV CSS Alumni Blog Hop

It's time for another CSS Blog hop!

Several members of the CenterStage Spotlight Alumni team have gathered some of their favorite BBQ Picnic recipes together for us to make another cookbook!  The cookbook will be available for FREE over on the StampTV Freebie page for you to download and print at your leisure. 

Here is the cover with a peek of the yumminess found inside.

But, since we are paper crafters - we challenged them even further to make a project with their recipe in mind to share with us tonight on their blogs!  (The projects are also included in photos on the recipe booklet as well.)  

The recipe that I submited is called Foil Babies. I'm not exactly sure why we call them Foil Babies. Basically you throw a bunch of vegetables with oil or cooking spray and seasonings into foil and seal it up real tight.  Throw it on the fire or grill for about a half hour to forty five minutes and you have a genuine Foil Baby. Yum! Now, everyone in my family except me also includes a hamburger patty. I don't eat a lot of meat, so the photo I included with the recipe does not include the hamburger patty. Although I did include it in the ingredients of the recipe in the book. :o) You can use canned or fresh vegetables.  I used fresh for mine. And you can use any vegetable you desire. Also in the recipe I listed salt and pepper for the seasoning.  That is what we originally used until about a year ago. My mom decided one day to mix a bunch of herbs and spices together to use on dishes like this.  And now it has become a staple for her and I decided to make some to use for this recipe.  This is not in the book, but I will share what I used on my at the end of this post if you want to try it out. Here are photos of the packet before it went into the oven and then the steaming hot food on a pretty paper plate ready for me to enjoy.

So the challenging part of this project was deciding how to include papercrafting into the recipe. I thought about running the foil through the Big Kick with an embossing folder first. Um, maybe not.  Maybe stamp images on the foil with Stazon? Well, maybe not.

I finally decided that maybe I need to start a cookbook of all the recipes we use when we go camping. So that is what I am going to share with you tonight.  I took a small white binder that holds half sheets of letter size paper and covered the front with some paper that I've had in my stash for several years now.  It's layered on a piece of Pure Luxury (PL) Lipstick Red card stock with a strip of ribbon down the left hand side. I love the colors and the fun images on this paper.  I pulled out my Gina K stamp set, Happy Camper and stamped a little scene on PL White card stock. I paper pieced the sign by stamping it on the free woodgrain digital paper from StampTV.com and then I stamped the word "Camping" on the sign and then wrote "recipes" under it with a sharpie marker.  I cut it out and adhered it to the scene on the white card stock.  I colored the images with Copic markers and sponged with tan and green ink.  Then I matted it on some PL Lipstick Red card stock and adhered it to the front with a lot of Scor Tape.

For the recipe card I used Publisher to print the recipe text onto white card stock.  I stamped some fun images from Happy Camper directly onto the card stock with colored ink to match the images from the pattern paper.  I adhered the recipe to a piece of PL Lipstick Red and then PL Tan Leather.  I put it into a page protector so it doesn't get messy.  Now I am ready to add more recipes and I can take this along when I go camping with my family.




Please check out the links of all the participating designers and then download the Recipe booklet and let us know how you like them!

• Jessica Fick: Grilled Pizza
• Betty Neville: Mom's Chinese BBQ Ribs
• Joy Hadden: Whiskey BBQ Sauce
• Tina Gilliland: Homemade Enchiladas
• Sue Van deVusse: Midwestern Kabobs
• Melissa Shultz: Foil Babies
• Geri Utterback: Oven Baked Beans
• Pam Imholz: Foil Potatoes
• Sharri Seffens: Calico Beans
• Carla Suto: Grilled Vegetables
• Dawn Lusk: Roasted Corn and Black Bean Salad
• Peggy Wainman: Bean Salad
• Karen Knegten: Miss Lucy's Rice Salad
• Jennie Harper: Picnic Coleslaw
• Cheri Weston: Fiesta Pie
• Brenda Turner: Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake
• Lori McAree: Dessert Pizza
• Giovana Smith: Peruvian Alfajores
• Carolina Buchting: Vanilla Cupcakes with Butter Cream Frosting
• Jen Charboneau: Dirt Cake

As promised here are tips for making the seasoning and herb mixture that I used when making my foil baby.
I combined the following:
   2 Tbs Onion Powder
   2 Tbs Garlic Powder
   2 Tbs Minced Onion
   2 Tbs Parsley Flakes
   2 Tbs Oregano
   2 Tbs Basil
   2 tsp Salt
   1 tsp Savory (my mom gave me this because she likes it in her mix)
   1 tsp Hot Pepper Flakes
I think that is everything I added.  I just put it in one of the larger spice jars that I emptied and shook it up really well.  I've also sprinkled it on buttered toast and used it on my fried eggs for breakfast.
You can use whatever spices and herbs you like. Experiment with different mixes and use less of each when you are experimenting. This is a great way to add flavor and use less fat in your recipes.

Gina K Designs - Illustrator Blog Hop Challenge April 2010

The challenge this month was to use our favorite children's book as inspiration. I remember one book that I used to ask my mom to read me over and over.  The title is "Miss Suzy's Easter Surprise".  I still have the book somewhere and will have to dig it out and read it again. I found this image on Amazon.com of the book.

This first card has a woven card stock background. I used the Pure Luxury Tan Leather card stock and wove half inch strips. Then I cut out the shape with my Labels 8 Nestabilities die.  I stamped flowers with brown chalk ink to represet the garden of flowers that I am sure Miss Suzy had around her house.  I used lace and pearls which I am also sure she had in her house.  The daffodils and sentiment are from the new set Sending Sunshine.

For the other two cards I stuck with the birds and flowers theme because I know Miss Suzy was most likely surrounded by flowers and had many birds as friends and neighbors.  The images for this card are from the new StampTV Kit.  There are so many great images and sentiments in this one. I especially love this littel bird holding a sign. 

And my last card contains images from Spring has Sprung. I love the birds frolicking in the bird bath. So much fun to color and to look at.  Makes me smile. :o)

I hope you enjoyed the cards I made for this challenge. If you would like to see more ideas using Gina's fabulous stamps or you just want to hang out with some awesome stampers, please stop by StampTV.com.