Pictures

I promised pictures of the bag and card that I'll be giving to my sister-in-law-to-be tonight. Before I went to bed, I packaged everything up nicely, wrote in the card and sealed the envelope.

Before I took a picture of the card. *HeadtoDesk*

I'm such an idiot sometimes.

Anywho, here's the bag - plain white from Michaels. I added the satin ribbons at the top and bottom of the bag and they go all the way around the bag. If you can't tell, the wedding colors are chocolate brown and sage/moss green.

The focal point of the bag is cut out with square Nesties.

I've had this stamp set for over a year and it's a little tricky to use for cards. But it's perfect for a bachelorette party! The tissue paper is stamped with the bra and undies too - as is the card. It all goes together. Which is surprising - I generally don't do this.

Stamps: Gina K/Langley Boy - Thanks for Your Support. Paper: PTI Dark Chocolate and Select White, SU Mellow Moss. Ink: PTI Dark Chocolate, SU Mellow Moss marker. Accessories: Square Nesties, ribbon, red line tape, Stickles, bag, tissue paper.

As I think I mentioned last night during my squealing post - did I mention I got my PTI Anniversary set? - this weekend is VSN over at Splitcoast.

I couldn't resist using my new set for the first challenge - Double up - make 2 identical cards. I had some Making Memories ribbon out on my table from earlier in the week and I realized that it was very close to PTI's Berry Sorbet in color. And I was off.

Stamps: PTI - Everyday Classics. Paper: PTI - Berry Sorbet, Spring Rain, Craft, Vintage Cream. Ink: Spring Rain, Berry Sorbet. Accessories: dimensionals, ribbon.

The 3rd VSN challenge was to use black, white and red - and ONLY black white and red. Do you realize how many shades of red there are????? I was nearly pulling my hair out trying to find a red dp that would be okay with PTI's Pure Poppy. I settled on using some Real Red dp that I got last year.

Stamps: PTI - Quilter's Sampler and Additions. Paper: PTI - Select White, Pure Poppy, SU - Basic Black. Ink: Palette Noir. Accessories: dimensionals, brads, Sakura Glitter pen, R29 Copic.

EEK! I just noticed the time and I have about 10 minutes to get to my hair appointment.

Wishing everyone a great weekend!

*Running by squealing... with a cd case in my hands*

Yep, I FINALLY got my Papertrey anniversary set in the mail today. It's all assembled and ready to be inked.

Speaking of inking... it's Virtual Stamping Night at Splitcoast. If you're looking for some inspiration or just want to make a bunch of cards (there are 16 challenges) head on over. It's a blast!

Pictures coming soon!

MORE VSN cards

I think I did really well this VSN. I got 9 challenges done - which is half. I probably would have gotten more done, but work's been a little nuts. School starts on September 2nd, my group is moving to a new room for the start of the school year, and I have had a lot on my mind.

SO... onto the cards.

Challenge H: Create a Bookmark. Who would have guessed that THIS would take the longest out of every challenge I did????? I'm serious. 43 minutes to create this bookmark. The dress is paper pieced and I colored the rest with Prismacolor pencils (the background was blended with baby oil.) I wanted to add some dimension to the skirt with some well placed colored pencil markings, but I knew I wouldn't get done in the time.

Stamps: Rubbernecker/Stamp Oasis - Left Beauty. Paper: Riding Hood Red, PTI Select White, Basic Grey Boxer dp. Ink: Palette Noir. Accessories: Basic Grey Boxer fibers, eyelet, Prismacolor pencils, baby oil, glue pen, tacky tape.

Challenge I: This challenge was based on the poem in Alice in Wonderland - The Walrus and the Carpenter. We were to use Pearl Ex, Twinkling H2Os, or scallops to create our card. My card was created with my largest scalloped square Nestability die. It's a small card. The image and sentiment come from the PTI set Out on a Limb. The sentiment didn't show up very well, but it says "Life is not measured by the breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away."

Stamps: PTI - Out on a Limb. Paper: Blue Bayou cs and dp, PTI Select White. Ink: Palette Burnt Umber, Blue Bayou. Accessories: Square Nestability die, ribbon, corner rounder punch, dimensionals, glitter pen, tacky tape.

Challenge L: We had to incorporate the color purple into our card somehow. Well, I'm not subtle sometimes, so it was a LOT of purple for me. This was the fastest card I made - 13 minutes from picking my colors to attaching my main image.

Stamps: SU - Embrace Life. Paper: Pale Plum, Perfect Plum, Whisper White. Ink: Perfect Plum, Pale Plum. Accessories: primas, brads, dimensionals, aquapainter.

Challenge P: A color challenge based around the names of Joanne Fluke's Hannah Swensen series of books. Hannah Swensen is a baker, so they're all named for sweet treats: chocolate chip cookies, cherry cheesecake, strawberry shortcake, etc.

To be perfectly honest, I didn't really start this card to go with this challenge. This card started with me playing with some Antique Linen Tim Holtz Distress Embossing Powder that I got on clearance at Hobby Lobby. I started layering more and more colors of Distress Ink on top of it and wound up with what's the background on my card - and I added some Sugar Cookie Glimmer Mist. After I finished all this, I realized that it didn't fit ANY challenge that I was planning. Then I remembered the Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder.

Stamps: Flourishes - Damask, PTI - Out on a Limb Sentiments. Paper: Chocolate Chip, River Rock, PTI Select White. Ink: Chocolate Chip, Versamark, Distress Inks in Vintage Photo, Tea Dye, Antique Linen. Accessories: Tim Holtz Distress Embossing Powder in Antique Linen, Ribbon, double rectangle punch, Glimmer Mist.

Challenge R: The last challenge of the night was to use a stamp set that hasn't been used in over 4 weeks. Well, I don't have any of those *guilty blush* Okay, I have a LOT of those. I've used a few over the course of this VSN weekend. This card started off as another challenge, then I got frustrated with what I was doing and just pulled out my butterfly from Garden Whimsy and stamped it in Aqua Mist on watercolor paper. Add some Stickles and brads, and the card was finished.
Stamps: SU - Garden Whimsy. Paper: Aqua Mist, Watercolor paper, My Mind's Eye dp. Ink: Aqua Mist. Accessories: Corner rounder punch, dimensionals, brads, Crystal Stickles.

That's all for this VSN and I had a blast playing and sharing my cards.

My VSN cards

I only got to about 4 VSN challenges last night - I was hoping to get to more, but I started later than I wanted to. I was in the middle of a really good book and I couldn't put it down. Which is kinda fitting considering that this VSN is called the Book Club.

How VSN works is challenges are issued every hour on the hour. You're given 45 minutes (you work on an honor system) to complete the card, and have 15 minutes to take pictures, upload, potty break, snack, chat, whatever you want.

I personally work in spurts. Since I don't have a computer down in the Dungeon with my stamping supplies, I tend to do 3 or 4 challenges in a row (timed with a kitchen timer) and then come up for air. If I'm in the cardmaking zone, I really don't want to be distracted.

Challenge A: The first challenge on Friday and the first challenge on Saturday are kid-themed challenges to let the kids get involved with stamping and having fun with Mom (or Dad.) The challenge revolves around Eric Carle's book "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" and the animals seen in the book. We were to pick an animal out of the book and create a card with it. I chose the Blue Horse and thankfully I have the Punny Farm set from MFT to create my blue horse. I finished pretty quickly - it only took me about 20 minutes to make this card, though I think something's missing.

Stamps: MFT - Punny Farm. Paper: Bashful Blue cs and dp, Whisper White, Basic Black. Ink: Palette Noir. Accessories: corner rounder punch, rhinestones, paper piercer.

Challenge B: The challenge was to take something out of a favorite childhood book and create a card with it. One of my favorite books when I was growing up was "Beauty: A Retelling of Beauty and the Beast" by Robin McKinley. I read it so much that my original copy fell apart. The change in Beauty's life revolves around a rose - which was a perfect excuse to use the single rose stamp by Rubbernecker.

Stamps: Rubbernecker - single rose. Paper: Barely Banana, Old Olive, Riding Hood Red, Whisper White, Olive Press dp. Ink: Palette Noir, Distress Ink: Antique Linen (or Old Paper - I can't remember at the moment), Barely Banana, Old Olive. Accessories: Mat pack, ribbon, brads, dimensionals.

Challenge D: It's all about the warm and fuzzy feelings of a book. So, time to use the fuzzy feelings of flock on a card. I have flock - in all the colors of the Doodlebug rainbow (I bought a sample assortment.) I have these shapes out of glue or tape made for flock and glitter and it was a match made in stamping heaven. I didn't want to create a traditional sized card so my card is 3.5"x8.5" The shape was put on a piece cardstock that I ran through my Cuttlebug with a Square Nestability die and the black mat was done with the same sized die, only scallopped. I stamped part of the card base with Flourishes LLC's Damask stamp and put my focal point where the stamping ended.

Stamps: FLLC - Damask. Paper: Lovely Lilac, Basic Black, Select White. Ink: Lovely Lilac. Accessories: flock, square nestabilites, flower sticker for the flock, adhesive pearl, dimensionals.

Challenge E: To use twine or hemp on a card. Hmmm... hello masculine card! With a masculine card in mind, I pulled my colors - and then realized that they match the Apple Cider dp from Stampin' Up! last year. I made a mat with that and fringed the edges (I think it looks a little like a rug.) My image is stamped in Burnt Umber (now Dark Chocolate PTI) Palette ink and colored using the Gamsol magic technique - in my world, Prismacolor pencils and baby oil.

Stamps: SU - Give Thanks. Paper: Really Rust, Chocolate Chip, Wild Wasabi, Very Vanilla, Apple Cider dp. Ink: PTI Dark Chocolate. Accessories: prismacolor pencils, baby oil, blending stumps, dimensionals, hemp.

I'll have more cards to show later.

VSN Reminder!

Tomorrow night at Splitcoast Stampers the VSN - Virtual Stamping Night kicks off at 7pm EST and continues all day Saturday. The theme is Book Club, so be ready to think like an author!

I've seen the write-ups for most of the challenges (one of the perks of hostessing) and they're going to be fun!

Yay for the week being almost over!

The Dancefloor - the VSN Honor's list

Tonight Kath and Kim, the VSN coordinators listed the cards chosen by the hostesses of the challenge that stood out.

The list for this VSN is "The Dancefloor." And if you're curious to see the list, it's here: http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/forums/showthread.php?p=8527783#post8527783

After all the cards for the challenges, there is a list 'honor' cards from each of the hostesses - meaning someone went through our galleries for vsn entries and chose the best. Mine was my giraffe buckle card for the Unique Closure challenge. This tickled me because as a hostess, we're not "allowed" to be chosen for the Dancefloor.

My first VSN honor - and I'm a hostess.

More VSN shtuff

A little more fill-in on the weekend. VSN's officially over - all cards up for honors were supposed to be in at 11pm EST last night. Over Saturday and Sunday, I got 7 more challenges done - for a grand total of 10 challenges out of 18. Not bad, but still, not that good. I haven't been able to play along with the VSN as it goes along. I always seem to play catch-up.

Now that all the cards are in, time to choose the honors gallery. Not winner's gallery, honors. The 2 cards each hostess liked the best out of her challenge. Personally? I had it easy - I had 43 cards in my challenge gallery and 10 of those were done by hostesses - who can't be chosen. I feel for the people who had 90-100+ in their galleries. Only choose 2?

My choices were made and my private message with my choices was sent to the VSN coordinators. The honors gallery list will go up later this week.

Here are the rest of my cards/projects from VSN:

It's VSN Baby!

The full-scale VSN has arrived. For those not familiar with Splitcoast and VSN, it's the Virtual Stamp Night. You have 45 minutes to complete each challenge and 15 minutes to upload, snack, chat, etc. before the next challenge starts. It started last night and a challenge was posted every hour on the hour starting at 6pm EST. It started again at noon EST and the final challenge will be posted at 11pm EST.

Personally? I fill out the chart - because the coordinators are kind enough to supply the players with a chart to fill out with all the challenges on it - and do them when I have time. Most of the time, this means I'll do 3 or 4 in one sitting - timing myself between each.

Have I been a good VSN hostess (even though my challenge fell in one of the mini VSNs, I'm still considered a hostess) and done all the challenges? Nope. Even with prior knowledge of what the challenges were, I didn't get them done - or have all the necessities to do them all.

I do have 3 challenges done. I'm planning on going down into the basement soon to get some more done tonight.

Stamps: Gina K Designs. Paper: Ballet Blue, More Mustard, Certainly Celery, Very Vanilla, Autumn Leaves DP. Ink: More Mustard, Certainly Celery. Accessories: Tacky Tape, brads, corner rounder punch.

Stamps: Papertrey - Sweet Love. Paper: Blue Bayou cs and dp, white. Ink: Blue Bayou, Soft Sky. Accessories: Coluzzle, ribbon, adhesive rhinestones.

Stamps: Papertrey - Spiral Bouquet. Paper: Chocolate Chip, Pretty in Pink, Very Vanilla. Ink: Chocolate Chip, Pretty in Pink. Accessories: 1/4" circle punch, velvet ribbon, rhinestones, quickie glue pen.