Happy Leap Day and Tombow Giveaway

Hi there, Happy Leap Day to everyone.  I have been taking a little blog break as I have injured my left shoulder/arm and am in resting mode right now.  I hope to be back at it soon as I am having some serious stamping withdrawals. 

I do want to share the link to Tombow's blog with you as they are having a Leap Day Giveaway.  You can check it out HERE.

I will be back soon, I promise.

Welcome March

TGIF!  This week on the Tombow blog we have been given a "Designer's Choice" week.  I decided to share my March calendar page with you.

This page is 5"x 7" and stands up on its own with an easel back.  I started with a base layer of kelly green cardstock and then adhered some Bo Bunny Double Dot cardstock with my Tombow Mono Adhesive Dots, Roller.  Next I inked up the shamrock image from the Our Craft Lounge, Shamrock Blessings set with three different green colors of Tombow Dual Brush Pens using the thumping method to ink up the stamp and then stamped them to the bottom of the white calendar panel. I did the same thing for the flowers that I stamped in the upper left corner using the same green Tombow Dual Brush Pens and adding two tones of purple Dual Brush Pens.   Next, I cut out another piece of kelly green cardstock with the Spellbinders Nestabilities Mega Dies, Labels 17 and adhered the calendar panel to it with Tombow Mono Adhesive Dots, Roller and then attached this panel to the calendar base popped up with Tombow Foam Tabs.  The sentiment was also inked up with the Dual Brush Pens and stamped onto some white cardstock.  I cut the sentiment panel and background layer with my Spellbinders Nestabilities Die-Petite Ovals set and popped it up onto the calendar with Tombow Foam Tabs.  The two shamrocks were cut from the new Memory Box Lucky Leaves dies, embossed with clear embossing powder with a touch of Glitter Ritz Warm Highlight glitter from Elizabeth Craft Designs and adhered to the calendar with Tombow Mono Multi.

Best of Luck

This week my fellow

Outlawz design team members and I have an Anything Goes with a touch of GREEN with you for our Twisted Thursday Challenge.  

I decided to use this adorable PI image.  March is just around the corner (didn't I just say that about February) and there will be lots of St. Paddy's celebrations going on so I thought this little gal with her clover was perfect.  The four-leaf clover die is one of the new one's from Memory Box.  There are two different clovers in the set, I think it is so sweet!  Not sure what happened with the color of her pants in the pic, they aren't really that bright in person.  Hmmmm.

We would love to have you share your Anything Goes with Green cards with us this week.  You can find all of the details here at the Outlawz Challenge Group.  You never know, you may win a prize too!

Spring has Sprung

Happy, happy Wednesday to everyone! 

 Today, I am spotlighting some Spring themed cards using some of my favorite Our Craft Lounge sets.

Isn't this little hive the cutest?  It is from the Bees Knees set.  It is hard to see, but the little bee is attached with a little gold coil of wire so that she can fly around her hive.  The hive was stamped on some print paper and some shading was added with Copic markers.

My next card uses the pretty little daisy and leaf images from the Pretty Petals set.  I stamped the images in black ink and then colored them with Prismacolor pencils and a little Gamsol.  The sentiment is from the Big Birthday Wishes set.  Here is a tip:  See the coordinating piece inside?  When you create your image panel, start with a bigger piece of cardstock and then after you trim it down for your main panel you will have a little extra that is perfect to decorate the inside of your card with.

My next card uses the Hey Chick set.  I love this sentiment and can think of so many people I would use this sentiment for.  I stamped the chicks a second time and popped them up with tiny pieces of a Tombow Power Tab.   

Last but not least is my calendar page for March.

I used stamps from the Shamrock Blessings set to create this fun little garden of shamrocks.  The sentiment panel was inked up with Tombow markers and cut out with Petite Oval Nesties.  The page is a  5" x 7" panel that I mounted a easel back to so that it stands up on its own.  

There are a ton of great sets for Spring at Our Craft Lounge. Check them out HERE.

Color My World

Happy Friday!  Whew, we made it through another week.  Yeah!  Now that Valentine's Day has come and gone for another year, I am starting to think about Spring.  I have to say, we really haven't had Winter here yet.  Although I am not a fan of cold, rain and snow.  We really need the water, so I say bring it on!  

This week on the Tombow Blog, the design team is focusing on working with some of the fine art pencils that Tombow carries.  I have created two cards using the Irojiten Color Dictionary Pencils.

For this card, I stamped the pretty outline flower/leaf from the Our Craft Lounge Pretty Petals set in Memento Tuxedo Black ink onto some Neenah Classic Crest Solar White cardstock and then colored them in using some of the green, yellow and orange pencils in the Irojiten Seascape set.  I blended the pencils out with some odorless mineral sprits and then glitzed the flowers up a bit with some Diamond Stickles. I stamped Happy Birthday from the Our Craft Lounge Big Birthday Wishes set in black ink onto a scrap of blue print cardstock and layered it to the front of the card using Tombow Foam Tabs.  I used Tombow Mono Adhesive Dots, Roller to adhere all of the layers together and a Tombow Power Tab to fasten the button to the front of the card.  

Using the same Irojiten Seascape set for this card I stamped the Classic Fabric Background from Hero Arts in Alabaster Fluid Chalk ink onto some black cardstock and then colored over the white areas with the pencils.  After I was finished coloring, I spritzed the black panel with some pearl shimmer spray.  It is so pretty in person!  The aqua panel is raised up with some Tombow Foam Tabs and the rest of the card was secured together with Tombow Mono Adhesive Dots, Roller. 

Would you like to have one these cards?  I would love to send you one.  Just leave me a comment letting me know which one is your favorite and I will pick two winners, one for each card.  For an extra chance, I would love it if you "LIKE" my INKclinations Facebook page.  Just come back here and let me know you "LIKED" me.  :)

I will randomly pick the winners on Feb 22, 2012 and announce them here and on INKclinations Facebook on Feb 23rd.

Miss Daisy

Hello, today I am sharing the card I created for the Outlawz Twisted Thursday Challenge.  This week we were to create a card with "Lots of Layers".  Well, I did a happy dance when I found out we were going to use my favorite style.  

I have used Prismacolor pencils many times over the last 20 years but I had never stamped an image on kraft cardstock and then colored it.  I was inspired by one of my color pencil heros, Dorcas from Dorcas Designs. This gal is a master with colored pencils and she often colors on kraft cardstock and I love how it looks and decided to give it a try with this sweet little mousie image from the Inky Antics Teacup Mousies #2 Clear Set.  I stamped the image with Memento Tuxedo Black ink and then I gave the image a base layer of white Prisma and then started adding colors.  I am really happy with how it turned out for my first try. 

Now we would love for you to join in on the challenge with us this week.  You might even win a prize!  Check it out HERE. 

I am also entering this card in the DYSU Challenge Blog as this weeks challenge is Layers, and you all know how I love me some layers!

Valentine's Blog Candy

Happy Valentine’s Day ~ time for CANDY 

on the Our Craft Lounge Blog and Facebook Page

Happy Heart Day!  Our Craft Lounge loves their customers so very much, so they have decided to spread some love to you!  You know what that means, right?  

It's time for some Valentine Candy!  

See the details below:

Up for grabs ~ 2 prizes that will contain a stamp set, a jar of Sparkly Fluff and some fabulous ribbon from May Arts!

How to win ~ leave a comment on the OCL Blog and leave a comment on the OCL Facebook Page both today and tomorrow (ends at midnight PST on February 15, 2012).

That is 4 chances to win!

Easy peasy!

My Favorite Peeps

Hi, I usually don't post on the weekends but I had some free time and was able to play along with one of the Splitcoaststampers MiniVSN challenges today.

The challenge (MAR12VSNMINI1) was to create something with either a chicken or an egg.  As you can see, I opted for the "chicken" route and used this adorable stamp from Our Craft Lounge's Crafty Clear Hey Chick stamp set.  Now the challenge calls for you to complete your card/project in 45 minutes. Egads, 45 minutes!  I had to come up with a plan first and then get started so I picked the Mojo Monday 224 sketch  to work with and then pulled out some springy papers and got started.  I did get it done in the allotted time, so I was happy with that.  Well, I have a little more free time, so I am going to try and work on some of the other challenges. 

Love Notes

Hi!  This week the team has been sharing their "Love Notes" with you.

I created a little box with three small cards that would be great for popping into your sweetheart's pocket or lunch bag.  

I used this pattern to create this sweet little 3 x 3 notecard box.  I used Tombow's Mono Adhesive Dots, Roller on the tabs of the box to create a strong hold and solid box.  Mono Adhesive Dots, Roller was also used to apply some Basic Grey Bittersweet paper to the box top.  For each of the notes I used a variety of hearts that were cut from Lifestyle Crafts Hearts dies.  I embossed the hearts with a variety of folders with a Cuttlebug. I used some Tombow Mono Multi Adhesive to adhere each of the hearts to one another and the box top/card fronts.  The ribbon was attached with a Tombow Power Tab.  I used Tombow's Foam Tabs (the small ones) to attach each of the flowers and the sentiment flags  to the top of the box or notecards.  

It is a bit difficult to see, but one of my favorite things to do to paper flowers is to apply Tombow Mono Aqua around the petals and then sprinkle with Glitter Ritz Warm Highlight Microfine Glitter from Elizabeth Craft Designs.

You Float My Boat

Helllloooo my dear and sweet blog followers!  This week my fellow Outlawz design team members and I are sharing masculine cards with you for our Twisted Thursday Challenge.  

Since we are nearing Valentine's Day, I thought I would share a card that would be great for my special valentine.  Someday we would love to own a boat and spend our "extra" time floating around the Sea of Cortez soaking up the sun (for me) and fishing (for him).  I used stamps from the Our Craft Lounge Crafty Clear Smooth Sailing set and added a wee bit of paper piecing on the sail and flags.  

We would love to have you share your masculine cards with us this week.  You can find all of the details here at the Outlawz Challenge Group.  You never know, you may win a prize too!

Up in the Air with OCL

Did you see the OCL challenge #103 for this week?  

The theme is Up in the Air

I chose to use the adorabe Our Craft Lounge Crafty Clear Bees Knees set to create my card.  I had fallen in LOVE with this card by Torico and used her wonderful layout as a starting point for my card.  I changed the shape of the opening from a circle to an oval and added embossed dots to my base card.  The background paper is one of my all time favorites from My Mind's Eye.  I hated to cut into my last sheet, but knew it would be perfect to act as a sky for my branch/hive. I cut out the branch/hive and adhered it flat to the print cardstock and then  I stamped the hive a second time on a scrap of honey colored print paper, added some shading with Copic markers and popped it up with a couple of small Tombow Foam Tabs.    The cute little bee has taken flight on the end of some gold floral wire that I curled around a small paintbrush for added dimension.  I stamped the sentiment from the same Our Craft Lounge Bees Knees set in black ink and added some Diamond Stickles for the wings on the bee and called it good.

Here is our inspiration photo for the week and a little info about the challenge.

Play along with us this week and be entered to WIN!  That’s right!  More important than bragging rights, (although who doesn’t love bragging rights?!)  you are entered to WIN any one stamp set of your choice made by Our Craft Lounge. You have until 11:59pm Thursday, February 9th to enter.   Participate as many times as you like!   A random winner will be selected and posted on the OCL blog at the beginning of next month. For the nitty gritty details, click HERE.

Check this out!

A few weeks ago, I was contacted by the very adorable Jackie Wamhoff from Inky Antics and she asked me if I would like to guest design for them for the month of February.  Of course, I said heck yeah!  Jackie sent me some fantabulous Inky Antics stamps to work with and I got busy.  Each Sunday in February Jackie will be sharing my creations with you on the Inky Antics blog.  You can check out the first post HERE.  Be sure to head over to the Inky blog and leave a comment as you will have a chance to win some free stamps.  Ya gotta love that!

Thank You Favor Boxes

 Hello there!  All week on the Tombow blog my fellow DT members have been sharing our creations using the Pantone's 2008 color called Blue Iris.   I decided to make some little Thank You boxes (filled with something sweet, of course) to have on hand.

(click on picture for larger image)

 Tombow's Dual Brush Pen #555 (Ultramarine) is the perfect match, so that was my starting point.   I used the Lifestyle Crafts Rectangle Box Die to create this adorable little 2 x 3 x 1 favor box.  I then cut out several white flowers using the MFT Mini Rolled Roses Die and the Memory Box Small Pinwheel Posie Die.  Before I rolled the flowers, I used the Tombow Dual Brush Pen #555 to tip the topside of each of the flowers.  I then rolled them and secured each one on the bottom using Tombow Mono Multi adhesive.  Just a little drop on the bottom of each flower held them nicely.  I then inked up a Memory Box Thank You stamp with the same Dual Brush Marker (for a perfect color match) onto some white cardstock and cut it out with a circle die and adhered it to a blue scallop circle using Tombow's Mono Adhesive Permanent Dots Roller and adhered that to the top of the box with Tombow's Foam Tabs.  I used a little more of the Mono Multi to adhere the flowers to the thank you panel and then I used some of the Tombow Mono Aqua around the top of each flower and sprinkled them with Elizabeth Craft Designs Warm Highlight Glitter.  A little ribbon and some bling and these boxes are ready to go. 

Sweet on You

Hi there, today I have joined up with the rest of the OutlawzTwisted Thursday team to bring you Valentine cards.

I went a little "die" crazy on this one as I used the new heart dies from Lifestyle Crafts and the TClassic/Scallop Rectangle Nesties.  The design was inpired from the FTL172 layout.  The sentiment is from the new MFT Pure Innocence Berry Sweet set

Be sure to pop over to the Outlawz Twisted Thursday challenge and check out what the rest of the team has created.  We would love to have you play along as well.  You could win some nice prizes too!