My Little Pumpkin

Today was the Harvest Party at my daughter's preschool. We supplied 24 sugar cookies for the class. If you have been following my blog any length of time you know I love to make cookie bouquets, so just supplying nondecorated sugar cookies is a fierce showing of restraint. LOL The reason? It was the classmates that decorated their own cookie. So what am I to do? Over-decorate the cookie container of course!

I measured the cookies after baking them to account for any spreading while baked and then created a 3-1/4 inch square box template. I added just enough extra space for the naked cookie to have breathing room. Yes, I believe all sugar cookies need to be clothed with bright cheery frosting. I sponged only two of the boxes to give to the teachers and left the rest for little frosting glazed hands to add the orange color.

I've had the adorable Chicken Girl Designs, Happy Halloween set for a few weeks and I am just now getting to a Halloween project. The images in this set are just darling enough that they wouldn't frighten a preschooler so I inked up the jack o lantern with a cat and mouse peeking out. So cute!



Just a reminder: There are only a few days left before InStyle Digital Downloads go back to full price. Go over and check them out!

Card Details:
Stamps:Chicken Girl Designs Happy Halloween, Stampin Around Whirly Twirly Wheel, Verve Hello Pumpkin
Paper:LSS Cream CS, Close to Cocoa, Orange
Ink:Mellow Moss, Brilliance Graphite Black, Prismacolor Markers (Lt. Umber, Lt. Tan, Cinnamon Toast, Cool Grey 10 and 30%, Blush Pink, Pink, Orange, Pumpkin Orange, Canary Yellow)
Accessories:Nestabilities Classic Circle Large #3 and 4, Classic Scallop Circle Large #3, TA Marshmallow Glimmer Mist

Ruffles Challenge

Late Monday night I got a wild idea in my head to make some ruffles and use them in a card for the Moxie Fab World Challenge: Not Your Regular Ruffles.

I wanted to do something different with ruffles so here they are in layers!



Card Details:
Stamps: CTMH Be Yourself, MyDigis Ruffles, Stampin' Up Canvas
Paper: AC Pattern Paper A La Carte, Mohawk Smooth White CS
Ink: Brilliance Graphite Black, Stampin' Up Baroque Burgundy and More Mustard Ink, Baroque Burgundy Writer Marker, PITT SuperFine India Ink Pen, Prismacolor Markers (Henna, Flagstone Red, Deco Yellow, Yellow Ochre, Goldenrod)
Accessories: Kaisercrafts Black Rhinestones

And here is the digital stamp:


If you decide to use it please give me, © Janelle of Rain Puddles Design blog 2009, credit. While the digi-stamp is very simple art it is still my art form and time, I would appreciate that you not redistribute it on your blog or through any other form. You may share a link to my blog if you want others to know about it.

Thanks for stopping in!

In Style Catch of the Day

Last week I mentioned I would be sharing a project I made and well I got busy with other posts and didn't get this one out.

I went very creative with a digital stamp from In Style Stamps. You have to go see their stamps! They are SO neat. The anime digi I used is called Alyssa. She is a catch isn't she? So much that she was featured in the sports section of the newspaper. She's not new but from a league of her own so you're seeing an article while she was still in her youth.

That's right! I designed the framework of the newspaper article and added the Alyssa digi-stamp as a "photo". Some time's I get an idea in my head and I can't stop until it comes to fruition. LOL

If there is interest I'll do a tutorial on how I made the newspaper article. I did it in MS PowerPoint!

I used only Prismacolor markers and pencils on the newspaper image adding a second arm with mitt for dimension. The baseball is made slightly like the felted cardstock tutorial over at SCS, but I could not get the napkin to stay adhered so I got out my Yes! paste and glued it on. The sketchy stitching is done by eyeballing a line on the back of the ball and then stitching back and forth over the line. I used a photo of a ball as my reference. The frame is made from Close To Cocoa cardstock ran through my Cuttlebug with a Sissix Distressed Emboss Plate which I rolled Chocolate Chip ink over it beforehand.



This acetate treat box (from SCS) uses a smaller, but whole image of Alyssa in Full Color. She hasn't aged a day has she? She still looks just as young as she was in that old newspaper article. ;) Since her size was too small for my markers I worked almost only in Prismacolor Pencils except for the larger areas of her shirt and hat.

Have a great week!

Janelle

Warning! The ink details are long!

Card Details:
Stamps: In Style Anime Alyssa Digital Stamp
Paper: Mohawk Smooth White, Stampin Up Chocolate Chip, White paper napkin (felted cardstock baseball)
Inks: LaserJet Printer, Chocolate Chip on embossing plate (frame), Prismacolor Markers (Brick White (base),Parchment (shadows), Light Walnut (background), Walnut (background), Brick Beige (skin and mouth), Clay Rose (skin shadows and mouth), Ash Grey (eyes); Prismacolor Pencils White (highlights), French Grey 20%, 70% (Hair), Brick Beige (skin), Clay Rose (skin)
Ash Grey (eyes), Jade Green (eyes)
Accessories: DMC Floss Thread red, Sissix Distressed Texturz Plate, 3D Dots and Dimensionals, MS Powerpoint software

Acetate Treat Box Details:
Stamps: In Style Anime Alyssa Digital Stamp
Paper: Mohawk Smooth White, Pattern Paper unknown, Stampin Up Chocolate Chip
Ink: LaserJet Printer, Prismacolor Markers (Brick White (mitt), Parchment (mitt), Lilac (shirt/socks), Brick Beige (skin), Clay Rose (skin), Ash Grey (shoes), Celadon Green (Hair), Mint Cream (Hair); Prismacolor Pencils Lt. Umber (mitt), Dk. Umber (mitt), Burnt Ochre (mitt), Lilac (shirt), Imperial Violet, (shirt/socks), Light Peach (skin),French Grey 70% (shoes/pants), Black (shoes), Jade Green (hair), Olive Green (hair), Lt Cerulean Blue (eyes), True Blue (eyes), Poppy Red (mouth), Crimson Red (mouth and ball seams), Terra Cotta (mouth), French Grey 20% (pants), White (highlights)
Accessories: Offray Lilac Satin Ribbon, EK Success Dotted Wave Edger Punch.

Having a restful Sunday? I did.

Gratitude
I came home for lunch today to the smell of delicious Stuffed Peppers in my oven and I didn't even prepare them! Fresh cranberry sauce was in the refrigerator and green beans on the stove. Wanna guess who did it? Nope it wasn't my super hubby. It was my SWEET mother-in-law.

Don't assume it was for me though. We were celebrating a friend's 60th birthday at my house. She is a past preschool teacher to my daughter, past fellow alto in the church choir to me, swim partner and former teaching companion to my MIL. So it was a family style birthday, we even had THE family birthday cake. I thought I was in some sort of heaven today. Thanks CJ!

Card
Today was a restful day because well it ought to be, but also because I was tired from staying up more than half the night delighting in the creation of this card for the Viva La Verve Sketch with a Twist Challenge. The twist was to use fabric.

The image is the Verve October release free digital stamp, offered only during release week. Did you get it before it was gone? The card base is Stampin Up DSP from the retired Dashing set adhered to a 5 1/4" square card. For the image layer, I cut out the mittens just inside the black line and went around the cut edge with a black PITT pen to get rid of white core effect. I jumped up onto the top of the paper once while doing this. Can you find it? I then traced the cuff onto some tracing paper and then used 2-way glue to turn the tracing paper into a frisket (self-sticking mask) so I could sponge Old Olive around the mittens. Once that was done I pulled off the frisket and out came my Prismacolor markers for the cuffs. (Colors I used were Light Cerulean Blue, Cerulean Blue, Cream and Deco Yellow.)

Afterthought I could have colored the cuffs first and then clear embossed over them before sponging the background. Hmmmm... maybe not because the cuffs would be shiny against the soft flannel mittens.

I put sticky tape on the back around the cutout mittens to secure cream flannel for the fabric twist. I used a finger to make a slight pillow shape through the mitten hole before adhering so there was room for filling. More sticky tape and repositioning of the batting I quickly adhered it to a piece of Brocade Blue cardstock. The Old Olive cardstock is watermarked with the snowflake stamp in Stampin' Up Snow Day set. I created three brads, inspired by Jen Del Muro's Believe Blog Hop card using AC Ocean medium brads, read cardstock and black cardstock to cover up the hole in the brad center.

I used the same words for the sentiment that were included in the digi-set but were too large to put in the tab. The words come from Stampin' Up Everyday Flexible Phrases and Expressive Flexible Phrases. Some AC red pearls on the mittens, Offray Hot Rod red center stitch grosgrain ribbon and the card front was complete.



I resized and duplicated the mittens into a border for the inside of the card. Not wanting to sponge the green I went to my Avocado Prismacolor marker and colorless blender.

Thanks for stopping by.

Card Details:
Stamps: Verve Mittens Digital Stamp, Stampin Up Snow Day, Everyday and Expressive Flexible Phrases
Paper: Mohawk Smooth White, Real Read, Old Olive, Brocade Blue
Ink: Brilliance Graphite Black, Versamark, Prismacolor markers
Accessories: Offray red ribbon, tab punch, circle punch, xacto knife

Hot Cocoa Disaster

I love the peppermint cocoa cups over at WixedPixie Creations. They look like the cup I was suppose to have been sipping during the Verve Stamp release party tonight.

I'm sitting at my computer with cocoa that has had a peppermint overdose! I didn't have any peppermint hard candy to melt in it so I put 3 drops of pure peppermint oil in it. Well, the first was intentional...the second hesitantly...the third? Oh well it couldn't hurt! I need to go lay some of it to rest down the sink and what's left doctor it up with more hot cocoa. ;)

Verve just released their October stamps, where I was for most of the evening, and one set I want to mention is called Believe. A beautiful set that is in honor of breast cancer awareness. A portion of the purchase price is going straight to Susan G Komen for the Cure. Check it out and if you're at all touched by the sentiments in this set and a few dollars left in your craft budget it is worth the purchase. See how the Verve Diva's have used this set here. AND there is a blog hop starting at Julee's blog October 24th, at 11 a.m. eastern time.

Cast All Your Cares on Him

I'm starting a set of cards to send out to my Bible Study small group and Verve's 1 Peter 5:7 popped into my head for a good encouragement card. I'll post the whole set of them later, but wanted to get the first one out to also post about the sketch.


It's Verve's October Release week and the first sketch is where this card is inspired. I say inspired because I started with the sketch but couldn't get my elements to fit nicely without covering up half of the verse.

I am loving using my brayer with a little ink rolled on it, to give my cardstock some depth. It's easy, but deciding when to brayer was somehow difficult to do this time around. (This means that every element has something stamped on the back of the card. LOL) The medallion was stamped first and clear embossed a couple of times. Then I put a heavy hand on the Old Olive-inked brayer to get down into all the negative spaces of the medallion. I sponged around the edges with Ranger Vintage Linen and then Tea Dye Inks. The background is stamped, clear embossed and then sponged almost entirely with Vintage Linen and then around the edges with Tea Dye.

See those little glossy accents? Well that's what I used on plain old circles from a standard hole punch. Is that too frugal? LOL I got out my plastic palette and put down a pea-size amount of Glossy Accents, two drops of reinker and an amount of CTMH Create a paint that probably equals the tip of toothpick. I mixed that up and used my smallest art brush to drop onto the hole punch that was already on a Zots dot.

Thanks for stopping by!

Card Details:
Stamps: Verve Kindred Spirits and 1Peter 5:7, Stampin' Up Filigree BG
Paper: Mohawk Smooth White, Old Olive, Basic Black
Ink: Brilliance Graphite Black, Old Olive, Ranger Vintage Linen and Tea Dye
Accessories: Black satin ribbon, Brayer, clear EP, Nestabilities Large Labels and circle die, hole punch, Glossy Accents + SU! Black Reinker + CTMH Creat a paint, Quickutz Retro Diamond EF

Shine Bright!

I've been on a bit of a hiatus with blogging this past week. I was deep in creativity and I can't wait to show you what I made. That will be for another post though.

My card today is a combination challenge card. I used the sketch and twist challenge from Viva La Verve's October week 2 here, and SCS Inspiration challenge here.

The VLV twist challenge was to not use browns and oranges so I went over to the SCS challenge links and found an Inspiration Challenge from last week. I used one of the awesome jewelry found at TzaddiShop for my inspiration.




Card Details:
Stamps: Verve Starstruck
Paper: Mohawk Smooth White, HP Photo Paper (image), Pink Passion, Basic Black, Gold shimmer paper, Green background paper unknown
Ink: StazOn Jet Black, Basic Black, Brilliant Blue, Marvelous Magenta, YoYo Yellow, Glorious Green
Accessories: Stampin Up Clear EP, Stickles Cotton Candy, AC rhinestones, Stampin Up Scallop Edge punch

Thanks for stopping by!

Shabby Chic or not and cat's meow

Has anyone else been crazy busy with their fall schedule? I don't see it on the calendar, but somehow when the cool brisk air comes along the schedule seems to get busy. All that to say I've had less time to be in the craft studio.



The shabby chic card is for October's Viva La Verve Week 1. I had a tough time making my elements work on this card, but I like the end result. The added blue top note layer to the challenges sketch help anchor this card together. I had a spool card of twill tape from Stampin' Up that has been collecting dust and it was just crying for some attention. The inspiration I had was to assemble an embroidered element onto the card. I designed a flower filigree digi stamp to fit exactly the width of the card and printed it out to use as a paper foundation for the hand embroidery. I like how it looks VERY homemade with the irregular stitch lengths and spaces. I enjoyed it so much that I put the same flowers, sans filigree, on the sentiment layer. I fussed over the rest of the elements for almost a week and finally went to my scrap element box and found a few items. I stitched all the layers and sponged Ranger Tea Dye ink around the edges of all the layers and the ribbon. What do you think?

Edit: I wanted to share my flower filigree doodle I made to embroider on the twill tape. Here it is with a complementary ribbon flower file for layering technique.



My next card was for the MyGraphico sketch challenge #18. I downloaded some of their free digital stamps and ended up only using the black cat out of the whole set. That's what creative process will do, I guess.



I made the orange distressed paper by rolling Only Orange onto my brayer and layering it a couple of time over white cardstock. I went back around the edges with Really Rust, again with the brayer. The darkest edges were sponged on Basic Black. After that I distressed a bit more with Really Rust stamp pad directly to the paper until I saw streak lines and lines across the paper. Now what do you think is the center element? It's meant to me a floating cat collar. LOL I think I should have added some black fur (shredded black paper) underneath it to help identify it, but I was trying to meet the challenge deadline. The sentiment is digital from kevinandamanda.com's free scrapbook font called "Love Ya Like A Sister".

Shabby Chic Card Details:
Stamps: MyDigi stamp, Verve Little Pumpkin
Paper: LSS white and cream paper, unknown pattern paper, kraft, Brocade Blue, watercolored white paper with Brilliant Blue re-inker and Isopropyl Alcohol mixed (scallop circle)
Ink: Brilliant Blue re-inker, Bliss Blue, Ranger Tea Dye Ink, Versamark
Accessories: Clear Emboss Powder, Kaisercrafts rhinestones, DMC Floss 800 and 3755, SU! Twill Tape, scrap lace edging, Nestabilities Scallop Circle and Circle die, CB Just My Type EF, SU! Top Note Die, Sewing machine

Cat's meow Card Detail:
Stamps: MyGraphico Free Halloween Stamps, LaserJet Printer
Paper: Mohawk Smooth White, LSS orange and Purple, Basic Black
Ink: Only Orange, Really Rust, Basic Black, Lovely Lilac
Accessories: Quickutz Retro Diamond EF, Kaisercrafts purple rhinstones, Stickles, paper piercer, aluminum wire,DMC Floss unknown color, MS Onyx and Charoite glitter mixed in Glossy Accents for dots on oval layer

Makin' Purple cards, Pumpkins and Purses

My daughter and I decided we would take turns with projects. She wanted to make purple cards and I wanted to try making a pumpkin from strips of paper (from instructions at azlearningbug.com here). It was our special time together this afternoon.

So here are the purple cards that my daughter wanted to make...



...and here is my pumpkin and her "pumpkin purse".



Have a great weekend!