Rain Puddles Design

Update: Welcome Craft Critique Card Carnival! The theme is Mother's Day and here is my project I'd like to share. If you are just stopping in and want to get super inspired for Mother's Day take this link to walk through the whole blog hop. Thanks for stopping in! Welcome Friday and the end of the month. That means it's time for the InStyle Stamps Blog Hop and we are showcasing Mother's Day themed projects. I'll guess you have seen some amazing projects so far! So if you have been stopping and hopping from the beginning with the InStyle Stamps Design Team, then you have just hopped from the talented Miss Robin . If you are just stopping in for today, why don't you start from the beginning at the InStyle Stamps blog . We are all excited to show you what we've dreamed up! My project is inspired by a dress my mom and I found that she wore at my wedding. The dress had some amazing blue silk-like fabric with just a bit of satin trimming and tha...

Happy Wednesday everyone! Today I've got yet another fabulous InStyle dress to show you. This one gave me so many ideas, but I just don't have the time to create them. I'll journal down those thoughts for when I have some time. LOL So here's a real quick card I put together using the Mojo Monday Sketch #136 . This strapless dress could be a great image for just about any kind of card, but I had in mind a Birthday card this time. The dp made it a cinch. All I need to do is write my own message on the inside and I'm done! Now for some InStyle Shop Talk ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* Two reasons to hop on over to InStyle Stamps right now: $SALE$   - Just a note to hop on over to InStyle Stamp Store and check out all the  rubbah stamps . They are on sale until the end of the month. Just THREE more days! *NEW* - All the new stamps the InStyle Design Team and I have been showing you the past several weeks are showing up in all categories, BUT just take the link o...

I added this card to my SCS gallery a while ago and thought I'd fill a gap in my posting since I'm working on some projects for the end of the month. My Viva La Verve inspiration was for week 2 came from room 1. I focused on the satiny silver fabric in the chairs, the cream and mustard/sand color in the decor and wall, and the glass lampstands. The stamps I used are from Waltzingmouse Stamps' Nestie Friendly Very Vintage Labels 3 set and Blessed by You. I used a Verve complimentary stamp for the sentiment. I made the Nestabilities Label 3 mat look like it was a metal piece by using some Zing Silver embossing powder on the stamps and silver metallic acrylic paint dry brushed over the whole thing. I confess, I first did the Labels 3 stamp and then brushed acrylic over it, which dulled the finished of the embossing. The apple looks much more metallic because I embossed after the acrylic paint had dried. I started to make a deep orange flower to match a stripe in one o...

Last night I was able to sneak in to the office to hang out with the Verve community for Verve Beach Party Release Party. It was a fabulous time and the chatting and reveals are always such a pleasure. The sketch challenges by Julee were fantastic and I wasn't able to get to them but they are definitely apart of my go-to pile in case I need a sketch to get me going. I was able to get to the color challenge and Julee picked out a fantastic color combo of Orange, Aqua and Green. My card went off onto a curiosity spin as most of my creations do. I wanted to know if I could paper pierce a design onto acetate and stitch thread onto it. With some clever counting I was able to manuever all the holes without jumping over previous stitches and stitch on both sides so if anyone peeked it would look finished too. I was almost reluctant to cover up the ends with a matching white cardstock from the sentiment because they actually were invisible. It sure was fun creating those waves for...

birthdays can make you a little DizZy. Don't ya think? Well DigiStamp Boutique has this adorable feline, Maxwell with Balloon , who is trying a bit too hard to celebrate your birthday. My guess is that he was trying to air up enough balloons for each year of your life!  Sally-Ann also has a new collection called Simply Baby . It is ever so cute. Go check it out! Remember! You can also win May's Offer of the Month by using one of the April OM's on a project and linking it on the DigiStamp Blog. There's one week left! Have a wonderful weekend! Details: Stamps: DigiStamp Boutique Maxwell with Balloon Paper: DCWV Matching Mates, Basic Black, Mohawk Smooth White Ink: Prismacolor Markers - Maxwell - Yellow Ochre, Goldenrod, Bronze; Nose - Cool Grey 20% and 70%; Ears - Deco Pink, Wheat; Tummy - Wheat and Colorless Blender; Balloon - Cream, Deco Yellow, Canary Yellow, Yellow Ochre; Ground shadow - Ash Grey Accessories: Yellow DMC Embroidery Floss, hol...

Hi everyone! It has already been a week since my last post and I can't believe it's been that long. I gave myself some time to be with my children and hubby. The weather has been nice and we just needed to be out in it. I've also been playing with a lot of new things these days and you'll see a few of them in my project today (they'll be starred in the end of the post under Details). I used this fabulous digital stamp from InStyle Stamps called Label 1 to enclose a sentiment from the Waltzingmouse Stamps called Blessed By You . I colored the label with markers and then sponged around the oval for an aged look, it wasn't enough so I used some Ranger Crackle Paint over the oval section and some Glossy Accents for the flowers and leaves. This forced me to walk away and play with my family...just so my label would get all cracked up. The card is a sketch challenge from The Shabby Tea Room. I rotated it to fit the label and the card base though. ...

It's the middle of the week...are you all making it through okay? Hey Maahhhhh-uuuummm! You here that? That's my children. They are in high need of something these days and "hey mom" has already rung through our house several times this week. Guess what the theme for Over the Hump Day Blog Candy Giveaway is this month? Yea, It's Mom's Day! I've got some inspiration for you to help you through the rest of your week. If that's not enough you'll have to go over to the InStyle Stamps blog for details on the challenge and blog candy! That will for sure get you on your way to Friday. LOL (my photos are not coming out very clear in blogger...just click on it to see it in focus. sorry) Here's my card for today. And yes, I'm stuck in green and blue colors! I thought about the feather duster being peacock feathers and that's where I got the green and blue for the rest of the card. I know you all are rolling your eyes right now, but ...

I decided I would try a MoxieFab challenge with all the new sketches that are being shown from the new Go-To sketch magazine. The sketch that I used is slightly changed. I had two different inspirations going on in my head where one sketch post talked about  "stretching" a sketch by rotating and flipping it so I decided to "stretch" out the square sketch into an A6 size card to go along with my idea for the second sketch from MoxieFab here . The cocktail dress is from InStyle Stamps. I colored the three dresses with Prismacolor Cool Grey markers (40%, 70% and a dab of 90%). I've found I love to color the skirts so I can make broad whispy strokes with my marker, LOL. I created some hangers and colored them with True Blue and Process Blue markers. All the images, even the printed sentiment, are outlined with Cream marker to match the mat behind the dresses.    I picked the colors from InStyle's Color Challenge for April here . The added elements in th...

I've been missing my Viva La Verve Challenges for some time now, so whenever I can, I'm trying to fit one in. Sometimes they sit unfinished until I get the idea, but this one came together quickly after it sat for a week. Amber has the neatest photos for inspiration and week 1 had a red living room that was calling me. I've seen a lot of bright flowers using the newest flowers from Verve and there have been a lot of challenges the past few weeks to use chipboard, so those ideas came together for this card. Okay so here is my card inspired by that red room . I used a woodgrain background stamp borrowed from my mother-in-law by All Night Media brand, stamped in Chocolate Chip. I sponged some Ruby Red in spots to give it a varnished look. I had my sweet daughter help with this card, she painted Warm Red acrylic paint on two square chipboard pieces until the were shiny, then I showed her the dry brush technique with some Burnt Umber acrylic. Boy did her eye's light up...

InStyle's Color challenge is teaming up with a sketch from the Fussy and Fancy Challenge Blog today. This is a super easy challenge! InStyle provides the great color combo and Fussy and Fancy's own Mindy supplies the sketch! All that's needed to finish this challenge up is a hand-picked image and embellishments from you! Easy - peasy. Come join along at InStyle Stamps blog for all the details. Here's the sketch: And here's the color challenge: Here's my card for this delightful challenge combination. It's using Cocktail Dress , an exclusive image only found in participating retail stores. I was thinking it could be a wedding dress and so I touched some of the shadow areas of the dress with my Cream Prismacolor marker and faded it a bit more with the Colorless Blender Pen. The single embellish on the dress is a KaiserCraft rhinestone.  Be sure enter you creation for both challenges. The sketch challenge is here at Fussy and Fancy Challenge Blog ...

I've had this project going since the middle of March and I've been slowly finding time to put it together. Most of you would probably get something like this done in a day or even a weekend, but I've got two darling children that keep me busy and it has been March Madness season as well so you know, I'm creeping along with my projects! The idea came while getting some wedding ideas for another project and I ran across this fab trend of bouquets in purses for table decorations. Is that a new trend or old one? So I thought it wasn't going to make it in time for the Verve March Project Parade , but here I am done with the project and I have to say it came out just like I had it "in my brain" (as my 4 year old would say). A purse bouquet!  I started out with a purse pattern that I altered just a bit from Mel stamps here . (For some reason the downloads on SCS weren't working when I tried, so I took the jpg image and did a redraw in PaintShopPro. I d...

It's the Monday after Easter and I don't know about you but I think I'm still stuffed from our dinner on Sunday. Easter has been celebrated and I'm so thankful for it's meaning. It's the best holiday I think my family and I celebrate, but second to that are birthday's. Wait, I think there is a tie, Mother's Day really must be the second as well. I'm saying all this because my card today is Ballet Matilda from DigiStamp Boutique and she's taking on a mother and daughter role. She is part of the Offer of the Month at a special discount price. You can also buy her individually, but why? All of them are so cute! When I saw this dancing mouse I knew I had to work on the ruffles of her tutu and make them special. Not once, but twice! It is after all a card about a mother and a daughter. Before I get started in on the details are a couple of DigiStamp NEED TO KNOW items. The  Offer of the month at DigiStamp Boutique (DSB) is the discounted...

Happy Saturday. Most of my friends have their children out hunting down Easter eggs, but we are happily at home, dry and not muddy. We'll be having our own hunt around the house on Easter Day. So this is an early Happy Easter to all of you who celebrate the day. This is a card I made over a week ago in March for my mother-in-law's birthday. I waited until it was delivered before posting. These digistamps from DigiStamp Boutique remind me of my two children. I'm guessing that they might remind me of anyone, but I was dreaming up a birthday card for my mother-in-law and what she likes so much, and that must have been where I met Lucas and Fifi. LOL To make it look like Lucas and Fifi were standing next to eachother I duplicated one of the flowers from Fifi and then added Lucas next to it. I colored Lucas and Fifi with my Prismacolor markers and then cut them out and glued them to another printout on patterned paper from the DCWV Flower Shop paper pack....

Today is sketch day for InStyle Stamps and Taylor has an awesome sketch to try out for the month. You really need to head on over to the store blog and see what the other Design Team came up with for this sketch. They are fantastic! I've got a great little number for you on my sketch card. It's InStyle's Heart Bow Dress. I like how the dress has so much fullness and whimsy. A great image for an any occasion card. I made mine into a from Mom to Daughter card. Maybe for a first dance? It will be a few years before I'm struck with that kind of emotion, but this dress just make me think of prom. I heard on the radio a two minute parenting topic that has me thinking about how to build up a child's esteem about who they are and not what they do. I hope to instill that in my children, but only time will tell. As you can tell I rotated the sketch so I could showcase the dress. I printed out the dress on white cardstock and then decided I wanted some type o...