Rain Puddles Design

It's a great month and it comes with an exciting announcement. I am thrilled to be this month's guest designer with Dreamweaver Stencils .  There will be a theme to my posts with the  "April Inspirations"  challenge from Dreamweaver Stencils .  Each team member and myself will post what inspires us in our creative life...maybe a Pinterest pic, a magazine pic, a quote, a book, a place, an artist, a crafter friend...along with our creation. We are hoping that you will feel inspired as well, and link your projects (and inspiration) to the inlinkz tool on the  Dream It Up!  blog.  I would love to say that I have a favorite Pin Board or a go-to crafter for my inspiration today, but I almost always get my inspiration from the tools and supplies I'm about to use. There must be a little tickle when I see something that generates the design. Meet my gecko in the Rain Floor. Here's a close-up of my little gecko gal. All the paper has bee...

I've been spending little time on paper crafts this week as my children and I are getting in all the fun activities possible while on spring break. I did fit in a work-in-progress on Wednesday, but before I let you in on the story I want to let everyone know that this isn't going to be a new puddle for me. I was enabled last week after dropping off my daughter to a birthday party at Ceramica. I walked in and saw so many happy faces and blank ceramics that it was almost too much for me to take. I left and went shopping while I decided what I wanted to create while I waited and this is what I decided. Back story time. In 2008, I made a fabric birthday banner to use for all of our family on their birthday. Sometimes it came with balloons, but even then it seemed something was lacking. Present day, while my kids were having a play date at Grammy's house, I went back to Ceramica to finish this plate. These colors should turn out more vibrant like the swatche...

It's Inspiration Week with Stampendous and I've had to pull a Mix-Ability project (MIX51) from a couple months ago just so I wouldn't be left out of all the fun. It's Mixed Media month with Stampendous! You can join in on the fun for just a few more days if you want (hint, hint). You can also see other inspirational projects from my fabulous Design Team friends. Tenia Nelson Jamie Martin (Tuesday) Rhea Weigand Kristine Reynolds Jamie Martin (Thursday)

It's our blog hop with Tombow today! We've been showing our looks and learns all week and now it's time to have some fun with the Tombow team. Welcome and let's have some fun. That's right. If you decide to comment along the way today you just might win some collaboration goodies! Check out the details on the Stampendous blog  about prizes and deadlines. I sat down with all the practice and playing and thinking I've done to create using Tombow markers and glue to finish a simple and fun card. It's edging on the mixed media side of my style and I like how it turned out. The Jar Bouquet was stamped in waterproof ink and heat dried because I don't like to wait. :) Then I used my version of the  Blending Palette to pick up any of the colors from my Dual Brush Pens  with the Colorless Blender Pen and start coloring. I used the same set of markers from my post earlier this week. When I was done, I made a mask with tracing paper....

If we didn't show you how to have fun with Stampendous images from our last few coloring weeks, then it's time to tempt you with a fabulous, rich marker from Tombow!  Keep close tabs on the Stampendous blog for details (prizes!!!!) and links to design team members inspiration posts. I'll be back later this week with some inspiration of my own. Here's a little peek from a practice I did and loved how it was going so I finished it up to post somewhere this week. It's finished! You can go back to a previously scheduled post here to see all the details!

It's Recap + Viewfinder day on the Viva La Verve Sketch Blog today and I've picked a few sketch-tacular cards. Go take a peek ! Maureen has given us a great sketch to work with it's classic style and here's what I did with the sketch. I used papers from K and Company, some yellow and ginkgo green from my stash to grab all the colors from the pattern paper and then I had a vision for my focal point and ended up pulling out three Verve Sets to get it just right. Glad I had them to make my vision a reality. Those set were Better Together , Each Day and Bloom and Grow . I had some fun with my sewing machine, a little adventure in the round for my focal point and then some pearls to polish this card off. Thanks for stopping by today and I hope you have some time to join us for the sketch this week, but remember you can play along anytime with the sketch it's only if you want to get in on the prizes that you have a deadline. Check out the details on the ...

This whole week the design team at Stampendous will be sharing a bonanza in coloring with Tombow Dual Brush Tip markers. The Stampendous designers love to color. We really do! I think that's all we really want to do, so when we heard that Tombow was coming to color with us we were excited! On Friday we will all be in a Blog Hop together and there will be prizes! Details can be found on the Stampendous Blog . (If you've been hopping with the Stampendous team throughout the week, this is a blast from the future. You are reading this on a Wednesday, but this link was live on Monday  So...) Here is the finished piece! I started this piece as a practice to get use to the coloring style and the markers were so rich in color and easy to lay down on the paper that I had to keep going. (If you think you've seen this Cherry Bird on my blog recently, you are correct. It's just a great stamp to color with lots of organic elements.) I took full advantage of th...