Day 4: "Blessed is the Season" and "Versatile Verses"

Last day of peeks, get ready to party!! First up we have a "Christmas in July" set for you from Gina K, called "Blessed is the Season". I have to say the last two years of making my Christmas cards months ahead of time made sending out almost a hundred cards when December finally rolled around pain free, a lot less stressful than past holiday seasons! I chose to use the bold dove inked up in light blue and then kissed this awesomely funky, spectacularly detailed snowflake* she has in the set onto it in Vivid Inky Blue (and adding a little olive marker to the leaves) before stamping, doesn't that look cool?!
One of my main requirements for holiday cards is that they look fancy but be pretty quick to assemble when i need to make a lot, so after die cutting the image, I layered it centered over the "Fun Year Round" frame stamped in light blue on Pure Luxury White, then matted that over Pure Luxury In the Navy (although it looks really dark in the photo, it is navy blue not black!) and Little Boy Blue to match. I added a few punched ferns from Grass Green behind the popped up focal point emphasize the little branch the dove is carrying and a tiny rhinestone to the branch's berry and the little "a" in "peace". The "peace" is part of a larger greeting I inked up with my marker and stamped into the middle of a circle in the frame. I love this clean and simple look, the circles behind make me think of ornaments or snow...

Next we have Gina' s newest Free with Three set "Versatile Verses", and it's one of my favorite "Free with Three" sets ever! The split label is a perfect fit for the Oval Nestabilities and the large and small greetings are work great inside it or separately, it will be an extremely useful set! I made this card for a friend who just had a bay, although she had a girl, her nursery is powder blue and chocolate, which I think is a very elegant combination! I used Chocolate Brown, Little Boy Blue, and White for my card.

After die cutting my oval greeting, I used my new "Fun Year Round" to make these colors look a little more feminine by creating the border with the flowers and button images on the background and envelope, adding four white dots to each of the buttons centers with an Inkssentials pen and then carrying the sewing theme throughout: adding a real button over the Marvy punched flowers (Jumbo and ExtraJumbo) and white paper flower to match, and then one of Tami's new "In Stitches" trim in Vivid Coffee Bean around the sides. I mounted the mat at an angle to give the "HOORAY" (which I added some white circles to the o's) even more energy!

For even more samples with the stamp sets being previewed tonight, check out these designer's links:

• Gina Krupsky *illustrator of Blessed is the Season and Versatile Verses



• Jessica Fick



• Theresa Momber



• Melanie Muenchinger
  
  
• Nina Brackett



• Cathy Tidwell



• Lee Murphy



• Carolyn King



• Donna Baker



• Kurtis Amundson
  
  
• Emily Giovanni



• Erika Martin



• Asela Hopkins

We'd also like to invite you to attend our Release Party tomorrow night starting at 7 pm central on StampTV. There will be challenges, contest questions, and more samples from our designers on all the new stamp sets being released this month. See you then for all the fun!

* I stamped these snowflakes all over the envelope flap to match, but the pic didn't turn out, sorry!

Day 3: Hugs and Prayers and Seeds of Kindness

Day 3 of the peeks and it's almost time to party!! Today we start off with Nina Brackett's "Hugs and Prayers", a set with both bold and line art images like two steps or separates to suit your stamping fancy plus beautiful scriptures. I started with this lovely bunch of flowers, delaicate but with a modern feel on a Labels Four die cut, colored with Copics, and layered onto a Labels Eight die cut from Grass Green. Sponging around the edges the flowers before removing the die gives them a wonderful glow.
Sentiment is stamped on Wild Dandelion and sponged with Vivid Brick Red, I layered these over Red Hot and Little Boy Blue, both Cuttlebugged with the Victoria folder. Ribbon was from a StampTV kit (and I'm crossing fingers this will be one of the new Pure Luxury Ribbon Wraps!) I added a red button over the knot with a glue dot. I am just lovin' these colors together!!

The next peek uses Gina's "Seeds of Kindness". This sweet flower pot is my favorite! I colored it with Copics and layered it onto Red Hot, Innocent Pink and Grass Green mats, totally diggin' these colors too! I used the Labels Nine this time and I really like how these dies look offset this way.

I also used the scalloped corner punch and this new Nestabilities Classic Scalloped Border Petite die, which was perfect for threading my ribbon through! More red buttons, I am counting the minutes to buy an assortment of the new button containers, how about you?? I was going to use some patterned paper behind all this, but in the end decided the plain Pure Luxury White really made the image pop! this is a beautiful set! :)

For even more samples with the stamp sets being previewed tonight, check out these designer's links:

• Gina Krupsky *illustrator of Seeds of Kindness




• Jessica Fick *creator of Seeds of Kindness Card Kit




• Nina Brackett *illustrator of Hugs and Prayers




• Theresa Momber




• Melanie Muenchinger




• Cathy Tidwell




• Lee Murphy




• Carolyn King




• Donna Baker




• Kurtis Amundson




• Bev Gerard




• Colleen Schaan

• Valerie Stangle




• Emily Giovanni




• Erika Martin




• Janice Whiting *Seeds of Kindness Guest Designer




• Sankari Wegman

• Asela Hopkins

We'd also like to invite you to attend our Release Party this Thursday, July 1st starting at 7 pm central on StampTV! There will be challenges, contest questions, and more samples from our designers on all the new stamp sets being released this month! We'd love to have you join in on the fun!

Day 2: "Pretty as a Peacock" and "Lawn and Garden"

Welcome to Day 2 of our sneak peeks! First up we have Asela Hopkins "Pretty as a Peacock", and I love the art deco style of the font and images. Several of the images are framed up in squares , perfect for making inchie type art, so I thought adding them to the "Inspiration Mosaic" background, stamped with Black Stazon on Good as Gold card stock would be extra opulent!
I put the full peacock perched on the bottom of one the top rectangles, then put my popped up squares in the opposite corners. Below you can see the coloring closeup. I used several shades of green and blue Copics, plus Lionet Gold, and then added some touches of metallic glitter pens in blue, green and gold over that, love the shimmer! I purposely drew little strokes of the glitter pen over each feather to give it a more realistic, feathery texture. This is all layered on mats of Black Onyx and Pure Luxury White, and last I added an adhesive black crystal flourish to emphasize the grandeur of its tail and draw your eye around the card...

Our next set "Lawn and Garden" is from Rupa Shevde. With all the gardening tools and elements, I thought it would be fun to make a coupon book for my husband. He likes doing all that stuff himself, but it couldn't hurt to let him know I am willing to do it once in awhile if he'll let me! Book is 3 1/2" x 5 1/2 " folded (so you can tuck it in an envelope if you like) made from Pure Luxury Tan Leather I rubbed with Antique Linen Distressing Ink. Black stitching on the score is from Tami's new "In Stitches".

I created and printed out 6 coupons on one sheet of Pure Luxury Layering Weight White (landscape layout, three on each side, 3" x 5 1/4") and then stamped on the corresponding images and colored them with Copics. I used a perforator and my Scor-Pal about a 1/3 inch over from the left side. You could probably use the Scor-Bug Tool to emboss some dots for tearing them out, too, or stamp a dashed line from the "In Stitches" set and the cut when the recipient is ready to redeem them.

Then I used the 1/8" Scor Tape on the far side to adhere them all together and then press them into my folded book.

I added them right up against the fold, then added another strip of Scor-Tape to the front and folded that back so they are neatly tucked inside.

This was a really fun project to make. (He might not ever ask me to mow the lawn, but I know he'll keep the book forever, in his little stack of stuff I make for him he keeps in his nightstand.) :)

For even more samples with the stamp sets being previewed tonight, check out these designer's links:

• Gina Krupsky



• Jessica Fick



• Theresa Momber



• Melanie Muenchinger (you are here, thank you for visiting!)

• Nina Brackett



• Cathy Tidwell



• Lee Murphy



• Donna Baker
  
  
• Emily Giovanni



• Erika Martin
  
  
• Asela Hopkins *illustrator of Pretty as a Peacock

We'd also like to invite you to attend our Release Party this Thursday, July 1st starting at 7 pm central on StampTV! There will be challenges, contest questions, and more samples from our designers on all the new stamp sets being released this month! We'd love to have you join in on the fun!

Day 1 : "Fun Year Round", "Aloha", and "In Stitches"

Welcome to our first day of previews! Starting off with my set "Fun Year Round", my newest frame set will give you more options than ever before! As calm and tranquil as the squares and rectangles were in "Inspiration Mosaic", these new overlapping circles in "Fun Year Round" just burst with energy, ready to be filled with any combination of the 23 round, year-round elements in the set, like an explosion of fireworks, bubbles etc! Think water in the summer, snow in the winter, flowers in the summer. The different sized circles are also perfect for framing up sentiments, your other favorite stamp images, or flowers or other round embellishments, I can't wait to show you all the possibilities!

Here I just stamped the frame in black on white and filled in a few of the smaller circles with some red stamped flowers with black centers. Next I stamped out some flower (or "snowflake", depending on what color you use !) elements in red and black onto white and punched them out with the Marvy flower punches (jumbo punch for perfect fit, larger for layering), then layering them on larger red and black circles or flowers. There are so many ways you can 2 step stamp these different images, as well as how you choose to punch them out. Place them over the circles in the frame, layer onto coordinating card stock and your card is finished!

This next card uses the same set without the frame, just the round elements and the long line included in the set, to help make symmetrical patterns when you want (although random ones will look great too!). You will have a blast creating very simple or very ornate patterns in whatever shapes and colors you choose! First I started with a mat 4 x 5 1/4" and then centered it over the lines on my Scor- Mat. I adhered the line to the grid line block and stamped rows and columns at the black lines on the Scor-Mat, in aqua ink to create a grid. As you are stamping, just line up the white line on your block over the line on either side of your card stock on the Scor-mat.

Then stamp elements into the cross hairs (or inside the boxes for a different look), here I used the large bold flower in aqua and the smaller matching one (not pictured) in turquoise, skipping every other box to leave space for a different color and image.

Next I added this bubble burst stamped in Vivid Butterscotch, I LOVE this image (and there is a smaller one too), so fun!

Last I stamped this little button to the middle of the bubbles in Vivid Brick Red. That's it, the pattern is done!

After making my pattern, I punched out two Marvy flowers in Turquoise Sea and Ocean Mist, these punches match the flower images, and added the round greeting on white to the middle.

Next up we have Theresa Momber's "Aloha". Full of gorgeous tropical images to color, creating with it will feel like a trip to the beach! This little barefoot sentiment she added reminds me of the little baby foot prints I make with my hands for my kids at the pool so I thought it would be fun to create a sandy backdrop with that in ink on my card. It's very simple to do...

First, make a fist and ink up the outside of your hand in a Vivid Tuscan Tan ink, then stamp onto Soft Sand card stock.

Now ink up your finger tip and make five little toes, reinking each time, using the most pressure for the big toe and the least for the pinky toe.

Repeat steps with the other hand, and wash up before you get ink all over your project! I stamped a little bit of my speckle image from "Gifts from the Sea" over it to give it a sandier look, then added the sentiment over the feet in black. Images are colored with Copics and popped up. Below is a closeup to show how you can use the very tip of the brush end of a brown Copic with quick flicking strokes to give the coconut a nice, hairy texture, and also some paper piecing I did on the umbrella with DCWV Citrus. I distressed the Soft Sand edges and layered onto Black Onyx and Turquoise Sea.

Our last peek today is made with Tami Mayberry's new "In Stitches". In this set, you get twelve great trims that can be used for adding faux stitches to your card or creating patterns, I've done both on this sample. I stamped out the flower trim in both yellow and orange, one inch apart, again using my grid line block and Scor-Mat as a guide. Next I added the green loopy stitch and finally the black dotted one.
Then I used the dash dot stitch across the top and on my ribbon panel and envelope to look like, even I , sew on cards! ;) This set doesn't come with greetings but will go with any, so I used the round thank you sentiment from my "Fun Year Round" set around a real button and layered it over those Marvy Flower punches again (green, yellow and blue size) in Wild Dandelion and Black Onyx, see how the flower in that stitch matches these punches, too? (I'm a little obsessed with them right now!) Love it! her'es some of the new ribbon you'll be able to buy in wraps from Gina K Designs, can't wait, this is one of my faves!

For even more samples with the stamp sets being previewed tonight, check out these designer's links:

• Gina Krupsky


• Theresa Momber *illustrator of Aloha


• Melanie Muenchinger *illustrator of Fun Year Round (you are here!)


• Tami Mayberry *illustrator of Stitches


• Jessica Fick


• Nina Brackett
  
• Cathy Tidwell


• Lee Murphy
  
  Lynn Mercurio
  
• Carolyn King


• Donna Baker


• Kurtis Amundson
  
• Emily Giovanni


• Erika Martin


• Asela Hopkins

We'd also like to invite you to attend our Release Party this Thursday, July 1st starting at 7 pm central on StampTV! There will be challenges, contest questions, and more samples from our designers on all the new stamp sets being released this month! We'd love to have you join in on the fun! Thank you for visiting, see you tomorrow!

Hats &More...

So I haven't had as much time to play around with my stamps this past month with school being out, but I knew the party hat from "Candles on Your Cake" would have have some fun "out of the box" potential once I had more time to play! Cathy Tidwell's brilliant party banner card pictured above, made by trimming the puff off the top and stringing them along her card top, got me kicked into high gear! :) Thanks Cathy for the terrific inspiration!

Now another way to use the hat is turn it upside down and make it an ice cream cone! Snip off the bottom and add some punched 3/4" circles in the colors of your choice and trim off the bottom of the scoop.
Aren't these colors fun?? Pure Luxury Sweet Mango, Wild Dandelion, Turquoise Sea, Ocean Mist and Grass Green. I made this card for William's girlfriend (excuse me, former girlfriend, now they're just friends!) who turned 5 yesterday, so I made 5 cones along with the "You're this many!" (love when kids say that!) and stamped up a background on my white card base to match with 5's in matching colors. Punch is Threading Water, ribbon is from a StampTV kit. Hope these projects inspire, any out of the box ideas you have for the hat or any other image in the "Candles on your Cake" set? I'd love to see! :)

Peeks start in 2 days (do you think you know which set is mine?), so I have been furiously stamping up storm for it, get ready for this, pain free! It is the first time I have truly been able to enjoy stamping in a several weeks without the distraction of a burning, tingling wrist and thumb! So thank you all for your encouragement and prayers and I pray I will stay healthy! I have been commited to stretching and taking breaks which has been helping, too.

Have a terrific weekend!!

Final Week with Janice

Final week with Janice Whiting, I do believe time flies even faster in the summer, where did June go? Anyway, I really appreciate her thinking to make a masculine birthday card with "Candles on Your Cake" this week, I have been having too much fun with all our new bright, springy Pure Luxury colors to really dive into trying out an earthy masculine card with it yet! A little scoring and distressing on this brick red card stock makes a beautiful weathered barn to reveal a dark chocolate birthday cake! The hemp and nail heads are all perfect man bling, and the gloss on the cake and embossed greeting go so nicely with the belt!
I know a man would take this card any day over something fussy and flowered! ;)

Thank you again Janice, for your beautiful samples this month, your cakes and cards are out of this world! :) Let's go see what else Janice has today for her final week as guest designer!

Today's thank you card card features just a stamped greeting and then some fun with these new Renaissance Hearts Nestabilities I received, embellished with adhesive pearls and black crystals, and using Pure Luxury White Black Onyx, and Wild Dandelion card stocks.

Tonight we are having a special blog hop to thank our recently retired StampTV Challenge Hostess Team members:

• Tina Gilliland: Color (I worked on one for Tina's Back, White and Yellow Challenge first, pictured above! Trying to tackle the challenges below for the rest of our hostesses later this week!)



• Karen Knegten: Anything but a Card



• Vicki Dutcher: Sketch



• Sharri Seffens: Blast from the Past

These 4 designers have provided StampTV with a challenge each week during the months of March, April, and May, which totals up to 13 challenges! To view each of their challenges in one area, click on their names and it will direct you to their Idea Center Inspiration Page.



Even better, we have a special StampTV Challenge Magazine Volume 2* located on the Freebie Tab, where all 52 of their challenges are shared in a download PDF that you can save to your computer and print out at your leisure! *We will be doing a similar magazine for our first Challenge Hostess team as well in the near future, so watch for that soon.



To honor the team a bit more, several GinaK Designers are joining together in a special thank you blog hop and would like to invite you to join us! After visiting the links below, please check out this discussion on StampTV and share a favorite card you've made in the past or a new one you're inspired to make using one of the challenges from any four of the challenge hostesses.

• Jessica Fick



• Theresa Momber



• Jennie Harper



• Lee Murphy



• Donna Baker



• Melanie Muenchinger (you are here, thank you for visiting!)



• Carla Suto



• Brenda Turner



• Linda Payne



• Melissa Shultz



• Giovana Smith

Weekend!

Whew, what a busy weekend! It was packed with sports , movies, and parties (fun!), with a migraine thrown in (not so fun! help, still hurting!!)
Jonathan has his first swim meet of the season and I knew taking him to the pool TWICE a day the past week should have him ready for peak performance! Here he is in the 25 m freestyle.

And here he is finishing WAY ahead of the competition, woo hoo!

Out of the pool with a big old smile on his face as the others come in! He has finished first before, but with so many heats of the events he's signed up for, he hasn't ever gotten a first place ribbon; well he DID this time, and took 4 seconds off his time from last summer, way to go Jonathan!! He can't wait to get his ribbon today at practice. (I think he will be getting some for his breast stroke and relay, too, but I wasn't able to find out before the meet end how he finished up on those after all the other heats in those)

And here are my three boys mugging for the camera on Father's Day! Hope you and yours had a wonderful holiday weekend! :)

Off to pound some more Advil, I still haven't had a chance to finish my cards I made with my dress, but we DO have a Gina K hop tonight at 10, so stay tuned!

The Shirt (or Dress) off Your Back

What do you think of this new DP? Well, it's not paper, or at least didn't start out that way, let me show you how easy.... So I was thumbing through the new issue of Family Fun and saw the most clever and adorable gift idea for making a shirt to match a patterned pair of little girls pants: SCAN the child's patterned pants, print out the pattern on transfer paper and apply to solid colored shirt, they showed die cutting a little flower of the print and sticking it on the middle of a little tee! too cool!* Well, I'm not going to be doing any transferring/clothesmaking anytime soon, BUT this made me realize I don't just have to recreate my favorite print by stamping out in images in different colors, I can make my own DP with my patterned clothes!!



This is a sundress I got a couple weeks ago at, you will never believe, HEB (the grocery store) for 10 bucks! I just thought these colors and print were so pretty I took a risk that it might be really poorly made! (and am happy to report it's holding up very nicely LOL!) Anyway, when the scanning possibilities clicked, this was first thing I grabbed. Here it is tucked inside the scanner LOL!
The top pic is how it scanned full size, smooth it out if wrinkles bothers you or capture the texture of those beautiful folds! (It's going to look like I even stitched on my card!! hee hee!!) You could print out the full sheet as is or do what I did by reducing it down to 4x 5 1/2 and copying and pasting that three more times so I can have 4 backgrounds for my A2 cards!

Do you love it?? I LOVE IT!!!! :) Back soon to share my cards using it!

Soooooo, what's in YOUR closet?? ;)

BTW, did I mention how yummy this color combos is? (i know I did) The colors are ivory, chocolate, sand, cranberry, aqua and pink. I kwow that's a lot going on but it totally works, or pull jull 3-4 of them! Try it, you'll like it! (You can bet I am going to have to try stamping up my own background in those colors! ;)

*I had seen people transferring a napkin print with an iron or gluing a napkin or piece of farbic to a card, but NEVER thought to just scan the actual fabric and make paper! Why didn't I think of that?? Anyway, this is new to me, hope it inspires! :)

Summer Coloring Fun and Father's Day...

Hi! The last couple days my crafting has been more the Popsicle stick and paste variety with my kids so I don't have a card today, LOL! But in the process of crafting with them I have discovered a few fun things to pass along (and one can be applied to cards I just need to finish it!) I thought I'd share this idea first because it is a fun way to beat the heat this summer and also could be fun for a Father's Day gift from your children.

The other day we were at the store and the kids begged for yet another Crayola 64 Crayon pack. But this time I noticed it contained a code inside that would let kids create cool coloring pages from their real photos on the Crayola website. I was sold! (Maybe this time they'll end up returning them to the box instead of them all ending up broken in half in a bucket of half dried out markers! fingers crossed!) We came home, logged onto the site and printed out a bunch of the kids' favorite memories of themselves and our family to color. Here is one of a photo I posted of William recently that he filled in. The Crayola site also has things for them to add to the photos like fun backgrounds, moustaches, hats, captions etc, (and just looks cool while it's processing your image with a factory full of gears) but I realized you could also do something similar to this with your own photo editing program if you don't have the code....

Open a photo and go the "Effects" button in your toolbar, it will give you a drop down menu for Filters". Your program may call it something else, my program is Microsoft Picture it. Experiment with different filters (this one is called Photocopy, but there are others that give you a more stylized, artsy outline) that take away the color leaving an outline for your kids to fill in and then print!

Trust me, this will keep them busy for a looong time, and little ones can put together their own version of a scrapbook. they were so excited to color themselves and I like this a lot more than buying coloring books or downloading free printables of licensed characters, what say you? :) Super cute to give the grandparents, too!

Okay, off to try to finish the card I hinted at, inspired by a project I saw in Family Fun it involves my scanner (any guesses?)

Week 3 with Janice

Week 3 with Janice Whiting and "Candles on Your Cake", today she has created this elegant confection with an offset tiered cake (I wouldn't have thought to do that since I don't make real cakes like these!) and added some beautiful stamped sunflowers from "Theresa's "Autumn Beauty" set! I love how she put it on a diamond scored white card base, just reminds me of an intricate pattern on the side of an iced cake! The tiny ribbons and papers just pull it all together for an over the top elegant card celebrating any fancy occasion, not just for birthday!

Let's go see what else Janice has in store for us today! :)

Gina K Designs Challenge!

Welcome to our latest Gina K Design team challenge hop! This month Gina challenged us (and now you!) to create a card inspired by a favorite summer memory using our newest sets from the last release. I had never really associated summer with birthdays before since none of our family had birthday in these months... until my first child came along...
Jonathan was born on July 1st, so stars and stripey things always often abound for his party decorations! His first birthday was my first time to get really crafty as a mother (I started stamping just a few months after he was born, I actually stamped "I'm one!" and the date on this onesie he's wearing below) and throw a big party in our first home, so that year in particular has lots of special memories.

We also had a LOT of people so I spelled out the "happy birthday..." on cupcakes and as well as make an American flag cake with berries, I'm sure you've seen those before!

Now for the card (which I call "Stars, Stripes and Cupcakes Forever")! All the images on this card are from "Candles on your Cake" and I wanted to showcase some of the images in different ways than I have for you previously. I thought the tiniest candle row stamped in Brick Red would make some fun and festive stripes for an American flag (no need to Stampamjig these, just use a gridline block), and the stars are embossed in white on In the Navy cardstock. I layered onto Silver Lining, more navy and Pure Luxury White.

The stripey candle is probably my favorite because you can add such quick pops of colors inking it up with different markers! The flag background still needed a little something so I spelled out "I love cupcakes" over it with the candle and heart and cupcake from the set. Marvy Scalloped Heart punches fit the heart. TIP: To make the frosting sit on top a nice puffy cupcake, stamp the bottom onto yellow paper (or "flavor" of choice), then round off the top above the image as you cut. Now ink up just the edge of the bold icing with a marker, cut out and pop up on a dimensional slightly above the cupcake liner. Last I added Stardust pen to the centers of the stars and on the heart...

For all the specific details on how to enter your card in Gina's Design Team challenge, please visit GinaK's blog.


Then, stop by these participating GinaK Design Team member's blogs for their projects for tonight's hop:

• Jessica Fick



• Nina Brackett



• Theresa Momber



• Melanie Muenchinger (you are here!)



• Tami Mayberry



• Cathy Tidwell



• Lee Murphy

• Donna Baker

• Kurtis Amundson
  
  
• Carolyn King



• Emily Giovanni



• Erika Martin

Red Velvet

Here is a photo Mom passed along to me this past week, she thought you readers might get a kick out of seeing me decorate one of my first cakes, about 30 years before I discovered stamping! What concentration, this is serious business! (I know I still probably furrow my brow the same way!) Lots of other memories in this 70's kitchen, I spy my Little Professor calculator on the table, an owl cookie jar that would now be considered "retro", and just the corner of my favorite red bell bottoms... :)

Well, I just can't bring myself to post anything else right now for two reasons: one, we have a design team hop tomorrow and I've made some things for it but can't decide which to use, and two, there is a pub call finishing up tomorrow which I am considering the same cards for (and tyring to get a couple other things made, none of which I can show)!* Not a huge dilemma but I just can't decide! So stick with me one more day, there WILL be a new card here tomorrow night!!

Hope you are having a wonderful weekend!

*Actually there's third reason, I am also working on some new sets!

Cake Inspired #1: Berry Delicious

What better place to start getting inspired when creating a cake card than a masterfully decorated cake??

Janice made this beautiful chocolate groom's cake with a cascade of chocolate dipped strawberries ( this is bringing back memories of my own wedding day, any one else? Actually DH's cake had those little tuxedo strawberries, have you seen those?? too cute!) Anyway, consider me totally impressed, she's got mad cake skeelz!!! ( Coming up, a totally 70's photo of me decorating one of my first cakes!!)


Here is my card using "Candles on Your Cake":

After stamping the chocolate tiered cake, I stamped out several little strawberries from "100% Sweet" colored to make the bottoms chocolate dipped, and cut them out. The Fleur de Lis pendant die cut from Grass Green CS was a perfect backdrop to mimic the strawberry leaves and I saved the pieces that fell out to make some extra leaves for the cake and side! Simply draw a deeper green strip down the middle of each with a Copic or colored pencil and attach. I made a fancy chocolate background by inking up the D'Vine swirl folder with Vivid Coffee Bean and embossing it into Chocolate Brown CS, inking the folder makes the swirls pop more (although you may not be able to tell in this pic...) I added a curved corner and strip of Red Hot Cuttlebugged with Swiss Dot to look like the berries and added the strawberries image from the "Enjoy the Sunshine" StampTV kit. Last I added some white highlights with a gel pen and a bit of faux stitching to match my ribbon.

While a grooms cake is what inspired it, it doens't have to be a wedding card so I left off a greeting, I know I like my birthday cakes big and brown LOL!

Show me what this cake or card inspires you to make! Add your post to the Mr. Linky below by this Friday, I will invite the winner to create something after sending her a photo for the next cake inspired challenge! Your card does not have to have a cake on it (although it would be fun if you did!) so please play!

Week 2 with Janice

I just love how Janice went in another direction with "Candles on Your Cake" this week, inspiring us with an ultra vintage look! Start with any vintage patterned paper that speaks to you and make your cake in colors to match! (Those amazing rolled fondant cakes you see show a cake can be ANY color!) After dotting the polka dots onto the navy stamped cake with a white pen, she added some purple clusters of flowers from Theresa's "Hope Grows", embellished it with some pearls, and then made this beautiful arrangement of leaves underneath the platter, do you recognize those? They are from "A Year of Flowers"! :) I really like how she put the cake right onto the patterned paper o we can see all that beautiful pattern, since it already a collage of different images we don't need to separate it with a die cut. Totally blends in, awesome design!

Now, if you've checked Janice's blog or read her answers to my questions carefully last week, you might have noticed something I did when I chose her as my guest designer, because she brings a little something extra to the table that was perfect for this cake set: she creates amazing custom cakes! So I knew creating with these stamps for her should be, of course, a piece of cake, hee hee! I will be sharing photos of some real cakes that she has decorated along with cards I make inspired by her cakes, I challenge you to play along, first one up tomorrow!

Now let's go see her second sample for today! :)

CardMaker July 2010

This month's CardMaker was particularly exciting to receive: if you are published in it, you know what cards that you designed will be in it, but you never know exactly how they will be staged where they will be featured or who else will be included with you..! I literally screamed when I opened the envelope and saw a card using TWO of my stamp sets "Sporty Accessories" and "Just So Sporty" on the cover, not by me but designed by none other than Gina K herself! Swoon!
She has a whole party set inside using these two sets and other Gina K stamps in their "The Total Package" feature! Pinch me, I'm dreaming! (You can also find cards in this issue from my fellow design team peeps, Tami Mayberry and Carolyn King, it is just a big Gina K designs love fest in there, LOL! Way to represent, ladies!)

I was also particularly looking forward to the "Stamping Savvy" feature they are running using my "Inspiration Mosaic" to show its versatility, they peeked one of these cards and did a write up of the set in their last issue. You can see the following three samples and directions for each on pages 24 and 25.

I created a card similar to this one before but gave it a red, white and blue theme for the issue.

This card features the cracked glass technique.

And finally this one has a little masking and color blocking, without having to cut!

Thanks for letting me share! :) Don't forget to go give Gina a holla on her new well earned "cover girl" status! Thank you Gina for showcasing my stamp so beautifully! :)