The sleep mouse is back along with more leafy waxed paper background. This one uses the same folder as yesterday but the coloring was done in more of a fall pallette. Strips of table scraps gives him a place to rest and I think it looks like he just fell asleep in a corner of the yard.

The sentiment is from that new stash I created and I used small scissors to trim it out. This imparts a more relaxed feel as do the rounded corners at the top and the landscape orientation of the layout.

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 12:01 AM PDT

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Still working my way through the pile of waxed paper backgrounds that I made. Today features the two-toned leafy swirls in which I placed red dots for berries.

First up is a layered approach that has a first peek at a sleepy mouse stamp I picked up on clearance. It is colored with alcohol markers and bordered by table scraps. One project I worked on in the studio lately was sorting those ever-increasing table scraps. Even though I use them all the time there always seems to be more! I took out all the smallest ones in solids and light patterns and stamped sentiments on them and put them into a separate bin. Now I can sort through to find one that has the right color/meaning and add it to a card. That is the source of this text.

For this one I stamped the sentiment and a small image directly on the waxed paper background to serve as the feature. I used OWH sketch 111 and then added a third stripe between the two specified. There was not enough contrast between the pieces so I bordered all of them with black marker before popping on the feature panel.

Both of these cards have the same papers but what a difference in character!

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 12:01 AM PDT

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I love a butterfly with raised wings on a card. Someone sent me this purple butterfly that has been embossed and I had some purple diecut words as well. The background paper I chose had brownish/purple toned flowers on a green background. So I backed the words and butterfly with brown and then added a dark strip at the bottom.

I popped the butterfly wings up on foam and added some green Stickles to the body and antenae. Then I placed three heart-shaped rhinestone stickers on the bottom strip.

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 12:01 AM PDT

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The assignment: make a card that is tone-on-tone blue. I raided the table scraps, the sticker bin and the die cuts stash for parts to use.

I started with a dark blue card base and cut strips from the table scraps to glue on in a tilted strips. Over to top I added a rectangle sticker on an opposite tilt.

Three shaped tags were stamped with the sentiment and mounted with glue dots and a blue brad.

Hey, what's with the camera inserting purple where I put in blue?

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 12:01 AM PDT

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In rummaging around in my scraps I ran across some die cuts I had tossed in a bin for 'later'. First I pulled out a lovely flower piece and used foam as a base under it to burnish and get a rounded shape. Then I pulled out the brown swirls - 5 of them and found the colors went so well with a particular piece of patterned paper that I had.

Adding a pink swirl and a pink patterned strip made it all come together.

I added some doodle lines around the edges, placed foam under the raised parts of the flower petals and a little multi-pearl center to the flower.

Yummy!

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 12:01 AM PDT

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Still working on 2 Christmas cards a month in paper embroidery.

These cuddly snow people don't show up too well on camera so I bumped up the focus to compensate. I stitched with muted tones on an aqua patterned paper. This got a simple trim and rounded corners accented with white dashed lines. The base card of pearlescent pink also got rounded corners.

I placed a thick clear acrylic sticker on a blue background to match the neckscarf and trimmed around it. This is raised up on foam tape.

Now, I've got 12 Christmas cards ready to go!

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 12:01 AM PDT

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My nails started growing back out enough to put on polish. I decided to carry on the summer red, white, and blue theme and substitute out silver for the white. Here's the polish line-up:

Base coat, blue (dollar store), red (dollar store), silver glitter, top coat, quick dry.

And here's the finished product:

Isn't that fun?

They'll look better when they get a little longer.

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 12:01 AM PDT

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I made posters for the VBS kick-off party again this year. As you saw in the giant advertising banners a few days ago the theme is based on an amusement park. The kickoff will have a variety of games for the kids to play to earn 'tickets'. These posters will mark these stations.

These are all lettered and drawn free-hand using alcohol markers.

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 12:01 AM PDT

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Occasionally I like to show the little seasonal vignettes I set up around the house for decoration. In the summer, from Memorial Day to Labor Day, I like to stick with a patriotic theme and go with red, white and blue, stars and stripes, flags and banners.

If you started outside you would see a bunting swag on the porch railing that sets the tone for what you will encounter inside.

Upon entering, this little grouping greets you in the entryway.

Then you would find this setup on the fireplace mantel. The letter blocks are a merry mix-up from my seasonal block set. I can't spell the word out properly for lack of a U. You get the drift, though.

Hope you enjoyed the tour.

Have an awesome summer!

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 12:01 AM PDT

Updated: Wednesday, 13 June 2012 8:37 AM PDT

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OK, so it is the GARDEN that is expanding. DH took my hint for a small raised bed for berries and fed it steroids! Now I have a 8 x 25 bed about 18" deep off the back patio. Added to the 12 barrels and three hanging planters I have been using for several years it gives me room for 25 varieties of foodstuffs.

Here's a view from the yard:

And one from the patio:

This is the planting plan:

There are also bulb onions planted along the perimeter of the three berry beds. Three varieties of potatoes in that bed: russet, yukon gold, and purple. Three tomatoes in hanging planters: roma, early girl, and jelly bean. Three herb pots in the garden window: thyme, rosemary, and sage. I planted 6 strawberry plants: 2 june-bearing, 2 everbearing, 2 earlybearing. There are just two blueberry and two raspberry plants this year. Will add more next year.

I will share progress of the growing season and harvest (assuming it is a success)

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 12:01 AM PDT

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My daughter needed some props for a skit and asked me to make them for her. We pulled up images of 'big check' on Google Images and I sketched  them out on white foam-core. Everything is then drawn with markers.

You can get an idea of the scale of these as they are sitting on the couch for these photos.

I thought that there should be a logo on the checks and since the 'skit' didn't have a logo, I created this one to use.

This puts the project into the realm of 'art' and therefore, it gets a blog entry.

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 12:01 AM PDT

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Back to the background made with waxed paper in the Cuttlebug...

I made two with the same interlocking circles folder. One is color blended with extreme pastels and one is spot-colored with brights. What amazingly different effects with one folder!

The soft-toned one got strips and circles of pastel designer papers and then I stamped over all of them with the greeting. Where the strip edges were I had to do a little touch-up with a fine black pen to fill the gaps. I found the tag in my stash but it was too large so I trimmed both width and length for a better fit, tied sheer ribbon through the hole and mounted it on foam tape.

The brighter background is so busy and beautiful that I didn't want to cover it up or take away from it too much. I had this lovely table scrap that has a gradation of Glimmer Mist colors and they matched beautifully. I added a strip of Martha Stewart patterned tape under it. The image is stamped with Festive Berries distress ink on golden-yellow paper. I used a gold Krylon pen to border the edges and add some flecks and stripes in the image.

I stamped the text on the paper strip and mounted the image with foam tape.

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 12:01 AM PDT

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The original stamp of this image is square with very detailed corners and borders. With the use of the marker for inking and the rough cardstock for stamping a lot of that detail was lost. So I simply cut it away! Once I got home, I used the colorless blending pencil to smooth out the color and used a fine-line marker to reinforce the lines in the image. I think it looks like stained glass, now.

I started with very simple color blocking for the background and then felt it was too plain. So I added faux stitching with a white gel pen around all the blocks.

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 12:01 AM PDT

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I bought this stamp for my daughter and then, when the kids and I were playing with stamping, she said she had never used it. In fact, she forgot ever having seen it before. Now that is a stamp that needs some lovin'. Yes, this is a very large stamp to ink up using a marker.

I colored it pretty much as shown on the index image on the wood mount, doing a lot of blending with the colored pencils. I was working on a rough cardstock so it was not solid color when I was done. I used a colorless blending pencil when I got home to smooth out the color.

I stayed with simple color blocking for the background so as to not compete with the large, busy image.

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 12:01 AM PDT

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This was the image I used to teach the grandkids about masking images for dimension. There are really just two stams here, the bunny and a set of 3 tulips. We were using pieces torn from the edge of our papers to do the masking and holding it in place with our fingers so the images do not meet up closely over the bunny's back. A little hit and miss on the black lines is because of using markers instead of ink pads to ink up the images.

I stamped the greeting from one of my sets once I got home, trimmed the top with a very wide border and layered it on foam tape over table scraps on a yellow card base.

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 12:01 AM PDT

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The lessons continued when I got home... If you use a Crayola washable marker to stamp your image, it will smear when you try to use Distress Ink on it. Yeah, thanks for telling me! I took this little lesson to heart and intentionally smeared the REST of the image to match the first boo-boo. If fact, it then smeared those lovely student-grade colored pencils. So now we have a very soft image as a focal. All the papers I had selected for layering were now too bright so they all got distress ink as well. And now that they all match, again, we are happy.

A bit of sheer ribbon and a stamped and distressed sentiment are the finishing touches.

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 12:01 AM PDT

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If you go to visit someone you should always ask if they have any rubber stamps you can use. Then you get to stamp images that you do not personally own. I tried this trick with my grandkids and had a fun time stamping with them. Along the way we shared some stamping lessons: I taught them to use a black water-based Crayola marker to color their stamps and huff on it because we only had a red stamp pad. I taught them how to mask images so something else stamped would appear behind. I taught them to use stamps in unexpected ways as we had 'face parts' that became other things when turned upside down.

For myself I had to learn that is it OK to create even when you don't have your go-to supplies so I colored with student grade standard colored pencils. I stamped and colored on plain white computer paper and just mounted it to cardstock with Xyron when I got home. And when the kids got bored and moved on to video games I stayed and finished my work.

Lots of lessons learned!

I used one stamp twice and colored it two different ways for totally different looks. First is this fairly standard coloring of a little sheep. I gave him some background scraps in coordinating colors and pupped him up on foam tape. The lettering is made with a punch set I have but had not used for a long time. I don't know why I cannot use a sheep image without including the 'ewe' pun in some way.

For the second stamping I colored the sheep in blues to further the pun. This time I used the punches to create the words in patterned paper strips. I punched first on longer strips and then centered them on the card and trimmed the ends. Some little paper flowers that I had experimented in coloring a while back suddenly found a home on this card.  attached them with glue dots and filled the centers with blue rhinestones.

Oh, the silliness!

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 12:01 AM PDT

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After the cross-eyed adventure of stitching yesterday's card (on dark, busy, complicated print in low light) it was a rest for the eyes to stitch on a plain blue background. Especially since this was such an intricate pattern.

The assignment was for a card with 'summer flowers' so I went with 'weeds' which are the only summer flowers I am capable of growing. The stalk on the right is supposed to be wheat but I changed up the color and I'm pretending it is lavender. I suppose the other two are bachelor button and dandelion.

I used white rub-ons from two different sets to construct the text and added a dragonfly punched from a paint strip.

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 12:01 AM PDT

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I needed to do a paper embroidery card with a 'train' theme and remembered I had this pattern of a famous toy train. I kept with the original coloring scheme but muted each of them for a softer look. I needed to keep it bright enough to be seen on the dotted yellow cardstock background, though. I layered with another patterned paper and a blue folded card base to bring out colors from the stitching. I used a couple of cardstock stickers for text.

NOTE TO SELF: No matter how cute the cardstock you want to stitch on, check out the back for overly busy or complicated prints. They are horrible to see your holes on the back and will cost you hours of frustration, especially if the lighting is poor - and if you insist on using it anyway, it will probably turn out that the lighting will be poor just to annoy you!

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 12:01 AM PDT

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Hooray for little vacations when you get dead time (sitting in airports, sitting on airplanes, riding in shuttles) to stitch cards like crazy... when not reading.

I had just such an adventure lately and the first project I whipped up was this Christmas card. I had never stitched this pattern before but I do like it. I used some ColorMe paper bor the background that had been tinted with silver Glimmer Mist. I thought with all the shine and the swirls it suited a skating theme well. The text is a rub-on and the snowflakes are clear stickers. They have a metallic finish to the flakes.

The base card has a pearlescent finish as well, making this a sparkly card in a low-key kind of way.

Ddd

Posted by studio3d@ccgmail.net at 12:01 AM PDT

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