Merry Monday Penguins

The challenge at Merry Monday to use skis, skates, or sleds was a perfect opportunity to pull out one of my all-time favourite Christmas stamps - skating penguins!

Supplies: stamp from Inkadinkado; Spectrum Noir markers; MME paper; Mod Podge Dimensional Magic; Martha Stewart carrera (white) glitter

After colouring the penguins, I added 'ice' by applying Dimensional Magic in a puddle underneath them, and then sprinkled it with glitter. Sparkly!

xoxo,
Jessi

Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers - Z is for...

Rawr! Edna is totally embracing the animal print trend! This fortnight the Snarky Sisters want to see you use animals OR animal print on your creations. I used both:

Supplies: Paper Smooches Zoo Crew stamps; Memento Tuxedo Black ink; Worn Lipstick & Picked Raspberry distress inks; Spectrum Noir markers; Recollections washi tape; Basic Grey button

This is one of the few cards that escaped Maggie's dirty-pawed rampage the other night :)

You've got 2 weeks to link up (by August 22md)) - and stop by & say hello to my sistahs:

Barb

Chris

Donna

Karen

Lee

Lindsey

Lynne

Michelle

And we are super pleased to have DARNELL with us this week as our guest designer! Her cards will definitely make you giggle :) 

xoxo,

Jessi

How my house helps me create!

Or sometimes "helps", lol. This is a longish one, so bear with me. First up, how I make enamel dots at home - and then a card.

1. Preheat your oven to 375F, and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. You can re-use the parchment paper several times if you remember where you put it afterwards!

2. Gather your minions! Connor's on the left, Riley on the right. They actually argue over who gets to help with making these :)

3. Have your minions lay out plastic pony beads on the cookie sheet. You can buy these just about anywhere that sells kids' craft supplies - I got a bag of 1000 from *koff* Wal-Mart for about $8. 

They should be laid out about 1/2 inch apart, but when the minions do it I try not to be toooooo bossy about it. 

4. Put the tray in the oven & set the timer for 20 minutes. My oven normally takes about 30, but I like to check partway in case something goes wrong. 

It will stink. Don't hang out in the kitchen while they're baking. I leave the windows open & a fan going, and the smell dissipates within a half hour, but PU.

As you can see, if they are too close together you'll have some conjoined dots - they don't break apart nicely, so I just leave them like that & have a little collection of odd dots. It doesn't take long for them to cool or set - I normally take the parchment off the cookie sheet to speed up the cooling, and ten minutes later they're ready for step five:

5. (not shown) intervene when the minions fight over who gets to sort them by colour into baggies.

Since I've done it a number of times I may have missed a step thinking it's obvious - let me know if you need any clarification!

I wanted to include a card using enamel dots with this, and I was instantly inspired by the photo at The Pink Elephant this week - and that's where the second part of "helping" comes from.

The culprit:

Maggie, also known as Maggie Mittens, Twinkle Toes, Trouble, Whiner, and a variety of other names. Don't let that innocent sleeping face fool you - she is TROUBLE. I'd made my card, and put it (and others) in the little box I use for finished cards that aren't photographed yet. When I got up Wednesday morning, she'd been on my desk in the night (she's the only one of the three cats who's ever been caught up there) and knocked a bunch of stuff over. She also left footprints on the paper I use as my crafting surface - and somehow got her chubby clumsy butt into that tiny box, leaving smudges on the cards. So lucky for me that I had used a lot of white the day before.... one of the other cats is also a polydactyl, but hers look more like a 'thumb' sticking out than Maggie's. Plus, dirty feet? Definitely Maggie. 

So here's what she did to that card:

Yeah, can't really disguise those smudges. So I made a new one:

Supplies: lanterns stamp from Flourishes; sentiment from Paper Smooches; dots from PTI; Memento Tuxedo Black ink; Spectrum Noir markers; Mod Podge Dimensional Magic; Distress inks in Squeezed Lemonade, Spun Sugar, Tumbled Glass; home made enamel dots

I really loved the polka dot lantern, so I dug the scraps out of the recycling bin & had enough to piece it. The others are coloured twice, and all the lanterns were rolled around a pencil for dimension before adding them with foam dots. Then they're coated with Mod Podge Dimensional Magic for gloss. 

As I said twelve paragraphs ago, this was inspired directly by the photo at the Pink Elephant! The lanterns, colours, and neutral background :)

xoxo,
Jessi

Seize the Sketch #26 - Katie!

**For my Tuesday Morning Sketches post, please scroll down 2 or click here**

**For my Shopping our Stash post, please scroll down 1 or click here**

This week at Seize the Sketch we have Katie as our sketch artist - and oh em gee, the possibilities are endless with this sketch! I can see using this one again & again.

Supplies: stamps from Paper Smooches; Spectrum Noir markers; Memento Tuxedo Black ink

Now I'll tell you, my husband is not generally a fan of CAS. When I showed him this one, he said "look at that! It doesn't look unfinished!" I take that as high praise :)

Here's Katie's sketch:

The linky will be open for two weeks - play along by Sunday August 17!

Check out what the rest of the amazing DT did!

Cathy

Colleen

Jen

Jessi - that's me!

Katie

Lee Ann

Lesley

Lori Turner

Lori Tecler

Marybeth

Mona

Rose

Sandy

Sherry

Vicki

xoxo,

Jessi

Shopping our Stash #163 - Splish Splash!

**For my Tuesday Morning Sketches post, please scroll down or click here. Thanks!!**

...I was taking a bath, long about a Saturday night....

*sorry!*

This week at Shopping our Stash we want to see you get WET with your creations - use wet media!

 spray inks, watercolors, acrylic paint, india ink, water soluble crayons, etc etc-- in any way at all, either as a background or with stamps as a focal point or... whatever. 

Pretty easy, right? Make sure to tell us what you've used!

I created a background by painting with Glimmer Mists:

Supplies: Glimmer Mists in Yellow Daisy, Blue Skies, Cherub Pink; Memento Gray Flannel ink; PTI sentiment & leaf stamp; Shabby Shutters distress ink; Spectrum Noir marker (for edging); Spellbinders butterfly die & scrap vellum

I love how the glimmer mists blend together! For the butterfly I cut 3 from vellum, and pierced along the body to stitch it on to the card. Playing around with this card I got ideas for more, so I'm sure I'll be sharing those later in the week.

Ready to get wet?? Check out the design team creations & join us before next Monday, August 11th!

Leslie

Alica

Deena

Lauren

Donna

Chris

Barb

xoxo,

Jessi

Tuesday Morning Sketches #261 - Yours or Mine Papercrafts!

Good morning! We have a great simple sketch for you this week at Tuesday Morning Sketches - and for once, instead of going simple, I went a bit fancy :) Our sponsor this week is Yours or Mine Papercrafts, and they have all variety of fun stuff for you to check out!

Supplies: Sew Easy tool from CHRIS!; Studio Calico veneer butterfly; Doodlebug 'thank you' stickers; unknown papers

I was just going to stitch the banner piece, and then I remembered the Sew Easy - this was actually the first card I'd made in my recent ALL SEW EASY ALL THE TIME crafty time. With the dark pattern, I found it much easier to run the Sew Easy on the back side so I could see what I was doing :)

Here's the sketch:

This sketch is open until next Sunday, August 10th - make sure you hop over to the TMS blog to see the official design team announcement! I'm so excited to be working with Nina again - we were on the Scrapbooker's Paradise team together - and you'll LOVE her creations!

Angela

Bonnie (off for August)

Debbie

Jenee 

Kris 

Melissa

Nina

xoxo,

Jessi

Clicking Cameras!

NBUS confession...my dear friend Barb gave me the polaroid set from Lawn Fawn almost 2 years ago, and I've never inked up the camera.

*hangs head in shame*

As soon as I saw the little red wagon challenge to use a camera, I said SELF! Get thee to the NBUS! (doesn't that just sound like a superhero cry? lol) I progressed as far as having the stamp set on my desk, and then it sat there, from Wednesday to Saturday morning. Moxie Fab World posted the Clicking Cameras challenge on Thursday, and I thought hey, two birds one...card. And  then I still thought about it. But THEN:

Supplies: camera & polaroid frame stamps from Lawn Fawn; all other stamps from various Paper Smooches sets - Chubby Chums, Zoo Crew, My Peeps, Nine Lives, Little Fella, Word Salad; Memento Tuxedo Black ink; Spectrum Noir markers; homemade enamel dots

It's difficult to see in the photo, but the camera is coloured lightly with blue & grey pale markers for depth. I fussy cut that, and set it aside to work on the snapshot. I've stamped & cut out the polaroid frame, and then used post-its to mask the edges. I masked the cat & the hippo, and just carefully fit everyone else into the picture. My favourite is the little monster peeping in upside down at the top :)

*happy monkey clapping*

I didn't make a lot of cards this week, but what I did make I thoroughly enjoyed & like how they turned out. Score! Hubby was home on vacation, so there wasn't a lot of productivity. We mainly stuck around the house, but there was a lot of 'but come watch this movie' and 'hey, come to the store with me!' We did make a day trip to Saint John, which is about 2.5 hours away, and spent the day visiting 4 museums and the zoo. Whew. It was a lot of fun, but we all slept very solidly that night!

xoxo,

Jessi

Fill This Day With Joy

Oh, this card was FUN! Lesley's sketch at The Challenge #11 had me looking at some papers laying on top of each other on my desk - and I just went crazy with it :)

Supplies: um.....lots of scraps! I don't know who any of the papers are from; Studio Calico veneer butterfly; Wilton doily; classic small circle Nesties; PTI sentiment; Peacock Feathers distress ink; Shabby White EP from Stampendous; Wplus9 banner dies; Sew Easy tool from Chris!; lace from Recollections; home made enamel dots

I used the Sew Easy tool to pierce the white layer so I could stitch the ribbon into place. For the butterfly, I coated it with 2-way glue, and then sprinkled the Frantage EP on top, adding a second layer once it melted. 

I kept thinking ACK too many colours/patterns but the finished card? I love it :)

Here's the sketch:

xoxo,

Jessi

Dotty Krafty Christmas

A rare triple-challenge combo for me today - once I got started, it just came together perfectly for all three. Love that! In addition, I've used all sorts of goodies from a whole bunch of pals :)
Merry Monday - snowflakes, dry embossing, vintage colours
The Kraft Journal - Funky Junk
Chocolate, Coffee & Cards - Polka Dots

Supplies: patterned kraft paper from stash; Stampin' Up burlap ribbon - from DONNA!; veneer snowflake - from GLENDA!; Sew Easy tool - from CHRIS!;  Pumice Stone & Black Soot distress ink; Versamark & clear detail EP; Cuttlebug embossing folder; vellum; classic small circle Nesties;  sentiment from MME

The bottom piece of card stock was pre-printed with the distressed black polka dots. The tilted shiny panel was printed with light brown stars. I embossed it with a Cuttlebug folder, and then swiped the Pumice Stone ink over the raised dots. In the close up you can see a few spots where there are black stars now on the raised dots. Cool! I sprinkled the entire piece with clear EP and heated. The sentiment was embossed with clear EP as well, inking first with Versamark & then Black Soot. 

As for the 'funky junk' Kraft Journal challenge, all the pieces used were scraps. And black & kraft is a pretty funky colour combo for a Christmas card!

For Merry Monday - I went with the challenge prompt that the Merry Monday crew had LeAnne thinking they were using :) 

And of course, there are lots of polka dots for Chocolate, Coffee, and Cards. 

xoxo,

Jessi

Have a Purrrrfect Day!

Squeaking in at the last minute for the current sketch challenge at The Paper Players! 

Supplies: stamps from Paper Smooches; Memento Tuxedo Black ink; Spectrum Noir markers; Distress Inks in Peacock Feathers, Worn Lipstick, and Picked Raspberry; papers from stash & MME; banner dies from Wplus9; button from stash

I'd originally intended to put the sentiment on the longest banner of the sketch, but it was too long to fit. White-on-white to the rescue :)

xoxo,

Jessi