Birthday Butterflies

This week the challenge at Tuesday Throwdown is pearls. As you see, the flourish is made completely with pearls. I really enjoyed making this card. I have been viewing the class by Jennifer McGuire at Inspiration Showcase. It's a fabulous class. Each day she shows several techniques and gives examples using the techniques. My background is a result of yesterday and today's class. The technique is called distress ink watercolor. To create the background I used victorian velvet for the base and wild honey to stamp. I used the butterfly background stamp from Chapel Road Artstamps. The flower is from My Mind's Eye, the sentiment is a gold outline sticker, and the butterflies were cut from Cheery Lynn dies.

Rarest of Flowers

This week the Try That Technique challenge is Background Whimsy technique. My card uses the dye ink version. My background stamp is the Floral Background stamp from Chapel Road Artstamps. The ribbon come from my ribbon stash. The flower is made using the Spellbinders Anemone Flower Topper die. don't you think that the background and the background stamp were made for each other?

Post-It Note Book

This week my Blogger's Challenge is a little different. The challenge was monochromatic blues. Instead of a card, I decided to use my inchie stampbord along with my Inchie Designs and Inchy Words stamps from Chapel Road Artstamps to make a little gift for my dd who has started back to school. It's a book to hold 3x3 inch post-it-notes. I love making books and this is a mini-version of a book. The pack of post-it-notes fits into a pocket on the back cover, so it's refillable. The cover is made with chipboard covered with navy blue paper.  The cover consists of 9 inch square stampboard tiles which I stamped and edged in blues and glued to the cover. (Stampbord is a wonderful surface to stamp on. If you are unfamiliar with stampbord, check out this SITE for more detail.) I'm looking forward to seeing how everyone else interpreted this challenge. Happy Friday.

Don't Tickle the Dragon

My soon to be five year old grandson just started Kindergarten this week and each night before bed we read books together. He's getting to be a good reader.  Recently I was inspired to make some bookmarks for a challenge, and I thought that this dragon and the related sayings from the Chapel Road Artstamps, Quips, would make a cute set of  bookmarks for him. All of the stamping was done on vellum. The under layer of the bookmark was embossed in an embossing folder and highlighted with white ink. I love the way the embossing shows through the vellum. I had these bookmark covers in a drawer just waiting for the perfect time.

Welcome to the Class Act/Chapel Road Blog Hop.

Welcome to the first Class Act/Chapel Road Blog Hop. If you've arrived here from the talented Gini's blog, you're in the right place. If not, you might want to start at the Class Act Insider  so as not to miss out on any of the great art work from the team.

You will see the newest releases from both of these lines on this hop. Our Theme will be BRIGHT COLORS, any bright combination.  Please leave a comment on every project of each design team member, and have your name entered into the draw to win a free rubber stamp from our Class Act line of stamps. If you leave a comment on each of the Design Team member's projects, that will give you 7 chances to win. A random winner will be chosen. Below is the order to hop around! The blog hop will end on Thursday August 25, 2011 at 7:00 p.m. and the winner announced the following day.


Class Act Insider
Suzanne
Sheila
Holly
Gini
Barbara -You're HERE
Chelsea

With a theme of bright colors, I immediately knew which stamps I wanted to feature on my card. I had fallen in love with the new release -- Harlequin. To begin my card, I stamped the Harlequin on white cardstock. I just love the detailed lines of the character. I used Creative Inspirations Paints to paint the image because I thought that the shimmer would add to the bright comic look of the character. The sentiment panel behind the harlequin was first dry embossed using a brass stencil and a stylus. Then I used the brass stencil to stencil white paint over the diamonds. I stamped the sentiment on that panel. On the orange panel, I stamped the  mask and some of the words from the set randomly all over. All of the layers were adhered to an ivory card base.

I hope you'll leave a comment here for a chance to win and then head over to Chelsea's blog for the last stop on the hop. Thanks for stopping by.

A Card Fit for a Macho Man

This month the challenge at Artistic Stamper is Men/All Things Male Themed. I think that the combination of the masculine colors from Rangers Adirondack inks and the fantastic image, sentiment, and background stamps from Chapel Road Artstamps (Class Act Inc) make for a great masculine card.
I tiled two textures stamps from the Chapel Road Artstamps new releases for August: Old Bricks and Fossil as background. The main image is from the set, Two by DaVinci. The sentiment is from Inchy Words. I layered the image on a Spellbinders die cut label. I think this card has a very masculine flavor.

Color Challenge Inchies

Bloggers Challenge this week is a color challenge. At first I thought that the colors would be hard to use. I don't usually think of green, purple, and brown as going together. However, once I pulled out the right stamps, the right designer paper and some Club Scrap cardstock, everything fell into place.
I started with some new stamps from Chapel Road Artstamps -- Inchy Designs and Inchy Words and stamped them on various pieces of green design paper of various shades. I used a one inch square punch to cut them out. A little vintage photo distress ink along the edges finished them. I layered the inchies on a piece of kraft cardstock which I had embossed with the dots and then highlighted with vintage photo distress ink. I then adhered the brown layer to a piece of green Designer Paper with purple flowers (also used for some of the inchies) and then layered everything to a purple base card. The inchy card is a variation of the By the Inch technique from the Oct/Nov 2010 TJ newsletter.
I look forward to seeing what everyone else has created using these colors. Happy Friday.

One More Christmas in July

Euphorbia pulcherrima, otherwise known as pointsettia, is one of the beautiful flowers abundant at Christmastime. Today I took one of the pointsettia flower stamps from the Chapel Road Art Stamps Pointsettia Plate to create the focal image of my card. I embossed it with white ink and used the neutral shadows technique from the Feb/Mar 2011 TJ newsletter. I love how the image appears through the shadows. I used a Spellbinders die to create the frame. The background panel is stamped with the pine corners from the holly plate and then embossed using the snowflake frame embossing folder from Cuttlebug. And once more, Merry Christmas to all, in July.

Christmas in July Challenge

This week the challenge at the Class Act Insider is Christmas in July. I'm really lovin' the new Pointsettia Plate and the new Holly Plate from the Chapel Road Artstamps (Class Act Inc.) They have such a cool vintage look. I used the Christmas ornament dies from the Tim Holtz line and decorated them with the stamps. The gold trim was made using a gold metallic marker. The blue ornament was colored using alcohol ink. The corner stamp was stamped directly on the background paper and decorated with heatset crystals. The "Merry Christmas" is an outline sticker and the background papers are from Webster's Pages. And a Merry Christmas in July to all.

Every Snowflake is Different

In this card I used stamps from the new Chapel Road Artstamps sheets Snowflakes Everywhere and Snowflake Plate. Somehow, the snow seems much more appealing when it's stamped with beautiful stamps in the middle of a hot July. Snowflakes Everywhere is a wonderful background stamp. I stamped the image using a white paint dabber on a piece of cardstock. I then sprayed the background with mists made from distress ink and Perfect Pearls. This is one of Tim Holtz's techniques and it makes a gorgeous background. The sentiment was stamped on white cardstock and the edges were inked with antique linen distress ink. I used the Spellbinders fleur de lis rectangles die to create the backing panel.

Christmas in July

Well, it's Christmas in July time again. This week I'm highlighting some new stamps from Chapel Road Artstamps and sharing a card for the Tuesday Throwdown challenge, which just happens to be Christmas in July. I just love the grungy look of these stamps. Of course, stamping on watercolor paper does add to the grungy look. I used stamps from the Pointsettia Plate and the Holly Plate.
To make my card, I first stamped the holly corners. Then I dry embossed the December calendar with a texture fade from Tim Holtz. I highlighted December and 25 using markers. The pointsettia was stamped on a separate piece of paper by coloring with markers direct to stamp. I roughly cut out the flower and adhered it to the calendar panel. Merry Christmas in July.

Feminine Spirit

June has run its course. Here we are on the last day. I thought I would share one of my Chapel Road Artstamps in a different way. I've stamped one of the faces from Les Femmes, adhered it to a background cut from glimmer paper, and framed it in a memory glass frame. Here I used a Chotsky pin and attached the framed image and various charms to make a lovely and very feminine pin.

I am entering this art piece into the Creative Belli Blog Challenge which is the letter "G". My G embellishments are Glitter paper, and memory Glass.

Beautiful women

As I started my card today, I knew I wanted to use one of the images from the Chapel Road Artstamps Four Faces. I couldn't decide which one I wanted to use, so I decided to use all four. Each face has its own beauty. I stamped each face in sepia and framed it with a dark brown frame. The framed pictures deserved to be hung on a wall, so I adhered them to a wood paper panel. To finish the card I die cut a dark brown scalloped oval and cut a wood paper oval to fit inside the little frame. The sentiment is a gold Outline sticker. I adhered everything to a beige card base.

Sew Much to Do

My card uses stamps from a second new June release from Chapel Road Artstamps. The new stamps are from the stamp sheet Sew Much To Do. The stamps are very vintage looking and feature our Victorian lady at her sewing machine, as well as the ad, some spools of thread, and some scissors. This month's Chapel Road Artstamps theme is feminine and the challenge is vintage. Of course, the stamps by themselves meet the challenge, but I decided to use the antique wallpaper technique from the June 2010 issue of Technique Junkies which uses an embossing folder and distress inks. The image was stamped in black ink and colored with colored pencil. Then I cut out the whole image and layered it on the antique wallpaper panel. I also stamped the ad, layered it on a brown panel and adhered to the wallpaper. For embellishment, I added the pearl and rhinestone adornment. Ah, those were the days!

Dream

Today I am sharing a card which is a little unusual for me. It basically falls into the the CAS (clean and simple) category. I started with the beautiful image from Chapel Road Artstamps from the Les Femmes stamp sheet. I stamped her in black on white and die cut her in a circle. I cut the reverse scallop circle to frame her. The background is a piece of Club Scrap paper which I embossed using a cuttlebug folder. I cut the center panel, stamped the word "Dream" and adhered the focal image. As I said, it is a CAS card, but I love how it turned out.

We've Come a Long Way Baby

This month we're focusing on feminine stamps at Class Act Inc./Chapel Road Artstamps.  Today I'm using stamps from a new release entitled Typing Time. I stamped the image and cut it out using a Spellbinders die. She is colored using my markers. The background panel is design paper from My Mind's Eye.  I just bought the punch to make the loopy ribbon. Isn't it fun! After reading the sentiment, you'll know that we've come a long way, baby.

Lest We Lose Them...

This month the Chapel Road Artstamps Design Team have been focusing on masculine cards . For my last presentation this month I decided to use a stamp from the Lest We Lose Them stamp set.  I started by stamping the large stamp on a piece of white cardstock. Then I used Broken China and Antique Linen Distress Stains (Tim Holtz) to do a general coloring. I stamped the stamp a second time on white cardstock and this is where I went nuts. Each of the animals was cut out and colored using either flock (deer, polar bears, toucan, swallow, fox, and seal) or Viva Decor Paint Pens (penguins, turtle, heron) I wish you could touch the card. There is so much texture. Keeping with the masculine theme, I used twine for ribbon along the bottom. This also meets  challenge 102 for Gingersnap Creations.

Writing Journal

This month's Chapel Road Artstamps challenge on the Class Act Insider blog  is Anything Goes and we are creating projects fit for a man. I used a blank book to create a writing journal. All of the stamps I used are from the Chapel Road Artstamps sheet Scribe. For the cover I stamped the focal image and framed it in a Spellbinders label. The sentiment was stamped and adhered to a gold panel. I then adhered a pen nib to the sentiment label. On the corners I attached metal corners from the Tim Holtz collection. On the inside cover I stamped the writing hand in three colors randomly over the page. The first page was stamped with the pen and ink bottle and the quote "The pen is mightier than the sword." I have just the person to give this journal to as a birthday gift .

Another Masculine Card

Doesn't this fish make a great masculine card. I used the individual fish and the rectangular image from the Chapel Road Artstamps Large Rock Artishapes sheet to make this masculine card. I used the polished stone technique to color the background and then stamped the fish all over the panel. I framed the rectangular fish image using the torn frame technique from Technique Junkies. The sentiment is from the Birthday Abermarle stamp sheet.
I know I can use this card for Father's Day, a birthday, or any other special day. How versatile is that!

Man time

Masculine cards always seem more difficult to create. This month the Design Team for Chapel Road Artstamps are  focusing on cards for men.  For my card I used images from Two by daVinci. The image and sentiment were matted on black cardstock and then layered on Graphics 45 paper from A Proper Gentleman stack. Three grommets are the only embellishment bling. In my mind, the image plus the color, plus simplicity make for a great masculine card. That's why I am entering this card in the Ink on my Fingers Sunday challenge.