Planning For Thursday

It is only Monday, but I am already planning for my Thursday post. We have another Impression Obsession Design Team challenge that day, and this time the theme is "outside the box." We were instructed to take a stamp and use it a way other than for its intended use. I have thought about it for about a month without much success. Luckily, ideas were flying last night, and I have been pretty productive. It is a very interesting challenge in that it really taxed my brain. I can't wait to see what the other designers create!

Today's card is a little reminiscent of the "outside the box" in that you might not look at IO's new Cover-A-Card textural image and immediately think of snow. After all, the dots are really close together. Here is what the background looks like:

On the other hand, it isn't that big of a leap outside the box. After all, I looked at dots and thought of snow...not that big of a deal! I don't think that I will be credited for making the discovery of the century. :)

I found that stamping the background with Brilliance Moonlight White ink onto vellum looked really cool and made an interesting layer for my card. I placed the vellum over the blue background and white snowbank to create my winter scene. Here is a close-up so that you can see the white dots on top of the white snowbank:



To finish the card, I cut out a couple of trees freehand and then added an IO snowman I had colored and cut out.

Be sure to check back Thursday to see the results of the "outside the box challenge." I think it is going to be one of the most interesting challenges yet!

Okay, so it is another Halloween card

I really do need to stop the Halloween cards, but I can't seem to help myself....especially if there is a pumpkin stamp involved! My friends all know I have a terrible sickness when it comes to pumpkin stamps. I have enough to last me a lifetime, but I keep finding ones I NEED to have. Is there a type of stamp that you continually buy? Leaves? Butterflies? Elvis? Just curious.

The card itself was really simple. I stamped a bunch of pumpkins from Impression Obsession and colored them with Copic markers. I added an IO saying and then edged the card with my Fiskars Threading Water decorative border.

Have a fantastic weekend!

More Halloween and Weird Weekend

I hope you got some inspiration from last weekend's IO Halloween challenge. I just can't seem to stop making Halloween cards. I love them!

The jack-o-lantern image above seems to be a really popular one with the design team. I think every one of us has used it so far. For my version, I stamped it in black Memento ink and then colored it with some bright and vivid Copic markers. I really love using purple and lime green on my Halloween cards! I made my own matching harlequin background paper out of one of the new IO cover-a-card backgrounds and Versamark ink.

On an unrelated note, my weekend didn't turn out quite as planned. I won a night at Lansdowne Resort Friday along with VIP seating at their summer series concert. When my friend Julie and I went outside to claim our seats, we were greeted with this:

Yikes! This picture represents the five seconds I was outside and got to see the band setting up. Needless to say, the concert was canceled, there was no VIP seating, and my coupons to use at the food vendors were useless. (For some reason the vendors wouldn't feed me as they were running for their lives). The night wasn't quite what I planned, but I got to spend a wonderful evening catching up with my college roomate. I guess sometimes it is just best to go with the flow.

Impression Obsession DT challenge- Halloween!

I sure do love these design team challenges, and I always love seeing what everyone creates. I am especially excited to see some new Halloween ideas!

For my card, I used the new Leigh Hannan ghost (F2356) and spooktacular saying (C5522). The background was made using the new woven cover-a-card (CC020). I LOVE that new background. I have inked it with brown ink for my fall cards, and it looks like burlap. As with this card, I sometimes ink it with grey ink and it looks great for Halloween....sort of like mummy wrappings.

To color the card, I used a variety of cool gray Copic markers around the ghost and a green Copic marker for the cemetery. To get the ghost a nice bright white color, I used a white Prismacolor pencil. I then layered everything onto black cardstock and added some scalloped trimmings from Doodlebug that I colored black to match.

Want to see other spooky cards? Check out what Daniela, Dina, Jeanne, Jenny, Julie, Kathy, and Shirley created. Want to play along with the challenge? Email your own Impression Obsession Halloween cards to Shirley, and every week cards will be highlighted on the Impression Obsession blog. Fun!

Caardvarks challenge

After posting a Leigh Hannan Halloween card, I thought I would move towards a Leigh Hannan Christmas card. Can you tell I am going through a phase?

The latest Caardvarks challenge was to create a new winter themed card. I instantly knew I wanted to use this new Impression Obsession stamp. It is good as a row of stamps and also as individual images cut away from each other.

Overall, it was a really easy card to make. I stamped the trees with black Memento ink and then colored them with copic markers. Done!

I hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend!

Halloween Treat

I never get tired of playing with the images Leigh Hannan designs for Impression Obsession. They are so much fun! One of the best thing about her Halloween cupcakes is that I really got to play around with the colors for the frosting. Usually I make pink or chocolate frosted cakes. It was a nice change to use orange, purple, and lime green!

I colored the cupcakes using Copic markers and then added some Stardust pen to the sprinkles to make them sparkle and some Coal Shimmerz to the cupcake papers to give them some shine and shimmer.

Is anyone else in the mood to start making Halloween cards, or is it just me?

Shabby Chic Poppies

I have to confess that it is really hard for me to make a Shabby Chic card. The idea of distressing a card just seems so alien to me. The whole time I used an edge distresser on this card I thought, "oh no, I am losing my nice crisp edge." Humm...I might have been missing the point.

The challenge last week on the Hero Arts blog was to make a card that was inspired by one of the sneak peeks of their new line. I was really inspired by Lisa Spangler's video she posted on Wednesday. You can see that post here. I tried to incorporate elements she used such as a distressed ink background, Copic coloring, and distressed edges. I especially liked that she highlighted parts of her background with a white Prismacolor pencil and added some brown Copic to her flower so that it would match the distressed look of the card. I really like how the card turned out, so I guess it is true that it is sometimes a great idea to step outside of your comfort zone.

IO DT Challenge- Fall Colors

Time for another Impression Obsession challenge, and this time the theme is.....fall colors! At first I thought I would make a card with fall colors, but not necessarily a fall theme. However, a while back, one of the other DT members used this pear to make a Christmas card. I told her that I immediately thought of fall when I saw the pear rather than Christmas. So, I thought the color challenge was a perfect time to use my pear. In the end, I really tried to color my pear to look like a brown bosc pear.

To make the card, I stamped the pear onto cream paper using brown Memento ink. I then colored the pear and flowers with Copic markers and added some yellow jewels to the centers of the flowers. I also added a saying that I think makes a great Thanksgiving saying. I have tons of sayings that say "happy Thanksgiving" or mention "bounty" or "blessings." I thought this phrase was a nice take-off of more tradiional Thanksgiving quotes. To finish the card, I added some decorative Frances Meyer paper.

Want to see other fall color cards? Check out what Daniela, Dina, Jeanne, Jenny, Julie, Kelli, and Shirley created. Want to play along with the challenge? Email your own Impression Obsession card using fall colors to Shirley,and every week cards will be highlighted on the Impression Obsession blog. Fun!