Too much reading is good & DT calls

I finally got a smart phone. My little prepaid phone just wasn't cutting it anymore with constant dropped calls. I think the phone companies do it on purpose, drop the cheap phone calls so they can get you to buy a nice phone and lock you into a 2 year contract. Well, it worked. And I tell you I toughed it out for a long time. Anyways, the smart phone (let me just say it, my awesome iPhone 5) has some added perks that I didn't fully appreciate - namely the camera.  I am so loving that I can take photos whenever and wherever, without planning ahead. These are the first photos I printed, check out how well they turned out!

 So I actually own library-themed paper, it's a 6x6 pad of Lawn Fawn 'Dewey Decimal', so I just used a few sheets, picking out the color scheme I wanted to concentrate on, and layered them on top of each other - no cutting! Then my next favorite part of this layout is that I finally found a use for this MME 'Stella & Rose' lamp! I'm hoping it looks like a reading lamp.

 The title came from Rochelle Spears's May blog challenge to choose from particular phrases, and then the challenge at Scrap Your Story is to use mixed fonts in you title. That's the way I like to do longer titles anyways! Finally, I'll link this up at Two Peas for their Scrap Your Stash challenge to use 3 elements: washi, patterned paper and letter stickers.

 Patterned paper: Lawn Fawn
Washi tape: My Mind's Eye
Stickers: Crate Paper, Carta Bella, My Mind's Eye
Letter Stickers: American Crafts, Jillibean Soup
Stamp: Technique Tuesday
Ink: Memento

Other news to share, there are 2 awesome design team calls going on right now that you should check out:
 
Sweet Stamp Shop is looking for stampers to be part of a 3-month Design Team. I've really enjoyed doing a couple of 1-month DT stints with them. I promise you will love working with Nicole, too, so get that application in!
http://sweetstampshop.blogspot.com/2013/05/sweet-design-team-call.html



S.W.A.T. is looking to add to their Design Team, the term is for 6 months, only 2 projects a month, and all the projects are given to you up front, so you can plan ahead. Great group of ladies, and fun challenges! http://swatscrapwarriorsadvancedtraining.blogspot.com/2013/05/design-team-call.html


 Thanks for stopping by!

Tuning in

I made this card for the Two Peas Winterfest 2013 stamping event also, the challenge was to use two types of masking, regular and mortise.  It just so happens to use black, white and yellow so it's my second entry at  CAS-ual Fridays this week.

To make it, I first stamped the TV image, then masked around the TV screen (mortise masking). I then stamped a chevron background stamp on the TV screen to look like a television out of tune. Next I stamped the TV on scrap paper and cut it out, then placed this over the whole TV set to mask it (regular masking). Finally I stamped my sentiment by inking it once, and stamping it 5 times (gradient stamping).  The idea is that the sentiment is slowly coming into focus. Clever, right?  Well, I thought so, at least.  I had tons of fun making it, and what I love about masking is that you really have to plan out what you do before you do it.

Patterned paper: Cosmo Cricket Twenty-Three

Yellow Cord: Lawn Fawn

TV and sentiment stamps: Lawn Fawn

Chevron stamp: Unity Stamp Company

Bee your best

I've got a cute little card I made this week with 2 different challenges in mind.  Members over on the Two Peas General Stamping Forum hold a couple of stamping events each year, with challenges created by the members.  One challenge was to make a scene using stamps.  Since I don't really own any traditional scenic stamps, I made a simple black and white scene with some pops of yellow. And that worked out just perfectly because the challenge at CAS-ual Fridays this week is to use black and white plus one other color (keeping it CAS - Clean and Simple).

Patterned paper: Pink Paislee "She Art"

Flower stamps: Unity Stamp Company

Fence, bee and sentiment stamps: Fresh Squeezed Stamps

Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black and Dandelion

Stay tuned (ha!) because I have one more card to share in my next post.

Scrap Your Stash - Brads

Two Peas in a Bucket has short scrapbooking videos by their Garden Girls just about every day. I love them because they are only 10-15 minutes long, and are free! Last week's 'Scrap Your Stash' video included a challenge to use brads in a new or unique way on a project. Well, I've got these rather large polka-dot brads (1" diameter) and haven't figured out yet how to use them!

Since the brads are so big, I decided to try to use them as the focus of a card, rather than just an accent. Here's what I came up with:

I've used Unity stamps for the flower stems, some paper scraps from Echo Park, Bo Bunny and AC cardstock bases, WRMK twine, sentiments by Sweet Stamp Shop and those cute brads are now the flowers.

-Michele