Brushos with Nature's Paintbrush

Hi there.  I'm so glad you stopped by!

Take a deep breath. Relax.

The background of this card was made by smooshing a piece of
coated cardstock onto some wet Brusho crystals on my craft mat.

You know how you always have that leftover run off?
I hate to let it go to waste sometimes.

It made a very light background so I sprinkled a
bit of Olive Brusho crystals on top of the wet piece.

I loved all the colors that popped out!

Once dry, simple stamping was all this needed.

Challenges:

Penny Black Saturday - ATG/Optional Nature

Thanks for the visit and special thanks for your comments.

Enjoy!

Card Recipe

Stamps: Nature's Paintbrush (PB), Psalm 121 (Verve)  

Ink:   Tree Branch Archival (Ranger)

Paper:   Coated cardstock, Brushed Gold (SU)

Other:  Brusho (yellow, orange, olive green)

I Lift up My Eyes

Hi there.

I have one more card for the Dare to Get Dirty Challenge
at Splitcoaststampers for the Fan Club members.

I pulled out a background that I made using shaving cream and alcohol inks.

I know that's what I used because I actually wrote it down.

Imagine that!

I cut the piece down and added a die cut that my dear friend,
Nancy sent me  a while back.

I stamped one of my favorite scriptures on the piece and masked
the sentiment with a little sticky note.

I thinned out a little acrylic paint in my palette and
splattered it on.

Of course I got a big blob on the side.

Drat!

I cut the piece down a little bit further.

I'm so glad I waited to put the die cut on there!

I had snipped off a little flower from the bottom of the stem.

That's what you see peeking out from the inside.

Since I used alcohol ink in my shaving cream, I can link up to
CAS Mix Up

I used stamping, alcohol ink in shaving cream marbling, splattering with acrylic paint and die cuts.

Thanks for the visit and special thanks for your comments.

Enjoy!

Card Recipe

Stamps:  Psalm 121:1-2 (Verve)

Ink:   Versafine Onyx Black

Paper:   Neena, Basic Black

Other:  Alcohol Ink (Pool, Clover - Ranger), Shaving Cream, Licorice Acrylic Paint (Plaid), Wildflower Thinlits (TH)

Ghosted Leaves for CAS Mix Up and a New CAS Challenge

This is a long post but there's some fun and exciting news contained herein.

But I'm going to save that for the end.

For now here is this month's CAS Mix Up Challenge

and my card

I used Stamping, Ghosting and Sponging

The Design Team has some awesome inspiration and we're joined this month by
Mac Mable (The Sweetest of Peas) who was our Monthly Pick for August
with this lovely card.

There are several ways to do the ghosting technique and there are video links at CAS Mix Up.

I used the Bleach without Bleach by France Martin (12:29) technique for this card.

First I sponged lots of ink on a piece of Neena cardstock.

Next I spritzed a leaf stamp with Stampin' Mist and pressed it down on the sponged piece.

I repeated the process several times using different leaf stamps.

I pretty much CASEd Frenchie's design.

Because the stamps weren't true silhouette stamps they left the ghosted imprint
of the outline and some lightening inside but still left some color.
I loved that look!

I cut down the panel and have another piece left over.
(That piece didn't turn out as well and may be in the bin before long.)

I don't know what happened to the sentiment.  I stamped it with Always Artichoke ink
and it was much darker when it was first stamped.  When I went back later, the ink had lightened considerably.  I had removed the stamp from the MISTI so I decided it was best to leave it alone.

******
Now on to EXCITING NEWS!!

We are having a Design Team Call for CAS Mix Up.  The DT call runs from October 1st - 15th. Are you interested on being on the CAS Mix Up Design Team??  Check out the requirements on the CAS Mix Up Blog.  Good luck everyone!

MORE EXCITING NEWS!!

Loll and I are excited to announce a new card challenge ---
 CAS Watercolour Card Challenge.

We had trouble deciding between a mixed media or watercoloring challenge earlier in the year.
Mixed media won out then.
But our love of watercoloring on cards was still pulling on us and we're excited to
finally launch this new challenge.

 We hope you like the idea and want to join in.

The challenge starts today.  Future challenges will begin on the 2nd of every month. The challenge is to create a CAS (Clean and Simple) Watercoloured card following the theme each month.

There is a new challenge starting today ... a "sister" challenge to CAS Mix Up.  

Click HERE to check out CAS Watercolour Card Challenge.

Our first challenge is

Here's a little something I whipped up for this challenge

I used a NBUS Verve stamp and watercolored with an Aqua Painter and ink pads.

MORE EXCITING NEWS!!
We are having a Design Team Call for CAS Watercolour Card Challenge.  The DT call runs from October 1st - 15th. Are you interested on being on the CAS Watercolour Design Team??  Check out the requirements on the CAS Watercolour Blog.  Good luck everyone!

If you're interested check out the details at

CAS Mix Up

and 

CAS Watercolour Card Challenge

Thanks for the visit and special thanks for your comments.

Enjoy!

Card Recipe (CAS Mix Up)

Stamps:  Vintage Leaves (SU), Beautiful Butterflies (PTI)

Ink:   Crushed Curry, Tangerine Tango, Old Olive, Always Artichoke

Paper:   Very Vanilla (SU), Solar White (Neena 110 lb.), Core'dinations

Other:  Stampin' Sponge, Stampin' Mist, Linen Thread (all SU), Fun Foam

Card Recipe (CAS Watercolour Card Challenge)

Stamps:  Bountiful Harvest, Happy Fall (Verve)

Ink:  Pumpkin Pie, Tangerine Tango, Crushed Curry, Mossy Meadow, Soft Suede, Chocolate Chip, Baked Brown Sugar, Sahara Sand, Soft Sky (SU)

Paper: Mixed Media (Strathmore)

Other:  Aqua Painter, Paper String (TH)

Things we Love and Seeing Stars

The Featured Stamper at Splitcoaststampers this week is

Lisa Kubica.

I hadn't "met" her before and so enjoyed her gallery.

I chose this card to CASE.

I loved this triangular piece with the flowers so I shamelessly CASEd her card.

I did use different flower stamps and embossing instead of stitching.

I used the Lil' Inker Stitched Square die and cut the square in half.

Sticky notes masked off the edges so I could stamp the flowers up to but not over the edge.

After stamping the flowers and leaves, I used a damp  Aqua Painter to spread the colors.

This card measures 3 1/4" x 6 1/4".

While I was at it, I thought I'd play with the 

CAS and Color Challenges at SCS too.

This is the card I did for both of these challenges.

The CAS challenge is to use stars and 

the Color Challenge is Real Red, Marina Mist and Night of Navy.

I pulled out the Starry Die from Verve for the base of this card.

I die cut the stars from a piece of white and snippets of

red, navy and Marina Mist.

The stars fit back into the negative spaces of the white piece and 

the extras were scattered around.

It was really quick and fun.

I'm entering into the 

Simon Says Wednesday Challenge

ANYTHING GOES

 I'm glad you stopped by.

Enjoy!

    **********

Card Recipe (card 1)

Stamps:  Things We Love (Hero Arts), Kind Words (Verve)

Ink:  SU Markers (Watermelon Wonder, Gumball Green, Elegant Eggplant)

Paper:  Solar White (Neena), Whisper White (SU)

Other: Stitched Square (Lil' Inker), Needlepoint Border EF (retired SU), Aqua Painter

Card Recipe (card 2)

Stamps:  Friendship Messages (SSS)

Ink:  Night of Navy

Paper:  Solar White (Neena), Real Red, Night of Navy, Marina Mist, Whisper White

Other: Starry Die (Verve)

Merry Monday Primitive Star

Good morning and Merry Monday to you!

I have 2 cards today.

I had a little trouble making up my mind which to use.
When in doubt, use both!

But before I show and tell let's look at the challenge.

Our hostess this week is Lori.

(She's helps Lesley keep the Merry Makers straight

and does a fabulous job of it too!)

The buttons really threw me.

I love to use ribbon, but rarely use buttons.

So I had to dig deep to find some.

I used the Sizzix Primitive Star Bigz Die for both of these cards.

These cards were inspired by the cards I saw here.

Thanks, Stacy, for the wonderful inspiration.

For this one I used a shank button and cut the shank off.

I'm hoping that still counts as a button.

Can you see the little plaid design on it?

The diecut star was embossed and inserted in the opening.

I used dimensionals to pop it up and let the

Cherry Cobbler peek out.

This card was made using a negative piece.

I had this pretty snippet of decorative paper in my box 
and it went perfectly with the retired Sage Shadow cardstock.

I used a teeny, tiny heart button on this card.

I got 2 very different looks.

I made several others but they don't have buttons.

Some don't even have ribbons.

I'll share those later.

I hope you'll go over to see what the rest of the Design Team
has done for your inspiration pleasure.
Some very good ideas indeed!

Then I hope you'll put a button or buttons and ribbon 
on your Christmas card and share it with us at 
Merry Monday.

Oh, and since I used some snippets, I'm going over to
Pixies Snippet Playground

Thanks for visiting.

Enjoy!

    **********

Card Recipe (card 1)

Stamps:  Teeny, Tiny Wishes  

Ink:  Memento Tuxedo Black

Paper: Cherry Cobbler, Whisper White, 110# Solar White (Neena)

Other:  Primitive Star Bigz die (Sizzix), Square Lattice EF, Plaid EF (Sizzix), Cherry Cobbler Polka Dot Ribbon back side (retired), Altered Button, Dimensionals

Card Recipe (card 2)

Stamps:  Christmas Joy (Verve - card 2) 

Ink:  Cherry Cobbler

Paper:  Sage Shadow, DSP (stash), Very Vanilla

Other:  Primitive Star Bigz die (Sizzix), Plaid EF (Sizzix), Large Oval Punch, Cherry Cobbler Seam Binding, Button (Stash)

All supplies are Stampin' Up! unless otherwise noted

Merry Monday Shades of Green

It's Merry Monday time again.

 The amazing LeAnne is our hostess this week.

I love this picture!

I pulled out my NBUS Papertrey Ink Polka Dot Parade #9

stamps and die.

The sentiment is a NBUS too.

It's from Verve.

For the background I used the partial embossing.

I put the directions on this blog post.

The bow is made from crochet thread

dragged through Gesso.

Virginia's View Challenge

is looking for die cuts.
This die set is from Papertrey Ink.

Pixie's Snippet Playground
is always open for play when we use snippets on our cards.
The tree is made from snippets.
What a great way to us up some of those narrow pieces!

I hope you'll pull out your greens 
and join us at Merry Monday this week.

And be sure to go over there and check out all the Design Team cards.
WOW!

Thanks for stopping by.

Enjoy!

    **********

Card Recipe

Stamps: Polka Dot Parade #9 (Papertrey Ink), Christmas Blessing (Verve)

Ink:  Pistachio Pudding, Wild Wasabi, Gumball Green, Garden Green, Mossy Meadow, Crumb Cake

Paper:  Gumball Green, Whisper White, Brushed Gold (for star)

Other: Polka Dot Parade #9 Die set (Papertrey Ink), Plaid EF (Sizzix), Simply Scored, Gessoed Crochet Tread

All supplies are Stampin' Up! unless otherwise noted

Happy Birthday America

Hurrah for the Red White and Blue!

Happy Birthday America!

I've been on vacation and without a computer for several days.

I don't know if I'll ever catch up on all of your blogs.

But I wanted to send my American friends

best wishes for a safe and happy 4th!

Almost forgot to add:

I can go play at

Pixies Snippet Playground

since I used that tiny snippet for the red star.

Thanks for the shout out, Di!

Thanks for stopping by.

Enjoy!

    **********

Card Recipe

Stamps:  Made for You (retired)

Ink:  Midnight Muse

Paper:  110# Solar White (Neena), Midnight Muse, Whisper White, Snippet of DSP

Other: Star EF (Cuttlebug), Star Die (Verve), Small Star Punch (retired), Baker's Twine (Michaels), Rhinestone Star (stash)