Mojo 114

Time for the Mojo Monday Stretch.

Being Thanksgiving week, I was happy to see that the sketch is easy! I had a blast making this pretty card.

I was at Walmart and I snapped a picture of some shirts hanging with these colors. I didn't want to lose the color scheme because I thought purple would be an awesome color for snowflakes.

Here's what I came up with for this sketch.

Just some notes, I inked up my snowflake with eggplant ink, and then added some shimmer paint with a sponge dauber to my stamp. Then I stamped the mixture to make my snowflake so it's quite sparkly. I ended going back into the shimmer paint cover with my dauber, and left some purple residue, so i picked up the mixture of purple ink and shimmer paint to color some of the details of my Petals a plenty embossing folder.

Fun sketch! I love clean and simple!

The colors here are all vanilla and eggplant. Have a great short week!

Saturday Sketch Challenge 126

Yet another Fantabulous Sketch from the operators at Stamping 411! This week's sketch looks a little bit more difficult than last weeks, but once you get cutting, you'll see that this one is a great sketch for using up scrap paper!

I cut my base out of our Bride Designer series paper and cut that down to 11 x 4 1/4", I scored it at 5 1/2" and folded in half. Next, I sponged all the edges of my white designer paper, and i think it makes them pop!

The bottom of my card uses two pieces of scraps that I had hanging around the studio. Both are cut to 4 1/4" long, the striped pattern is 1/2" tall, and the red patterned paper is 1" tall. I tied some leftover kraft colored ribbon I had laying around.. Boy I love that bow!

Next, I cut a scallop circle out of my big shot die, and cut a 3" circle to go inside. I quickly embossed dasher and added some white craft ink around the edges of both layers to make a frosty effect.

I'm into paper banners lately. Normally I attach them with dimensionals, but no need! The tombo multipurpose adhesive works like a champ and it's already got so much height!

I had a wonderful job with this weeks' sketch. Won't you come over to the 411 site and play along?

Sketches are a wonderful jumping off point when coming up with a design. I hope you have time to stamp something fun today!

Selene Kempton

Blogger's Challenge ~ Giving Thanks ~ Operation Holiday Heros

Well, I guess I was supposed to make a thanksgiving project for giving thanks theme, and I do have an wonderful turkey box I could share. I decided to offer a cardmaking night for the troops. Now ~ I've done this in the past, and will continue to do it as long as there is a need, but what struck me this week was explaining to my daughter what the soldiers actually give up.

They are away from their families for months at a time, and sometimes they are unable to come home. I know that I complain because my hubby is gone from 6:30AM to about 6:30 PM every day during the week. Some of their daddy's and mommy's don't come home because they are protecting our way of life.

They don't have many of the things that you and I might take for granted and request items like mac and cheese. They can't go to hallmark (or come to me) when they need a card ~ they just write on whatever they have handy in the field. I can only imagine what a hand stamped card would mean coming from one of those very special people. With that, I will tell you that our total so far is 170 cards and counting! I am expecting a few shipments of cards from blog readers, friends, family and customers, so the total before the end of the week WILL be over 200! So GO OPERATION HOLIDAY HEROS!! Thank you to all that donated in one form or another.

Here is some idea of what that looks like!

I'm thankful for my friends and family and thankful for my bloggers challenge girlfriends, who I pull inspiration from all the time! Life is good, hug someone you love today!

Sketch Challenge Day!

Stamping sketch challenges rock my world so I made it a point to check out a few of my girlfriend's blogs today to see what I could play along with.

Carolanne and Sandy's 10 minute card challenge and Mary Jo's Technostamper Monday Sketch were on my list today. I'm so thankful to have such talented friends that give me ideas and challenge me to be a better stamper! I'm so happy to have some time to play! So here's what I came up with..

For Mary Jo's Sketch here's my rendition

























And for Carolanne's here's what I came up with.























Today is card club day! I have a whole bunch of happy stampers coming tonight! I have a crazy busy week with stamping this week, but today I took a few hours and did some stamping.

I don't have a lot to say today (that's a first), but I really enjoyed some stamping time for me. I hope you have time to play along or stamp something fun today!

Rubbah hugs!
Selene Kempton

Mojo 113 ~ Something for my little sweetheart

My daughter Alexis turns 5 this Sunday. My the time just flies by ~ she's so grown up. We are taking her to build a bear for a little party and she is thrilled.

I always love a sketch challenge. I have to say, i thought this was a lot of layers starting out, but it went together very quickly and heck ~ I just like it! If you want to play along, check out the mojo monday blog!

I tried photographing this one outside because I used shimmer paint and alcohol to make the whole card sparkly. I photographed it first in my studio, but you couldn't really see the shimmer.. It's so pretty. I used about 1 ounce alcohol, and four dips of shimmer paint, shook the bottle and sprayed the whole front of the card. I was surprised a little bit that some of my black ink moved, but stazon is alcohol based, so I guess that makes complete sense.

I used two different patterns of Designer paper from Stampin Up's Tall Tales collection, and paper pieced many parts of my little bear. For my little princess it's all about coordination, so the shoes and bow match the bear's dress, and I used the paper for the balloon and gift bag also!

The stamp happy bearthday, came as one long phrase, so i inked one side, cleaned my stamp, then inked the other side and stamped it below the "happy".

I found some retired ribbon from Sale A Bration last year, that matched perfectly! I think she's going to be so happy with this card. Alexis loves to do paper crafts with me and appreciates the love and time it takes to make a handmade card.

Have a great week everybody!

Selene Kempton

Anniversary Card

This past Wednesday (veterans day) was my 9th wedding anniversary. I wanted to make a special card for my sweetheart and here's what I came up with.

I used the fall paper from Stampin' Up's mini catalog. This card is very distressed. I pulled layers apart and distressed the edges on the brown layer and the layer with the clock. I used chocolate chip ribbon, and spritzed the whole card with my color spritzer.

Happy Anniversary Babe!

Saturday Sketch Challenge 125

Hey Everyone!

Another Fantastic sketch from the operators at stamping 411. This is a wonderful sketch that lends itself to making elegant cards in a hurry.

When you go to lay this out it may be a little confusing (at least it was for some of my stamping club members.

When building the layer behind the christmas tree. I laid the red layer down (on the diamond) then laid the flock on the square, and laid the white piece again on the diamond. I stamped my image on the diamond shape.

Here are the measurements.

Layer 1: 11 x 4 1/4”
Layer 2: 4 x 5 ¼”
Layer 3: 2 ½” square
Layer 4: 2 ½” square
Layer 5: 2 ¼” square
Layer 6: ¾” cardstock (from scraps) for the paper banner.

Directions for this card:
Step 1: Stamp your Merry Christmas on the ¾” piece of scrap whisper white
Step 2: Stamp the Christmas tree (taking care to do it on an angle) with real red on whisper white 2 ¼” square piece of cardstock.
Step 3: Add glitter with a 2- way glue pen.
Step 4: using the finial press die, emboss your second layer to add depth.
Step 5: assemble your card with adhesive and the merry Christmas banner using dimensionals.