Take Time To Smell The Roses

If it's nearly June in Ohio, it's time for my climbing roses to bloom. They're called The Seven Sisters and I bought two little shrubs on sale at the end of the summer one year for just $5 each. This was when I was a mom to one (22or 23 years ago) and my mom and I would take my daughter and visit the area garden centers. We usually went at the beginning of the growing season to get flowers for each other for Mother's Day and then at the end of the season to get deals.

My husband and I must've chosen the perfect area because these little roses seem to love this spot and grow vigorously each year. Some years are better for blooms than others, but this year is a good one.

I based my coloring of the Beautiful Roses Slimline digi from Alex Syberia on the color of my roses. I picked pinks and added a little coral and a little red for them and chose grays for the leaves.

I like to color one rose at a time, so here's a little peek into how I layered the color on the last two roses.

At the end of the process, I add in black shadows and white highlights if needed.

For the final card, I fussy cut the flowers and leaves and added it to cream/black patterned paper on a slimline card (3.5"x8"). I think graphic shapes really set off florals, so I gave it a shot with this one. The sentiment strip is a stamp/die set from Taylored Expressions. 

So, go out there and smell those roses—or maybe just color some!

Happy Friday!

Chark

Roses in October

My mom had a Peace Rose that bloomed in the summer and again in the fall. I love fall roses, they seem so special. This rose is lovely and large and has a slight scent.

Today I want to share some cards using a fabulous 3-D embossing folder with roses that I purchased from Sizzix. It's larger than a 4.25"x5.5" card, but I've trimmed it down to fit. It's also smaller than a 5"x7" card, so you can have a border if you use this size of card.

I used Lawn Fawn pearlescent vellum and only part of the image came out without a bunch of lines near it. The paper is super thin and I used a lot of pressure with the Gemini Jr, and I know that's what distorted the embossing. So I just trimmed a bit and added it to a pre-printed ombre card. The gold washi is Altenew. As with most vellum, you have to be judicious with your adhesive. I added a tiny glue dot behind the rose and leaf and then adhered the left edge with liquid glue. I then used the washi to cover it.

For this next card, I embossed on white heavy cardstock and then used Distress inks to lightly apply color to the raised area. Love all the dimension in this folder. I used some thin rose gold stickers for the edge.

For this card, I used white cardstock again but inked the edges in blue and some green. I wish I'd gotten better pictures, but I am loving how these are turning out. I mounted this trimmed panel on navy card and used some silver line stickers for the edge.

I'll be making more rose cards I know and I'll get some better shots—these are after editing too. This card would be nice for anyone with vision impairment since there is a lot of texture to feel.

Happy Fall Friday!

Chark

 

Stamplorations and Roses

I normally don't publish a post on Mondays, but I wanted to show you what I've created for the current Stamplorations Challenge. They are so generous with their free digi stamps and have a ton of giveaways, so if you haven't visited yet, you should! You can choose to do the theme or sketch or both—I chose the theme—and you don't have to use Stamplorations products but you can print out their freebies and use those if you like.

This is a free digi that I've colored with my all-time favorite Prismacolor pencils. I used an oval die, some Lawn Fawn watercolor paper and a hugs die from LF as well. I trimmed the roses on the right, so I could slip the pink cardstock behind them, as if they are coming out of the frame. I drew in stitched lines for another little extra. The word die is cut from prisma paper that has a shine so I didn't need to add any glitter to this one.

I have one more rose card to share that's not entered into the Stamplorations contest...it's a piece of 6x6 patterned paper from Altenew and I stamped the sentiment in black. I added a silver chrome pen to the words and thin silver stickers to the sides. So fast and easy! I love this Relections pad of watercolor-look paper.

That's it for this surprise post, hope you'll join in the challenges this month at Stamplorations!

Happy Monday!

Chark

Cupcakes Are My Jam

I don't know why or how, but I've become obsessed with cupcakes for awhile now and this free digi from Stamplorations made me so happy! They are always generous with their freebies and giveaways and challenges. They have like 4 or 5 challenges each month. These cards don't fit any of them this month but I loved the stamp and had to color it up.

This one uses Prismacolor pencils for the digi image and a watercolored panel background. I really like the soft-colored panel mounted on black.

The next one is also colored in Prismacolor pencils but I also added glossy accents to the rose and chocolate on the strawberry. The watercolor panel I had (using liquid watercolors from Hero Arts) wasn't large enough for the image, so I just cut it diagonally and added a piece of black cardstock between the pieces. I love yellow frosting on chocolate cupcakes, so that's what I went with here.

Here's a close-up of the dew drops.

My favorite bakery in the whole world is Cake, Hope and Love near me and they are starting an online shop so you can order cake toppers, sprinkles and their fab.u.lous. buttercream. Best icing ever. Their salted caramel is my all-time fave, but they have so many good ones!

So this obsession of mine started at least three years ago...what are some of your fave foods that you will eat 5 times a week if you could?

Happy Friday!

Chark

April Showers Bring May Flowers

Over at the Power Poppy blog, the challenge is to do something with your birth month. My birthday is in April and though I like that the stone is a diamond, it doesn't scream color challenge. And there aren't too many holidays in April, except April Fool's Day and about a hundred birthdays of my family and friends. Seriously...it's the craziest month for birthdays over here.

So instead of that, I just used the little ditty we heard in school, April Showers Bring May Flowers...and what do Mayflowers bring? Pilgrims! No, I didn't make a project with pilgrims, rather I used May flowers. I have some heritage roses that bloom in May and they are gorgeous—a beautiful shade of pink and they smell even better!

I used my Prismacolor pencils on this lovely digi. I trimmed off the second cup of roses so I could use a larger image. Hope you'll join in with your birth month here.

Happy Friday!

Chark

Watch It Wednesday

Thought I'd share a card I made with the technique shown in this Jennifer McGuire video. I'm late to the party, as I have never done a word die cut like this with a floral image. The Fall Rose is a digi stamp from LeighSBDesigns here. She has some fun Poe and goth images in her store too.

I colored the image with Prismacolor pencils, then used a Papertrey word die and an Elizabeth Craft Dotted Scallop frame cut. I colored the leaves in browns and golds to help the roses stand out and added clear adhesive drops.

Okay, I actually posted the wrong video below, so here's the correct video showing the eclipse letter card/popped dies technique. I left the other video too, because it's a good one.

Here's a video from Jennifer that uses three different ways to do inlaid die cutting. Honestly, this woman has a million ideas and videos and tips and she totally rocks!

Happy Wednesday!

Chark

Power Poppy CASE a Designer

I just love how beautiful and detailed Marcella Hawley's stamps are over at Power Poppy. I've been stalking the blog and store for awhile and finally purchased my first two digi stamps (they have real stamps too), followed not long after by more stamps.😉

I'm going to enter this card made with the Everything's Rosy digital set for the Power and Spark Challenge, where you CASE one of the DT members. I've taken the glittered flowers, polka dots and black accent idea from this post from Allison. Here's her card. Lovely, right? Visit her blog to see how she made this one.

Ally glittered her tie dye flowers, and I used my Wink of Stella clear glitter pen on my flowers and mug. You can see the sparkly bits here. I trimmed out the bottom blossom and pop dotted it up. Next time, I'm going to try making her gorgeous background look.

I used my Prismacolor pencils as per usual while watching a Hallmark mystery movie based on the Hannah Swensen books, like The Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder I love the cookie recipes in the books and the Chocolate Chip one in this book is one I've actually made and love. They're crispy cuz you add crunched up cornflakes. Yum!

Thanks for the inspiration, Ally! Hope you'll join in over at the Power Poppy challenge here.

Happy Saturday!
Chark

Rainy Days And Mondays

Yep, it's raining and it's Monday. I'm not really down like the song says, but I am dying for a nap and I've only been up for two hours. I blame the gloomy day outside...snuggling in bed seems like a great idea. But first, I'll share a gift bag I made for my niece's bridal shower.

I started with a huge white bag from Hobby Lobby, then added a piece of 12x12 Mr. & Mrs. scrapbook paper from there and added paper roses I made with burgundy cardstock. The bunting I made from really old paper I won—I just freehand cut the shape, hole punched and threaded ribbon through. Easy to make, although it took forever to glue the roses. Making them takes a minute or two, but then I fussed with the shape and width and then finally used some liquid glue to secure them, which takes awhile to dry.

Here's a close-up of the paper roses. I used two sheets of 12x12 cardstock. The biggest rose is one sheet by itself. Here's a tutorial on felt roses that I applied to paper roses. Works just the same. Start with a basic circle and then spiral cut and roll. You can ink the edges of the paper after assembling the roses if you want more depth.

 

Happy Monday! Off to napzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Chark

Seriously, Why Are Fridays The Best?

I love Fridays, even though I work at home, so it's not because I get a break from the commute, or deadlines and paperwork, or those crazy coworkers I can't stand. I think it's because there's less pressure for the kids to get homework finished Right Now, no one's up at the 0-dark-thirty for showers and breakfast, and maybe because Fridays mean a lot more time relaxing upcoming. I dunno...but I like them! See? Snoopy agrees with me.

Here's a card I made with the free flower image I found for you (and me) at Graphics Fairy in this post. I used pink and mulberry Prismacolor Pencils and just colored while I watched tv the other night. I added a touch of white pencil and used a green that was more pine than grass.

I also colored a larger rose image and went more for peach tones. The green I used had more yellow in it too, to match the yellow pink flowers. You can see my little green marks to try to find a good one for the leaves in the bottom right of the pic. I think I like this peach color combo more than the pink, but it won't fit a regular size card unless I cut off the edges...which might look fine. Not sure yet what I'll do with it, but I enjoyed the coloring!

This image has a lot of shading, so you don't have to do a lot of the work. Just use darker colors where the shading is darker and lighten up more in the white sections. I added a little "glow" outline of color around the flowers and leaves. I might use some ink or watercolor to make a blue background. I guess we'll see!

If you want to try out coloring on a smaller scale, a2z Scrapbooking Supplies has this Hero Arts/Basic Grey stamps with beautiful roses. And it's on sale—two of my favorite words—$8 for this clear set. But there are only two sets available, so snatch yours up soon!

 

If you use your Hero Arts goodies and some heat or dry embossing, you can enter (til the end of February) the monthly challenge here and try to win a $25 certificate to the store. That means FREE GOODIES, two more of my fave words.

Happy Friday! Enjoy the day!
Chark

Blueberry Pancakes For Everyone!

Today is National Blueberry Pancake Day and I feel that should include some kind of freebie pancakes for me...I don't think I'm going to get that, so I may have to make my own. If you're looking for a good recipe, here's one from All Recipes that are called My-Hop Pancakes. 

Just add a few room temperature blueberries to the batter right before frying. I like to use some berries from a box of blueberry muffin mix, cuz they're little and tasty and they don't have to be in season at the grocery.

Maybe I should just go to Bob Evans. I love their pancakes...and crepes. Okay, I'm finished drooling for now.

Here's another card I made for the nursing home residents in my home town. I used a Hero Arts rose stamp, colored them with Distress Inks and Copics and then trimmed them. I also used Perfect Pearls and water to spray and give them a shimmer. If I left off the shimmer and rhinestones, it might be a good masculine card too, since some men like gardening and the color palette is darker.

It's also my last entry in the challenge at Craft Stamper Magazine. If you haven't joined you still have a few hours! Hope you'll join me! 

Happy Wednesday...off to Bob Evans for pancakes!
Chark