Stempel Spass

Remember that I did some walking through Manhattan last weekend? Well on Sunday my friend set me up and was still home when I already was at the arranged meeting spot. I was furious - I am German and therefore punctuality was drilled into me from day one on..... Having somebody wait for over an hour is just not something I can handle very well.....So when I found out I decided to walk 20 blocks south (and 2 long blocks east) to the Ink Pad - the fantastic stamp store in Greenwich village, to spend my time in a more useful way....Turned out the the Ink Pad does not open before 12pm on a Sunday - what a disappointment! But it was after 12 when my friend actually showed up and since I was waiting nearby we decided to go there after all.  Long story short I did some shopping.... Ever heard of shopping therapy? It does wonders sometimes..... I bought myself that cute Paper Smooches set Forest Whimsy - (among some other goodies) - I had my eye on it now for a while. Bac...

I have not played in the Runway Inspired challenge for a while - too many challenges out there. but today I got an inspiration from Eileen - many of you probably know her. She has an amazing blog. When I saw her blog entry today I thought to CASE her idea and use it for the RIC - and thank fully there were still a couple of hours left to make this card: I used alcohol inks on acetate. The die cut is from Simon Says and the sentiment is from Impression Obsession. The butterflies are made with a Martha Stewart punch. It was a little tricky to make the butterflies. The acetate I used for the card was too thick and the punch did not work I used thin acetate for my next try, but it punched it badly. Finally I used thin acetate and a layer of paper on top and that did the trick. On the card the colored acetate side is facing the white card stock, so the surface is clean and shiny. The white frame I just cut out of card stock with my paper trimmer. I am also linking this...

Back to school - how sad, the summer is over.... It will take some getting used to going back to the school routine. My son is a 7th grader now and my daughter will be going back to college on Tuesday.... The Twinery is setting the mood for that with their Back to the School Bus challenge. I made this card for it: The school bus I got from the internet and printed it onto yellow paper. I paper pieced the windows. the children in the bus i made with my fingerprints and doodles their hair and faces. The bus tires I made with twine and a brad in the center.  I popped the bus up with foam dots for dimension. Some Washi tape, a Hero Arts sentiment and a twine bow to finish it off. I hope you like it. Thanks for stepping by!

Hi Everyone,  I am playing again in the TAWS challenge  -  (scroll down for the Less is more challenge) - and in the Seize the Birthday challenge - anything goes Birthday.  Below you can see the inspiration picture for TAWS. I was tempted to do the chalkboard technique, but then in the end decided against it - I wanted to keep it clean.... I used 3 of my TAWS stamp sets for this:  Bird Brain, Jibber Jabber and All about YOU. The white sentiment is heat embossed, the birds are colored with Copics. Two enamel dots to finish it of.                   --X-- The challenge at Less is More is Washi Tape - so its going to be a quick card. I have some Halloween washi tapes and I decided to use them finally.... The stamps are Studio G and craft smart (Michaels) I white embossed them and put tiny red perfect pearl dots as spider eyes - not sure if you can see them....

Festive Friday 's theme is Holiday card with a children's theme. Well, that can be anything playful I guess. I really liked the inspiration picture, but could not come up with anything that worked, so I took a completely different approach in the end.  I punched two circles into white card stock, stamped, colored and fuzzy cut the reindeer (Hero Arts Christmas Reindeer). Choose some matching background paper and used some of my washi tape. The strip with "Merry Christmas" is just patterned paper. This card was a lot more work than it looks like. I usually don't spend so much time on my cards....But its cute, I think! I am also linking it up with  Simon Says Anything Goes challenge Rudolph Day Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge

One Layer Wednesday  - One-One-One is the challenge,  meaning one stamp, one color and one sentiment. A nice little twist on one layer cards. I decided to also do some sponging to give it more depth. Or is that not allowed? I have no idea. Maybe I should call it one-one-one-one? Just kidding.  Materials: Inkadinkadoo Meadow, sentiment - Papertrey Happy Trails

I looked at this inspiration photo from Inkspirational several times - but tonight the inspiration struck!  And that's what happened: A modern twist on it........ I used to die cut circles and sponged around them. The "LOVE" letters are Papertrey and the bird is Memory Box. I used the same ink to color the bird - any one of my grey papers did not fit. I put a small enamel dot as eye and I used some sparklers from Stampendous for the little bling. Oh yeah, the red strips are just done with markers.  --X-- And now its late - I wish you all a good night and thank you so much for visiting my blog and leaving all those beautiful comments - I LOVE them so much!

I wrote this up on the weekend, but then decided to post another blog entry first, as the Merry Monday challenge was ending, so this is my Saturday write-up....I hope this is not too confusing... --X-- I really did not have time for crafting today - the weather is gorgeous and I had already made plans way in advance to continue my walking tour through Manhattan. The plan is to walk every street - at the rate we are going we'll still be hobbling around when we are in our 80ies...... So very quickly in the morning before I took the train in I whipped up this card - combining one of the color schemes with one of the sketches for the Stamp-a-faire Opening Ceremony and Breakfast Bake & Take I am also linking this with  Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge It came out okay - would have been better to have more time..... I combined two patterned papers (My Mind's Eye) and added the sentiment - Papertrey Mixed Messages. Since it look...

This is going to be super quick - here is the inspiration sketch from Merry Monday and here is my card:                                                                      I am also linking this up with Stamp-a-faire over at Papertrey  with Addicted to CAS  challenge #20 - Holidays and KIS #21 Weihnachten im August Materials:  Die from Papertrey and Simon Says, sentiment from Impression Obsession, Fiskars impression plate, Scor Tape and of course glitter! I hope you like it. I am off now into the city to do some more walking - another gorgeous day today!

Its party favor challenge over at Little Tangles - which is celebrating its birthday! Happy Birthday and many more to come!  It was fun to come up with something different than cards. I went to my favorite Chinese take-out place and got a container from them. The cute little chick is a freebie from Neat &Tangled and I printed out the bow a couple of times, which I used to decorate the rubber ducky and the chopstick envelope. Here are some different views..... The coloring I did with Copics. I am just in love with it - maybe I need to get more take-out containers....

The Paper Players  challenge is one layer cards. I really like to make them. Initially I found them impossible to make, but I have learned a lot from Heather Telford and just got better over time.  Practice does help. I really like this card. My husband just shrugged his shoulders - it was too bland for him. But I find it quite expressive. I made it for a friend of mine, who had one of her good friends die and she emailed me today about it. So its kind of a sympathy card. Materials: waterdrops - Ryn Tanaka stamps, sentiment - Hero Arts Leaf Print Cl395, 

Classic and elegant is the theme at House of Cards this week. The sketch remains the same. I somewhat freely interpretated the sketch. I punched out a 2 inch circle. I sponged the background of the panel behind it.  I used the Memory Box Fresh Daisies die and then used the negative die cut to sponge the daisies onto the colored panel. The sentiment is from Stempelknopf. I like the yellow/grey combo - I hope you like it too.  Wanna see more Canada pictures? I thought I show you some wildlife today:     Pretty amazing, those animals. we had so much fun watching them.