GIU Blog Hop

Welcome to the GIU blog hop! I decided to showcase the kit that I picked out as my reward; Enjoy Where You Are. I have had a number of people tell me that I look like the girl in this kit. I love everything else this kit has to offer too. I love these banners; they are going to be great for birthdays and other celebrations. The flowers are amazing too and who doesn't love some good stitched stamps?

Next up in the hop is Joan. Be sure to comment for a chance at winning a giant grab bag of Unity Deeply Etched Red Rubber.

Until next time, happy crafting!

Due Date - Simon Says Stamp Challenge

I played along with the challenges at Simon Says Stamp for the first time last week and when I saw this week's challenge, I was blown away. The design team hit it out of the ball park!

The first thing that popped into my head when I thought of due date, was pregnancy, but I don't really know anyone who is expecting, so I remembered the Documented stamp set that Tim Holtz recently released. I love this set so much! Love all the fun distressed date related stamps, plus it has that awesome map. A win in my book. I decided that an art journal page for my Embrace about waiting. I seem to be in a season of waiting. It seems I don't even really have anything to be waiting for right now.

I started off by spraying yellow, sunny orange, and lime sprays on my blank page. I wanted bright. Hope. I kept spraying ink and water, drying in between until I was satisfied. Then I took the stamps from the Documented set and stamped randomly on the background. Next I used the clock stencils from Tim Holtz and spread a thin layer of modeling paste over all the background. I love how the inks bleed up into the paste and bring the background forward. You can see where some of the stamping has moved to the top of the paste. Then I grabbed this really old flower set. I've had it forever and love it. I got a darker red-orange ink for these. I added some white pen scribbles to brighten them up and add some fun. All that was left was to add my quote and some askew clock hands, signifying broken time and my dislike of waiting.   

Twins Congrats Card

I saw this week's challenge at Simon Says Stamp and thought that I had the perfect project. This is my first time playing with their challenges, even though I see May post them every week. Going to need to do something about that! This week's challenge is titled "In the middle". These new babies are in the middle of so much! In the middle of the parents, our hearts, being born, taking over the world....

My daughter-in-law's sister just had twin boys. I can't imagine having twin boys! That's a lot of energy. I wanted to make her a congratulations card and I had just received the Crazy Bird stamps by Tim Holtz. I just love these birds! They make me smile and I need to smile. One of birds just has a sort of frazzled, stunned look. I think he's my favorite. I thought he would be the perfect image for a new parent of twin boys. I liked how pretty and girly the other bird is, so she became Mama. She looks very please, don't you think?

I stamped and heat embossed the birds onto watercolor paper and painted with watercolors, cut them out and placed on the woodgrain background. I cut the nest out with my Silhouette, cut out a backing piece, and stamped woodgrain with distress ink. I took the eggs from the cut file and cut the jagged cracked open lines with a pair of scissors. I painted the wooden birds with distress paint and placed them behind the egg pieces still in the nest while placing the broken tops outside the nest. Add a little banner and you have a cute card.

I hope receiving this will bring the new parents some laughter in an otherwise chaotic time.