Woah, bright......

I know that when I'm busier and maybe a little more stressed, or my crafting time is more pressured, my card colors and color combos tend to be a little more bright and bold....just wanted to share a peek at my desk and the unfinished projects there...woohoo! Brightness. And you should see the sparkle on that pink card in the background...I was playing with the Pearlescent Watercolors that smARTworks carries now...!

Not much to report this weekend...I finished up a few more prayer card photos for our students and am working on getting their cards designed with an Indonesian and English version for each family or single...made 4 kinds of pizza last night and enjoyed eating with good friends, overflowed my pizza pan chocolate chip cookie - note to self - don't spread the dough out to the edge...

Hooray for a day to rest and relax... Maybe I'll get those cards put together after all....!! Maybe...

Mitten card

The inspiration for this card is very random...I purchased some quick oats the last time we went to town, and as a free gift with my purchase, I received a ring of oatmeal recipes on oven-mitt shaped papers. These weren't recipes you'd imagine with oatmeal, really...mostly they were Indonesian recipes where they tried to substitute oats where they would normally use rice. Ummm....no thanks. Cute paper though! You should be able to click on it to see it larger and resize to make your own pattern...if that is not ok, somebody please let me know! An oven mitt card would be cute too, huh...

I shortened the length of the 'mitt' to use as a mitten pattern and cut a cuff out of felt, pierced around the edge and added some faux stitching with a Souffle pen. I had the snowflake ornament in my stash, and the greeting stamp is from Heartfelt Creations.

Busy weeks ahead...we have about 5 more weeks in our semester here, and as the end draws near, lots of planning and preparation goes on. This year we are celebrating Christmas, honoring our students who are finishing the first step of their training (3-semester Bible course), and celebrating the 20th anniversary of the training center. I'm always involved with music, which includes practices beforehand with the worship leader and also whatever special music groups need accompaniment...this year I was asked to be on the decorating committee as well, so my mind has been spinning with ideas of how to decorate the entryway and classroom, and with design ideas for a theme banner. I usually design anything that needs to be printed as well (program, invitation, certificates...), and I offered to design prayer cards for whatever students are interested... OF COURSE at the same time I have new stamps crying out to be inked up...anyway, just know that anything that ends up stamped over the next few weeks is the fruit of a needed 'sanity' break!

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Impression Obsession DT Challenge: Stamp a wreath

The Impression Obsession team was challenged to make a wreath card using non-wreath-y stamps...I started another one but DH said it didn't count because the wreath didn't go all the way around...sniff...so I went with this idea instead - a coffee wreath. I'll share the other one another day, I guess. I used stamps from the "More Coffee" clear set by Sarah Phelps... funky little set I love. My wreath base uses a stamp from the Wreaths and Garlands Floral set, stamped with chalk ink. The cups and such are colored with markers, then shaded with Prismacolor pencil. The card base is Okinawa New Momishibo cardstock, which I found locally - it has such a neat texture and natural fleck in it.

Be sure to check out the rest of the team's creations as they post throughout the day - links are to the left! If you'd like to join our challenge by submitting your own wreath card made with Impression Obsession stamps, visit the IO Blog for details - that link is over to the left as well. :) Thanks for stopping by!

Uh...am I too late for chocolate?

Thought I'd better throw this card out there before it's too far into November... Halloween is past and isn't celebrated here, so we didn't do anything Saturday... not even sure why I made this card except that this image from Impression Obsession is just so fascinating to me - this is Jack Chandelier, one of the new Fall/Winter releases by Leigh Hannan. Other stamps used: Happy Halloween (Sarah Phelps). I stamped the image on grey linen cardstock and colored with Prismacolor pencils, with a few dots of white acrylic paint here and there. I used a black adhesive pearl, and drew little spidery legs on it...just for fun. The layer behind the oval is mulberry paper, which for some reason I have but never never use...I tore it to the right size, then crumpled it before adhering it to the card.

The IO team has a challenge for you this week - we are stamping wreaths! If you have Impression Obsession stamps and you'd like to join in the fun, see the IO Blog for details (link is to the left).

smARTworks news

Thanks to those of you who participated in our first ever smART-word challenge last month! A new challenge has been posted, and this month's word is GRATITUDE. Wherever your creative mind takes you with that word as your inspiration, put it to paper, and post a link to your card over at the smART-word Challenge Blog. Susan chose our word this month, and you can view her Gratitude card over there.

Gotta say that though this isn't my gratitude card, there have been lots of days lately that I'm grateful for CAFFEINE.... so here is my tribute. This stamp is called "Tea Square" and it's one of the images that smARTworks purchased from Angi-B. I thought it would be fun to try paper piecing and paper tole with the image. Next time I'll use a color other than grey for the shading...little dingy. I used white acrylic paint to brighten up the flowers and add a few highlights.

Speaking of smARTworks, Susan hinted at a new release coming soon, so keep your eyes peeled sometime around November 12th! I have some new stamps to play with as well, so I'll be sharing those over the next weeks.

Cupcake set winners! and Create-a-Cowboy

I couldn't resist just one more cupcake kid - so here is Create-a-Cowboy. Too much fun! He's colored in with Neopiko markers and shaded with Prismacolor pencils. I got the ephemera from my favorite source for public domain stuff online, Takeabreak's albums on Flickr.com. There are all kinds of printables there - little somethin' for everyone. Love.

And finally, the winners of the Create-a-Cupcake are:

MIRA from Mira's Place

and

DEANNA M!!

Congrats, ladies! Please email me your mailing address so I can have these sets sent out to you right away! Happy weekend, everyone!

Create-a-Monkey

It's the last Thursday in October already - this has been a fun month of Create-a-Cupcake Thursdays! Hope you've enjoyed my trips 'outside the box' with this set from Impression Obsession... thanks to Kelli for the fun challenge! I still have more ideas, so this won't be my last cupcake card by any means...but for now, it's about time to go back to the rest of my neglected and NEW I.O. stamps...

So this is Create-a-Monkey...when we first moved overseas there was a guy that came around the neighborhoods with a trained monkey and he'd do a show in our driveway for about 50 cents - all the neighborhood kids would gather around and then just migrate from driveway to driveway, wherever someone was willing to pay for a show. I haven't seen anything like that here, but drew on the memories for inspiration for this little guy. Good times.

I drew in the tassel for his hat, and drew in his little mouth - the rest is colored with Neopiko markers and Prismacolor pencils. I made the embroidery thread tassel with my Bow-Easy - I'll have to do that again and take pictures next time.

That's all I know today - I'll be back with 2 winners' names and one last cupcake card Saturday night - stay tuned!!

Update on Joe

Some of you may remember me asking for prayer for a family on our field, whose son Joe was sick with a rare blood parasite...we got this update yesterday from another friend:

"BJ and Joe were in Jakarta for more tests, on Monday, the 26th. Joe’s blood has not been clotting, and Drs were beginning to think something more might be going on than just the parasite problem, as the medicines he’s been on haven’t made any improvement. BJ called me yesterday afternoon to let me know that the Drs have pretty much concluded that Joe has a rare form of leukemia. Ken was getting ready to join her and Joe in Jakarta, and the other 5 kids were going to stay at home with their Christian house-helper taking care of them. This morning (27th), Ken, BJ, and Joe were going to fly to Singapore so that Joe can undergo a bone aspiration test, to confirm if it is leukemia."

Please continue to pray for them!

Monochrome Nativity

I set off to make this a monochromatic card, and then decided midstream to make it fit not only the Stamping Sisters in Christ Challenge (nativity card) (I know I'm late posting...sigh) but also the Peachy Keen Stamps challenge for this week (#14), which was a card recipe: use a stamped image, colors brown and pink, glitter, and a piece of ribbon.

I stamped the image (Nativity Scene from Heartfelt Creations) on kraft cardstock and used 2 Prismacolor pencils (Ivory and Dark Umber) to shade and highlight, blending occasionally with OMS. I added glitter highlights on the rays of the star, extending the downward ray down to the manger. To add some pink in, I found a bit of ribbon that was 2 colors of brown with a pink polka-dot, and sponged a little pink on my sentiment tag (Christmas Greeting). Just that little touch of pink softened the whole card without detracting from the image. Love it.

I can't seem to stop making Christmas cards - hopefully something I've made will inspire you in your Christmas card making this year while there's still time! I have a stamped gift in mind for our co-workers but I'm still thinking on a simple, mass-produceable card for Christmas.... Right now we are looking toward the end of our semester...planning a staff ladies' Christmas tea... brainstorming our Christmas/graduation celebration...and making plans to attend a wedding of 2 our students in a tribal location at the end of December. Exciting stuff!

Thanks for visiting my corner of the world today!

Happy (hoppy!) birthday, Susan!

The smARTworks design team would like to wish our Susan a very happy birthday!

This is the card I sent to her a few weeks ago...who knows whether it will arrive in time or not!

Stamp sets used:
Snails (toadstool)
Two Bunnies (sentiment & grass)
Five Little Froggies (uhh...froggie)

My toadstool is paper-pieced, and the grass is stamped multiple times with chalk ink, then blended with a Dove blender pen. The frog was stamped on watercolor paper and colored with markers, and you can't tell in the photo, but his head is popped up on mounting tape.

The rest of the team has posted birthday wishes as well - be sure to pay them a visit:
Trish @ Tah-Dah!
Giovana @ A Place to Praise and Craft
Donelda @ Wiggy’s World
Donna @ Dee’s Studio

...then hop on over to Susan's blog and leave her some "Happy birthday" love!