Grunge Flowers ala JUGS

Wow I've been quiet for a while and all of a sudden I have a bunch of posts all popping up at the same time. :-)

3 posts today!!!
To view my project for the Stamp TV blog hop please click HERE.
For MTME sneak peek click HERE.

Meanwhile - Just Us Girls is bringing you a challenge to create a 3D flower - we made our 3D flowers ala Tim Holtz - if you have not tried these PLEASE do! They are fantastic!!! Remember - the challenge is to CREATE a 3D Flower (not just use one).

Here's my card for the week:

The sketch is from Mojo Monday and the papers are a sneak peek of some brand new papers coming on Feb. 1 to the My Time Made Easy store!!! These were created for MTME by our very own JUGS girl, Kristin, and you are going to LOVE her latest collection. The sentiment is also part of a new set from MTME - it's part of the new Bold Botanicals set - you can see my sneak peek for this set further up on my blog. (Although this is the ONE stamp from the set that I did not use on my project.)

Now, I must admit that I did not make my grunge flower for this card - a good friend of mine, Hanne, made me a few that she sent me as a gift - (BLESS you Hanne!!) Well - it worked so perfectly with what I wanted to do that I just used hers but I assure you these were handmade and they follow the Tim Holtz method. 

Here's a close up of the flower, the seam binding bow and the tiny pearl/rhinestone hat pin.

Now - hop on over to the rest of the JUGS team to see the beauties they have cooked up for you. AND this will be our last Saturday with Carla Suto. She has done an outstanding job as our FD for JUGS this month (thank you Carla) -  we'll be introducing a new Featured Designer next week.

♥♥ Just Us Girls Design Team  ♥♥

Dana

Kathryn

Kristin 

Lisa

Maria

Carla (Featured Designer)

Have a great weekend. Looking forward to maybe getting to go to a movie for a change!!!

Hugs n smiles,

Flower Power!

Hold on to your hats ladies - (it's been WINDY here in Chicago this week so that phrase has lots of meaning!) - Dana from Just Us Girls has a WOW challenge for you today. Your challenge is to create a handmade, burnt-edge fabric flower and she's providing this link to a WOWZA tutorial. Now... I will tell you at first the whole idea of a BURNED edge kind of had me imagining all kinds of disasters in my room filled with PAPER and RIBBONS and STAMPS (oh my!) but then I thought "Oh what the heck. That's why they are called challenges!" so I jumped in and did it and boy was I happy with the results. I'm SO glad I tried this - nothing caught on fire and I didn't get burned. :-) Thank you Dana!!! This was fabulous fun.

You take a look and you tell me if you think it was worth it... Here's my finished flower...

I made this from a piece of beautiful yellow fabric I happened to have on hand. I cut and burned then assembled 8 fabric layers,  used a pearl brad as my center and then... (sneak peek)... I made some beautiful leaves (coming to you on Nov 1 from My Time Made Easy) to tuck behind the flower.  I ran the leaves through my crimper and then scored the center line for some texture.

Here's the card I made to show off this flower. It's a special BIRTHDAY card because next week is sweet Kristin's birthday so the JUGS team is adding a twist to our challenge and we all made Kristin a birthday card. Please pop over and wish her a Happy Birthday when you are done here.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY Kristin!! Enjoy your day girl - you deserve all the best that life has to offer.

This is an oversized card - it's 4.5 x 6.5 but since it will go in a non-standard padded envelope I didn't mind. I thought the larger size better suited my flower. I used two SU papers I had on hand and cut a strip of coordinating CS that features two different border punches and covered that with a strip of ivory lace.

The tag was made by combing three nestie layers - the bottom green one is a Labels 10, the middle layer is a Labels 14 and the top layer is another Layer 10. I enjoy combining different shapes of nesties for these.

One final look then I'd love for you to stop by Selma's blog and check out her final project with JUGS. She has done an outstanding job with the team this month so I'd be ever so grateful if you leave her a little love.

Check out the rest of the Design Team (sidebar -->) you must check out these fabulous flowers then PLEASE - be brave - give it a try. I would LOVE to see your flowers. Thanks, as always, for stopping by. Your sweet comments are always so inspiring and they truly lift my spirit :-)

Have a great weekend. Hugs n Smiles.

Just Us Girls Paper Flowers and a Template too!

Wowee it's Saturday! Finally a weekend at home. So many things to catch up on. I know you all face these same issues so for a minute or two - let's take a break from housework, errands etc. and check out the latest Just Us Girls challenge. This is challenge #4!! You gals are rockin' the challenges - we LOVE you!

This week our hostess is the delightful and lovely Mona Pendleton. If you have not seen Mona's work, you need to! Mona has developed a wonderful VIDEO for how to make fantastic 3-D tissue paper flowers. SO this week's challenge is to add a 3-D flower to your project. Now, this means you MAY choose to use Mona's technique OR you may have a different 3-D flower you would like to share instead. In either case, we hope you will play along with Just Us Girls. You may be chosen as our top pick of the week, a spot we call, "Chic of the Week." If selected, you receive a special badge to display on your blog!

For my project I chose to do a card (Used this week's Mojo Monday Sketch) AND I also made a matching template from the wonderful Lauren Meader. I've been giving the office girls one of the templates filled with just a few sweet treats as a birthday surprise and they are loving them. Somehow the candy is SO much more special when there is a little unique packaging to go with it. This one is filled with Peanut Butter Lindt Truffles! There are 6 of them in here.

This template is the petite version of Pretty Petal Pocket. I created the basket using PTI's Summer Sunshine and Spring Moss cardstock then matted it with varying sizes of the floral paper from PTI's Autumn Abundance. I just love this paper collection - very diverse patterns but fabulous fall colors.

I made my 3-D flower according to Mona's instructions. I chose to use SU! Only Orange ink because the PTI Summer Sunrise color I WANTED to use - well I only own it in a CUBE size and that would have taken me forever to brayer the tissue paper. :-)  The SU! ink I had in a full size pad. Good thing the orange went with my paper!

Here's a close up of the flower. They are SO much fun and so striking on a project. Super fun - I hope you will try it.

Next - stop by and see what the other members of the Just Us Girls Design Team have cooked up for you this week. You WILL be inspired, I promise.

Kristen
Dana
Lisa
Mona
Maria
Tracey


Finally, be sure you post your creations to our Mr. Linky. If you post to an online gallery be sure to also use keyword/tag  JUGS4. Can't wait to see what all you girls have created as you play along with Just Us Girls :-) Have a wonderful weekend.

MojoMonday

It's Mojo Monday time again - I wanted to do this week's color challenge on StampTV which was to use pink and green. I turned to Mojo Monday for a sketch to get me started. With all the fabulous new Gina K and Papertrey sets being released lately I've kind of been ignorning my flowers so I pulled out my Elegant Flowers (GKD) and went to work.



Here's what I came up with. Digital paper from Gina K, buttons from PTI. I'm have the day off from work today so this is a quick post - lots I want to get done.

Have a great Tuesday!

Thanks for looking :-)

HELP Stamp Out Alzheimer's

SCROLL DOWN to see newly added samples!

Hi all - One of my "My Time" Design Teammates, Jen Tapler, is hosting a fabulous event this week. I have a new item in my sidebar to help with that upcoming event where YOU can make a difference in the fight against Alzheimer's. You simply need to sign up for the great week long event called Stamp Out Alzheimer's (SOA) with a $5.00 donation (yes you can donate more) and then you will get to participate in challenges, contests, classes, workshops, be able to download free products etc. etc. and have chances for prizes galore. All of the proceeds of this event go to the Alzheimer's Foundation so come come on and join us - I'm hosting a challenge, too, come and play and have fun with all the great things AND make a difference too.

Click this link or the link in my sidebar to make your donation then Register here and be ready to play!

EDITED to add photos: OK now that SOA is officially open I can post some of my cards I am working on for their challenges plus MY challenge. We'll start with MY CHALLENGE - called "Button, Button, Who's Got the Button?" Make a card or scrapbook page with at least three buttons, post it to the SOA gallery and you'll have a chance to win TWO bags of Vintage Buttons from PTI, compliments of me :-) Here's my card sample for the Button challenge.




Next here are some of the cards I've been making for other's challenges on the SOA site. I'm making cards for each of our retirees since I also give them each a DVD of the video I made for them for our recognition dinner. I won't tell you which card is for which person by the cards are all done for SOA challenges and one is also done for Mojo Monday!

STV Color Challenge

Oh boy - this week's Stamp TV Color Challenge was to use black, any pinks and any reds. I had a hard time coming up with an idea at first because all I could think were Valentines. Here is the card I finally came up with. I inked the raised side of the cuttlebug folder then embossed the PTI Sweet Blush paper. Worked with the fabulous images in Bold Flowers from Gina K's Floral Frenzy set. Added PTI black and blush ribbon and a red button to add a touch more red. Finally tucked in a tiny little lady bug from Melanie Muenchinger's Year of Flowers set - I took the picture before I added the crystal effects to the lady bug. (Oops)

When I made the inside of the card I didn't stamp a specific sentiment because I might make this a birthday card or maybe a friendship card... I'll decide when I send it.

Challenges

I've been doing a few of the new challenges on Stamp TV with Gina K Designs. Boy do they push me out of my normal routine - so here are two new cards I made - the first one is for a "Kissing Technique" challenge. I cased this card from Melanie Muenchinger and switched up to the yummy Berry Sorbet and Ripe Avocado papers (PTI). I added some PTI dotted swiss ribbon and the result is a bright, cheery colorful card.

The second card (both cards use the new Gina K's Bold Flowers from her new Floral Frenzy set) was this week's color challenge on Stamp TV where I chose to use the new digital papers from Gina K. We had to use pink and any neutral - since I love pink this wasn't so hard. The CS is Chocolate Chip by SU, the remaining layers except for the vanilla, are digital papers. The ribbon is dark Chocolate from PTI and the brads are SU. I put glitter dots on top of the large eyelets for some additional white focal points.

Thanks for stopping by.

Another Combined Challenge

Here we go again - I find myself interested in lots of challenges but short on time to do each one separately so I tried to combine two this week. First I started off with the Loonies Challenge #29. (I'm never quite sure if they have a place for all their challenges so I end up linking to Wendy's page). The color challenge this week was Summer Sunrise, Vanilla and Gray. Hmmmm - Ok. THEN, on StampTV, Melanie Muenchinger has posted a Friday Potluck challenge which was to make a split frame card. SO I started with the new Gina K Elegant Flowers set and colored with copics. I used the paper colors from the Loonie's challenge and the layout from Melanie. Here's what I came up with. I have to tell you that I decided on the square layout for the split frame but then when I cut my strips I goofed and didn't cut them into equal squares - the top two are 1-3/4 and the bottom ones are 2-1/4. But in the end I kind of like that they are not symmetrical - is that called serendipity?? Thanks for browsing. Have a blessed Sunday.

Friendship Card

Hmmm so today Nichole from PTI posted a look at the new Quick Kits they will be offering soon. Today the "assignment" was to simply create a card for my best friend then link it up for another chance to win a COOL prize!!! This was an easy task since making cards for my girlfriends is one of my favorite things to do - SO here's my take on this one. A card using the fabulous Floral Frenzy set with sweet blush, lemon tart and spring moss. (Can you tell I am ready for spring??!) Maybe it was the almost 50º day today in Chicagoland that prompted my use of such delightful spring colors... The tiny friends always sentiment comes from PTI's Faux Ribbon stamp set. I did struggle a bit with what to use as the flower centers - I settled on soft pink Dew Drops and a dab of glitter in each smaller flower center but not convinced that there isn't a better choice of embellishments for the floral center of the bigger flower. Ideas?

Thanks to all who take a moment to make comments - it's really encouraging for a new blogger to continue to do this when we notice that people actually READ them! LOL

Hugs n smiles.