A Blog Called Wanda

Shiny Fall apples!

Hey! How is everyone today? I am back to Fall cards! Today's card is made with beautiful stamps from Waltzingmouse Rubber Stamps. I got out the Copics and started coloring away to make some pretty shiny red apples to share. 

I'm also super excited to report that I was selected as a Top Crop again for last week's challenge over at Taylored Expressions! Thanks, Taylor, for being so kind to me! This was a great sketch that I know I will use over and over again. It is the perfect sketch for a large square image as your focal point. Check it out!

As you can see, I'm back in the groove with my dark red, olive green and brown color scheme! This is the Cherry Cobbler and Soft Suede paper from Stampin' Up and some pretty patterned paper from Amuse. I used some new vintage brads from Stampin' Up also.

 
 

Here is a close up of the focal image. I used some clear glaze on the apples after coloring them in. I wanted them to be super shiny and appealing. Also, one trick I've picked up from other stampers is to shade all around the image in a very light grey. For some reason this makes the image seem more crisp. Try it!

 

Here is my Copic color pallette:

 

Brown is very hard to shade and blend. Use your darkest color sparingly at first - you can always use more. Start light and just keep working with it until you get the effect you want.

 

 

 
 

Can I please go live at Pottery Barn?

Happy Sunday! Today we are doing much needed chores around the house and getting ready for another week of work. Why do weekends go by so quickly? Just the way it is I guess. The boys are watching football and I have some pictures to share today. Yesterday we went to our local mall in Roseville. I love to go to Crate and Barrel and Pottery Barn when they change the stores over for each season. The decorating is so inspiring and creative. Seriously, I could just live at the Pottery Barn store. I'll just get my clothes and things and make myself right at home!! You don't think they would mind, do you? Maybe they would...

 

 

 

 

I bought one of these pretty mercury glass pumpkins...and that's all!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why is it 100 degrees outside today when I'm ready to wear sweaters and drink hot cider and build a fire? I hope you had a great weekend and have a great week ahead!!

Sweet Thing!

Hi peeps! Happy Friday! WOO HOO! This was a much better week than last and I'm feeling back in my crafty flow now. Tonight I am going to a double birthday celebration for two of my long time stamping gal pals. So, I needed to make some handmade cards for them. I just bought this new stamp from Penny Black called 'Sweet Thing'! It was soooo dang cute I couldn't resist! I had to ink it up and make a syrupy sweet, pink and brown confection out of it!

 

 

Okay, I think I used every shade of pink in my Copic aresenal! She is sooo adorable - I really love this stamp already and know I will use it again. I added some touches of glitter on her bow, the cherry and her little angel wings. I also used my white gel pen to add some accents.

 

I pulled out the gingham paper and used the brown/white version. I also used my new Nestabilities with the open lacy scallop edge.  The "hey cupcake" phrase is from Amuse and the "Happy Birthday" is from Endless Creations stamps. The brown ribbon is just a scrap I had in the ribbon bin. I put a piece of foam tape under the center of the happy birthday banner to pop it up. The ends are taped down flat.

 

 

 
 What are you doing this weekend?  

Autumn Greetings Everyone! - Color Cue Challenge #8

Autumn Greetings Friends! Today is the first official day of Fall!!! As you know, I have already been celebrating for weeks! Hahaha. LOVE it. The nights have been getting cooler and the days shorter...the leaves in the backyard are coming down softly. I can feel it!

Today I have a card to enter in the WPlus9 Design Blog - Color Cue Challenge #8! Click Here to see their great blog! I have entered this blog's challenge before and this time I love the colors just as much!

 

 
 

Here is the color challenge image:

Could you just die over this cute apple paper?? ACK!! It's from Imaginisce and is new for this Fall. The little apples are all the colors of the color challenge - Golden yellow, green and bright scarlet red.

 

 

 

Not too much stamping on this card. The Autumn Greetings sentiment is from a clear stamp set I have -but I don't know what company it is. The birdie and leaves are rub ons from the same Imaginisce collection. I used some pretty gingham ribbon, a gold buckle and gold brads to brighten it up.

  

I'm back! With a Taylored Expressions Challenge card!

Hi peeps!!! DId you miss me? I sure missed you! I have missed crafting and photographing and blogging and sharing with you! It has been a crazy week and an even crazier weekend. Things seem to be back to "normal" now and I spent some time in the craft room today. Yay! I laid out all my fall stuff on the extra table: stamps, paper, punches, doo dads, ribbon, etc. I made a few projects to share in the next few days. It seems my color pallette went towards brown, cranberry red, olivey yellow green and cream. I love it!

Today's cards are entries for Taylored Expressions Sketch Challenge #128 - click here to see!  I made two cards using the same stamp set from PTI. It's such a great stamp set - brand new this year too! The sentiment stamp is from Amuse stamps. The red paper is the new Cherry Cobbler from Stampin' Up. I am seriously in love with this color!

 

 

Here is Taylor's sketch image - fab as usual!

 

My color pallette I was talking about earlier! The brown is Soft Suede from Stampin' Up.
 

 

 Card #1:

 
 

 

 

I made my own background paper using the itty bitty apple stamp in dark red ink on the dark red paper.

 

 

 

 

Card #2

 

 

 

 

I'm still here!

Hi everyone! I'm still here...just a bit frazzled and busy and frazzled. Oh, did I say frazzled? This weekend was crazy. Sorry...I'm hoping to be back tomorrow with a Fall card of some kind!! I have some ideas rolling around in my noggin, and I'm dying to stamp. Tomorrow is my day off from work so stamping is first on the agenda. Someone hacked my aol email and is sending out Viagra emails from my account...UGH. Not sure how exactly to fix it but I'm working on it. Did I tell you I'm frazzled? I think I did mention that. Okay, peace out bloggy friends...I'll be back soon! Hope you are all well and happy in your corners of the globe!!! Mwah.

 
 

Fall Blessings Card!

I'm back in Fall mode! I haven't stamped in at least a week! So busy running all around like a chicken with my head cut off! Last night I sat down and made a Fall card and relaxed by coloring this pretty image from Hero Arts! This time of year I find that there are so many activities and fun things to do and it feels rushed...even though I want the season to last forever...

 

 

I used some patterned papers from my Basic Grey stash and did the main image on cream PTI cardstock. Layers of chocolate brown and mustard yellow frame the focal point. The leaves are punched out of Kiwi Kiss paper from Stampin' Up. Of course, you know that border punch is from Martha!!

 

Here is a close-up of my coloring. I used my Prismacolor pencils in orange, olive and mustard - my three favorite fall colors.

 

 

 

Have a great day everyone!

Up, Up and Away!

Wow!  I have something really fun to share with you today! The hubs and I decided last night to do something crazy and go to the Reno Great Balloon Races today! We had to wake up at 2:00 this morning and get ready to go. Then we drove two hours to the Rancho San Rafael Park in Reno, Nevada...find a place to park, walk a mile...all in the pitch darkness! The event kicks off at 5:00am! Even Starbucks wasn't open yet!

The whole event is free. There is no charge for parking or admission. There were thousands of people there and lots of families. It was a spectacular sight and a very nice time for us together. I love car time with the hubs to talk and connect. Afterwards, we drove down the hill, found some coffee and some amazing breakfast at a little place in Truckee. We did all that and we were back home at noon! You know, sometimes you just have to do those last minute crazy things to keep life interesting. I hope you enjoy looking at the pictures and I hope you all had a great weekend!

 

 

 

A pretty bride card!

Hey everyone...I'm sitting here in shock watching the live stream news about a giant fire in San Bruno, CA which is very near where I lived and worked for several years of my life. It looks like a gas main blew up and it is really scary. I'm sending some prayers out that way to all the residents and emergency personnel that are dealing with a horrible situation right now. Somehow, stressing over my blog post for today seems pretty minor.

Tonight I'm changing out of Fall mode to share a custom card I made for a photographer friend. She wanted to send one of her brides a thank you note using her wedding color (pink) and a photograph. My friend gave me this very artsy, cool photo she took and I made it into this clean and simple/elegant card...

 

 

My "go to" wedding font is usually Scriptina...which I used here. I printed the words on a piece of vellum to soften the contrast of the photograph. Vellum always seems wedding-y to me too.

 

Layers of white and yummy pink Bazzill cardstock...

 

 

A gorgeous Prima flower...

This is a great technique to use for scrapbooking too. Pretty with portraits, weddings and such. For our honeymoon scrapbook album I printed out my vacation journal entries on vellum and then put the vellum sheet over some of our favorite pictures.  I need to get crack-a-lackin on some new Fall projects! Take care and have a wonderful night!

HIYA!

Hey! Hope everyone had a great Labor Day weekend! I know I did! The hubs and I took a little getaway "bay-cation" to the South Bay. Had us some fun! We went to a concert and shopping and out to dinner with a friend and sleeping in...my idea of perfection! It was hard to come home and back to reality at 5:15am today when the alarm went off.

Found a great new Scrapbook store in San Jose that I had never been to before - Scrapbook Island. Awesomeness. And a return trip to Cranberry Hill Mercantile in Sunnyvale...more awesomeness. I got a new handbag and a necklace at the mall. I was on cloud nine.

The best part was going to the Green Day concert at Shoreline with hubs. We had a fabulous time, the show was great, the weather was perfect, and I even got to drink a margarita out of a guitar glass. Heehee. What more could a girl want?

Here's a Fall card I made last year and saved. I finally photographed it and would like to share it today. Also, you can meet Mr. Chipmunk! A recent acquisition...pretty funny!

The background was embossed with my Cuttlebug on orange paper with a white core. I then took a sanding block and barely sanded the pumpkin images. The stamp is all one large stamp from Printworks that I got a few years ago.

 

I colored this with my Copics...and I can see that I would color it differently now, one year later, after practicing more with my pens. I think it feels kind of rustic, though, and that's okay.  You can barely see it, but I added some brown speckles at the end with my blo-pen.

 

Mr. Chipmunk! He makes me smile! Does anyone else crack up at those Carmax commercials with the chipmunk and the funny music? Or is it just me? Don't answer that.

 

The band! I took 125 pictures, but I will spare you. Here's a good one of the three main dudes...

Nuts About YOU!

I'm nuts about you! Love this cute stamp and sentiment from Memory Box! Isn't that little squirrel funny? I love him! He's perfect for Fall! I don't know where I got this patterned paper from, but I think it is Debbie Mumm from way back.

 

I colored the image with my Prismacolor pencils and I didn't blend the colors completely so it would (maybe?) look like he was furry. I used about five shades of brown and gold and sienna to color it. Just left the rest of the card kind of simple.
 
 

 

 

 
 How is your weekend going? Thanks for stopping by!

Jumping into Fall!

I'm ready to go with my Fall projects! This card for today is one of my favorite cards! It incorporates a lot of techniques and I just really like the feel of it. I adore this patterned paper combination! We have a fun place to visit near our house called Apple Hill, and that's what this card reminds me of.

 

 

 

I started with a red card base and then smudged white craft/acrylic paint around the edges to make it kinda shabby chic. I sewed the patterned paper panels onto the main red card...and then tore some of the paper to make it look weathered and worn. I used ribbon without a bow, to make a border.

 

 
 

This is a pretty new candle I just got at Bath and Body Works...mmmmm...
 

 

 

 

This week I made red velvet cupcakes to bring to work for my friend Lisa's birthday. I had never made them before! They turned out pretty tasty. I also used cream cheese frosting...which is always yummy. I am trying to perfect my frosting technique. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't...

 

These cute little party birdies came in a package with some cupcake liners and I got them at my friend's store Paper Garden! They are made by Mara Mi. So funny!
 

 

 

 

 
It's Labor Day weekend! WooHooo! Three day weekend lays ahead for us all. We are going to the big Green Day concert tomorrow night in the bay area. CANNOT wait! This is our favorite band and this will be the third time we've seen them in a year. Always a fantastic show. Tomorrow also starts COLLEGE FOOTBALL season! YAY! GO BEARS!

I hope you all have a great weekend with your friends and families. Stamp On!

 

Happy Fall! Taylored Expressions #126 Challenge Card...

Yay! So, Fall officially starts in a few weeks...but at my house...it officially starts today - September 1st! I have always been a Fall person. I love everything about it. Cool weather, cute sweaters, college football, craft fairs, fog, new binders, apple cider, beautiful leaves, harvesty scented candles, Thanksgiving, my birthday, our wedding anniversary, Halloween...shall I go on??? ACK!   Bring.It.On.

I put up a new blog banner today for the season. In the past, my blog banners have all been digital images I've taken. This new one is from a photograph made using film (gasp! remember film?). I scanned it into my printer on very high resolution and it came out fine. I was worried it wouldn't look right since it didn't start out as a digi image. It's a picture I took on our honeymoon. The hubs loves Fall too...so we were married October 3rd, 2001 and our honeymoon was spent in Boston, Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine and New York. We got married on Cape Cod - in Chatham - in a pretty little gazebo right by the water. Our honeymoon was the most wonderful trip ever. We took 28 rolls of film! Then we had to wait for them all to be developed! It killed me! The best thing about digital photography is the instant gratification part. Don't you agree?

Thanks for listening to my story...I'm sure I'll be rambling on more and more about how much I love Fall. Especially once football starts. That's a whole different story...

My card for today is my entry into the Taylored Expressions Challenge #126! Yes...I do have a card for today! haha.

 

 

 

Here is the sketch image from Taylor:

 

 

I was going to use flowers, or hot air balloons, and all sorts of things for my card...but then I recalled a photograph I had taken last Thursday night and it was instant inspiration! Instead of bright and colorful, I went sort of moody and monochromatic for this challenge. I really like how it came out. It would make a nice masculine card, I think.

 

 

 

 

 

Here is my inspiration photo - a lovely cappuccino I had at dinner Thursday night. I went out with my bestie JP to Cafe Bernardo. For the Sac-town crowd - it's at the corner of 15th and R. The food is delish and fresh and healthy and the atmosphere is casually elegant.

 

This is another photo I took at the restaurant Thursday night! I have been dying to share it with you and I feel like it really fit the mood/tone of today's post. The ceiling in the restaurant is painted all black and then there are different types and sizes of chandeliers hanging all over. LOVE IT!

Are you as excited as I am about the change of season? What is your favorite tradition? Have a wonderful day all!