A Blog Called Wanda

One last Summer project...Sweet Strawberry Basket!

Hi friends! I am SO super excited to finally share this set of projects today. I've been working on this post for a couple of weeks because I was having so much fun and just kept adding things! Fall is just around the corner (yay!), so this will be my last official post of Summer. I thought it was fitting to end the season with sweet summer strawberries in a basket! Don't strawberries just scream "Summer" to you!? Where I live there are little strawberry stands on the corners and you can eat so many you could burst. We've been enjoying them in our smoothies especially this year!

As I was getting ready to post this, I popped over to the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Blog to see what the challenge was for this week! Guess what? It's anything goes! So, my project will be entered there for a chance to win a gift certificate! That is such a fun forum to share. So many great projects from everyone. You should join too....After all, anything goes!

This project all started with the super cool and inventive Berry Basket die from Papertrey Ink. Yes, my aqua basket is made from paper!! You cut four of the dies and then glue them together into the basket. It is much bigger than I thought it would be and it can hold a lot. I am seeing many treat ideas coming from this one!! Once I made the basket I decided to fill it with some gingham strawberries made with the Lori Whitlock (Sizzix) Sweet Strawberry die set...

After my pretty basket was filled with berries....I decided to add a tag. Then I decided to add a card... You see how this all went!! Hahaha. I really just couldn't stop! Okay, I'll quit blabbing and show you some pictures! 

 

 

Everything in my projects is from Papertrey Ink, with the exception of the strawberries dies. Here is a close up of my tag. I used the Parisian Lace Doily die to add some white to the front of the basket. I used the Strawberry Patch stamp set for the strawberry images... The sentiments on the tag and the card are from the Bold Bouquet Anniversary set. Can you see the pretty scallop border at the top of the basket? Genius really.

 

 

The strawberry dies come with the leaves and the little flowers. I added some enamel dots in the centers of the flowers and some twine. SO cheery right?

 

 

Here's my card to go with this project. I kept the entire thing cohesive by using the same colors and same font on everything. I love how this came out. The green swirl on the card is part of the strawberry die set also. This butterfly die from PTI is probably the most used thing in my craft room! It's so perfect - with a heart in the center.

 

 

 

Here's a side view to show my layers....

 

 

 

Here are my parts! Ready for assembly... You can see that I edged the leaves in a darker green ink to add dimension. The berries are held together with a brad at the top - that also goes through the leaves.

 

 

 

Strawberry - ready for your close up! LOL.

 

 

 

I wanted to show you the detail on the basket. My head is already full of more ideas...Can't you see it in black for Halloween candies? Or kraft paper for a rustic Christmas wrapping??

 

 

 

SMILE!

 

 

 

You're simply the best. Oh yeah, I added a strawberry to the inside of my card too! One little trick I do whenever I'm die cutting something or stamping something...I do an extra one. Then I can either put it inside the card or put it on the envelope!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Whew! Thanks for hanging in there all the way to the end of my post! I hope you have fun plans for the long weekend and Labor Day. I'm excited about the anticipation of Autumn and feeling the cool breeze in the mornings. Here at the bloggy blog, Fall starts on September 1st! Because I can't wait any longer! I'm working on a new blog header for Fall and also have been working on a leaves project for Monday's post (sneak peek on Instagram). Until then, go out and have some fun! XOXO

 

Mama Elephant August Challenge... Watercoloring + Birthday!

Happy Weekend! How's it going? We just got home after watching our nephew play football this afternoon. It was a wonderful day out at the park and he played really well. He has worked so hard all Summer and we are so proud of him in his starting position this year. He is twelve and already has a good head for the game. Can't wait to watch him grow into his own... We came home and made dinner, and now I'm finally getting around to posting the card I made this morning! 

I made this card for the Mama Elephant and Me August Challenge! The theme for August is Watercoloring + Birthday! I used the free set I received last month called "In My Heart" and made a cheery birthday card. I popped this card with lots of red accents and I always love red and aqua together. Here ya go.... 

 

 

 

 

I think this would be a good 'across the miles' birthday card! All the supplies are from Mama Elephant except the tiny 'happy birthday' stamp, which is from PTI. All the dies and other stamps are ME. So much fun to make this one! 

 

 

 

I colored the images with my Gansai Tambi 36 Watercolor set. I loooooove the shades of these paints and they are so creamy and dreamy to work with. I made my girl a blondie like me! 

 

 

 

 

You can see that the white watecolor tag has a row of hearts across the bottom of it. I did that by taping the row of hearts die onto the same paper as my tag, as you see here....

 

 

 

Voila! I used watercolor paper since I love the texture and I knew I was going to stamp my girl directly onto the paper. 

 

 

 

I cut a second tag out of bright cherry red paper. Here are all my pieces...

 

 

 

I have been trying lots of different inks with my watercolors and have finally determined that (for me) Versafine works the very best. It doesn't bleed or smear when you are painting. The Memento Inks really were not working for me... I use my glass stamping mat to watercolor - you can see my paints on the right side. It's so easy to clean up. 

 

 

 

I like how the red paper shows through the heart cut outs...and I adore these fonts! My layers are cut using the Femme Frames dies. 

 

 

 

After the card was done I had the idea to add some itty bitty red hearts coming out of the envelope! That tiny envelope has a lot of love! The letter is from the Panda set. 

 

 

 

A little bit of twine at the top and we're done! 

 

There is still time to enter the Mama Elephant and Me August Challenge! Join in the fun! CLICK HERE to go to the page for the challenge! Have a wonderful day! XOXO 

Oh, wait, one quick last thing....Some Instagrams! YEAH! You know I love me some Instagrams! First up is a photo of a card I made our nephew to give him at the game today. I had bought him a football tee shirt and, you know, it needed a card! 

And here's a shot from the sidelines this afternoon! 

Okay, now I'm really done! Bye! 

Warm thoughts...and a cuppa joe! Paper Smooches Anything Goes Challenge!

Hi everyone! How's your week going? I got some rare time in the crafty cave after work today. Yay! So I searched around for a fun challenge.... And, wouldn't you know it, The Paper Smooches Challenge for this week is "anything goes!" Double Yay! I went and got out all my fun Paper Smooches stamps and went through them until an idea hit me! Bam! Coffee.... I made a clean and simple card using a fun layout. Hope ya like it! I used three different stamp sets. One of the very best things about Paper Smooches is that the stamps all mix and match so well! Warm Thoughts to you friends....

 

 

 

 

I stamped and cut out the three coffee mugs and then colored them to match my patterned papers. I stamped my sentiment vertically on the edge and added the heart. Here you can see I added some spots of Prisma Glitter too...

 

 

 

Here's a side view....lots of foam tape going on...

 

CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE CHALLENGE PAGE! 

 

I thought some twine would be cute and I added the twine and an enamel dot for a small accent...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Coffee anyone!? 

 

 

I hope the rest of your week is amazing!

Thank you for visiting! 

Texture and Color...

Hello my friends! What a nice weekend I'm having! Whew - too much fun for one girl. Friday I left work early and the DH picked me up from the office to go to a concert! We went to see Counting Crows at the Greek Theater in Berkeley. What an amaaaaaazing show! Wow. They have been on my concert list for quite some time and I was so happy to see them here at (their/our) home. (Fun fact - I actually went to college with the lead singer of Counting Crows!) The weather was gorgeous, the beer was cold, the show was fantastic! We got home at 2:30am! OMG I am WAY too old for staying up that late!

Saturday we went for a peaceful drive up to the mountains to visit my friend Steve who was camping out. We needed to help him celebrate his 50th birthday. YAHOOOOO! It was a glorious day up at Union Valley Reservoir! We took our chairs down by the water and gabbed the day away. So nice to relax and catch up with friends, isn't it? We don't do that too much these days, because everyone is going 100 mph all the time. I really tried to be in the moment, just sitting there in the sunshine with a nice breeze. Looked up at the skies to say "Thank you Lord!" 

Today I'm in the craft room, mostly organizing some things... I had no idea what to make today and then I saw this piece of text paper that I had in my stash. I decided I wanted to use it, and pick up some of the pretty colors in the text. Well, the project turned into a nice mix of textures and colors... 

 

 

 

 

The yellow and teal paper are the Swiss Dot paper from Bazzill. Lends a very nice and subtle texture to the card. Yes, I am still using wood grain paper on everything. I'll try to let it go....

 

 

 

The tag die is from My Favorite Things, the butterfly dies are from Papertrey Ink, the leaves are from Memory Box and the frame dies are from Mama Elephant! I think that pretty red heart is an old embellishment from Wendy Vecchi?? 

 

 

 

Can you see all the pretty colors in the text paper? Love that! 

 

 

 

I didn't really feel like adding a sentiment. I stamped Happy Birthday on the inside though. You can never have enough birthday cards, right? 

 

 

You guys probably know that I'm kind of (a lot) obsessed with Instagram! Do you have an account? Leave a comment with your user name and I'll follow you! Mine is stampcatwg. Thought I would post a few of my Instagram photos from the weekend to share.

First up - arrival at the show! Perfect antidote to a long week in cubicle land! 

 

 

Counting Crows! OMG they are a million times better in person than on a recording! 

 

 

The birthday card I made for my friend's birthday. Lots of watercoloring and Distress Ink goodness going on there! This was a fun card to make! 

 

 

Ice House Road, off Highway 50 on the way to Lake Tahoe. Hard to believe in about 30 minutes from home you can be in the middle of nowhere! So lovely. 

 

 

Union Valley Reservoir where we sat the day away.... I used a cool iPhone app called Distressedfx to make this one look like a painting. 

Okay, I think that's enough for one day! Hope you've been having a lovely Summer weekend! XOXO

Thank You Butterflies - Watercolor technique

Hi everyone! Okay, here's what.... I'm STILL addicted to watercoloring everything! ACK! I can't stop myself. That's okay, though, right? And, I'm also currently (re)addicted to my woodgrain paper! LOL. Do you go in phases with your supplies like that? What are you obsessed with right now?

Today I'm sharing a clean and simple butterfly thank you card that I watercolored. I need to give a shout out to the super talented and sweet Dawn from WPlus9. She is so generous with her knowledge and her amazing videos. Seriously...whew. CLICK HERE to see her video page. I sat in my craft room Sunday afternoon just watching her and learning all kinds of cool tricks. This card's for you Dawn! XO

 

 

 

This butterfly stamp is an oldie! It's from Impression Obsession, and it's been in my stash for years....and now I gave it new life with a new technique! I stamped the image first in Antique Linen Distress Ink onto the flat side of a piece of watercolor paper. That gave me a really nice soft image. Then I watercolored my butterflies with shades of blue, olive and yellow... The sentiment is from a pretty set from WPlus9. That font is gorgeous. You can see I also colored the background with a blue wash and then spattered some brown too. The brown makes it have a 'natural' feel to it and ties in the wood paper...

 

 

 

I cut out one extra butterfly and mounted him near the sentiment for some dimension. You know I am not capable of making a flat card! Here again is that pretty sentiment. The watercolor paper is mounted on foam tape.

 

 

Here is a side view of the watercoloring - I think it's easier to see in this shot.

 

 

I want to make some more of these in different colors. I think they would make a beautiful gift box set of thank you cards!

 

 

Here is a shot of my supplies and ink colors....

 

 

Before I go for today - Just wanted to put out another reminder about the Taylored Expressions Stamp Joy event taking place in Iowa on October 11th! I am already so excited about this cool event. Early bird registration closes this Friday - and it's such a great deal! Space is limited and classes are filling up quickly!! I would LOVE to see you there. I'm teaching a Fall Favorites class with Halloween and Autumn Inspired cards. CLICK HERE to see all the class descriptions! Let's Stamp Joy together!

 

That's it for me for today!

Have a fabulous day! XO

Be Strong & Courageous!

Ahoy there my friends! Summer is winding down...so I figured I would keep on sharing some more Summer projects while there's still time! LOL. It will be time to start thinking Fall here before we can blink an eye! You know I love some nautical shabby chic, and that's just what I have for you today! Flowers, pink, anchors, sequins...yay! And a beautiful Bible verse too. 

I was rattling around in my craft room this morning, organizing and what not. Nothing would come to me...I had no idea what to make today. Then, I spied this gorgeous Webster's Pages paper sitting on my desk...and the card came to me! The stamp is part of a gorgeous set called Safe Harbour Sentiments from Waltzingmouse. All the patterned papers are from Webster's Pages Ocean Melody collection. 

 

 

 

 

I really love the contrast between the woodgrain and the floral and the twine... All those different textures and colors together. And blue and pink is always a winning combination. Stripes too. Yum. 

 

 

 

I stamped my sentiment in Nautical Blue ink from Memento - the perfect match to the navy in the papers. This is one of my favorite Bible verses. How nice of Claire to make it into a stamp for me!! And the little ships' wheel? Awesome. 

 

 

 

Here's a side shot ot my layers. Foam tape - you know me by now! The sentiment panel is wrinkled - I just kind of wrinkled it in the palm of my hand for some added texture. I also distressed the edges of the papers. 

 

 

 

Be strong and courageous indeed! Great message! 

 

 

 

 

Thank you for spending part of your weekend with me! 

Have a fabulous day! XO

Fabulous Flamingos!

Cheers! Hope you're having a great week! It's already Wednesday?! Our heat wave has broken here in Sacramento and that makes me happy again. Also, I can feel the very slightest hint of Autumn in the air,and that makes me VERY happy. Last weekend I had a fun time at my friend Sharon's scrapbooking/crafting event. At the event, I made a cheery card using some brand new stamps from Reverse Confetti. Fabulous Flamingos is the name of the stamp set, and it literally just came in the mail last week. I looooove it! To me, flamingos just say - Florida and Palm Beach! So I used the preppy colors of Lily Pulitzer to make a happy flamingo card. This old preppy girl loves pink and green!!

Here's my card....

 

 

 

 

These flamingo stams ARE fabulous, don't ya think? They are perfection! For the front of my card, I forgot to leave room for a sentiment! So, I stamped parts of a larger sentiment to say "you are fabulous" and then stamped the entire sentiment on the inside. I kind of like how this 'accident' turned out! To do this, simply put washi tape over the parts of your stamp that you don't want to show, then ink it up. Remove the washi tape and stamp your words! Easy peasy!

 

 

 

I love that the flamingos come in two pieces - their body and their wing. This gives such a nice dimensional flair to them. And, their wings are polka dots!!! CUTE! 

 

 

 

Here is the inside of the card - using the entire sentiment. I like how it pulls together! I also added one more little guy down in the corner. 

 

 

 

Pink + green = happiness! 

 

Go out and be fabulous! 

 

Bee Creative! Bee Crafty!

Hello and Happy Saturday my crafty friends! YAY! It's the weekend and I'm stamping! What's better than that? Nothing! Okay, maybe if someone brought me a pitcher of margaritas - that would be better! LOL. It's been a creative day here in my crafty bee hive and I'm excited to show you my card for today! But first, can I share some super cool and fantabulous news? My seahorse tag was picked as a winner by Tim Holtz for July's 12 tags of 2014!! No, I'm totally NOT kidding! My heart skipped a beat yesterday when I went on Tim's blog to see the new tag for August...and I scrolled down...and there was my name! You know, that is one of my favorite projects I think I've ever made so it was extra nice to be recognized for this one. I get a prize (I have no idea what!!!) and a new blog badge (love).... Thanks for letting me blabber on about it.  

 

                        

So in honor of this awesome news, I decided to get all girlie grunge in the craft room and use some favorite Tim Holtz products. I had purchased the Layered Bee die and texture fade at the same time I bought the Layered Butterfly  die but I hadn't used it yet. I thought that would be a good project for today. My creative process is usually to be inspired by something (the bee die) and then scurry around the craft room gathering things that I think will work. I don't always use everything, but I like to have options...

Here are the things I chose...some stamps, some text paper, cool dies, and embellishments... Here's a trick I do when I get a new Sizzix Die. I cut the paper that comes in the package and mount it on the top of my die with double stick tape. That way I always have the reference - and to me it's easier than reading the side! 

 

 

And, here's my card!

 

 

 

 

 

There's a whole lot going on here!! I was thinking to myself...maybe it's a bit much? But I kept going anyway! Here's a close up of the dyed-to-match ribbon and some tattered floral flowers covered in rock candy glitter! I made my own saying using the tiny word stickers and put them on a stick pin....

 

 

 

YES! Create art forever! 

 

 

 

For the bee I cut out an extra set of wings and layered them on top of each other. The lower set is glued on to the back of the main die cut. I added some pretty yellow honeycombs for our sweet bee to hang out on. Using all shades of yellow Distress Inks and dies: Wild Honey, Lemonade and Mustard. I also used lots of Corduroy Distress Ink. The bee and the honeycombs are watercolored with the Distress Inks. The ribbon was dyed using the Distress Stains in the same shades. the flowers are Worn Lipstick Ink. 

 

 

 

This is kind of a cool technique that I haven't done in a while. I got some text paper and stamped and clear embossed a beautiful Tim Holtz Damask stamp onto it. It's hard to see in the photo....

 

 

 

Then, I took some Vintage Photo Distress Ink and a dauber, and started sponging around the design! See how it pops right off the page? I added some Wild Honey ink too...

 

 

 

I just started going a little crazy with the watercoloring. I try not to be too OCD about it...

 

 

 

For an added bit of grunge, I did some speckles of brown onto the honeycomb die cuts using the Spritzer Tool and my Gathered Twig marker. 

 

 

 

I cut out the flowers from a sheet of Menagerie Paper Stash (also from Tim Holtz) and put that over my text paper. Then I layered on the honeycombs.... It's starting to come together....

 

 

 

I added Rock Candy Distress Glitter to the wings of the bee - both sets of wings... 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This card is gonna need a BIG envelope! 

 

This week's challenge over at Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge Blog is "Anything Goes" so I think this card will fit the bill! That is always a fun challenge to enter - and you have a chance at a gift certificate! Yay! There's still time for you to enter too! 

CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE

SSS WEDNESDAY CHALLENGE BLOG!  

It has been so fun to share with you today! What are you working on right now? Hope you are having a wonderful weekend. XOXO