Vases and Gourds

This card was made for a challenge at The Ribbon Carousel to use paper piecing and, of course, some ribbon, lace, twine or most anything that comes on a spool. All of my vases are paper pieced with paper from a pack by Pressed Petals, Baby Boy. The flowers are stamped onto the ivory card stock. Vases and flowers are from a set by Papertrey Ink, Gracious Vases. The shelf is a stamp from a Gina K. Designs set, Nana's Needlework. The ribbon is from Michaels and was a absolutely perfect match for the patterned papers -- almost like they came together as a kit.

We visited with our friends yesterday afternoon who gifted us with that beautifully carved gourd. We saw so many lovely, fascinating pieces that he has carved, both from wood and gourds. I'm going to post a link where you can see all the pictures I took yesterday afternoon but I'll give you a sneak peek so that you'll know it will be worth your time to look at all the pictures!

The gourds still in their natural state.

This is Herschel, in his workshop, with the gourd he's working on now.

Some completed projects

A wood carving

Here's the link to a Picasa Web Album (crossing my fingers that it works!)

 https://picasaweb.google.com/117097305471329563789/HerschelSArt?authkey=Gv1sRgCI-d3LiRp-WIGw#

edited: looks like you'll have to copy and paste the link

"Talk" to you later,

Betty

A Reindeer Christmas

The layout of my card is inspired by the sketch challenge at  Merry Monday Challenge #4 

Paper and Such in combination with The Ribbon Carousel are having a challenge to make a holiday card with non-traditional colors. I consider red and green to be traditional Christmas colors so my colors of Stampin' Up Not Quite Navy and Silver and Aqua will be my non-traditional colors.  ooops! FYI, if you enter at The Ribbon Carousel, be sure to include ribbon, twine, lace, thread -- basically, anything that comes on a spool!

I embossed a silver metallic paper with Cuttlebug's DVine Swirl folder and using my finger, applied some meatallic rub on paste to the swirls (don't know if you can see this in the photo). I cut and embossed the base for my image, rubbing on the same metallic paste while the paper was still in the die.  Traced around the outer edge of this die and cut it out in order to get a darker colored mat. I stamped one of the reindeer from Layers of Color's Reindeer Waltz and fussy cut it, adhering to the matted base so it looks like he's flying away....... The sentiment is stamped with Versamark ink and then heat embossed with silver tinsel powder. Next I cut it out with a scalloped rectangle die and inked the edges with a silver pen. To assemble the card, I layered a panel of aqua paper onto the base of Not Quite Navy (hoping the lighter colored spots on this paper would resemble snowflakes -- use your imagination for this one, folks!) and adhered each layer till my card was all done.

I've really enjoyed the CAS sketches here at Merry Monday and at Freshly Made Sketches. Even thought I'm trying to get out of my box and try different styles, these clean layered cards are probably my favorite!

Come back anytime!!
Betty