Shake, Shake, Shake...

Hi Friends!

Welcome to a new week in a new month! Yikes! It's August already and my darling daughters are scheduled to begin school in a few short weeks. That means I'm also slated to head back to work, too. Oh my. Rather that think about that, how about I show you some cards I made? That sounds like lots more fun!

Of course these cards are inspired by cards I saw online. I think you would faint dead away if they weren't and I don't want to be held responsible for any dead faints. ;)

The first one is completely inspired by the wonderfully talented Laura Bassen's card that you can see here. I wanted to do the blended ink background and, well, it kinda grew from there. 

I'd never done partial die cutting, so I wanted to try that. Took a few attempts, but I got it. Yay. Then I wanted to do the blended color background to look sunset-ish. I also wanted to add some additional interest, so I heat embossed a Hero Arts background stamp in white before blending Spiced Marmalade, Ripe Persimmon and Squeezed Lemonade inks. I made that portion a shaker, like Laura did. I used a bunch of Martha Stewart chunky glitters from a set I got at Michaels. I really liked the letters she used, but of course, I don't own them, so I cut them using my Cricut and Artiste cartridge. The letters are cut at 3/4 inch. I blended Spiced Marmalade and Squeezed Lemonade on the letters and gave them a dose of Wink Of Stella (whihc is hard to see, but it is there) before gluing the letters onto the acetate. The palm trees and flipflops are from Lawn Fawns Life is Good stamp set adn the word sunshine is from Lawn Fawn's Hello Sunshine set. I heat embossed the sunshine and blended Spiced Marmalade, then added Picked Raspberries to make it a little more pink. 

I added the waves to help break up the vastness of the blue, since there is no texture on CTMH's cardstock. But I added them after I made the shaker. Um. Should NOT have done that. Let's just say doing so gave me several opportunities to embellish and leave it at that, shall we? I sponged on some clouds using Lagoon ink and a template made from the Taylored Expressions cloud die. All in all, I am happy with the final result, but along the way wasn't sure that this wouldn't end up in the trash can. Whew!

Now, while I was on a roll, I decided to try another card. I really liked the one with a butterfly die cut in this post. Only...I don't have a large enough butterfly die. So, I decided to go off on my own. That should have alerted me that this might not go well. Let's just say, I'm going to show you the card, even though I don't love it. I think the idea is good, but the execution could use a little (okay, a lot of) work. Ha, ha! (not)

See, I told you!

And another example of how this idea just didn't quite work.

I blended many distress inks. Rusty Hinge, Spiced Marmalade, Worn Lipstick (mistake #1), Crushed Olive (mistake #2) and then I tried to fix it with a few other colors. Yeah, that didn't work. I thought the white behind the leaf cut out was too stark, so I inked CTMH's Creme Brulee. It softened it, but I didn't put enough Recollections fall colored chunky glitter in the space and the inside of the leaf looks majorly stark. Sigh. The sentiment is from Lawn Fawn's set So Thankful for You. I added some hemp to give the bottom of the card more weight and for good measure added a few sequins. Unfortunately, I cannot get past the fact that the top of the card looks like newborn baby poop. 

I may try this again, with a few modifications. 

Thanks so much for stopping by! I hope you have a great day.