Marty's Sunday Sketch Challenge

Wow, week 6 already!  This is the sketch the Gotham City Stampers Design Team had to work with:

Where does Marty get these ideas?

This is my take (I was suffering from Christmas/Chanukah overload and wanted totally different colors):

Now if you head over to Heidi's blog, you'll see what the rest of the DT did.

A New Weekly Sketch Challenge

You may have noticed a new logo on my sidebar:

The Gotham City Stampers is my Stampin' Up team, and my upline Heidi recently created a design team within our team.  I am a proud member!

Every week we receive a sketch (done by Heidi's fiance Marty) and from that inspiration create a card.  Heidi posts our projects each Sunday and invites everyone to take the challenge and use the sketch.

Here is the card I did this week:

                                     

To see the sketch I used, all the other cards created, and to find out more about my amazing team, visit Heidi's blog.  And come back every Sunday to see what we've created that week.

Jewelry Inspired by Tim Holtz

Wednesday night I co-taught a jewelry class at Heidi's meetup group. I did these pieces as samples, but encouraged everyone to do their own thing, and they did some fabulous work.

The first two pieces were done with Tim Holtz's ornate plates. This one was colored with alcohol inks and decorated with some of Tim's foliage (also colored with the AIs).

The next one I left uncolored. The image is from Suze Weinberg's wonderful Instant Art collage book. It's covered with a coat of Glossy Accents, and blinged out with some crystals.

For this one, I used one of Tim's keyholes and a philosophy tag. The little clock I had in my stash, and the key is an old rusted one that I dabbed with a bit of gold alcohol ink.

This might be my favorite, because I love bird images. The charm is a Ranger memory frame. The image from my stash; can't recall where I got it. The roof is one of Tim's corner pieces, and I used one of his trinket pins to make it wearable. The little bird charm is from Fire Mountain Gems and Beads, and I toned down the original brass color with some blue alcohol ink. I made the little bird's nest with 24g wire and some white "pearls." After making the nests I saw a tutorial for them. Turns out there's a better way to do them, so my next batch should be even nicer.

Circle Circus

I LOVE this new Stampin' Up! stamp set. Yesterday I attended my friend Heidi's meetup, and we did three great cards that showcase the versatility of this set.

In this card we stamped random circles from the set on glossy cardstock with versamark ink, which we then sprinkled with clear embossing powder and heat set. Then, using a brayer, we covered the whole thing with ink. After it dried (quickly), we buffed the paper with a napkin. The resisted circles pop. Great and easy technique. Some Basic Gray taffeta ribbon and a circle brad complete the card:

The lattice die for the Big Shot was used in this card. The openings in it are perfect for some of the circle stamps to peek through. A little glitter adds some sparkle. The brads are actually SU's kraft colored ones which we dyed with reinker to match the cardstock. Cool idea.

In this card, we used the circles to form a topiary, and part of the large tag punch to make the flower pot.

Looking at the topiary, I thought about a snowman. When I got home, I fiddled around and came up with this card. I used white craft ink on Night of Navy cardstock, and heat embossing. I made his arms from the word window punch and his hat from about half of the designer label punch. For the snowflakes, I used the asterisk stamp from the Hello Again set we received at convention. I think it has a kind of vintage Russian look to it.

A Charmed Life

My good friend and crafting buddy Heidi asked me to prepare something as a guest blogger on her blog, Heidi's Crafting Mecca. My very first stint as a guest blogger! Who knew? Check it out here and then go make some charms!