Through the Woods (IO card challenge)

Second card... for the challenge
http://mitrafriant.typepad.com/impression_obsession_news/2015/09/new-challenge-happy-haunting.html 

Through the Woods
I used the IO Cover-a-Card "Branches" (CC031 C-A-C)
and my favorite little die cut town: IO "Haunted Hill" (Die 029P)
I had fun figuring out how to put the village behind the branches... and came up with die cutting the village in white and in gray. Then I used the relief or top white piece and the town or bottom gray piece. Then I sponged a moon with a circle die cut on a post-it note... and then stamped the black trees over it all. The trick was to add a branch in front of the bell tower- I stamped the branches again on gray paper and cut out the main two branches and glued them on (they are the ones on the left reaching to the moon and going over the bell tower.

Been a while... Batty Thoughts (IO Happy Haunting Challenge)

Can't say I am a talkative blogger for sure...been since last December?! I most post my new cards on my SplitCoastStampers Gallery... So... if you want to take a peek- go here:
http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/gallery/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=91627

Anywayyy.... Impression Obsession (IO) has me at it again... and it's a challenge again: Happy Haunting! Rule was only IO products. And it had to be new (no back-dating) and a few other rules. Go check out the challenge here:
http://mitrafriant.typepad.com/impression_obsession_news/2015/09/new-challenge-happy-haunting.html What I discovered is that I still don't have enough IO goodies... (time to go shopping?) .... in spite of this, I think I did pretty well. Check out my two creations...

Batty Thoughts
I used the IO Cover-a-Card "Clouds" (CC091 C-A-C)
again my favorite little die cut town: IO "Haunted Hill" (Die 029P)
and IO Top Edger "Greetings" (Die 234-M)
For this one I stamped the clouds in gray. And then sponged a moon yellow and some rust (masking the cloud first) and some of the surrounding sky with a navy blue. (The photo makes it all look too blue). Then I made a gray shadow of the town by gluing a black die cut of the town over a gray die cut. And sadly, I found I had no Halloween greetings by IO in my stash... so I decided Thinking of you and some bats could work.  I like it... :)

Gonna post my second card in a second post...
happy haunting to all!
:) Makani

CAS (clean and simple) Impression Obsession Holiday Cards

Today I was inspired (again) by Kittie Caracciolo  and her lovely, simple, elegant cards... and decided to do a couple CAS Impression Obsession Holiday Cards. I will be entering them in the contest over at the Impression Obsession Blog. Fingers crossed! LOL

Holiday Bird Watching

This first card is some fun with die cuts and thinking like a cat... with birds on the sill.

I decided to go with a 5 1/2 x 5 1/2 inch size card with some nice merlot, celery and white for colors. 

The Dies used were all from Impression Obsession    (http://www.iostamps.com/)

Large Window with Window Box set: DIE103-ZZ 

"Thinking of You" is in the Greetings Top Edgers word set (3 words): DIE234-M

Cat set (6 kitties): DIE083-K

Small Birds Set (10 little birds) DIE154-A

Fancy Tree set (2 trees) DIE031-N

The trees were stamped green on light green with The Fluff Cover-A-Card stamp CC104

Snowy Night

My second card is a little darling  little 3 1/4 x 3 1/4 inch card. I got the idea of cutting off stuff from the Haunting Hill and using the church and house as something not Halloween from Cindy at the Impression Obsession booth at the Rubber Stamp Convention a few weeks ago. So many ideas have been flowing in since... 

The house and tree are parts of the bigger landscape die called Halloween Hill DIE029-P

The snow is just dots using my new Sharpie White Extra Fine Point Water-Based Pen- worked great!

The scallop square is from some old scrap Stampin' Up! Paper

I am sorry, I can't remember where I got the little words "Merry Christmas" from. 

The best thing is that all the IO dies cut sooooo well! I love how they are made and work so well. Thanks Impression Obsession!

Anyway... thanks for looking. Hope I've inspired you. 

Happy crafting,

Makani

PS Merry Christmas from our little neighbor dog, Creature. He's loving his new lumberjack tartan fleece winter coat from Auntie Makani. 

Love, Creature "woof" 

Wag, wag, wag, wag, wag... 

The Fog in the Trees and Popping Up Fun

So... I've been inspired again... this time by an Impression Obsession Cover-A-Card Stamp called Pine Trees     Here's what that stamp looks like:

I also was inspired by the landscape where I live (ah paradise).


These sunrise pictures were from two days ago and the fog pic was taken by my son not long ago. These are common sights. Nice.

And below is the card I made...  "Trees Through the Fog"

The rolling fog is done by daubing different hues of gray ink on the edge of a torn piece of paper shaped to look like rolling hills. To get the layered effect, you have to play around and re-position it a bit.

To make the trees look darker- more like shadows- I double or triple stamped them. The trees are are from 3 companies:
1) Stampin' Up! Lovely as a Tree
2) Ink-adink-ado
3) Rubber Stampede
I drew in the little tree tips because it was hard to get the stamps to work. My son thinks I should take an art class, because I have potential- awww... Hmn, maybe.

Trees Through the Fog                         

The other inspiration came from the SplitCoastStampers Challenges- just gotta love how they help get the creative juices flowing!

The sketch was to use layered die cuts TLC509... Here are my works of art:

Tree of Trees and Gems

This one was all die cuts and a bit of bling and string. 

The trick to make the candy cane from the baker's twine is to rub some Modge Podge 

(it's like glue) on them, shape them, then let them dry on a non-stick cookie plastic sheet.

Beary Merry Christmas

This one involves stamping the cute bear "Grizz" by Judith Stamps, the tree by Amuse Stamps, and the words from an old Stampin' Up! set called Warm Words. I added the "Love, Bear!"

The die cut pail (with handle!!) on some silver foil poster board paper is made 

by Impression Obsession. The ornaments and the star are all from the retired 

Stampin' Up! Merry Mini punch set and on foil poster board paper- I had to make the green one by coloring a silver ornament with a green alcohol marker. Gotta love those makers!

Cocoa for Two and Two for Cocoa, You for Me and Me for You... 

This last one combined the same layered die cuts from the retired SU! Scentsational Season dies

and matching stamps set and SU! Season of Style Designer Paper. 

The cute little penguins and the saying are from Ink-adink-adoo. Penguins get me everytime!

I was inspired for the layout by the SCS sketch challenge SC516

Well, that's it for now! Hope I inspired you!

Happy creative crafting and playing! 

Makani

PS I post more pics on my SplitCoastStampers (SCS) gallery than here- go see more here:

http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/gallery/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=91627

Soda Can Butterfly, Scenes from my Window, and Starlight Starbright!!

Thank you Kat at A Stamp in the Hand for once again hosting the Rubber Stamp Convention in the San Jose, CA area!  Here are a few of my inspired works...

Soda Can Butterfly
Tessler Stamps had a great demo once again at the convention for this... but when I got home and wanted to do it... I couldn't find a video on it anywhere... so after a dozen failed attempts today, I figured it out. Then I videotaped how to do it and loaded it to YouTube so next time I won't forget how!  Check out my video here.... Soda Can Butterfly by Makani (and if it helped- vote you like it!)

And you will see how to make some lovely butterflies...

I included the recipe at the end of the video... but I will paste it here too:

How to Make a Soda Can into a Butterfly- Using a Big Shot or Vagabond (or Cuttlebug)
Recipe from the bottom up...
1) Magnetic plate (for Cuttlebug- use A plate + C plate)
2) “B” sized (thinner) acrylic plate
3) Metal shim plate
4) Card stock
5) Fun foam
6) Soda can – print side up – toward the blade
7) Wax paper
8) Butterfly die- blade down
9) “B” sized (thinner) acrylic plate
10) Brush with a toothbrush or a Spellbinders Tool ‘n One to remove small pieces

Making Designer Paper from Background Stamps

and View from my Window... 

The second inspired work was from the Impression Obsession Booth- love your work Kallani Allred and all your help Cindy! I bought a lovely Cover-A-Card background stamp of a winter scene and some wonderful die cuts of little deer, a window with panes, and some phrases that pop up... to create this. (Note, the background paper was made with 2 stamps and 3 colors- thin stripes 2x and a vine stamp.)

I was in the mood for window cards this past few weeks- here's another... 

The other theme of the week has been stars- here are a few of my star creations:

This white and silver star card was inspired by my friend Deidre's Noel card.

The paper fan card (aka sunburst or star) is so much fun to make. Great way to use up scraps!!

That's all for now. :)   Makani