TBS DT: Pear Soap, Vintage Style

Hello dear friends! Wow, the last week has been a whirlwind of beads and baubles and sparkles and... butane torches. I'll fill you in soon, but for now I want to show you a bit of my current Beary Scrap DT project:

Pop on over to the design team blog for more details! See you there!

Cheers,
Susan

Everything's Coming Up Roses!

Hello hello! I'm very pleased to tell you my favorite mulberry roses are now available at The Beary Scrap.

 You've seen them on many of my cards; now you can get them, too! Kimm has a great variety of colors and sizes and excellent pricing. Ooh, and she has super fast shipping, too. Order today and they can be at your door in just a few short days. Happy shopping, my paper crafty friends!

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In other news, there is still one more day to enter our Beary Sweet Challenge #3: Get Sketchy With Us.

 

You can see how the design team used this fun sketch at our blog:

• My card on Monday
• Elise on Wednesday
• Jamie on Thursday
• Patricia on Friday
• Gini on Saturday

Have a great day!

Cheers,
Susan

TBS DT: Father's Day

Hello hello! Happy day to everyone. I hope you had a good weekend. Due to our East Coast humidity, we hid inside for most of it. Wow is it hot these days; and it's not even summer yet! As I write this Sunday evening, we're under a tornado watch here on the eastern shore of Maryland. Y'know, I thought we left all that when Ohio was in our rear view mirror for the last time! *sheesh*

So, have *you* entered our Beary Sweet sketch challenge yet? You have until the end of day June 14th to get it linked - you could win a gift voucher from The Beary Scrap!

In honor of dear old dad, The Beary Scrappy Gals are celebrating Father's Day this week. Go Dad!

I'm on a bit of a vintage kick these days and decided to put a sketch challenge and my love of vintage images  together. The end result has all the hallmarks of my inner quirkiness, and I love it!

Ok, so I'm really excited to tell you about my moon. It's a vintage image from The Graphics Fairy that I sized to about 3"x3" and printed. Do you remember my crackle glass tutorial from way back in March? Well, that old technique has been tossed out the window for an easier and more effective one-step process. Yes! I said "one step"! I also said "process", and I'm not sure if one step can be a process... but I digress.

Have you seen Tim Holtz's Distress Crackle Paint? It is fabulous. Really. I used the clear paint on Mr. Moon and allowed him to dry. As this paint dries it makes these tiny crackles that look truly vintage. All the work is done for you! Check out this close-up:

Once dry I mounted him to a thick piece of bristol board for stability and popped him up on the card.  Cool, no?

I used a mix of new and old embellishements - the gold 3d leaf thingy is from my stash, and the three gems are vintage jewels from Grandma's stash. Oh, and one more thing - you might remember that Kimm walked me through the variety of clear Stickles after I whined about my Star Dust rut. I used the Stickles Diamond around the Happy Father's Day tag - it's like it has little flecks of 24 carat gold!

Challenges

• Midnight Madness #56 - Sketch
• Simon Says Challenge - Father's Day

Card Recipe

• Image - The Graphics Fairy
• Paper - Bazzill Basics Mud Pie and French Vanilla; My Mind's Eye Laundry Line (lush papers on sale right now!)
• Medium - Tim Holtz Distress Crackle Paint in Clear; Color Box Fluid Chalk in Chestnut Roan; Stickles in Diamond; Distress Stickles in Frayed Burlap around the moon
• Embellishments - Bazzill Tulle in French Vanilla (3 layers thick); others from stash
• Tools & Adhesives - Spellbinders Shapeabilities Fancy Tags; Scor-Pal (love this fun new tool!); Scor Tape in 1/4"; sewing machine

Thanks so much for stopping in! Please visit The Beary Scrap Design Team blog all week for great Father's Day projects from each of us!

Cheers,

Susan

Birthday Blog Candy Winner!

Hello hello! I have to tell you it's been wonderful to have all of you visit and take a look around. Through the entries and the comments I have found loads of new friends and spent hours browsing through incredible projects on your blogs - and I'm not done yet! Thank you so much for reading my "rules" and giving me your time. I truly appreciate it.

It seems that three cards really stood out to you (in a completely non-statistical, "I eyeballed it" kind of way):

 

I loved to see comments about cards that weren't too "sweet" - it reminds me that I can make cards without frills or Magnolias... *wink* I love my Maggies, but there are others that really rock, too.

Thanks so much for this walk down memory lane!

Without further ado, a big huge THANK YOU to everyone reading this for entering my candy *and* making it through to the end of this post. If I have not stopped by your blog and left comments be warned that I will! *grin*

Congratulations to lucky number 50:

Pam H. from Making Stuff Daily

Mr. Random Guy picked you for his Wednesday Love. Please email me with your mailing address and I will pop your goodies in the post tout suit!

Cheers,

Susan

CLP #26: June Sketch Challenge!

Hello hello! Can you believe it's June already? Wowzers, the year is flying by! Can someone press the pause button, please?

So with June 1 comes another fabulous sketch at the CLP Challenge Blog. Yay! I just lovelovelove Chelsea's sketches, don't you? This month is sponsored by the Digi Doodle Shop, and they very kindly let me use their Rooster image.

When I saw the rooster, I knew immediately that I wanted to use a paper pack from GCD Studios called Provence. "OH!", I thought to myself, "I can make a card in a French country theme with all the delicious papers in this poor, neglected pack."  

Mais, non. Il n'était pas possible. Les tendances étaient trop lumineux et en conflit avec le coq.

So I decided on Websters Pages paper and dug through the vintage embellishment bin and found bits and pieces that work. I still have a bit of French feel (er, ignore the tiny fact that the bingo card is from Springfield, Mass... 'k?) and the rooster pops on the card. Whoo hoo! Or is that cock-a-doodle-doo?

Sooo, as usual I've put the ol' Susan Spin on the sketch. Most importantly, I reinterpreted the background oval on each side of my main image. The right-side clock fills the round requirement easily, but the left side charm holder brad thingy is where the "spin" really occurs. It's round, ok? OK?! Heh, it's round and it's my spin... I crack me up! (Oh, and I promise you the raffia lace in the background is not crooked, even though it looks so in the photo.) 

Please take few minutes to visit the CLP Challenge Blog and see all the incredible samples from the Design Team. Y'know, I have to pinch myself each time I visit to prove that I'm not dreaming up my slot on the DT. They are such a wonderfully talented group of ladies!

The challenge runs through June 30 - I look forward to everyone's entries!


Other Fabby Challenges

• CLP #26: Sketch
• ABC Challenges (end 6/6)- V is for Vintage
• Creative Inspirations (ends 6/1)- Distressed
• Delightful Sketches (ends 6/9)- Texture
• Charisma Cardz #21 (ends 6/2)- Going 'Round In Circles
• Opus Gluei #57 (end 6/5)- I Can See Clearly Now
• Pixie Dust Studio #24 (ends 6/2)- Going Round and Round

Cheers,
Susan 

TBS DT: It's Beary Sweet Sketch Week and BSC #3

Hello hello dear friends! I hope everyone is having a wonderful extended weekend. Here in the States it's Memorial Day, where we gather with family and friends and honor fallen soldiers. Of course, there are pounds of burgers, hot dogs and potato salad consumed, too. :) Best wishes for a happy and safe Memorial Day to each of you.

So it's Monday, which means I get to ring in a new week for the Beary Scrappy Girls and introduce our next design team challenge. This week we have a sketch challenge, designed by little ol' me. It's my first sketch and I think it turned out OK (if I do say so myself!).

"Hello, my name is Susan, and I'm a Basic Grey Kioshi addict."

Or so it seems, anyway! I can't get enough of the delightful patterns in this line of papers. Here I've used the larger 12 x 12 patterned paper for the background as well as the smaller 6 x 6 pattern paper. I love those itty bitty paper pads!

This little sweetheart is Bubbling Tilda, from Magnolia's Fairytale collection. I've layered her and cut out her bubbles. Her dress is lightly colored with cranberry and very pale yellow Prismacolor pencils. Her wings are colored with the same pencils and enhanced with Stickles. I used a Copic Spica pen to highlight random strands of her hair. Even though the sparkle is visible when I view this photo in Photoshop, it's washed out once uploaded to blogger. *sigh* That's what imagination is for, right?

The big flower is hand made with a strip of chiffon and Fabri-Tac. Cool, huh?

Card Recipe

• Stamp - Magnolia's Bubbling Tilda
•  Paper - Bazzill Basics in truffle and avalanche; Basic Grey Kioshi; Neenah for Tilda
•  Medium - Prismacolor pencils with OMS; Stickles Star Dust and Tattered Rose; Glimmer Mist Pearl
•  Embellishments - Homemade chiffon flower; Mulberry flowers (coming soon to the store!); lace and miscellaneous from stash

Challenges

• Flutter By Wednesday #111 - Must have a butterfly, fairy or angel
• Simon Says Challenge - Pink or Blue with Green and Brown
• Just Magnolia #57 (ends 6/3) - Hot & Spicy (Hot = summer = kids playing outside = blowing bubbles)
• Totally Gorjuss #32 (ends 6/4) - Wings
• Magnolia Down Under #48 (ends 6/5) - Flowers
• Magnolia Stamp Lovers #11 (ends 6/5) - Summer (blowing bubbles is a great childhood memory for me!)
  

Thanks for stopping in! Tomorrow is a new Beary Sweet Challenge, so be sure to visit the Design Team blog for all the details. Don't forget that today is the last day to enter your project into our current challenge - Fancy Folds. You could win a Scor-Pal!

Oh, and if you're a blog candy kinda gal, today is the last day to enter my birthday blog candy. Good luck!

Cheers,

Susan

TBS DT: No More Pencils, No More Books/Updated!

Ok, so I had to rework this original card. The 3am version wasn't so good the next morning, so I've changed and added a bit. I'm much happier now! *grin*

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Hello friends! I hope you had a wonderful weekend! I spent mine with my lovely in-laws. They came all the way up her just for little old me (last Thursday was my birthday). *grin* Husband and his father put up pegboard and did some other garage organization while my mother-in-law and I wandered the garden center. What a happy place! We all get along well, so visits usually fly by way too fast. *sigh*

This week at The Beary Scrap, the DT's are celebrating that school-age feeling that comes around at the end of May. Remember how excited you were for summer? Ahh, the exhilaration as that last bell rang out the school year.

No more pencils! No more books! No more teacher's dirty looks!

For my card, I've used two Magnolia stamps and the "joy fold" technique. (Click here for an SCS tutorial.) For some reason I decided to use loads of layers... hehehe. I can't help but think about my "inner Gini" again. *grin*

The front Tilda (Tilda with Pencils) is layered 3 times - the top layer is the pocket and left arm with books. "Happy Tilda" on the inside is layered twice.

The "reworking" includes the dogwood and crystal jewels, as well as changed-up charms: I added the chains and a homemade pearl bauble. I colored the pearls with a pink Copic on the front (as well as the butterfly trail on the inside). 

This is the first time I haven't used a white "signature"panel - I'm on the fence about the green (or more accurately, I'm unsure of *anything* but white.) Ah well, the sewing machine had it's way with that panel, so green it stays!

Haha! How about that ladybug on Tilda's head? It's one of those unforseen quirks of homemade cards... right? I'm tempted to make it official and pop another ladybug on her head "for real". I added grass with Prismacolors, similar to the grass I did on this card. It's not quite as good as that Edwin card, but it gives enough of a hint of the grass she's frolicking in that I'm happy. The little butterfly is cut and layered from scraps of the MLS paper.

So, you know how much I LOVE my Star Dust Stickles, right? Welll, I was chatting with Kimm the other day, whining about something wanting a white Stickles without the iridescence, and she turned me on to Frosted Lace. It makes me think of a fine white Distress Stickles, if there was such a thing. I used it on the inside flower (with a touch of Star Dust in the center of the Frosted Lace), as well as on the front around Pencil Tilda's white frame. You can't really see it in the photo, but it's there!

Challenges

• Stamp Something - 2 of Something (2 Tildas)
• Fussy and Fancy #11 - Recipe: 3 images, 3 kinds of embellies, 3 patterned papers (whew!)
• Practical Scrappers - Felt, Fabric or Tulle - I used tulle ribbon
• Charisma Cardz #20 - 3D
• Sir Stampalot - Butterflies and Blossoms
• Flutter By Wednesday #110 - Flowers and butterflies

Card Recipe

• Stamps: Magnolia
• Paper: Bazzill Basics in Brown, Green and Cream; Neenah for stamps; Cosmo Cricket; My Little Shoebox "All A Flutter"
• Medium: Prismacolor pencils with OMS; Stickles Star Dust and Frosted Lace; ColorBox Fluid Chalk Ink on edges; Copic
• Embellishments: Prima flowers; Bazzill Tulle; Kaisercraft Pearls, colored with Copic; sewing machine; charms from stash
• Behind the scenes: Scor-Tape adhesive in 1/8" and 1/4"

While you're looking for project inspiration this week, don't forget our Beary Sweet Challenge #2 - Fancy Folds. You have until May 31 to link up - you could win a Scor-Pal! 

*And* if you're interested in trying out Kimm's excellent mulberry tearing technique, hop on over to this Store Blog post and enter to win her Boston Kitty pattern with mulberry paper. She's so adorable!

Thanks for stopping in, and I hope to see you at the challenge!

Cheers,

Susan