August Bombshell Blog Hop

Wow!  Another month gone by.  This month our theme is “Put Me in the Movies”.  We were to make a project inspired by a movie, or movie poster.  I chose one of my favorite movies of all time…Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.  That’s right, I’m a huge Marilyn Monroe fan.:)  I used the Bombshell Angel stamp and some of the Digital Stamp Outfits from Bombshell Stamps to make this.  I tried to make their dresses like some of the ones from the movie.  I made a mock poster to insert in an empty dvd case I had lying around…

And in the case…

I used Diamond Glaze on Marilyn’s dress, and Distress Stickles and a sparkly pen on Jane’s dress.(I swear their dresses look better in person)  The names and sentiment are from a French poster I found for the movie.  The paper is DCWV.

Now, if you’re following the hop order you should have arrived here from Alison’s blog.  If you just stumbled here by chance then you may want to start at the beginning on the Bombshell Blog.

Here’s the entire hop list…

Bombshell Blog

Alison

Laura – THAT’S ME!

Alaine

Meredith

Kelli

Mary G

Alex

Sparkly Engineer

Celina Anthony

Glittery Katie

Kapree

Cheryl

Dianne

Thanks for looking!  Happy hopping!:)

-Laura

Purpley Anniversary Card

I know, purpley isn’t a real word.;)  That’s OK, though.  My mom asks me to make anniversary cards for friends and relatives all the time, so this was one of the ones I made recently.  I used purple because the husband in the couple that this is going to loves purple.:)

This beautiful image comes from Kathie at Beary Wishes.  I just love it. 

And there’s a butterfly, so I’m going to submit this for Flutter By Wednesday #168.:)

Oh, and I keep forgetting to post this other anniversary card I made.  I made this one for Taylored Expressions sketch challenge a week or two ago, but forgot to submit is in time.  Oh well.  Here it is if you want to see it anyway.:)

Of course the stamp is from Taylored Expressions.

Thanks for looking!

-Laura

A Hello Card

I was cruising around blogland the other day and stumbled on the cutest image at A Day For Daisies.  All you had to do is play along with their current challenge – “It’s a Twine Thing “– and you could have the adorable image.  So here I am playing along.;)

This also goes along with Jen’s Deconstructed Sketch No. 16.

Such a cutie…

Image colored with Copics.  Paper from Echo Park and Wasau.  Sticker sentiment from Echo Park.  Twine from a local stamping shop.

Thanks for looking!

-Laura

Shabby Chic

I decided to finally give this challenge a shot.  I was a little overwhelmed at the idea of having to do a really feminine, lacy, and mostly white card.  You can find out more about the challenge over on the Bombshell Stamps Blog.  I tried some new things with this one…

(click for larger photo)

Sorry the lighting is not great in this photo, I do most of this stuff at night and my camera is worthless.  Anyway, I used the roses and sentiment from the Rose’s Portrait set from Bombshell Stamps for this.  I sanded the edges of all the paper and then took some pale Copic colors along the sanded edges.  These are some of my first rolled ribbon flowers, so hopefully they don’t look too bad.

Thanks for looking!

-Laura

Heart Journaling Week 5 Page

Here’s my page from last week’s Heart Journaling assignment from The Greeting Farm.  The assignment was Pieces of Me(layers and paper piecing). 

Rag Doll Sally stamp from Simply Betty Stamps.  Mushrooms are from Torico.

This week we have to use lots of text on our pages, so it should be fun!  Thanks for looking!

-Laura

Carnival of Curiosities

With a theme like that I knew I wanted to play along with the HDH Macabre Monday challenge this week.  OK, so I’m cutting it a little close on time, but I really wanted to play along since I’ve always been a fan of circuses and carnivals.  I kept trying to figure out what to do, but today inspiration hit me in the form of my darling little pretzel…

She can seriously lay on the floor and watch TV like this.  She and my husband are freaky double jointed people.:)  I wish I was half as flexible as them!

The stamp at the top is from Michaels, the circus tent is from Make it Crafty, the contortionist stamp and the sentiment are from Smeared Ink, and the paper is from DCWV. 

Thanks for looking!

-Laura

Forever Night Challenge

I stumbled across the Forever Night Challenges blog a few days ago and I was definitely intrigued.  Then I saw what the current challenge was and I decided I had to play along.:)  The current challenge is Mystical Women, you have to create a project with a mythical or magical woman in it.  I chose to use an oceanid or water nymph.  I decided that in this project she would be the famous Calypso.(the card shows her name in Greek)

I know it’s probably not as “dark” of a project as they were hoping to elicit, but she does fit the mythical category.:)  And I was dying to use this Water Nymph stamp I just bought.  I’ve been having fun with the mosaic stickers lately, too.

Hope you like my project, thanks for looking!

-Laura

Haute Zombie

I’m getting this in rather last minute, but I’m not out of time yet!  I wanted to make sure I played along with the weekly challenge over on Smudgy Antics this time, so here I am.  This weeks theme was Dead Divas.  The other day I saw this post by Barb and decided that I really needed to buy the digi set she linked to from Digi Design House.  I especially loved the cards she posted that had the high fashion lady colored in green!  So that’s what inspired this.

Calypso the rat and the sentiment are from Smeared Ink.  The tree stamp is from We R Memory Keepers.  Paper is from DCWV and Martha Stewart.

Now I’m not sure if the fashionable zombie has a hankering for rat brains, or if poor little Calypso managed to anger her, but she seems pretty determined to find her.;)  And now I think I’ve given this way too much thought, haha.

Thanks for looking!

-Laura

Heart Journaling

I keep meaning to post about this!  We’ve just entered into our 5th week for The Greeting Farm’s Heart Journaling project.  I’ve been wanting to do more art journaling, so this has been a great way to make myself do it.  I’ll share with you what I’ve done so far.

Week 1’s theme was Spread Your Wings

The Week 2 theme was Sandy Sunshine

The Week 3 theme was Gratitude

And the Week 4 theme was The Girl in Me

I’ll try to keep up from now on, posting each week’s page here as I go.

Thanks for looking!

-Laura

Friday Fascinations

Hello again!  I almost forgot about doing this!  This week my mind is on deeper things.  I find myself pondering over blog posts from other people.

First, I read a post over on Something Wicked.  It really made me think about the amount of stressing I do about the most trivial things.  And it made me cry. 

Then I read a post about homeschooling over at The Pioneer Woman.  It also made me tear up. 

Both of these posts stressed the need to enjoy life, to focus on the big picture, what’s really important…and not sweat the small stuff.  It’s something I really struggle with.  I stress out about everything.  I’m one of the tensest people I know.  I’m not uptight and snobby, I just have no ability to relax.  I’m trying.  I really am.  It’s just so terribly hard for me to truly let go and move on.

So that’s what’s on my mind right now.  I’m trying to focus on things that will help me relax and be able to move forward with my focus on what’s really important.  And I’m going to try to actually enjoy myself along the way.

Carpe diem!

-Laura

Card/Tag for Ryan

If you haven’t seen anything about it already please go read Meredith’s post about Ryan and his need for cards.(or click on the button on my sidebar)  It’s a good cause, so I decided to make a card for him.  I looked at some pictures of his bulletin board in his room and noticed that he had a quite a bit of Red Sox swag, so I wanted to incorporate that into my card. 

The tag comes out of the pocket…

I love making these pockets!

I’m going to mail it tomorrow.  I hope it brightens his day when he gets it.:)

Vintage baseball image from The Graphics Fairy.  Baseball stamp from Inkadinkado.  Dicro Fusible Fibers from USArtquest.  Paper from DCWV.  Fired Brick Distressed ink.

Thanks for looking!

-Laura

Wings!

Have you seen the new Pixie’s Bookshelf monthly challenge?  I think it’s such a cool idea!  This month’s challenge is to read the book Wings by Aprilynne Pike and then to make a project using wings!  So, I read the book yesterday and I LOVED it.  I totally fell in love with the characters and now I can’t wait to read the next book in the series.  I still can’t decide who I like better, David or Tamani?  Eek!  I love them both! 

Now onto the card…

Here you can see some of the shimmery silver details on her dress…(although you can’t see the shimmery gold in her hair, I just couldn’t get it to show up in photos)

Here you can see just how awesome the Dicro Fusible Fibers are…

I used Pixie Pearl from Pixie Dust Studio.  Paper is DCWV.  Sentiment made on my computer.

Thanks for looking!

-Laura

DTBST #85-Distressing

I love distressing!  So I decided I really needed to play along with the Dare To Be Sassy Thursday Challenge this time around.:)  I chose to use Popcorn Patty from Sassy Studio Designs.  I think she makes quite a sassy redhead…

(pictures can be clicked on to enlarge)

I made the sentiment using an online font generator.

Thanks for looking!

-Laura

Bombshell August Sketch

Hi!  I’ll keep this short and sweet.  I decided to play along with the Bombshell August Sketch Challenge.  I used stamps from the Rose’s Portrait set from Bombshell Stamps.  Here’s my card…

The colors are a bit truer to life here…

I think this is such a pretty set!  Papers are from Echo Park, Creative Memories, and Core’dinations.

Thanks for looking!:)

-Laura

Friday Fascinations

Hello!  I’m going to try something new for this blog.  It’s similar to something I used to do on my beauty blog.  On Fridays I would feature a favorite product that I was currently using.  Instead of limiting myself to a particular genre of things I’m going to try to post here on Fridays about whatever I’m currently obsessing about.  Whether it’s a product, a whole company, or just an idea that I can’t get out of my head, I’ll try to pick at least one thing each week to share with you.  If I get a good response I might even host related giveaways.:)

I have two things that are really spinning in my head right now.(Well, that’s not entirely true.  There are more than two things in my head right now, but you would be here for days if I told you about all of the things in my head.)

First, something that I have posted about before, but not in this blog.  Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab.  I have an obsession with scents.  Not the overpowering, synthetic, phthalate-filled scents you can buy at department stores.  Those fragrances usually make me feel ill(even some that I admire on others).  The scents at BPAL are high quality perfume oil blends.  And the variety of scents you can find there is insane.  I discovered their store 2 years ago and have been hoarding collecting their scents ever since.  So why am I obsessing about them now?  Well, every month they create a limited edition scent for the following month’s full moon.  The scent I have on right now is Berry Moon.  The scent that is currently available for purchase – the scent that corresponds to September’s full moon – is Harvest Moon.  Here’s the description of the notes in this fragrance…

“This Harvest lunacy combines the autumnal scents of dry leaves, warm, brown spices, white oak, Himalayan cedar, Russian sage, red apple, sweet black plum, juniper berry, clove, saffron, verbena, and yarrow with Dionysus’ sacred grapes and ivy, the amaranth and lingum aloes of Janus, and a gentle breath of Harvest Festival woodsmoke and sweet red wine.”

It sounds completely fabulous to me!  So, that’s why I’m obsessing about BPAL, yet again.:)

Disclaimer:  Aside from free samples that they include in orders, all BPAL scents I own have been purchased by me.  All opinions are my own. 

Second, I’m super excited about Stampaway!!  I went last year and it was a total blast.  I’ll be there all day tomorrow.  I’m so excited!  Last year I got to meet Tim Holtz there.

See…

He was so awesome!  I’m such a fangirl, lol.

This year I’m taking ATCs to swap.  It makes me excited and nervous.  Last year a lot of ladies were swapping outside before the doors opened and I felt so left out, so I decided I had to join in this year.

I’ve already got the floor plan printed out, and have been mapping out which booths will get most of my attention and money.  I know, I’m such a dork.:)

Well, thanks for putting up with my ramblings about what is currently on my mind.  Hopefully it wasn’t too disorienting.:)

-Laura

Smeared and Smudged August Hop

Hello, and welcome to the monthly member blog hop from Smeared and Smudged!  Our theme this month is PAINT!  I love working with paint, I’ve been doing a lot with it lately.:) 

My project for today is a small one, though.

I decided to alter/recycle this little bottle.  I’ll give you extra points if you can guess what it’s from.;)

I did something new here.  I heat embossed for the first time.  I used one of the Distress powders, so the stamp kind of turned out looking like a sandy, piratey poison symbol.:)

Here’s the hop list….

Tori

Madeleine aka ME!

Jane

Kapree

Sugar

Heather

Dianne

Lisa

Sara

Freddie

Ike

Monique

Lady Brayton

Thanks for looking!

My First Real Tag!

I don’t know why I’ve had such an aversion to tags up until now.  I liked them when other people made them.  I just couldn’t see myself being able to make attractive ones.  But I’ve been really inspired by some of the tags Alex has been making lately, so I thought to myself: “Self, you really need to try to make a tag.  Sooner rather than later.”  So I did.  And this is how my first real tag turned out…

I used the Tim Holtz Sizzix folder to emboss the brick pattern.  Then I realized I didn’t have any yellow colored Distress inks, so I used a Copic instead to make it look like a yellow brick road.  The “good witch bad witch” stamp is from Artful Illusions.  The paper is from Graphic 45.  The metal hands pointing in different directions are from my stash.  And the awesome Dorothy digi is from The Octopode Factory shop.

I would like to enter this into the following challenge:  TOFF #6 Girls Girls Girls

Thank you for looking!  Hopefully I will continue to get better at making tags!:)

-Laura

Smudgefest Day 7!

Yes!  I made it through all 7 days of Smudgefest! 

Today we were given a wonderful freebie over on the Smudgy Antics blog.  Our challenge was to use this cute creature in our projects.  (I think she’s cute anyway)

BEWARE:  This post is picture heavy.  Stick with me and I’ll give you a freebie of my own!

Here’s the first page of my card…

And underneath that page this is what she’s thinking about…

Next rat/page…

And what she’s thinking about…

Next…

And finally, the rat who dyes her fur purple…

And she really doesn’t care for dairy, she’d really just like a good spot of tea…

Inside view of card…

And the sentiment reads…

Whew!  Thanks for sticking with me through all those pictures!

Here’s a photograph I took and turned into a digi.  Feel free to use it in your creations.  It’s just a chrysanthemum.  I tried to clean it up a bit.  It’s pretty colored in a chartreuse color.  Just click on the image and right click to save.

Now for some project details.  The Calypso rat digi is from Smeared Ink.  The other images are from The Graphics Fairy.  The paper is DCWV Tattered Time.  Other doodads from various places.(I lose track sometimes)

Thank you so much for looking and for all of your great comments this past week!  Be sure to head over to Smudgy Antics tomorrow to see who the winner of the grand prize is and to see what the first regular weekly challenge is there.

hugs,

Laura

Smudgefest Day 6

Only one more day to go!  Day 6 of Smudgefest is a Sketch Challenge.  Here’s the sketch…

And here’s my card…

Doesn’t he have the funniest little face?

Bat digi is from Smeared Ink.  The black and grey printed paper is from Crafty Chaos Designs.

I’m not super happy with how this card turned out.  I had a sentiment printed out for it, but I couldn’t find a good placement for it.  Oh well, it’s been a crappy day all around.:(

Thanks for looking!  See you tomorrow for the final day of Smudgefest!!

-Laura