Michael's Sept. challenge

Michael Strong's challenge to the enjoyMichaelStrongStamps yahoo list:

Our card making challenge is a little different this month. There is an old standard called "September Song" composed by Kurt Weill in 1938. It's a wistful almost sad song. Here are the words:

"Oh, it's a long, long while from May to December But the days grow short when you reach September When the autumn weather turns the leaves to flame One hasn't got time for the waiting game

Oh, the days dwindle down to a precious few September, November And these few precious days I'll spend with you These precious days I'll spend with you"

 

Your challenge this month is to express any part of this song in a visual composition. It's you choice, pick any part of the song for your inspiration. Colors and images are also up to you. It is not necessary to use a MSRS. "

The stamped oval image is one of Michael's stamps. The rest are die cuts and punches with Distress inks and copper embossed dots for texture and color.

Lynda's Gold & Sparkle card

In the enjoyMichaelStrongstamps Yahoo list we are doing a mingle. the challenge was to make the card with gold and sparkle and a Michael Strong stamp. It has been years since I last did one and this has been a blast. Lynda sent me this amazing card! She created this beautiful painted paper with some sort of mica powder and gold paint on a black background. If you have tried to photograph metallics and sparkle you already know I was not capable to capturing how this really looks. Still here is the best I could mange.

Inside the card were these die cut butterflies made with the painted papers and a panel with Michael Strong's heart stamp (small version) as the focal point.

Closer versions of the butterflies and the panel.

Michael Strong's May challenge

This month Michael gave us a digital image to use on our card and the challenge to use only black, gray and white. The red is just a paper on which I photographed the card for some contrast. The digital image is the central rectangular image on the card. You can find it here- http://strongstamps.blogspot.com/2012/05/may-card-making-challenge.html I added some Spellbinders die cut circles, the sentiment Spellbinders ovals and the Sizzix heart eyelets. There are clear gems for bling. The sentiment is a Cornish Heritage Farms stamp. The gray printed paper circles are cut from envelope liners. I do love using those!

Simple and masculine

This is my sketch card for May's enjoyMichaelStrongStamps group. My Easter card was selected for April's home page image and included with the honor was a new Michael Strong stamp, his Cloisonné Fleur De Lis set. I used the smaller of the stamps as the focal image on this card. Love how classic the image is! The printed background papers are actually wallpaper samples. They have just the right look to go with Michael's stamp.

Easter is coming!

The eggs and dish are created with Michael Strong stamps. The nice egg shapes were cut using Spellbinders dies. The sentiment strip was heat embossed and the edges punched using a Martha Stewart border punch. It was fun to create an Easter card that isn't quite traditional colors but definitely says "Easter".

Outlines sketch challenge #42

This is a pretty soft colored card. Blue and yellow is one of my favorite combinations. The floral band across the card was created with an Outlines border stamp used twice, once on each side and black embossed. I'm still on a Twinkling H2O run so that is what I used along with a bit of white acrylic paint. The sentiment is a Stampendous sticker. Somehow I don't seem to use those very often this was a good opportunity.

Lisa Silver's sketch for Outlines is square but I stretched it into a rectangle. You can see it here-

http://outlineswithkathy.blogspot.com/2012/03/challenge-42-march-sketch-challenge.html

Outlines St. Patrick's Day challenge

Not being a sender of St. Patrick's Day card I had to think a bit about my stash of Outlines stamps to come up with something for this challenge. It isn't precisely a card for the holiday but I hope it is close enough! The shamrock is made from a heart stamps printed & embossed 4 times, painted with Twinkling H2Os, and trimmed out. I used the stem stamp that hasn't gotten much use over time. This was a good opportunity.

The sentiment letters are die cut and the gold shamrocks are punched. The shamrock center is punched, dry embossed, sanded and inked with gold. I wanted a flatter card than using a button would give me so I made an embellishment instead. You can't tell in the photo but there are Gloss Gel gems on the shamrock leaves.

http://outlineswithkathy.blogspot.com/2012/02/challenge-41-st-patricks-day.html