Bookmarks LXI: Dots on the Diagonal

The skeleton of this bookmark -- the purple strip with navy tape across the top -- has been hanging around for about a month and a half now. "Look at all the pretty green/blue/purple scraps you have," it kept saying. "Wouldn't they look great on me?" I hushed it, because I had to make thank you cards, dang it!

But I finished the thank-you cards, and then it was time to play with scraps. I taped the blue strip of paper on with some new tape and glued down a punched-out circle. Then I was stuck. The blue strip needed something on it, and none of my stamps really seemed to fit the bill. (I guess I was wrong when I kept stopping myself from buying border stamp sets.)

So I tried a strip of another new tape. It worked nicely to fill the empty space. A couple of circles with a silver pen, silver embossing powder around the edges, and I was done.

I'm entering this dotty bookmark in the following challenges:

• Incy Wincy Designs: Something New (new tapes)
• Papertake Weekly: Happy New... (Happy New Tape!)
• Victorine Originals #50: Sparkle & Shine (shimmery purple paper and lots of shiny silver)
• Crafty Sentiments: Sparkle & Shine/Glitter (no glitter, but the purple is shimmer paper and of course there's plenty of shiny silver)
• Cute Card Thursday 251: Beat the Blues (Well, I made a start on beating down the blue scrap pile!)
• Inky Chicks: Anything Goes

Supplies: (both tapes are from Recollections/Michaels)

Tropically Krafty

A few of my aunts and uncles recently got together and got me a nice gift card, so I made them some thank-you cards. I wasn't really sure what to do until I decided to be inspired by the card they sent along with the gift card. The card was brown, with a debossed gold vine and some white flowers with dark pink centers. I skipped the vine and used much bigger flowers.

I made an attempt at stamping the flowers in dark pink and using white embossing powder just around their edges, so as to have a dark pink center. Unsurprisingly, the embossing powder stuck to everything, and my flowers were plain white. Bah. So I took my finger, smooshed it in the pink ink pad, and dabbed at the centers -- and it turns out I really like the effect!

Thank goodness for serendipity. Whatever would I do without it?

I'm entering this serendipitous card in the following challenges:

• Simon Says Stamp Challenge: New Something (the flower stamps is new)
• Cute Card Thursday 250: Something New (the flower stamp is new)
• Simon Says Stamp and Show: The Totally Mad (No Rules) Tea Party (anything goes)
• Hiding in My Craft Room #78: Freestyle
• Fashionable Stamping #38: Surprise Us
• Loves Rubberstamps 32: Anything Goes (neither of these stamps is carried by Loves)

I'm also linking up with DL.ART's Thankful Thursday January Linky Party -- it's anything goes, but thank-you cards seem very appropriate!

Supplies:

Bookmarks XLIX: Jill Sparrow

At first I was going to paper-piece my little pirate girl, but then I got intimidated by all the cutting. Instead, I decided to try my hand at something else: coloring with Copics.

Now, I have no illusions about my skill at shading and blending at all: my coloring abilities are at "Level One: Can Stay Inside The Lines," and I'm actually pretty okay with that.

Also, I own a total of four Copics. You see, I bought them to edge paper terrain, so I have a grey one for stone, a brown one for dirt and wood, a green one for foliage, and a light blue one for water. It's a very sophisticated collection.

I love the little eyepatch I made, too! It was Krisha's idea several weeks ago when I asked for idea help on a WOYWW post, and I loved it immediately. I thought the bookmark needed just a little something more than Captain Jackie Sparrow there.

(Well really, look at that hairstyle and bandana and hat; it's a miracle she's not wearing heavy eyeliner as well, I think.)

I wanted to find my copy of Swiss Family Robinson to photograph the bookmark on, but I couldn't. So I've used Pippi in the South Seas (a Pippi Longstocking book), which fits rather well. (Unfortunately while reading through it I've realized that the story of Pippi's big fat white man father ruling a South Seas tribe of stereotypes is just a tiny bit racist. Bother.)

I'm entering this pirate-y bookmark in the following challenges:

• Cute Card Thursday: Girls Only (I'm so pleased to enter something so very not-pink-and-frilly into a girly challenge, I think the entries get a bit stereotypic a lot of the time...)
• Rogue Redhead Rebel Challenge 17: UnCard (it's a bookmark!)
• Dream Valley Challenge 45: Anything Goes
• The Artistic Stamper Creative Team: Anything Goes
• One Crazy Stamper: Anything Goes

Supplies:

Bookmarks XVI: Turns to Gold

The leaves where I live are still green, but we've been getting lovely cool days lately. And it seems that half the challenge blogs in the northern hemisphere are fall-focused around now, which is a-okay by me -- I love these colors!

Click here to skip the rambling and jump directly to the project & challenge listing.

I mentioned in my post about putting together a kit for the gryphon bookmark trio that until someone came along with a "Bookmarks by Newbie Crafters" challenge, last week's Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge, Read All About It!, was the best fit for my bookmarky papercrafts that I was likely to get.

To ensure that I wouldn't be right for very long, the Incy Wincy Designs challenge this week is "Make a Bookmark". Hey, twist my arm.

In addition to fall colors and a couple of technique/material challenges, I've used this sketch (turned sideways) from this week's Sketch Saturday challenge:

While I have included the two little dots, they're not terribly obvious -- there's a little pair of stamped-and-embossed acorns in the upper right corner of the patterned paper if you look. I like them. They come from the same stamp set as the sentiment, where they are part of a big branch of leaves and acorns, all of which I masked out. There's something very clever-feeling in using only a tiny part of a big stamp, although maybe that's just the stamp cleaner fumes talking.

I'm really pleased with how this bookmark turned out. The colors work, the washi tape works, the design is great (thanks, Sketch Saturday!), and it feels neither too decorated nor too empty. Plus I have a couple of novels about squirrels it can fit right into.

I'm entering this lovely bookmark in the following challenges:

• Simon Says Stamp Challenge: Put a Stamp on It + optional washi tape
• Cute Card Thursday Challenge 233: Autumn Gold
• Raise the Bar Challenge #110: Celebrate Fall
• Sketch Saturday #224 (I've turned the sketch on its side)
• Pile It On #37: Patterned Paper
• Incy Wincy Designs Challenge: Make a Bookmark
• Craft Your Passion Challenge 127: Blast From the Past (using past challenge #125, Emboss It)
• Scrapalicious USA: Welcoming Fall

I'm also linking it up to DL.ART's 1000-post Linky Party.

Supplies: (The patterned paper is from DCWV's Autumn Melody mat stack, and the washi tape is by Recollections. I'll add them to the widget if I can ever find them online.) (Edited 9-25-12 to add the thumbnail pic at the top.)