Bookmarks LVIII: White Snowflakes, Red Snowman

And here's my third (and final, as it's a three-entry challenge) bookmark for this fortnight's Lawnscaping challenge, which is a color challenge:

But wait, why fill one prompt when you can meet two challenges? For this bookmark I've used the sketch from this week's What If? Wednesday challenge at The House That Stamps Built, the Repeat Impression. It is quite a simple sketch, and therefore fits nicely in the skinny confines of a bookmark:

However, instead of a square I have a snowman.

Actually, I'm not really certain whether What If? Wednesday is a general papercrafty challenge or a card-only challenge. But it was such a good sketch for a bookmark that I used it anyway; if they disqualify the entry I'll still have got inspiration from it!

I'm entering this bookmark in the following challenges:

• Lawnscaping #47: Turquoise, Kraft, Red
• WHAT IF? Wednesday: Sketch #N2812
• Simon Says Stamp: Snowflakes (patterned paper)

Supplies: (washi tape from Recollections/Michaels)

Bookmarks LVII: Crooked Conifer

Well. While I had the turquoise and kraft and red out for this fortnight's Lawnscaping Challenge, I figured I might as well make a couple more entries for it. So this is the second one -- the first was the wordy birdhouse bookmark I posted earlier.

Of course, I should have actually brought out some Lawn Fawn stamps too. I'm really not sure what I was thinking.

Oh, no, wait, I'm pretty sure I was thinking "I MUST USE ALL THESE SHINY NEW THINGS I JUST BOUGHT," but honestly. Oh well. Next Lawnscaping challenge, I'll use Lawn Fawn stamps -- I can practically guarantee it, because some are coming in the mail, so they'll be the shiny new things.

I'm entering this bookmark in the following challenges:

• Lawnscaping Challenge #47: Turquoise, Kraft, Red
• Eureka Stamps #17: Winter Wonderland (it's pretty wondrous when the trees are red and turquoise, I think... well, maybe weird rather than wondrous)
• Charisma Cardz #48: Christmas (they may be oddly colored Christmas trees, but Christmas trees they are...)

Supplies: (the stamp is from a cling rubber set by Ditto / Hampton Art, and the washi tape is by Recollections / Michael's)

Bookmarks LVI: Dots and Fonts

I wanted to enter this week's Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge, "House Rules", but I wasn't sure how. Did I have any house stamps? A rummage later and I found that I did: one of a birdhouse, and one of a haunted house.

Well, I decided to have a go with the birdhouse, and I took the colors from this fortnight's Lawnscaping Challenge:

The birdhouse itself is so busy that I kept the rest of the bookmark pretty clean and simple: a couple of pieces of paper and a dotty strip of washi tape. (Well, "printed paper tape" from Target, anyway.)

I'm entering this wordy bookmark into the following challenges:

• Simon Says Stamp and Show: House Rules (a birdhouse is a house, surely?)
Lawnscaping Challenge #47: Turquoise, Kraft, Red
• The Artistic Stamper: Home for Christmas (I thought the words in the birdhouse were particularly appropriate.)

Supplies:

Bookmarks XXXI: Scare Up Some Fun

I have to admit Lawnscaping challenges are a bit frustrating for me. Because gosh darn it, I want to enter more than three challenges with one project! So many Anything Goes challenges are deprived of the fruit of my genius efforts! (I'm sure they're heartbroken.)

But I love Lawn Fawn and I love the aesthetic sense of the whole Lawnscaping design team, and I can't let it go by without an entry. And it does make writing up the challenge listing a lot easier, so there's that.

This week's challenge was to add text -- use a sentiment or patterned paper. So I used both.

For my patterned paper I used one with a bunch of stereotypical cat names on it. This paper has a bit of a distressed look -- so the solid cardstock colors I used looked a little too, well, solid. Since the colorful kitty names are mostly streaked with red on the patterned paper, I smushed my finger into a red ink pad and rubbed it on. They ended up with a similar streaky look, just as I was hoping! (I didn't rub it on the whole of the greenish base, but used my mostly-dried finger to add just a little to the area around the sentiment.)

I only own one set of Lawn Fawn stamps (although another should be in the mail soon!), and no Wags 'n Whiskers stamps, and no Creative Inspirations paint, so I hope the design teams are not too saddened when they see absolutely none of those things on my bookmark.

I'm entering this bookmark in the following challenges:

• Lawnscaping Challenge #42: Getting Texty
• Wags 'n Whiskers Challenge 88: Circles (I even rounded the corners of my rectangles!)
• Creative Inspirations Paint: Inspired by Fall Colors

I'm also linking it up to DL.ART's 1000-post Linky Party and Unique Crafters' Big Chance Giveaway.

Supplies:

Bookmarks XV: Purrfect Pet

Sentiments are almost always super-cheesy. I look at one on a sheet of stamps and think "Why is there not another image instead of this trite sentiment?" But when I see other people's finished work, they look good -- of course they're still just as cheesy, but somehow, on finished pieces, they work. I don't know how this transformation happens for the rest of you, but this time, for me, I think it was the glitter.

Click here to skip the rambling and go directly to the project and challenge list.

This week's Divas by Design challenge was Friendship. I was pretty stumped until, looking through DCWV's Pets matstack for something else, I happened across a piece of cardstock which seemed pretty set on loving its animal friends. That was pretty much all I needed to pull together a project.

I used the wonderful little yarn-ball stamp to do some color testing with inks from Color Box's Surf's Up, Wood Grain, and Rain Forest cat's eye queues. In other news, I should probably make a permanent reference instead of re-color-testing for each project.

I'm also following this week's Lawnscaping sketch challenge:

I turned the sketch sideways. For the vertical element, I used some washi (technically Recollections "crafting") tape. I did allow a few of the phrases on the paper to break the line, because I wanted to keep them intact for the friendship theme.

The tape line doesn't stand out much on the busy paper. Maybe all it is doing is highlighting the phrases that break it? Anyway, I'm pretty happy with the result, and I even like how the sentiment turned out! In that font, with that much glitter, it is owning the horribly cheesy pun, and I can respect that.

I'm entering this bookmark in the following challenges:

• Divas by Design Challenge 51: Friendship (my cat, and many other pets, are excellent friends)
• Lawnscaping Challenge #41: Sketch (turned on its side). Alas, I am not using a Lawn Fawn stamp, but by gosh Critters in the 'Burbs would have been pretty perfect (purrfect?) for this... if I owned it.
• Simon Says Stamp Challenge: Put a Stamp on It! + optional washi tape (stamped image & sentiment, subtle vertical washi tape)

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

Supplies: (I can't find the tape to list it in the widget, but it is Recollections crafting tape from Michael's)

Bookmarks XI: Backgrounds Ever After

This.. um, fortnight's, I guess.. Lawnscaping challenge was to make your own patterned paper with stamps, then make something with that paper.

Not content with the amount of adorable Critters Ever After stamping I'd done this weekend, I decided to use a grouping of those stamps to make a background. I stuck the dragon, the griffin, and a bunch of stars onto a block and attacked some turquoise paper with silver ink.

Let me just talk about Fiskars' pigment ink for a moment. I see it get bad reviews on Amazon and none of my local independent or big box stores carry it anymore. The bad Amazon reviews are upset because the ink doesn't dry. From my experience, that's true. There's so much pigment in this stuff (they're not kidding about it being "high density") that it just stays wet. I don't think this is a problem. Never drying makes it the perfect (colorful) embossing ink. I have literally had embossing powder stick to this stuff a week after I've stamped it.

Anyway, I took my time carefully stamping in various orientations, and then clear-embossed the whole thing. I'd like to say all the little tone-on-tone dots that appeared where the embossing powder had stuck to static or moisture were on purpose to add a more subtle fantasy/fairydust kind of effect, but alas, lying is wrong.

Of course I made a pair of bookmarks.

For the unicorn bookmark, I used some Color Box pigment cat's eye stamps to smudge the paper, wiping it off with a paper towel for a resist sort of effect. Unicorns mean rainbows, guys, it's just the way it is. Then I cut out some cardstock for accent pieces and gave them a similar treatment. I used the "make a wish" sentiment from the stamp set, taking advantage of the flexibility of the clear stamp to curve it. I used the long stripe of cardstock to try to draw attention back down to the unicorn in the background, but I don't feel I was entirely successful.

For the dragon bookmark, I used the same sentiment. (I actually stamped-and-embossed it in several different inks for the unicorn bookmark, so for this I just used one of the rejects.) I did the resist technique again, but only in blues and greens, and only around the sentiment. It blended into the background a bit too much, so I stuck it on more of the same cardstock and cut around it to make a thin bright yellow border.

Instead of trying to use other elements to draw attention to the dragon, I used a blue metallic Permapaque marker to color him in, pulling him out a bit from the rest of the background. The bookmark still seemed a little empty and bottom-heavy, so I took a corner of the scrap yellow cardstock I'd been using for all the other accent pieces, used a Fiskars corner punch to punch some stars out of it, and stuck it on the top. Then I took the larger punched-out star and put it on an empty space in the bookmark, and used one of the tiny stars to dot the i on the sentiment. I figured the unicorn bookmark had been a little heart-heavy, so I emphasized stars on this one.

I'm entering this little duo -- they're really one project in two pieces -- in these challenges:

• Lawnscaping Challenge #40: Make your own patterned paper with stamps
• Craft Your Passion Challenge #125: Emboss it! (Every image and sentiment except for the little heart on the unicorn is clear embossed.)
• Simon Says Stamp Challenge: Anything Goes

(Edited 8/31/2012 to replace picture with a slightly better one.)

Supplies: