Guest Bookmark: Jack-o-Lantern

A book-blogger friend of mine, Anya, sometimes comes over and makes bookmarks with me. She made this one at my crafty birthday party! It started out looking horribly mistaken (she shared this evaluation), but the more she added, the better it looked! It's always a relief, and something of a delight, when that happens.

I really like that copper border with gold embossing powder on it... but then again, I'm a sucker for copper.

Her crowning touch was definitely drawing the jack-o-lantern face onto the pumpkin.

Anya's asked me to enter her stuff into challenges when it's not too much trouble, and there seem to be a lot of pumpkin-themed challenges about at the moment. To be quite clear, she did make this several weeks ago and did post a small picture on her book blog. I think it's still legit to enter in current challenges -- it hasn't been posted anywhere papercrafty or entered in challenges before. But please delete this entry without guilt if your challenge is not okay with that!

I'm entering Anya's bookmark (on her behalf) into these challenges:

• There She Goes 177: Fall Fun
• Fashionable Stamping Challenge #73: Shades of Autumn/Fall
• Joanna Sheen Challenge: Autumn Breeze
• No Matter Which Challenge #3: Halloween Creations or Halloween Colours
• Touch Twin Challenge 27: Fall themed project in monochromatic colors (gold/orange)

(She does read my blog, so she'll see your comments!)

Supplies:

Bookmarks XXVIII: Wintergreen

I'm pretty pleased with how the sparkly embossing powder worked on that Christmas tree.

On the other hand, I wish I'd had some teeny little presents at the same scale as the tree; that would have made a neat little scene. I should have just used some little squares of paper, but I keep forgetting that there are ways to make images that don't involve a stamp. Hopefully I'll remember that for the next time I use this tree.

I do like the background of the bookmark, though. I had fun weaving the washi tape and paper strips together, although you can really only see the effect once. It looks like a really fancy kind of thing you could do to put ribbons around a present.

I probably should have fussy cut the present, or paper pieced it or something. I'm a little sad about how much it disappears into its background and matting. Oh well, can't win 'em all, and the tree turned out really well.

I am entering this bookmark into the following challenges:

• Creative Card Crew Challenge 19: Tree
• There She Goes 137: Everyone loves Presents
• Incy Wincy Designs: Monochromatic Green
• Simon Says Stamp and Show: Tape it Up!
• Simon Says Stamp: Emboss It! (both stamped images are heat-embossed)
• Penny Black and more... @ Allsorts: Early Christmas Makes (but alas not with a Penny Black image)
• Fashionista: Anything Goes Christmas
• Paper Play Week 38: Choose a Holiday (Christmas)

Supplies: (white 110lb. cardstock is from Staples, washi tape from Recollections/Michaels, and the middle-size green oval was cut from the packaging of the Christmas tree stamp.)

Bookmarks XIX: Tasty Trendy Bright

Having found some neon yellow, I made a sort of radioactive cupcake thing.

In addition to hot neon colors inspired by Simon Says Stamp's "We're So TRENDY" and The Stamp Man's "Summer Sizzlers" challenges, I grabbed the sketch from Flourishes' "Any Which Way":

I think neons should always be on black. But of course applying the neon washi tape directly to black would just make it dull, and since I don't have any neon embossing powder I wasn't too confident about stamping showing up well on black either.

So I did them on white.

I stamped a cupcake onto a piece of white cardstock and then ripped lots of small pieces of washi tape to outline it in a sort of explosion of neon stripes. I liked the ragged look, so instead of cutting the washi from the edges of the white cardstock, I picked up the whole sticky mess and smacked it on the base bookmark. I still liked the ragged look, so I left it there.

I was a little stumped on what to do for the small decorative element in the sketch. I could leave it out as it doesn't seem terribly integral to the sketch, but at that point the sketch is basically "that thing I do all the time with a stripe and a focal element", and where's the challenge in that? Then I saw a little roughly-square piece of black cardstock. Aha! I cut it down a size repeatedly, creating chevrons, and pointed them at the cupcake. Bringing the black back on top of the neons really took the bookmark to a more forceful visual level, so I'm very glad for the inspiration from the sketch!

I'm entering this bookmark in the following challenges:

• Simon Says Stamp: We're so TRENDY... (neons and a little bit of chevron action)
• The Stamp Man: Summer Sizzlers
• Flourishes: Any Which Way (the sketch version in the lower right of the challenge graphic)
• There She Goes: Let Them Eat Cake (alas, I own no TSG stamps, but here, have a cupcake!)
• Divas by Design: For A Child (neons are great for kids, especially the older ones)

Supplies: (white 110lb. cardstock from Staples; washi/crafting tape from Recollections -- I'll update the widget if I can find a good link for either)