Welcome to the Stampendous Design Team weekly challenge. This week our theme is Mousey Mischief! You'll see lots of great creations with our wonderful House-Mouse Designs stamps all week long!  These little mice are sure to make you smile. 

 I get the feeling that my lazy little mouse from the Mice Wishes clear set ought to be doing something else, but instead is taking a break from life's hectic pace to enjoy herself!  When I was a little girl, a family member always called me Lynnie Mouse, so this card, ironically, could be a self portrait!

1.  Cut card base 5-1/2 x 8-1/2 and score at 4-1/4.  
2.  Here's how to create the pink panel using Color Bursts:  Spritz water liberally over the mixed media sheet (8-1/2 x 11) and puff Crimson Color Burst randomly over the water.  With a wide brush, blend the water and powder to create a beautiful background color.  Let it be uneven rather than a perfectly colored panel.  Once dry, cut a piece 5-1/2 x 4-1/4.
3.  To create the background design, dry emboss the pink panel using the Graduated Dot Stencil.  Lay the embossed design on a work surface.  Lay the stencil back over the embossed panel.  With a Jumbo Dauber, ink it liberally into a Palette Glue Pad and press/twist the dauber over the raised areas.  Once glue is applied, remove the stencil and sprinkle          glitter over the panel.  Flick off the excess and return to the jar.  Allow to dry.  Diecut the curved/stitched edge and mount to the card front.
4.  Heat emboss the mouse image with VersaMark and Detail Black embossing powder.  Color with watercolor pencils.  Using a glue pen, glue areas of the water where glitter will be added.  Glue the flower center and add glitter.  Refer to the photo below for closeup details.
5.  Diecut the image using a stitched square diecut.  Create the black dotted frame using two square diecuts.  Add foam mounting tape to the back of the frame and affix to the image.  Diecut a narrower frame out of a scrap piece of Color Burst paper and affix to the dotted frame.
6.  Wrap ribbon around the right side of the card front and tie in a bow.  Affix the mouse framed piece to the card front.
7.  On a scrap piece of cardstock, heat emboss the sentiment using VersaMark ink and Detail Black.  Diecut using the smallest stitched square.  Punch a hole in the left corner and tie onto the ribbon with jute.  Embellish the sentiment tag with Class-A-Peel Pink stickers.

Close up of the added bits of glitter on the flower center and on the water.  Use a Quickie Glue Pen to add the glitter.

I hope you enjoyed my card today and will leave me a comment before hopping to the next designer's blog.  Thanks for stopping by!

Stampendous Blog

Pam Hornschu

Kristine Reynolds

Lyn Bernatovich

Alison Heikkila

Tenia Nelson

Pam Bray

Louise Healy

Laura Drahozal

Leadonna Quick Fritts


Disclaimer:  I'm so happy to be a Stampendous Design Team Member and to help promote their wonderful products. They generously supply us with many free goodies like these Dreamweaver Stencils and Embossing Powders, Class A Peel Stickers, cling stamps, Faber Castell Aquarell Pencils and May Arts Ribbon that I'm using today.

Today is all about getting out of the traditional 'paste' box.  My interpretation of  'Playing with Paste' is to use it as a mixed medium to create a card base.  I approached this project as though I were creating a journal page full of texture, color, and stamped images.  I had no pre-planned ideas other than I was using Dreamweaver pastes, Stampendous sentiment and Ken Oliver's Color Bursts.  To my delight, a little puff of Color Burst goes a long way to add beautiful color to paste!  It blends beautifully with a palette knife.  Not only did I use Dreamweaver's Regular White Paste, I also used Glossy Blue Paste for very interesting results!

Here's my finished card:

The process of how I got to the finished card  follows and I'm hoping you'll see the fun my journey!

The final layer added more dimension with the filigree flourishes.  I mixed a tiny blob of Metallic Gold paste with some FX Powder and swiped it in the lower right corner.  The long flourish cling stamp was inked with WaterMark ink and pressed vertically making sure one end was firmly pressed into the gold paste.  Gold embossing powder was sprinkled over the image and heat set.  I also sprinkled some FX into a few other areas that were still wet and heat set it in place.

The greenish colored flourishes were a combination of gold paste, Pthalo Green and Gold FX.  It was a cool green patina result.  The stencil was laid over an area and quicky pasted with a palette knife, again, not worrying about perfectly pasted designs here.  I decided to heat the flourishes with a heat tool and because it was glossy paste, it reacted with the heat giving a puffy dimension.  The piece was set aside to dry.

The tough part was to decide how to cut down my piece for the card front!  I chose to tear along the vertical flourished edge and cut it down to 5-1/2 x 4-1/4 from there.  You can visualize just where the sentiment needed to be placed, right?  TIP:  Once you have a background, ignore it in order to free your mind to create the foreground.  Sometimes we get visually confused between the two, so just ignore one or the other!  It works, so try it!

Part of the discard piece was used for the sentiment and the rest saved for a future purpose (check back tomorrow)!  The sentiment was inked with VersaMark and gold embossing powder.  It was hand torn on one edge and trimmed to the desired size.  After ribbon was tied on, the sentiment was mounted with foam mounting tape.  One of the leftover leaves was fussy cut and gold metallic thread (my stash) was affixed to the back.  The leaf was mounted with foam mounting tape to the sentiment.

Products Used:
Stampendous:
CRV273   Beautiful Life Cling
CRS5073 Filigree Cling Set
CRV273   Damask Cling
DWLJ896 Large Flourish
DP102     Detail Gold Embossing Powder
VM001    VersaMark Watermark Inkpad

Dreamweaver FX (Mica) Powders:  Glacier Lake, Purple Satin, Ivy Lake
Faber Castell Gelatos:  Black Cherry, Teal, Mint
Ken Oliver's Color Bursts:  Pthalo Green, Alizarin Crimson, Ultramarine Blue
Bazzill Cardstock
Neenah Solar White 110# Cardstock
May Arts Ribbon
Metallic Gold String (my stash)
3M Foam Mounting Tape

Thanks for stopping by today!  I'd love you to leave me a comment before hopping to the next designer's blog.

Stampendous Blog
Alison Heikkila
Louise Healy
Lyn Bernatovich
Pam Hornschu
Kristine Reynolds
Lea Kimmel Fritts
Laura Drahozal
Wendy Price




Disclaimer:  I'm so happy to be a Stampendous Design Team Member and to help promote their wonderful products. They generously supply us with many free goodies like these Stampendous Stamps and Embossing Powders, Dreamweaver Stencils, FX Powders and Embossing Pastes, Bazill Papers, and May Arts Ribbon that I'm using today.

This week our team will be showcasing the Art Grip Aquarelles Watercolor Pencils, the PITT Pastel Pencils, and our very special guest Nathalie Kalbach will be featuring the Gelatos! There will be guest-starring roles by the PITT Artist Pens for doodling and drawing!

3 Lucky Winners this week will get three sets of the PITT Pastel Pencils (red/yellow, blue/green, neutrals), a jar of Faber-Castell Chalkboard Paint, and $20 http://www.stampendous.com reward card to choose their favorite images to color! WOW… these winners must have a U.S. mailing address (official rules here!).  Click on the Stampendous Blog link for further details.  For more great information about Gelatos, go to Designing with Gelatos found on YouTube.

Here's my project for today:

I knew I would be using the Dreamweaver Corner Flowers stencil and Gelatos for this card!  The Stampendous mixed media paper was prepared with gesso and allowed to dry.  It was then dry embossed using my Sizzix Big Kick and the Corner Flowers stencil.

I  scribbled a summery assortment of Gelatos over the embossed paper.  Next, a little spritz of water was sprayed over the paper.  With my finger, I moved the colors around but not too much as I wanted to still see the individual colors.  More Gelato color was added here and there where needed.

Once dry, the Stampendous Birthday Assortment Perfectly Clear sentiment was colored with a Faber-Castell Artist Pitt Pen Big May Green and stamped onto the card.  TIP:  Here's how to color ribbon to perfectly match a card!  My ribbon (May Arts) was originally white.  I colored it directly with a salmon colored Gelato and then spritzed with water.  I used my fingers to blend the color.  You can make the color blend as even or uneven as you desire.  I added some lace from my stash just to add a bit more femininity.  It was affixed with Beacon Fabri-Tac.

The butterfly is from Stampendous Cling Build a Bouquet Stamp Set and was stamped with Archival Black and colored with Faber-Castell Art Grip Aquarelle pencils.  The colors were blended out with water and a fine tip paint brush that came with the set of pencils.  A little Stampendous Crystal Glitter was added with a Quickie Glue Pen for additional sparkle.  Gold thread from my stash was randomly affixed to the bow with Fabri-Tac.  The butterfly was affixed with hot glue.

Stampendous Chiffon Fragments were glued on with Tombow Mono Aqua Liquid Glue.  Stampendous Pink Dot Sparklers were added to some of the embossed flower centers.

Hope you enjoyed my card today and I'd love you to leave a comment before you go to the next designer's blog!

Stampendous Impressions Blog

Nathalie Kalbach

Louise Healy

Janelle Stollfus

Lyn Bernatovich (that's me!)

Pam Bray

Asia King

Pam Hornschu

Tenia Nelson

Laura Drahozal

Lea Kimmel

Alison Keikkila

Wendy Price

Faber-Castell Design Memory Craft Blog*