California Dreamin'

After 22 years in Utah where it seems to be cold 6 months out the year (2 inches of snow have fallen tonite)I am ready for a change. And, yes I'm California dreamin' having spent the first 35 years of my life in sunny SoCal as it now seems to be called. Long walks on the beach exploring as this young lady is doing, and I think she's in love. The Geared Heart image and "Crabby love" image are both digis from Smeared Ink (available in their respective sets and individually). I've colored them with watercolor/markers and put them on a base card covered with rectangles of paper that feels like sandpaper. I just love working with digis since they're so versatile, re-sizing as needed.

My thoughts and prayers are with everyone in the southern part of the US who have suffered through the recent storms. I'm praying that more do not come anytime soon. Stay safe.

Jack says "Thanks!"

Hoping this post finds everyone well! We've found ourselves "relaxing" in the path of several tornado producing storms, but truthfully they travelled on up toward our home as they passed by. The destruction occurred north of us here in TN and we're thinking of those folks & those in Alabama and Mississippi who seemed to bear the brunt of the damage.



Today I am using the Smeared Ink unmounted rubber stamp set with Jack. I started with a base from Halcraft naturals card bases & stamped Jack & the sentiments on another color of it. I grabbed various patterned papers & stamped him on them, then started cutting & piecing together until he was feeling dapper. The body of the box & it's flap are pieced as well as the star & crank. Jack's shirt, collar & hat are also pieced. He's trimmed & lifted from the surface with popdots for dimension. The sentiments are a combination of four from the set. Hope you enjoy him!

Be sure to check back each day for something fab from the design team. Watch Monday, May 9, 2011 for a Smeared Ink New digi Release blog hop for some brand new crafty creations from the design team!! There's still time to enter the April challenges--just a little so get your crafty hat on and make something! And its almost May so time for a whole new round of challenges.

Special thanks to Tiddly Inks for sponsoring challenges in April and providing the amazing Frankenhottie digi for the team to work with!

Happy Crafting! Paula

Dragon day....

Its Wednesday..... Dragonday.... and i have a Grumpie..... Stumpie... brooch to share with you. I used shrink plastic, stamped Stumpie using stazon.... cut my plastic down roughly to the correct size.... shrunk it.... sanded it to a perfect fit..(yeh right.... nothings ever perfect with me!) used diamond glaze and placed a silver curtain ring onto my plastic disc....filled the ring with glaze...set it aside. I used some beads i had lurking...... and some reclaimed material...made a flower and attached it to a brooch back.

When stumpie had dried i glued it onto my flower brooch.

Very simple... but very cute.

Thanks for being here..... dont forget we have a CHALLENGE ...... USE A SMEARED INK DIGI.... you have 'til Friday to enter.

xxx lynx

Where My Peeps At?

Happy Tuesday! I know Easter has come and past, but it was still on my brain last night, so my creation for today is very "Easter Cutesie"....I 'hop' you don't mind! (HA! I 'crack' myself up....oh my, I did it again. BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!)

Today I have a project that I put together using recycled materials. This is the first time I've used a lot of these materials, so I hope you like it. My main ingredients are crushed egg shells left over from our dyed Easter eggs, an empty mini milk carton that used to be filled with Reese's Pieces, Gesso, lots of Mod Podge, some paper, some ribbons, some brads, a Li'l Grumpie, hot glue and some buttons - i know, that's a whole lot of stuff!

First I broke down my carton and covered it in a light layer of Gesso. I knew I was going to cover it in egg shells so i just applied enough to mask the bright orange color of the carton.

I crushed my egg shells so I had different sizes and shapes...

Then I mod podged my carton and rolled it in the egg shells. I applied a very thick layer of mod podge on top of the shells to give it a nice shine and to keep them from flaking off.

After drying, I applied some tea stain and china distress inks...

For my grumpie: He was stamped on a goldenrod card stock and colored with prisma color markers and a white gel pen. I used glossy accents on his eyes for that shiny look :) The last few touches were adding the ribbon, sentiment, brads, and flower buttons....

Here's the finished product! :)

Here's a shot of the carton with peeps in it  :)

Weekly Gallery Challenge- Digi Mania

Welcome back to Smeared Ink's weekly Gallery Challenge! Our winner for the last challenge is Lisa!!!!!!!! Congratulations Lisa, and thanks for showcasing the Faes for us in your project; we sure will miss those guys! Your project will be added to our gallery and will be up for the final showdown at the end of the month. Woo Hoo!!!!!

So, for those of you not familiar with the challenge, here is the low-down (we'll probably post this each week to keep newbies up to date, if you know the rules already just skip ahead to this week's theme):
Every Monday we are offering you an exclusive chance to get your project (and blog) added to our sample gallery at smearedink.com. Just use our stamps on a project, link to it, and then rake in the votes. We will announce the winner on the following Monday. At the end of the month, the weekly challenge winners will be pitted against each other to determine the monthly winner. The monthly winner will receive a 25% off coupon!


Here's how the challenge will work:
Each week will have a theme. We will post the theme on Mondays and the deadline to enter is Friday by midnight. Make a project to fit the theme using only Smeared Ink stamps. Post it to your blog and then link to it here.


The fun part about this challenge is, YOU will pick the winner! Starting Saturday morning, come by and vote for your favorite entry and encourage your friends to do the same. Voting will remain open until Sunday at midnight. We will announce the weekly winner on the following Monday, and they will be added to our online gallery!


At the end of the month, the weekly winners will battle it out, and once again the project with the most votes will be named the ultimate winner, and will receive a 25% off coupon for Smeared Ink stamps.


So, are you ready to play? Here is this week's theme:


THIS WEEK'S THEME
Digi Mania!!!! We'd love to see what you can do with our digi designs. This is a digi free for all, so use as many of our digis as you want in your project, the only catch is you cannot use any rubber stamps this week. Don't forget you can only use Smeared Ink stamps in this challenge, and your entry needs to be linked up by Friday at midnight. Good luck and Have Fun!

Save the Angels!



HELP!  The Femdom Mistress has locked the Angels up in her dungeon and THEY NEED YOUR HELP! 

Smeared Ink is retiring "The Symbology of Angels" rubber stamp set.  Once they are sold out they will no longer be available.  They are currently discounted and you can have them for a mere $16.00.  You get an 8.5" x 11" sheet of deeply etched rubber that contains 7 artisitc images as well as 7 descriptive words to go with them.  Check the shop for details. 

Cheers!

Lady B

Holy City Box

It’s Friday! This has been quite a busy week. Fun…but busy. And because of all the busy, my project is not quite finished. I need to embellish it a bit more. I’m hoping I can do it today…But we’ll see. For now, it looks pretty cool. Just not complete.


I used a plain wooden box and painted it green, then crackle painted it, and Distress Inked it. And the top has, as you can see, an image from Smeared Ink’s Holy City. The box was purchased for this very image.

I colored the image with my colored pencils and Mod Podged it to the top. I just love this image. I plan on adding some things to the top. I’m not exactly sure what yet…I need to look through my stash to see what I can find. But I definitely need some more texture. Some lumpy, bumpy goodness.

Here’s a close up of the crackling. I purposely did not apply an even layer of it. I really wanted the green to show through. I’ll be sure to post photos when the box is done. But what do you think of it so far??? Have an inspiring day!