Make it Monday #24 - Dry Brushing

Edited on 7-18 at 9:18pm to add two pictures and:  ....  Back at my desk this evening I looked at the card with fresh eyes and decided to make the bow smaller so the dress form would show more fully and balance the card better.  I still think something is off - probably because the pink items aren't in a triangle but not sure how I will fix that yet....maybe a heart on the dress form and change the color of the button flower?.....here is a fresh pic tonight of how the card looks now.....always learning and tweaking my designs....

ORIGINAL POST FROM A.M.:
Wow it is Monday again and this summer is flying by and we still haven't had any "hot" weather to speak of here in the Seattle area.  To all of you suffering through the heat waves elsewhere we wish you some of our cooler weather!  Hope you are all drinking some ice cold lemonade as you read this.

This morning my husband had a rare day with no medical appointments so I decided to spend an hour making a card for this week's "Make it Monday" over at Papertrey Ink.

 I loved the dry brushing technique though it was the first time I have ever painted on a card before and I think I will do a better job next time.  But for today I went ahead and finished the card with my "original" take on the dry brushing teqhnique as for me these challenges are all about learning to make cards in new ways.  (edited to add:  I used PTI's Background Builders Twinkle on the PTI cardstock)  I am finding that as I make more and more cards I am slowly improving my skills.  I still bungle things frequently! For example it took me 3 tries to complete my sentiment piece today because I was trying to stamp the sentiment with two colors of ink and each time I tried to stamp the second color I ran into a problem!  Ugh!  I finally ran out of time and stuck with black for the entire sentiment and added a couple of pink hearts around it instead. 

Here are some additional pictures:

I made the dress form and butterfly "wings" from the "Signature Series Dressform and Signature Series Butterfly" stamp sets designed by Dawn McVey for PTI.  I just love these sets of hers and I loved combining the dress form with the butterfly and adding a little pair of silk wings that I got from Memrie Mare on Etsy - HERE

Here is a close up of the sentiment.  

And one last shot of the card overall! 

Supplies:  Cardstock, button, dies stamps - background builder twinkle; Signature Series Butterfly; Signature Series Dress Form:  Papertrey Ink; Paint Dabber:  Adirondack from Ranger:  Pearl (this is gorgeous in person - not sure pictures did it justice!)  Ribbon; pearls from my stash. Ink: Adirondcak Jet Black; and Versamagic: Thatched Straw.  Stickles: Diamond (edge of butterfly)

Papertrey Ink's "Make It Monday" #23 - Pockets with edger dies

It has been a while since I completed a Make it Monday challenge over at Nichole's blog with Papertrey Ink.  Today I decided I needed to take an hour for myself to do something fun and I decided to make a card after taking a walk with my family on this very cool and overcast morning in Seattle.

Here are some pictures of the card with the edgers die pocket that I made.  It is a scallop circle card using the second smallest grand spellbinders scallop circle dies which I purchased for 40% of from Cut at Home with their monthly coupon.

The papers are from Papertrey Ink (cardstock) and Authentique (patterned papers). 

I used several PTI stamp sets:  Tiny Tags, Flower Fusion #2; and Love Lives Here.  The little bird stamp is from Inkadinkado.   Here is a picture below of the card without the tag inside the pocket: 

Here is the tag itself.  The scallop circle die for the tag is from PTI's limitless layers set as is the circle tag on top of it.

Another close up shot.

The small tag is from the Tiny Tags die set from PTI. And the edge on the pocket is from PTI's edgers #2 collection.

This is a picture of the inside of the card.

And...

This last picture is after I fixed a problem with the little bird...it had gotten bent a little when the wind blew it off the table where I was photographing it outside and some of the foam was showing in the pictures above....this was an extra photo I ran and took after I noticed...ugh - details!

That is it for today.  I am off to play with my little boy and plant some pumpkin seeds we received from a friend while my sweet hubbie rests.  Hopefully we will have pumpkins to carve in the fall.  Happy Weekend everyone!

A few contest wins....

Many of you that follow my blog know that my husband is battling a grade 4 brain cancer and that I am not able to update my blog sometimes because I am busy caring for him and our son.  While I am often busy with the most important blessings in my life - my husband and son - I do find time (usually late at night or in the wee hours of the morning) to surf blogs and enjoy all the crafty inspiration that the web offers.  I love to scrapbook and make cards and I do so as time allows but more often than not right now I find myself upstairs away from my craft room with only my laptop available for a few minutes of time every now and again.  To this end I have done a few blog hops or looked up blogs of companies that I love and over the past couple weeks I won some lovely goodies...

First during PTI's fruit fusion release I won the entire fruit fusion set of stamps and the wonderful paper too! 
Thanks to Nichole and Jen and the entire staff at Papertrey Ink for this wonderful prize package!

Then this past week I also won a $10.00 gift cerfiticate from Taylored Expressions via a comment I posted during their recent blog hop for their July release.  I have several of their stamp sets and recently I made an adorable card for Tim's teacher using one of their stamp sets called:  Make the Grade and my son also made a card for his teacher with it.  Adorable!

Then today as I was surfing one of my favorite blogs "I'm just a girl" by -Margie Romney-aslett I saw that I had also won a product release from Authentique via a comment I had posted on her blog showing the gorgeous new papers from this new path that her life has taken.  Margie's style is one that I love - vintage in living color with fun patterns.  I adore her designs from the Girl's Paperie and am so glad that she is still going to be bringing fantastic products to the market with the wonderful team at Authentique Paper.  Wait till you visit their site and see the Halloween line called "Glowing" that is going to be released on August 1st!  Gorgeous!  As are all the other lines...Paper BLISS in livng color!

To say that I am overwhelmed by these winnings is an understatement.  At a time that our family budget is stressed with doctor's bills I am still receiving fun new things to play with as time permits.  I am so blessed by these contest gifts!  Thanks to all the companies that have made my heart smile!