Ribbon Carousel...Let's Paper Piece

Welcome to this week's Ribbon Carousel challenge! Kim is challenging us to use the paper-piecing technique somewhere on our creations. I'm using a digital stamp (for the first time) and I did just a bit of paper piecing on it. When I say a bit, I do mean just a little...the snowman's scarves are the same paper as the background paper of my tag. I haven't quite gotten down the sizing thing when I printed the digital image so these came out pretty small. In any event, here's my Snowman inspired, paper pieced tag:

I used a variety of Ribbon Carousel products on this tag (as small as it is). For the first time, I used some colored wired string. What's great about it is that it stays put exactly where you want it. I glued a button onto the bow, which is glued onto the Grey Ascot seam binding bow. The top of the tag is adorned with some satin center band ribbon.
Sorry for the poor quality photo, I'm going to try to get a better one this morning when the sun is up nice and high in the sky.

This week's challenge is being sponsored by Torico, of Birdie Brown Designs:

Torico will give one random winner their choice of 3 Digi Images from the Birdie Brown store!


Your creation can be anything from cards, quilts, sewn items, paper crafts, paintings! *** Be sure to have ribbon, bakers twine, jute twine, lace, thread (basically anything that comes on a spool). ***

We'd love for you to join us this week! Here are the details:

• Make your NEW creation following the ribbon carousel challenge of the week. Any submissions made prior to the challenge date will be deleted. Be sure to include some type of ribbon, twine, hemp, lace....basically, anything that comes on a spool.
• Load your creation up onto your blog or a public viewing forum like Splitcoast Stampers, (use the keyword RCC38) with a direct link back to THIS post. Including the challenge graphic isn't a requirement, but sure is appreciated! (A participant of our very first challenge didn't link back or mention our challenge and couldn't be named Top Spool, so don't let that happen to you!)
• Link up your creation using the Inlinkz button at the bottom of this post. Your image may take a little while to pop up, but don't worry, it will appear shortly.
• Come back the Friday after the challenge ends to see if YOU are a Top Spool!

Before I go, I just wanted to mention a little about Corinna's newly reformulated Carousels:

The *NEW* Ribbon Carousel^© will begin shipping next week! She's including one package of 10 wooden spools with the first 25 orders! :D

The *New* is made out of White Marine Board Plastic (High Density Polyethylene), giving it a textured top with smooth scrolled edges.  Each Carousel comes with 8 Clear Acrylic rods allowing for many different configurations. You can use it as a 4, 5, 6 or 8 post Carousel, depending upon your individual needs.
The *New* Ribbon Carousel^© holds up to 60 rolls of 3/8" ribbon using 4 rods, 40 Wooden Spools or 16 spools of your favorite Baker's Twine using 8 rods. It SPINS around on a lazy susan, allowing you to access your ribbon and twine easily! This easy-to-use organizer is compact, with a footprint less than 7" square on your workspace. The Ribbon Carousel^© holds ribbon spools of any size up to a 4" diameter. Minimal assembly required.

 To use: Simply unscrew the knob on top of the *New* Ribbon Carousel^©.  Remove the top and place your spools on the posts as desired.  Replace the top by lining up the rods to the holes in the underside of the top.  Replace the knob to secure the Ribbon Carousel.

Specifications: Each *New* Ribbon Carousel© is approximately 6.85" square and 13.5" tall.
The manufacturing of each *New* Ribbon Carousel^© happens in Pierce County, WA, USA.
What a great way to keep some organization in your craft space!

Have a great day and thanks for visiting!

Stamps: Snowman Family digi (Birdie Brown)
Paper: The Best of K & Co., White
Accessories: Silver Colored Wire String, 1/4" Ivory Satin Center Band Ribbon, Grey Mist Vintage Seam Binding, Crystal Star Trinket Pins (Ribbon Carousel), button, Vintage Inspired Netting (Webster's Pages),  Crystal Course glitter (Martha Stewart), Copics, chipboard heart & wings, Rosette die (Ranger)
Size: 3" X 5"

Zva Creative January DT Blog Hop

Zva Creative and our talented Design Team welcome you to join us for our first Design Team Blog Hop of the New Year! We are happy to have you join us today and wish you the best for 2012!

The Blog Hop begins at Zva Creative's NEW blog! Be sure head on over to check it out! Leave a comment there for a chance to win an extra prize package just for visiting the blog and telling us that you stopped by! You will also find a complete list of all the participating blogs there (in case there is a glitch along the way).  

As you know, Zva offers many beautiful color groupings for pearls, flowers and crystals.  We want to make sure that they shine bright for you, so each designer was asked to share a creation using a specific color or color combination on their blog hop project.  If you like what you see you can find a list of stores and online retailers that sell Zva HERE.

I made this card based on some new Zva Creative flowers that are being introduced at CHA as we speak! My colors for this hop are Taupe/Champagne and black. I used these beautiful paper flowers, some white pearl lines and an Imperial Taupe flourish:

Here's a close-up of the paper flowers:

Another view of the taupe and white pearls:

And also a close up of the other pearl flourish:

Zva Creative products used:

CRB-04CB-118 (Imperial Taupe-Pearl),

PE-02CB-107 (Lines(Pearl)- white (0.3 cm & 0.5 cm),

FLBK-03CB-115 (mini rose (144 stems) -11/16" or 19mm - Classic Red),

FLBK-03CB-112 (mini rose (144 stems) -11/16" or 19mm - Creamy White)

If you would like to play along with our design team, just follow along the blog path.  I am linking to one of the Zva designers and that designer is linking to the next and so on. Be prepared to be inspired along the way!

Hidden on FIVE of the designer's blogs is a Zva Creative prize package! Winners will be randomly chosen after the hop is over, so it's important to leave a comment on as many blogs as you can along the way.

The Blog Hop starts today, January 30th and runs through midnight US Eastern Standard Time on Tuesday, January 31st.  

The 5 winners will be announced on Wednesday, February 1^st on each of the five winning blogs. The full list will be found on Zva's blog as well. We will do our best to notify each winner, but it's best if you can pop in to all of the blogs once again on Wednesday... plus, you never know what kind of inspirational creation that you may find there.

All you need to do is leave a comment on this Blog Hop post... you do not need to leave a comment on each and every designer's blog post to qualify. However, the more times you comment along the blog hop path, the more chances you will have to win.

We also thought it would be more fun to add even more chances to win our blog hop prize!  To increase your chances of winning:

* Comment to let us know that you posted on your Facebook page about our hop (link to any of the blog hop posts)

* Comment to let us know that you "tweeted" about our hop (link to any of the blog hop posts)

* Comment to let us know that you asked your local store to carry Zva creative products.  If they already do, that's fantastic, maybe you can suggest other products that they don't carry.

*Hop over to Zva's NEW blog and leave a comment there to tell us that you made it there!

 The blog hop begins here at Zva Creative's NEW blog. Your next stop is Yukiko Ochi . Enjoy!

Thank you for joining us!

P.S. Mark your calendar to join us again on February 27^th for our next Zva blog hop!

Stamps: Heart's Desire (Verve Stamps)
Paper: Antique Cream (Creative Imaginations), Black, Sahara Sand (SU!)
Ink: Versafine Onyx Black
Accessories:  Jute twine, dimensionals

 Size: 4 1/4" X 5 1/2"

Mojo Monday Meets Shadow Stamping

Hi and welcome to my second...er, third post of the day. If you haven't seen who won my purge goodies from the hop last week, see this post here. If you're looking for my Zva Creative Blog Hop project, click here. Today's card is based off of Mojo Monday's sketch and Splitcoast's Try A New Technique challenge, which is to shadow stamp. I was skeptical of this technique at first, but after trying it out, I really like the results. Check it out below:

Here's a close up of the two step, or shadow stamping:

And this is just a close up of the ribbon/heart accent:

I purchased these Lattice Rectangles over the weekend and really wanted to use them, however, I made my card a square so I glued two panels together to make a square shape:

I tried to get the rainbow out of the picture, but after two attempts at not finding the light source, I decided that it was meant to be there. :)

And here's the Mojo sketch I used:

And as a little bonus, Verve had a sale going on right now...

..and this set that I've used is included in the sale!


Stamps: Heart's Desire (Verve Stamps)
Paper: Meadowlark dp (My Mind's Eye), Black, White
Ink: Smokey Gray, Onyx Black (Versafine)
Accessories: PEB-03CA-112 (Long Flourish Pearl VI - White), PE-02CB-107 (Lines(Pearl)- white (0.3 cm & 0.5 cm), PE-02CB-101(Dots (Pearl)- White (0.3 cm, 0.5 cm & 0.8 cm)
 Zva Creative, Lattice Rectangles (Spellbinders), Silver cord (SU!), White Organdy Ribbon (CTMH), Heart button, dimensionals
Size: 5 1/2" Square

Purge Hop Winner

Good Monday morning! I'm stopping in real quick to announce the winner of my Purge Blog Hop goodies! Random.org chose comment number 58....


Deb BuckminsterJan 21, 2012 11:10 AM

Though EVERYTHING looks TERRIFIC, I think my FAV would be the inspirational IDEA books!

Thanks MUCH for the opportunity to win!

Deb, if you could reach out to me via e-mail with your address, I'll get these goodies into the mail for you!
Thanks to all of you who hopped around and visited!

Featured Stamper...Thanks For Being There

Hi late nighters...that's what this is for me...I should be in bed right now as I have to work in the morning, but the creative urge was too strong to slumber....so I made a card for this week's Featured Stamper challenge at Splitcoast. I've CASEd this gem from Shirley Quarry, aka wannabcre8tive:

I wanted the grosgrain ribbon to be the focal point, just like in Shirley's card, but I changed up the design, the stamps and the colors. This card was really so simple, the peony was preprinted on the patterned paper and I simply outlined it with a Lattice Rectangle Nestability. A few drops of Liquid Pearls around the perimeter and it's done!
Have a great night and thanks for visiting!



Stamps: Words Cannot Express (Verve Stamps)
Paper: Antique Cream (Creative Imaginations), Black, Kraft
Ink: Versafine Onyx Black
Accessories: Lattice Rectangles (Spellbinders), Basic Black Striped Grosgrain Ribbon (SU!), Platinum Liquid Pearls (Ranger)
Size: 5 1/2" Square

Viva La Verve...CAS Valentine

Hi and welcome to this week's Viva La Verve sketch challenge! Today's sketch is the last for January...and if you've completed all of them up until now, you have a chance at winning a sweet prize from Verve! First though, we're changing things up a bit at VLV, now each final sketch of the month is going to be CAS (Clean and Simple). Some of the designs that we come up with tend to have a lot of "stuff" on them, so we're going to give you CAS lovers a chance at making some awesomeness with our sketches! Shannan is our hostess this week and has come up with a layout that I have pictured below my card. I admit, I do have a hard time with CAS, but I also like the fact that it challenges me. So....here's my attempt at clean and simple:

Can I tell you how hard it was to keep my mitt's off the open space at the top?!

The flower was made by cutting {15} 1/4" X 2 1/2" strips of red paper, folding them in half over a pencil and glueing the ends. I then hot glued the pieces together in a circular fashion. The brad covers up the big goober of glue in the middle :)

Before I go, here's some housekeeping:

Every Friday, a Diva will post a sketch for your enjoyment. Your cards, using the sketches, must be uploaded by the last Thursday of the month (check for the due date below!) The winner will be announced on the next day and will win a $100 gift certificate to VERVE! How awesome is that?! Just a reminder, Verve stamps are NOT required but we love to see you use them. Feel free to flip, rotate, resize, or otherwise alter the sketch as long as we can tell you USED the sketch! For January, we'll have FOUR sketches! All FOUR cards must be uploaded to the VLVJan2012 gallery by midnight, CST on Thursday, February 2nd to be eligible to win this month's prize! Winner will be announced on February 3rd! GOOD LUCK!

Keywords for the entire month will be VLVJan2012 and Verve (if using Verve stamps).

Have a great weekend and thanks for visiting~



Stamps: Valentine's Day Plain Jane (Verve Stamps)
Paper: Riding Hood Red, White, Black, Kraft
Ink: Versafine Onyx Black
Accessories: Antique brad (CTMH), Silver pearls
Size: 5 1/2" X 4 1/4"

Deconstructed Sketch...Keep Me In Your Heart

Second post for the day, second goodbye for the day. Today is my last day at the Deconstructed Challenge blog as a guest DT member. Tracey and I were filling in for Amber until she got settled in her new home and I'm happy to report she's settling! I've really enjoyed my time at DS, the ladies there are ultra-talented and super sweet! Well, I guess you've come here to see a card, so I'll oblige:

I had some of this curly ribbon from the Ribbon Carousel, so I thought I would make some dimensionalized flourishes adorning the flower cluster.

Here's the sketch I used (though I mirrored the panels):

I want to take a minute to thank Jen Shults and the rest of the super Design Team for all their kindness and support...I can tell you that this is one group of exceptional ladies!
Make sure to stop by the Deconstructed Sketch site to check out the other Design Team's inspiration cards...they're all fabulous!
Have a wonderfully crafty day!



Stamps: Hundred Hearts (Verve Stamps)
Paper: Vintage Timeless dp (Kaisercraft), Early Espresso, White, Vintage Cream
Ink: Cocoa (CTMH), Walnut Stain, Antique Linen & Vintage Photo distress ink (Ranger)
Accessories: PEB-03CA-112 ((Long Flourish Pearl VI - White) Zva Creative, 1/8" Curly Sparkling White Trim (Ribbon Carousel), Labels Eighteen & Five Nestabilities (Spellbinders), paper flowers (Kaisercraft), lace, Doily Lace border punch (Martha Stewart), Sand Spica pen, daubers
Size: 5 1/2" Square