Heavensent For You: Splitcoast's Virtual Stamp Night

This last Friday and Saturday, Splitcoast Stampers had their You Make My Heart Sing VSN Challenges ... I think I only missed 2 of them. The premise behind these Virtual Stamp Night challenges is that they post the challenge at the top of the hour and you have 45 minutes to MAKE your card, then a few to photo-edit it & get it posted. Not to worry if you can't sit near the computer for an extended length of time (like I did for most of Friday and Saturday) - You can pull the challenges and complete them, as long as you stick with the 45 minutes assembling them (you're on the Honor system here). These cards need to be posted on Splitcoast no later then Monday, February 28th at 8:00 pm.

1st up is this card we made following a sketch based on the fact that our heart has 4 chambers. After all the ga-zillions of cards out there, amazing to see refreshing sketches. I used the new Baby Blossoms 2-step set for this - the background paper is digital from Bearly Mine.

This next card was made with the inspiration of our Wedding song. I chose Elton John's "Your Song".

I quickly found the lyrics to the song and printed them on some digital designer paper for the back panel. The dress was stamped in grey (I wanted a softer palette). I used a light touch with the prisma colored pencils and Gamsol to give it just a subtle color. Failry quick card - hardest part was to printe the lyrics and designer paper in time.

For this next card, we were supposed to incorporate a bird or something bird-related. I had a picture in my head of how this would look. A little disappointed that the designer paper is so busy. Love the idea behind it, but not super fond of it.

Here, we were to use 2 different techniques on our one card. I dry embossed the background paper with a checkerboard folder, then sponged over the embossing becuase it was barely noticeable. The 2nd technique I incororated was to do a faux tile technique. I scored the white paper into 'tiles' and then stamped the tree image on top, taking care not to press so hard, so the image would sit 'on top' of the grid lines. I did make a boo-boo, coloring too deep into the iamge, but amost things are fixable. Here, I just took my white gel pen and traced into the 'grout line'. Can't even tell. The image is from Stampin Up's Lovely Tree and the sentiment is from their Full of Life set.

Wish I'd had a clue on this one beforehand ... Challenge was to make a card with a "Little Red Dress" on it, in honor of the February being Heart Disease Awareness month.

Yep, it's the same dress as above. Change here is that I stamped the dress directly onto the red cardstock with black embossing powder then highlighted with a bit of white gel pen.

For this next card, we used the Soot technique. Never have tried this before, and I kind of know why. While I LOVE my crd, the idea of lightingn paper on the fire was a bit daunting. I didn't have the acrylic sealer and my initial tries turned into a fingerprinters nightmare, so I checked online and found a reverse soot technique.

I took the glossy cardstock, turned upside down (OVER A SINK WITH WET PAPER TOWEL IN THE SINK) and then used a candle, barely touching the cardstock but getting the paper blackened with a kind of cool pattern of the black. Since it was my first time, I was a bit sparing on the soot (nevermind that my 1st piece of glossy cardstock DID, in fact, catch on fire - Hence the reason for OVER the sink with a wet napkin in the bottom. Ok, back to the technique --- After the paper was 'sooted' up, I took an image and stamped off with Versamark, which sealed in the darker soot color. I then took a cotton ball and softly wiped around the entire panel to get the excess soot off. They called this Reverse Soot technique on the internet.

For this card, we had to come up with a card based on our favorite childhood toy or experience. I had to go down this path bexcause of a lavendar quilt I had as a youth. I took Paper Trey's Guilde Lines paper pack and cut out strips then cross-strips til I got squares where I laid them out with a pattern. This little girl is Chloe from Whipper Snapper that I colored with Copics.

For this card, we needed to incoporate some sheet music. I have one more small piece of this music dp - it's either hit the store time, or break out my background stamp of sheet music. Because of the sheet music, I made a computer generated sentiment to honor the You Make My Heart Sing challenge chickista's.

Because all the other samples are thus far pretty and frilly, I tried to stay true to a masculine card (notice knot vs bow ... notice color combo is typically for a male). I stamped images from Gina K's Botanical's direcly onto Suede cardstock before sponging/distressing the panels.

This card had to have some Vellum and embossing on it. I just got this pale gold powder so wanted to give it a go. It's very pretty in real life, but couldn't get it to translate well on the computer.

I used the "Bliss" set from Stamping Up for the sentiment and the image panels.

"Love begins with a smile,

grows with a kiss,
and ends with a teardrop."
~~ author unknown ~~

For this inspiration challenge - I chose this poem - My thoughts behind it are ... 1) you meet, 2) become attached, 3) sometimes have to say "Good bye". I was reminded of all the soldiers who have to leave their loved ones to serve in the military, so I made this "Miss You" card. This Penny Black hedgie was colored with Copics. I like the way the corner tie turned out, as well as the placement of the yellow Stickles around the outer border.

For this card, they challenged us to take a background stamp that we don't use very often and incorporate that into the card. I took my BG stamp of wheat/grass and made a main image panel that I matted on some script designer paper. To bring a spark of whimsy into the card, I added these fun gel dew drops to the sentiment panel.

Do you remember the song "Wild Thing" ... They posted the lyrics in the challenge and I couldn't believe it was so short, but sure enough ... all those years ago (and sometimes even today), we just keep repeating ourselves over and over when singing this.

I heard 'wild thing' and instanly thought of this monster - he's a digital image from the Digi Shack, alongside the sentiment from My Graphico. He was colored with Copics as well. Because it's a monster card, I wanted to keep the embellishments to a minimum, but it needed the buttons.

Can you guess what prompted this card? You're right - create a card relating to food or the kitchen. I'm not sure if I've ever used this set since I HAD TO HAVE IT last year, so here goes - I just saw the movie Julie and Julia again and thought Bon Appetit! I barely colored this chef with Copics on vanilla. Kept the rest of it pretty simple as well.

My last card for the challenges was done with the "thumping" technique. Never heard it called this before - but we learn new things every day. The stamp is stamped with your 'base' color and then you use markers (Zig, Stampin Up, etc.) to 'thump', or add additional color to the image - I was precise and tried to shade the image at the shadow points. I think I went a bit light on the petals w/the coordinating 'thump' color, but I do lilke the way this one turned out, too, espcially the ribbon and the branches peeking out.