Sonoran Starfish Designs

Hello crafty friends! Thanks for stopping by. It's another Wednesday blog hop day for the Brutus Monroe Inspiration Team and this week we're getting ready for Mother's Day! I am the lucky mom to two 4 year old twin girls, and we are hitting that prime Disney princess stage (with a healthy dose of superheroes and cards mixed in!). One of my daughters wears her princess Belle dress nonstop, so when we got this new Happy Rose stamp set, I couldn't help but think of Beauty and the Beast. Brutus Monroe has this awesome bookshelf background stamp and it was perfect for the theme, as Belle is an avid reader!  I started by stamping the background in Raven ink onto some aqua pigment paper. My intention was originally to do some loose watercoloring, but then I decided I wanted the red rose to stand out against the black and white, so I left it alone. I took a piece of vellum, and used a small bowl to draw pencil lines around the top to round it off, so that it would lo...

Hey crafty friends! Happy Halloween! This week's blog hop is Halloween-themed, and Brutus Monroe is offering a treat!  ***GIVEAWAY!*** We wanted to have a little fun with our blog hop this week, and give away ONE $25 GIFT CERTIFICATE to the Brutus Monroe store! Just leave a comment on each blog post along the hop to be entered! Winner will be announced on next Wednesday's blog hop post, November 7th, on the Brutus Monroe blog. Please remember to check back next week to see if you are the winner!  ***BONUS ENTRY- Post ANY project you have created in the Brutus Monroe Fan Club group on Facebook with the hashtag, # TrickOrTreatGiveaway ! Good luck! I am super excited to share my project this week...I started with a hollow foam pumpkin from JoAnn stores, and cut a big window out of the front. I painted the inside with black acrylic paint, and used some mossy stuff from the floral arrangement section to line the bottom. I cut a hole in the bottom of the pumpkin toward...

Hello Crafty Friends! Thanks for stopping by today. I have two projects using the "Okie Pride" stamp set, designed by Ann Corbiere-Scott for Paper Arts in Edmond, Oklahoma. For the first card, I stamped the images in Memento Tuxedo Black ink. This technique can be simplified if you have a wreath builder template from Gina K, but I thought I'd show you an easy technique to fill your backgrounds up if you don't have one. You do, however, need a stamp positioning platform of some kind. Take a square piece of cardstock and use a ruler to draw diagonal lines all the way through. Keeping the lines face-up for now, arrange the small stamps in one of the sections, taking care not to go over the line, but make sure that you fill the space up to the lines. Once you are satisfied, close the door to your stamp platform and pick up the stamps. Open the door again, and flip your cardstock over so that the pencil lines are not showing. Ink up the images and stamp them. ...

Hello crafty friends! In my post yesterday I talked about my talented friend Ann Corbiere-Scott and her awesome stamp designs. Today I'll be sharing cards made with her stamp set called "Cactus Christmas" . If you aren't local, you can purchase the stamp set by click this link here . All of the cacti in this post were colored using Copic markers. This first card is a shaker card! I used some Christmas confetti from HAI designs and the cacti from the stamp set inside. For this card, I first stamped the santa hats, and then masked them off to stamp the large saguaro cactus. This makes it appear that the hat is actually on the cactus. I colored the images with Copic markers and fussy cut the images. I cut the shaker frame using Lawn Fawn stacked scalloped rectangle dies, and adhered a piece of acetate to the back. Then I used some foam tape around the whole thing. I cut a piece of striped cardstock from the Photoplay paper pack "O Canada Christmas" to fi...

Hello crafty friends! I had a lot going on yesterday, but I managed to sneak in one card for World Cardmaking Day. I have the honor of being a design team member for Ann Corbiere-Scott Designs. Ann hand-draws stamp designs for our local scrapbook store, Scraps of Love in Peoria, AZ. They also recently opened a second location in Sun City West, AZ. Ann is not only a talented artist but teaches fabulous classes for things like hand lettering and bible journaling. She has shown me incredible kindness and encouragement, and I will be forever grateful to her for changing my life! Many of Ann's stamp sets are southwestern, and include the most fabulous cactus designs. This set was the first of her designs that I fell in love with! The set is called "Cactus Doodle ", and it is available at Scraps of Love in their store or on their website at www.scrapsoflove.com . I used the Lawn Fawn "Shadow Box" die to make the box and the sandy hills, which I also purcha...

I am crazy for the October stamp of the month from Brutus Monroe! A candy corn vampire! How cute is this guy?? And bonus, it has really clean lines around the outside of the image that make it very easy to fussy cut. The stamp of the month club is really cool;  you will receive a 2x3 stamp set for only $5 which includes your shipping and handling! The stamp set is designed each month by Christopher and will be shipped out to you by the 15th of the month (excluding holidays, in the event of a holiday falling on shipment day the stamp will ship on the next business day) I stamped four of this yummy little guy and colored them with copic markers. I fussy cut all of them and used a black marker around the edges. (This is a trick I learned a lot time ago, and it makes any cut stamped images look more finished and polished!) FRONT  For the front of the card I used the new  Aqua Pigments  in the colors "Yellow" and "Red". I wet the paper ahead of time and th...