Twilight Tuesday Inspiration Challenge #20

We traveled to Italy this week with the Twilight Tuesday challenge. This week's challenge is brought to us by Jen:

So for your creativity challenge this week I want you to revel in the beauty that is Italy. Showcase the landscape, the culture, the food, the music… anything that catches your fancy about Italy.

For you comment challenge I want to tell me have you been to Italy? What did you like best about it? Have you been to Volterra? And what are you hoping the director of New Moon captures about Italy in the movie?

I found a great picture of the Palazzo dei Priori which is where Edward in New Moon is going to show himself as a vampire to the crowd during the Saint Marcus Day festivities in order to provoke the Volturi to kill him. I created a postcard that could be a souvenir from this festival that celebrates Father Marcus banishing all the vampires from Volterra fifteen hundred years prior. I kept my project whimsical since it is a festival that includes red flags throughout the city, the patrons wearing red clothes, hats, scarves and of course, plastic vampire teeth.

From Semper Papercrafting

I've never been to Italy before, unless the "Italy" section of Epcot counts. ;) I would love to travel there someday. There is so much in Europe I want to see. It doesn't hurt that the Twilight series has definitely peaked my interest in Italy. Ciao!

Mojo Monday Challenge 75

I decided to add a new challenge to my weekly card making with the sketch challenges from the Mojo Monday blog. Yes, I know it's Tuesday, but Monday sort of flew by. Today is also Fat Tuesday more commonly known as Mardi Gras. One of the things I loved about living in Louisiana was the parades during Mardi Gras and the king cakes! So, I created a Mardi Gras themed card using supplies I already had on hand.

Here is the sketch idea:

From Semper Papercrafting

Here is my Mardi Gras card:

From Semper Papercrafting

Coast Guard Scrapbookie

Thanks to my Tuesday challenges, I have gotten the chance to visit Tonya's blog, who is one of the Twilight Tuesday design team members. She is such an awesome crafter. On her blog is a cute mini scrapbook, here's the link for her scrapbookie: http://www.stamphappens.com/stamp_happens/2009/01/scrapbookie-tutorial.html

Okay, so I got adventurous and tried it out. Well, I made my best ditch effort, but it didn't turn out like I had imagined it in my head. I think I may have had a snafu on my end with the tutorial. But since this blog is about my creative efforts both good and BAD, I'm posting it. Some of it I like, some of it I don't. I'm probably going to rework it a bit. Anyway, here are the pics. Sorry about the poor lighting and blurry picture... I took them this evening just to get this project done and over with.

All in all, it's a super cute project and I love the pull-out pocket pages. I just need to work out the glitches on MY end. ALSO, the stamps I used are from the Close To My Heart Coast Guard set that's discontinued. I also have a CGC Eagle stamp shown, but I have no idea who made it -- I bought it off of Ebay.

Front cover (which I admit needs some work -- it doesn't do it for me):

From Semper Papercrafting

From Semper Papercrafting

From Semper Papercrafting

From Semper Papercrafting

CC Swap Cards

Just a heads up, if you're over here from Coastie Chicks, avert your eyes!!

I participate in a monthly card swap over at Coastie Chicks (it's a website for Coast Guard spouses). This month the two themes were: St. Patrick's Day and General. So, as overly ambitious as I can occasionally be -- I decided to do both. So, here are my cards. The inspiration for the layouts, came from Split Coast Stampers and also a couple of blogs that have sketch challenges. If you don't know what a sketch is, it is a layout that is 'sketched' out, then you just apply your own spin on it (i.e. paper, stamps, embellishments) as long as you follow the basic guidelines. For example at Taylored Expressions, I used their layout to help create my St. Patrick's Day cards. Mine isn't nearly as good as their examples, but when you have to mass produce several and you're on a time crunch, you have to sacrifice crazy embellishments.

St. Patrick's Day:

From Semper Papercrafting

General:

From Semper Papercrafting

Lately, I've been browsing a lot of craft blogs from some very talented ladies. It amazes me what artists these stampers are (including the ladies from Twilight Tuesday). I can only aspire to be as good as them. But it forces me to challenge myself and TRY to step up to the plate.

Twilight Tuesday Inspiration Challenge #19

It must be Tuesday since my desk is cluttered with paper, ink and stamps! I just finished my Twilight Tuesday project. Visit Twilight Tuesday if you want to learn more about the challenges.

This week's challenge was issued by Tonya:

The creative part of the challenge is to create a project inspired by one(or more) of the villains from the books. For the comment portion of the challenge, tell us a bit about your reaction to the villains in the stories: do you enjoy any of them? Do any of them freak you right out? Or are they just too fantastic for you to even fear? Whatever you think, just tell us about it!

I took my inspiration for my project from Eclipse, where the Cullens and the wolf pack defeat Victoria and her band of newborn vampires. To completely destroy a vampire, they must be incinerated. From this action, the smoke is described as "a pillar of choking purple toward the sky". So for the challenge, I tried to create a scene with the purple smoke and incorporated orange ribbon to represent Victoria's wavy, orange hair.

From Semper Papercrafting

The villains in the Twilight series don't really creep me out, since I'm usually so engrossed in the story line to figure out how the Cullens will overcome them. The Volturi in Breaking Dawn were the only ones to make me nervous when they arrived in Forks to confront the Cullen family about Renesmee.