Inkspirational Guest Designer ~ Last 2015 Valentines

Hello and Happy St. Valentine's Day to everyone! I hope you all have a magical day of love!

I'm honored to be the Guest Designer for the very fun Inkspirational Challenge #76, where we have an Asian-inspired photo inkspiration for you:

Because today is Valentine's Day, I made a simple card of love:

When I first started stamping about 13 years ago, there was a trend for Asian stamps and card designs, so I have a few of those stamps, along with some origami papers. The "love" sediment above is from a set of SU Japanese character stamps. The fluffy fabric heart was given to me by my friend Andrea. I embossed the rectangle mat using a Nestabilities die.

Thank you to the DT of Inkspirational for letting me play along! I hope you will check out the challenge and join us!

Other Challenges

• CASology, "Love."
• My friend Leslie Hanna has started The Crooked Stamper Sketch Challenge, so I'm also entering there. It would be wonderful if you could give her new challenge a try!

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While I Was At It

The outer wrapper of my origami paper was falling apart so I took it off and started to throw it away. Then Hammy took a flying leap to land on my hand and pointed excitedly at the Japanese characters on the wrapping. "Hmmm?" he cooed. "Hmm. Hmm," I responded.

Together we tossed ideas hither and fro and then my eyes fell on a shipping envelope that had just arrived from my friend Sarn of Stamping for Pleasure. Sarn loves to Zentangle so much that she started designing her own "Sarntangles." We all loved them so much that she had some of them manufactured into stamps! What a woman! What an artist! The set is so fun and you can order one by clicking on the link above. 

So, anywhittle, I used one of my NBUS Sarntangles and the label from my origami paper and I made this:

To make it a Valentine, I used one of the stamps with hearts. The textured card back is the reverse side of a piece of burlap paper. The Sarntangle was stamped in Stazon ink and then watercolored with SU watercolor pencils and a water brush. It was overstamped with a NBUS splatter stamp from the SU set "Gorgeous Grunge."

I'm assuming the symbols spell out "origami," but I actually have no idea, so if it is an offensive word, I hope someone will let me know. In the meantime, since it's Valentine's Day, let's pretend it spells out "I love you!"

Challenges

• Colour Me ...!, photo inspiration.
• Casual Fridays, "Must Love Watercolor."
• Just Add Ink, Pink photo inspiration. (My first time playing here.)
• Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge, "Red and Pink."
• Stamplorations Sketch for February, below.

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New Friends Corner

Please help me give a warm welcome to these five new friends of the Playhouse:

Maxine D. of Kiwime's Kreations. As her blog name suggests, Maxine is from New Zealand. She is married, the mother of two, and the grandmother of three. She has been blogging since 2009, so a lot of you may already be familiar with Maxine through her service on many design teams and her awards from many challenges. You can tell from her card art that Maxine loves texture and dimension and she executes her cards with tender loving care!

Olga Brilenkova of Craftroom: So Many Ideas. Olga has been blogging since January 2014, so she just had her one year blog birthaversary! Olga is a Russian living in Portugal and when she is not crafting, she is an architect. Olga loves scrapbooking, flower arranging, and she is a wedding decor expert. She began making card art in March 2013 by making wedding invitations. I know you will love the beauty and talent Olga brings to everything she does!

Borqna of Borqna. Borqna started blogging in 2011. She makes wonderful albums and scrapbooks and cards and she loves to play in challenges! The more the merrier! Everything is bright and full of life on Borqna's blog. She also shares some amazing photography, so I know you'll enjoy your visit to Borqna!

Marsha Drain of Gramma's Room. Marsha started blogging in 2010, but she made terrific scrapbook albums and cards for years before that. She is a prolific contributor to OWH with her beautiful cards, some of which are 3D. Marsha is a grandmother of ELEVEN (sooo jealous!) and she also loves sharing her fantastic photographs from time to time. You'll love her impeccably made and fabulous works of card art!

Synnöve of Seraphina's Phantasie. Synnöve is from Germany. She started her blog in June 2011. She combines her spectacular skills as a photographer with her spectacular skill as a paper artist. Everything is very refined and sophisticated about Synnöve's blog. You can feel yourself immediately relaxing and wanting to spend hours visiting her!

Thank you for joining, ladies, and welcome to the Playhouse!

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Enjoy your day! No, seriously, enjoy.  LITS!* 

As always, thank you for coming by to visit the Playhouse and special thanks to you if you take the time to leave a comment and/or join as a follower! Please let me know you came by, so I can be sure and return the flavor!

We are having the grandtwins until Monday as it's a long weekend here! Yippie!!

  

 

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