The Ornament of a House

Deb here with my first post as a member of Susan's Creative Team. I am thrilled beyond words to be here and work with all of my talented team-mates. For July, we are honoring HOME SWEET HOME and all that it means to us. A lovely Ralph Waldo Emerson quote says "The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it". As I have been getting to know Susan and her team, I felt like I was home, surrounded by friends. Susan has some house stamps that went perfectly with our theme so I decided to create a bulletin board to keep me on track with my team posts. I used a vinyl chalkboard bulletin board that I have been hoarding and adhered it to the closet door in my studio. 

I started off by stamping several of Susan's house designs using my new favorite ink--Susan's Colorbox Color Pop Archival Dye Ink in Mystery. I used paper from my scrap drawer as well as some adhesive-backed fabric scraps for the roofs. I then fussy-cut the houses and colored them in with an assortment of  Faber-Castell PITT Artist pens and Tim Holtz Distress markers.

Another technique that I often use is to apply ink to an acrylic block, then color using my Water-brush pens. For the door and  roof of one house, I used the Color Pop Premium Dye Ink in Sky. And to add some texture, I used a piece of ribbon over a window for a curtain. The fence is paper-pieced with some  Simple Stories paper.

The Painted Sentiments stamp set by Susan has some of my favorite words in it.I chose Create, Hope & Inspire to add to my board. Perfect words as I begin my journey with my new team. They were stamped in Colorbox Color Pop inks - Kiss, Sky and Cocoa. Tim Holtz Distress Glitters  of Tumbled Glass, Spiced Marmalade and Seedless Preserves were used to highlight the words. Clouds were punched out of Susan's Bouquet paper and the words were stamped on Live in Color. The circles were punched from Color Burst paper and I added some DoubleClick Skittles in their centers for added dimension. Ranger Distress Stickles Glitter Glue in Icicle and Peacock added a fun touch to the house..

A few other creative touches : a sequin as a doorknob, white polka-dots made using my Signo Uni-ball White Gel Pen, and scrap adhesive-backed fabric paper-pieced for the roofs.

I absolutely LOVE to color and paper-piece and these houses are the coolest stamps to color !! Flowers were cut from Susan's paper - Live in Color. Sequins were again added at the flower centers.

I had so much fun making this project -- my first one with Susan's fabulous Creative Team !! I hope that you enjoyed it too and will continue to follow all of us here.  I also have posted about this project on my blog-  Meticulosity. And the next time you sit down to create something, think about what HOME SWEET HOME means to you. I would love to see what you come up with.

Stamp Sets Used :

The Happy Homestead

Le Mason

Little Haven

Painted Sentiments

Heart-full Homes

Debra Davison

Susan K. Weckesser Creative Team Member